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'An Arsenal of Profiteering': Military Contractors Have Gotten Over Half of Pentagon Spending Since 2020
"These figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing," said the project's director.
Jul 08, 2025
Less than a week after U.S. President Donald Trump signed a budget package that pushes annual military spending past $1 trillion, researchers on Tuesday published a report detailing how much major Pentagon contractors have raked in since 2020.
Sharing The Guardian's exclusive coverage of the paper on social media, U.K.-based climate scientist Bill McGuire wrote: "Are you a U.S. taxpayer? I am sure you will be delighted to know where $2.4 TRILLION of your money has gone."
The report from the Costs of War Project at Brown University's Watson School of International and Public Affairs and the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft shows that from 2020-24 private firms received $2.4 trillion in Department of Defense contracts, or roughly 54% of DOD's $4.4 trillion in discretionary spending for that five-year period.
The publication highlights that "during those five years, $771 billion in Pentagon contracts went to just five firms: Lockheed Martin ($313 billion), RTX (formerly Raytheon, $145 billion), Boeing ($115 billion), General Dynamics ($116 billion), and Northrop Grumman ($81 billion)."
In a statement about the findings, Stephanie Savell, director of the Costs of War Project, said that "these figures represent a continuing and massive transfer of wealth from taxpayers to fund war and weapons manufacturing."
"This is not an arsenal of democracy—it's an arsenal of profiteering," Savell added. "We should keep the enormous and growing power of the arms industry in mind as we assess the rise of authoritarianism in the U.S. and globally."
Between 2020 and 2024, $771 billion in Pentagon contracts went to just five firms: Lockheed Martin, RTX, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman. By comparison, the total diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budget, excluding military aid, was $356 billion. [5/12]
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— The Costs of War Project (@costsofwar.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 2:43 PM
The paper points out that "by comparison, the total diplomacy, development, and humanitarian aid budget, excluding military aid, was $356 billion. In other words, the U.S. government invested over twice as much money in five weapons companies as in diplomacy and international assistance."
"Record arms transfers have further boosted the bottom lines of weapons firms," the document details. "These companies have benefited from tens of billions of dollars in military aid to Israel and Ukraine, paid for by U.S. taxpayers. U.S. military aid to Israel was over $18 billion in just the first year following October 2023; military aid to Ukraine totals $65 billion since the Russian invasion in 2022 through 2025."
"Additionally, a surge in foreign-funded arms sales to European allies, paid for by the recipient nations—over $170 billion in 2023 and 2024 alone—have provided additional revenue to arms contractors over and above the funds they receive directly from the Pentagon," the paper adds.
The 23-page report stresses that "annual U.S. military spending has grown significantly this century," as presidents from both major parties have waged a so-called Global War on Terror and the DOD has continuously failed to pass an audit.
Specifically, according to the paper, "the Pentagon's discretionary budget—the annual funding approved by Congress and the large majority of its overall budget—rose from $507 billion in 2000 to $843 billion in 2025 (in constant 2025 dollars), a 66% increase. Including military spending outside the Pentagon—primarily nuclear weapons programs at the Department of Energy, counterterrorism operations at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and other military activities officially classified under 'Budget Function 050'— total military spending grew from $531 billion in 2000 to $899 billion in 2025, a 69% increase."
Republicans' One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed earlier this month "adds $156 billion to this year's total, pushing the 2025 military budget to $1.06 trillion," the document notes. "After taking into account this supplemental funding, the U.S. military budget has nearly doubled this century, increasing 99% since 2000."
Noting that "taxpayers are expected to fund a $1 trillion Pentagon budget," Security Policy Reform Institute co-founder Stephen Semler said the paper, which he co-authored, "illustrates what they'll be paying for: a historic redistribution of wealth from the public to private industry.”
Semler produced the report with William Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute. Hartung said that "high Pentagon budgets are often justified because the funds are 'for the troops.'"
"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," he continued. "Much of this funding has been wasted on dysfunctional or overpriced weapons systems and extravagant compensation packages."
