US Military Spending
The United
States has unquestionably been the most formidable military power in recent
years. Its spending levels, as noted earlier, is the principle determinant of
world military spending and is therefore worth looking at further.
Generally,
US military spending has been on the rise. Recent increases are attributed to
the so-called War on Terror and the Afghanistan and Iraq invasions, but it had
also been rising before that.
For
example, Christopher Hellman, an expert on military budget analysis notes in The Runaway Military Budget: An Analysis
, (Friends Committee on National Legislation, March 2006, no. 705,
p. 3) that military spending had been rising since at least 1998, if not
earlier.
The US
Department of Defense provides a breakdown of military spending since 2001:
Overall Spending
Defense budget vs war spending
Raw data
and sources
Year
|
National defense budget
($bn)
|
War Supplemental($bn)
|
Other
|
Total military spending
($bn)
|
2013
|
525
|
89
|
614
|
|
2012
|
531
|
115
|
646
|
|
2011
|
549
|
159
|
687
|
|
2010
|
528
|
162
|
1
|
691
|
2009
|
513
|
146
|
7
|
666
|
2008
|
479
|
187
|
666
|
|
2007
|
431
|
166
|
3
|
601
|
2006
|
410
|
116
|
8
|
534
|
2005
|
400
|
76
|
3
|
479
|
2004
|
377
|
91
|
468
|
|
2003
|
364
|
73
|
437
|
|
2002
|
328
|
17
|
345
|
|
2001
|
297
|
13
|
6
|
316
|
US Defense Spending 2001-2013
|
||||
Source: Growth in
U.S. Defense Spending Since 2001
, US
Department of Defense FY2013 Budget Request, February
2012.
Note: Numbers may not add up due
to rounding. Figures include Department of Defense spending (which includes
non-war supplemental appropriations for some years) and the costs of the wars
in Afghanistan and Iraq. Department of Energy’s nuclear weapons program are not
included and typically range from $21bn – $25bn each year. FY13 figure is the
requested budget. Other includes non-war supplemental appropriations, e.g.
funding needed in base budget for fuel costs, hurricane relief, and other disaster
relief.
The decline seen in later years was initially mostly due to Iraq war
reduction and redeployment to Afghanistan, followed by an attempt to scale down
Afghanistan operations, too. The baseline budget, however, showed continued
increase until only recently, albeit at a seemingly lower rate. In addition,
the effects of the global financial crisis has
started to be felt now.
Why are
the numbers quoted above for US spending so much higher than what has been
announced as the budget for the Department of Defense?
Unfortunately,
the budget numbers can be a bit confusing. For example, the Fiscal Year budget
requests for US military spending do not include combat figures (which are
supplemental requests that Congress approves separately). The budget for
nuclear weapons falls under the Department of Energy, and for the 2010 request,
was about $25 billion.
The cost of war (Iraq and Afghanistan) has been very significant
during George Bush’s presidency. Christopher Hellman and Travis Sharp also
discuss the US fiscal
year 2009 Pentagon spending request and note that “Congress has already approved
nearly $700 billion in supplemental funding for operations in Iraq and
Afghanistan and an additional $126 billion in FY'08 war funding is still
pending before the House and Senate.”
Furthermore,
other costs such as care for veterans, health care, military training/aid,
secret operations, may fall under other departments or be counted separately.
The frustration of confusing numbers seemed to hit a raw
nerve for the Center for Defense Information, concluding
"The articles that newspapers all over the country publish
today will be filled with [military spending] numbers to the first decimal
point; they will seem precise. Few of them will be accurate; many will be
incomplete, some will be both. Worse, few of us will be able to tell what
numbers are too high, which are too low, and which are so riddled with gimmicks
to make them lose real meaning."
— Winslow T. Wheeler, What Do the Pentagon’s Numbers Really Mean? The Chaos in
America’s Vast Security Budget, Center for Defense Information,
February 4, 2008
Nonetheless,
compared to the rest of the world, these numbers have long been described as
“staggering.”
In Context: US Military Spending Versus Rest Of The World
As A Pie Chart
The US alone accounts for over two-fifths (or just under
half) of the world’s spending:
US vs. others
· US military spending accounts for 41 percent, or over two-fifths (almost half)
of the world’s total military spending
·
US military spending is almost 5 times more than China, 10 times more than Russia, and 95
times more than Iran.
·
US military spending is some 63 times the spending on the six “rogue” states (Cuba, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Sudan and Syria) whose spending
amounts to just under $11 billion. (Libya has fallen, and Sudan has split into
two)
·
US spending is as much as than the next top 14 countries.
