The official Pentagon budget for the 2026 fiscal year (FY26) will likely top $1 trillion, even as essential services like education, healthcare, food security, and labor protections face drastic cuts. But Senate Armed Services Committee Chair Roger Wicker still isn’t happy.
For Wicker, a $1 trillion Pentagon budget isn’t enough. Wicker and others on Capitol Hill want even more money for the military, claiming that these massive budgets are necessary to enable the US to attack anywhere in the world and simultaneously fight a two-front war against both Russia and China.
The belief that the US needs to be prepared to go to war with Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran is also used to justify record levels of investment in upgrading the US Nuclear weapons arsenal. In FY25, the US spent more than $110 billion on nuclear weapons, and Washington plans to spend an additional $1 trillion on the nuclear arsenal over the next decade.
In reality, military confrontation with Russia, China, or any other nuclear power should be unthinkable. Open conflict would be devastating in terms of lives lost and resources wasted. If nuclear weapons were used, the impacts would be apocalyptic.
But military confrontation appears to be what many in Washington are pushing for. And as the drumbeat for war grows louder, other changes pushed by the Trump administration have decimated the US capacity to prevent conflict and to respond diplomatically.
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On May 2, the White House released its proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year. This budget calls for cuts to US funding for international peacekeeping, State Department and USAID operations, complex crisis funding, refugee assistance, humanitarian aid, international disaster assistance, global health programming, and more. The State Department is being restructured with key positions responsible for conflict prevention and mitigation eliminated, and the US is closing embassies around the world.
Cuts to international development funding and changes at the State Department do not save money in the long run. In 2019, a group of 141 retired three- and four-star generals and admirals sent a letter to Congress opposing cuts to foreign assistance. They highlighted the importance of strategic investments in development and diplomacy to address the root causes of conflict, noting that “for every $1 spent on conflict prevention, we save $16 in response costs and avoid sending our troops into harm’s way.”
In reality, military confrontation with Russia, China, or any other nuclear power should be unthinkable.
Development assistance and conflict prevention programming decrease instability and violence in ways that military action cannot. One study carried out between 2005 and 2014 found that countries that received the highest levels of per-capita health aid “enjoyed near-immediate results in terms of improved state-stability metrics, including higher quality of governance, lower degrees of corruption, enhanced social cohesion, and a more vibrant civil society.” That study concluded that there is a direct correlation between development aid and stability and security in recipient locations.
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The inverse is also true. In Somalia, US and foreign military intervention has failed to bring stability or weaken the al-Shabaab militant group. In fact, there is ample evidence that military intervention has helped al-Shabaab maintain control because they profit from Somalia’s war economy. Money from US security operations helps keep this system going as al-Shabaab, government forces, international troops, and Somali elites all benefit from the constant flow of military funding that keeps the country locked in conflict.
Another study that looked at the impact of US military funding on “anti-American terrorism” in 174 countries found no evidence that US military aid contributes to increased local state capacity and no evidence that more US military aid makes the United States safer. To the contrary, the study found that higher levels of military aid cause higher levels of anti-American violence in recipient countries.
These studies confirm what we already know. The US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have provided stark examples of the limits of military power. Twenty-five years into the “Global War on Terror,” it is clear that US military actions have not left the world safer or minimized threats of violence.
It’s time for a new path forward.
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The Trump administration and members of Congress from both parties advocating for trillions in military funding are not offering a new path; they are putting forward the same failed policies that have led to 25 years of constant war. More money for weapons and the Pentagon makes military contractors and arms producers wealthier, but it doesn’t make the US safer.
So what can the US do differently? Negotiating new nuclear non-proliferation treaties with Russia and China could be a good starting point. Instead of building up weapons caches to prepare for conflict, the US should sit down to negotiate agreements and open up relationships that can mitigate or prevent open conflict. This approach would allow Washington to get rid of costly weapons that the US should never want to use while avoiding wars it could never win.
Negotiating new nonproliferation agreements also has the added advantage of opening up possible channels for negotiations with Iran and North Korea, two countries that can be persuaded to relinquish their nuclear arsenals or ambitions as part of a larger deal. Moves to reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles would also save hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade, money that can be invested in addressing community needs and preventing conflict.
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This is an approach where there is little to lose and much to win. It is time for the US to reimagine security. Instead of seeking a generational investment in the military, the US should invest in providing for human needs at home and abroad. Cutting even a portion of the Pentagon’s bloated budget could provide billions for job creation programs, infrastructure development, scientific research, health care, and more.
Internationally, the US should intensify its investments to address the root causes of conflict and global poverty. In 2021, nine million people died of hunger, nearly 30 times the number that died in war that same year. Hunger and poverty are also drivers of conflict. But ending world hunger is possible. Oxfam estimates that it would cost a fraction of the $110 billion that the US spent on nuclear weapons in 2025 to end world hunger.
Trading nuclear bombs for food is a trade worth making.
Hunger, poverty, inequality, and a lack of rights, whether in the US or abroad, are forms of insecurity, but more weapons will do nothing to address them. True security will only come through diplomacy, nonviolent conflict prevention, climate action, and investment in human well-being. That — and not the military — is where the US should be putting its money.
