Before the Iran war began on February 28, 2026, the United States was spending $2.6 billion a day on defense.

 

Military spending – which makes up over 3 percent of our GDP – is the largest individual area of federal discretionary spending, accounting for about 13 percent of all federal spending in 2025.

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We spend more on our military – by far – than any other country on the planet. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), U.S. military spending represented 33 percent of all military expenditure worldwide in 2025. At $954 billion, the United States spent about 2.8 times as much as China, the world’s second-largest military spender.

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Nevertheless, Donald Trump, JD Vance, Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio and many other Republicans think we need to spend even more: For “the Good of our Country, especially in these very troubled and dangerous times,” Donald Trump posted on Truth Social, “our Military Budget for the year 2027 should not be $1 Trillion Dollars, but rather $1.5 Trillion Dollars.”​ That 50 percent increase would be, in inflation-adjusted terms, the largest defense budget ever – including what it was during World War II.

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… yet weirdly, somehow, as the war with Iran uncovered, we didn’t have enough munitions for just that one fight…. against an adversary that doesn’t have even close to the capabilities we supposedly do. The claim about American munitions stockpiles that the U.S. president made in March 2026 – that they were “unlimited” and “higher or better than ever,” and enough to fight “forever” – was a flat-out lie.

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On April 23, 2026, The New York Times reported that “the United States has burned through around 1,100 of its long-range stealth cruise missiles built for a war with China, close to the total number remaining in the U.S. stockpile. The military has fired off more than 1,000 Tomahawk cruise missiles, roughly ten times the number it currently buys each year. The Pentagon used more than 1,200 Patriot interceptor missiles in the war, at more than $4 million a pop, and more than 1,000 Precision Strike and ATACMS ground-based missiles, leaving inventories worrisomely low, according to internal Defense Department estimates and congressional officials.”

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The situation has worsened considerably since then. The Washington Post reported on August 1st that “the top U.S. general in Europe privately warned the Pentagon that he lacks sufficient naval forces to continue protecting Israel from incoming ballistic missiles, officials said, illustrating how the ongoing Iran war has imposed constraints on the military. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the head of U.S. European Command, sent written notification to senior Pentagon officials saying that without another Navy destroyer he will be forced to choose defense of the United States ‘homeland’ over that of Israel, said the officials, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the correspondence.”

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Five days later, The Atlantic’s Nancy A. Youssef and Jonathan Lemire reported this: “The United States is running out of missiles. After five months of war with Iran, stockpiles of long-range weapons are so low, current and former U.S. defense officials told us, that they don’t believe the U.S. has enough to combat a threat in Asia. The remaining supplies, depending on the munition, are as low as 20 percent of what the Pentagon would like to have in hand. And stores of sophisticated interceptor missiles, such as Patriots and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) missiles, are too depleted to give or sell the weapons to Ukraine or effectively defend against Iran’s launch of ballistic missiles. Even when troops see Iranian missiles approaching, they are forced to decide in a matter of seconds whether to expend a limited number of interceptors or hope for the best, the defense officials told us.”

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On August 13th, The Washington Post reported that “the U.S. military has lost at least 45 MQ-9 Reaper drones during the war with Iran, or roughly 25 percent of its fleet, according to three U.S. officials familiar with the matter. The Reaper is used to conduct surveillance and targeted strikes, and it can cost between $30 million and $50 million depending on the type of sensors and weapons it carries, according to the Air Force. The potential taxpayer cost of recent losses is over $1.3 billion for that weapon system alone.”

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While the United States has “deep inventories” of less advanced munitions, according to the Center for Strategic and International Studies, those came with trade-offs: “Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM), for example, has the same precision and explosive yield as Tomahawk or Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM). However, it is short-ranged and requires aircraft to overfly adversary territory, resulting in greater vulnerability and potentially greater losses.”​ Meaning, the warplanes that carry them have to get close to their target, which obviously puts them at far greater risk.

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Our diminished stockpile of weapons – particularly air-defense interceptors – is a key reason further escalation against Iran has been repeatedly taken off the table. In July, the Trump/Vance administration effectively acknowledged that constraint when President Trump halted a nearly two-week renewed bombing campaign against Iran.

