Stephen Bryen
Defending America and America’s friends and allies is expensive. If you add up the price tag—not even including secret programs or the cost of U.S. intelligence—our current defense expenses stand at $875 billion per year. When you add the cost of intelligence, which is vast, the total cost of defense rises to about $1 trillion annually.
Despite these expenditures, the Ukraine War has exposed some dramatic inadequacies. We have learned that America’s arsenal as it stands today would be quickly depleted in any future sustained conflict. And we’ve learned that our allies are in far worse shape.
This raises the question of how we can spend so much on our national security but still have a military that seems so woefully underprepared for a major conflict. Consider, for instance, the remarkable fact that, unlike Israel, we have no national air defense system.
Historically speaking, the heyday of American defense production was during World War II. Vast civilian industries were converted to produce guns, artillery, tanks, and jeeps—and new plants were commissioned to build airplanes and ships.
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