“Have we delayed moving things to Taiwan? We haven’t,” Stanley Brown, principal deputy assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs, told a House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee hearing.

The U.S. and Israel began airstrikes against Iran on Feb. 28, a campaign that has raised concerns among some U.S. officials that the U.S. defense industry would be unable to keep up with demand and could be forced to slow shipments to buyers such as Taiwan, which faces steadily rising military pressure from China.

There was already a multi-billion-dollar backlog of U.S. arms shipments to Taiwan before the Iran war started. Brown said the administration was looking at ways to expedite shipments, without providing specifics.

Trip to China postponed

Several members of the House committee raised concerns about the island during the hearing, which took place on the day Trump said he was postponing a highly anticipated trip to Beijing to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Taiwan was one of the issues expected to be discussed by the two leaders.

China views Taiwan as its own territory and has never renounced the use of force to take the island under its control. Taiwan rejects Beijing’s sovereignty claims, saying only the island’s people can decide their future.

China held its most recent war games around Taiwan in December, and its warships and warplanes regularly operate around the island.

Reuters reported last week that a major U.S. arms package for Taiwan that included advanced interceptor missiles was ready for Trump’s approval and could be signed after his trip to China. With a price tag of about $14 billion, the arms deal would be the largest ever for the democratically governed island, which faces steadily rising military pressure from China.

It was not immediately clear whether the trip’s delay would affect the timing of that arms deal.

Trump’s Republicans and Democrats in Congress have also been sparring bitterly over Trump’s declarations of national emergencies in order to sidestep congressional review of foreign weapons sales, including the decision this month to expedite the sale of $650 million worth of bombs to Israel.

At the hearing, committee Chairman Brian Mast of Florida and other Republicans accused Democrats of delaying crucial assistance to important allies as they face international threats.

Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York, the panel’s top Democrat, said that bypassing congressional review of major deals weakened human rights oversight.

(Reporting by Patricia Zengerle and Michael Martina; Editing by Alison Williams)

Both the House and Senate, where the president’s Republican Party has a slim majority, had already drafted such resolutions long before the strikes Saturday. Now they are ready to plunge into a rare war powers debate next week that will serve as a referendum on Trump’s decision to go it alone on military action without formal authorization from Congress.

“Has President Trump learned nothing from decades of U.S. meddling in Iran and forever wars in the Middle East?” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., a leader in the bipartisan effort. He said the strikes on Iran were “a colossal mistake.”

In the House, Reps. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., are demanding Congress go on record with a public vote on their own bipartisan measure. “Congress must convene on Monday to vote,” Khanna said, “to stop this.”

Massie blasted Trump’s own presidential campaign slogan and said: “This is not ‘America First.’”

But most Republicans, particularly their leaders, welcomed Trump’s move against Iran. Many cited the longtime U.S. adversary’s nuclear programs and missile capabilities as requiring a military response.

“Well done, Mr. President,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C. “As I watch and monitor this historic operation, I’m in awe of President Trump’s determination to be a man of peace but at the end of the day, evil’s worst nightmare.”

War powers debate tests Congress

The administration’s decision to launch, with Israel, what appears to be an open-ended joint military operation aimed at changing the government in Tehran is testing the Constitution’s separation of powers in deep and dramatic ways. Nearly two months earlier, Trump ordered U.S. strikes that toppled Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro.

While presidents have the authority as the commander in chief to conduct certain strategic military operations on their own, the Constitution vests Congress with the power to wage war. Before the Iraq War began in March 2003, Republican President George W. Bush made a monthslong push to secure congressional authorization. No such vote was attempted on Iran, and an earlier Senate effort to halt Trump’s actions after last summer’s strike on Iran failed.

The congressional debate over war powers would mostly be symbolic. Even if a resolution were to pass the narrowly split Congress, Trump likely would veto it and Congress would not have the two-thirds majority needed to overturn that rejection. Congress has often failed to block other U.S. military actions, including in a Senate vote on Venezuela, but the roll calls stand as a public record.

Republican leaders back Trump’s action

The response by House Speaker Mike Johnson reflected the party’s long-standing views. Iran, he said, is facing “the severe consequences of its evil actions.”

Johnson, R-La., said the leaders of the House and Senate and the respective intelligence committees had been briefed in detail earlier in the week that military action “may become necessary” to protect U.S. troops and citizens in Iran. He said he received updates from Secretary of State Marco Rubio and will stay in “close contact” with Trump and the Defense Department “as this operation proceeds.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., commended Trump “for taking action to thwart these threats.”

Thune said he looked forward to administration officials briefing all senators — a signal that lawmakers are seeking more answers to their questions about Trump’s plans ahead.

Democrats warn strikes are illegal

Many Democrats are calling the operation illegal, saying the Constitution gives Congress alone the power to declare war. To them, the administration has failed to lay out its rationale or plan for the military strikes, and the aftermath.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen, who serves on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the president has undertaken “illegal, regime-change war against Iran.”

“This is not making us safer & only damages the US & our interests,” Van Hollen, D-Md., said in a social media post. “The Senate must immediately vote on the War Powers Resolution to stop it.”

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York said while Iran is a “bad actor and must be aggressively confronted” for its human rights abuses and the threat it poses to the U.S. and allies, the administration ”must seek authorization for the preemptive use of military force that constitutes an act of war.”

New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, the Democratic leader, demanded that Congress be briefed immediately on the administration’s plans.

“Iran must never be allowed to attain a nuclear weapon but the American people do not want another endless and costly war in the Middle East when there are so many problems at home,” he said.

Associated Press writers Mary Clare Jalonick and Matt Brown contributed to this report.

In materials released Monday, the House Appropriations Committee said the compromise $839 billion spending bill would provide $3.9 billion for the military’s sixth-generation aircraft. That would include $3 billion for the Air Force’s F-47 fighter, which will be built by Boeing, and $972 million for the Navy’s F/A-XX, the House committee said.

That would be hundreds of millions more than the Pentagon requested in its original proposed 2026 budget last summer, which requested nearly $2.6 billion for the F-47 and just $74 million for the Navy’s F/A-XX.

The F-47, also known as Next Generation Air Dominance, will be an advanced fighter designed to replace the F-22 Raptor. It is intended to fly alongside multiple autonomous drone wingmen, called collaborative combat aircraft, and have advanced stealth capabilities and greater range than the F-22 and F-35.

The spending bill also would prevent the Air Force from canceling its E-7 Wedgetail airborne battle management aircraft program.

While top service leaders had for years stressed the need to acquire the Boeing-made E-7 to replace the aging E-3 Sentry, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth expressed skepticism about the program’s future use in a June 2025 hearing and suggested a space-based system would be better. When the Pentagon’s budget proposal emerged later that month, it called for canceling the E-7, which is already flown by Australia and in the works for other allies.

Congressional appropriators appear to disagree. The House said the spending bill would provide $1.1 billion for the E-7 program.

The spending bill would also be in line with the Pentagon’s proposed reduction in the number of F-35 Joint Strike Fighters purchased in 2026. The Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps combined bought 75 F-35s from Lockheed Martin in 2025. But the Pentagon’s proposed budget called for 47 F-35s in all in 2026, including 24 F-35As for the Air Force.

The conferenced defense bill would provide $7.6 billion for 47 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters, across those three services. It would also provide $440 million for spare parts for both the F-35 and its engine, the F135.

The Pentagon said last summer that it planned to redirect money that would have gone to buying more F-35s into sustainment of the jets and strengthening its supply base, as well as ensuring its Block 4 upgrades stay on track.

Block 4 upgrades will allow the F-35 to carry more weapons, improve its electronic warfare capabilities and upgrade its sensors, communications and navigation. But the effort is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, and the F-35 program has scaled back its plans for those upgrades to focus on the capabilities that can be delivered in the next five years.

The defense spending bill would boost spending on the EA-37B Compass Call electronic warfare aircraft by $474 million, to buy two more of the planes.

And it would provide $1.9 billion for the B-21 Raider, Northrop Grumman’s sixth-generation stealth bomber.

The spending bill would also provide $27.2 billion for the Navy to build 17 ships, including a Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine, two Virginia-class fast attack subs, three medium landing ships and an anti-submarine warfare ship, the House said. The Senate said the conference bill increases spending on Columbia- and Virginia-class subs by $5.9 billion.

The bill also fully funds the Air Force’s LGM-35A Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile program.

Trump put intense pressure on five Republican senators who joined with Democrats to advance the resolution last week and ultimately prevailed in heading off passage of the legislation. Two of the Republicans — Sens. Josh Hawley of Missouri and Todd Young of Indiana — flipped under the pressure.

Vice President JD Vance had to break the 50-50 deadlock in the Senate on a Republican motion to dismiss the bill.

The outcome of the high-profile vote demonstrated how Trump still has command over much of the Republican conference, yet the razor-thin vote tally also showed the growing concern on Capitol Hill over the president’s aggressive foreign policy ambitions.

Democrats forced the debate after U.S. troops captured Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid earlier this month

“Here we have one of the most successful attacks ever and they find a way to be against it. It’s pretty amazing. And it’s a shame,” Trump said at a speech in Michigan Tuesday. He also hurled insults at several of the Republicans who advanced the legislation, calling Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky a “stone cold loser” and Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine “disasters.” Those three Republicans stuck to their support for the legislation.

Trump’s latest comments followed earlier phone calls with the senators, which they described as terse. The president’s fury underscored how the war powers vote had taken on new political significance as Trump also threatens military action to accomplish his goal of possessing Greenland.

