The firehose of US Defense spending has just notched a new record. The latest military budget projections show the United States will soon cross the trillion dollar threshold in the coming year.(1) That’s more than all of our potential adversaries combined, with our NATO allies and most of the rest of the world thrown in. The US spends more than eight times what Russia spends—a country that has been at war for the last three years.(2) China, which we are constantly warned is our biggest global threat, spends about a third as much as the US on national defense.(3)
Anyone who follows Washington spending knows its been this way for decades. But the Trump administration is now telling us that American weapons are outdated and our fighting forces not up to par.(4) Incredible as that may seem given the scale of spending, it may well be true. But a reasonable taxpayer might ask, where has all the money gone?
The military budget is best understood by looking at categories of spending. The largest of these at roughly 39% of total expenditures are Maintenance and Operations. That includes everything from training and housing troops and moving them around to keeping ships and airplanes in good repair. Roughly 22% of the military budget goes to pensions, health care and personnel costs. Research, Development and Testing comes in at 15% of the budget. Around 7% goes to administrative overhead. That leaves a paltry 17% for the military’s core mission of buying the best weapons.(5) It’s worth noting that the trillion dollar defense budget doesn’t include the VA, which pays the human cost of past wars, or the Department of Energy which shares responsibility for America’s nuclear arsenal.
Clearly, developing and buying the best weapons at the best price is not the military’s top priority. Chinese and Russian arms now rival the best US technology at a fraction of the cost. In the 21st century, China boasts the world’s largest and most modern navy.(6) This presents a major problem for military planners worried about a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, which lies 100 miles off the coast of China, but 7000 miles of ocean from the US mainland. The Taiwanese themselves seem less concerned. For years they’ve held their military spending to an average of 2.5% of GDP compared to a current rate of 3.4% for the United States.(7)
To put the matter in even starker perspective, the United States hasn’t won a war since WWII. Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan all ended in stalemate if not outright defeat. Since the Russian-Ukraine War began in 2022, the U.S. has been Ukraine’s primary supplier of arms — well over $100 billion in support. That’s nearly as much as Russia’s entire military budget which has increased from $84 billion in 2023 to a projected $145 billion in 2026.(8) But all the expensive, high tech American weaponry hasn’t stopped the Russian army from slowly devouring Ukraine.
In fairness, President Trump has demanded that our NATO allies up their annual military spending.(9) Although the US rate currently stands at 3.4%, during periods of the Cold War it reached as high as 9%, with the 50 year average over 4%.(10) This figure has recently declined, but it remains substantially above our closest neighbors. Canada spends 1.3% of GDP on defense.(11) Mexico spends .7%. No country in South America spends above 2%. The United Kingdom stands at 2.1%.(12) Among NATO members no country approaches the United States per capita annual military expenditure of $2,239. Norway is closest at $1,754. Most NATO countries spend well under $1000 a year per capita on national defense.(13)
Equally worrisome for our national security is that despite generous enlistment bonuses and military pay that now approaches civilian rates, the US is no longer able to meet recruitment goals for any branch of the armed services.(14) For decades the backbone of the enlisted ranks of the US military has been working class whites, especially from the ‘heartland’–small communities and rural areas of the mid-west and south. But the changing demographics of the United States and the military’s embrace of DEI and Affirmative Action have created a culture that is increasingly hostile to young whites. Top military leadership have publicly stated that the US military was “too white”.(15) White recruits got the message.
President Trump has fired affirmative action hires like Biden’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, CQ Brown. He issued an Executive Order banning DEI in the military.(16) The result has been an upsurge in recruitment since Trump took office.(17)
Despite missing recruitment goals, the US military retains some very talented and patriotic members. They are heavily concentrated in the Officer Corps as engineers, pilots and intelligence officers and in the enlisted ranks as skilled technicians. But the reality is that America’s population is changing. According to the US Census, high levels of non-white immigration and a low white birthrate are pushing whites into minority status. The demographic majority flipped in the early 2000’s, when non-white births began to outnumber whites.(18) A demographic shift of this scale is unprecedented in the history of nations. No one really knows what it means. But one thing is certain — the American armed forces of the future are not going to look like the past.
Will a multicultural, multiracial military prove to be an effective fighting force? The experience of history offers no example. As far as we know, the great armies of the past were based on ethnic and national interests. From the Macedonians of Alexander the Great to the segregated US armies of WWI and WWII, the willingness of soldiers to sacrifice their lives for their country and each other has been based on a shared sense of nationality, culture, and ethnic cohesion.
The Trump administration is committed to pushing military spending higher. But can we save our civilization with money alone? Can more ships and planes and high tech armaments replace the loss of national identity and ethnic cohesion that were the hallmark of America’s military victories in the past?
NOTES
(1) “A $1 Trillion Defense Budget? Trump, Hegseth Say Its Happening,” Aaron Mehta, breakingdefense.com, April 7, 2025
(2) “The United States Spends More On Defense Than The Next Nine Countries Combined”, Peter G. Peterson Foundation, pgpf.org., April 22, 2024
(3) ibid
(4)The White House, “Fact Sheet: President Donald J. Trump Modernizes Defense Acquisition And Spurs Innovation In the Defense Industrial Base” April 9, 2025.
