Cuts to Advisory and Assistance Services in the FY 2026 Defense-Wide RDT&E Budget Request

Rounding out my analysis of proposed cuts to Advisory and Assistance (AA) services in the Department of Defense’s Fiscal Year 2026 Research, Development, Test and Evaluation (RDT&E) budget request, this week’s post summarizes those found in the documentation provided by the Defense Agencies or Fourth Estate. Readers interested in the military departments can refer to my posts on the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Air Force, and U.S. Space Force, respectively. As a final reminder, back in August I posted an article on similar cuts in AA services found in the Defense Procurement budget.  

These cuts will go into effect only if Congress passes a full year budget for 2026. If Congress passes one or more Continuing Resolutions instead, the cuts will remain on paper.

The data shows that only four of the more than thirty Defense Agencies propose cutting a total of $173.8M for AA services out of the DOD’s FY 2026 RDT&E budget request. The Defense Agencies that submitted the proposed cuts are the Defense Security Cooperation Agency (DSCA) (-$2.7M), the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) (-$46M), the Director, Operational Test and Evaluation (OTE) (-$45.4M), and The Joint Staff (TJS) (-$79.7M). The total budget of the programs slated for cuts is just over $1.0B, so the proposed cuts translate into a funding reduction of just over 17% of those budgets if the cuts are implemented.

The program that will see the biggest cut (-$76.7M) is for the Joint Training, Exercise, and Evaluation Program at The Joint Staff. It is followed by a proposed cut of $40.6M to the testing budget of OTE, and a cut of $26.7M from DTRA’s Counter Weapons of Mass Destruction Advanced Technology Development program.

Here is the full list of Fourth Estate programs facing proposed cuts in AA services.

Summing up, although the Defense Agencies individually receive much smaller RDT&E budgets than any of the military departments, the AA cuts proposed by Fourth Estate agencies are the highest in percentage terms at the DOD. In other words, the axe is poised to fall harder at these Defense Agencies than anyplace else, if Congress passes an FY 2026 budget. So, while industry partners providing AA services at the four Defense Agencies could feel the cuts the most, that pain will be limited from an industry-wide perspective.