The legislation, even if it had cleared the Senate, had virtually no chance of becoming law because it would eventually need to be signed by Trump himself. But it represented both a test of GOP loyalty to the president and a marker for how much leeway the Republican-controlled Senate is willing to give Trump to use the military abroad. Republican angst over his recent foreign policy moves — especially threats of using military force to seize Greenland from a NATO ally — is still running high in Congress.

Two Republicans reconsider

Hawley, who helped advance the war powers resolution last week, said Trump’s message during a phone call was that the legislation “really ties my hands.” The senator said he had a follow-up phone call with Secretary of State Marco Rubio Monday and was told “point blank, we’re not going to do ground troops.”

The senator added that he also received assurances that the Trump administration will follow constitutional requirements if it becomes necessary to deploy troops again to the South American country.

“We’re getting along very well with Venezuela,” Trump told reporters at a ceremony for the signing of an unrelated bill Wednesday.

As senators went to the floor for the vote Wednesday evening, Young also told reporters he was no longer in support. He said that he had extensive conversations with Rubio and received assurances that the secretary of state will appear at a public hearing before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Young also shared a letter from Rubio that stated the president will “seek congressional authorization in advance (circumstances permitting)” if he engaged in “major military operations” in Venezuela.

The senators also said his efforts were also instrumental in pushing the administration to release Wednesday a 22-page Justice Department memo laying out the legal justification for the snatch-and-grab operation against Maduro.

That memo, which was heavily redacted, indicates that the administration, for now, has no plans to ramp up military operations in Venezuela.

“We were assured that there is no contingency plan to engage in any substantial and sustained operation that would amount to a constitutional war,” according to the memo signed by Assistant Attorney General Elliot Gaiser.

Trump’s shifting rationale for military intervention

Trump has used a series of legal arguments for his campaign against Maduro.

As he built up a naval force in the Caribbean and destroyed vessels that were allegedly carrying drugs from Venezuela, the Trump administration tapped wartime powers under the global war on terror by designating drug cartels as terrorist organizations.

The administration has claimed the capture of Maduro himself was actually a law enforcement operation, essentially to extradite the Venezuelan president to stand trial for charges in the U.S. that were filed in 2020.

Paul criticized the administration for first describing its military build-up in Caribbean as a counternarcotics operation but now floating Venezuela’s vast oil reserves as a reason for maintaining pressure.

“The bait and switch has already happened,” he said.

Trump’s foreign policy worries Congress

Lawmakers, including a significant number of Republicans, have been alarmed by Trump’s recent foreign policy talk. In recent weeks, he has pledged that the U.S. will “run” Venezuela for years to come, threatened military action to take possession of Greenland and told Iranians protesting their government that “help is on its way.”

Senior Republicans have tried to massage the relationship between Trump and Denmark, a NATO ally that holds Greenland as a semi-autonomous territory. But Danish officials emerged from a meeting with Vance and Rubio Wednesday saying a “fundamental disagreement” over Greenland remains.

“What happened tonight is a roadmap to another endless war,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said at a news conference following the vote.

More than half of U.S. adults believe President Donald Trump has “gone too far” in using the U.S. military to intervene in other countries, according to a new AP-NORC poll.

How Republican leaders dismissed the bill

Last week’s procedural vote on the war powers resolution was supposed to set up hours of debate and a vote on final passage. But Republican leaders began searching for a way to defuse the conflict between their members and Trump as well as move on quickly to other business.

Once Hawley and Young changed their support for the bill, Republicans were able to successfully challenge whether it was appropriate when the Trump administration has said U.S. troops are not currently deployed in Venezuela.

“We’re not currently conducting military operations there,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune in a floor speech. “But Democrats are taking up this bill because their anti-Trump hysteria knows no bounds.”

Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, who has brought a series of war powers resolutions this year, accused Republicans of burying a debate about the merits of an ongoing campaign of attacks and threats against Venezuela.

“If this cause and if this legal basis were so righteous, the administration and its supporters would not be afraid to have this debate before the public and the United States Senate,” he said in a floor speech.

Kaine vowed to force votes on war powers resolutions that would apply to a number of potential military conflicts, including Greenland. House Democrats have also filed a similar war powers resolution and can force a vote on it as soon as next week.

Associated Press writers Josh Goodman, Lisa Mascaro, Mary Clare Jalonick and Joey Cappelletti in Washington and Bill Barrow in Atlanta contributed to this report.

Democrats and five Republicans voted to advance the war powers resolution on a 52-47 vote and ensure a vote next week on final passage. It has virtually no chance of becoming law because Trump would have to sign it if it were to pass the Republican-controlled House. Still, it was a significant gesture that showed unease among some Republicans after the U.S. military seized Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid.

Trump’s administration is now seeking to control Venezuela’s oil resources and its government, but the war powers resolution would require congressional approval for any further attacks on the South American country.

“To me, this is all about going forward,” said Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, one of the five Republican votes.

“If the president should determine, ‘You know what? I need to put troops on the ground of Venezuela,’ I think that would require Congress to weigh in.”

The other Republicans who backed the resolution were Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine and Todd Young of Indiana.

Democrats had failed to pass several such resolutions in the months that Trump escalated his campaign against Venezuela. But lawmakers argued that now that Trump has captured Maduro and set his sights to other conquests such as Greenland, the vote presents the Republican-controlled Congress with an opportunity.

“It’s time for Congress to assert its control over military action of this kind, and it’s time to get this out of secrecy and put it in the light,” said Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., who forced the vote.

Lawmakers’ response to the Venezuela operation

Republican leaders have said they had no advance notification of the raid early morning Saturday to seize Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, but mostly expressed satisfaction this week as top administration officials provided classified briefings on the operation.

The administration has used an evolving set of legal justifications for the monthslong campaign in Central and South America, from destroying alleged drug boats under authorizations for the global fight against terrorism to seizing Maduro in what was ostensibly a law enforcement operation to put him on trial in the United States.

Republican leaders have backed Trump.

“I think the president has demonstrated at least already a very strong commitment to peace through strength, especially in this hemisphere,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. “I think Venezuela got that message loudly and clearly.”

A vote on a similar resolution in November narrowly failed to gain the majority needed for passage. Paul and Murkowski were the only Republicans voting in favor then.

Paul, an outspoken proponent of war powers resolutions, acknowledged that Maduro is seen as a “bad guy” and “a socialist and an autocrat.” But, Paul added, “The question is about who has the power to take the country to war?”

Some progressive Democrats have suggested inserting language in a defense appropriations bill to limit certain military actions, but that idea met resistance from more pragmatic members of the caucus. Democratic leaders have tried to cast Trump’s foreign ambitions as a distraction from the issues that voters face at home.

“The American people are asking what the hell is going on in Venezuela and why is this president, who campaigned on ‘America First,’ now spending all his time and energy on escapades overseas?” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a floor speech.

House Democrats were also introducing a similar resolution on Thursday.

The rarely enforced War Powers Act

Congress was once again left in the dark during the military operation in Venezuela, with Trump later confirming that he talked to oil executives but not leaders on Capitol Hill. That reflects a broader pattern in Trump’s second term, unfolding under a Republican-controlled Congress that has shown little appetite for reasserting its constitutional authority to declare war.

Under the Constitution, Congress declares war while the president serves as commander in chief. But lawmakers have not formally declared war since World War II, granting presidents broad latitude to act unilaterally.

Congress attempted to rein in that authority after the Vietnam War with the War Powers Resolution, passed over Republican President Richard Nixon’s veto. The law requires presidents to notify Congress within 48 hours of deploying forces and to end military action within 60 to 90 days absent authorization — limits that presidents of both parties have routinely stretched.

Democrats argue those limits are being pushed further than ever. Some Republicans have gone further still, contending congressional approval is unnecessary altogether.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a close Trump ally who traveled with the president aboard Air Force One on Sunday, said he would be comfortable with Trump taking over other countries without congressional approval, including Greenland.

“The commander in chief is the commander in chief. They can use military force,” Graham said.

Greenland may further test the limits

Graham’s comments come as the administration weighs not only its next steps in Venezuela, but also Greenland. The White House has said the “military is always an option” when it comes to a potential American takeover of the world’s largest island.

While Republicans have cited Greenland’s strategic value, most have balked at the idea of using the military to take the country, instead favoring a potential deal to purchase the country.

Democrats want to get out in front of any military action and are already preparing to respond. Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego said he is working on a resolution “to block Trump from invading Greenland.”

“We must stop him before he invades another country on a whim,” Gallego wrote on X. “No more forever wars.”

Kaine also said Wednesday that a resolution on Greenland would soon be filed, in addition to Cuba, Mexico, Colombia and Nigeria.

Greenland belongs to a NATO ally, Denmark, which has prompted a much different response from Republican senators than the situation in Venezuela. Paul said Republicans discussed Trump’s plans for Greenland at their Wednesday luncheon and he heard “zero support” for taking military action to seize it.

Sen. Thom Tillis, a co-chair of the Senate NATO Observer Group, used a Senate floor speech to criticize White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller for comments this week that the U.S. should take control of Greenland. Tillis said such remarks were “amateurish” and “absurd.”

“This nonsense on what’s going on with Greenland is a distraction from the good work he’s doing,” Tillis said of the president.

“And the amateurs who said it was a good idea should lose their jobs,” he said.

Trump called for the massive surge in spending days after he ordered a U.S. military operation to capture Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and spirit him out of the country to face drug trafficking charges in the United States. U.S. forces continue to mass in the Caribbean Sea.

The 2026 military budget is set at $901 billion.