The arms industry has used an array of tools of influence to create an atmosphere where a Pentagon budget that is $1 trillion per year is deemed “not enough” by some members of Congress. [9/12]
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— The Costs of War Project (@costsofwar.bsky.social) July 8, 2025 at 2:43 PM
In addition to spotlighting how U.S. military budgets funnel billions of dollars to contractors each year, the report shines a light on the various ways the industry influences politics.
"The ongoing influence of the arms industry over Congress operates through tens of millions in campaign contributions and the employment of 950 lobbyists, as of 2024," the publication explains. "Military contractors also shape military policy and lobby to increase military spending by funding think tanks and serving on government commissions."
"Senior officials in government often go easy on major weapons companies so as not to ruin their chances of getting lucrative positions with them upon leaving government service," the report notes. "For its part, the emerging military tech sector has opened a new version of the revolving door—the movement of ex-military officers and senior Pentagon officials, not to arms companies per se, but to the venture capital firms that invest in Silicon Valley arms industry startups."
The paper concludes by arguing that "the U.S. needs stronger congressional and public scrutiny of both current and emerging weapons contractors to avoid wasteful spending and reckless decision-making on issues of war and peace. Profits should not drive policy."
"In particular," it adds, "the role of Silicon Valley startups and the venture capital firms that support them needs to be better understood and debated as the U.S. crafts a new foreign policy strategy that avoids unnecessary wars and prioritizes cooperation over confrontation."
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Biden Admin Hasn't Acted on 500 Reports of Israel Attacking Gaza Civilians With US Arms
One expert said the Biden administration is "ignoring evidence of widespread civilian harm and atrocities to maintain a policy of virtually unconditional weapons transfers to the Netanyahu government."
Oct 30, 2024
The Biden administration has reportedly received around 500 notices from international humanitarian groups, nonprofit organizations, and eyewitnesses alleging that the Israeli military has used American weaponry in attacks that harmed civilians in the Gaza Strip, likely in violation of both U.S. and international law.
But the administration, which has armed Israel's military to the hilt since the Hamas-led attack of last year, "has failed to comply with its own policies requiring swift investigations of such claims," according to The Washington Post, which first reported the nearly 500 notices on Wednesday.
Dozens of the reports delivered to the U.S. State Department over the past year "include photo documentation of U.S.-made bomb fragments at sites where scores of children were killed," the Post noted, citing unnamed human rights advocates who were briefed on the process.
"Yet despite the State Department’s internal Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance, which directs officials to complete an investigation and recommend action within two months of launching an inquiry, no single case has reached the 'action' stage," the newspaper reported, citing unnamed current and former officials. "More than two-thirds of cases remain unresolved... with many pending response from the Israeli government, which the State Department consults to verify each case's circumstances."
"When it comes to the Biden administration's arms policies, everything looks good on paper but has turned out meaningless in practice when it comes to Israel."
John Ramming Chappell, a legal and policy adviser at the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told the Post that Biden administration officials are "ignoring evidence of widespread civilian harm and atrocities to maintain a policy of virtually unconditional weapons transfers to the Netanyahu government."
"When it comes to the Biden administration's arms policies," Chappell added, "everything looks good on paper but has turned out meaningless in practice when it comes to Israel."
William Hartung, a senior research fellow and arms industry expert at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told the Post that "it's almost impossible" that Israel isn't violating U.S. law "given the level of slaughter that's going on, and the preponderance of U.S. weapons."
Since last October, the U.S. has delivered more than 50,000 tons of weaponry to Israel, a flow of arms that has continued amid overwhelming evidence that the Israeli military has used American weapons to commit grave violations of international law.
In April, as Common Dreams reported at the time, Amnesty International USA sent a research brief to the Biden administration detailing several cases in which the Israeli military violated international humanitarian law with U.S. weapons, including a pair of deadly strikes last year on homes full of civilians—attacks that killed 19 children.
On Tuesday, the Israeli military bombed a five-story residential building in northern Gaza, killing around two dozen children and scores of adults.
Matthew Miller, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, told reporters Tuesday that the Biden administration is "deeply concerned by the loss of civilian life in this incident" and has "reached out to the government of Israel to ask what has happened here."
Later in the same briefing, reporters pressed Miller on actions the Biden administration is taking to push Israel to stop impeding shipments of humanitarian assistance to Gaza. It's been just over two weeks since the Biden administration sent a letter to the Israeli government threatening to cut off U.S. military assistance if the humanitarian situation in Gaza doesn't improve within 30 days.
