Summary

1200 DOD BUDGET BRIEFING FS22 77 1355 DOD BUDGET BRIEFING FS22 72 DEFENSE DEPARTMENT NEWS BRIEFING ON THE F.Y. 2019 DEFENSE BUDGET FEBRUARY 12, 2018 SPEAKERS: UNDERSECRETARY OF DEFENSE (COMPTROLLER) DAVID L. NORQUIST DIRECTOR, FORCE STRUCTURE, RESOURCES AND ASSESSMENT, JOINT STAFF, LIEUTENANT GENERAL ANTHONY R. IERARDI [*] STAFF: Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for coming. This is the rollout of the F.Y. '19 budget. It's my pleasure to introduce Under Secretary Of Defense Comptroller David Norquist and U.S. Army Lieutenant General Anthony Ierardi. They will provide an overview of the F.Y. '19 defense budget, followed by your questions. After this briefing, the Army, Navy, Air Force and Missile Defense Agency will follow. And so, with that, I will turn it over to David. NORQUIST: Thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name's David Norquist. I'm the CFO and comptroller here at the Department of Defense, and I'm joined by General Ierardi from the Joint Staff. Thank you for being here to discuss the F.Y. 2019 budget request for the Department of Defense. The Department of Defense's enduring mission is to provide combat-ready military forces to deter war and reinforce America's traditional tools of diplomacy. The size and type of force we need depends on our nation's strategy, which is described in two documents: The National Security Strategy and the National Defense Strategy. Next slide, please. The National Security Strategy explains how the president intends to put his national security vision into practice. It describes the challenges our nation needs to respond to, and identifies our four vital national interests. From this, the department creates a National Defense Strategy. Secretary Mattis issued the National Defense Strategy last month and had several classified briefings with Congress last week, where he explained the strategy in detail. An unclassified version of the NDS is available on the website, and a summary is included in your budget overview book. To give a brief description, consistent with the National Security Strategy, the U.S. next slide, please. Consistent with the National Security Strategy, the U.S. must be prepared to compete, deter war and, if necessary, fight and win, expanding the competitive space by leveraging all elements of national power. Great power competition, not terrorism, has emerged as the central challenge to U.S. security and prosperity. It is increasingly apparent that China and Russia want to shape a world consistent with their authoritarian values and, in the process, replace the free and open order that has enabled global security and prosperity since World War II. Our nation's strategy seeks areas of cooperation with competitors from a position of strength. But we recognize that, if unaddressed, the eroding U.S. military advantage versus China and Russia could undermine our ability to deter aggression and coercion in key strategic regions. Secretary Mattis has set out three lines of effort necessary to sustain U.S. influence and preserve peace through strength. These lines of effort include: build a more lethal, resilient, agile and joint force -- and ready joint force; strengthen alliances and attract new partners; and reform the department's business practices for greater performance and affordability. Next slide, please. The National Defense Strategy guided the process we used to build the budget. It determined the issues we examined, the decisions we made and the level of funding that was required. Last week, Congress voted to raise the caps on defense spending to a level that would support the strategy and allow us to restore and rebuild our military. Let me briefly walk through the numbers. The overall number you often hear is $716 billion. That is the amount of funding for what is called national defense, the accounting code is 050, and includes more than simply the Department of Defense. It includes, for example, Department of Energy and others. That large a number, if you back out the $30 billion for non-defense agencies, you get to $686 billion. That is the funding for the Department of Defense, split between $617 billion in base and $69 billion in overseas contingency. For those of you who have a copy of our budget overview, that was printed before the budget deal. It was part of a reassembly, you see a slight difference in mix between base and OCO; the top line the same, all the initiatives and programs are in the same, but during the process of rebuilding this, some of those items were in OCO, and with the increase that came from the congressional action, those items will move to base. This increase is $74 billion, or it's 10 percent real growth over the levels set in this C.R. It is 5 percent real growth over the president's budget. We are appreciative of Congress raising the caps and ending the destructive effects of sequestration-level funding. And we are committed to the reforms necessary to be good stewards of taxpayers' money. Next slide. While a $74 billion increase is large, it is important to put it in its historical context. Even with this budget agreement, defense outlays will remain near historical lows as a share of the U.S. economy. In 2010,