Trump in recent days has also called for taking over the Danish territory of Greenland for national security reasons and has suggested he’s open to carrying out military operations in Colombia. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has ominously warned that longtime adversary Cuba “is in trouble.”

“This will allow us to build the ‘Dream Military’ that we have long been entitled to and, more importantly, that will keep us SAFE and SECURE, regardless of foe,” Trump said in a posting on Truth Social announcing his proposal.

The military just received a large boost of some $175 billion in the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” of tax breaks and spending reductions that Trump signed into law last year.

Insisting on more funding for the Pentagon is almost certain to run into resistance from Democrats who work to maintain parity between changes in defense and nondefense spending. But it’s also sure to draw objections from the GOP’s deficit hawks who have pushed back against larger military spending.

But Trump said he feels comfortable surging spending on the military because of increased revenue created by his administration through tariffs imposed on friends and foes around the globe since his return to office.

The U.S. government collected gross revenues of $288.5 billion last year from tariffs and other excise taxes, up from $98.3 billion in 2024, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center. That’s a meaningful increase in revenues from taxing imports. But it’s not enough to cover the various promises made by Trump, who has said the tariffs can also cover dividends to taxpayers, pay down the national debt and, now, cover increased spending on the military.

Meanwhile, Trump on Wednesday also threatened to cut off Pentagon purchases from Raytheon, one of the biggest U.S. defense contractors, if the company did not end the practice of stock buybacks and invest more profits into building out its weapons manufacturing capacity.

Trump in recent months has repeatedly complained that defense companies have been woefully behind on deliveries of critical weaponry, yet continue to mete out dividends and stock buybacks to investors and offering eye-popping salaries to top executives.

“Either Raytheon steps up, and starts investing in more upfront Investment like Plants and Equipment, or they will no longer be doing business with Department of War,” Trump said on social media. “Also, if Raytheon wants further business with the United States Government, under no circumstances will they be allowed to do any additional Stock Buybacks, where they have spent Tens of Billions of Dollars, until they are able to get their act together.”

The company is responsible for making some of the military’s most widely used and notable missiles, including the Tomahawk cruise missile, the shoulder-launched Javelin and Stinger missiles and the Sidewinder air-to-air missile.

Raytheon also owns Pratt & Whitney, a company that is responsible for manufacturing a host of jet engines that power aircraft for all the military branches, including the newest F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

On Wall Street, shares of defense contractors fell, with Northrop Grumman dropping 5.5%, Lockheed Martin declining 4.8% and RTX Corp., the parent company of Raytheon, slipping 2.5%.

Raytheon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

AP writers Josh Boak, Stephen Groves, Paul Harloff and Lisa Mascaro contributed reporting.

The 2026 National Defense Authorization Act, which the House passed Dec. 10, will now head to President Donald Trump, who has pledged to sign it. The Senate overwhelmingly passed the bill 77-20.

The bill was praised by the top two senators on the Senate Armed Services Committee, Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., and ranking Democrat Jack Reed of Rhode Island, who said it makes critical investments to strengthen the U.S. military.

“The bill sets us on a path to modernize our defense capabilities and augment our drone manufacturing, shipbuilding efforts, and the development of innovative low-cost weapons,” Wicker said.

The discretionary defense spending authorized in the bill would be $8 billion more than the Pentagon requested earlier this year, and fully fund major programs such as the Golden Dome for America missile defense shield and the F-47 advanced fighter, as well as providing the Navy funds to build more submarines and destroyers.

Wicker also lauded the bill’s provisions that seek to improve the Pentagon’s budget and acquisition processes. An executive summary of the bill said it adopted key provisions from Wicker’s Fostering Reform and Government Efficiency in Defense, or FORGED, Act that seeks to speed up development and production of new weapons by prioritizing commercial acquisition, slashing red tape and expanding the industrial base.

“In this NDAA, my colleagues and I have prioritized the structural rebuilding of the arsenal of democracy and returning the department to its warfighting mission,” Wicker said. “Crucially, it also contains the most sweeping upgrades to the Pentagon’s business practices in 60 years — a watershed moment for our military.”

The bill also seeks to reform the Joint Requirements Oversight Council by cutting “bureaucratic validation of service requirements,” the executive summary said, and instead focusing on fixing joint operational problems.

The NDAA authorizes funds to give troops a 3.8% pay raise, and would create a senior-level Defense Property Management Office to “fix unacceptable outcomes for military families during the moving process,” Wicker and Reed said.

“We face significant national security challenges, but this NDAA makes meaningful progress toward meeting them,” Reed said. “It enhances military readiness, supports service members and their families, modernizes combat platforms, and invests in critical technologies.”

The NDAA also includes a provision that would withhold 25% of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s travel budget until he sends congressional committees overseeing the military “unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations” in the Caribbean region. This is intended to push Hegseth to release more information on controversial strikes against alleged drug-smuggling boats from Venezuela.

The bill would bar the Pentagon from cutting the U.S. military’s force posture in Europe or giving up the United States’ role in filling the Supreme Allied Commander-Europe position that commands NATO, until the secretary of defense assesses how those changes would affect U.S. and NATO interests and certifies to Congress that it would be in the national interest. It also would authorize a $200 million increase for U.S. European Command security assistance.

The NDAA contains provisions that seek to bolster allied and friendly nations against Russian aggression. It would establish a Baltic Security Initiative and authorize $175 million to “strengthen front-line deterrence against Russian aggression,” the executive summary said. It would also extend the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative through 2028 and authorize $400 million in funding for 2026 and 2027. And it requires the secretary of defense to notify Congress if any decision is made to modify, restrict or terminate military intelligence, imagery intelligence or other such support to Ukraine.

It also fully funds the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, strengthens activities related to the AUKUS agreement between the U.S., U.K. and Australia and provides new authorities for cooperating with Taiwan.

The bill would also prohibit the Air Force from cutting its fleet of A-10 Warthog attack planes below 103 in 2026, and extend a prohibition on the Air Force retiring RQ-4 Global Hawk drones to 2030. And it requires the Air Force to keep at least 90 days’ worth of spare parts for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter by the end of September 2028.

The National Defense Authorization Act will now head to the Senate for final passage, after its 312-112 approval in the House.

The NDAA also aims to pressure Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to release more information on controversial strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats from Venezuela, including video of the strikes, and the orders to use lethal force.

The bill would withhold 25% of Hegseth’s travel budget until he sends the House and Senate armed services committees “unedited video of strikes conducted against designated terrorist organizations” in the U.S. Southern Command’s area of responsibility.

The administration has forcefully defended those strikes, which killed dozens of people, as necessary to halt the flow of illegal drugs to the United States. Critics, including multiple former military lawyers, have raised multiple alarms about those strikes and said they could amount to war crimes or even murder of noncombatant civilians.

The controversy boiled over in recent weeks after the Washington Post revealed the first such airstrike was followed by a “double-tap” strike about 45 minutes later, which reportedly killed two survivors clinging to their boat’s wreckage.

Lawmakers viewed footage — so far publicly unreleased — of that strike, and emerged divided on what it showed. Some Republicans said the video showed the second strike was justified, but Democratic lawmakers called it highly disturbing and said it requires more scrutiny.

Hegseth has demurred on releasing video of that “double tap” strike, though the Pentagon has released videos of multiple other boat strikes.

The NDAA also wants Hegseth to submit to lawmakers copies of each order to execute these lethal strikes.

The NDAA also wants Hegseth to submit a report, which the previous authorization act required, on how the Defense Department is identifying and implementing lessons learned from the war in Ukraine.

The White House said in a Tuesday statement that President Donald Trump supports the bill, S.1071, and would sign it, lauding its codifying of more than a dozen executive orders and actions, including the Golden Dome for America missile defense program.

The NDAA would repeal the 1991 and 2002 Authorizations for the Use of Military Force that for decades was used to support U.S. actions in the Middle East. The White House said in the statement of administration policy that repealing those AUMFs supports Trump’s goal of “ending ‘forever wars.’”

The bill would also authorize the Pentagon to sign multiyear procurement contracts for critical munitions, which the administration said would save taxpayers money. Multiyear procurements are also intended to make it easier for defense contractors to expand their industrial capacity to make munitions, since they would be certain of business in years to come.

The NDAA language, which lawmakers released Sunday night, would earmark $162 billion for procurement spending, and another $146 billion for research, development test and evaluation. It calls for $291 billion for operations and maintenance and another $234 billion for military personnel and health spending.

The policy bill would fund several of President Donald Trump’s top defense priorities, including the sweeping Golden Dome missile defense program, the Air Force’s F-47 and Navy’s F/A-XX next-generation fighters, the B-21 Raider stealth bomber, Air Force drone wingmen referred to as collaborative combat aircraft, submarines and warships.

But it does not contain language that would formally change the Defense Department’s official name to the War Department, Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s preferred moniker. Hegseth often emphasizes the adoption of the War Department name as signifying a shift in focus towards lethality, but it would take an act of Congress to officially rename it.

In all, the NDAA would authorize more than $38 billion to develop, procure or modernize existing aircraft across the military.

It would also authorize $26 billion in shipbuilding funds to build or support the third Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine and one Virginia-class submarine, as well as advanced procurement for future submarines and future DDG-51 Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, full funding for the Ford-class aircraft carrier program, one anti-submarine warfare auxiliary ship and two ship-to-shore connector landing craft.

It also would authorize more than $25 billion to replenish the nation’s stock of critical munitions, including precision strike missiles, joint air-to-ground missiles, Naval Strike Missiles, Javelins, Stingers, Sidewinders, Tomahawks, Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems, Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles, artillery rounds and joint direct attack munitions.

