Golden Dome, out-years and lots of missiles: Details of Trump’s $1.5T defense budget request

WASHINGTON — While the Trump administration is requesting $1.5 trillion in defense spending for fiscal 2027, that number will likely to trend downwards in the coming years based on projections revealed today by the Office of Management and Budget.

As part of the Trump administration’s broader FY27 budget request roll out, OMB broadly laid out plans to hike defense spending by budgeting $1.15 trillion in the base budget request and an additional $350 billion from a forthcoming reconciliation bill. This is the first time that base budget defense spending has hit the $1 trillion mark.

However, that $1.5 trillion figure could drop to $1.28 trillion in 2028, only rising to $1.35 trillion in 2031, if no additional reconciliation or supplemental dollars are approved, according to an OMB chart. Given that mid-term elections are coming up later this year and Democrats could reclaim one chamber, prospects of future reconciliation bills are dim, meaning that FY27 could simply be a one-year surge in funding. 

While those numbers are far from final and lawmakers are ultimately charged with passing bills, they do provide a peak into plans to boost investments at a time when the administration is moving out with a new National Defense Strategy that places an emphasis on the Western Hemisphere.

In the coming weeks, the Pentagon is expected to release in-depth budget justification documents detailing how it wants to funnel $1.5 trillion to specific programs next year. However, OMB and initial department documents broadly lay out the plan.

The Department of the Navy, comprising the Navy and Marine Corps, gets the largest share of the planned spending in FY27, with $150 billion — $126 billion in the budget request and another $24 billion planned in reconciliation. The Department of the Air Force, which includes both the Air and Space Forces, gets $101.2 billion, with $83.4 billion in the budget request and $17.6 billion in reconciliation. And the Army brings up the rear, sitting at $60.5 billion total, of which $36 billion is from the budget request and $24 billion is from reconciliation. 

Overall, the Pentagon wants to grow the size of its force next year from 1,321,916 active-duty troops in FY26 up to 1,342,900 — a 20,984 bump — while also spending $430 billion on operations and maintenance, $224 billion buying weapons and $1 billion on research and development. 

The Golden Dome missile shield would get $17.5 billion in FY27. However, that would be reliant on passing reconciliation, with a relatively scant $400 million for the program included in the base budget request.

US Navy Goes Big On Ships

The Navy is requesting $65.8 billion for shipbuilding alone for FY27, with roughly $60.2 billion coming from the base budget and another $5.6 billion from reconciliation funding, according to budget documents. That’s a steep hike from the FY26 enacted budget, which allocated $27.2 billion to shipbuilding. 

Furthermore, the service is seeking a total of $34.4 billion in aircraft procurement in FY27, with nearly $27 billion of those funds originating from the base budget, and another coming from $7.4 billion in reconciliation funding. The service is also seeking $140 million for its next-generation fighter jet, known as F/A-XX. That includes roughly $68.5 million from the base budget and $72 million from reconciliation funds. 

Likewise, the Navy is also seeking $22.6 billion in weapons procurement in FY27, with roughly $11.8 billion stemming from the base budget, coupled with roughly $10.9 billion in reconciliation funding. The Navy and the Marine Corps are requesting a total of nearly $2 billion in ammunition procurement in FY27. 

Altogether, the Department of the Navy is requesting more than $65 billion for Navy and Marine Corps personnel in this year’s budget request. 

Space Force Sees Big Increase

Earlier this week, the Space Force’s top officer said his service would get a big increase in the budget — and he wasn’t lying.

The budget documents released by OMB today show the Space Force with a top line, including both baseline and reconciliation funding, of a whopping $71.2 billion — a 77 percent overall increase from the $40 billion budgeted in FY26 (combining funding enacted by Congress and reconciliation funding added by DoD). 

The bulk of that funding comes from a doubling of the service’s FY26 research, development, test and evaluation (RDT&E) total budget, including enacted and reconciliation funding. The base budget RDT&E request for FY27 is $38.4 billion, plus another $2.3 billion in reconciliation funds. One of the biggest beneficiaries of the RDT&E increase is the Space-Based Moving Target Indicator program, slated at just over $1 billion in base and reconciliation funds combined. 

The procurement budget also gets a boost as well, with $9.6 billion requested in the base budget and another $9.4 billion in the reconciliation. Two programs are the chief beneficiaries of the reconciliation funding request, as pointed out by Mike Tierney, the space budget guru at the National Security Space Association: the Space-Based Air Moving Target Indicator, with $7.1 billion, and Proliferated Low Earth Orbit SATCOM at $1.6 billion.

