To Win Wars, Cut the U.S. Defense Budget

“It is time to slash the United States defense budget. The money wasted on weapon systems designed to win last century’s wars is staggering, as are the opportunity costs.”

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the tank-shot heard around the world, especially by American defense hawks. President Joe Biden is now one of them, shocking his Democratic base. The White House requested $813.3 billion for national defense for the 2023 budget, the largest request in history. To put that big number into perspective, it is about 40,000 new high schools. It is more than Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product (GDP) by a whopping 18%. Were it seconds, it would be 25,763 years. Measured in miles, it is 95 roundtrips to Pluto at its farthest point from Earth. The United States spends more on defense than the next 11 biggest militaries combined, including Russia and China, and has been for years.

Defense spending is Washington’s cocaine habit. Some cheer for it. The obvious winners are Beltway Bandits like Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman, whose stocks have risen sharply since Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. On Capitol Hill, the war has become a cause célèbre for hawks, making it a key talking point for the upcoming midterm elections. 40 Republicans from the Senate and House Armed Services Committees urged President Biden to include a 5% increase above inflation for defense in his proposed 2023 budget. Democrats are seething. Less than a year after the United States’ shambolic withdrawal from Afghanistan that ended a 20-year war, President Biden is boosting the military budget by nearly $30 billion. The Left had hoped to shift money away from overseas wars toward domestic problems. However, even some Democrats are pushing for more defense spending in the face of an increasingly belligerent Russia and China.

But why does everyone assume that more money means more security?

Colossal defense budgets did not win American wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, where we struggled against Luddites fighting in flip-flops and AK-47s. Expensive tanks and fighter jets proved worthless in these wars, while the enemy used cheap, low-tech roadside bombs that American forces could never fully defeat. There should be a lesson here for American strategists, but they refuse to learn it. Instead, they increase the defense budget, the very definition of insanity. Rather than throw money at the problem, let’s solve it.