Nearly $1 Trillion and Counting: Does America Spend Too Much on Its Military?

Is the U.S. military becoming too expensive? The congressionally approved $95-million foreign aid package, while not technically a military expenditure, has renewed scrutiny on the U.S. military budget, prompting many to wonder: how much is too much?

To answer simply: yes, the United States spends too much on its military. Here’s why.

No other nation comes close

Consider the raw data. The United States spends nearly $900 billion per year on defense.

China, meanwhile, America’s greatest threat and the closest thing to a peer competitor, featuring the second most well-funded military on Earth, spends under $300 billion per year on defense.

And Russia, long advertised as America’s greatest threat, spends under $90 billion per year on defense—just one-tenth of the U.S. defense budget. So, of the more than 200 nations on Earth, no nation comes remotely close to the United States in terms of defense spending.

Granted, the United States has more ambitious strategic goals than most other nations, and has spent a generation as a lone hegemon, but to triple the nearest rival suggests a remarkable investment.

It’s still not enough

Despite spending nearly $1 trillion per year on the military, the United States is still incapable of dominating the world order from a military sense. Yes, the United States has the world’s most capable military, and yes, the United States is capable of deploying to multiple fronts simultaneously. But could the United States contain China in the Indo-Pacific, with brute force, if asked? Could the United States confront China and Russia simultaneously?

The United States likely lacks the firepower to truly impose its vision in a global sense; to reach such an objective would require more military funding, meaning that in a sense, America’s current military funding levels are insufficient. But because spending more would be irresponsible, and because the current spending levels are still insufficient, a drawback in spending is likely the most appropriate option.

Providential geography

The primary objective of any military should be to keep its citizens safe. And for the U.S. military to keep its citizens safe, very little effort would be needed. Why? Because the United States enjoys world history’s most providential geography. The United States itself is massive and resource-rich. The western and eastern borders each feature ocean buffers, putting multi-thousand-mile moats between the United States and its rivals.

Meanwhile, the northern and southern borders feature weak and friendly nations. Actually, the entire hemisphere is filled with weak and relatively friendly nations. And of course, the United States has more gun owners—by far—than any nation on Earth. In sum the United States is very safe; the United States’ territorial integrity is essentially unthreatened—Irrespective of our current military spending.

If the United States really wanted to improve its domestic safety, funding would be directed towards domestic buffers like the U.S. Coast Guard, the Transportation Security Administration, and U.S. Customs and Border Protection rather than aircraft carriers, Marine Expeditionary Units, and stealth bombers.  

Limited resources

Even the United States has limited resources; every dollar spent on the military is a dollar that is not being spent elsewhere. And increasingly, the United States has competing needs. Healthcare, for example, education, or combating a rampant drug crisis. Or the homelessness crisis. Infrastructure. Clean energy alternatives. Semiconductors. Anything really, just name it.

To put the $850-billion U.S. military budget in perspective on the domestic level, I live in a major metropolitan municipality.

Our yearly budget? $7 billion per year—which has proven insufficient to address some of our city’s most pressing problems, namely homelessness, crime, traffic enforcement, and funding the fire and police department. The list goes on. Just one of the $850 billion spent on the military would change our city’s circumstances, and the circumstances of several hundred thousand American citizens, drastically.

About the Author: Harrison Kass 

Harrison Kass is a defense and national security writer with over 1,000 total pieces on issues involving global affairs. An attorney, pilot, guitarist, and minor pro hockey player, Harrison joined the US Air Force as a Pilot Trainee but was medically discharged. Harrison holds a BA from Lake Forest College, a JD from the University of Oregon, and an MA from New York University. Harrison listens to Dokken.