Congress passes a record, $858 billion defense budget for 2023 as Ukraine fends off Russia’s discount drones with million-dollar rockets

(Originally published Dec. 16 in “What in the World“) The U.S. Senate passed the record $858 billion defense budget for 2023.

The latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act, which was approved last week by the U.S. House of Representatives, represents a 10% increase in U.S. military spending and includes $800 million in military aid to Ukraine and $10 billion over five years for weapons to Taiwan. The NDAA bill also earmarks $1 billion for stockpiling rare earth minerals essential to the sophisticated electronics running advanced U.S. weaponry but whose production is dominated by China.

The bill now goes to the desk of President Joe Biden, who has to decide whether to accept the concession Democrats made to Republicans to pass it: lifting Biden’s mandate that troops be vaccinated against Covid. The bill provides for $45 billion more in spending than he requested, including eight more F-35 fighter jets than the Pentagon wanted and even allows the Pentagon to adjust spending for inflation. To put that in perspective, the $45 billion that Congress larded on top of the NDAA is roughly equivalent to the entire 2023 budget for combating climate change.

Ukraine has intensified its strikes against Russian positions in eastern Luhansk province and in the city of Melitopol. It also said it knocked down most of 13 Iranian-made attack drones unleashed by Russia this week over Kyiv. Russia has reportedly started confining its drone attacks to nighttime, when Ukrainian forces can’t see well enough to shoot them down with machine guns and have to instead resort to expensive air-defense missiles. Iran’s Shahed drones cost just $20,000 each, but one missile fired by the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems, or Nasams, that the U.S. has donated to Ukraine cost over $1 million. Each missile for the Patriot batteries reportedly being sent to Ukraine costs upwards of $3 million. Clearly, Washington and Moscow aren’t exactly going Dutch for their war in Ukraine.

Germany has signed a deal to pay roughly $8.4 billion for 35 of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jets. Berlin aims to use the F-35s to replace aging Tornado fighters. The Luftwaffe’s F-35s should be flying in German skies by 2028.

And Vietnam is discussing the purchase of helicopters and drones from U.S. defense contractors, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Textron. Washington only lifted its arms embargo against Vietnam in 2016 and Vietnam has been a client of Russia’s defense industry. But the U.S. is courting its former foe as a potential linchpin in its effort to ring-fence China. China and Vietnam are historic enemies, having fought a border war in 1979. They also have conflicting claims in the South China Sea, where Vietnam has recently been mimicking China’s reclamation of land to bolster its claims.

North Korea can’t buy U.S. weaponry, but is making advances, nonetheless. On Thursday, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un presided over tests of a solid-fuel rocket engine. If perfected, solid-fuel rocket engines could make North Korea’s intercontinental ballistic missiles much more difficult to track, as they can be more mobile and launched more quickly than liquid-fueled rocket engines.