The Realignment 583 | William D. Hartung & Ben Freeman: The Pentagon's Trillion Dollar War Machine and the Debate Over America's Role in the World
Nov 13, 2025
William D. Hartung, a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute, and Ben Freeman, a researcher at the same institute, delve into the intricacies of U.S. military spending and its global implications. They discuss the trillion-dollar Pentagon budget's origins and how corruption influences foreign policy. The guests explore the dangerous synergy between military budgets and strategic decisions, highlighting dysfunction in weapon development. They also debate the need for reform, the impact of lobbying, and how reducing defense spending could benefit domestic priorities.
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Spending Enables Risky Intervention
- Excessive military capacity can enable leaders to pursue risky interventions they otherwise might not attempt.
- Military spending thus reinforces interventionist ideas by providing the means and confidence to act.
Budget And Strategy Reinforce Each Other
- Strategy and spending are mutually reinforcing: you cannot sustain a global, everywhere posture without high budgets.
- Conversely, large budgets create pressure to find or justify threats to sustain them.
Procurement Lock-In Distorts Capability Choices
- Weapons procurement and industrial politics lock in capabilities that may not match future conflicts.
- Local jobs and congressional interests perpetuate systems even when technologies are misaligned with needs.
