Latest news with #defenseBudget
The Guardian
08-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Pentagon provided $2.4tn to private arms firms to ‘fund war and weapons', report finds
A new study of defense department spending previewed exclusively to the Guardian shows that most of the Pentagon's discretionary spending from 2020 to 2024 has gone to outside military contractors, providing a $2.4tn boon in public funds to private firms in what was described as a 'continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing'. The report from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Costs of War project at Brown University said that the Trump administration's new Pentagon budget will push annual US military spending past the $1tn mark. That will deliver a projected windfall of more than half a trillion dollars that will be shared among top arms firms such as Lockheed Martin and Raytheon as well as a growing military tech sector with close allies in the administration such as JD Vance, the report said. The report is compiled of statistics of Pentagon spending and contracts from 2020 to 2024, during which time the top five Pentagon contractors (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman) received $771bn in contract awards. Overall, private firms received approximately 54% of the department's discretionary spending of $4.4tn over that period. Taking into account supplemental funding for the Pentagon passed by Congress under Trump's 'One Big Beautiful Bill Act', the report said, the US military budget will have nearly doubled this century, increasing 99% since 2000. The rapid growth in military spending that began under the Bush administration's post-9/11 and the 'global war on terror' has now been continued on spending to counter China as the US's main rival in the 21st century, as well record foreign arms transfers to Israel and Ukraine. 'The US withdrawal from Afghanistan in September 2021 did not result in a peace dividend,' the authors of the report wrote. 'Instead, President Biden requested, and Congress authorized, even higher annual budgets for the Pentagon, and President Trump is continuing that same trajectory of escalating military budgets.' That contradicts early indications from Trump in February that he could cut military spending in half, adding that he would tell China and Russia that 'there's no reason for us to be spending almost $1tn on the military … and I'm going to say we can spend this on other things'. Instead, the spending bill pushed by Trump through Congress included a $157bn spending boost for the Pentagon. The growth in spending will increasingly benefit firms in the 'military tech' sector who represent tech companies like SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril, the report said, that are 'deeply embedded in the Trump administration, which should give it an upper hand in the budget battles to come'. 'High Pentagon budgets are often justified because the funds are 'for the troops',' said William D Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an author of the report. 'But as this paper shows, the majority of the department's budget goes to corporations, money that has as much to do with special interest lobbying as it does with any rational defense planning. Much of this funding has been wasted on dysfunctional or overpriced weapons systems and extravagant compensation packages.' 'These figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing,' said Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War project. Calculated for inflation, the military spending dwarfs an approximate $356bn that Congress had appropriated for US diplomacy, development and humanitarian aid. The Trump administration has continued to slash money spent on aid. Last month, the Guardian revealed that a White House review of grants to the state department recommended a near total cut on democracy promotion programs. The Guardian has contacted the Pentagon for comment.
The Guardian
08-07-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Pentagon provided $2.4tn to private arms firms to ‘fund war and weapons', report finds
A new study of defense department spending previewed exclusively to the Guardian shows that most of the Pentagon's discretionary spending from 2020-2024 has gone to outside military contractors, providing a $2.4tn boon in public funds to private firms in what was described as a 'continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing'. The report from the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and Costs of War program at Brown University said that the Trump administration's new Pentagon budget will push annual US military spending past the $1tn mark. That will deliver a projected windfall of more than half a trillion dollars that will be shared among top arms firms like Lockheed Martin and Raytheon as well as a growing military tech sector with close allies in the administration like Vice-President JD Vance, the report said. The report is compiled of statistics of Pentagon spending and contracts from 2020-2024, during which time the top five Pentagon contractors (Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman) received $771bn in contract awards. Overall, private firms received approximately 54% of the department's discretionary spending of $4.4tn over that period. Taking into account supplemental funding for the Pentagon passed by Congress under Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the report said, the US military budget will have nearly doubled this century, increasing 99% since 2000. The rapid growth in military spending that began under the Bush administration's post-9/11 and the Global War on Terror has now been continued on spending to counter China as the US's main rival in the 21st century, as well record foreign arms transfers to Israel and Ukraine. 'The US withdrawal from Afghanistan in September 2021 did not result in a peace dividend,' the authors of the report wrote. 'Instead, President Biden requested, and Congress authorized, even higher annual budgets for the Pentagon, and President Trump is continuing that same trajectory of escalating military budgets.' That contradicts early indications from Trump in February that he could cut military spending in half, adding that he would tell China and Russia that 'there's no reason for us to be spending almost $1 trillion on the military … and I'm going to say we can spend this on other things.' Instead, the spending bill pushed by Trump through Congress included a $157bn spending boost for the Pentagon. The growth in spending will increasingly benefit firms in the 'military tech' sector who represent tech companies like SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril, the report said, that are 'deeply embedded in the Trump administration, which should give it an upper hand in the budget battles to come'. 'High Pentagon budgets are often justified because the funds are 'for the troops,'' said William D Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an author of the report. 'But as this paper shows, the majority of the department's budget goes to corporations, money that has as much to do with special interest lobbying as it does with any rational defense planning. Much of this funding has been wasted on dysfunctional or overpriced weapons systems and extravagant compensation packages.' 'These figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing,' said Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War project. Calculated for inflation, the military spending dwarfs an approximate $356bn that Congress had appropriated for US diplomacy, development and humanitarian aid. The Trump administration has continued to slash money spent on aid. Last month, the Guardian revealed that a White House review of grants to the state department recommended a nearly-total cut on democracy promotion programs. The Guardian has contacted the Pentagon for comment.
