[By Guancha Network columnist Bai Yujing]

While the tariff war is raging, plans are underway to boost U.S. military spending to one trillion dollars. These two tools are becoming dual strategic weapons for the United States in its attempt to "subdue others without fighting."

In history, no country has ever dared to make such a large-scale military investment in a non-war state – not even during the Cold War when confronting the Soviet Union. However, during Trump's administration, not only did the U.S. do this, but it also pushed tariffs on Chinese imports to unprecedented heights: continuously imposing new tariffs on Chinese imports, causing the overall tax rate to soar above 100%.

However, behind the tense atmosphere lies the fatal weakness of the U.S. fiscal structure. The national debt has exceeded 36 trillion, with an annual deficit nearing 2 trillion, high inflation, and widening social rifts. In this context, does the U.S. really have the ability to support such astonishing military expenditures? Or is it merely sustaining the illusion of its former hegemony by overspending?

Is this one trillion dollars the true starting point of imperial revival, or the last reckless gamble under the country's predicament? A more practical question is: how will this unprecedented budget be spent?

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Has the U.S. done the math?

A trillion-dollar budget, quite a bold claim. Has the U.S. truly done the math? They may have, but not comprehensively enough.

From the current economic scale of the U.S., with a GDP expected to exceed 29 trillion dollars in 2024, Trump’s proposed one trillion-dollar defense budget accounts for approximately 3.4% of GDP. If compared purely horizontally with history, this proportion is not exaggerated: during the peak of the Cold War, the U.S. defense budget accounted for more than 6% of GDP for a long time, and even reached 9.5% during the Vietnam War. In theory, the U.S. has substantial room for increasing its defense budget; one trillion is considered moderate, not extreme – which might be the basis for the U.S. calculations.

Based on the size of the economy, the U.S. seems fully capable of affording this one trillion-dollar military budget.

However, this comparison only stays at the surface level. Upon deeper analysis, the current U.S. fiscal situation is far from as healthy as during the Cold War. First, the annual interest payment on debt is about one trillion dollars, equivalent to Trump's envisioned defense budget. This means that a significant portion of the one trillion-dollar defense budget must rely on issuing new bonds or increasing taxes to fund, rather than depending entirely on natural economic growth or fiscal surpluses.

This is akin to a person earning 290,000 annually seemingly having no problem buying a car worth 10,000, yet actually being over 360,000 in debt, paying nearly 10,000 annually in interest, with rigid expenditures like retirement, healthcare, and children's education already consuming most of their income. At this point, purchasing this car becomes less effortless and more of an example of overconsumption and exacerbating debt crises.

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Moreover, this one trillion-dollar defense budget is not simply injected into the economy to strengthen military power; it is poured into the inefficient military-industrial complex. Over the past few decades, the procurement efficiency of the U.S. military industry has continued to decline. For instance, the cost of the F-35 fighter jet has skyrocketed from the initial planned 50 million dollars to well over 80 million dollars per unit, with the total project cost reaching a scale of 1.7 trillion dollars. Even the B-21 stealth bomber, still in the testing phase, is estimated to significantly exceed the budget. Such instances of cost overruns and production delays have become the norm for the U.S. military industry.

Furthermore, the U.S. social structure and distribution of fiscal expenditures have undergone significant changes. During the Cold War, the U.S. population was younger, with lighter welfare burdens and greater fiscal elasticity, allowing military spending peaks to exert relatively limited pressure on civilian budgets. Today, traditional Americans are deeply mired in aging problems, with the retirement wave of the baby boomer generation causing sharp increases in expenditures for social security, medical care, and pensions, which already account for more than 60% of the federal budget. Under this structural fiscal pressure, increasing defense spending inevitably leads to further cuts in civilian, infrastructure, and public service budgets, intensifying internal social conflicts and divisions.

Therefore, Trump's massive defense spending is not based on a healthy economy's rational expansion but appears more like a desperate gamble amidst mounting debt and escalating social tensions. While this approach might temporarily enhance external deterrence, in the long term, it will severely deplete the economic health and sustainability of the U.S., accelerating the deterioration of the fiscal structure, akin to quenching thirst with poison in a crisis.

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How to Spend It

After Trump raised the defense budget to one trillion dollars, how exactly will this unprecedentedly vast sum be allocated and utilized? Specifically, how will the U.S. military use this money to achieve its strategic goal of "subduing others without fighting"?

Based on the principle of "preparing for the worst," we will explore this issue from specific military domains. Of course, all discussions are premised on a scenario that is not very realistic for the U.S. today – that the funds can actually be fully implemented.

Firstly, in the aerospace domain. Over the past few decades, the U.S. military has invested far more than any other country in aerial superiority. However, it now faces numerous bottlenecks and challenges. This one trillion-dollar defense budget will undoubtedly accelerate solving these bottlenecks. Take the sixth-generation fighter project NGAD (Next Generation Air Dominance) as an example. This project is expected to cost over 300 million dollars per aircraft, meaning that the entire system's research, procurement, and deployment budget requirements will easily exceed tens of billions of dollars.