Military personal funding also jumps up slightly going from $1.5 billion in FY26 to $1.8 billion in FY27. This accounts for a requested increase in personnel from 10,657 active forces to 13,200.

Space Force operations and maintenance bumps up to $9.3 billion in the baseline request, plus a small reconciliation add of $414 million. That’s an increase from FY26 level of $5.7 billion in baseline funds and about $5 million extra from reconciliation.

Air Force: R&D, Procurement Boosts

For its part, the Air Force’s R&D account is slated for a big jump. According to budget documents, the Trump administration is requesting roughly $74.2 billion, with just over $1 billion coming from reconciliation. The Air Force’s R&D enacted share in FY26 was approximately $57 billion, the documents say. (Some of those dollars could be pass-through spending, which is paid for through Air Force accounts but ultimately goes to agencies outside the Pentagon.) 

The money would go toward key Air Force development projects like the F-47 stealth fighter set for first flight in 2028, for which the documents show a roughly $5 billion request — an increase of about $1.5 billion over enacted FY26 levels. Funding for the troubled Sentinel ICBM would dip approximately $300 million from finalized FY26 levels for a total of $4.5 billion, while research for a next-gen tanker would appear to cease. The documents further show no research or procurement funds for the E-7 Wedgetail aircraft, likely extending a fight with lawmakers over the radar plane’s future.

The Air Force’s procurement account would similarly rise to roughly $62 billion, though that number may also include pass-through spending. A big driver appears to be missiles: In FY26, $6.3 billion total was enacted for procuring missiles, which would increase to a total of $11.4 billion in FY27.

Notably, the documents show the Air Force kickstarting procurement of Collaborative Combat Aircraft drone wingmen to the tune of nearly $1 billion, using base discretionary funding. The service is expected to make a production decision this summer for a first batch of CCA drones. Similarly, the documents show a $403 million request for procurement of the Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile, which may mean the fast-flying weapon is poised to enter production. 

Meanwhile, the Air Force is requesting $79.8 billion for operations and maintenance, with $5.8 billion coming from reconciliation. An additional $41.4 billion would be provided for the service’s military personnel account. Neither figures include the Air Force Reserve or National Guard. 

Army Sees Cuts To Manned Aviation, Bump For Missiles

The Army is seeking $54.7 billion procurement funding for FY27, made up of $35.9 billion in the base budget request and another $18.8 billion from reconciliation. Regarding RDT&E, the president has requested $18.76 million for the service with a little more than $5 billion of that total coming from reconciliation.

For O&M, the president seeks $73.6 billion with $9.47 billion from reconciliation. For Military Personnel funding, the president seeks $56.6 billion, all in discretionary funding. 

The Army’s procurement funding for aircraft saw nearly a $2 billion drop from last fiscal year’s enacted budget. Manned aviation took the biggest hit, with procurement for Apaches declining from $361.7 million to $1.5 million, procurement for Black Hawks declining from $913 million to $39.3 million from this year to last, and dollars for Chinooks declining from nearly $629 million to $210 million. However the High Altitude Detection and Exploitation System (HADES) program will see an influx in funding by nearly $100 million. 

Regarding armored vehicles, the president is looking to increase procurement for the Armored Multi Purpose Vehicle (AMPV) from 87 vehicles to 196, increasing procurement dollars from $665.3 million in last year’s enacted budget to $1.15 billion. The service is also looking to increase funding for its replacement to the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, known as the XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle from $0 to $546.9 million in the last year including 19 vehicles. 

For missile procurement, the service saw a jump from over $7 billion to $37 billion, mostly for seekers for the Precision Strike Missile seekers, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, HIMARS, PAC-3 Missile Segment Enhancer and the Typhoon Mid Range Capability.

Cyber Warfare

Getting a handle of the overall department IT budget is difficult, as it encompasses each of the service’s IT units plus the DoD Chief Information Officer. However, US Cyber Command is requesting about $2.1 billion, spread between operations and maintenance, procurement, and research and development. 

CYBERCOM’s request is all discretionary, meaning it did not appear to receive any reconciliation funds. It is requesting $303.7 million for operations and maintenance. For procurement, the command is requesting $103 million for “cyberspace operations,” which typically encompass hardware, software and licenses. Finally, it is asking for $1.7 billion in research and development funds.