Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

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US vs. Global Military Spending

How much does the U.S. spend on its military compared to other countries?  A whole lot.

Head on over to the Center’s site to see our latest analysis — including lots of charts and graphs.

Here’s a snippet of what you’ll find…

Though China is often cited as the country’s next great military adversary, U.S. military spending currently doubles that of all of the countries in Asia combined. In 2012, the U.S. consumed 41 percent of total global military spending. The U.S. also remained in the top 10 highest spending countries as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), one widespread measure of military spending, trailing behind countries such as Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, all of which have a significantly lower total military expenditure as well as a lower total GDP.

Senate Budget Signals Commitment to Ending War in Afghanistan Promptly

A little-noticed provision in the Senate budget resolution is an interesting example of setting political priorities through budgeting.

Due to the protracted showdown over sequestration and the federal budget, this year the House and Senate budget committees drafted budget resolutions before the White House did (usually the President’s budget comes first). These congressional budgets can be an important reflection of congressional priorities and sentiment – particularly this year, when there was no presidential budget from which to take cues.

For Fiscal Year 2014, the Senate’s budget provides $50 billion for the war in Afghanistan, through an account known as ‘Overseas Contingency Operations’ or OCO (which is separate from the base budget, since war is treated as a special contingency rather than a standard expenditure).

Several weeks later, the Obama administration’s budget requested a much larger  sum for FY 2014, asking for $88.5 billion as a placeholder until it settles on its withdrawal plans.

For 2015, the Senate halves the 2014 amount to $25 billion. After that, the Senate budget provides no war funding at all.. The budget resolution does clarify that reserve funding may be provided after 2015 as needed, but it seems that the preference is for any post-2015 war funding to come out of the base budget.

This is a telling provision, signaling the Senate’s rejection of the “endless war” that has become an American norm over the past decade. The fact that a special ‘contingency’ account for war has become a standard part of the defense budget shows that the federal budget takes war for granted – just like, unfortunately, much of the American public. Now, however, the Senate is using its budgetary priorities to indicate a welcome shift in political priorities.

For its part, the Republican-led House budget provided $90 billion in OCO funding for FY 2014 and $35 billion annually through FY 2023. The $35 billion is likely a placeholder, but it does suggest that the House is willing to continue to provide large sums for war funding for the foreseeable future.

It’s clear that the move to zero out OCO funding after 2015 reflects the Senate’s desire to end the war in Afghanistan, and its frustration with the lack of clear strategic objectives for our mission, as well as with the way that the war has been fought largely on ‘autopilot.’ Last year, the Senate voted 62-33 to accelerate the withdrawal from Afghanistan, with 13 Republicans voting aye, showing that it had the political will to support an end to the war. Since funding affects policy just as policy affects funding, the Senate’s latest action on the budget may show that there is now a will and a way to finally bring our involvement in Afghanistan to a close.

Let’s hope the White House is listening.

Initial Fiscal Year 2014 Defense Budget Analysis

The President’s fiscal year 2014 defense request contains a “placeholder” for war funding, but in fact, the entire budget request itself should be considered a placeholder given its timing and disregard for current law requiring reductions as part of the budget sequester.  To meet sequestration requirements, the President would have to propose an additional $52 billion in savings for fiscal year 2014.

The Obama administration has requested a base budget of $526.6 billion for fiscal year 2014.  This represents a mere $900 million decrease, or just under two tenths of a percentage point from the FY13 base budget approved by Congress prior to sequestration.  

Additionally, the administration has requested $88.5 billion for Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO), to continue to fight the war in Afghanistan.  However, the administration has noted that the number is only a placeholder pending a determination of troop levels, after which a final war request will be submitted.

These numbers do not include other forms of defense spending.  In addition to an initial $615.1 billion for the Pentagon’s base budget and the war in Afghanistan, the Administration has requested approximately $18 billion for nuclear weapons activities at Department of Energy and $7.4 billion for additional non-Pentagon defense related activities.

This brings total Pentagon defense related spending to approximately $640.5 billion, a nominal increase of $1.4 billion above the FY13 enacted level.

While the budget does contain some small reductions, the overall number presents little of the extreme fiscal austerity that Pentagon officials have warned about.  Additionally, this approach would seem to be in stark contrast to a recent speech given by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel at the National Defense University in which the new secretary proposed changes to adapt the Pentagon both to more constrained resources, and to a 21st century threat landscape.

In his first major policy address, Secretary Hagel called for reshaping Pentagon strategy and budgets to meet future challenges.  Hagel made clear his belief that by taking a closer look at the way our military is run, we can develop a stronger, safer strategy for the future.  “I want to focus on challenges, choices and opportunities,” said Hagel, “the challenges posed by a changing strategic landscape and new budget constraints; the choices we have in responding to these challenges, and the opportunities that exist to fundamentally reshape the defense enterprise to better reflect 21st century realities.”

