Reform the Next
National Defense Authorization Act
Win Without War

(June 8, 2023) — In the coming week Congress will start to negotiate next year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and whether to pour BILLIONS more into the already bloated military budget. For months, Congress has scoured budget lines to find “savings” that will cost lives and livelihoods by nickel-and-diming social programs that help teachers, veterans, and struggling families. And they did it all while refusing even minor cuts to funding for weapons and war.

Our fight for spending that prioritizes genuine security instead of arms contractor profits is more urgent than ever and we need your support. 

When it’s all said and done, current estimates peg next year’s national “security” budget at over $1.5 TRILLION.

So it’s BAFFLING that less than 24 hours after the US government avoided falling off the cliff to default — sacrificing human needs for the war machine — Senators like Lindsey Graham and Susan Collins were already clamoring for even MORE money for the Pentagon.

The good news? Their absurdity has created a HUGE opportunity to push back.

In the coming days, Congress will negotiate next year’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), and whether to pour BILLIONS more into the failed F-35 fighter jet, dangerous, unnecessary nukes, and stalled boats like the Littoral Combat Ship. With our broken priorities laid bare by the debt ceiling fight, we’re coming in with a huge advantage to STOP the weapons payouts and build something better.

We’re pushing on all fronts — relentlessly advocating with allies on the Hill and in the White House, building momentum across the movement with our partners, pushing this to the top of the media agenda, and creating a grassroots crescendo of activism too loud to ignore.

For months, Congress has scoured budget lines to find “savings” that will cost lives and livelihoods by nickel-and-diming social programs that help teachers, veterans, and struggling families. And they did it all while refusing even minor cuts to funding for weapons and war.

This year’s $858 BILLION Pentagon budget is already at a record-breaking high — and STILL more than the military budgets of South Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, India, and China COMBINED. All while not passing an audit.

If we don’t fight back, that number is all but guaranteed to rise. Because while the Biden-McCarthy deal capped funding for social programs, it padded the Pentagon budget by 3.3%. Some lawmakers are now recklessly calling for an “emergency supplemental” to pile more money on top of that $886 BILLION pot. Newsflash: the Pentagon doesn’t have a money problem, it has a waste and corruption problem.

Where’s the “emergency supplemental” for Social Security, healthcare, housing, or the fight against climate change?

The silver lining is that this hawkish ridiculousness is so WILDLY out of step with public opinion and public needs that we believe it could become the Achilles heel of the war machine. It will create a crucial opportunity to CUT the blank checks for weapons and war — and INVEST in social programs that help our communities thrive.

Here’s the plan: First, we push back during the upcoming House and Senate NDAA negotiations, where the funds for everything from the Pentagon to Homeland Security to nuclear programs at the Department of Energy are authorized.

Then, we go EVEN HARDER to stop Congress from spending even one dime on unnecessary, dangerous weapons programs like SLCM-N or failing, spiraling costs like the F-35 fighter jet — and that’s coming up fast.

Budgets are moral documents. They set our priorities. And right now, people from across the country are united in one demand: CUT the Pentagon budget and SAVE social programs.

With your help, we’ll hold Congress accountable and get our priorities back in order.

Thank you for working for peace,
The Win Without War team

Getting the Defense Budget Right:
A (Real) Grand Total, Over $1.4 Trillion
Andrew Cockburn / Responsible Statecraft

Laying it out in graph form shows
past and present gimmicks used to
manipulate the public’s perception
of what is considered ‘defense.’

(May 9, 2023) — We all know that the US spends obscene sums of money on defense. But the actual amount tends to be a moving target, one that is described by official Washington and its enablers in the media in the smallest terms possible.

Thus in unveiling the Pentagon’s 2024 budget request on March 6, DoD Comptroller Mike McCord demurely highlighted $842 billion as the “top line” a figure dutifully cited in relevant news reports. In his remarks, McCord took pains to remind us that, actually, we’re spending much less than we used to:
“When I was born [1959] we, the United States, were at nine percent of GDP on defense. Ronald Reagan was considered high at six percent. We’re now at three. So it’s a big number, but in other contexts, you know, you could look at it another way.” 

So what do we actually spend on the defense of the United States? Unearthing the true figure demands tireless application combined with a sure grasp of the subterranean pathways along which our dollars travel to fuel the national security machine.

Fortunately, we can spare ourselves the effort, thanks to the work of defense analyst Winslow Wheeler. Wheeler learned his budget-navigator’s skills over many years in the congressional branch of the military industrial complex in assorted US Senate offices, including the budget committee and the staffs of both Democratic and Republican senators, before transitioning to the GAO and then the watchdog Center for Defense Information. He had now applied his hard-won knowledge to our current and imminent outlays.

As he tells us:
“The big spenders, especially, like to distort the size of our spending — and to mis-measure it -— with gimmicks and yardsticks that have almost nothing to do with dollars spent.  As it did in the past, this has prompted me to put together a table showing all the spending that goes into US national security for the current and next fiscal years. 

Some can’t even get Pentagon spending right (usually intentionally, I believe) by undercounting it. Others ignore enormous and entirely relevant amounts outside the budget of the Department of Defense — such as for nuclear weapons, protecting the homeland from terrorists and other criminals, or international security. One should also include a fair share of the costs that this spending adds to the annual deficit.”

DoD Comptroller Mike McCord

His findings are laid out in the table below [view online at this link], sourced mainly from OMB’s presentation materials for the 2024 budget request.

Spoiler alert: The number is much, much, bigger than they want you to know.

The column labeled “Comments” offers descriptions of just what monies are included, or not, in each category, plus some discussion of past and present gimmicks used to manipulate the public’s perception of the “defense” (or “national security”) budget.

Read the complete, detailed data online at the following link:
Total US National Security Spending, 2023-2024
(Billions: Then-Year $. Budget Authority)

Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.