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In truth, the defense industry has struggled for years to produce enough defense interceptors to protect against incoming missiles because of their complexity and production time. Just days into the war, The Wall Street Journal reported that the U.S. was straining its stockpiles by rapidly expending air-defense interceptors and other munitions in strikes against Iran. The Pentagon was racing to replenish stocks of THAAD, Patriot, and Standard Missile interceptors that were being used faster than they could be replaced.

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The munitions shortage came as no surprise within the Pentagon. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine and other military leaders had been sounding the alarm about the military’s shortage of air defense interceptors and other munition stockpiles for months – a concern obviously exacerbated by even the slightest possibility of an extended military campaign in the Middle East.

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In December 2024 – before the Trump/Vance administration even took office, President Joe Biden’s national security advisor Jake Sullivan publicly warned the incoming administration that, as it stood, the United States would run out of munitions in a war with China and urged them to pursue more sustained defense production.

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What in heck is going on here? Well, for one, it takes four times longer to complete the acquisition cycle today than it did in the 1970s. A report from the right-leaning Hudson Institute reveals that “decision time analysis for ships shows an increase from less than six months in the 1950s to four years in 2020 when considering a decision start time as the approval of ship characteristics, or as many as eight years now when considering a start time as initial planning efforts. The weapon system time-to-market metric (from contract award to Initial Operational Capability) held constant from 1950 to 1975 at around five years, and has more than doubled since then, across multiple system types. Finally, the full acquisition cycle for new-start systems has increased by a factor of four from 1950 to 2020.”

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In December 2025, The New York Times Editorial Board ran a series of articles called Overmatched. The series included a story that would be funny if it weren’t so terrifying: “In 2011, the Army decided to get its soldiers new pistols. The odyssey that followed included a 350-page list of technical specifications, years of testing and a protracted battle on Capitol Hill between competing gun makers. The Pentagon won’t complete delivery until 2027 at the earliest. The Army could have raised an infantryman from birth to within two years of enlistment age in the time it would have taken to get him a new handgun.”

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It certainly doesn’t help that, since the 1990s, the defense sector has consolidated to the point the number of defense prime contractors has shrunk from 51 to fewer than 10, forcing the Department of Defense (DoD) to increasingly rely on a small number of contractors for critical defense capabilities. Aerospace and defense prime contractors declined from 51 to 5; tactical missile suppliers declined from 13 to 3; fixed-wing aircraft suppliers declined from 8 to 3; and satellite suppliers from 8 to 4. According to the Pentagon, 90 percent of missiles come from just three sources.

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You can just imagine what this lack of competition does to costs. Incidentally, another major problem is DoD’s “cost-plus” contract, which reimburses expenses and just adds a negotiated profit. This not only removes any incentive to control expenses, but it also removes any pressure on these guys to deliver on time.

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There are really disturbing things about this reality, but one of the biggest is that Russia and China are just sitting by, licking their chops… because the very long-range missiles we would use against them – like say if China invaded Taiwan – are the very ones we’ve burned through in Iran.

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So, now let’s circle back to money. At the time The New York Times published its April 23rd article, they reported that “White House officials have refused to estimate the cost of the conflict so far, but two independent groups say the expense is staggering: between $28 billion and $35 billion, or just under $1 billion a day… In the first two days alone, defense officials have told lawmakers, the military used $5.6 billion of munitions.”

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Naturally, the Trump/Vance administration is likely severely underreporting the true costs. For example, on April 29th, Pentagon comptroller Jay Hurst said the cost of the war was $25 billion. On May 12, testifying right next to Pete Hegseth, he said the war had cost $29 billion. In late June, Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought told the House Appropriations Committee that we had spent $30 billion on war. Then in late July – three months after he testified alongside Jay Hurst – Secretary Pete said the war had cost $37.5 billion (meaning, we would have only spent $8.5 billion over ten weeks). Of course, no one from the Trump/Vance administration has provided any evidence for of any of this.