The NDAA would authorize the Pentagon to buy 47 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters in total across the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps. That is in line with the Pentagon’s original budget request released this past summer, and would be a reduction from the 69 the Pentagon had originally expected to buy this year. The military bought 74 F-35s in 2025.

The Pentagon’s proposed 2026 budget said that the Air Force expected to buy 24 F-35A fighters, a little more than half of the 44 jets it bought in 2025.

The department said this summer that instead of buying as many F-35s, it wanted to spend more money on sustaining the jets and making sure it had a strong supply base that can support operations and maintenance, as well as making sure the planned upgrades, known as Block 4, stay on track.

The House Armed Services Committee said in an August report on its initial version of the NDAA that it supported the Pentagon’s decision to shift its focus more to sustainment and improvements, saying that approach is necessary to ensure the jets are ready to “fight tonight.”

The compromise NDAA would require the military to build up its stockpile of spare F-35 parts, and have at least 90 days’ worth of parts on hand by the end of September 2028.

The NDAA will also keep requiring the Government Accountability Office to evaluate the F-35 program each year, and for the secretary of defense to develop a plan to acquire and integrate open mission systems architecture into F-35 jets.

The NDAA would provide a reprieve for the Air Force’s E-7 Wedgetail airborne battle management program, of which Hegseth has been skeptical and the Pentagon sought to kill in its budget proposal.

Lawmakers would bar the Pentagon from canceling Boeing’s rapid prototype contract for the first two E-7s, or shutting down production lines of the jet, which is already flown by Australia.

The bill would require the Air Force to keep at least 103 A-10 Warthog aircraft until the end of September 2026, as well as providing a report by the end of March on the service’s plans to retire the rest of the jets before fiscal 2029, and how they will be replaced.

The bill would provide nearly $2.6 billion for the Air Force’s F-47 next-generation fighter, in line with the service’s request.

It would also require the Air Force secretary to send the House and Senate defense committees a report on the F-47 program by March 2027. This report would include a description of the F-47’s requirements and projected costs and schedule through 2034, and an acquisition strategy.

Congress also wants to see a proposed strategy to field the F-47, including estimated force structure, construction and personnel training requirements; strategic basing considerations; and a strategy to integrate Air National Guard and Air Force Reserve units into F-47 operations.

The Air Force would have to show Congress a plan to extend the life of its arsenal of roughly 400 LGM-30G Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles until the successor LGM-35A Sentinel nuclear missile is fully operational.

The bill would also bar the Air Force from reducing its arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles to fewer than 400, and keep at least 450 launch silos operational.

And the Air Force would not be able to accept more than 188 KC-46A Pegasus aerial refueling tankers until the department shows Congress a plan to correct all of its remaining major deficiencies.

In a Monday letter to leaders of both parties in the House and Senate, as well as Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, the groups said a government shutdown would be extremely wasteful and harm defense firms. Signing onto the letter were the Software in Defense Coalition, the Alliance for Commercial Technology in Government, the Defense Entrepreneurs Forum and the Silicon Valley Defense Group.

Past shutdowns have led to the furlough of senior acquisition officials, slowed procurement timelines and disrupted science and technology programs, the organizations said. Even the F-35 program, one of the government’s major acquisitions, came close to halting production during the 2013 shutdown, they said in the letter.

But small vendors — which have smaller profit margins, constrained cash flows and fewer non-government contracts than bigger firms — will find it even harder to weather shutdown turmoil, the organizations said. After the 2013 shutdown, they said, small businesses’ government contracts fell by about one-third and spending dropped about 40%.

Small companies are already making up a smaller portion of the defense industrial base, the letter said, and over the last decade, their participation has dropped 40%.

“Government shutdowns exacerbate this erosion, pushing startups and innovative firms out of the defense market,” the letter said. “At a time when U.S. strategic competitors are expanding rapidly, America cannot afford to diminish the diversity and innovation of its industrial base.”

Here’s how looming government shutdown could affect troops, families

Other organizations, such as the National Defense Industrial Association, have also repeatedly highlighted concerns about an atrophying defense industrial base. NDIA reports, for example, have shown the number of new vendors entering the defense industrial base is declining, which means fewer companies for the government to choose from — and less innovation.

Past shutdowns have also cost the government billions of dollars, the letter said. The companies highlighted a 2018 Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee study that found three then-recent shutdowns cost taxpayers almost $4 billion in back pay, lost revenue and late fees. Another study, conducted by the Congressional Budget Office, found the five-week shutdown in late 2018 and early 2019 led to $11 billion in gross domestic product losses.

“Shutdowns squander public resources while weakening defense readiness,” the letter said.

Funding to keep the government open is now set to run out at the end of the fiscal year Tuesday. If a continuing resolution is not passed by then, most parts of the government will close and many federal employees will be furloughed — or fired.

Lawmakers did not appear close as of Monday afternoon to finding a solution to avert a shutdown.

The organizations urged that lawmakers and the administration swiftly pass and sign a bipartisan continuing resolution to keep the government open, as well as approve a 2026 defense appropriations bill this year.

They also want lawmakers to pass legislation ensuring troops and essential civilian and contractor staff don’t suffer financial strain from a shutdown.

Agencies should also send contractors guidance earlier on what activities will be exempted during a shutdown, the letter said. And the Pentagon and administration should exempt as many employees as possible from furloughs to ensure public safety and the protection of national security property.

The resistance Driscoll has encountered in his first eight months in the job is part of a longstanding tension between the Pentagon and Congress over the trust and oversight of taxpayer dollars.

Unstable leadership cycles and inconsistent funding have pushed contractors into cost-plus arrangements, Driscoll explained, while congressional skepticism has only grown in the wake of failed modernization programs.

“We have 1,400 [to] 1,500 line items of make and model of things we need to buy,” he told a group of reporters last week. “Specifically we have asked to consolidate down in electronic warfare, drone and counter-drone. … This is 1% of our budget and we are in like a holy war over whether we’re going to have the authority for 1% of our budget to have the flexibility to buy different makes and models.”

Trial by fire: How the Army banks on frontline units to test new gear

The Army first announced it wanted flexible funding in these areas in 2024 during the previous administration in order to keep pace with technology developments that are moving so quickly the service’s traditional acquisition paths would continuously lead to the delivery of outdated equipment.

New electronic warfare capability seen on the battlefield in Ukraine outpaces old technology in a matter of weeks rather than years, for example.

Driscoll acknowledged that the Army has frequently under-delivered or not delivered when it comes to using taxpayer dollars and said he understands Congress wanting extra oversight.

Even so, “the problem is we are requesting more trust from them and more ability move on our own and I think that they are cautious and hesitant to give us that until we start to deliver wins at scale, but we can’t deliver wins at scale until we get this flexibility. So it’s a little bit of a chicken and the egg setup,” Driscoll told Defense News.

“I’m cautiously optimistic that the more people that hear about this, the more people that weight the actual risk of a drone with a munition showing up at a stadium, our border, at a port in our own nation, the more that that starts to outweigh all the other things,” Driscoll said.”I think we’re empowering our decision makers to do what they, deep down, know what’s right.”

The stakes are high, Driscoll said, as the National Defense Authorization Act debate heats up. “We just cannot get after the EW, counter-UAS and UAS threats without this flexibility. We must have it. And so we have made this a hill that we are willing to die on.”

Two weeks ago, the Defense Department announced it would review AUKUS, the 4-year-old pact signed by the Biden administration with Australia and the United Kingdom. The announcement means the Republican administration is looking closely at a partnership that many believe is critical to the U.S. strategy to push back China’s influence in the Indo-Pacific. The review is expected to be completed in the fall.

“AUKUS is essential to strengthening deterrence in the Indo-Pacific and advancing the undersea capabilities that will be central to ensuring peace and stability,” Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan and Democratic Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi of Illinois wrote in a July 22 letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Moolenaar chairs the House panel on China and Krishnamoorthi is its top Democrat.

The review comes as the Trump administration works to rebalance its global security concerns while struggling with a hollowed-out industrial base that has hamstrung U.S. capabilities to build enough warships. The review is being led by Elbridge Colby, the No. 3 Pentagon official, who has expressed skepticism about the partnership.

“If we can produce the attack submarines in sufficient number and sufficient speed, then great. But if we can’t, that becomes a very difficult problem,” Colby said during his confirmation hearing in March. “This is getting back to restoring our defense industrial capacity so that we don’t have to face these awful choices but rather can be in a position where we can produce not only for ourselves, but for our allies.”

US cannot build enough ships

As part of the $269 billion AUKUS partnership, the United States will sell three to five Virginia-class nuclear-powered submarines to Australia, with the first delivery scheduled as soon as 2032. The U.S. and the U.K. would help Australia design and build another three to five attack submarines to form an eight-boat force for Australia.

A March report by the Congressional Research Service warned that the lack of U.S. shipbuilding capacities, including workforce shortage and insufficient supply chains, is jeopardizing the much-celebrated partnership. If the U.S. should sell the vessels to Australia, the U.S. Navy would have a shortage of attack submarines for two decades, the report said.

The Navy has been ordering two boats per year in the last decade, but U.S. shipyards have been only producing 1.2 Virginia-class subs a year since 2022, the report said.

“The delivery pace is not where it needs to be” to make good on the first pillar of AUKUS, Admiral Daryl Caudle, nominee for the Chief of Naval Operations, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month.

Australia has invested $1 billion in the U.S. submarine industrial base, with another $1 billion to be paid before the end of this year. It has agreed to contribute a total of $3 billion to uplift the U.S. submarine base, and it has sent both industry personnel to train at U.S. shipyards and naval personnel for submarine training in the United States.

