The idea that we’re outspending our potential enemies by about 7- or 8-to-1 is preposterous. If that were so, you’d expect the U.S. military to be many times larger than any rival. This is not the case. Glance at the table below. It gives some common indicators of military strength (tanks, combat aircraft and the like).
The idea here is not to prescribe precisely what our defense policy should be. The object is more modest: to discredit the false — and dangerous — notion, promoted by many, that our military dominance is so overwhelming that we can afford further cuts and can take refuge in our superior technology. The truth is that any advantage in size has shrunk dramatically, and, if experts are to be believed, we lag in some critical new technologies, including cyberwarfare and artificial intelligence.
Defense no longer dominates the federal budget, as it once did. That distinction has fallen to health and retirement benefits. During the Cold War — from 1950 to 1990 — military outlays averaged 40 percent of federal spending and 7.4 percent of the economy’s output (gross domestic product). Now those figures are 15 percent and 3.13 percent, respectively, according to a recent CSIS report co- written by Harrison and Seamus P. Daniels.
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