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One of the reasons we can tell they’re being dishonest – beyond the fact their lips are moving – is the fact that they are asking for a boatload of more money. Six days before OMB Director Vought claimed the Pentagon had spent $30 billion on the war, his office sent Congress a supplemental funding request for it containing $67.1 billion for the Defense Department. The request included $21 billion for munitions, $17.3 billion for operational costs and $12.1 billion for classified programs. Likewise, at the same time Pete was claiming the war had cost just $37.5 billion, he was practically begging the U.S. Senate to pass a $60 billion defense supplemental and a $1.15 trillion Pentagon budget. Why would they need that money so badly if their numbers were accurate? Seems to us they could make it just fine with the $150 billion the Pentagon got in the One Big Beautiful Bill.

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< In July, the House of Representatives passed a $1.15 trillion defense policy bill and $73 billion in additional funding for the Iran war. This will likely never become law because the Senate’s version of the defense policy bill has stalled, but in addition to the money in the House bills, the White House demanded another $350 billion through a reconciliation bill that can’t be filibustered by Democrats – but that too will never get through the Senate. >

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Since the September 11 attacks, Congress has given the Pentagon roughly $15 trillion for military spending.

 

… which begs the question: Where in the world does all the Pentagon money go?

 

It’s certainly not going toward protecting us from asymmetric warfare threats. Even though cyberattacks, cyber-terrorism and cyber-espionage pose an increasingly significant national security threat to America, the Trump/Vance administration has reduced the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency’s (CISA) workforce by roughly 1,000 people through layoffs, buyouts, resignations, contract cuts and eliminated positions; dismantled election security programs; retreated from supporting state and local governments in protecting against cyber threats; and cut funding for the Multi-State Information Sharing and Analysis Center, a core cyber threat sharing service that improves the overall cybersecurity posture of state, local, tribal, and territorial government organizations via coordination, collaboration, cooperation, and increased communication.

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Although biological weapons also pose an increasingly significant national security threat, the Trump/Vance administration fired dozens of employees from the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response, many of whom have top-secret clearance; worked with intelligence agencies on biodefense issues like weaponized pathogens; and were responsible for monitoring and protecting the U.S. from biological, chemical and nuclear threats.

 

So, again, where does the money go?

 

Well, we know a lot of it is wasted. Seriously wasted. Like just flush-it-down-the-toilet wasted. Sadly, the Pentagon’s wasteful spending and Congress’ irresponsibility when it comes to funding our defense are legendary.

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Throughout the years, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) has found things like this: “In 2014, Congress authorized the creation of the Iraq Train and Equip Fund (ITEF) to provide equipment and other assistance to Iraq’s security forces, including the Kurdistan Regional Government forces, to counter the expansion of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. As of December 2016, DoD had disbursed about $2 billion of the $2.3 billion Congress appropriated for ITEF in fiscal years 2015 and 2016 to purchase, for example, personal protective equipment, weapons, and vehicles for these forces.” 

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However – hear this – the Pentagon had no idea where many of these shipments ultimately landed. According to the GAO, “DoD could not fully account for ITEF-funded equipment transfers because of missing or incomplete transfer documentation. Without timely and accurate transit information, DoD could not ensure that the equipment had reached its intended destination, nor could program managers conduct effective oversight of ITEF-funded equipment.”

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In 2015, in what we're guessing was an effort to clean this mess up, consultants from management consulting firm McKinsey and Co. and members of the Defense Business Board – a group that provides senior leaders at the Department of Defense (DoD) independent advice on business management issues – found that DoD could save $125 billion over five years... an assertion that inherently implied there was $125 billion being wasted there.

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The report revealed the Pentagon was spending almost a quarter of its then $580 billion budget on overhead and operations (think human resources, accounting, logistics and property management), and that the agency was paying 1,014,000 contractors, civilians and uniformed personnel to fill administrative-type jobs in support of just 1.3 million active-duty troops, the fewest number of troops in 75 years.

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Even though the study was commissioned by President Obama’s Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work, Pentagon leaders ultimately buried the results, placing secrecy restrictions on it and removing it from its website …. which is a strange reaction because members of the Defense Business Board warned them about the possible ramifications from the start.

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The Washington Post reported that Kenneth Klepper, the former chief executive of Medco Health Solutions, told Robert Work that he was “about to turn on the light in a very dark room” and that “all the crap was going to float to the surface and stink the place up.” To which Work replied, “Do it.”

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After seeing the jarring results of the study, however, Work changed his tune, making excuses like, “We will never be as efficient as a commercial organization. We’re the largest bureaucracy in the world. There’s going to be some inherent inefficiencies in that” – a statement that was not encouraging for those of us who hope for a more efficient Defense Department.

