Defense Budget

CBO analyzes how the Defense Department’s (DoD’s) funding for military conflicts has changed over time and how the separate budgetary treatment of that funding affects perceptions of DoD’s spending and the anticipated costs of DoD’s plans.

The Navy’s 2019 shipbuilding plan calls for expanding the fleet to 355 battle force ships. On average, implementing the plan would cost 80 percent more per year than the funding for shipbuilding that the Navy has received in recent decades.

As aircraft age, they generally become more expensive to operate. The rate of cost growth for the Air Force’s aging aircraft has increased in recent years to a considerable degree because of growth in the total Air Force budget.

This tool allows the user to see the effects on the Department of Defense’s total operation and support costs and on the size of the military of adding or subtracting tanks, ships, aircraft, and other units.

The Navy could use several approaches to increase the size of its fleet. This report focuses on reactivating decommissioned ships, drawing insights from past experiences that might inform lawmakers’ decisions about reactivating ships.

CBO regularly analyzes the Navy’s shipbuilding programs and produces its own estimates of the costs of new ships. CBO’s method relies on historical experience, with adjustments for rate, learning, acquisition strategy, and economic factors.

CBO estimates that the costs of achieving a 355-ship Navy under two different approaches would average over $100 billion annually through 2047. Those scenarios are compared with two others that would cost less and involve a smaller fleet.

This report examines the depot-level maintenance experiences of aging combat aircraft currently in use by DoD and provides insights for the Congress and DoD to consider as the F-35 fleet enters service.

CBO estimates that inflation-adjusted costs for the Department of Defense would climb from the $575 billion requested in 2018 to $688 billion in 2027 if DoD pursued goals that Administration officials have articulated for the military.

CBO estimates that the Obama Administration’s 2017 plans for nuclear forces would cost $1.2 trillion (in 2017 dollars) over the 2017–2046 period. CBO analyzed nine options that would reduce those costs or delay some of them.

Funding for support functions consumes more of the defense budget today than it did in the 1980s, CBO finds. The largest increases were in health care, DoD management, communications infrastructure, and the science and technology program.

The Obama Administration’s final defense plan called for base-budget funding averaging $540 billion (in 2017 dollars) from 2017 through 2021, but it would have reached almost $600 billion per year by 2032 under DoD’s cost assumptions. 

CBO estimates that existing plans for U.S. nuclear forces would cost $400 billion over the 2017–2026 period—$52 billion more than CBO’s 2015 estimate for the 2015–2024 period, largely because modernization programs will be ramping up.

O&M costs grew by almost 50 percent between 2000 and 2012, after adjusting for inflation. Much of that growth was in spending for health care, civilian pay, and contracted professional and maintenance services.

The Department of Defense’s five-year plan calls for budgets averaging $534 billion (in 2016 dollars) from 2016 through 2020, but they would average $565 billion per year from 2021 through 2030 under the department’s cost assumptions.

The Defense Department could cut federal costs by replacing some military personnel in support positions with civilian employees. If DoD replaced 80,000 military personnel, it could eventually save $3.1 billion to $5.7 billion annually.

The Navy can sustain its forward presence under smaller shipbuilding budgets by using longer deployments, more overseas basing, and more rotating crews. But those methods would offset some of the savings and have other disadvantages.

The Department of Defense's base budget increased by 31 percent (adjusted for inflation) between 2000 and 2014, mainly because of higher costs for military personnel and operation and maintenance.

Between 2000 and 2012, the cost of providing health care to service members, retirees, and their families increased by 130 percent (after adjusting for inflation). What approaches might curtail the growth in those costs?

The costs of the Department of Defense’s (DoD’s) budget plans through 2021 would be much higher than the funding permitted under the Budget Control Act’s statutory caps. CBO examined four options to cut back on DoD’s forces and activities.

For fiscal year 2013, the Department of Defense (DoD) requested about $150 billion to fund the pay and benefits of current and retired members of the military. That amount is more than one-quarter of DoD’s total base budget request.