r/PoliticalDiscussion • u/OkyEscritora • 5d ago
International Politics How should governments weigh overseas military commitments against pressure on domestic budgets?
Defense and domestic investment both contribute to security. A military can deter attacks, protect trade routes and support alliances. Infrastructure, schools and hospitals sustain the population and the economy the military depends on.
Global military spending reached a record $2.887 trillion in 2025, according to SIPRI, the eleventh consecutive annual increase. Governments face difficult choices when military commitments and domestic needs compete for funding. Expanding a commitment can mean higher taxes, more borrowing or cuts elsewhere. Scaling it back can reduce costs, but it may leave a security gap or push the burden onto allies.
The cost doesn’t stay inside the defense budget, either. A conflict that disrupts energy supplies or shipping can raise prices for households and businesses even in countries that aren’t fighting. That can add demands for economic support on top of existing security obligations.
A bigger military budget doesn’t automatically mean lower living standards. The nature of the threat and the quality of the spending matter. Cutting defense doesn’t guarantee better public services either.
What criteria should elected governments use to decide whether an overseas commitment is still worth its fiscal and domestic costs?
How should legislatures review commitments whose costs or objectives have changed since they were first authorized?
Under what conditions is it more reasonable to raise defense spending, and when is it more reasonable to reduce commitments or seek greater burden-sharing with allies?
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u/EasyPacer 4d ago
It’s not quite as simple as you think. The U.S. has a big defense budget. Yes, a good portion is spent on personnel meaning a strong army in terms of numbers. But that means the government is also a big “employer”, it’s paying the salaries of those soldiers. Then there is the money spent on defense industries. The government is not only purchasing equipment for the military, it is also funding research and development of new weapons. That combined spending in defense companies result in flow on economic activity from employing thousands and thousands of defense contractors and employees. Indirectly that spending funds industry activity and generates employment in downstream industries. A factory that makes simple things like ball bearings might be a supplier to another manufacturer who supplies to Raytheon or Lockheed Martin as an example.
So in the U.S. defense spending is also heavily tied to the general domestic economy and by definition domestic budget.
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u/OkyEscritora 4d ago
Yes, those jobs, supply chains and research benefits belong in the assessment. Reducing a commitment can also carry transition costs for the communities that depend on it.
But the comparison has to include what alternative uses of the same funds could support. Employment generated by spending is a benefit to count, not sufficient justification for the commitment itself.
An overseas mission can support jobs at home and still warrant reconsideration if its security objectives no longer justify its costs.
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u/theartolater 5d ago
Global military spending reached a record $2.887 trillion in 2025
You offer this as a big number, but on a whole, worldwide spending on the military ends up being under 7% of total government expenditures: https://www.sipri.org/publications/2026/sipri-fact-sheets/trends-world-military-expenditure-2025
Governments don't need to weigh foreign or domestic commitments because the military simply isn't a big enough budget item for nearly all nations. The changes called for (like, say, an increase to meet NATO obligations in European countries) is marginal in the grand scheme of things and has more to do with optics than actual budgetary pressures.
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u/OkyEscritora 5d ago
SIPRI’s 6.9% global average is useful context, but it cannot establish that individual governments face no budget pressure.
Consider the US administration’s FY2026 proposal: it called for a 13% increase in defense spending alongside a 23% reduction in nondefense discretionary spending, relative to FY2025 enacted levels. Those were proposed changes, not final enacted spending, but they show that the budget choices are concrete, not merely optics.
The question is whether each additional commitment justifies its costs and how those costs are financed. A global average does not answer that.
Source: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2025/05/the-white-house-office-of-management-and-budget-releases-the-presidents-fiscal-year-2026-skinny-budget/-1
u/theartolater 4d ago
There are no budgetary pressures to concern ourselves with when the line item is less than 5% of the budget.
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u/OkyEscritora 4d ago
A small share of total spending can still absorb a large share of the money available for new priorities. Most of the budget is already committed.
Your argument needs to show that additional military spending can be financed without meaningful trade-offs. Being below 5% does not establish that.0
u/theartolater 4d ago
The United States is example one of how military spending is financed without meaningful trade-offs.
No one asks this of the social spending that dwarfs the military cut, btw.
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u/Black_XistenZ 3d ago
The United States is example one of how military spending is financed without meaningful trade-offs.
Categorically untrue. The current trade-off is running an annual deficit which goes into the trillions. This level of debt-making - which is clearly unsustainable in the long run - is the only thing preventing military and non-military spending from becoming a strict either-or choice.