"Obviously, the 30 days isn't up," Drop Site's Ryan Grim noted during Tuesday's press briefing. "But two weeks ago the situation in northern Gaza was bad; like, today it's utterly dystopian. The opposite of making progress has happened there."
Miller responded that "we have made clear that the situation in northern Gaza... needs to change."
Nevertheless, Miller insisted to reporters that the U.S. State Department has "not assessed [Israel] to be in violation of the law at this point," a statement that contradicts the findings of both internal department experts and outside analysts.
"All the laws and policies that are supposed to prevent U.S. weapons from being used to commit atrocities by foreign countries are being completely ignored by the Biden admin in its rush to continue unimpeded weapons flows to Israel to commit genocide," Josh Ruebner, policy director at the IMEU Policy Project, wrote Wednesday.
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Report Urges Congress to Tackle Venture Capitalists Peddling AI 'Miracle Weapons'
"Neither taxpayers nor the Congress should buy the hype surrounding these new technologies without careful oversight and scrutiny."
Jun 03, 2024
A new report released Monday sounds the alarm on the growing influence of profit-hungry venture capital firms that are promoting weapons systems powered by artificial intelligence, a rapidly emerging technology that experts and watchdogs warn could be an
existential threat to humanity if not strongly and properly regulated.
The
report, published by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, cautions that venture capital (VC) firms and their allies in Washington, D.C. are "determined to move full speed ahead on the development and deployment of weapons based on AI and other technological innovations, despite many unanswered questions about the costs and risks involved."
Michael Brenes and William Hartung, the report's authors, implore Congress to pursue concrete policy actions to regulate the torrent of VC money flowing into the development of AI-powered military technology—so-called "miracle weapons"—as the Pentagonactively courts Silicon Valley startups.
Citing data from PitchBook, The Financial Times reported last year that "U.S. venture investment in defense startups surged from less than $16 billion in 2019 to $33 billion in 2022."
The Quincy Institute report observes that "the surge in VC investment in emerging arms technology is being spearheaded by a handful of firms and individuals," including "the Founders Fund, started by Peter Thiel, who is also the co-founder of PayPal and the arms technology firm Palantir; and Andreesen Horowitz, whose 'American Dynamism Fund' invests in notable emerging tech firms like Anduril and Shield AI."
"Given the risks of catastrophic malfunction and hair-trigger wars conducted with minimal human input, we need a vigorous national debate before moving full speed ahead on military applications of AI and other emerging technologies," Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute, said in a statement Monday.
Brenes, a nonresident fellow at the Quincy Institute, said that "hugely consequential decisions" about the role of AI in U.S. military technology and operations "cannot be driven by narrow considerations of corporate profit."
"Neither taxpayers nor the Congress should buy the hype surrounding these new technologies without careful oversight and scrutiny," said Brenes. "Otherwise, we will see yet another round of cost overruns for systems that do not work as advertised."
"With defense startups growing in number, and enticing military and political leaders, it will be exacerbated in an era of 'big tech.'"
The new report comes amid sustained outrage over the U.S. tech giant Google's AI partnership with Israel, which has used artificial intelligence in its devastating military assault on Gaza.
The report also comes months after the Biden administrationannounced its "Replicator" initiative, a project the Pentagon characterized as an attempt to counter China with an "AI-empowered military."
"Since we need to break through barriers and catalyze change with urgency, we've set a big goal for Replicator: to field attritable autonomous systems at a scale of multiple thousands, in multiple domains, within the next 18 to 24 months," Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said in a speech last year.
Hicks' remarks drew immediate alarm from watchdog organizations, which have criticized the Pentagon's lack of transparency surrounding its AI efforts.
In March, a coalition of groups spearheaded by Public Citizensent a letter to the Pentagon warning that "autonomous weapons are inherently dehumanizing and unethical, no matter whether a human is 'ultimately' responsible for the use of force or not."
"Deploying lethal AI weapons in battlefield conditions necessarily means inserting them into novel conditions for which they have not been programmed, an invitation for disastrous outcomes," the letter reads. "'Swarms' of the sort envisioned by Replicator pose even heightened risks, because of the unpredictability of how autonomous systems will function in a network. And the mere ambiguity of the U.S. position on autonomous weapons risks spurring a catastrophic arms race."