“Australia was clear that we would make a proportionate contribution to the United States industrial base,” an Australian defense spokesperson said in July. “Australia’s contribution is about accelerating U.S. production rates and maintenance to enable the delivery of Australia’s future Virginia-class submarines.”

The three nations have also jointly tested communication capabilities with underwater autonomous systems, Australia’s defense ministry said on July 23. Per the partnership, the countries will co-develop other advanced technologies, from undersea to hypersonic capabilities.

At the recent Aspen Security Forum, Kevin Rudd, the Australian ambassador to the United States, said his country is committed to increasing defense spending to support its first nuclear-powered sub program, which would also provide “massively expensive full maintenance repair facilities” for the U.S. Indo-Pacific fleet based in Western Australia.

Rudd expressed confidence that the two governments “will work our way through this stuff.”

AUKUS called ‘crucial to American deterrence’

Bruce Jones, senior fellow with the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology, told The Associated Press that the partnership, by positioning subs in Western Australia, is helping arm the undersea space that is “really crucial to American deterrence and defense options in the Western Pacific.”

“The right answer is not to be content with the current pace of submarine building. It’s to increase the pace,” Jones said.

Jennifer Parker, who has served more than 20 years with the Royal Australian Navy and founded Barrier Strategic Advisory, said it should not be a zero-sum game. “You might sell one submarine to Australia, so you have one less submarine on paper. But in terms of the access, you have the theater of choice from operating from Australia, from being able to maintain your submarines from Australia,” Parker said. “This is not a deal that just benefits Australia.”

Defense policy is one of the few areas where Republican lawmakers have pushed back against the Trump administration, but their resolve is being tested with the Pentagon’s review of AUKUS. So far, they have joined their Democratic colleagues in voicing support for the partnership.

They said the U.S. submarine industry is rebounding with congressional appropriations totaling $10 billion since 2018 to ensure the U.S. will have enough ships to allow for sales to Australia.

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., told the AP that support for AUKUS is strong and bipartisan, “certainly on the Armed Services Committee.”

“There is a little bit of mystification about the analysis done at the Pentagon,” Kaine said, adding that “maybe [what] the analysis will say is: We believe this is a good thing.”

In World War II, Detroit, Michigan, became the “Arsenal of Democracy,” churning out tanks, jeeps and bombers. Now, 85 years later, Michigan is again pitching itself as America’s factory floor for the future of warfare — except this time, the tools of defense are drones powered by artificial intelligence and made with 3D-printed parts in record time.

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll paid a visit to Detroit on Friday, meeting with a slew of small companies working to break into the defense industry that has historically been reserved for major defense prime contractors.

Driscoll toured the Ground Vehicle Systems Center, or GVSC, with Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin, in her home state, along with a bipartisan group of other lawmakers.

“Basically 60% of what an Army soldier drives or shoots comes out of Michigan,” Slotkin told Defense News in an interview Friday. “We are a big producer and manufacturer for the Army and, of course, [the Army’s] transformation initiative went right to the heart of how [Driscoll] sees the force of the future,” she added.

“He saw everything from really cool programs of the future related to drones and tanks and ground vehicles,” Slotkin said of Driscoll’s visit. “He put on some [virtual reality] headsets and looked at one of our growing areas of expertise, which is modeling and simulation,” she noted, which helps to “shorten the string between having an idea and fielding it.”

Additionally, Driscoll toured a venture hub for defense technology in downtown Detroit called Newlab and met with a group of CEOs from participating companies, according to Slotkin.

Newlab, which opened in the city in 2023, supports tech startups in defense and complex industrial and defense sectors, according to the organization.

Newlab Detroit is part of Michigan Central, an expansive innovation district backed by a billion-dollar investment led by Ford Motor Company and other public-private partners.

There, ideas move from pilot programs to manufacturing spaces to produce new defense technology, Slotkin explained.

“It’s the perfect marriage of Michiganders having the best manufacturing tradition in the country; fifth- and sixth-generation tradesmen, building precision tools with AI and tech of the future,” Slotkin said. “They’ve launched multimillion-dollar programs right out of downtown Detroit.”

The hub positions Michigan to level up with other states that are at the helm of fostering innovation and connecting smaller, nontraditional businesses with applicable technology to the defense industry, like Texas, where Army Futures Command is headquartered.

Army seeks $197 billion FY26 budget with transformation plan at center

Further, efforts like Newlab align with Driscoll’s position that success would be seeing a defense prime contractor being put out of business in the next two years and replaced by work done outside of what he considers the Pentagon’s famously sluggish acquisition system.

Driscoll has testified on the Hill and spoken at public events about innovation he’s seen coming from venture capital firms and tech companies like Palantir, Anduril, Applied Intuition and others at the forefront of areas like autonomy and AI.

Driscoll’s trip comes as the Army is trying to transform itself. Earlier this spring, the Army secretary released a memo announcing sweeping changes, such as restructuring commands and formations. Dubbed the Army Transformation Initiative, the effort cancels big, billion-dollar programs that no longer align with the Army’s strategy and commits to acquiring innovative technology needed on today’s battlefield as quickly as possible.

Shaking up industry

As part of the Army Transformation Initiative, the service made major decisions that would impact Michigan’s defense industry.

The Army decided to pull the plug on a light tank, for instance, built by General Dynamics Land Systems, headquartered in Sterling Heights. The vehicle, called the M10 Booker, was slated to enter full-rate production and was the first new combat vehicle to enter the force in four decades.

But the Army decided it was not needed even after the service had invested several billion dollars to develop and field the vehicle.

“This concept of sunk cost fallacy, it is a thing that human beings generally struggle with, which is if you’ve invested a lot in the past, and we do this in our personal lives, you get anchored to things that are suboptimal for the future,” Driscoll told Defense News in a June 9 interview at the Pentagon.

The Army has also decided to scale back orders that the program office for ground combat systems manages, such as the Armored Multipurpose Vehicle and the Paladin Improved Management (PIM) howitzer — both produced by BAE Systems. The company’s Sterling Heights facility is focused on land vehicle development and manufacturing.

The service is turning its eye toward lighter, more mobile capability and is going to invest heavily in the Infantry Squad Vehicle, developed by GM Defense in Michigan, to the tune of roughly $300 million. The vehicle was born in record time and has been gaining traction with soldiers in operational exercises globally.

The Army’s transformation initiative includes a roughly 38% reduction in ground system science and technology, to include a lump sum of work at the GVSC, and ends some programs altogether, such as the Robotic Combat Vehicle program.

Yet, the service plans to invest over $200 million in robotics development in its fiscal 2026 budget request to pursue autonomous capability rather than focus on specific vehicle platforms.

Army names newly combined futures and training command

The Army is also doubling down on its effort to rapidly develop and field a new variant of the Abrams tank, dubbed the M1E3, and remains fully committed to continuing a competition to build the XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle, a replacement for the Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicle.

American Rheinmetall Vehicles, situated in Sterling Heights, and General Dynamics Land Systems are competing to design and build prototypes for the XM30 program.

A large portion of that development and design work will rely on modeling and simulation technology and other advanced manufacturing concepts emerging in Michigan.

Delivering at speed

GVSC is looking at innovations in manufacturing to not only look ahead to future capability but also ensure current weapons systems stay ready on the battlefield.

Slotkin said she and Driscoll learned that the center, for instance, had been able to reverse engineer tubing used to connect the Patriot air and missile defense system to a generator that was running into trouble in real-world operations, and then 3D printed it.

When problems with the system were cropping up in the Middle East, a schedule quote from the supplier to replace the tubing was 900 days, Slotkin recounted.

“You know how in demand Patriot systems are, that’s just insane,” she said.

The center was able to deliver the tubing in 45 days, according to Slotkin.

“900 days versus 45 days is what the speed of warfare is in 2025.”

Pivoting to focus on delivering capabilities at what military officials like to call the speed of relevance isn’t just about harnessing technology, but is also about ensuring policy and practices are in place to deliver.

“We have to be honest that Congress has a role in making [defense] acquisition really screwed up,” Slotkin said.

“[Driscoll] is very open about wanting to break down that tradition,” she noted. “I want to bring home good things to Michigan, but we want to compete on a level playing field. We can show off our grit and our determination. We’re not looking for a handout or just to live off of earmarks. We want to compete with Texas, or Alabama, or Louisiana on our merits.”

Correction − This story has been updated to provide clarifying information from Newlab regarding its participation in Michigan Central in Detroit.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., along with Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine, announced on Aug. 5 the Protecting Public Naval Shipyards, or PSNY, Act, which would exempt certain jobs at public shipyards from workforce reductions.

“Our shipyard workforce represents an essential component of our national defense and preparedness — they should have never been subjected to this administration’s ill-considered hiring freezes,” Shaheen said in a release.

The bill seeks to exempt America’s four public shipyards: Norfolk Naval Shipyard in Virginia, Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Maine, Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Washington state and Pearl Harbor Naval Shipyard and Intermediate Maintenance Facility in Hawaii.

In doing so, the release said, the bill “ensures that the maintenance and overhaul of America’s nuclear-powered submarine fleet continues uninterrupted.”

The bill lists a host of civilian positions to be excluded from workforce reductions and hiring freezes, including welders, mechanics and positions supporting nuclear maintenance and refueling, among others.

The bill also eliminates a hiring cap for these positions.

