| Defense: Spending |
The overall spending by the Department of Defense as a percentage of Federal spending.
White House Proposes Increase Spending for Cyber Security
Published Tuesday, August 18th, 2009
It has been known for a while now that the future of war or conflict will involve information or cyber warfare. A non-profit US Cyber Consequences Unit studied the cyber tactics used against the country of Georgia during its military conflict with Russia last year. Cyber attacks in August 2008 shut down the web sites of critical Georgian government agencies, the media and banks. The US-CCU expects this model to be used again in future conflicts. The report suggests that an international organization be created to provide risk advisories and international cyber-response forces to assistance member states in the form of advice and setting up permanent operations, plus cyber-response exercises to thwart future attacks.
Overall, spending for Defense as a percentage of the federal budget has trended upwards since 2002 at a rate of 0.7 percentage points a year to 21.7%. For cyber security, President Obama called for $355 million in spending for the DHS intelligence and warning mission area, up from the $294 million fiscal 2009 budget. As of 2008, there were increases in a majority of mission areas except Domestic Terrorism and Catastrophic Threats.
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New Focus at Department of Defense Increases Spending
Published Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
U.S. Defense spending increased for the fiscal year 2010 and is projected to increase slightly again in 2011. This comes despite Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ cuts to weapons programs. The Obama Administration announced early that spending will focus more on intelligence, cyber security, and unmanned systems — used heavily in Iraq and maritime versions being built for the Navy. Plus, as North Korea stretches its nuclear program, the administration is seeking $7.8 billion for the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency in the 2010 budget year, down about $1.2 billion from 2009. For Homeland Security, the House Appropriations Committee approved several high tech improvements for fiscal year 2010, including $692 million for the DHS Border Security, Fencing, Infrastructure and Technology account.
Since 1980, the defense budget went from $32,486 billion to $126,311 billion, spending the most on procurement/purchasing from military contracts. The operations budget, which contains the War supplement, has actually reduced this year to $144 billion, down $50 billion from last year. As for the Department of Homeland Security spending and its mission areas, all categories such as domestic counterterrorism, border security, protecting infrastructure increased in 2007. The only mission that decreased was spending on catastrophic events plus emergency preparedness, which was virtually steady from 2006-2007.
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U.S. Department of Defense: Annual Report - http://www.dod.mil/execsec/adr_intro.html#2
The Annual Report to the President and the Congress, commonly referred to as the Annual Defense Report, details how the Department of Defense built its capabilities and is working to maintain them in the future. In addition to fulfilling a statutory requirement, specifically U.S.C. Title 10, the Secretary of Defense's Annual Defense Report is widely distributed and serves as a basic reference document for those interested in national defense issues and programs. So that it may be presented in an open forum, this report is unclassified.
Defense Reform - http://www.defenselink.mil/dodreform/index.htm
The underlying principles for Defense Reform are to focus the enterprise on a unifying vision, commit the leadership to change, focus on core competencies, streamline organizations for agility, invest in people, exploit information technology, and break down barriers between organizations.