How much military does the US government have?
U.S. Defense Spending Compared to Other Countries (pgpf.org)
“The United States spends more on national defense than China, India, Russia, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, Germany, France, Japan, and South Korea — combined.”
These numbers do not include spending such as:
* Black Budget and secrets
* War Budget and interest on war debt
* Department of Energy (nuclear)
* Other Defense
* Homeland Security
* Military Aid at the State Department
* Intelligence
* Veterans
* Military Retirement
The US spends more than the rest of the world on weapons and war, spying and covert activities.
“…President Donald Trump made a surprise announcement: The US appears poised for its first $1 trillion defense budget request.
“We also essentially approved a budget, which is in the [vicinity], you’ll like to hear this, of a trillion dollars,” Trump said while meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “$1 trillion, and nobody’s seen anything like it. We have to build our military, and we’re very cost conscious, but the military is something that we have to build, and we have to be strong, because you got a lot of bad forces out there now.
“So we’re going to be approving a budget, and I’m proud to say, actually, the biggest one we’ve ever done for the military.”
Institute for Policy Studies
“In 2024, the average taxpayer paid:
- $3,707 for weapons and war (628 dozen eggs), including $1,430 toward all Pentagon contractors (242 dozen eggs), and $5.82 for the Pentagon contracts with SpaceX, Elon Musk’s company (about a dozen eggs).
- $98 for deportations, immigrant detentions and border control (16 dozen eggs), vs. just $26 for refugee assistance (four dozen eggs), which the current administration has frozen.
- $149 for the National Institutes of Health, home of lifesaving medical and cancer research (25 dozen eggs); $39 for USAID, the international aid program that provides lifesaving food and medical help to millions (6 dozen eggs); and one penny for the Interagency Council on Homelessness that coordinates across agencies to end homelessness (no eggs). Each of these programs face elimination or severe cuts by President Trump and Elon Musk…
FACT SHEET: Your 2025 Tax Day Receipt
In December of 2024, President Biden signed the 2025 NDAA after being passed by the Senate and Congress. The 2025 NDAA amounts to $895.2 billion in funding for the war machine and war profiteers. A large percentage of the money goes to contractors.
https://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20241209/RCP_HR5009_xml%5b89%5d.pdf
Mapping Militarism *New* from World Beyond War
Maps and background to allow you to explore the world, now and back through the years.
“The United States of America, unlike any other nation on Earth, maintains a massive network of foreign military bases around the world, more than 900 bases in more than 90 countries and territories. If the peace movement is serious about ending the United States’ and its allies’ warmaking, then this global constellation of bases must be curtailed.
The Biggest Military Base Empire on Earth – Greta Zarro
Counter-terrorism or terrorism? Interesting maps. Numbers seem very conservative.
“U.S. bases represent 90-95 percent of the world’s foreign bases, constituting the largest collection of extraterritorial bases in world history…”
Military spending has many points of contention: Closing overseas bases isn’t one of them (2019)
BY MEDEA BENJAMIN, JOHN TIERNEY, DAVID VINE, AND COL. (RET.) LAWRENCE WILKERSON
Comparing US military to China: US has 20 times the nuclear warheads. Twice the tonnage of warships at sea. The US has over 800 overseas bases, China has 3. The US military has over 2000 fighter jets compared to China’s 600, and the Lockheed F-35 program is set to deliver 2500 nuclear capable jets.
Washington Post: The Pentagon is using China as an excuse for huge new budgets
https://twitter.com/FareedZakaria/status/1373696826205999107
How often does the US distribute weapons to those who use them against us or against innocent civilians and noncombatants. It is illegal for the US to arm human rights abusers or criminals, such as Israel and Saudi Arabia.
The US is Arms Salesman to the World
Home | Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
“…let’s talk military budgets:
The US will spend, if we want to be purists, $716 billion on the military. It’s actually a lot more because the National Security Agency is part of the military, and the CIA to all intents and purposes is military in nature and between them their secret budgets top more than the $50 billion that was leaked in a Congressional hearing eight years ago, and could be double that now since so much more US military activity is now handled by Special Forces acting under the direction of the CIA, but for sake of argument let’s just leave it at $716 billion.
Russia’s military budget is $65 billion, and even if you tripled that to account for how much more expensive everything is in the US from soldiers’ pay to weapons systems would represent less than a third of what the US spends.
China’s military budget is $183 billion, and again, you could double that if you like to account for different costs and it would still be less than half of the US military budget.
That is to say, even if you put the Chinese and Russian militaries together, their budgets would be significantly smaller than the US military budget.”
Let’s Stop Pretending Russia and China are Military Threats BY DAVE LINDORFF
“MEMBERS OF THE U.S. special operations forces deployed to 154 countries, or roughly 80 percent of the world’s nations, last year, but information about exactly where elite forces conduct missions, under what authorities they operate, who they’ve killed, and whether they’re adhering to the laws of armed conflict is closely guarded, buried in obscure legal provisions, shrouded in secrecy, or allegedly unknown even to Special Operations Command…” 
The Intercept, March 20, 2021
WILL THE BIDEN ADMINISTRATION SHINE LIGHT ON SHADOWY SPECIAL OPS PROGRAMS? by Nick Turse
Military dot com: Base Guide
“Today, while there are no foreign bases in the United States, there are around 800 U.S. bases in foreign countries…”
The official website for writer and professor David Vine
“It’s hard to say since this country has long been working to create and support global arsenals of autocracy. If the arms industry were truly focused on “defending democracy” on this planet, its firms would have already allowed the above-mentioned reforms to go through without objection, or even, heaven forbid, supported them. The fact that they won’t do so tells you all you need to know about their true intentions in what is for them a genuine gold-rush moment.”
“It’s not a matter of whether the war is not real or if it is. Victory is not possible.
The war is not meant to be won. It is meant to be continuous. A hierarchical society is only possible on the basis of poverty and ignorance.”
~ George Orwell ~