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The final report included a “clear path” for savings that should be achieved not through civil servant or military personnel layoffs but by focusing on streamlining bureaucracy, offering early retirements, reducing the number of high-priced contractors, and embracing information technology (remember, this was 2015).

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Have things improved? Over TEN years later, The Department of Defense (DOD) remains on the Government Accountability Office High Risk List because of, among other things, persistent financial management vulnerabilities, weapons acquisition challenges, and a massive infrastructure maintenance backlog.

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Yep. Even though the DoD’s financial management practices have been on the GAO’s High-Risk List since 1995 – yes, you did the math right, that’s OVER 30 YEARS – it still has major issues: “DOD’s financial management is hampered by ineffective processes, aging systems, and inadequate controls; incomplete corrective action plans; and insufficient monitoring and reporting. Further, DOD has not taken effective steps to manage its interrelated fraud risks, including developing and implementing a robust fraud risk management program.”

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Another GAO report put it this way: “Although DoD’s spending makes up about half of the federal government’s discretionary spending, and its physical assets represent more than 70 percent of the federal government’s physical assets, it remains the only major agency that has never been able to accurately account for and report on its spending or physical assets. DOD’s financial management issues extend beyond financial reporting as long-standing control deficiencies adversely affect the economy, efficiency, and effectiveness of its operations.”

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John F. Sopko was the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) from 2012 to 2025 (he was appointed by President Obama and served under the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations before leaving at the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term).

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In a January 2025 guest essay for The New York Times, Mr. Sopko said that, in the absence of actual success on the ground, spending became the default measure of success in Afghanistan – which he acknowledges is true of most things in Washington, “where unspent allocations are tantamount to failure, leading to budget cuts.”

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He recounted a story where one general told him that he faced a challenge: “How to spend the remaining $1 billion from his annual budget in just over a month. Returning the money was not an option.” Another official his group spoke with said he “refused to cancel a multimillion-dollar building project that field commanders did not want, because the funding had to be spent.” But “the building was never used.”

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Mr. Sopko continued, “As one former U.S. military adviser told my office, the entire system became a self-licking ice cream cone: More money was always being spent to justify previous spending. Old staff departed, new staff arrived with ‘better’ ideas, and new iterations of the same old solutions were repeated, for years.”

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There are two other major problems beyond wasteful spending: 1) the status quo seems to be so entrenched in the old-school, traditional way of doing things – clinging to antiquated philosophies, concepts, assumptions, and tactics – that they have been slow to anticipate and adapt to new realities, and 2) many people in Washington have fought hard to preserve the military industrial base.

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Let’s start with that last one first. U.S. defense contractors spent a whopping $190,998,142 to lobby Congress in 2025. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft reports that over 80 percent of four-star generals and admirals who retired between 2018 and 2023 went on to work in the defense industry as executives, board members, advisors, consultants, lobbyists, or members of financial institutions that invest in the defense sector.

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In FY2025, federal defense agencies obligated approximately $491 billion in contracts, accounting for more than 60 percent of the roughly $793 billion in contract obligations across the entire federal government. Lockheed Martin alone reported $49.4 billion in net sales to the U.S. government in 2023, representing about 73 percent of the company’s total sales that year.  (incidentally, Lockheed Martin has spent $356,735,302 to lobby Congress since 1998).

 

Does this sound like a good idea to you? 

 

It’s pretty obvious who writes our national security strategy, and it ain’t the people we elect. Now, more than ever, we need to heed the brilliant piece of advice from five-star Army general and former President of the United States Dwight D. Eisenhower: “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

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Allowing defense lobbyists to write our national security strategy guarantees our approach will be all about super expensive bombers, helicopters, Super Hornets, Growlers, HIJENKS, B-21 Raiders, F-47/NGAD, Lightning IIs, LRHW Dark Eagles, PAC-3, F-15EX Eagle II, Block V subs, ICBMs, B-52s, MHTKs, M7 and M250 rifles – and a lot of other cool weapons that ensure the United States’ arsenal has all the latest, greatest hardware.

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But it also guarantees that creative, forward-thinking strategic planning is discouraged. After all, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, right?