These programs are sustained because they deliver lucrative contracts and profits to the powerful arms manufacturers who design and build them. The arms budget is larded with huge pork-barrel weapons systems that in some cases do not work ( strategic missile defense) or have become vastly overpriced boondoggles (the F-35 aircraft). The Pentagon focuses on projecting imperial power abroad, sustaining a network of some 750 US bases and military outposts scattered across the globe, and fighting a forever war of US bombing and intervention in multiple countries. The inconvenient truth of US policy is that much of what passes for defense actually has little to do with defending the nation. US military interventions have often led to greater war and violence, not less, as the debacles in Iraq and Libya attest. If the United States wishes to protect global security and defend human rights, it should do so in accordance with international law and the structures and policies of the United Nations.
This reduction should be combined with a reformulation of US national security strategy: abandoning the pretense that Washington has the ability and authority to act as the world’s police force, and focusing instead on cooperative multilateral means of resolving international disputes and ameliorating the social, economic, and political conditions that give rise to conflict. The strategic goal should be to reduce dangers by ending military interventions and eliminating provocative programs that increase the risk of reciprocal buildups or aggressive responses by competitors. The best strategy for cutting the Pentagon budget is not to take a meat ax to the military but to focus on major weapons systems that are unnecessary and wasteful. Even after spending cuts, the United States would remain by far the greatest military power in the world, capable of defending against any conceivable military threat. According to the latest figures from the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, released in April, the US military budget is three times larger than that of China and twelve times greater than Russia’s. Most of the top ten military powers are US allies. “Hundreds of billions of dollars now directed to the military would have greater return if invested in diplomacy, humanitarian aid, global public health, sustainability initiatives, and basic research,” their letter stated.Īrms spending in the US is larger than that of the next ten countries combined, including both China and Russia, as the chart below illustrates. Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Mark Pocan (D-WI) urged the administration to slash unneeded military programs and devote the funds instead to serving human needs. In March, fifty members of the House of Representatives led by Reps. It remains a “ theft from the poor” as I wrote recently on this blog. The military budget continues to consume approximately half of all discretionary federal spending.
The recently announced federal budget for fiscal year 2022 proposes a whopping $753 billion for the Pentagon, a 1.6 per cent increase over already inflated spending levels.
The Biden administration has brought a refreshing agenda of decency and progressive change to Washington, but its proposals for military spending are disappointing.
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