Navy budget seeks to boost modernization of fleet, shipyards

Currently, the Navy can only hire 1,550 external personnel across all naval institutions each month, and the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard alone needs 550 new personnel every year to keep up with submarine fleet maintenance, according to Shaheen’s office.

Shaheen, a senior member of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee and co-chair of the U.S. Senate Navy Caucus, and Collins wrote a letter to the Navy in February requesting that Portsmouth Naval Shipyard be insulated from the Office of Personnel Management’s deferred resignation initiative for federal employees.

The program, known as the “Fork in the Road,” began Jan. 28 with an email to federal workers outlining four new pillars for the federal workforce. One of those pillars called for a reduced workforce.

Shaheen and Collins argued in their letter that cutting down the size of the shipbuilding workforce would threaten national security by increasing the amount of time submarine maintenance would take.

The Defense Department responded by agreeing to exempt the shipyard workforce from the Pentagon hiring freeze, which was outlined in a memo.

But Shaheen’s office claimed in its Tuesday release that there are issues with the implementation of the exemption.

On April 17, Shaheen, Collins and King visited Portsmouth Naval Shipyard with Navy Secretary John Phelan — his first time visiting a public shipyard since his confirmation. During the visit, the senators raised concerns with Phelan about the hiring freeze, according to a release from Shaheen’s office.

Less than a month later, on May 13, the senators sent a letter to the Office of Personnel Management, asking for the processing of almost 150 personnel who’d received job offers for the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and had already been approved by Phelan, but who weren’t working yet.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pledged to speed up the onboarding process at his first appearance in front of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on June 18.

But Sheehan’s office said the Office of Personnel Management has slowed that process, raising concerns about retaining workers facing lengthy hiring times. Welding school graduates and recent college graduates aren’t likely to wait months to be onboarded and will instead take jobs elsewhere, Shaheen’s office told Military Times.

In contrast to a series of contested nomination votes this week, the military confirmations were done by a simple voice vote without objection. The moves fill several top Pentagon and military service slots ahead of the congressional summer break, allowing the leaders to step into their roles in the coming days.

Adm. Daryl Caudle, who has been the commander of U.S. Fleet Forces Command since 2021, was approved as the next chief of naval operations, ending a nearly six-month vacancy in that role.

The Trump administration had dismissed previous CNO Adm. Lisa Franchetti without a stated reason on Feb. 21. Adm. James Kilby has been filling in as acting CNO since then.

Trump’s pick for CNO faces few hurdles in confirmation hearing

Caudle testified at his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 24 that America is “in the midst of a crucial era, defined by global competition, technological saturation and unpredictable threats that challenge our American dream.”

He addressed issues of environmental remediation at Red Hill, issues with a bloated budget for the dry dock replacement at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, and Navy accountability for late deliveries and mistakes made in defense programs, among other issues.

Caudle has also criticized manning shortages, a sentiment that aligns with the Trump administration’s intention to overhaul the maritime industrial base.

Also on Thursday, Lt. Gen. Shawn Bratton was confirmed as vice chief of the Space Force, replacing Gen. Michael Guetlein. Last month, Defense Department officials announced Guetlein would step aside from the role in order to lead the new Office of Golden Dome for America, coordinating efforts for that defense project.

Vice Adm. Frank Bradley was named the next head of U.S. Special Operations Command. Lt. Gen. Dagvin Anderson was confirmed as the first Air Force general to lead U.S. Africa Command.

Marine Corps Maj. Gen. David Bligh, who currently serves as the staff judge advocate to the commandant of the Marine Corps, will take over as the judge advocate general of the Navy, the first Marine to hold that post in more than a century.

And Lt. Gen. Michael Borgschulte was confirmed as the next superintendent of the U.S. Naval Academy. He’s the first Marine to hold that post, although his appointment comes amid controversy.

Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, the school’s first female superintendent, had led the academy since January 2024 but was reassigned by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth amid a host of reforms at the school.

The Senate could approve more senior defense posts in coming days. Lawmakers were expected to debate through the weekend on clearing a backlog of nominations pending in the chamber, and Trump has suggested cancelling the Senate’s planned August recess altogether to finish the work.

The appropriations measure advanced out of the Senate Appropriations Committee by a bipartisan 26-3 vote, with both Republican and Democratic leaders praising the plan as meeting the emerging needs of the armed forces.

“This bill addresses major funding gaps across the board,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, chairwoman of the panel. “It invests in ship building … it expands critical munitions production, including air and missile defense interceptors, long range missiles and next generation hypersonic weapons.

“It funds drone and counter drone technologies, which are increasingly changing the nature of the battlefield. Finally, the bill invests in our most precious asset, the men and women of our armed forces. It shows our continuing commitment to their readiness, well being and mission success.”

House advances $832 billion military budget plan for next fiscal year

The bill includes plans for a 3.8% pay raise for troops next January and an increase in overall military end strength in 2026, similar to plans adopted by House lawmakers earlier in July.

But the measure also includes a 2% increase in base defense spending next fiscal year, about $20 billion above House approved spending levels and the White House’s request for defense spending.

The White House for months has advocated for a generally flat defense budget next year coupled with about $150 billion in one-time defense spending approved in a budget reconciliation measure earlier this summer.

Democratic lawmakers have objected to that strategy, saying it undermines oversight and long-term planning. Republicans on the committee backed the reconciliation measure but also expressed concern over the reliance on one-time funding for critical defense programming.

“I think not only the prior administration, but this administration as well, have underestimated the level of challenge that we have in defense,” said Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., chairman of the appropriations committee’s defense panel.

“You’ve got authoritarian regimes coordinating with each other in North Korea, in Russia, Chinese and Iranian proxies. And one thing they have in common is that they hate us.”

Whether the plussed-up defense budget plan will survive congressional negotiations is unclear.

The House has already recessed until September, and the Senate is expected to leave town at the end of this week. When both chambers return, they’ll have to approve funding for all federal spending past Sept. 30, either through a full-year appropriations package or a short-term budget extension.

If neither is approved, the country could face a partial government shutdown starting Oct. 1, shuttering a host of federal offices and pausing some military paychecks.

The bill’s passage — by a 221-209 margin, with only five Democrats backing the measure — sends the national security budget debate over to the Senate, where appropriators still have not unveiled the parameters of their spending plans for next year.

The Defense Department is currently operating this fiscal year under a modified continuing resolution, with some additional funding for military programs and purchases. Lawmakers are hopeful that won’t happen again next year, but the slow pace of budget work thus far leaves only about six weeks of session work left before a possible partial government shutdown if the appropriations bills aren’t finalized.

The House spending plan was largely drafted before Pentagon leaders unveiled their detailed budgetary requests for fiscal 2026 just last month. President Donald Trump has touted that outline as a “$1 trillion defense budget,” but that total includes additional one-time funds approved by Congress as part of a separate reconciliation measure.

House appropriators OK rebukes to recent DOD scandals in budget bill

As such, the House plan for the base defense budget represents a small decrease over current fiscal year military spending, a point that Democrats and some Republican lawmakers have lamented.

But Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif., the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel, praised the funding plan as “providing our men and women in uniform with the resources they need to keep America safe.”

The bill supports a 3.8% pay raise for servicemembers next year, matching the federal formula for the annual prescribed pay boost. It includes $2.6 billion for hypersonics programs and $13 billion for missile defense programs in support of Trump’s Golden Dome effort.

The measure sets aside $8.5 billion for 69 F-35 fighters, $3.8 billion for B-21 procurement, $2.7 billion for 15 KC-46s and $1.2 billion for four E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. Another $37 billion would go to Navy shipbuilding efforts, including procurement of one Columbia-class ballistic missile submarine and two Virginia-class fast attack submarines.

Under the plan, the Defense Department civilian workforce would be cut by about 45,000 individuals at a savings of $3.6 billion, a provision that drew strong objections from Democratic lawmakers.

Critics also attacked the bill’s social issue provisions, including language prohibiting military health care facilities from providing abortion services, bans on transgender medical care and surgeries, and elimination of diversity and equity programs.

“These poison pill riders will not go unnoticed by our troops,” said Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., ranking member on the appropriations committee’s defense panel. “They will impact recruitment and retention.”

Passage of the defense budget bill was delayed for much of the week by unrelated legislative floor fights in the House, and could be complicated in the Senate by similar, broader fights over federal spending and program cuts.

House lawmakers are expected to shift focus in coming days to the annual defense authorization bill — legislation which sets Defense Department policy and spending priorities for the upcoming year, but does not actually appropriate the funds for those goals — but a full floor debate on that measure is unlikely to happen before the chamber’s August recess.

The move comes less than a week after Senate Armed Services Committee members passed their own version of the bill, which sets defense policies and budget priorities for the upcoming fiscal year. The legislation has been passed annually by Congress for more than six consecutive decades, despite increasing partisan tensions in recent years.

The House panel’s passage — by a 55-2 bipartisan vote, despite numerous objections from Democratic members — sets up possible consideration of the bill later this month by the full chamber and allows staffers to begin behind-the-scenes negotiations on a final draft.

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers, R-Ala., called the proposal “a strong bill that will help reform the acquisition system, revitalize the defense industrial base, and build the ready, capable, and lethal fighting force we need to deter China and our other adversaries.”

Lawmakers back White House FY26 plans for more troops, 3.8% pay hike

The measure also includes a 3.8% pay raise for service members in 2026 and an increase of the Defense Department’s end strength by about 26,000 troops next year.

It prohibits a reduction in U.S. military posture on the Korean Peninsula or in Europe without congressional approval, and it includes $400 million for Ukraine support (about $200 million less than the Senate draft).

