The Bloated Pentagon Budget Isn’t Just Wasteful. It’s Racist

In this era of racial reckoning, national security policy and defense budgets cannot be exempt from the scrutiny of their effects on communities of color.

It should shock no one that President Biden’s first budget request continues a long tradition of protecting the Pentagon from budget cuts. The administration’s “skinny budget” proposes $753 billion for national defense – a $12 billion increase from current levels. Despite sustained pressure from groups across the political spectrumfaith leaders, and members of Congress, Biden has never indicated any enthusiasm for reducing military spending.

But in this era of racial reckoning, it’s absurd that national security policy and defense budgets should be exempt from the scrutiny of their effects on communities of color. Too often we create artificial divisions between domestic and foreign policy and apply a racial-equity lens only to the former.

Pentagon spending is higher now than at the peak of the Vietnam War or the Cold War, adjusted for inflation, and more than the next 10 countries combined. These excessive levels of military spending both reflect and perpetuate white supremacy in four major ways.

First, unrestrained military spending fuels endless wars against Black and brown people. Over the last three years, the United States has conducted military counterterrorism operations in 85 countries – nearly all of them in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. All eight countries where U.S. service members engaged in combat, and seven where the United States conducted air and/or drone strikes, have populations that Americans regard as non-white. Far removed from television cameras, news headlines, and American public consciousness are the human costs of war: 335,000 civilians killed and 37 million displaced due to wars that Congress has never authorized or even voted on.

Second, U.S. weapons and wars extract an economic, environmental, and human toll at home that falls most heavily on communities of color. The Pentagon is one of the world’s top greenhouse gas emitters, exacerbating problems like warming temperatures, extreme weather events, and poor air quality that hit socially and economically disadvantaged groups hardest. Radiation exposure from uranium mining, milling, and transporting, as well as Cold War-era nuclear testing and a massive radioactive spill, have caused cancers and other serious health effects – the majority of them in indigenous communities. Billions of dollars’ worth of military-grade equipment has been transferred to state, local and tribal police forces under the Defense Department’s 1033 program, feeding police departments’ warrior mentality and encouraging them to treat Black and brown neighborhoods as battlefields.

Third, backers of defense budgets promote anti-Asian, anti-Muslim, and anti-immigrant sentiment (and vice versa). To justify such exceptional levels of military spending, policymakers and planners demonize China, North Korea, and Iran as aggressive and implacable foes who must be stopped by threats, intimidation, and the use of force. China-bashing by Democrats and Republicans alike has dehumanized Asians and almost certainly contributed to the dramatic surge in anti-Asian hate crimes. It’s a vicious cycle: polls show that Americans with the greatest levels of racial resentment are the most likely to back military action against countries perceived as non-white.

Finally, extravagant Pentagon budgets divert scarce resources from higher priority security needs. People who are Black, Latinx, and Native American are at disproportionate risk of sickness and death from COVID-19, and from the lack of health care more generally. Yet while the United States has poured more than $6 trillion – yes, that’s trillion with a T – into the post-9/11 wars that have killed more than 800,000 people and made Americans less secure, public health has been chronically underfunded and resources for emergency preparedness have been repeatedly slashed. Even the $12.4 billion that the Trump administration spent on Operation Warp Speed pales in comparison to the annual average of $52 billion the United States has spent recently on the senseless and failed war in Afghanistan. As Elisabeth Rosenthal explains in the Los Angeles Times, “as our defenses against international and bioterrorism were hardening, our defenses against infectious disease shrank.”

Americans can no longer pretend that the size of the Pentagon budget is a measure of national security, or that spending more on the military will keep us safer. Instead, we must recognize the Pentagon budget for what it is: a monument to white supremacy. And like Confederate statues, it needs to be removed from its pedestal.

Diana Ohlbaum is director of the Friends Committee on National Legislation’s foreign policy team.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.