Washington. March 8th. INTERFAX - The US administration on Thursday will present a draft military budget for fiscal year 2024, which could become one of the largest in the country's history in peacetime, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday, citing sources.
"According to officials, the spending program that the administration of President Joe Biden will propose on Thursday will be one of the most significant military budgets in peacetime, with $170 billion for arms purchases and $145 billion for research and development, and both figures are record-breaking," the agency notes.
"One of the sources (...) He said that the cost ceiling for the Defense Ministry in fiscal year 2024, which will begin on October 1, 2023, will exceed $835 billion; moreover, Congress approved this figure in the amount of $816 billion for fiscal year 2023," the agency reports.
However, Bloomberg reminds that in fiscal years 2008 - 2011, during the US operation in Iraq, the Pentagon was allocated from $832 billion to $858 billion, converted into US dollars of the 2022 sample.
At the moment, the agency notes, the Pentagon's budget is changing amid rising tensions between Washington and Beijing, and the US Defense Ministry considers China the main challenge to American military leadership in the world.
In particular, the administration wants to receive funds for another 83 F-35 fighter-bombers - for the most expensive American weapons system. The authorities will request $13.5 billion for the purchase of these aircraft, for further development of the F-35 and modernization.
The budget also assumes a significant allocation of funds for the purchase of ammunition for the Navy and Air Force, which can be used for strikes at long distances.
Meanwhile, earlier, US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall stated that the draft defense budget for fiscal year 2024 will include a project for the integration of air and space tracking of moving objects. At the same time, he stressed that the details of this initiative are classified.
He explained that the US Space Forces will continue to work on projects for the next generation of satellites and ground-based systems that notify about rocket launches and track rocket flights. In fiscal year 2024, the space forces will need approximately $3.9 billion to create a more stable constellation of satellites placed in different orbits to track missiles.
Defense news, in turn, notes that over the past few years, the US Air Force and the Space Forces have been developing plans for the joint use of satellites, Boeing E-3 Sentry long-range radar detection aircraft and Boeing E-8 JSTARS combat control and targeting aircraft.
