Joe Biden would like to concentrate on China, but Congress has other ideas
From a distance, the budget appears to be guided by a strengthening bipartisan consensus that America must confront China and spend more to do so. Look closer, and disagreements abound. Exactly how the country should compete with its Pacific rival divides both parties. Even as America embarks on a new contest in Asia, lawmakers do not agree with one another, or with President Joe Biden, over how to address other pressing issues, most prominently a revanchist Russia.
For America’s armed forces, matching their Chinese competitors requires shedding older weapons platforms in favour of those at the cutting-edge, such as unmanned ships. Lawmakers have long been sceptical of this move to “divest to invest”, in Pentagon jargon. Bryan Clark of the Hudson Institute, a think-tank, suggests this scepticism is reasonable. “They feel the military has gone down this road multiple times of saying the next thing is so much better, but then it never arrives.
Beneath this consensus, however, lie disagreements. Increased defence spending is opposed by the progressive left and libertarian right, which favour diplomacy, echoing the inclination towardInnovation and Competition Act, an industrial-policy bill framed in anti-China terms and championed by the Senate majority leader, Chuck Schumer, was kept separate from the defence bill after opposition from some Republicans, who spied a new form of corporate welfare.
Though Mr Biden would like to concentrate on China, Congress has other ideas. While the president attempts to both reassure European allies and cool tensions with Russia, lawmakers have taken a more maximalist approach. The defence bill allocates $4bn for European defence, as well as $300m for Ukraine’s armed forces, both greater sums than the president requested.
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