·
The United States and its strongest allies (the NATO countries,
Japan, South Korea and Australia) spend something in the region of $1.2
trillion on their militaries combined, representing over 70 percent of the
world’s total.
·
The six potential “enemies,” Russia, and China together account for
about $226 billion
Military spending in 2009 ($ Billions, and percent of total)
| Country | Dollars (billions) | % of total | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
Source: The 15 countries with the highest military expenditure in 2010, SIPRI, 2011
Note: Due to rounding, some percentages may be slightly off.
| |||
| United States |  711 | 41.0% | 1 |
| China | 143 | 8.2% | 2 |
| Russia | 71.9 | 4.1% | 3 |
| United Kingdom | 62.7 | 3.6% | 4 |
| France | 62.5 | 3.6% | 5 |
| Japan | 59.3 | 3.4% | 6 |
| Saudi Arabia | 48.5 | 2.8% | 7 |
| India | 46.8 | 2.7% | 8 |
| Germany | 46.7 | 2.7% | 9 |
| Brazil | 35.4 | 2.0% | 10 |
| Italy | 34.5 | 2.0% | 11 |
| South Korea | 30.8 | 1.8% | 12 |
| Australia | 26.7 | 1.5% | 13 |
| Canada | 24.7 | 1.4% | 14 |
| Turkey | 17.9 | 1.0% | 15 |
| Rest of world | 312.6 | 18.0% | |
| Global Total (not all countries shown): 1,735 | |||
Commenting on the earlier data, Chris Hellman, noted that when adjusted for inflation the request for 2007 together with that needed for nuclear weapons the 2007 spending requestexceeds the average amount spent by the Pentagon during the Cold War, for a military that is one-third smaller than it was just over a decade ago.
Generally, compared to Cold War levels, the amount of military
spending and expenditure in most nations has been reduced. For example, global
military spending declined from $1.2 trillion in 1985 to $809 billion in 1998,
though since 2005 has risen to over $1 trillion again. The United States’
spending, up to 2009 requests may have be reduced compared to the Cold War era
but is still close to
Cold War levels.
In Context: US Military Budget Vs. Other US Priorities
Supporters of America’s high military expenditure often argue
that using raw dollars is not a fair measure, but that instead it should be per
capita or as percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), and even then the
spending numbers miss out the fact that US provides global stability with its
high spending and allows other nations to avoid such high spending.
Although
some of the issues discussed here are about US spending, they are also relevant
to a number of other nations.
Should Spending Be Tied To GDP?
Chris Hellman argues that GDP is not an appropriate way to
measure necessary US military budget allocation:
"Linking military spending to the GDP is an argument
frequently made by supporters of higher military budgets. Comparing military
spending (or any other spending for that matter) to the GDP tells you how large
a burden such spending puts on the US economy, but it tells you nothing about
the burden a $440 billion military budget puts on U.S. taxpayers. Our economy
may be able to bear higher military spending, but the question today is whether
current military spending levels are necessary and whether these funds are
going towards the proper priorities. Further, such comparisons are only made
when the economy is healthy. It is unlikely that those arguing that military
spending should be a certain portion of GDP would continue to make this case if
the economy suddenly weakened, thus requiring dramatic cuts in the military."
— Chris Hellman, The Runaway Military Budget: An Analysis
, Friends Committee on National
Legislation, March 2006, no. 705, p. 3
Since Hellman wrote the above, there has
of course been the global financial crisis, that started from the
US and has spread. Hellman might be surprised to find that even in such times,
there are still serious proposals for pegging military spending to GDP. In
recent months some senators and representatives have introduced proposals and
bills calling for 4% of GDP to be guaranteed as the military budget (not
including “supplementals” for war).
As Travis Sharp summarizes, critics of tying the US military
budget to 4% of GDP fail in 3 ways:
1.
It would add $1.4 trillion to $1.7
trillion to deficits over the next decade and provide more defense funding than
is forecast to be necessary;
2.
It would determine budgets using rigid
formulas instead of realistic threat-based analysis, which would allow
procurement to drive strategy rather than the other way around; and
3.
It is politically unviable in the economic
and budgetary environment faced by the United States.
Sharp also adds that when the war supplemental for Iraq and
Afghanistan are considered, the US budget is already over the 4% mark. The
other concerns is that tying it to GDP eases the debate that would otherwise
occur on the issue:
"GDP is an important metric for determining
how much the United States couldafford
to spend on defense, but it provides no insight into how much the United States should spend. Defense planning is a matter of matching limited resources
to achieve carefully scrutinized and prioritized objectives. When there are
more threats, a nation spends more. When there are fewer threats, it spends
less. As threats evolve, funding should evolve along with them.…
Unfortunately, setting defense spending at four percent of
GDP would shield the Pentagon from careful scrutiny and curtail a much-needed
transparent national debate."
