When President Trump was elected in late 2016, defense advocates readied for increased spending, confident his arrival would mean far larger budgets. But for nearly the past 18 months, that prediction has faced doubts and political gridlock, as Congress continued to rely on stopgap spending measures. A new spending bill signed into law last week makes those long-held expectations reality, laying groundwork to grow the defense budget by a historic $165 billion over the next two years. How did lawmakers...
