Especially amid the ongoing war against Iran, the United States is in a very critical position when it comes to its military. I previously addressed the coming dilemma regarding conscription and the concern for the future of the U.S. military stemming from the increasingly controversial and politicized involvement of the armed forces under President Trump.
However, a greater concern that will span many administrations is the cost of the United States’s defense because the scale at which the U.S. military consumes resources relative to all other government departments makes its strength an unsustainable expense.
The symptom of this problem is that, while the military budget is now expected to grow to $1.5 trillion by 2027, programs dedicated to welfare, education and scientific research are stagnating due to funding cuts enacted by the current administration. These cuts divert a great share of the budget away from civilian services toward military maintenance and rearmament, signaling anticipation of future interventions and force deployments.
Budget allocation defines the conundrum between the military and welfare. On one hand, the growing involvement of the United States across the world necessitates, at least in a basic, pragmatic sense, greater investment in military hardware, base construction, recruitment, training and intelligence. These areas represent the key factors that determine the effectiveness of a global doctrine like that of the United States.
On the other hand, the past roughly two decades since the Great Recession have exposed severe inequalities in the United States’s social welfare system. Compared with the sophisticated and well-developed systems of countries like Sweden or Finland, the United States lacks the financial support people need to afford education, health care or a stable retirement. Furthermore, the planned cuts to civilian welfare show that expanding the military budget is not an isolated phenomenon, but directly detrimental to the welfare programs that are declining in scale and funding to support the military.
Because both expenditures require increasingly greater resources to remain functional, the United States needs to decide between a competent military and functioning social services. This is especially the case given the finite limits of the annual budget and the growing national debt, as the amount of capital necessary to support both agendas does not realistically exist.
Welfare and military spending are, therefore, two areas of the budget at odds with each other.
The next move beyond this conundrum is a change many people have argued for, albeit for different reasons. The U.S. military, along with the entirety of U.S. foreign policy, must be reduced. The period when the United States was the sole and undisputed military superpower in the world is long gone and the money needed to maintain the vast array of military presences around the globe now, arguably more than ever, comes at the expense of investments needed to support the American people domestically.
There are key strategic areas where the United States maintains the need for a military presence, especially in relation to China. The presence of the U.S. Army and Navy plays a defining role as a deterrent for Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.
However, other places, such as the Middle East and Europe, will require fewer investments and a reduced U.S. presence, primarily due to changes in geopolitics and eroding ties. Under current geopolitical conditions, the Far East poses a much more direct and long-term geopolitical risk to U.S. foreign policy. Consequently, while Europe realistically poses no risk of escalation, a more concentrated military presence will be necessary in the Asia-Pacific region to deter China over the next decade.
This is the hard truth that the American political discourse is not ready for, but must quickly come to terms with. While both Democrats and Republicans are silently united in their desire for more military involvement, whether in relation to Ukraine or Iran, respectively, war hawks in either camp fail to realize that there is neither the capital nor the necessary alliances in place to maintain the full extent of the United States’s global presence.
This is the moment to carry into the mainstream the debate over military spending versus welfare spending. Midterm elections this year are a potential opportunity for new political identities to emerge from both parties, which means that there is an opportunity to prioritize welfare as a campaign rhetoric for 2028.
The ongoing conflict in Iran and the public discontent with war reflect the need to switch from total interventionism toward selective involvement, delegating certain involvement to regional allies and partners. And while this balance is challenging to achieve, improving domestic welfare by reducing the military budget and shifting responsibilities to regional allies is a necessary strategic shift for the realities of this century.
Deniz Gulay is a junior double-majoring in history and Russian.
Views expressed in the opinions pages represent the opinions of the columnists. The only piece that represents the view of the Pipe Dream Editorial Board is the staff editorial.