After Democrats and Republicans rejected his initial Pentagon plans and endorsed a major boost to military spending, President Biden signed on Monday a $768 billion defense package, marking the 61st consecutive year Pentagon policy legislation has become law.
The enactment of the compromise National Defense Authorization Act, which represents an overall $25 billion increase in military spending on his original proposal, includes several hundreds of million dollars to be allocated for security initiatives related to Russia and China.
Around $300 million will be set aside for, as supporters in the Senate explained, Ukrainian forces’ training and equipping to defend against the alleged Russian aggression as part of the so-called Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.
The vast spending package includes a larger sum of $4 billion to be spent on the European Defense Initiative, aimed at bolstering Washington’s NATO allies, and another $150 million for another project aimed at deterring Moscow, the so-called Baltic security cooperation,
The new NDAA also earmarks $7.4 billion for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative in line with the Biden administration’s growing military focus on China, along with the statement of support Taiwan’s defense although Beijing considers the island as part of its own territory.
Citing allegations of forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region, the bill also prohibits the US military from purchasing wares from there.
According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the US continued to spend more on its armed forces than the next 11 largest militaries combined worldwide – including China’s and Russia’s – although US lawmakers have previously rejected Biden’s slightly more modest spending proposal over concerns the US military could soon lag behind adversaries.
Biden originally proposed a $715 billion Pentagon budget request, but Republicans quickly refused it as insufficient to keep pace with military advances by China and Russia and the inflation- followed by most Democrats on Capitol Hill – after which both the House and Senate backed further budget increases.
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