Follow us on social

Who gives 'Three Cheers for the Military-Industrial Complex'?

Who gives 'Three Cheers for the Military-Industrial Complex'?

Defense industry-funded think tanks like the Hudson Institute, apparently.

Analysis | Military Industrial Complex

America’s commitment to arm Israel and Ukraine while attempting to stockpile large quantities of weapons for a potential war with China is putting strains on America’s weapons manufacturing base, leading many influential policy makers and corporate officials to suggest measures that would super-size this nation’s already enormous military-industrial complex.

This argument is taken to the extreme in a new piece in The National Interest by Arthur Herman of the arms contractor-funded Hudson Institute, entitled “Three Cheers for the Military-Industrial Complex.” The article repeats many of the stock arguments of current advocates of higher Pentagon spending while throwing around misleading statistics and dubious assumptions along the way.

Myth number one routinely put forward by today’s proponents of throwing more money at the Pentagon is that the U.S. military has somehow been neglected over the past few decades, and that therefore we need to inject hundreds of billions of dollars in additional spending into the arms sector to restore our defenses to an acceptable level. This argument has appeared in a recent report by Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) on the need for a renewed policy of “peace through strength,” as well as in an analysis from a congressional commission charged with assessing the state of America’s defenses.

Both reports — as well as Herman’s article — are based on a false premise.

The Pentagon budget is rapidly spiraling towards $1 trillion per year, one of the highest levels since World War II. And once other military-related items are taken into account — from military aid and veterans’ affairs to the nation’s vast intelligence gathering network — the figure for total national security spending is more like $1.5 trillion. This comes after a decade in which the Pentagon received well over $6 trillion, roughly the same as was spent during the 10 years that included the peaks of the Iraq and Afghan wars.

The above-mentioned numbers are mind-boggling, but the main point is that recent and proposed spending is far more than enough to defend the United States and its allies, if it is spent more wisely and managed more effectively.

The bottom line is that the Pentagon needs more spending discipline, not more spending. For example, it is the only federal agency that is unable to pass an audit, a sad state of affairs that means that the department doesn’t even have an accurate count of how much equipment or spare parts it possesses, or in some cases even where these items are being stored.

Nor, according to former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, does the Pentagon know how many private contractors it employs, although rough estimates suggest that the number is well over half a million people. These management failures waste untold billions of dollars, year in and year out.

Another source of waste is the Pentagon’s penchant for building dysfunctional weapons systems at exorbitant prices. Cases in point are the F-35 combat aircraft and the Littoral Combat Ship, systems that are so riddled with flaws that they frequently can’t carry out basic functions. Both systems have required billions of dollars in expensive retrofits and have spent large chunks of time out of commission due to needed downtime for repairs and maintenance. The two systems are the poster children for what is wrong with the Pentagon’s system for developing and buying new weapons, from seeking extreme and overly complex performance characteristics to giving away the store to contractors in negotiations over price and performance.

In the meantime, the most expensive element of the Pentagon’s $2 trillion, three decades-long nuclear modernization plan, the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, has undergone cost growth of 81% in the past few years alone.

These weapons development fiascos do absolutely nothing to promote the defense of the United States, but they still manage to enrich the major weapons contractors charged with building them, whether or not they are effective or affordable. Absent reforms in the system that produces these dismal outcomes, simply giving the Pentagon more money is no guarantee of more defensive capability.

Poor management is one thing, but the real pressure to spend more on the military-industrial complex is America’s overly ambitious, outmoded view of the global role of the U.S. military. Current U.S. strategy calls for the ability to beat Russia or China in a conflict, project decisive force against adversaries like Iran and North Korea, quietly continue a global war on terrorism that involves dozens of overseas operations by U.S. forces every year, a massive program to build a new generation of nuclear weapons, and a surge of investment in high-tech, high-speed, pilotless weapons that incorporate artificial intelligence and can operate with little or no human input.

A truly realistic defense strategy would scale back current plans to be prepared to fight wars in any corner of the globe on short notice, pursue a deterrence-only nuclear strategy that would eliminate the need for a costly nuclear modernization plan, and limit military aid to nations engaged in defending themselves or holding off aggressive neighbors.

On the aid front this would mean continuing to arm Ukraine while exploring a diplomatic resolution of the conflict there. But it would involve cutting off assistance to Israel, whose brutal war in Gaza has gone far beyond any reasonable definition of defense, killing 40,000 people in an operation that has involved the commission of numerous war crimes which, according to a growing number of independent human rights and international law experts, may amount to genocide.

It is notable that many proponents of making America a garrison state have little to say about the non-military challenges we face, from climate change to epidemics to political and economic inequality, much less how to address these problems. And if they reference diplomacy at all, it is often as an adjunct to the use or threat of force, not a tool for preventing conflict in the first place.

Advocates like Herman need to step back and question the basic assumptions underpinning their calls for a new military buildup. First, we need to craft a viable strategy. Only then can we have an intelligent discussion about what size budget is required and what sort of manufacturing base is needed to sustain it. But as long as official Washington clings to the illusion that military buildups and arms racing are the magic key to peace, stability, and global dominance, we will waste large sums of scarce resources while increasing the risks of unnecessary conflict.


Wonder AI

Analysis | Military Industrial Complex
Kim Jong Un
Top photo credit: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the construction site of the Ragwon County Offshore Farm, North Korea July 13, 2025. KCNA via REUTERS

Kim Jong Un is nuking up and playing hard to get

Asia-Pacific

President Donald Trump’s second term has so far been a series of “shock and awe” campaigns both at home and abroad. But so far has left North Korea untouched even as it arms for the future.

The president dramatically broke with precedent during his first term, holding two summits as well as a brief meeting at the Demilitarized Zone with the North’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un. Unfortunately, engagement crashed and burned in Hanoi. The DPRK then pulled back, essentially severing contact with both the U.S. and South Korea.

keep readingShow less
Why new CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper is as wrong as the old one
Top photo credit: U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Brad Cooper speaks to guests at the IISS Manama Dialogue in Manama, Bahrain, November 17, 2023. REUTERS/Hamad I Mohammed

Why new CENTCOM chief Brad Cooper is as wrong as the old one

Middle East

If accounts of President Donald Trump’s decision to strike Iranian nuclear facilities this past month are to be believed, the president’s initial impulse to stay out of the Israel-Iran conflict failed to survive the prodding of hawkish advisers, chiefly U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) chief Michael Kurilla.

With Kurilla, an Iran hawk and staunch ally of both the Israeli government and erstwhile national security adviser Mike Waltz, set to leave office this summer, advocates of a more restrained foreign policy may understandably feel like they are out of the woods.

keep readingShow less
Putin Trump
Top photo credit: Vladimir Putin (Office of the President of the Russian Federation) and Donald Trump (US Southern Command photo)

How Trump's 50-day deadline threat against Putin will backfire

Europe

In the first six months of his second term, President Donald Trump has demonstrated his love for three things: deals, tariffs, and ultimatums.

He got to combine these passions during his Oval Office meeting with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday. Only moments after the two leaders announced a new plan to get military aid to Ukraine, Trump issued an ominous 50-day deadline for Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a ceasefire. “We're going to be doing secondary tariffs if we don't have a deal within 50 days,” Trump told the assembled reporters.

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.