Additionally, the U.S. Air Force and Navy plan to deploy large formations of unmanned僚机operated by artificial intelligence to address current pilot shortages and declining combat effectiveness. Each of these unmanned僚机costs several million to tens of millions of dollars, and large-scale deployments will require enormous funding.

The B-21 "Raider" stealth bomber will also be a major recipient of the budget. This model is seen as the main strategic bomber replacing the outdated B-1B and B-2. The U.S. Air Force plans to produce over 100 aircraft, with each costing over 700 million dollars. Considering lifecycle maintenance costs, the total project expenditure could reach several trillion dollars. Although its stealth and strike capabilities are claimed to lead the world, such a huge budget still places immense pressure on the finances.

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The space domain will also absorb a substantial amount of the budget. During Trump's administration, the establishment of the Space Force faced difficulties due to insufficient financial support. Now, with one trillion-dollar budget guarantees, the Space Force will quickly deploy comprehensive space situational awareness systems (SSA), increasing low-orbit and high-orbit satellite constellations. This means that enhancements in GPS III satellites, missile warning systems, next-generation military communication satellites, and anti-satellite warfare capabilities will receive unprecedented budgetary support. Deploying the new OPIR missile warning satellite constellation alone could cost hundreds of billions of dollars.

Secondly, the navy is the largest beneficiary of this budget. Over the past few years, the U.S. Navy has been mired in a "fleet reduction" crisis, with construction speeds failing to keep up with the retirement of older vessels. Now, follow-up vessels of the Ford-class aircraft carrier, Columbia-class strategic nuclear submarines, as well as new missile destroyers, littoral combat ships, and unmanned vessels will all accelerate their development.

For instance, the Columbia-class strategic nuclear submarine costs over 9 billion dollars per vessel, with the construction and deployment budget for 12 vessels exceeding 110 billion dollars. Additionally, the U.S. Navy is rapidly advancing unmanned surface vessels (LUSV) and unmanned underwater vehicles (UUV), planning to deploy dozens or even hundreds of unmanned platforms to build a "ghost fleet." This not only increases fiscal pressure but also signifies a complete revolution in traditional naval operational models.

Thirdly, the army and marine corps will see more disruptive uses of the military budget. Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Army has been positioned for large-scale mechanized warfare, but in recent years, it has actively transitioned toward high-tech, high-precision firepower, mobility, and informatization. Land-based long-range hypersonic missile systems (LRHW), represented by remote high-velocity missiles, are beginning to be deployed. These missiles cost tens of millions of dollars each, with subsequent maintenance costs also extremely high. The Marine Corps is also undergoing structural transformation, comprehensively streamlining heavy armored tank units and deploying highly mobile anti-ship missiles, unmanned combat vehicles, and lightweight expeditionary strike units.

Finally, more subtly but importantly, the military-industrial complex itself. This one trillion-dollar budget flowing into the military industry will directly boost the stock prices and market values of giants like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, and Northrop Grumman. These companies will receive numerous research and procurement orders, making defense stocks a key trend in capital markets and further solidifying the structural dependence of the U.S. military-industrial complex on national budgets.

In summary, the use of this one trillion-dollar defense budget is not solely for pure military defense or preparation for war but more like constructing a multi-domain military industrial ecosystem covering air, space, sea, and land. The massive and continuous demand for funds from this system, in the long term, makes the efficiency and actual combat output ratio the key factors in evaluating the success or failure of Trump's massive defense budget.

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The Shadow of the Soviet Union

This year, what is most concerning is not whether the U.S. can pay this unprecedented one trillion-dollar defense budget in the short term, but the long-term structural economic risks it poses. Defense spending cannot absolutely ensure military strength; historical lessons from the Soviet Union have clearly demonstrated this point.

In the later stages of the Cold War, Soviet defense spending also reached a high proportion of the economic total. It did not collapse because it "couldn't afford" the defense budget but because long-term uncontrolled military investments led to severe economic distortions, ultimately collapsing the entire national economic system. The military industry was highly developed, while the civilian sector gradually shrank, technological innovation and productivity became rigid, leading to internal economic structural imbalances and completely losing sustainable development capability.

Today, the issues facing the U.S. differ from those of the Soviet Union – the U.S. possesses dollar hegemony, globalized markets, and a more flexible economic system, but it shares similar risks of structural imbalance: when massive defense spending gradually turns into an economic black hole, continuously eroding civilian investment, infrastructure construction, and social security resources, apparent military strength might transform into a strategic burden, even leading to serious structural failures.

The Trump administration pinned its hopes on massive defense spending and unprecedented high tariffs to "subdue others without fighting." However, historical experiences remind us that true national security comes from a healthy and stable economic structure, an efficient industrial system, and a sustainable development strategy. Relying solely on military budget expansion or economic pressure might just be retracing the dangerous path once taken by the Soviet Union.

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Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7491477158464864831/

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