Numbers you ought to know about

This White House has committed to a sustained trillion dollar defense budget for at least the next 5 years.That’s a million million, or a thousand billion, or $1,000,000,000,000 per year or$2,900 for every man, woman, retiree, and baby in America per year, every year.

And that’s not all that has been announced… the long term procurement of missiles is going to go from $9,000,000,000 for the Navy, $6,000,000,000 each for the Army and Air Force to $31 billion for the Navy, 24,500 for the Army and $21,000,000,000 for the Air Force within 4 years. Aircraft is following an even steeper increase especially for the Navy and Air Force. For the Navy they will go from $18,000,000,000 to $32,000,000,000 and for the Air Force from $30,000,000,000 to $54,000,000,000. And what you have to remember is that for every $1 spend on a missile or an airplane, the estimates previously given before Congress shows that another $10 is spent on supplies, training, and infrastructure.

Oh, and remember the fledgling Space Force, that new wing at the Pentagon? They are increasing spending too. From $4,500,000,000 in 2025 to $18,500,000,000 within three years. And that does not include Golden Dome, now budgeted at $17,500,000,000 for next year — yes, next year — and then levelling off for the next 10 years at $16,000,000,000 per year. And if you think that budgeting encompasses all the relevant costs for Golden Dome, you have not been paying attention to governmental accounting procedures where a hammer costs $2,500 to fudge expenses spent elsewhere.

There are two ways to justify renaming the Department of Defense to the Department of War. One is to commit us to existing war follies and misjudgments like Iran and the other way is to so increase weapon spending that the use of those new military tools becomes inevitable. The White House increases in military spending is out of all proportion to peaceful containment of so-called enemy regimes and is more in line with an expansionist and more dangerous future for all humanity.

Peter Riva, a former resident of Amenia Union, New York, now lives in Gila, New Mexico.