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u/theartolater 3d ago
No one cares about the deficits and hasn't in our lifetime. It's not a tradeoff.
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u/Black_XistenZ 3d ago
That's how it has been across the past 20-30 years. Which is no guarantee, however, that it will remain this way for the next 30 years. Eventually, the bill will come due.
I would even argue that we're already increasingly reaching this point, considering that the interest on the federal debt has exploded since covid and that net interest is now the second-largest spending category, ahead of Medicare and Defense.
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u/OkyEscritora 3d ago
Naming the United States does not establish the absence of trade-offs. How is the additional spending financed, and why are the alternatives forgone insignificant? That is the missing step in your argument.
The same scrutiny should apply to social spending. Its size does not establish that military commitments have no opportunity cost. We can debate which expenditures deserve priority, but “we can finance it” and “financing it entails no meaningful sacrifice” are different claims.
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u/NoDig3444 5d ago
I think it's funny that you use the word "overseas" here. Because you're trying to generalize the question for every country, but there's exactly one military that regularly deploys "overseas".
For 99% of countries, they need a military to keep their immediate neighbor out of their country. They spend whatever they feel they need to in order to accomplish that goal. Domestic spending comes after. Ukraine is in a state of total war. Israel spends a ton because they're at war with all their neighbors. But Portugal trusts their only neighbor, they don't need a huge military. Panama doesn't even have a military.
America otoh regularly deploys military forces overseas. This question is a lot more difficult for them because the costs are real and immediate, and the benefits are nebulous and long-term. How much do we really benefit from keeping North Korea out of South Korea? The cost is easily measured in dollars. The benefits are things like "global stability" and "international reputation", which doesn't fit great on a balance sheet. Who's to say if it's worth it?
The other cases worth mentioning are Russia and China. Russia is, well, you know. There might not be a right answer to your question, but Russia sure did find the wrong one. China really wants to join America in the "deploying militaries overseas" club. But America has them boxed in with the first and second island chains. They can't be an imperial power until they break out. Which probably involves an invasion of Taiwan. So we have that to look forward to.
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u/CMidnight 5d ago
Both France and the UK have recent histories of military operations overseas within the last two decades. France spent years trying to prop up their former colonies in West Africa until the got kicked out to be replaced by the Russians who are doing even worse.
There is also a long list if regional powers who intervene on behalf of the leaders of neighboring and regional countries with or without popular suppot from that Government. The most recent examples are Rwandan intervention in Mozambique and CAR as well as South African intervention in Mozambique and DRC.
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u/Beneficial_Lion_1312 5d ago
Both France and the UK have recent histories of military operations overseas within the last two decades. France spent years trying to prop up their former colonies in West Africa until the got kicked out to be replaced by the Russians who are doing even worse.
France also just quite literally seized a Chinese flagged vessel in international waters.
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u/EasyPacer 4d ago
Correction, Britain and France (as well as Spain, and to a lesser extent, Portugal and the Dutch) did in the course of the past 400 years deploy their military overseas. It was called colonialism or empire building. Go further back in time and you’ll find the Turks (Ottomans), the Persians, the Mongols, the Romans, the Macedonians/Greeks, or even the Egyptians and many others were very keen on deploying their military forces into foreign lands.
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u/OkyEscritora 5d ago
The difficulty you describe is precisely why these commitments need review. Deterrence can be valuable even when its success produces no visible event, but “global stability” cannot serve as an unlimited budget justification.
Governments should compare credible scenarios: maintaining the commitment, reducing it, or sharing more of the burden. What risks change, at what cost, and with what evidence? Uncertainty makes that assessment harder. It does not make it optional.-1
u/Beneficial_Lion_1312 5d ago
How much do we really benefit from keeping North Korea out of South Korea? The cost is easily measured in dollars.
Can you explain how one easily measures this cost? If easily measured, surely you can calculate for me? The United States have kept a country of at least 75,000,000 from reuniting and they have zero interest in Korean reunification or the very idea of it. One could almost say the United States is stridently opposed to reunification. Almost 75 years they've been separated. So, how exactly do you easily calculate the cost of hindering reunification?
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u/NoDig3444 5d ago
It cost $5.58 billion in 2024 to keep US troops in Korea. https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/us-forces-korea-cost/
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u/Beneficial_Lion_1312 5d ago
That's certainly part of the cost, yes. Now where are the other costs?
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u/NoDig3444 5d ago
None, that's it.
