Michael O’Hanlon
Throughout Donald Trump’s second term, the President has talked about cutting the nation’s military budget in half if China and Russia would do the same.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has asked the military services to show how they might cut 8 percent annually from current budgets each over the next five years, perhaps to reduce the defense budget, but more likely to create substantial new military capabilities like an Iron Dome for the entire United States.
Practically, in today’s turbulent 2020s, the United States would do well to limit the growth of annual defense spending to a few tens of billions of dollars, even without an Iron Dome.
Military Budget Cuts Of Times Past
Such significant cuts in the military’s budget only occurred after the fall of the USSR, marking the end of the Cold War. Secretaries of Defense Dick Cheney, Les Aspin, and William Perry, along with careful congressional stewards of the armed forces, reduced the military from 2.2 million active-duty uniformed personnel to 1.4 million and gave weapons manufacturers a not-so-desired “procurement holiday.”
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