Follow us on social

Shutterstock_640283920-scaled-e1641332560191

Another gratuitous defense budget highlights absurdity in US priorities

Throwing more billions of dollars at the Pentagon (that it didn’t even ask for) won’t do anything to vaccinate the world from COVID-19.

Analysis | Military Industrial Complex

While we were cursing the old year and steeling ourselves for the new, the status quo was replicating itself last week when President Biden signed a record-high $778 billion National Defense Authorization Act into law, preserving the new weapons programs of the Trump era and going well beyond even the administration’s initial request of $715 billion.

The U.S. defense industry has come to seem like part of the scenery — an unshakeable force on the global economic and political scene. A vote against the NDAA by a member of Congress, in terms of its actual prospects for effecting change in U.S. policy, remains purely symbolic. The inability of legislators to mount even a moderate challenge to the power of defense companies to determine U.S. policy should be absolutely chilling to anybody who believes that the most consequential problems of human society can be addressed by changing policy. For a body whose members receive tens of millions of dollars in contributions from the defense industry every year, there can be no deviation from this, the most well-funded bipartisan consensus.

The familiar refrain is that the defense industry is a jobs program — the only such program that consistently receives substantial federal funding, despite clear evidence that it is among the worst industries at creating jobs.

The consensus that places funding the military above any other policy priority exists independent from any assessment of actual defense needs, too. The United States has shown that it can make the most and the biggest planes and bombs, but it cannot or will not address a pandemic that — in its scope, effects, and the demands it places on U.S. healthcare facilities —resembles the possible consequences of a biological or chemical weapon. 

U.S. companies rapidly produced the COVID vaccine and treatments by putting public money toward a record jump in private profits. But without making the vaccine available for manufacture elsewhere in the world by breaking the patents held by these companies, the administration doomed its own efforts to control the pandemic and showed its unwillingness, or its inability, to prioritize basic security over private profit.

That’s a profound weakness in a world where other states have proven much more effective at coordinating their COVID responses to protect their populations and serve their political interests. The status quo of maxed-out defense spending as the priority for U.S. policymakers shortchanges American workers and the U.S.’s own interests for the sake of the bottom line.

It’s not too late to change course. Legislators taking a less destructive approach to future defense budgets can choose to cancel some of the unnecessary programs funded by this year’s budget. These include the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, a nearly $300 billion commitment to replace all land-based nuclear missiles in the United States. Experts agree that these weapons are a profound vulnerability for the United States, increasing the risk of nuclear war without contributing to the U.S.’s ability to defend itself. That money could vaccinate the entire world against COVID — six times.

Another year defined by the suffering and uncertainty of life during a global pandemic has ended. In 2022, we can lift the curse of COVID with even moderate shifts in U.S. spending priorities. Let’s make this the last year defined by a crisis we have the tools to prevent.


Image: zimmytws via shutterstock.com
Analysis | Military Industrial Complex
Eisenhower and Nasser
Top photo credit: President Eisenhower and Egyptian President Nasser on sidelines of UN General Assembly in Waldorf Astoria presidential suite, New York in 1960. (public domain)

If Israel goes it alone is it risking another 'Suez'?

Middle East

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to accelerate his war against Iran with direct, offensive assistance from Washington — at a moment when there is less support for it than ever among the American people.

Netanyahu must expect that Washington will be compelled to accommodate and, if necessary, implement Israel’s expansive war aims – notably the complete destruction of Iran’s nuclear program, its ballistic missile capabilities, and even regime change itself. U.S. assistance is widely considered to be critical to Israel’s success in this regard.

keep readingShow less
US Navy Taiwan Strait
TAIWAN STRAIT (August 23, 2019) – US Naval Officers scan the horizon from the bridge while standing watch, part of Commander, Amphibious Squadron 11, operating in the Indo-Pacific region to enhance interoperability with partners and serve as a ready-response force for any type of contingency. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Markus Castaneda)

Despite setbacks, trends still point to US foreign policy restraint

Military Industrial Complex

It’s been only a few days since Israel first struck Iranian nuclear and regime targets, but Washington’s remaining neoconservatives and long-time Iran hawks are already celebrating.

After more than a decade of calling for military action against Iran, they finally got their wish — sort of. The United States did not immediately join Israel’s campaign, but President Donald Trump acquiesced to Israel’s decision to use military force and has not meaningfully restrained Israel’s actions. For those hoping Trump would bring radical change to U.S. foreign policy, his failure to halt Israel’s preventative war is a disappointment and a betrayal of past promises.

keep readingShow less
iraqi protests iran israel
Top photo credit: Iraqi Shi'ite Muslims hold a cutout of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as they attend a protest against Israeli strikes on Iran, in Baghdad, Iraq, June 16, 2025. REUTERS/Ahmed Saad

Iraq on razor's edge between Iran and US interests in new war

Middle East

As Israeli jets and Iranian rockets streak across the Middle Eastern skies, Iraq finds itself caught squarely in the crossfire.

With regional titans clashing above its head, Iraq’s fragile and hard-won stability, painstakingly rebuilt over decades of conflict, now hangs precariously in the balance. Washington’s own tacit acknowledgement of Iraq’s vulnerable position was laid bare by its decision to partially evacuate embassy personnel in Iraq and allow military dependents to leave the region.

This withdrawal, prompted by intelligence indicating Israeli preparations for long-range strikes, highlighted that Iraq’s airspace would be an unwitting corridor for Israeli and Iranian operations.

Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani is now caught in a complicated bind, attempting to uphold Iraq’s security partnership with the United States while simultaneously facing intense domestic pressure from powerful, Iran-aligned Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) factions. These groups, emboldened by the Israel-Iran clash, have intensified their calls for American troop withdrawal and threaten renewed attacks against U.S. personnel, viewing them as legitimate targets and enablers of Israeli aggression.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.