An indefensible defense budget proposal and what it portends for our nation |
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth returned to Capitol Hill this week to promote the Trump administration’s proposed $1.5 trillion defense budget. The request is colossal, in both relative and absolute terms. It is 44 percent larger than the 2026 fiscal year budget, which was already a 17 percent increase over 2025.
President Donald Trump’s team claims this is a necessary defensive measure against threats from China, Russia, Iran and North Korea. But this budget is offensive in both senses of the word: aggressive toward the world and insulting here at home.
For decades, our adversaries have watched America’s growing military size and reach with alarm at what they see as signs of aggression. The U.S. government has dismissed these concerns, suggesting that our military might and forward deployment across the globe are merely deterrents to the aggression of others.
That may have been persuasive to some partners before, but this administration’s penchant for both threats and use of force has fatally undermined the credibility of that rationalization. Consider U.S. military action in Venezuela, the Caribbean and Iran, and the threats to Cuba, Mexico and Greenland, to name a few.
America today is not shy about delivering on its threats, either. America’s existing military presence and infrastructure around the world make Trump’s appetite for military action even more dangerous because they lower the........