U.S. Defense Spending Continues To Spiral Out of Control
How much the U.S. should allocate to the Department of Defense remains a contentious topic in the debate over government spending.
After a great deal of chaos, on March 23—about halfway through the fiscal year—Congress approved an appropriations bill worth $825 billion for defense in FY 2024 to avoid a partial government shutdown, less than the $842 billion request by the administration. Not long before, on March 11, President Joe Biden’s Administration submitted their request for FY 2025, which included $850 billion for defense.
And yet some still say those massive budgets are not enough. Sen. Roger Wicker (R–Miss.), for example, expressed support for a $1.4 trillion budget for defense at a Heritage Foundation event. “The U.S. should seek to win, not just manage, against China and Russia,” he said.
But a trillion-dollar defense budget doesn’t mean the U.S. will “win” against China or Russia. More spending does not automatically equate to higher quality defense—something that is often lost in this debate.
The U.S. spends more on the military than China, Russia, India, Saudi Arabia, United Kingdom, Germany, France, South Korea, Japan, and Ukraine combined. If the amount spent were directly proportional to quality of defense, national security wouldn’t be much of a concern right now.
“Many would reasonably argue that it is not all about quantity or about which country spends more, but about quality and what we get for the money—about what capabilities would allow our forces to sustain military advantages for the most relevant military scenarios of importance to the nation,” write Michael E. O’Hanlon and Alejandra Rocha at the Brookings Institution.
Eric Gomez, a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, argues that cutting away from the goal of military dominance—instead sharing the burden with allies—and scaling down personnel would help reduce military spending while still addressing the needs of modern warfare.
“Restraint is a more effective, less expensive grand strategy that better reflects the minuscule threat to the U.S. homeland and the ca
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