In a world increasingly shaped by the hard edges of power, the most dangerous illusion is the belief that the United States can deter, compete, and win in future conflicts without major reinvestment in its military. Yet that is exactly the illusion perpetuated by President Trump’s proposed fiscal 2026 defense budget. Despite the rhetoric of rebuilding our armed forces, President Trump’s budget is smaller than that of his predecessor.

In March 2024, then-President Biden’s 2025 defense request totaled $849.8 billion—an increase of four percent over the previous year. That was not enough to restore readiness or recapitalize the Air Force’s geriatric aircraft inventory, but it at least acknowledged the rising tide of global threats. Compare that to President Trump’s 2026 defense request: $848.3 billion, a $1.5 billion reduction. Factor in three percent inflation, and that results in a $25.4 billion loss in buying power.

This budget is a cut rather than a path to peace through strength.

Much has been made of the additional $113 billion for defense contained in the Big Beautiful Bill Act, and while this cash injection undeniably helps accelerate some programs, much of it merely backfills long-term, unfunded requirements. The trouble is that by supplementing defense with a one-time plus-up, the measure does not solve the long-term failure to invest in Air Force and Space Force modernization. Only sustained annual increases in the base defense budget can address that.

Victory in future war demands more than slogans. It requires commitment, clarity, and sufficient funding. The Department of the Air Force—comprising the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Space Force—provides the two indispensable military forces upon which all U.S. joint force operations depend. Its ability to achieve and sustain air and space superiority underwrites the success of all other domains. No large-scale U.S. joint force operation can be conducted without some element of the Department of the Air Force.

Yet since 1990—35 years—the Air Force has had to conduct continuous combat operations with declining resources. That underfunding of the Air Force for over three decades has eroded combat capacity and capability and driven mounting risk. In the 20 years after 9/11, funding for the Army and Navy was greater than the Air Force—to the tune of $1.3 trillion more for the Army and nearly $1 trillion dollars more for the Navy. The result is the U.S. Air Force is now the oldest, the smallest, and least ready in its 78-year history.

Worse, the Department of the Air Force budget is on track to get even smaller over the next five years. In fiscal 2025, the budget calls for retiring 250 Air Force aircraft while buying only 91; the trend accelerates in fiscal 2026, with 340 aircraft retiring against only 76 new aircraft purchases.

Today’s Air Force has over 2,600 aircraft—about two-thirds of its total inventory—that first flew more than 50 years ago. Fighting capacity continues to shrink. The Air Force possesses less than half the numbers of fighters and bombers it had in 1991—the last time we fought a major regional conflict.

The Space Force, meanwhile, is a malnourished youngster. Just over five years old and charged with protecting critical satellites in a contested domain, it lacks the material and human resources to mature into the warfighting service it must become.

The recent Operation Midnight Hammer in which U.S. bombers struck three nuclear targets in Iran, prove that air and space superiority remain decisive. But it also raises a sobering question: Can we sustain those operations if a war were to drag on beyond a few weeks? The answer, based on current trends, is no.

The Department of the Air Force’s 2026 budget request is publicly listed as $301.1 billion, but this figure includes the congressional supplement from the Big Beautiful Bill labeled as "mandatory" that adds $38.6 billion, making the request appear larger. Excluding this supplement, the administration’s actual budget request for the Department stands at $249.6 billion. Of funds that actually go to the Air Force Department, that amount is overstated by over 20 percent. This is because of a lingering vestige of the Cold War known as “passthrough.” Some $51.5 billion passes through the Department of the Air Force and flows directly to other defense agencies outside the Air Force’s control. Removing that “passthrough” leaves $211.0 billion which is the factual amount of the 2026 budget request for the Department, and is $6.5 billion, or three percent less than what President Biden requested for 2025. Within this sum, the Air Force receives $184.9 billion and the Space Force $26.1 billion, representing decreases of one percent and nine percent, respectively, compared to the previous year’s budget request for these services before adjusting for inflation.

Air and space superiority are crucial capabilities that both deter war and shorten the time it takes to bring wars to an end. That is evident in what Israel and the United States achieved against Iran and is, perhaps, even more clear in what Russia has failed to achieve in its war against Ukraine.

Russia’s inability to establish air superiority against Ukraine in the early days of its invasion effort—and Ukraine’s inability to do likewise, due to its lack of weapons and restrictions to use those western weapons to greatest effect—demonstrate what happens without air and space superiority. Today, both sides are locked both into a grinding war of attrition.

In a potential conflict with China spanning the Indo-Pacific region, range, tempo, and information dominance—all attributes provided by air and space power—will decide the fight. America cannot afford to show up with a hollow aerospace force.

The solution is investment—sustained, robust, and focused on modernizing and equipping America’s Air Force and Space Force. We need to buy back readiness, replace obsolete aircraft and spacecraft, scale and deploy uninhabited aerial vehicles where they can contribute most effectively, grow our space architecture, and accelerate new Air Force and Space Force capabilities. That means establishing budgets and plans with real increases, not sleight of hand or one-time cash infusions.

Dramatically increasing investment in our Air Force and Space Force is a strategic necessity. In an era of rising authoritarianism and sharpening threats, the administration must put its money where its mouth is. Peace through strength cannot be a mere slogan. It requires consistent funding to reverse the decline of our Air Force and to build up the nascent capabilities of our Space Force.

That is why President Trump must treat the congressional plus-up in the 2026 Big Beautiful Bill not as a fleeting bonus, but as a down payment on a long-overdue course correction. Rather than a temporary surge, it should mark the beginning of a sustained campaign to rebuild the strength, scale, and technological superiority of the Department of the Air Force. The $38.6 billion in the 2026 supplemental funding should be used to establish a new floor for future Department of the Air Force defense budgets.

Beginning in fiscal year 2027, President Trump should propose a base defense budget that absorbs this supplemental funding as a permanent, structural increase. That means locking in the gains made possible by the FY26 plus-up—accelerated modernization, expanded production lines, expanded force capacity, and increased readiness—and using them as the benchmark for further growth. Future budgets must build from this enhanced baseline to close the gap between America’s strategic objectives and the tools required to achieve them.

Doing so would signal a clear break from the era of hollow rhetoric and declining U.S. aerospace power. It would demonstrate to allies and adversaries alike that America is serious about restoring peace through strength. And it would finally put an end to the dangerous illusion that the world’s greatest air and space power can compete and win in tomorrow’s wars while spending less than it did the year before.

President Trump has a historic opportunity to realign America’s defense trajectory. Making the FY26 congressional plus-up a permanent fixture of future defense budgets is the first and most essential step.