Rejected objections

Like their Senate counterparts, Democrats on the House panel spent hours Tuesday unsuccessfully attempting to amend the authorization bill with a host of policies aimed at Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other administration leaders.

Several proposals criticized Hegseth for his use of unsecure messaging platforms to share details of military missions, as well as his focus on eliminating diversity and equity programs within the department.

Democrats also proposed restricting Trump’s ability to use military forces and resources for border security efforts. Another amendment would have blocked any funding for retrofitting a Boeing 747-8 luxury jetliner given to Trump by the Qatari government for use as official presidential transport.

And a proposal from committee ranking member Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., would prohibit the Defense Department from developing any military attack plans against Canada, Panama or Greenland.

But the Republican majority rejected all of those ideas. The final result is an authorization bill proposal that closely tracks with House leadership and administration priorities.

The committee also voted down a proposal from Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C., to zero out support for Ukraine, which she argued hurts other national security priorities. Both Republicans and Democrats on the panel rejected that assertion.

By a 29-28 margin, the committee did adopt a measure preventing the Defense Department from using any funds to revert the names of military bases back to titles related to Confederate figures, a proposal unveiled by Pentagon leaders last month.

But the language is likely to face significant opposition on the House floor, and may be removed before final passage there.

Chamber conflicts

The biggest difference between the House and Senate drafts of the authorization bill — which still could be amended on their respective chamber floors — is the goal for total defense spending.

The Senate version outlines a $879 billion base budget for the Pentagon, about $32 billion above the White House request for fiscal 2026. The House sticks to the administration’s $847 billion plan.

Senate officials said the extra money would go toward priorities such as shipbuilding ($8.5 billion extra) and munitions ($6 billion more).

None of those totals include another $150 billion in spending included in the recently-passed budget reconciliation bill, which brings total Defense Department spending in fiscal 2026 potentially above $1 trillion.

Both drafts include sweeping changes to the defense acquisition reform process, but with different approaches.

The House draft includes Rogers’ Streamlining Procurement for Effective Execution and Delivery Act, or SPEED Act, which would establish a new directorate to serve as a decision hub on those issues, with an eye toward faster development and production timelines.

The Senate version repeals or amends more than 100 provisions of statute “to streamline the defense acquisition process, reduce administrative complexity, and remove outdated requirements, limitations, and other matters.”

Chamber leaders have said the specific language in the respective drafts are not inherently in conflict and can be massaged in coming months to reach a common goal of speeding and simplifying equipment purchases.

That work is expected to drag into the fall. Despite lawmakers’ focus on passing the authorization bill annually, the measure has not been finalized until after Thanksgiving in 12 of the past 15 years.

Tata was approved for the post by a partisan 52-46 vote, with all Republicans present in the chamber backing his nomination and all Democrats opposing it.

He served as Deputy Commanding General of the 10th Mountain Division during its deployment to Afghanistan in 2006. After his retirement from the military in 2009, he spent time as a public school administrator and as Secretary of the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

Tata served as a senior advisor to the Defense Secretary during President Donald Trump’s first term in office, a position he was appointed to after a failed attempt to gain confirmation as Under Secretary of Defense for Policy.

Dems blast Trump’s pick for military personnel policy as too combative

His bid was derailed by the revelation of numerous inflammatory comments on social media and in past media appearances, including labeling of former President Barack Obama as a “terrorist leader” and a secret Muslim believer.

Ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed, D-R.I., said that Tata has shown little remorse for those comments and remains too volatile for the critical Pentagon leadership role.

“Mr. Tata has a misguided and discriminatory view of military and civilian workforces he would oversee,” Reed said.

“Our servicemembers and their families and the civilian employees who support them come from all backgrounds and political persuasions … Mr. Tata, to be effective, would need to serve all members of the Department of Defense and their families, not just those with whom he agrees politically. His public record and past performance at the Pentagon do not inspire confidence in this regard.”

During his confirmation hearing in May, Tata said he regretted some of his past statements and pledged to “be an apolitical leader that is trying to take care of the men and women in uniform” in his new role.

Democratic objections in the chamber were not enough to stave off Tata’s confirmation this time.

The Under Secretary for Personnel and Readiness oversees a host of Pentagon program offices, including the Department of Defense Education Activity, the Military Health Care System, the Defense Commissary Agency and the Defense Travel Management Office.

Several of those have already been involved in controversies regarding new policy mandates from the Trump administration, with critics charging that the moves are politicizing support services for troops and their families.

Tata is expected to be sworn into the new role in the next few days.

The extra service members are included in both the Senate and House Armed Services Committees’ drafts of the annual defense authorization bill, which contains a series of policy and budgetary priorities for the military. Senators on the panel approved their version last week, while the House committee is scheduled to mark up its draft Tuesday.

Both plans call for a significant boost in troop numbers in fiscal 2026, with most additions in the Army and Navy ranks.

Earlier this year, White House officials in their budget plans for next year outlined a goal of 454,000 active-duty soldiers in fiscal 2026, an increase of 11,700 troops over this year. Similarly, the Navy would grow to 334,600 sailors, up 12,300 active-duty personnel from this year.

The plan also calls for a boost of 1,500 airmen from the current level of 320,000 Air Force service members and an increase of 600 Space Force active-duty personnel from the current end strength of 9,800 individuals.

The Marine Corps, with 172,300 personnel, would be the only active-duty service not to see an increase.

The increases would grow the armed forces to just over 1.3 million active-duty troops, the largest goal since fiscal 2023.

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Recruiting challenges in recent years have made reaching those goals difficult, leading lawmakers to lower their end-strength targets at the start of this fiscal year. In the last few weeks, officials from the Army, Navy, Air Force and Space Force announced they have already met their year-end recruiting targets.

If the fiscal 2026 targets become law, those recruiters will face additional challenges in coming months. House and Senate leaders are expected to work on a final negotiated version of the authorization bill throughout the rest of the summer.

The total number of guardsmen and reservists would drop by about 800 troops under the plan. The total end strength for those forces is roughly 772,000 service members.

Both drafts of the must-pass legislation also back White House plans for a 3.8% pay raise for all troops next year, equal to the federal formula for military salaries to keep pace with private-sector pay.

Military pay has increased by at least 2% every year since 2017, and troops have seen a pay increase annually since the 1970s.

But the 3.8% pay hike would be a step down from the 4.5% hike all troops saw this past January. And lawmakers last year also approved a second, targeted pay raise for junior enlisted troops which went into effect in January, raising some service members’ paychecks by an additional 10%.

For junior enlisted troops, a 3.8% raise in 2026 would mean about $1,200 more in take-home pay for the year. For senior enlisted and junior officers, the raise would add about $2,500 more to their annual paychecks. An O-4 with 12 years of service would see almost $4,300 more over 2025 pay levels.

The authorization bill is expected to be finalized sometime this fall.

Under the proposed National Defense Authorization Act, which the Senate Armed Services Committee approved by a 26-1 vote Wednesday, the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative would receive a refresh in funding after the Biden administration emptied it earlier this year.

That account is one of two main ways the Pentagon has provided military support to Ukraine over the last three years. Rather than directly ship stocks from the U.S. military, it contracts defense firms to build weapons Ukraine needs and then provide them over time.

“It’s not nearly enough in terms of scale. But the intent is to show that we believe Ukraine requires additional support,” a congressional aide said on the condition of anonymity while briefing on the bill.

US resumes sending some weapons to Ukraine after Pentagon pause

The bill would also reauthorize the program through 2028. The House Armed Services Committee chairman’s markup of the 2026 NDAA would do the same, approving $300 million for the account.

In its late-June budget request, the Pentagon didn’t request any money for the program, concluding in a review that it was inconsistent with the president’s agenda.

The bill, which hasn’t yet passed in the Senate overall, also comes only days after the Defense Department temporarily halted weapons deliveries to Ukraine, reportedly after a review of U.S. stockpiles showed warning signs for America’s own military readiness.

“We can’t give weapons to everybody all around the world. We have to look out for America and defending our homeland,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said in his first standalone briefing July 2.

Parnell said the pause was part of a broader review of American military assistance to countries around the world. He didn’t specify what other countries were affected.

The White House also confirmed the pause, though it has since disputed that one ever took place, alongside the Pentagon. Shortly after it occurred, President Donald Trump said the U.S. would actually keep supporting Ukraine’s military.

“At President Trump’s direction, the Department of Defense is sending additional defensive weapons to Ukraine to ensure the Ukrainians can defend themselves while we work to secure a lasting peace and ensure the killing stops,” Parnell said in a later statement.

Among other provisions in the massive spending package, the bill contains $150 billion for the Defense Department, slated for priorities like shipbuilding, the Golden Dome homeland defense project and refilling America’s stores of precision weapons.

That total includes $113 billion in mandatory funding for the military, which the Pentagon has said pushes its budget close to $1 trillion for the first time. In its long-delayed budget release last week, the Defense Department requested a separate $848 billion in base funding, otherwise a cut when accounting for inflation.

Still, in an unusual arrangement, the Pentagon had been counting on the separate party-line bill passed Thursday for its budget in the coming fiscal year.

Normally, the administration reserves its top priorities for the base defense budget, which, despite frequent delays, is considered must-pass legislation each year. Instead, the Trump administration divided its spending into two bills — accepting the risk that the party-line package might fail and upend the Pentagon’s budget.

Congressional Republicans and Democrats criticized this setup and the lengthy wait to get the Trump administration’s budget request, as Pentagon leaders appeared on Capitol Hill to testify over the last two months.

But by passing the bill Thursday, Congress has inverted the same process it previously urged the administration to maintain.

