Militarists Aren't Going to Cut Military Spending

It is safe to assume that military spending will steadily increase over the next four years just as it has increased almost every year for the last quarter century.

William Hartung comments on the Trump administration’s non-existent military spending cuts:

But upon clarification, it became clear that the plan is not to reduce the Pentagon’s top line, but to shift any savings found in one part of the department to pay for other systems and activities more in line with the preferences of the administration.

A clue as to what those priorities are is contained in the internal memorandum itself, which exempts 17 categories of expenditure from cuts, including operations at the southern border, spending on missile defense and a new generation of nuclear weapons, acquisition of submarines, and certain categories of drones and other munitions.

There was little chance that the Trump administration would seek reductions in military spending. Not only are they locked into great power rivalry with China and increased spending on nuclear weapons and a massive expansion of missile defense, but Trump and his allies have never seriously entertained significant reductions in the military budget. If there is one thing that Trump likes to boast about from his first term, it is how he “rebuilt” a supposedly weakened military. Trump is a militarist, and militarists aren’t going to cut military spending.