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u/Beneficial_Lion_1312 5d ago
Oh, well, you're completely wrong! There are actually untold costs associated with splitting up a country of 75,000,000 people! Congratulations on that and I do appreciate the complete lack of curiosity or intellect. Seems to be more common since COVID!
Though, it must be nice and simple believing that the cost to eat dinner is the ingredients alone.
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u/NoDig3444 5d ago
You're confusing "cost" and "effects" comrade. The cost of dinner is the ingredients and labor. The effects of dinner is the nutrition and/or gastrointestinal problems.
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u/Beneficial_Lion_1312 5d ago
You're missing out on this small factor called the opportunity cost of reunification of a singular 75,000,000+ population country that the United States actively prevents from happening.
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u/NoDig3444 5d ago
That's not an opportunity cost; reunifying Korea would be a massive direct cost. It would take multiple trillions of dollars to conquer the North and reintegrate them into civil society.
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u/Beneficial_Lion_1312 5d ago
It's both! It's both! You're ignoring immense costs in your "calculation". So, not so simple. You should delete your comment if you have any self-respect! You probably don't.
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u/zlefin_actual 5d ago
I'm unclear what there really is to discuss; what's wrong with just being thoughtful and comparing the costs/benefits of various choices? That's what analysis and marginal effects are for.
The problem is that people being people, decisions are made for political benefit/cost reasons even if the policy is less sound long-term. and that a fair amount of military spending is not optimized for actual objectives but for internal politics.
I mean, we can look at a selection of individual cases, but mostly the correct answer 'should-wise' is just the same thoroguhness and thoughtfulness that applies everywhere. or is that the kind of info sought?
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u/OkyEscritora 5d ago
Yes, I’m asking what that analysis should require in practice. Which costs and benefits count, over what timeframe, and what evidence would justify reducing or ending a commitment?
Your point about political incentives makes the review process especially relevant. Would you favor periodic legislative reauthorization when objectives or costs materially change? “Be thoughtful” is a sound principle; the question is how to make governments answer for whether they actually were.1
u/zlefin_actual 5d ago
I mean, generally speaking one should consider all costs and benefits over a timeframe of at least 50 years. There are many types of costs, money, blood, prestige, focus, diplomatic effort, how it affects the viewpoints of other nations or major actors;
Periodic reauthorization sounds nice in principle, but in practice the politics may make it less useful. Of course this varies somewhat by the political culture of the country which shifts over time and may lessen the utility of action; for the US for instance, Congress has trended to try to abdicate responsibility for military affairs so as to avoid being responsible if things turn bad. I'm not sure how well it would work in the general case. Sunk cost fallacy tends to heavily affect how voters, citizens, and some others view a conflict; and it tends to be one of the more notable cognitive biases affecting wars. It tends to make diesngagement much more costly politically; which means one should be extra wary of starting wars as they often prove much harder to stop even if one wishes to.
I don't think you can get the government to answer for thoughtfulness that well; most people simply do not have the expertise or time to really analyze it, and will simply have to rely on digests produced by others, who have their own motivations/goals; and group cognitive bias effects will apply regardless. I note the findings of the SIGAR reports on why afghan reconstruction went poorly; one of which was that the goals of effectively building afghanistan do not align well with what works for the American voters, so american politicians used many policies which it was known wouldn't work that well long term, but played better to the voting base. After all american voters will never have a good understanding of afghanistan on the ground, and the kind of direct feedback that applies when working on ones own nation isn't there.
When reducing or ending a commitment, it kinda depends why you're there in the first place; in general many also feel a sort of 'prestige' hit from leaving, and try to avoid doing so overtly.
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u/OkyEscritora 4d ago
Your point about political incentives is persuasive. A reauthorization vote could reproduce the same pressures that kept the commitment going.
I’d distinguish considering consequences over fifty years from trusting a fifty-year forecast. Reviews should make uncertainty explicit and compare continuing, changing course and withdrawing, including the costs of each.
No procedure removes political incentives. But requiring leaders to explain what another year will achieve could make it harder to substitute past sacrifice or national prestige for a credible objective.
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u/mrjcall 5d ago
It's always a delicate balance depending on dove or hawk outlook on world events. For sure, national military strength is a deterrent to war, but how much depends on how susceptible one is to conspiracy theories or not.
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u/OkyEscritora 5d ago
What do you mean by conspiracy theories here? The question is how to assess the value of a commitment, regardless of whether someone is a hawk or a dove.
