[Salon] Follow the Money

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Military intelligence for the rest of us,
from POGO's Mark Thompson.

July 16, 2025

Washington, DC

This week in The Bunker: The share of the defense budget going to contractors has soared since the 1990s; Pentagon wish lists return to Capitol Hill; the Army continues stonewalling when faced with unpleasant news; and more.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Numbers tell the story

The Bunker was never much for math as a student. But once he started covering the Pentagon during the Stone Age (technically, 1979), he figured out he’d better lube up his slide rule if he were to have any chance of keeping track of bangs for bucks. Armed next with calculators, and then with computers, charting U.S. military spending alongside long-ago defense-budget pros like Bill Kaufmann was always fascinating, and sometimes frustrating: How could this nation be spending so much on its military and getting so little in return?

Some things never change:

— >From 2020 to 2024, private corporations pocketed $2.4 trillion of the U.S. military’s $4.4 trillion discretionary budget — about 54%. That’s up from their 41% share during the 1990s. That represents a 32% hike.

— Over that same time span, the Pentagon’s Top 5 contractors got twice as much money as the entire U.S. government spent on diplomacy and international assistance.

— National-security spending — not including inflation — has nearly doubled since 2000, rising from $531 billion to just over $1 trillion.

— The number of defense-industry lobbyists pleading for bigger Pentagon budgets grew from 730 in 2020 to 950 in 2024, an increase of 30% (the nation’s population rose by 3% over that same period).

These stupefying statistics are contained in a July 8 report (PDF) from Brown University’s Costs of War project and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. “The current [U.S.] cover-the-globe strategy, which stresses a quest for military dominance and the ability to intervene anywhere on the globe in short order — has not served the U.S. well in this century,” authors William D. Hartung and Stephen N. Semler write (PDF). “The question is whether the U.S. can have a reasoned national debate on a new defense strategy that is not distorted by the influence of the wealthy weapons sector.”

The question answers itself: So long as the U.S. promotes Potemkin Pentagon policies that aim to do everything everywhere, it will continue to be a self-licking ice cream cone that can’t be sated.

BUT IT’S STILL NOT ENOUGH

The Pentagon rolls out its annual wish lists

No matter how much money the U.S. spends on national security — it’s slated to clear that once-impossible-but-now-inevitable trillion-dollar hurdle in 2026 — it’s never enough. That’s why the Pentagon’s latest flock of what it calls “unfunded priorities lists” landed as predictably as the swallows of Capistrano on Capitol Hill last week.

Widely-known as “wish lists” everywhere except inside the Pentagon and congressional offices — where the good-grift charade continues — the rosters have something for everyone. Except taxpayers. Originally voluntary, and rarely used, they became just another legally-required line item in the Pentagon budget after then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates tried to kill them.

The Pentagon’s wish lists for 2026 include nearly $50 billion in requests from the services and military commands responsible for various slices of the globe. According to Breaking Defense, the not-public-but-always-leaked lists include:

— $16 billion for the Air Force and its subordinate Space Force, including $4 billion for more missiles.

— $7.4 billion for the Navy, including $2.2 billion for more munitions and the factories needed to produce them, as well as $1.4 billion for a next-generation fighter even as uncertainty grows about its future.

— $4.3 billion for the Army, largely for more bullets of all kinds.

— $2.4 billion for the National Guard, much of it dedicated to more F-35 and F-15 fighters.

— Nearly $12 billion more for the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, including $4.4 billion for drones.

Lawmakers, seeing themselves as the true civilian stewards of the U.S. military — except when it comes to declaring war, of course — have simply mandated that the services produce such lists. They represent an end-run around the Defense Department’s civilian leadership, and bollix up whatever Pentagon efforts there are to build a balanced force. It’s a crude way to demonstrate their porcine-overlord status, and their fealty to home-state defense contractors.

ARMY ANSWERS ARE MIA

Families demand accountability for crash

Navy submariners have long taken pride in calling themselves “the silent service.” They may want to sue the Army for trademark infringement. The Army has been stiff-arming the families of the 67 people killed when an Army helicopter collided with an airliner over the Potomac River near the Pentagon last January, nearly six months ago.

“The Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and American Airlines have all engaged with us compassionately and constructively” following the crash, says a July 9 letter to Army Secretary Dan Driscoll signed by 168 surviving family members. “The Army’s approach contrasts sharply with the more collaborative stance taken by other organizations involved in this incident and raises serious questions about its commitment to transparency and accountability.” This isn’t the first time the Army has faced criticism for its lack of candor following this crash.

By most accounts, the smaller, more nimble helicopter should have avoided the lumbering American Eagle Flight 5342 coming in for a landing at Washington’s National Airport. But instead of acknowledging responsibility, the service has ducked. “Army officials have not had meaningful dialogue with families since a short briefing from Army aviation officials in the days after the collision, with the families noting the rare disclosures related to the incident seemed deliberately timed near holidays to minimize public attention,” Alex Horton reported in the Washington Post.

Big bureaucracies — and few are bigger than the U.S. Army with its nearly 500,000 soldiers — seem to have a pathological inability to own up when they screw up. The Bunker experienced this first-hand more than 40 years ago while reporting on a rash of Army helicopter crashes that killed nearly 250 U.S. troops. Only after press coverage did the Army convene an investigative panel which confirmed the Army’s negligence, was action finally taken to fix the problem.

Such stonewalling is an Army tradition that needs to stop.