The U.S. Defense Department said it would allocate the highest-ever budget of 842 billion dollars. It happened after the Pentagon announced that China is a great challenge to the U.S. military

This Monday, the Joe Biden-led US administration revealed the budget for FY 2024, which will be around US$6.8 trillion overall. On Monday, March 13, the Pentagon conducted a news conference to reveal the specifics of the budget. The Military claimed that the budget accurately reflected the U.S. priority on strategic competition with China.

Kathleen Hicks, the undersecretary of defense, listed the difficulties and dangers that China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and international terrorist organizations face but emphasized that “there’s nothing like this budget” in terms of military policy alignment. Acknowledge how serious the People’s Republic of China’s strategic rivalry is.

The U.S. Defense Department said it would allocate the highest-ever budget of 842 billion dollars. It happened after the Pentagon announced that China is a great challenge to the U.S. military

According to Hicks, this money develops the world’s deadliest, most tenacious, resilient, nimble, and responsive unified force. This force is intended to dissuade and, if necessary, eliminate present and potential threats. The strongest indicator of the Pentagon’s effectiveness, according to Hicks, is if Chinese officials are forced to get up every day and assess the risk of aggression before deciding that “today is not the appropriate day.” Whether it’s in 2027, 2035, or 2049, the budget would drive China’s policymakers to the same conclusion, she claimed. The People’s Republic of China is the biggest challenge for the United States, according to Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who also stated in a press release that this budget is meant to ensure that the country can meet this significant challenge today, tomorrow, and every day in the future to maintain national security.

According to Austin, the budget would make crucial investments in areas like integrated air and missile defense, operational energy efficiency, air supremacy, marine supremacy, and weapons, including hypersonics, to retain the United States’ military superiority over China.

The $842 billion budget, according to the Military, is the most in line with past national security and defense strategies; if passed by Congress, the Department of Defense will receive “revolutionary capabilities.” The Pentagon’s budget calls for spending $61.1 billion on the Air Force’s ongoing modernization and the acquisition of potent weapons and equipment, $48.1 billion on the building of nine new combat ships, maintenance on the Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and $13.9 billion on the use of land forces to support the upgrading of Army and Marine Corps combat gear.

China said last week that it’s military spending for 2023 would total 1.55 trillion yuan (about 224 billion dollars), an increase of 7.2 percent from the year before. Tan Kefei, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Defense Ministry, stated that while increasing defense spending is used to thoroughly reinforce military training and preparedness, China’s restricted defense budget is solely for preserving national sovereignty, security, and development interests. He also made note of the fact that by many measures, China still spends less on defense than the US does.