As the administration approaches fiscal 2026, it will have the $150 billion in extra defense spending already available. But lawmakers and committee staff in Congress widely expect the fiscal year to begin with a continuing resolution, or a temporary funding bill that limits how the government can spend its money.

That would mean the Pentagon has supplemental funding passed without its base budget — like getting a bonus but while on furlough.

In the end, only two House Republicans voted against the measure, after a larger group threatened to tank the bill earlier in the week over concerns about the massive increase to America’s deficit it is forecasted to create.

The Better Outfitting Our Troops, or BOOTS, Act has united a diverse coalition of lawmakers across the political spectrum in proposing that all U.S. military boots are produced from only American-manufactured components. That includes optional combat boots, which are authorized by commanders as an alternative to the military’s standard-issue boots.

Sponsors of the BOOTS Act include Senators Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Angus King, I-Maine, as well as Representatives Mike Bost, R-Ill., Nikki Budzinski, D-Ill., and Jared Golden, D-Maine.

Defense Department regulations currently allow for the purchase of boots made in foreign countries, which lawmakers contend are not only cheap in quality but undermine the domestic supply chain and American businesses.

“Mandating that all optional combat boots be American made means not only that our troops wear high-quality footwear, it also means we’re reducing our reliance on foreign supply chains, bolstering our defense industrial base and creating good-paying jobs for small and large manufacturers in communities right here at home,” Duckworth said in a statement.

The bill has called into question the reality of U.S. troops wearing Chinese-manufactured boots at a time when the DOD is prioritizing countering threats from China and investing resources in the Indo-Pacific area.

“Belleville Boots has been crafting top-quality military footwear for our service members since World War I. But like so many American manufacturers, they’re facing unfair competition from a flood of cheap, low-quality imports — often from countries like China,” Budzinski said in a statement. Budzinski represents the town of Belleville, Illinois, where Belleville Boots is based.

“This not only undercuts American jobs, it poses real risks to troop readiness and our national security.”

According to the United States Footwear Manufactures Association, American shoe manufacturers currently produce less than 1% of an average of 2.7 billion shoes sold annually in the country.

“Alarmingly, up to 50 percent of our service members currently wear foreign-made ‘optional’ boots, primarily from China and Vietnam, while on duty,” said Bill McCann, Executive Director USFMA.

The BOOTs Act has been endorsed by an array of American companies and associations, including the USFMA, Belleville Boot Co., Glacial Lakes Rubber and Plastics, Worthen Industry and the American Apparel and Footwear Association, among many others.

“Currently, foreign-made boots undermine military readiness and disadvantage American manufacturers, weakening the U.S. supply chain,” McCann said in an open letter regarding the BOOTS Act. “This commonsense change ensures uniform consistency, reduces confusion for service members, and supports the domestic industrial base as manufacturers rebuild capacity.”

If both the budget and supplement were approved by Congress, the agency would receive a boost in funding from last year.

“This budget represents a $2.8 billion increase (27%) over our FY 2025 enacted President’s Budget,” an MDA budget overview document states.

Of that total, MDA is requesting $10.5 billion in research, development, test and evaluation funding, $1.6 billion in procurement, $720.4 million in operations and maintenance and $306.4 million for military construction.

The agency asked for just $10.4 billion in fiscal 2025, $500 million less than the amount leaders had said the agency needed in the prior fiscal year. Without the supplemental funding, the FY26 base budget marks another small reduction.

While MDA’s budget is relatively flat, the Pentagon is planning to invest big in President Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” for homeland defense.

The DOD is asking for $25 billion to buy more missile defense interceptors, such as Patriot air and missile defense missiles, “novel intercept capabilities including space-based systems” and a “down payment” on advanced sensors and command-and-control systems that will fit into the overall architecture, a defense official told reporters at the Pentagon last week.

The entirety of that $25 billion for Golden Dome is included in the Pentagon’s supplemental funding request that it is banking on Congress passing as part of a $113 billion party-line spending bill now under debate.

It is unclear from publicly available documents if the $3 billion in supplemental funding that would be part of MDA’s budget is separate or part of the $25 billion Golden Dome request.

The agency plans to focus $3.2 billion in funding in fiscal 2026 for the Ground Based Midcourse Defense system, designed to defend the homeland against intercontinental ballistic missiles from Iran and North Korea.

The funding would also support continued development of the Next-Generation Interceptor that would replace the current Ground-Based Interceptors.

MDA is delayed roughly 18 months in fielding its NGI. The agency chose a winner over a year earlier than planned, selecting Lockheed Martin and its partner L3Harris’ Aerojet Rocketdyne in April 2024 to continue the development of NGI.

The request for fiscal 2026 includes funding for a second motor supplier for the NGI, according to budget documents.

The NGI will play a big role in the Trump administration’s Golden Dome missile defense shield, which will likely call for an increase of NGIs well beyond the 44 GBIs already in place.

Funding in fiscal 2026 would include planning for a third interceptor site to expand the GMD system likely to the East Coast. The interceptors in place are located in Alaska and California.

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Another $1 billion would go toward investing in prototypes and demonstrations of a command-and-control data mesh “designed to streamline multi-domain, multi-service data integration into a single integrated battle management system,” the agency’s budget documents state.

Included in that pot of money would be upgrades to the Joint Tactical Integrated Fires Control, which is critical to the development of a battle management capability to support operations in the defense of Guam architecture. The funding would also support the installation of the Defense of Guam’s command center network communications.

The agency is part of a wider effort to establish a robust air-and-missile defense architecture on Guam to defend the crucial island against growing threats from China as well as rogue states like North Korea. The architecture is just in the beginning stages of development and installation.

A second Discriminating Space Sensor is also included in the funding as well as integration work for new space sensing platforms and ground radars to enhance detection and coordination capabilities.

And it would continue supporting the testing of the Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor prototypes that are currently orbiting the earth.

The agency is asking for $2.4 billion to enhance various aspects of the Aegis missile defense program, including beginning development of the Guam defense architecture underlayer. This includes a Network Enabled Interceptor capability for the SM-3 Block IIA and the Expeditionary Launcher.

The agency would also accelerate the development of the Glide Phase Interceptor — designed to counter hypersonic weapons — by two years, as well as modify existing the Aegis Weapon Systems to counter hypersonic threats in the glide phase of flight.

The Missile Defense Agency is facing a roughly three-year delay in its plan to deliver the GPI, according to its director.

In an attempt to mitigate the delay, the agency truncated a competitive development effort years’ early, choosing one team to go it alone to design and build GPI. But the program’s reduced funding levels have still slowed down the program, MDA confirmed in a May 6 statement to Defense News.

Pentagon to request $848 billion in delayed base budget release

In the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, Congress mandated MDA move more quickly by requiring the agency to reach full operational capability by the end of 2032 and provide no fewer than 12 GPIs for tests by the end of 2029.

The funding the agency has received so far for the program “will actually push that delivery to 2035,” Collins said this spring.

The agency plans to buy 12 Aegis SM-3 Block IIA missiles along with other equipment, software and installation materials, the document states.

MDA would also spend an undisclosed total amount on theater-based defense to include $500 million for cooperative development efforts with Israel to include David’s Sling, the Arrow Weapon System and Iron Dome, through a memorandum of understanding established in fiscal 2019 that ends in fiscal 2028.

The agency will continue to upgrade the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System, including the integration of THAAD with the Army’s Integrated Battle Command System, or IBCS, architecture.

The funding would also procure 37 THAAD interceptors and pay for continued THAAD sustainment to fielded batteries.

Chief of Space Operations Gen. Chance Saltzman confirmed the pause in a congressional hearing Thursday, telling senate appropriators the service is studying “other avenues” to use small, commercial satellites flying in low orbits to provide low-latency communications to troops on the ground.

“We are simply looking at alternatives as we look to the future as to what’s the best way to scale this up to the larger requirements for data transport,” he said.

The alternative the service is considering is a largely secretive and little-known program called MILNET, a space data network that could eventually include nearly 500 satellites. SpaceX’s Starshield, a business unit that builds a military version of its Starlink spacecraft, is on contract for the effort, providing satellites, terminals and operations support.

Meanwhile, SDA’s transport layer is the service’s flagship effort to prove that a large constellation of small satellites — built by multiple companies selected competitively — can meet the military’s tactical SATCOM needs.

SDA has 19 transport satellites in orbit and is on track to launch another 126 spacecraft as part of the program’s next phase, dubbed Tranche 1, beginning late this summer. Another 182 spacecraft are on contract, and the agency had planned to buy Tranche 3 satellites in 2026.

Senators raised concerns Thursday about MILNET’s dependency on SpaceX satellites and the potential that it could undermine the competitive environment and open architecture SDA has cultivated through its transport layer.

Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., claimed that MILNET has “no competition, no open architecture, no leveraging a dynamic space ecosystem.”

Saltzman and Air Force Secretary Troy Meink noted that while the service is pausing future buys of SDA transport satellites as it evaluates its path forward, it hasn’t made any firm decisions beyond that. Other elements of the program, they said, would move forward as planned.

Meink added that MILNET is not tied to a single system or acquisition approach.

“How we field that going forward into the future is something that’s still under consideration, and we will look into the acquisition of that,” he said.

The service’s budget request includes $277 million for MILNET — the first time the program appears in its public facing funding proposal — but it’s not clear what that would fund.

The Space Force didn’t immediately provide clarification on the analysis it’s conducting and its role on MILNET to date. And while it released some information Thursday on its fiscal 2026 budget request, it has yet to publish more detailed funding documents that could provide more insight into the effort.