Fiscal Redemption Requires A Republic—Not An Empire (Part 1)

There is not a snowball’s chance in the hot place of containing America’s public debt disaster unless the Empire is brought home and the national security budget is slashed by $500 billion per year. The merits aside, all the other big slices of the budget led by Social Security and Medicare are surrounded by nearly impenetrable political moats.

Fortunately, the $500 billion savings from the national security budget is not only doable but fully warranted on the merits. The fact is, our present bloated Empire-serving Warfare State is not remotely necessary for homeland security and the proper foreign policy of a peaceful Republic.

In this context, let’s start with the sheer bloated size of the national security budget for the current year (FY 2025). Including a 22% pro rata share of debt service payments, the comprehensive national security budget amounts to just under $1.6 trillion.

Comprehensive National Security Budget, FY 2025

• National defense function: $927 billion.

• International operations and aid: $66 billion.

• Veterans support: $370 billion.

• 21.7% of net interest: $210 billion.

• Total national security budget: $1.573 trillion.

• Memo: Total national security budget less allocated interest: $1.363 trillion.

When this stupendous total is looked at in historic perspective, three things standout. First, the end of the cold war in 1991 and the subsequent disappearance of the heavily armed Soviet Empire into the dustbin of history left no trace on the US national security numbers. In fact, at the peak of the Cold War in 1962 when JFK faced down Khrushchev in Cuba the total national security budget was just 46% of the current level measured in constant dollars (FY 2025 $).

That’s right. The 1962 national security budget for the items above (except for net interest) stood at $640 billion just after President Eisenhower famously warned about the dangers of the military/industrial complex in his Farewell Address. Moreover, the FY 2025 budget (excluding the allocated interest element) of $1.363 trillion is now 68% larger than it was in 1990 on the eve of the Soviet collapse.

That is truly astounding. An adversary armed to the teeth with upwards of 37,000 nukes and nearly a 4 million-man conventional armed force vanishes entirely and yet the US national security budget keeps rising skyward without missing a beat.

Comprehensive National Security Budget in FY 2025 $

• 1962: $640 billion.

• 1980:$570 billion.

• 1990: $811 billion.

• 2025: $1.363 trillion.

The second key point is that the big increase during the Cold War occurred not in the heat of confrontation during the 1950s and 1960s but during the Reagan era of the 1980s when the Soviet Union was already on its last leg economically and politically. Yet between 1980 and 1990 the constant dollar national security budget soared by +42%, from $570 billion to $811 billion.