To protect its essential interests around the globe and defend freedom in the world, the United States needs to devote more resources to its military. Democrats should lead the charge for the required increase in defense spending — and make sure it goes to the right places.
President Trump and his Republican Party talk a very big game when it comes to defense spending, but their own priorities remain unrealistic and misplaced. Despite their proposed funding increase, the Trump administration looks set to slash core military capabilities — including a possible 90,000-soldier cut to the Army — in order to pay for fantasies such as the so-called Golden Dome missile defense system. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has made his focus on fighting domestic culture wars crystal clear and appears to believe that logistics contribute little, if anything, to successful military operations. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has expressed public antipathy toward weapons like the F-35 stealth fighter and favors replacing them with hypothetical drone swarms presumably built by new defense firms founded and owned by Silicon Valley venture capitalists.
Worse, Trump’s foreign policy threatens America’s own defense industry, which likely means each U.S. dollar will buy less in terms of defense. With his threats to Canadian and Danish sovereignty as well as his attempts to push Ukraine into an effective capitulation while offering unilateral concessions to the Kremlin, he has alienated America’s long- standing NATO allies in Europe — to the point where these traditional friends and allies question whether or not they can or even should rely on American military support. Trump’s blunderbuss tariffs, moreover, threaten American industries that depend on global supply chains and relationships with manufacturers among America’s allies in Europe and Asia. Fewer overseas sales and higher costs for industrial materials and inputs mean the Department of Defense will likely pay more for the weapons it buys for itself from U.S. defense firms. Even worse, ruptured alliances mean the United States will have to shoulder more of the burden for its own national security and spend more on defense than it would need to otherwise.
For their part, Democrats must reject predictable, knee-jerk calls from the left to cut the defense budget as well as claims that even modest increases in defense spending will prove unaffordable. In reality, a steady and significant rise in defense spending up to $1 trillion by 2029 is both warranted and within America’s means. A defense budget that sees an increase of roughly $37.5 billion a year over the next four years would provide the U.S. military with the resources it requires to secure American interests while remaining well within the lower bounds of historical defense spending — no matter the metric chosen to measure it.
It’s hard to make solid policy recommendations given the extraordinary uncertainty the United States and the world face over the next four years — to say nothing of the damage President Trump, Elon Musk, and others in the Trump administration have already done to the U.S. government. But even if it underestimates the scope of the defense policy challenges that will confront the next Democratic administration a modest increase in defense spending dedicated to the right priorities could still yield national security dividends well beyond the initial investment and plant the seeds of a robust national defense program.
As PPI previously argued, a Democratic defense program should pursue three main goals:
Without increased investment in defense, however, America’s military will not be able to attain these three goals. Indeed, the military has too few combat ships and aircraft available to meet the demands placed upon it — and many of these ships and planes have been in service for decades. What’s more, Russia’s war against Ukraine has revealed the limits and weaknesses of America’s own modern defense industry that have only begun to be addressed. Money alone cannot safeguard American national security, of course, but a defense budget that rises to $1 trillion by 2029 will certainly help do so.
A strong defense program along the lines proposed below can help Democrats reclaim their rightful place as the party of national security. It was Franklin D. Roosevelt, after all, who called on the United States to become “the great arsenal of democracy,” and John F. Kennedy who welcomed the responsibility of “defending freedom in its hour of maximum danger.” At a time when gangster powers like Russia, China, and Iran press their geopolitical advantage — including through force or its threat — Democrats can and must summon the same spirit today.
