Current discussions of the federal budget are consumed with the prospects for a government shutdown, as is to be expected given what’s at stake.
When it comes to the Pentagon budget, officials have spoken out about the impacts of a shutdown on U.S. military operations. Under legislation working its way through Congress, the troops would still be paid, and basic operations could continue. The issuing of new contracts and the start of new programs would likely cease, but this would only become a major issue if the shutdown dragged on for a long period of time.
The best likely outcome in the short-term would be a “continuing resolution” that keeps funds flowing until November 17th, at the same levels in place for this fiscal year (which ends on September 30th).
In the midst of this budgetary chaos, there has been little discussion of the size or content of the Pentagon budget proposed for next year. At $886 billion for the Pentagon and work on nuclear warheads at the Department of Energy, spending for military purposes will be at one of the highest levels since World War II, far higher than at the peaks of the Korean or Vietnam wars or the height of the Cold War. At this rate, the Pentagon budget could hit an astonishingi $1 trillion within the next few years.
What’s behind this unprecedented surge in Pentagon spending? There are two main drivers: an unrealistic, ‘’cover the globe” military strategy and the power and influence of the arms lobby. Neither of these factors is compatible with providing an effective defense of the United States and its allies at a reasonable cost.
The current National Defense Strategy, released in October 2022, is a model for how not to make choices. It calls for maintaining the capacity to win a war against Russia or China; intervene against regional powers like Iran and North Korea; and sustain a global interventionary capability that includes over 750 overseas military bases and counterterror operations in at least 85 nations. The strategy document references the potential impacts of non-military risks like climate change, but the priorities for spending are clearly being determined by an overly ambitious, misguided attempt to preserve global military dominance – a fool’s errand that will waste untold billions and increase the possibiliies of U.S. engagement in unnecessary conflicts.
The second driver of near record levels of Pentagon spending is the arms lobby – weapons contractors, Pentagon bureaucrats, and military spending boosters in Congress. Not only has this network regularly added tens of billions of dollars to the Pentagon’s official budget request in recent years, but it has prevented the Department of Defense from retiring weapons systems it says it doesn’t need, from the dysfunctional Littoral Combat Ship to numerous older generation aircraft. All of this activity is driven by pork barrel politics and corporate interests – profits for the big weapons makers and jobs and revenues in the states and districts of key members of Congress.
The bias towards special interests over the national interest is bolstered by an elaborate influence machine that includes tens of millions in campaign donations and lobbying expenditures; hundreds of lobbyists – many of them former Pentagon or Congressional officials; funding of sympathetic think tanks that make the case for ever more Pentagon spending; involvement of contractor personnel in government advisory bodies that help shape spending and strategy; and placement of jobs and contracts in the states and districts of members of Congress with the most influence over the size and shape of the Pentagon budget.
Needless to say, spending choices governed by parochial politics rarely align with any coherent defense strategy, a point that is occasionally acknowledged by Pentagon leaders themselves.
This is no way to construct a budget, or defend a country.
A more effective approach to defense would start with a more realistic view of the military challenges posed by Russia and China; greater reliance on allies to defend their own regions; abandoning the policy of “global reach” that calls for the ability to fight anywhere in the world on short notice; implementing a “deterrence only” nuclear strategy that includes eliminating Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), which increase the risk of an accidental nuclear war based on a false alarm; cutting the size of the armed forces, especially the Army, in line with a less interventionist strategy; and reducing the Pentagon’s spending on hundreds of thousands of private contract employees, many of whom do redundant tasks, or work that could be done better and more cheaply by civilian government employees. These changes would need to be accompanied by a greater emphasis on diplomacy rather than the overly militarized approach that characterizes current U.S. strategy.
Getting to a saner, more effective approach to defense will mean confronting the arms lobby: curbing campaign contributions to members of Congress with the hands on the Pentagon spending spigot; curbing the revolving door between government and the arms lobby; promoting alternative economic options for communities that are disproportionately dependent on weapons spending; and fostering a robust national debate on how much is enough to protect the United States without crowding out funding to address major non-millitary challenges from climate change, to outbreaks of disease, to economic inequality and racial injustice. Solving these larger problems will require major societal efforts that go far beyond shifting some funds from military to civilian purposes, but a change in federal priorities would be a step in the right direction.
So, even as Congress struggles to pass a budget and keep the government open, we need to set the stage for a thorough national conversation on how much is enough to defend the country, and what strategy is most likely to get us there. Otherwise we’ll soon be spending $1 trillion or more on the Pentagon with no guarantee that all that money will make us any safer, and a strong possibility that it will make matters worse.