With President Obama set to unveil his deficit-reduction plan this afternoon, it's worth noting the extent to which actual deficit hawks could find real savings within our massive military budget. To give you a sense of its size, here's a chart from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute:
Here's another one, for further context:
Not only does the United States spend more on its military than its next four competitors combined, but it accounts for a plurality of global military spending. Surely it's possible to find savings in a budget that accounts for 20 percent of annual spending.
That said, we should be careful not to overstate the extent to which excessive military spending is the product of waste. When it comes down to it, we provide the Pentagon with hundreds of billions of dollars because we insist on a global military presence and a United States that can quickly project force anywhere in the world. When it comes down to it, the only reliable way to reduce defense spending is to reduce our commitments, end our wars, and move away from our excessive reliance on military force.
