Reprinted from Bracing Views with the author’s permission.
An argument the Trump administration is using to justify massive increases in war spending is that the U.S. military is short on munitions. What a surprise! After the Iran War, attacks on Yemen and Somalia, supplying Israel with all sorts of air defense missiles as well as bombs and who knows what else (some of it is classified), the ongoing Russia-Ukraine War, and so on, it’s no wonder munitions are in short supply.
Bottles of nips may be in short supply after an alcoholic raids a hotel minibar. Is it wise to resupply it while the drinker is still there, intoxicated, begging for more?
Fascinating to me are the lack of moral arguments against America’s orgy of murderous weapons. The Bible says “Thou shalt not kill.” Killing is immoral and a crime unless as a last resort in self-defense. When our nation goes to war, it is also supposed to be in self-defense to uphold our Constitution and our highest ideals.
We always hear about a shared Judeo-Christian tradition – there’s a moral imperative here that demands fewer swords and more ploughshares. A God-given mandate to make war no more. To be peacemakers, not warfighters.
America, the shining city on a hill, should celebrate the sanctity of life rather than building more weapons to destroy life. But today’s America is much more akin to a heavily armed garrison-state, bristling with weapons, with satellite garrisons around the world.
Anyhow, Professor David Vine served as point man for a point paper on the unwisdom of using a shortage of munitions as leverage to justify more orgiastic Pentagon spending. It’s available online and I’ve pasted it below:
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Not Another Nickel for Bombs and War: Why the “Munitions Shortfall” Is No Reason to Boost the Pentagon Budget
★ Buying more weapons now would reward Trump for using tens of thousands of missiles, bombs, and interceptors in his reckless, illegal war of choice in Iran and would encourage more endless war and more out-of-control Pentagon spending.
★ The Pentagon is sitting on nearly $118 billion in unobligated reconciliation funds, including more than $44 billion for procurement, as of April, according to the Senate Budget Committee. Before Congress provides another dollar for munitions, it should ensure the Pentagon spends what it already has.
★ The Pentagon’s current budget is already far too large. It could easily buy additional bombs and missiles by canceling unnecessary weapons contracts, including Trump’s Golden Dome, the Trump-class destroyer, the Sentinel ICBM, and the F-35.
★ Even without replacing a single weapon, the U.S. military remains the world’s most powerful and fully capable of defending the country. We shouldn’t be preparing for war with China or any other nation. We should be pursuing diplomacy, arms control, and international cooperation to end endless wars and avoid new ones.
★ The wars in Iran and Ukraine show that the U.S. should prioritize inexpensive drones and remote technologies, not costly legacy systems that pad contractor profits.
★ Voting for a $1.15 trillion Pentagon budget is a vote for Trump’s full $1.5 trillion war budget since Republicans can pass the additional $350 billion in reconciliation funds on their own.
★ A $1.15 trillion Pentagon budget, alone, is a 28% increase over last year. A $1.5 trillion budget would be the largest in U.S. history.
★ Enough is enough. Congress should reject demands for a bigger Pentagon budget, including to buy more bombs and missiles. We should be cutting the Pentagon budget, not fueling more endless war.
More Background: For two decades or more, the U.S. has faced a persistent munitions shortfall. The services have long favored costly platforms like F-35s and destroyers over munitions, which are routinely placed at the bottom of funding priority lists. This was well‑known before Trump launched his illegal war of choice against Iran. Trump’s own advisors warned him that going to war with Iran while the U.S. had low munitions stockpiles would be reckless. In other words, today’s shortfall is not a surprise – rather it’s the direct result of long‑standing U.S. policy choices.
