New Record, Pentagon Proposes Budget of IDR 12.6 Quadrillion, General Milley: Prepares Us for War If Necessary

JAKARTA - Pentagon officials said on Thursday the United States military should prepare for a possible confrontation with China, hoping Congress would approve the Department of Defense's proposed new record $842 billion ($842 billion) budget.

The budget will be focused on troop modernization in Asia and around the world.

"This is a strategy-driven budget and driven by the seriousness of our strategic competition with the People's Republic of China," Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told a House committee hearing, citing The National News March 23.

Pointing to new technological advances, such as hypersonic weapons, Minister Austin said the budget proposed spending more than $9 billion, a 40 percent increase over last year, to build military capabilities in the Pacific and defend allies.

The hearing was held after Chinese Leader Xi Jinping's visit to Moscow, amid fears that Beijing will increase its support for Russian President Vladimir Putin's war in Ukraine and further threaten the West.

Meanwhile, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley said, "China's actions are moving it towards confrontation and potential conflict with its neighbors, and possibly also with the United States".

General Milley said preventing and anticipating war was "very expensive, but not as expensive as fighting".

"This budget prevents war and prepares us to go to war if necessary," he added.

Washington is known to spend more on defense, even if China, India, Britain, Russia, France, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Japan and South Korea, countries that respectively lag behind the US in defense spending, combine their budgets.

Under President Joe Biden's proposal for the 2024 fiscal year, the Pentagon would get $842 billion, an increase of $26 billion (3.2 percent) from the record-breaking 2023 defense budget.

Defense spending will also include $9.1 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which is geared toward boosting Washington's regional competitiveness against an increasingly emboldened Beijing, and $37.7 billion for modernizing US nuclear capabilities.

General Milley said Uncle Sam's country must continue to modernize its troops to ensure they will be ready for war if needed.

Two decades of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have eroded military equipment and troop readiness, so the US has been seeking to replace weapons systems and give troops time to refresh. And it has borne fruit, General Milley told Congress.

"Our level of operational readiness is now higher than before," he stated.

He added that more than 60 percent of the active force was at the highest level of readiness right now and could be deployed to combat in less than 30 days. Meanwhile, 10 percent can be deployed within 96 hours.