As America’s forward-deployed military force, the United States Navy and its Marine Corps deal with daily provocations from the “seabed to the stars” across the globe.
Contending with an expanding Chinese navy in the South China Sea, responding to North Korea’s missile launches, staying on station in the Black Sea despite Russian harassment, these are familiar missions for sailors and Marines in the face of agitation in hot spots across, and above, the planet.
But what the sea service—or any other military branch—cannot contend with is partisan brinkmanship in Congress over their budgets.
With Republicans vowing to slash the debt limit and the House GOP responding to President Joe Biden’s $6.8 trillion Fiscal Year 2024 (FY24) budget request with a plan to revert funding to FY22 levels, partisan gridlock looms as another “malign actor” that threatens national security, Navy and Marine Corps top brass told the House Armed Forces Committee on April 28….