The United States’ defense contractors and their interests constantly invest in media misadventures to justify spending enormous amounts of money on an unaccountable military budget with no real threats to speak of. Oft of late, China is made out to be a bogey-man to ratchet up support for the spending of more and more tax money on the Pentagon and the parasitic defense contractors riding the US citizenry. But, is China a threat? Russia? Iran? Are these nations seeking to invade the homeland? Obviously not.
Let’s take a look at some of the numbers, for they point to another misadventure: out of control spending. 2024 US military expenditures were about 832 billion dollars. China’s were about a third of that at about 227 billion dollars. And then it tapers off quickly. The US out-spends the next 12 countries on military expenditures. And this is just the total defense budget, which doesn’t include foreign military aid, or defense appropriations for special offenses and wars the US is engaged in around the world. The US has more than 800 bases on foreign soil. China? Just one. So, is China a threat? Not even.
That it not to say that China isn’t capable of defending itself, a lesson the US could perhaps learn from China. China’s ‘defense’ budget is exactly that. Defense. So nearly all of China’s military budget is laser focusses on defending its homeland from invasion or attack by foreign hostile powers. An attack by any power on China would likely result in a humiliating defeat. As would any attack on the USA. The difference is the expenditure. China protects its homeland for a fraction of the cost of that the US spends to do the same.
The United States with 4% of the population of the world spends nearly as much as the entire rest of the world combined its military. And, according to the United Nations Global South Insights, the US spends 21 as much per capita as that of China. 21 times as much per person! Given, as of writing this article, on December 15th, 2024, the debt of the United States is $36.122 trillion. It’s becomes increasingly easy to see the threat excess military spending waste is to the United States.
We live in a time where economists are telling us the US is facing an ‘everything bubble.’1 The US is looking down the barrel of dedollarization. The enormous 36 trillion debt is a liability which could knock the US economy off its feet in a way the world itself may not be able to absorb. This is also in a context where Chinese ambassador Xie Feng, in January 2024, that “The earth is big enough for China and the US to develop respectively and prosper together.”
It’s time to walk back the 800+ US military bases around the world to a minimum the US needs to maintain a reasonably sized fleet. It’s time to cut Pentagon waste and retool defense contractors to rebuild the US infrastructure instead. Instead of spending money making bombs that blow up, let’s make investments in our people that blow up our economy to new heights. The time has come. We need to realize that the greatest threat facing the United States is excess spending on the military. End the empire and invest in the republic.
The Shared Future Institute 
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