— Travis Sharp, Debate: Four Percent of Gross Domestic Product for
Defense?, Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, February
26, 2009 (Emphasis added)
With the change in presidency from George
Bush to Barack Obama, the US has signaled a desire to reform future spending
and already indicated significant changes for the FY 2010 defense budget.
For example, the US has indicated that it will cut some high-tech weapons that
are deemed as unnecessary or wasteful, and spend more on troops and reform
contracting practices and improve support for personnel, families and veterans.
There is predictable opposition from some
quarters arguing it will threaten jobs and weaken national security, even
though spending has been far more than necessary for over a decade. The Friends
Committee on National Legislation argues that the job loss from decreased military spending argument is
weak: “It is true that discontinuing weapons systems will cause job
loss in the short term, but unnecessary weapons manufacturing should not be
considered a jobs program (that would be like spending billions of dollars
digging holes), and research shows that these jobs can be successfully
transferred to other sectors.” In other words, this is unnecessary and wasted
labor (as well as wasted capital and wasted resources).
Furthermore, rather than
creating/sustaining jobs, some research suggests that increased military spending leads to job losses .
And well into 2010, SIPRI comments on the sustained high US military spending despite Obama’s
suggestion otherwise:
"How is it that US military spending, already far exceeding
that of any other country and at record real-terms levels since World War II,
is continuing to increase in the face of a dire economic crisis and a president
committed to a more multilateral foreign policy approach?
One factor remains the conflict in Afghanistan, to which
Obama is committed and where the US troop presence is increasing, even as the
conflict in Iraq winds down.
Another is that reducing the military budget can be like
turning round the proverbial supertanker—weapon programs have long lead times,
and may be hard to cancel. Members of the Congress may also be resistant to
terminating programmes bringing jobs to their states….
However, the fact that military expenditure
is continuing to increase even as other areas are cut suggests a clear
strategic choice: the
fundamental goal of ensuring continued US dominance across the spectrum of
military capabilities, for both conventional and ‘asymmetric’ warfare, has not
changed."
— Sam Perlo-Freeman, Olawale Ismail and Carina Solmirano, Military Expenditure
, Chapter 5, SPIRI Yearbook, June 2010,
p.3 (line breaks and emphasis added)
US High Military Spending Means Others Do
Not Have To?
Some argue that high US military spending allows other
nations to spend less. But this view seems to change the order of historical
events:
·
During the Cold War, high spending was common
around the world.
·
High spending was reduced by allies such
as various European and Asian countries as the Cold War ended (almost 2 decades
ago) not because other nations felt they would be protected by the US — a
dangerous foreign policy choice by any sovereign nation to rely so much on
others in this way — but because they perceived any global threat from the Cold
War had diminished and simply didn’t need such high spending any more;
globalization of trade was supposed to be ushered in and lead to a new era.
·
It was only the US as the remaining global
super power that maintained a high budget. Many argue this was to strengthen
its position as sole super power and that its “military industrial complex” was
able to convince their public to maintain it.
Past empires have throughout history have justified their
position as being good for the world. The US is no exception.
However, whether this global hegemony and
stability actually means positive stability, peace and prosperity for the entire world (or most of it) is subjective. That is, certainly the
hegemony at the time, and its allies would benefit from the stability, relative
peace and prosperity for themselves, but often ignored in this is whether the
policies pursued for theiradvantages breeds contempt elsewhere.
As the global peace index chart shown
earlier reveals, massive military spending has not led to a much global peace.
As noted in other parts of this site,
unfortunately more powerful countries have also pursued policies that have
contributed to more poverty, and at times even overthrown fledgling democracies in favor of
dictatorships or more malleable democracies. (Osama Bin Laden, for
example, was part of an enormous Islamic militancy encouraged and trained by
the US to help fight the Soviet Union. Of course, these extremists are all too
happy to take credit for fighting off the Soviets in Afghanistan, never acknowledging
that it would have been impossible without their so-called “great satan”
friend-turned-enemy!)
So the global good hegemon theory may help justify high
spending and even stability for a number of other countries, but it does not
necessarily apply to the whole world. To be fair, this criticism can also be a
bit simplistic especially if an empire finds itself against a competitor with
similar ambitions, that risks polarizing the world, and answers are likely
difficult to find.
