Elaine McCusker
Executive Summary
As the defense budget approaches $1 trillion per year in the next decade, the public and policymakers should be prepared to discuss what constitutes national security and what national security actually costs.
The definition of national security, and thereby defense, has expanded to include numerous nondefense federal functions and missions. As a result, the Pentagon and its budget have become an “easy button” to address problems that are not part of the defense core mission and function. Some of these activities may seem small in the scheme of the overall budget, and many are worthy efforts. However, they artificially inflate the defense budget and distract from true defense priorities.
As national policymakers continue to insist on budget agreements that mandate parity between defense and nondefense accounts in discretionary spending, which are the appropriations other than entitlements and government debt service, they are looking at an inaccurate picture of that balance from the start. If the data underpinning this first assumption are incomplete, masked, or just plain wrong, all the assumptions and decisions that follow will be flawed.
The report divides the defense budget into three categories for examination: (1) military capability, direct support of military operations, and nonmilitary support to the force and the National Defense Strategy; (2) compensation and personnel support to the all-volunteer force; and (3) nondefense programs and activities.
Using these categories and a detailed examination of defense budget tables and justification documents, analysis reveals that the fiscal year 2023 defense budget request of $773 billion contains close to $109 billion in programs and activities that do not directly contribute to military capability.
This report is designed to shed light on the largest discretionary agency budget and inform important discussions about the definitions of national security and defense, the implications of decisions regarding what the Pentagon is asked to do and manage, and the potential ramifications of blurring domestic and defense roles and missions. There is no doubt such light will also bring differing views and interpretations about how spending is categorized and portrayed. This is good.
Defense, as the only mandatory and exclusive job of the federal government, should not be a priority; it should be the priority. Americans should understand what this priority costs, along with where current strategic and resourcing mismatches exist and what options should be considered to improve transparency, productivity, outcomes, and above all, security.
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