U.S. Military Spending - What Do You Know?

By Ariel Ky July 15, 2018

Ever wonder what the U.S. military is spending our money on?

First, it's important to understand how much money we are talking about. The amounts alone should command our attention.

Here's the dollar amounts, taken from Wikipedia:

Congress approved Trump's request for an increase to $700 billion for FY 2018. That's $700,000,000,000.

"The budget funds four branches of the U.S. military: the Army, Marine Corps, Navy, and Air Force. In FY 2015, Pentagon and related spending totaled $598 billion, about 54% of the fiscal year 2015 U.S. discretionary budget. For FY 2017, President Obama proposed the base budget of $523.9 billion (that is $523,900,000,000), which includes an increase of $2.2 billion over the FY 2016 enacted budget of $521.7 billion."

My God, that is so much money! Where is it all going? Don't you want to know?

Well, we do all know that the war in Afghanistan continues, the longest war that the U.S. has ever engaged in. Any idea of what that is costing us? (Including the 2018 budget, we are looking at $840,700,000,000.)

Can anyone tell me why we are still fighting the war in Afghanistan? Do we have any actual goals that can be measured, whether we are succeeding in achieving or not, by this ongoing war? If so, please inform me because I don't have a clue as to what we are doing in Afghanistan. Do you?

And then there is the war in Iraq, the never-ending war in Iraq, which we started as a preemptive war on a pretext that was later proven to be a lie, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. FY2001-FY2018 $1,909,000,000,000, or in real costs, well over $2,000,000,000,000 (two trillion). And we're just talking money here, not the cost of destroyed and ruined lives or a shattered country.

https://www.csis.org/analysis/us-military-spending-cost-wars

I deliberately put in the 0's because I think people don't really consider what a billion dollars actually consists or, nor a trillion.

And the war in Syria? "According to data from the Costs of War project at Brown University, cited by Quartz Wednesday, the U.S. has already budgeted more money for Syrian operations in 2019 compared to 2018. The Defense Department expects to spend roughly $15.3 billion in Syria next year, the highest level yet, with the State Department accounting for another billion in foreign aid," Cost of Wary in Syria Rising, by Michael Rainey April 11, 2018 in the Fiscal Times.

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2018/04/11/Cost-War-Syria-Rising

And then there's all the overseas contingency operations. How much have you heard about them? How much do you know about where our money is being spent on military operations?

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/R44519.pdf

Appendix Excerpted from “Overseas Contingency Operations Funding: Background and Status Lynn M. Williams, Coordinator Analyst in U.S. Defense Budget Policy Susan B. Epstein, Coordinator Specialist in Foreign Policy February 7, 2017”

Appendix B. DOD Contingency Operations Funded in the Base Budget In FY2017, contingency operations funded wholly or in part through the DOD’s base budget funding request, and therefore subject to the BCA caps, include the following:

• Support to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as a part of NATOled operations in the Balkans region.

• Joint Task Force Bravo, which supports joint, combined, and interagency exercises and operations in Central America to counter the influence of transnational organized crime; carry out humanitarian assistance and disaster relief; and build military capacity with regional partners and allied nations, in order to promote regional cooperation and security.

• Operation Enduring Freedom-Trans Sahara, which supports the DOS-led Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Program, which in turn supports U.S. Africa Command in executing its strategy for U.S. military operations within certain regions of its area of responsibility.

• Operation Enduring Freedom–Horn of Africa, also known as the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa, supports efforts to defeat violent extremist organizations in East Africa. This operation also provides military-to-military engagement with partner African countries, as well as readiness for crisis response and evacuation of U.S. military, diplomatic, and civilian personnel throughout East Africa.

• Operation Noble Eagle, which funds the continuing efforts to defend the United States from airborne attacks, maintain the sovereignty of the United States airspace, and defend critical U.S. facilities from potentially hostile threats or unconventional attacks.

• Operation Observant Compass, which supports the deployment of approximately 100 U.S. military personnel currently assisting the Ugandan People’s Defense Force and neighboring partner African countries in countering the Lord’s Resistance Army operations.

Beginning in FY2016, Operation Spartan Shield, which supports ongoing U.S. Central Command missions and the building of Middle East partner military capacity, was budgeted and requested in U.S. Army and U.S. Navy OCO budget justification documents under Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. In FY2017, funding for Operation Enduring Freedom-Caribbean and Central America, was previously funded in part through the base DOD budget, was requested in the U.S. Special Operations Command OCO O&M budget justification documents.

Then there’s the military involvement in Yemen. Hard to get a figure on the spending by the U.S. on that three-year war. Here’s an article to read about how the Pentagon budget is growing with the undeclared war on Yemen. https://www.thegazette.com/subject/opinion/guest-columnists/pentagon-budget-and-yemen-war-grow-together-20170523

How much money is being spent on supporting the fascists now in power in the Ukraine since the U.S. supported the overthrow of a democratically-elected government?

How much is being spent in the pivot to the Pacific, including ongoing spending on the Korean peninsula?

How much is still being spent in Libya? And what about the Sahel? Sudan? Somalia? 

Support for the Israeli war against Palestinians?

How many undeclared wars is the U.S. fighting? Does anyone care? Do any Americans know what these wars are all about or why the U.S. is involved, spending OUR money on goals that most of us do not support? Most of us would like to see all that money spent HERE in real job creation and services that support people’s lives and the living, not in dealing death around the world.

Until people in the U.S. start talking about these wars and challenging military spending, the quality of life in the U.S. will continue to deteriorate. To say nothing about the quality of life in other countries where the U.S. wages war.