But even for the large US economy, the
high military spending may not be sustainable in the long term. Noting trends
in military spending, SIPRI added that the massive increase in US military spending has been one of
the factors contributing to the deterioration of the US economy since 2001.
SIPRI continues that, “In addition to its direct impact of high military expenditure,
there are also indirect and more long-term effects. According to one study
taking these factors into account, the overall past and future costs until year
2016 to the USA for the war in Iraq have been estimated to $2.267 trillion.”
US Military Budget Vs. Other US Priorities
The peace lobby, the Friends Committee on National Legislation, calculates for Fiscal Year 2010 that the majority of US tax
payer’s money goes towards war:
As A Pie Chart
| 2010 (in billions of dollars) | 2010 percent of federal funds budget | |
|---|---|---|
Source: Where Do Our Income Tax Dollars Go?
 , Friends Committee on National Legislation, February 2012. Note, due to rounding, totals and percentages may not add up. Current military spending includes Pentagon budget, nuclear weapons and military-related programs throughout the budget. | ||
| Current Military Spending | 849 | 28% |
| Interest on Pentagon Debt | 177 | 6% |
| Costs of past wars | 140 | 5% |
| Total military percent | 1,166 | 39% |
| Health care | 593 | 20% |
| Responses to Poverty | 480 | 16% |
| Supporting the Economy | 262 | 9% |
| Interest on Public Debt | 253 | 8% |
| Federal Government Operations | 115 | 4% |
| Energy, Science, & Environment | 93 | 3% |
| Diplomacy, Development and War Prevention | 62 | 2% |
Furthermore,
“national defense” category of federal spending is typically just over half of
the United States discretionary budget (the money the President/Administration
and Congress have direct control over, and must decide and act to spend each
year. This is different to mandatory spending, the money that is spent in
compliance with existing laws, such as social security benefits, medicare,
paying the interest on the national debt and so on). For recent years here is
how military, education and health budgets (the top 3) have fared:
Discretionary budgets in $ (billions) and percentages
Year
|
Total ($)
|
Defense ($)
|
Defense (%)
|
Education ($)
|
Education (%)
|
Health ($)
|
Health (%)
|
997
|
541
|
54
|
61.9
|
6.2
|
52.7
|
5.3
|
|
930
|
481.4
|
51.8
|
58.6
|
6.3
|
52.3
|
5.6
|
|
873
|
460
|
52.7
|
56.8
|
6.5
|
53.1
|
6.1
|
|
840.5
|
438.8
|
52
|
58.4
|
6.9
|
51
|
6.1
|
|
820
|
421
|
51
|
60
|
7
|
51
|
6.2
|
|
782
|
399
|
51
|
55
|
7
|
49
|
6.3
|
|
767
|
396
|
51.6
|
52
|
6.8
|
49
|
6.4
|
|
Sources And Notes
·
The link for each year takes you to that year’s source
·
The defense budget is only the Pentagon request each Fiscal
Year. It does not include nuclear weapons programs from the Department of
Energy, or funding for wars such as Iraq and Afghanistan.
For those hoping the world can decrease
its military spending, SIPRI warns that “while the invasion [of Iraq] may have
served as warning to other states with weapons of mass destruction, it could
have the reverse effect in that some states may see an increase in arsenals as the only
way to prevent a forced regime change.”
In this new era, traditional military threats to the USA are fairly remote.
All of their enemies, former enemies
and even allies do not pose a military threat to the United States. For a while now, critics
of large military spending have pointed out that most likely forms of threat to
the United States would be through terrorist actions, rather than conventional
warfare, and that the spending is still geared towards Cold War-type scenarios
and other such conventional confrontations.
"[T]he
lion’s share of this money is not spent by the Pentagon on protecting American
citizens. It goes to supporting U.S. military activities, including
interventions, throughout the world. Were this budget and the organization it
finances called the “Military Department,” then attitudes might be quite
different. Americans are willing to pay for defense, but they would probably be
much less willing to spend billions of dollars if the money were labeled
“Foreign Military Operations.”
— The Billions For “Defense”
Jeopardize Our Safety, Center For Defense
Information, March 9, 2000
And, of course, this will come from American tax payer money.
Many studies and polls show that military
spending is one of the last things on the minds of American people.
But it is not just the U.S. military spending. In fact, as Jan
Oberg argues, western
militarism often overlaps with civilian functions affecting attitudes to
militarism in general. As a result, when revelations come out that some Western
militaries may have trained dictators and human rights violators, the
justification given may be surprising, which we look at in the next page.
Source :href="http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending">World
Military Spending</a>, <cite>Global Issues</cite>, Updated:
May 06, 2012</p>
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