FY19 budget puts US ‘back to a position of primacy,’ Mattis says

ROME – A new budget agreement in Congress, coupled with the fiscal year 2019 budget, has given the Pentagon the ramp it needs to begin reshaping the U.S. military, defense secretary Jim Mattis believes.

“I am very confident that what the Congress has now done, and the president is going to allocate to us in the budget, is what we need to bring us back to a position of primacy,” Mattis said while traveling to Europe on Sunday. Defense News is traveling with the secretary.

When he took office, President Donald Trump pledged to “rebuild” America’s military, but his FY18 budget request was largely viewed by analysts as falling well short of that goal. Exacerbating that problem has been Congress’ inability to reach a budget deal through the first five months of the fiscal year.

Read the full article in Defense News.