(5) “The United States Spends More On Defense than The Next Nine Countries Combined”, Peter G. Peterson Foundation, pgpf.org., April 22, 2024
(6) “Largest Navy’s In The World”, www.worldpopulationreivew.com
(7) ”Taiwan President Says The Defense Budget Will Exceed 3% of GDP in Military Overhaul”, Associated Press, May 20, 2025
(8) Wikipedia, “Military Budget of Russia”; “Russia Hikes 2025 Defense Budget” www.reuters.com September 30, 2024.
(9) “Trump Calls For Increase In NATO Spending That Could Drive Pentagon Budget Beyond $1 Trillion”. John Vandiver, Stars and Stripes, January 23, 2025
(10) Military Expenditure (% of GDP) Of The United States, World Bank.org
(11) ibid
(12) ibid
(13) “NATO Spending By Country”, www.worldpopulationreview.com
(14) “Military Recruiting Shortfalls—A Recurring Challenge”, Hoover Institution, January 28, 2025
(15) “Report: Too Many Whites, Men Lead US Military”, Pauline Jalinek, NBC News, March 7, 2011; “Report: US Air Force Reducing White Male Population In Officer Ranks”, Timonthy Frudd, American Military News, September 20, 2024
(16) “Trump Signs Orders Focused On Reshaping US Military”, www.bbc.com, January 27,2025
(17) “Military Recruitment Numbers Are Breaking Records Under Trump and Hegseth”, Matt Margolis, PJ Media, April 25, 2025.
(18) “Minority Babies (Barely) The Majority Among US Infants”, www.pewresearch.org, June 23, 2016
3 thoughts on “* Washington Letter: Are We Safe Yet? – David Stringer, Publisher”
For the US, our struggle for national survival is not a shooting war. Its a demographic and cultural war we are losing. The only question now is whether we have the political will to drive out the enemy within our own borders.
I’m a military history buff. These are hard truths that are going to upset people. But better to know what’s coming than whistle in the dark and pretend everything’s OK.
First of all, statements about the Russian military budget are conjecture since reporting by Russia about the state of the Russian economy is highly suspect. The same can be said about the “dollar value” of U.S. military contributions to Ukraine since this is highly variable depending on the accounting methodology used. As for Russia “winning” in Ukraine, here is another view from the Russian side: https://x.com/wartranslated/status/1913531476773122314.
China is a different story. China is an economic and manufacturing powerhouse with a GDP second only to the United States. Thanks in part to intellectual property and technology theft along with trade agreements that favor the People’s Republic, China has become a major adversary and military competitor to the United States.
As for defense spending in America, we are our own worst enemy. The United States Navy in particular has a poor track record in recent years when it comes to ship procurement. The new Littoral Combat Ship (LCS), called the “Little Crappy Ship” by some, has been an outright disaster with constant breakdowns and not being capable of performing the missions for which it was intended. According to ProPublica:
“Our findings echo the conclusions of a half-century of internal and external critiques of America’s process for building new weapons systems. The saga of the LCS is a vivid illustration of how Congress, the Pentagon and defense contractors can work in concert — and often against the good of the taxpayers and America’s security — to spawn what President Dwight D. Eisenhower described in his farewell address as the “military industrial complex.”
“There is a lot of money flowing through this vast ecosystem, and somehow the only thing all these people can agree on is more, more, more,” said Lyle Goldstein, a former professor at the U.S. Naval War College who is now investigating the costs of war at Brown University. “Unfortunately, I just think it might be in the nature of our system.”
https://www.propublica.org/article/how-navy-spent-billions-littoral-combat-ship
The LCS seems to be a make-work program for American ship builders with the main goal being to funnel taxpayer dollars to connected businesses. So far, 33 LCS ships have been commissioned with 8 of these “Little Crappy Ships” already decommissioned.
Another Navy ship building program that is in trouble is the new Constellation class frigate. According to Wikipedia: “On 2 April 2024, USNI News reported that the Constellation-class frigates were delayed by three years by issues concerning shipyard backlogs and a lack of skilled workers. A year later, in April 2025, it was reported that the first frigate of the class, Constellation, was only 10 percent complete. Furthermore, the design had yet to be finalized and approved.” The contract for the Constellation class frigates was awarded to Fincantieri Marinette Marine, an Italian ship building company, and is supposedly based on the existing Franco-Italian European multipurpose frigate (FREMM).
Meanwhile, South Korea has developed the Sejong the Great class destroyer that is similar to the successful U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke class destroyers but slightly larger with 32 more vertical launch missile tubes. The unit cost of the South Korean ship is approximately $923 million vs. the U.S. Navy Arleigh Burke at $1.843 billion each.
Likewise, the Japanese Navy has developed the Maya class destroyer which is also on par with the U.S. Arleigh Burke destroyers with a unit cost of around $1.2 billion.
So why are U.S. weapons programs so expensive? The American taxpayers are certainly not getting the most bang for their buck. It seems as if the so-called military industrial complex (really the POLITICAL industrial complex) views the American taxpayer as an endless source of money to be made with lucrative defense contracts and with no backlash for failing to fulfill contracts on time and within budget. Instead, military contractor are rewarded with more money when they fail to achieve their production targets.
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