SAN DIEGO — Service chiefs from the U.S. Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard speaking at the WEST Conference in San Diego on Wednesday defended the necessity for continued investment in their respective services while laying out the goals they will set to achieve with present and future infusions of cash.
In the wake of the 2025 One Big Beautiful Bill, which allotted roughly $150 billion for defense, Marine Corps Commandant Gen. Eric M. Smith said the financial windfall allowed the service the ability to afford the absolute necessities it needed to operate.
It was expensive, yes, but essential, he said.
“Everything costs what it costs,” Smith said. “I don’t want to pay four billion dollars for a ship, neither does my shipmate Daryl Caudle. But that’s what it costs to have pipefitters, steamfitters, welders, electricians build the ship.”
The 2026 defense budget is $839 billion, with President Donald Trump attempting to push forward a $1.5 trillion military budget for fiscal 2027.
Smith likened defense spending to the purchase of his personal Ford F-250 pickup truck.
He didn’t want to pay $70,000 for it, but he needed a car that could tow 38,000 pounds (the 2026 Ford F-250 can tow up to 23,000 pounds and boasts a maximum payload capacity of 4,246 pounds).
So he ponied up.
The money was about addressing the industrial base, according to Smith. That industrial base, though, wasn’t so much about “things,” as it was about people.
And incentivizing individuals to remain in the service — such as providing a livable wage and supporting their kids through college — costs money.
The current stakes are high, and for those who argue that the U.S. is spending too much on defense, if the U.S. came out on the wrong end of the conflict, detractors would be feeling differently, according to Smith.
“The day after you lose the next war, if you can ask yourself, what would I have to go back to the day before the war started, the answer is anything and everything,” Smith said.
Caudle too emphasized the might of the Navy’s industrial base — its people.
The chief of naval operations said that the budget allowed the Navy to fulfill necessary shipbuilding objectives, combat ordnance shortages and prioritize counter targeting abilities.
The buying power of the dollar was three times less than 30 years ago, for shipbuilding per ton, Caudle said. And shipyard workers were now making the same wage as those at a convenience store.
Shipyard workers used to make three times minimum wage when Caudle first joined the Navy, he said.
The current workforce is integral to achieving the shipbuilding objectives laid out by President Trump and Navy Secretary John Phelan, Caudle said.
Caudle went on to note that winning conflicts also requires deep magazines. Not every shot is going to be perfect, he added. Some will be duds and some might miss, but the U.S. needed deep magazines to overwhelm.
The Navy also needed to invest in counter-targeting, such as counter-unmanned aircraft systems designed to track and destroy drones.
The Commandant of the Coast Guard Adm. Kevin E. Lunday said that, despite the massive $25 billion investment the service received from the One Big Beautiful Bill, the Coast Guard still needs higher annual appropriations.
The service is a $20 billion organization funded at $13 billion, he said.
The One Big Beautiful Bill assigned money for the Coast Guard to purchase cutters, icebreakers and other materiel.
But the service, Lunday said, still needs more money for a vital resource: service members.
“A ship doesn’t become a cutter just because you paint it white and put the racing stripe on it,” Lunday said. “It becomes a cutter when we breathe life into it with the best young men and women from across our United States.”
On Wednesday, the U.S. Coast Guard completed the award of contracts for 11 Arctic security cutters as part of Trump’s directive to build out the service’s icebreaker fleet and bolster U.S. Arctic defense.
The first two will be delivered in 2028, Lunday said. But the 11 ships will need 1,300 Coast Guard service members to man them.
Funding will play a seminal part in that process.
The Coast Guard currently faces a lapse in appropriations as Congress deliberates budget approval for the Department of Homeland Security, which funds the service.
The Coast Guard will receive a 5% raise, or $12.7 billion, in discretionary funding for fiscal 2026 if the budget is approved.
Funding for the department is scheduled to end Friday.
Riley Ceder is a reporter at Military Times, where he covers breaking news, criminal justice, investigations, and cyber. He previously worked as an investigative practicum student at The Washington Post, where he contributed to the Abused by the Badge investigation.