One eye on Russia and another on China.. Biden requests approval of the largest defense budget in peacetime

US President Joe Biden presented Congress with a defense budget of $886 billion, the largest in peacetime that focused on the war in Ukraine and future wars.

The budget includes an increase in the salaries of the forces by 5.2%, and the largest recorded allocations for research and development, after the Russian war on Ukraine stimulated demand for more spending on ammunition.

Biden asked for $842 billion to be allocated to the US Department of Defense (Pentagon) and $44 billion to defense-related programs at the FBI, the Department of Energy and other agencies.

The total amount of the proposed 2024 budget is $28 billion more than last year's $858 billion.

Congress has indicated, as it has so often, that it will increase defense spending at Biden's behest.

Congress has passed the annual defense budget for more than 60 years.

Congress and the US administration are anticipating a possible protracted war in Ukraine, and possible future conflicts with Russia and China.

"Our greatest measure of success, and one that we use here very often, is making sure that the leadership of the People's Republic of China wakes up every day, thinks about the dangers of aggression, and concludes that it just won't work," said US Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks. today".

Relations between the United States and China are increasingly strained on issues ranging from trade to espionage, as the two powers increasingly compete for influence in parts of the world far beyond their borders.

"This higher request is a useful starting point," US Senator Jack Reed, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said when the budget figures were released on Thursday.

This will be the first budget in which missiles and other munitions are procured on contracts over several years, which is routine for planes and ships.

The Ukraine war showed the US military that it needed to produce larger quantities of certain types of munitions, and this explains the reason behind contracts over the years for weapons that are likely to also be used in a military conflict with China.

The 2024 budget features huge research and development allocations for the Pentagon, including $145 billion for developing new weapons such as hypersonic missiles, which are launched into the upper atmosphere and can evade radar systems even if they are advanced.

Russia used these missiles in Ukraine.