This discrepancy between Hagel’s stated strategy and the President’s budget proposal highlights the Pentagon’s continued inability to match resources to strategy.  As the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan come to an end and an inevitable draw down begins to take hold, this lack of planning will leave the Pentagon unprepared for the highest priority threats.  

The changing nature of the current threat environment, in which unmanned drones and cyber attacks take precedence over nuclear weapons and heavy conventional weapons, will demand that the military create an agile and adaptable force that is better suited to 21st century threats.

Hagel said it himself, “Our military must continue to adapt in order to remain effective and relevant in the face of threats markedly different than those that shaped our defense institutions during the Cold War.”  It is time to begin to accept the realities of today so that the Pentagon can begin to move toward the future.

Early Budget Analysis: GTRI cut; big increase for nuclear weapons

For the second year in a row the Obama administration has slashed funding for a key program to keep America safe from the threat of nuclear terrorism. Meanwhile, funding for the National Nuclear Security Administration’s nuclear weapons programs continues to rise at an incredible rate.

As others have pointed out, the administration’s release today of its FY 2014 budget request for the Department of Defense and the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) was largely an exercise in political theater, as it completely ignores the budget caps mandated by sequestration. Nonetheless, the request is revealing in that it shows which defense programs the administration believes are a priority and those that it does not.

The administration requested $424.5 million for the Global Threat Reduction Initiative (GTRI), a decrease of $76.5 million (or 15%) below the pre-sequester FY 2013 appropriated level. GTRI is housed within NNSA’s Defense Nuclear Non-Proliferation Account and reduces and protects vulnerable nuclear and radiological materials located at civilian sites worldwide. Since 2009, GTRI has removed more than 1,400 kilograms of HEU and plutonium, enough for dozens of nuclear weapons. Last week NNSA announced the removal of the last remaining HEU from the Czech Republic.  

Yet beginning last year the administration began to significantly scale back funding for this vital program. This is especially puzzling given the emphasis the administration has (rightly) placed on keeping nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists.  As President Obama noted in a speech last December, “I continue to believe that nuclear terrorism remains one of the greatest threats to global security.  That’s why working to prevent nuclear terrorism is going to remain one of my top national security priorities as long as I have the privilege of being President of the United States.”

As NNSA has yet to release detailed budget information for its programs, it is unclear which activities within GTRI have been scaled back. The summary budget documents released today also do not provide a justification for the cut to GTRI.

Last year, the administration’s attempt to slash GTRI met with stiff resistance from Congress. Both the Senate and House Appropriations Committees increased funding for the program in their respective versions of the FY 2013 Energy and Water Appropriations bills.  

Elsewhere in the Defense Nuclear Non-Proliferation account, the budget request provides a slight increase for the Second Line of the Defense program, which installs radiation detectors and other equipment to ferret out illicit trafficking of weapons of mass destruction at border crossings, airports, and seaports across the globe. Recall that the administration’s FY 2013 budget request eviscerated the budget for this program pursuant to a strategic review.

The budget request also significantly reduces funding for the controversial Mixed Oxide (MOX) fuel program. This is good news. MOX, which aims to dispose of excess weapons-grade plutonium by mixing it with uranium and burning it in civilian reactors, has been plagued by cost overruns and schedule delays, and the Energy Department has yet to receive firm commitments from any utility to use the fuel. According to NNSA, “the administration will assess the feasibility of alternative plutonium disposition strategies, resulting in a slowdown of MOX Fuel Fabrication Facility construction in 2014.”

While funding for GTRI was reduced for the second year in a row, the administration’s budget request for NNSA nuclear weapons activities continues to explode. NNSA requested 7.87 billion for nuclear weapons sustainment and modernization programs, an increase of $311 million (or 4.1%) above the pre-sequester FY 2013 appropriated level. In reality, when accounting for the fact that NNSA moved $256 million in spending for nuclear counterterrorism and counterproliferation programs from weapons activities to defense nuclear nonproliferation, the increase actually exceeds 7%. This is an extraordinary plus-up given that most defense programs are either decreasing, flat-lining, or experiencing much slower rates of growth. It is also a testament to the President’s effort to make good on his pledge to significantly increase funding for nuclear modernization as part of his effort in 2010 to win Senate approval for New START.

Given that the FY 2014 budget request ignores sequestration, Congress must either act to obviate the defense spending reductions required by the Budget Control Act or make significant cuts below the budget request. Whatever the outcome, Congress must prioritize anti-nuclear terror programs, which address one of the most extreme and immediate threats to US security. As Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) put it last year, “While modernizing the nuclear weapons stockpile is important it cannot come at the expense of nonproliferation activities.”

Stay tuned for more information about the budget request in the coming days, including Laicie’s analysis of national defense spending, an assessment of the Pentagon’s request for new nuclear weapons delivery systems and missile defense, detailed funding charts for nuclear material security and nuclear weapons programs, and suggestions for where Congress might look for reductions within the bloated and unaffordable nuclear weapons budget.