Nearly $1 Trillion and Counting: Does America Spend Too Much on Its Military?

Harrison Kass

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Is the U.S. military becoming too expensive? The congressionally approved $95-million foreign aid package, while not technically a military expenditure, has renewed scrutiny on the U.S. military budget, prompting many to wonder: how much is too much?

To answer simply: yes, the United States spends too much on its military. Here’s why.

No other nation comes close

Consider the raw data. The United States spends nearly $900 billion per year on defense.

China, meanwhile, America’s greatest threat and the closest thing to a peer competitor, featuring the second most well-funded military on Earth, spends under $300 billion per year on defense.

And Russia, long advertised as America’s greatest threat, spends under $90 billion per year on defense—just one-tenth of the U.S. defense budget. So, of the more than 200 nations on Earth, no nation comes remotely close to the United States in terms of defense spending.