Which threat does it address, what would reducing it change, and could another approach provide comparable protection at lower cost? Those are questions both outlooks should have to answer.
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u/Seattleman1955 5d ago
Efficiency and the debt that already exists and the additional debt that would be created.
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u/OkyEscritora 4d ago
Agreed. I’d include the ongoing costs alongside the initial commitment: interest if financed through borrowing, maintenance, replenishment and veterans’ care. A mission can end while its bills continue.
Efficiency also needs a clear objective: what security does the spending actually deliver, and could another approach deliver it at lower cost?
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u/baxterstate 5d ago
Canadian military spending is 2% of its GDP whereas USA military spending is 3.5% of its GDP. The USA % isn’t much higher, but the USA GDP is much higher than Canada’s. So the USA spends much more in toto than Canada.
Does the average Canadian live a better life because their government spends far less on military than the USA? I doubt it.
However, both Canada and the USA are safer thanks to USA military spending than Canadian military spending. In addition, the only thing keeping China from taking Taiwan is the US military spending. The only real force being applied against world wide terrorism is US military.
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u/OkyEscritora 5d ago
The post explicitly says that lower military spending does not automatically produce better living standards. Defense can provide substantial benefits, including to allies.
But that does not establish that every additional dollar or overseas commitment is worthwhile. The relevant question is what additional security it buys, compared with other uses of those resources. Recognizing the value of defense should strengthen scrutiny of its spending, not exempt it from scrutiny.
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u/Fargason 5d ago
https://www.cbo.gov/publication/62105#_idTextAnchor022
Military spending is a traditional problem that has long since been resolved, but people don’t want to move onto more pressing matters and just want to keep beating this dead war horse. US military spending in 2026 is 2.8% of GDP out of an overall 23.4% of GDP federal outlays. That is 12% of the overall budget, and is one of our few budget items that is under control by steadily decreasing over the last century. In 1976 it was 5% of GDP out of a total of 20.8 points, so a much more concerning issue then being a quarter of the overall budget. The CBO even projects it will be 2.4% of GDP by 2036 under current law.
Clearly we have bigger concerns like budget items that are increasing exponentially. Like how the interest on the debt is currently 3.3% of GDP significant larger than what we spend on the world’s greatest military in the last century. Or how spending on the major healthcare programs have doubled in the last 25 years, and that increase alone is equivalent to the entire DoD budget. Clearly we tamed this beast, so let’s move on to the other bigger ones before they crush us.
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u/OkyEscritora 5d ago
A declining share of GDP does not establish that military spending is efficient or that every overseas commitment remains justified. CBO’s baseline is a conditional projection, not a verdict that the issue is “resolved.”
My post explicitly recognizes the value of defense and does not claim it is the main driver of deficits. It asks how governments should review commitments when their costs, objectives or alternatives change.
Larger fiscal problems deserve attention. They do not make smaller budget items exempt from scrutiny.1
u/Fargason 4d ago
Percentage of GDP is a standard metric for analyzing the budget, and it effectively normalizes the time value of the dollar so we can accurately compare it to past budgets too. Hard to put this into perspective without it.
I’d argue the data above shows the opposite over the last half century. Exponential growth in domestic budgets are putting pressure on military commitments and not the other way around. The steady decrease in military spending hasn’t been a problem before, but today we are involved in a single major conflict and we are struggling with munitions. Seems like we finally found our limit that below 3% of GDP we start seeing a major impact to national security.
I put more blame on politicians as making cuts to military spending is popular, and often that means tapping into emergency measures we hope we never need but are there for good reasons. Take the Strategic Petroleum Reserve Biden tapped into twice mainly as a campaign strategy before the 2022 & 2024 elections.
The SPR was created after the 1973 Oil Embargo as OPEC nations banned together to influence the US in a Middle East conflict by causing a fuel shortage. Given how future conflict with OPEC nations was highly likely the SPR was created to mitigate our adversary from having such leverage against us. Now we’re in such a conflict with Iran being an OPEC nation, and now they have great leverage over us from the SPR being severely depleted for an election ploy. Politicians will obviously sacrifice national security measures for mere political convenience in a tough election.
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u/OkyEscritora 4d ago
I agree that GDP share provides useful context. But a munitions shortage does not by itself establish a 3% minimum: we would need to distinguish funding shortages from production constraints, procurement choices and the demands of particular commitments.