The Quincy Institute report specifically calls on Congress to "establish a revamped Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) that could provide oversight of the industry and ensure that Silicon Valley startups do not manufacture promises that cannot be delivered."
The report also urges Congress to shutter the revolving door between the federal government and military contractors, which gives private companies further influence over consequential policy outcomes.
"This is not a new problem," the report acknowledges. "But with defense startups growing in number, and enticing military and political leaders, it will be exacerbated in an era of 'big tech.' Republican Representative Mike Gallagher recently announced that he was joining Peter Thiel's Palantir after resigning from Congress. This is while Gallagher promotes belligerent views on China in mainstream outlets like Foreign Affairs, arguing that the United States is in the throes of a 'New Cold War' with China that must be won by 'rapidly increasing U.S. defense capabilities to achieve unmistakable qualitative advantages over Beijing.'"
"It will be up to interested members of Congress, working with the administration, to craft specific proposals and regulations to manage the role of private money in the development of emerging military technologies," the report states.
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Analyst Rips Biden Admin for Touting Record Arms Sales Amid Gaza Carnage
Arms industry researcher William Hartung argued the U.S. should focus on "the human consequences" of its weapons transfers instead of bragging about them.
Jan 31, 2024
An arms industry analyst criticized the U.S. State Department on Wednesday for bragging that American weapons sales surged to record levels in fiscal year 2023 as Israel continues to use U.S.-made bombs and other munitions against civilians in the Gaza Strip.
Earlier this week, the State Department announced that "the total value of transferred defense articles and services and security cooperation activities conducted under the Foreign Military Sales system was $80.9 billion" between October 1, 2022 and September 30, 2023, prior to the start of Israel's latest war on Gaza.
"This is the highest annual total of sales and assistance provided to our allies and partners," the department said in a statement, emphasizing the message with bold font. The "fact sheet" highlights the sale of Apache helicopters to Poland, battle tanks to Kuwait, helicopters to Qatar, and F-35 aircraft and munitions to South Korea.
The surge in arms sales last year led top U.S. defense contractors to boost their profit outlooks for 2024.
William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, called the State Department's celebration of record weapons transfers "tone deaf" amid mounting concerns over Israeli forces' use of American arms to commit atrocities in Gaza.
"Leaving aside the dispute about whether Israel is committing genocide or 'just' widespread war crimes, its military activities have killed over 26,000 Gazans, displaced 1.9 million people, and hindered the delivery of medical and food aid," Hartung wrote. "This could not be, and is not, in line with U.S. law or the Biden administration's stated policies."
On Monday, as Common Dreams reported, a group of Democratic lawmakers and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) demanded that the State Department explain its rationale for bypassing Congress twice to expedite the sale of arms to Israel, including 155mm artillery shells that humanitarian groups have described as "inherently indiscriminate" when used in densely populated areas like Gaza.
A State Department spokesperson dismissed the lawmakers' concerns during a press briefing on Tuesday, insisting that the arms transfers followed established procedures for "emergency" circumstances.
The U.S. is far and away Israel's top arms supplier. An Amnesty International investigation released last month found that Israeli forces used U.S.-made munitions to carry out airstrikes on a pair of homes in the Gaza Strip, killing more than 43 people—including 19 children.
Amnesty is one of more than a dozen leading human rights organizations calling on the U.S. and other Western nations to impose an arms embargo on Israel, warning that "Israel's bombardment and siege are depriving the civilian population of the basics to survive and rendering Gaza uninhabitable."
"A good start would be to withhold further transfers to Israel as leverage to force a cease-fire in Gaza."
Hartung stressed Wednesday that Israel "has been routinely exempted from U.S. human rights strictures with respect to its use of U.S.-supplied weapons." Earlier this month, the U.S. Senate killed a Sanders-led resolution that would have required the State Department to produce a report on how the Israeli government is using American weaponry in the Gaza Strip.
"To make matters worse," Hartung wrote, "the Biden administration has made it harder for Congress and the public to know what weapons it is supplying to the Israeli military by circumventing congressional notification requirements and providing weapons from stockpiles without reporting on what is being taken and transferred."
