Highlights from the President's FY17 Department of Defense Budget Request

Enacted FY16 funding is used for comparisons unless otherwise noted.
The FY17 budget request for the Department of Defense (DOD) would provide $523.9 billion (0.4 percent increase) in discretionary base funding. The budget is intended to make strategic investments in areas identified as priorities, such as developing new operational concepts, adjusting to strategic changes, pioneering and dominating technology frontiers, reforming the defense enterprise, building the force of the future, and providing resources to the U.S. military force and their families.

The FY17 budget request would provide $6.7 billion to support defensive and offensive cyberspace  operations, capabilities, and cyber strategy that will strengthen national cyber defenses and increase options available in case of a cyber-attack. The budget also includes $1.8 million for space launch and would allocate $108 million to implement the Joint Interagency Combined Space Operations Center, which is intended to better align joint operations in space across the U.S. government.

In the FY17 budget proposal, the DOD is pursuing new technology development, operational concepts, and organizational constructs in several areas:

• $137 million to support DOD manufacturing innovation institutes, including one focused on flexible hybrid electronics;
• $112.1 billion to develop and procure the equipment, technology and capabilities for full-spectrum conflicts in the future;
• $71.8 billion for DOD’s research and development accounts;
• $45 million for the Defense Innovation Unit-Experimental (DIUx) program; and,
• $40 million for a pilot program with In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit venture capital firm – the pilot program will leverage a venture capital model to help find innovative solutions for some of DOD’s most challenging problems.

DOD Research, Development, Test, and Evaluation (RDT&E) would receive a total $71.4 billion (2.4 percent increase) in FY17. This includes $12.5 billion for Science and Technology (4.1 percent decrease), which is comprised of Basic Research, Applied Research and Advanced Technology Development. DOD Basic Research would receive $2.1 billion (9 percent decrease), Applied Research $4.8 billion (3.6 percent decrease) and Advanced Technology Development $5.6 billion (1.9 percent decrease).

FY17 budget request for DOD RDT&E by military branch (in millions of dollars, change from FY16 enacted)

Funding levels for select DOD research agencies in the FY17 budget include:

• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) — $3 billion (3.7 percent increase);
• Chemical and Biological Defense Programs — $885 million (9.6 percent decrease);
• Defense Threat Reduction Agency — $461.3 million (5.6 percent decrease);
• Defense Information Systems Agency — $251.9 million (20.1 percent increase); and,
• Defense Logistics Agency — $188.2 million (12.1 percent decrease).