President Donald Trump made a bold statement that, if implemented, would be revolutionary. He declared that the United States should not be spending a trillion dollars a year on its military and proposed cutting defence spending in half.
Trump also questioned the need to continue building nuclear weapons, arguing that the US already possesses enough to destroy the world “50 or 100 times over”. He expressed hope that both Russia and China would agree to similar reductions.
“There’s no reason for us to be building brand new nuclear weapons, we already have so many,” Trump said. “You could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over. And here we are building new nuclear weapons, and they’re building nuclear weapons.”
The financial markets reacted swiftly. Barron’s, a leading business publication, ran the headline: “Trump Sends Shockwave Through Defence Stocks, Says Military Spending Could Be Halved.” The following day, defence stocks suffered their biggest one-day drop in history. Just four days later, on 17 February, Newsweek reported that house prices in Washington, D.C., were falling amid concerns about Trump and Elon Musk’s efforts to shrink the federal workforce.
Trump’s Vision: Cutting Military Budgets in Half
Trump made these remarks while discussing upcoming talks with Russia and China. “One of the first meetings I want to have is with President Xi of China and President Putin of Russia,” he said. “I want to say, let’s cut our military budgets in half and spend the money on other things.”
This was music to my ears. On Inauguration Day, 20 January, I wrote that, based on Trump’s long-standing America First stance on foreign policy, I was hopeful he could become an anti-war president, much like Eisenhower.
I understand that many people despise Trump with a passion. But I hope they can set aside their hatred, at least in this instance, and support this initiative. Any peace-loving American should rally behind it.
A Difficult Battle Against Political and Corporate Interests
However, achieving this goal will be no easy feat. Both major US political parties have spent decades proving their patriotism by consistently increasing defence spending.
The United States currently spends more on its military than the next nine countries combined, more than double what Russia and China spend together. A significant portion of this expenditure amounts to little more than foreign aid.
Major defence contractors have also strategically spread their operations across numerous states and congressional districts, ensuring political support for their funding. The Department of Defence has similarly embedded itself within local economies, making cuts politically challenging.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, in an early draft of his famous farewell address, originally criticised what he termed the “military-industrial-congressional” complex. While he ultimately removed “congressional” from the final speech, his warning remained clear.
Eisenhower spoke of the “grave implications” of America’s “immense military establishment and a large arms industry”. His words echoed those of George Washington, who, in his own farewell address, cautioned that large standing armies are “inauspicious to liberty” and “particularly hostile to republican liberty.”
James Madison, one of the key authors of The Federalist Papers, warned that liberty would be “crushed between standing armies and perpetual taxes”. He argued that the best way to guard against military overreach was to limit the duration for which funding could be allocated.
The True Cost of a Vast Military
Beyond its immense financial burden, a powerful military often leads to an eagerness to use it. This was illustrated by former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who famously asked, “What’s the point of having this superb military… if we can’t use it?” She was widely criticised for this remark.
Trump would do well to consider a story from Evan Thomas’ book Ike’s Bluff:
“When Defence Secretary Neil McElroy warned him that further cuts would harm national security, Eisenhower acerbically replied, ‘If you go to any military installation in the world where the American flag is flying and tell the commander that Ike says he will give him an extra star for his shoulder if he cuts his budget, there’ll be such a rush to cut costs that you’ll have to get out of the way.’”
If the United States has any realistic hope of avoiding the economic collapse that has plagued other nations, drastic spending cuts are necessary across all federal departments and agencies. Otherwise, pensions, Social Security, and savings will rapidly lose their value in the face of rising inflation.
The question remains: will Trump follow through on his radical proposal, or will the entrenched military-industrial complex prove too powerful to challenge?
