Biden Policies Exacerbate Looming Debt Bomb for U.S. Military Budget

U nconstrained domestic spending and 20 years of wars have created a $29 trillion national debt that exceeds our nation’s entire $23 trillion gross domestic product (GDP). That sum threatens to implode the nation’s ability to project power and defend itself.

President Joe Biden’s spending has added insult to injury. Since January 2020, he has spent at least $6.82 trillion, which is larger than the entire U.S. GDP in 1993 when Bill Clinton became president. It is also larger than the total national debt on September 11, 2001, which stood at $5.8 trillion. One of Osama bin Laden’s goals on that day was to bankrupt the U.S. “We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah,” he later said in 2004. Consider that since it began, the War on Terror has cost $8 trillion — just above the president’s nine-month total.  

Our national debt is no longer sustainable. In recent years, some have dismissed the threat that our national debt poses to our national defense because of historically low interest rates. Yet the return of high inflation could prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates in a bid to curb inflation next year.

Countries whose debt exceeds their GDP have the option of debasing their currencies to pay their debt. Next year the U.S. government will spend $562 billion on interest on the national debt.

President Biden’s overspending put his own administration’s defense budgetary target out of whack because its $715 billion defense budget increased only 2.2 percent from the year before. The current declared inflation rate stands at 6.8 percent. The agreed-upon 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) increased Biden’s baseline to $740 billion. The current NDAA is built around a 3 percent inflation rate. If the current inflation trend continues, Congress would need to more than double its $25 billion increase in a final appropriations deal to approximately $50 billion to keep the Pentagon’s buying power from eroding, a Hill source said under the condition of anonymity.

The Hill source warned that the Defense Department is more sensitive to inflationary pressures than other budgetary areas are. Building ships, tanks, planes, drones, and the like requires purchasing raw materials — the prices of which increase along with the costs of living for civilian employees and military service personnel. Democrats included only a $3 billion pay increase in their $25 billion increase to cover inflationary pressures for these men and women.

The last two millennia have proven that overspending and inflation undermine military readiness. China and Russia are nipping at our heels and relishing the incompetence of our leaders on matters including monetary policy, spending, and the lack of technological leadership and coherent military strategy.

We ought to take seriously history’s dire precedents.

The Roman Empire debased its currency, the denarius, to deal with mounting debt. Its economy collapsed, resulting in a decline in the standard of living and the ultimate breakup of the empire. Soldiers demanded higher wages in the form of higher silver content of Roman coin. By 265 a.d., the Roman denarius was only 0.5 percent silver and costs skyrocketed.

The Roman legions that had been the backbone of Roman military power at its height in the first and second centuries a.d. became unaffordable and were increasingly replaced by barbarian mercenaries. In time, the Roman Empire’s depleted treasury led to the collapse of Rome’s ability to keep troops on the peripheries, which opened the gates to the barbarian hordes.

The British Empire suffered a similar fate in the 20th century.

In the wake of two World Wars, the empire suffered from an overstretched economic policy and overstretched military. Indeed, debt from the Second World War became the final nail in its coffin. The British Empire became incapable of managing the crushing debt, and the dissolution of the empire became unavoidable.

The U.S. government is just as overextended and indebted as the Roman and British empires before it. Currently, the U.S. fleet is made up of older surface units and is plagued by a maintenance backlog not unlike that which faced the Royal Navy.

Like the British Empire during its terminal phase, the U.S. has witnessed the erosion of its industrial base since the end of the Cold War. That decline, combined with inflationary and debt pressures, spells a bleak picture for the American military unless strong leadership turns things around. Reversing this trend is an under-the-radar issue whose time has come with the 2022 midterms and 2024 presidential election.