She also faults Trump for using Pentagon money to build his wall on the border with Mexico. 'But not nearly enough to completely rebuild the military,' she says, 'as he claimed in his State of the Union address year.'Įaglen also says that despite the increases, Trump's souring on those who disagreed with him - including Defense Secretaries Mattis and Esper - was one of the big reasons Trump could not oversee the buildup of the Navy during his tenure, a buildup that would have reflected the focus on Asia and the growing threat from China. Mackenzie Eaglen of the American Enterprise Institute says the three-year 'Trump bump' defense increases were 'significant and helpful, particularly to restoring readiness.' That came through a National Defense Strategy crafted by Trump's first defense secretary, James Mattis. 'To its credit,' says Bowman, 'the Trump administration explicitly shifted the Pentagon's focus to great-power competition,' meaning China and Russia, no longer making anti-terrorism efforts a priority. 'Fifteen years of war and several years of budgetary dysfunction had left things frayed.'īrad Bowman, a defense analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, credits the Trump administration with prioritizing military research and development with the largest budget increase ever, saying the Pentagon recognized the growing technological prowess of China and Russia as well as the changing character of warfare. 'The increase in budgets, readiness levels and modernization efforts will be sort of like a 'mini Reagan period,' ' O'Hanlon says. Michael O'Hanlon, a defense analyst at the Brookings Institution, acknowledged he is no 'Trump fan,' seeing him as 'an extremely dangerous commander in chief' and citing his saber rattling and his threatening a war with North Korea.īut O'Hanlon sees Trump's overall legacy as relatively positive. 'The backlash was thankfully great, so hopefully our institutions have emerged undamaged.' 'Trump's willingness to use the military against legitimate protests in America year stands out as particularly significant and damaging,' says Carter Malkasian, a former senior Defense Department official. Months later, Esper was 'terminated' by Trump in a tweet. Trump soured on Esper after that, and their relationship never survived. Trump also tested civilian-military relations by urging that active-duty troops be used to quell street protests following the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police last year.ĭefense Secretary Mark Esper strongly and publicly opposed such a move, saying it was a job for local police and possibly the National Guard. 'Why get involved with this? It only hurts the military, hurts the rule of law and hurts the image of the U.S. 'They were not close calls on the merits,' O'Connell says.

Current commander in chief