Yahoo
30-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
‘Not foes': China to Aus amid nuclear build-up
Xi Jinping's envoy in Canberra says China and Australia are 'not foes', despite being embroiled in a regional rivalry and Beijing rapidly building up conventional and nuclear military capabilities. Anthony Albanese has been facing domestic and international calls to boost the defence budget, with the US warning of a potentially 'imminent' threat from China in the Indo Pacific. But the Prime Minister has resisted, making Australia an outlier in the West – a position highlighted by NATO's decision last week to dramatically hike military spending to 5 per cent of GDP. Chinese ambassador Xiao Qian on Monday urged Mr Albanese to stay the course. 'Recently, some countries hyped up the so-called China threat narrative on occasions such as the Shangri-La Dialogue, G7 summit and NATO summit, proclaiming to significantly increase defence expenditures, and even incited Australia to follow suit,' Mr Xiao wrote in The Australian. 'Such rhetoric and actions are steeped in Cold War mentality, blatantly creating division, fuelling a global arms race as well as threatening world peace and stability, which warrants our high vigilance. 'By playing up international and regional tensions and slandering China's normal military build-up, these countries are merely seeking nothing but excuses to drastically grow their military spending, even arbitrarily reaching beyond its geographical scope and mandate.' He accused 'certain countries' of trying to contain China because they 'fear fair competition' and 'cannot tolerate other countries from making progress'. Mr Xiao's piece comes as Foreign Minister Penny Wong heads to Washington for a second meeting with her Quad counterparts within six months. The Quad, made up of Australia, India, Japan and the US, is a partnership broadly seen as a check on China's economic and military might. Earlier this month, US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth warned China could invade the democratically self-governed island of Taiwan as early as 2027. Such a move would deal a major blow to global supply of semiconductors – crucial components in modern tech – and massively disrupt vital trade routes. 'Let me be clear, any attempt by Communist China to conquer Taiwan by force would result in devastating consequences for the Indo-Pacific and the world,' Mr Hegseth told the Shangri La Dialogue. 'There's no reason to sugar-coat it. The threat China poses is real and it could be imminent. 'We hope not but certainly could be.' Meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles on the sidelines of the conference, he directly asked Australia to boost the defence spending to 3.5 per cent of GDP. The Albanese government was quick to brush off the request, saying Australia would set its own military budget. But days later, Mr Marles, who is also defence minister, admitted China's growing nuclear arsenal was driving 'security anxiety'. 'I mean, we've made no secret of the fact that we have a security anxiety in relation to China that's principally driven by the very significant conventional military build-up that China is engaging in, and, for that matter, a nuclear build-up that China is engaging in,' he told reporters. 'We've made that clear to China itself.' As of mid-2024, China's operational nuclear warheads exceeded 600, according to the US Department of Defence. That was nearly triple what the country was estimated to have in 2020. More recently, Mr Marles refused to say whether three Chinese warships that circumnavigated Australia earlier this year targeted cities when they carried out exercises off the country's vast coastline. Appearing at New Corp's Defending Australia Summit, he said was asked point blank if the ships rehearsed strikes on Australian cities or onshore facilities. 'Look, I do know the answer to the question,' he said. 'I don't think it's appropriate or helpful for me in this situation to speculate about it for a range of reasons … and the most significant being what we did with the Chinese task group was to engage in an unprecedented level of surveillance on that task group. 'So we do know exactly what they were doing and exactly what they're rehearsing. 'For me to start talking about that obviously reveals our surveillance capabilities, which is why I'm reluctant to.'
Bloomberg
17-06-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Warren Slams Hegseth Decision to Slash Pentagon Weapons Testing Office
A Pentagon plan to slash staffing at its weapons testing office threatens the safety and effectiveness of every weapons program it oversees and 'will cost service members' lives and waste taxpayer dollars,' Senator Elizabeth Warren said. In a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sent Tuesday, the Massachusetts Democrat said the office was created in response to concerns that the Army wasn't testing weapons properly and Congress wasn't getting the information it needed.
Bloomberg
23-05-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
A ‘Golden Dome' Could Make America Less Safe
The 'Golden Dome' that is some day supposed to make North America safe from incoming enemy missiles has now made it into the One Big, Beautiful Bill wending its way through Congress, with a budget ask for a relatively small ante ($25 billion) into a pot that will eventually grow into the hundreds of billions. The idea sprung out of Donald Trump's own golden dome, and the president, in presenting it this week, seemed appropriately effulgent. The question is whether this astronomically ambitious missile-defense shield — which will require sensors, interceptors, satellites, software, lasers and more, all of them stitched together seamlessly with artificial and human intelligence — is a good idea. I don't just mean financially, but strategically: Would it make America (and possibly Canada) safer?
