Trump Promises ‘Great Rebuilding of the Armed Forces’ While Signing Executive Order at the Pentagon by Dan Lamothe, Washington Post
President Trump signed an executive order Friday to launch what he called a “great rebuilding of the Armed Forces” that is expected to include new ships and planes, additional Special Operations forces and the modernization of the U.S. nuclear arsenal, while cutting projects that are not considered the highest priorities.
Trump, making his first visit to the Pentagon since his Jan. 20 inauguration, said the order was signed “to ensure the sacrifices of our military are supported by the actions of our government.”
The final version was not immediately available, but a draft of the order obtained by The Washington Post and published Friday morning called for new Defense Secretary James Mattis to carry out a 30-day “readiness review” that will examine needs for the war against the Islamic State and “other forms of Islamic terror,” as well as training, maintenance, ammunition and infrastructure. The review, the draft said, also will examine how to carry out operations against unnamed “near-peer competitors,” a group which U.S. officials typically identify as China and Russia.
The draft order also calls for a second, parallel review in which the Pentagon and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) combine to craft a “military readiness emergency budget amendment” that would boost military spending this year, and for Mattis to revise the Pentagon’s tentative budget proposal for 2018 within 90 days.
Mattis also is charged with creating a new national security strategy by next January that explicitly builds up the military. Special emphasis would be placed on modernizing nuclear weapons, strengthening missile defense, addressing delays in the maintenance of existing equipment, and overcoming “shortfalls” in areas where more people are needed, such as cyber warfare, personnel recovery and expeditionary naval forces, the order said.
The document offers no details on which programs might be cut…