On Wednesday, in a letter, 40 Republican members of the House and Senate Armed Services committees were pressing President Joe Biden to reverse his previous decision of cutting defense spending below the rate of inflation. [1] It very much seems that the White House will not disappoint the GOP. According to a White House official, the President of the United States will request “one of the largest investments in national security in US history”. [2] The question is, should the US increase or decrease its military spending?
The US should decrease its spending because…
… it spends significantly more on military than any other country. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) database, in 2020, the US spent $778 billion on military. [3] To put that into context, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) spent $252 billion, India $72.9 billion, Russia $61.7 billion, the United Kingdom $59.2 billion, Saudi Arabia $57.5 billion, Germany $52.8 billion, France $52.7 billion, Japan $49.1 billion, South Korea $45.7 billion, Italy $28.9 billion, and Australia $27.5 billion. In other words, in 2020, the US spent more on its military than the following 11 countries together.
…its military is already playing in a different league than other militaries. Due to the significantly high spending, the US military is the most powerful. [4] The US is the de facto leader of the most powerful military alliance in the world, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. By operating approximately 750 military bases in more than 80 countries around the globe [6] its power projection – which can be defined “as the finite application of military power by national command authority to achieve discrete political ends outside the borders of the United States, its territories, and possessions.” [5] – cannot be matched by other countries.
…those resources could be used elsewhere. As the former President Dwight Eisenhower – who was a Republican – once said: “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.” [7] By decreasing the military expenditure, the federal government could use that money – among others – to expand Medicare and Medicaid, increase Social Security benefits, fight against climate change, help immigrants, solve the homelessness crisis, invest in education, or decrease its jaw-droppingly high national debt.
The US should increase its spending because…
…this is the only way to deter disruptor actors. The PRC, Russia, Iran, and North Korea are all interested in fundamentally changing the rules-based international order. If one thing was clearly demonstrated by the recent Russian invasion, it is that sanctions can increase the cost of aggression. However, sanctions on their own cannot and will not stop the aggressor. Today, the main reason why the countries mentioned above are not using force more often is because their military would suffer heavy losses in a war with the US. Without the US military, international laws and institutions would not be as effective as they are today, and the world would be much less safe.
…this is the global trend. After the fall of the Soviet Union, global military spending started to decrease significantly, and by 1998 it reached its lowest point. [8] However, due to the combination of the wars after 9/11, the reemergence of Russia, and the increasing great power competition between the PRC and the US, the world military spending rose almost to $2 trillion in 2020. The only way the US can retain its strategic advantage and hence, its dominant position on the world stage, is by keeping up with other countries in military spending.
…defense contractors. The US does not have a state-owned defense industry like the PRC or Russia. Companies – exempli gratia, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon Technologies, General Dynamics, BAE Systems – that provide weapons and other pieces of equipment to the military are getting the majority of their revenue from the government through contracts. If Washington were to decrease its military expenditure, then companies would have to adopt. Defense contractors would conduct layoffs and decrease their investment in research and development. These will have an enormous impact on the US military, making it less competitive in the long run.
Conclusion
As Albert Einstein once said, “So long as there are men, there will be wars.” The US military’s main objective is to protect the United States of America, but it also plays a unique role in upholding the international order based on international law. These ends cannot be achieved by the military if it does not have the proper means. Nevertheless, it does not mean Washington should give it unlimited money.
[1] https://thehill.com/policy/defense/599413-armed-services-gop-demand-biden-increase-defense-budget-for-fy-2023 [2] https://thehill.com/policy/defense/599599-biden-to-ask-for-813-billion-national-security-budget-report?utm_source=thehill&utm_medium=widgets&utm_campaign=es_recommended_content [3] https://sipri.org/sites/default/files/2021-04/fs_2104_milex_0.pdf [4] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2020/02/24/5-most-powerful-armies-world.html [5] https://media.defense.gov/2017/Dec/29/2001861965/-1/-1/0/T_GUNZINGER_POWER_PROJECTION.PDF [6] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/infographic-us-military-presence-around-the-world-interactive [7] https://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/robert-schlesinger/2011/09/30/the-origins-of-that-eisenhower-every-gun-that-is-made-quote [8] https://www.sipri.org/media/press-release/2021/world-military-spending-rises-almost-2-trillion-2020By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