Hartung argued that "instead of bragging about the enormous value of U.S. arms transfers and providing a sanitized view of their impacts, the Biden administration should take a hard, cold look at the risks of unrestrained arm exports on the reputation and security of the United States, as well as the human consequences of their use by U.S. allies."
"A good start," he added, "would be to withhold further transfers to Israel as leverage to force a cease-fire in Gaza."
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Next Stop for Most Retired US 4-Star Military Officers? Arms Industry C-Suites
"The revolving door is a problem because it creates the appearance—and in some cases the reality—of conflicts of interest in the making of defense policy and in the shaping of the size and composition of the Pentagon budget."
Oct 04, 2023
A report published Wednesday revealed that the vast majority of four-star U.S. military officers who have retired over the past five years went to work for the arms industry, a revolving door that drives soaring profits and near-record military spending.
The report—entitled March of the Four–Stars: The Role of Retired Generals and Admirals in the Arms Industry—was published by William D. Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and intern Dillon Fisher. They found that 26 of 32 four-star generals and admirals who retired between June 2018 and July 2023 "went to work for the arms industry as board members, advisers, executives, consultants, lobbyists, or members of financial institutions that invest in the defense sector."
"Too often when it comes to military spending and policy, special interests override the public interest."
Fifteen of the retired officers were hired as board members or advisers for small and medium–sized weapons contractors, while five took similar jobs at one of the top 10 arms companies. Five retired four–star officers became arms industry consultants, five were hired as lobbyists for weapons companies, and four joined financial firms that invest in the arms sector.
"Employing well-connected ex-military officers can give weapons makers enormous, unwarranted influence over the process of determining the size and shape of the Pentagon budget, to the detriment of our national security," Hartung said in a statement. "Too often when it comes to military spending and policy, special interests override the public interest. The revolving door is a major contributor to this process."
According to the report:
Among the most prominent four–stars who have gone through the revolving door are former head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, who joined the board of Lockheed Martin five months after leaving the military; Gen. Mike Murray, former head of the U.S. Army Futures Command, who went on the boards of three defense tech firms—Capewell, Hypori, and Vita Inclinata; Gen. Terrence O'Shaugnessy, former head of the U.S. Northern Command, who is now a senior adviser to Elon Musk at SpaceX...; Gen. Richard D. Clarke, former commander of U.S. Special Operations Command, who joined the boards of General Dynamics, defense tech firm Shift5, and drone maker General Atomics; and Gen. John W. Raymond, former head of the U.S. Space Command, who went on to be a managing partner at Cerberus Capital Management.
The report's recommendations include:
- Barring four–star officers from going to work for firms that receive $1 billion or more in Pentagon contracts per year;
- Extending "cooling off" periods before retired Pentagon officials and military officers can go to work on behalf of the arms industry; and
- Increasing transparency for post–government employment and activities on the part of retired Pentagon and military officials working on behalf of arms contractors, including reporting on their interactions with Congress and the Executive Branch.
"The revolving door is a problem because it creates the appearance—and in some cases the reality—of conflicts of interest in the making of defense policy and in the shaping of the size and composition of the Pentagon budget," Hartung and Fisher wrote. "The role of top military officials is particularly troubling, given their greater clout in the military and the government more broadly than most other revolving door hires. Their influence over policy and budget issues can tilt the scales towards a more militarized foreign policy."
The new report comes amid soaring profits for weapons-makers, near-record levels of U.S. military spending, and increasing American domination of global arms exports.
As one arms industry executive said at last month's Defense and Security Equipment International trade show in London, "War is good for business."
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Lockheed Martin CEO Hails Pentagon Budget Boost in Debt Limit Deal
The head of the major U.S. military contractor said the Pentagon top-line in the debt ceiling deal is "as good an outcome as our industry or our company could ask for at this point."
Jun 02, 2023
The head of the top weapons contractor in the United States said Thursday that he's happy with the debt ceiling agreement negotiated by the congressional Republicans and the Biden White House, a deal that proposes a military budget increase while imposing two years of caps on other discretionary federal spending—impacting funding for education, housing, and more.
