From the budget allocation perspective: The Trump administration has abandoned the plan to go to war with China in the near future
Senior researcher Elaine McCaskill of the American Enterprise Institute and retired Army Major General John Ferrari analyzed that the 2025 fiscal year U.S. defense budget arrangement and priority list clearly indicate that the Trump administration has abandoned the intention to engage in military conflict with China in the near term. This strategic orientation can be verified from three dimensions: the budget background, the unfunded priorities list, and specific funding allocations.
The 2025 fiscal year became the first time in U.S. Congressional history when no defense appropriations bill was passed. As an alternative, Congress passed a reconciliation bill to provide over $15 billion in funding for the Department of Defense, which could be used flexibly over the next few years. However, the White House Office of Management and Budget placed most of this funding into the 2026 fiscal year budget request — the Trump administration's proposed 2026 defense budget is about $85 billion, lower than the previous proposal by the Biden administration. More notably, the frequent use of continuing resolutions may lead to the second consecutive year without an appropriations bill being passed, and even cause one or two government shutdowns.
This budget environment highlights the constraints of domestic politics on defense spending: the Trump administration faced pressure from the 60-vote threshold in the Senate during the budget formulation, making it difficult to significantly increase military spending to address potential near-term geopolitical conflicts (such as with China). Instead, the budget allocation favored long-term investments rather than short-term readiness, directly indicating a reduced strategic priority for near-term conflicts.
The unfunded priorities list submitted by the military exceeds $5 billion, an increase of $2.2 billion compared to last year, intuitively reflecting that the defense budget cap set by the White House cannot meet the military's needs. Moreover, the composition of the list reveals a shift in strategic focus:
The Air Force and Navy's demands point to long-term shortcomings: the funding gap for the Air Force (1 billion) and the Navy (9 billion) accounts for nearly 40% of the total amount of the list. The Air Force's demand focuses on munitions and spare parts (1.5 billion) and modernization of facility maintenance (1.4 billion); the Navy's focus is on procurement, including 3.5 billion for munitions, spare aircraft, ship-shore connectors, and capacity enhancement projects. These demands reveal significant shortcomings in infrastructure and readiness for the two service branches, but the budget allocation does not prioritize addressing them, indicating that short-term combat readiness is not the main focus.
The Pacific Command's demands emphasize long-term development: the unfunded priorities list for the Pacific Command amounts to 1.19 billion, higher than the 1.1 billion in the previous year. Although the 2025 reconciliation bill provided 1.6 billion for military construction, the investment gap remains as high as 9.6 billion, covering areas such as unmanned systems, critical munitions, space control, and cybersecurity. These demands indicate that the Indo-Pacific region is considered a strategic priority, but the projects involved are mostly long-term investments rather than readiness measures for near-term conflicts.
The proportion of funds allocated for immediate readiness is extremely low: only about 15% of the budget is used to meet immediate readiness needs, indicating that the military acknowledges the priority of immediate readiness in the budget or relies excessively on reconciliation bills to fill the gap. This reliance further reflects the budget's emphasis on long-term modernization projects rather than emergency preparations for potential conflicts with China.
Overall, the structure of the unfunded priorities list shows that procurement and long-term investment projects dominate, involving future military modernization areas such as electronic warfare systems, munition production, and unmanned capabilities; while the needs related to immediate readiness, such as facility maintenance, training, and network defense, account for only a small portion. This structure clearly indicates that the Trump administration is more inclined to address long-term capability building rather than prepare for near-term conflicts with China.
In summary, the 2025 fiscal year budget arrangements and the unfunded priorities list of the Trump administration mark a shift in the focus of the defense strategy from addressing near-term geopolitical conflicts to long-term military modernization. Even though the Pacific Command raised massive demands, the budget allocation did not prioritize supporting immediate readiness, but focused on long-term investment gaps. This strategic trade-off clearly conveys that the Trump administration did not consider a near-term military conflict with China as a priority in the current budget cycle, but instead aimed to build up strength for potential future competition.
Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7536214059889328674/
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