THE PRICE OF WAR, NEGLECT, DOWNSIZING, AND A BROKEN PROCUREMENT SYSTEM: House Panel says $1 Trillion Needed to Reboot Military.

The committee is spearheading the $18-billion annual increase for more equipment, training and troops. But it is facing a tough political fight with the Senate and Democrats, who oppose busting defense spending caps and raiding the Islamic State war fund to pay for the hike.

A $1 trillion increase would require obliterating spending limits passed by Congress and doling out an average of an additional $100 billion each year on the military through 2027.

Such an increase appears highly unlikely on Capitol Hill where budget gridlock and stop-gap legislative solutions have become normal. It foreshadows the hard political fight ahead for Republican defense hawks who want more money for a military that they say is depleted, inexperienced and unready for war with major world powers such as Russia and China.

That’s a lot of money. But as Robert Heinlein noted, “The most expensive thing in the world is a second-best military establishment, good but not good enough to win.“