James Taiclet, the CEO of Lockheed Martin, said at a conference that the bill now awaiting President Joe Biden's signature is "as good an outcome as our industry or our company could ask for at this point," noting that it calls for "3% growth for two years in defense where other areas of the budget are being reduced."
"I think we're in a real strong position at this point," said Taiclet, adding that "there's sufficient funding in the president's budget."
Biden's $886 billion military spending request for fiscal year 2024—a $28 billion increase over current levels—is the topline military budget number set by the debt ceiling legislation, though war hawks in both parties are already exploring ways to dump even more money into the Pentagon's overflowing coffers.
If finalized in the appropriations process, military outlays will account for close to 56% of the U.S. federal government's total discretionary spending in fiscal year 2024, Lindsay Koshgarian of the National Priorities Project noted Thursday.
"This represents a massive shift of resources away from domestic programs and toward the military: the already-gargantuan military budget will increase by $28 billion (3.3%), while domestic spending will take a cut of $63 billion (8.2%)," Koshgarian wrote. "Cuts to many domestic programs will need to go deeper, because domestic spending includes veterans' programs, which are protected from cuts in the current deal."
"The only reason there’s a budget deal at all right now is because House Republicans threatened to tank the economy by refusing to allow the U.S. to pay its bills unless they got cuts for programs they don't like," she added. "They succeeded, and as others have shown, the people to pay the price will be the poorest and most down on their luck. Worse, the current deal could set a new precedent for more of the same: unnecessary military increases while domestic programs are slashed."
Lockheed Martin, one of the contractors that has been price-gouging the Department of Defense for years, is poised to be one of the top beneficiaries of the larger Pentagon budget—much of which will likely wind up benefiting private companies.
As Responsible Statecraft's Eli Clifton reported Thursday, Lockheed "received 73 percent of its net sales from the U.S. government in 2022 and invested $13 million in lobbying the federal government."
"Their lobbyists heavily focus their efforts on the defense budget," Clifton added, citing OpenSecrets.
William Hartung, senior research fellow at Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said Friday that the newly passed debt limit deal "unnecessarily privileges the Pentagon over other essential programs."
"There's no reason to exclude the Pentagon from the budget freeze," he added. "Congress should push the current proposed military spending total of $886 billion back to FY2023 levels in the appropriations process that will play out over the course of this year."
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US Increases Dominance as World's Top Arms Exporter
"The impacts of the global arms trade aren't just about the volume of weapons delivered," said one expert, citing "a few examples of how U.S. arms deliveries can make the world a more dangerous place."
Mar 13, 2023
A Sweden-based research institute published a report Monday showing that the United States accounted for 40% of the world's weapons exports in the years 2018-22, selling armaments to more than 100 countries while increasing its dominance of the global arms trade.
The report—entitled Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2022—was published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and listed the United States, Russia, France, China, and Germany as the world's top five arms exporters from 2018-22. The five nations accounted for 76% of worldwide weapons exports during that period.
The five biggest arms importers over those five years were India, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Australia, and China.
"The United States has much room for improvement."
The United States saw a 14% increase in arms exports over the previous five-year period analyzed by SIPRI. U.S. arms were delivered to 103 nations from 2018-22, with 41% going to the Middle East.
"Even as arms transfers have declined globally, those to Europe have risen sharply due to the tensions between Russia and most other European states," Pieter Wezeman, senior researcher at the SIPRI Arms Transfers Program, said in a statement. "Following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, European states want to import more arms, faster. Strategic competition also continues elsewhere: Arms imports to East Asia have increased and those to the Middle East remain at a high level."
According to the report, Russia's invasion of Ukraine early last year "had only a limited impact on the total volume of arms transfers in 2018–22, but Ukraine did become a major importer of arms in 2022."
Ukraine was the 14th-largest arms importer from 2018-22 and the third-biggest last year.
Wiliam Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, wrote Monday that "the impacts of the global arms trade aren't just about the volume of weapons delivered. The question is how those weapons are likely to be used, and the extent to which they promote stability versus fueling conflict or propping up repressive regimes with abysmal human rights records."
"On this score the United States has much room for improvement," he continued. "Transfers to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates for use at the peak of their brutal war in Yemen, and sales to major human rights violators from the Philippines, Egypt, and Nigeria are a few examples of how U.S. arms deliveries can make the world a more dangerous place."
"There are a number of promising steps that Congress can take—as articulated by a new coalition, the Arms Sales Accountability Project—that would mandate closer scrutiny of U.S. sales," Hartung asserted.
"There is also some useful language in the Biden administration's new arms transfer policy directive, that, if implemented, would significantly rein in the most egregious sales," he added. "Only time will tell if U.S. policy can be moved towards one based on arms sales restraint rather than arms sales promotion."
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The Pentagon Budget Should Be Cut, But Don't Trust Hawkish Blowhards on This for a Minute
Across-the-board cuts are never the best way to reduce government spending, but chopping up to $100 billion or more from the Pentagon, one way or another, should be up for discussion.
Jan 11, 2023
Writing for the Washington Post on Monday, Jennifer Rubin charged that the potential Freedom Caucus proposal to freeze federal spending at 2022 levels, which, if implemented across the board, could wipe out $75 to $100 billion in increased Pentagon spending included in the recent budget bill, could have “serious national security ramifications.”
She then quoted American Enterprise Institute budget hawk Mackenzie Eaglen, who said such a proposal “makes only authoritarians, despots and dictators smile,” adding, “it completely ignores the troops and is entirely divorced from strategic thought or the many and varied threats the country faces.”
Across-the-board cuts are never the best way to reduce government spending. They mean cutting effective and wasteful programs in the same proportions instead of making smart choices about what works and what doesn’t. But the idea of cutting up to $100 billion or more from the Pentagon, one way or another, should be up for discussion.
And the idea that dictators worldwide are basing their decisions on whether the Pentagon budget is an enormous $750 billion or an obscenely enormous $850-plus billion is ludicrous. What counts is having a clear strategy and a wilingness to carry it out, not how many dollars one can spend (or, too often, waste).
The idea that dictators worldwide are basing their decisions on whether the Pentagon budget is an enormous $750 billion or an obscenely enormous $850-plus billion is ludicrous.
The $858 billion for the Pentagon and related work on nuclear warheads at the Department of Energy that President Biden signed off on last month is one of the highest levels ever — far higher than at the height of the Korean or Vietnam Wars or the peak years of the Cold War. And contrary to popular belief, most of those funds do not go to the troops. More than half of Pentagon outlays go to private weapons firms that have a mixed record of delivering effective defense systems at reasonable prices, to put it mildly.
The top five contractors alone will split between $150 and $200 billion if the current budget holds, even as they pay their CEOs $20 million or more per year and engage in billions in stock buybacks to boost their share prices. These expenditures are perfectly designed to enrich arms companies and their shareholders, but they have nothing to do with defending the country.
But back to the $100 billion question. The Congressional Budget Office released a study in late 2021 that outlined three options for saving over $1 trillion in Pentagon spending over the next ten years without damaging our defense capabilities. All three options involved cutting the size of the armed forces, avoiding large boots-on-the-ground wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, and relying on allies to do more in their own defense.
The CBO recommendations are just the tip of the iceberg of what could be cut under a more restrained, realistic approach to defense. The current National Defense Strategy (NDS), released late last year, is an object lesson on how not to make choices among competing priorities. Major commitments included in the NDS include being able to win a war against Russia or China; defeating Iran or North Korea in a regional conflict; and continuing to sustain a global war on terrorism that includes military operations in at least 85 countries, according to an analysis by the Costs of War Project at Brown University.
A strategy that forswears sending large numbers of troops into regional wars, takes a more realistic view of the military threats posed by Russia and China, relies more on allies, and rolls back the Pentagon’s dangerous and unnecessary nuclear weapons buildup could save sums well beyond the $100 billion per year set out in the CBO’s illustrative options.
And these strategic shifts don’t even account for what could be saved by streamlining the Pentagon by taking measures to reduce price gouging and cost overruns by weapons firms, or reducing the Pentagon’s cadre of over half a million private contractors, many of whom perform redundant tasks at prices higher than it would cost to do the same work with civilian government employees.
By all means we should debate how the federal budget should be crafted at this chaotic political moment. But we should not assume that there is no room to trim the Pentagon budget. Doing it correctly would not only make us safer, it would free up funds to address other urgent national priorities.
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