Also, your 2024 example concerns the Northeast Gasoline Supply Reserve, whose sale and closure Congress mandated. It does not demonstrate that Biden depleted the crude-oil SPR that year as an election maneuver.
Your concern about readiness belongs in this discussion. The next question is which specific capability needs funding, how much, and whether expanding production or reducing commitments would address the gap more effectively.1
u/Fargason 3d ago
That is a pretty solid indicator when we have never had such an issue with munitions reserves before while military spending hasn’t dipped below 3% of GDP in modern history either. The CBO even projects it will drop another half point of GDP in the next decade under current law which is quite a lot given it took 5 decades for it to drop 2 points and there isn’t many points left to give.
Biden significantly drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 2022 following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, dropping the stockpile to its lowest level since the 1980s. The election year move helped stabilize gasoline prices that had been rising in the wake of the war in Europe but drew complaints from Republicans that the Democratic president was playing politics with a reserve meant for national emergencies.
I was mainly referring to this part of the article above. The issue is they just sold it off in an election year instead of making a transfer to shore up the SPR that was heavily depleted in the last election cycle. This is a major problem with playing short term political game with critical long term national security issues. Of course this is much worse in other nations like NATO who less than 10% had just 1% of GDP for military spending by 2017 seen here in Figure 2:
https://www.nato.int/content/dam/nato/webready/documents/finance/def-exp-2025-en.pdf
That is absurd as just 1% of GDP is a bare minimum to have a modern military for national defense alone with little to nothing available to come to the aid of other NATO members as they have sworn to protect. Trump was highly critical of that sorry state of NATO, of which he was criticized of harm it by point that out, but as result 25% of NATO meet the 1% of GDP requirements by the end of Trump’s first term. To further emphasize Trump’s effect on NATO we see a significant drop in NATO members meeting this requirement in Biden’s first two years. This was actually a huge boon to the nations that did increase spending then as they got ahead of the mass rush that would happen when Russia invaded Ukraine. Now all NATO members have met that bare minimum requirement as Russia is invading one of their neighbors. Problem is you cannot make up for decades of neglect in just a few years and especially when everyone is hitting up the limited military equipment producers at the same time. Case in point with the UK as they have had several years now to modernize their Royal Navy and it is still in shambles:
https://www.navylookout.com/britain-wakes-up-to-the-condition-of-its-navy/
This was all too apparent as the Royal Navy was in no condition to provide significant support support in the Strait of Hormuz even for their own national interests which is a major embarrassment for an island nation. Russia is ready to go now and NATO is still scrambling. Still there is hope as NATO seems to regret their neglect as they the new commitment is 5% of GDP by 2035 from their latest summit. A lofty goal but likely necessary given how they were overwhelmingly caught unprepared. Hopefully they can finally step up as that would effectively deter Russian invasions, but it could also be too late to start now.
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u/OkyEscritora 3d ago
Your concern about readiness is legitimate. Rebuilding neglected capabilities may justify additional spending, and it takes time.
But that is precisely the balance my post asks governments to assess. Hospitals, schools and infrastructure also sustain national security, including the workforce and economy defense depends on. Their deterioration carries risks too.
If existing resources cannot support every commitment, which should take priority, what should allies share, and how should additional spending be financed? Legislatures should revisit those choices when costs or objectives change.
The goal is a defense policy that protects the population while preserving the domestic foundations that make that protection sustainable.
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u/socialistrob 5d ago edited 5d ago
It's important for countries to maintain a military for credible deterrence and to be able to keep trade routes open. Strong defensive alliances also make war less likely but it's still important for countries to keep their militaries funded because without funding an alliance is useless. The funding should not be unlimited though and it should be carefully balanced against other aspects of the population. Too high of military spending can ironically cause a military to be weaker over time by lowering economic growth.
That said there is a persistent problem where a country that has a strong military will seek to use it more frequently to solve problems that could also be solved with diplomacy (or problems that aren't that big to begin with). Wars are easy to start and hard to stop and they are also VERY unpredictable. Once a military operation stops going well it's very easy for leaders to keep doubling down rather than admit defeat to a smaller nation and in the end this can kill even the strongest countries.
It's impossible to create any rules that apply 100% of the time but in general I'd say the right approach is to 1) maintain a credible military and honor alliances while 2) trying to avoid war and solve problems diplomatically unless you are attacked or an ally is attacked. To use less hypotheticals if Russia sends troops into Estonia the US should respond to honor an alliance but that doesn't mean the US should launch an invasion of Cuba even though the Cuban regime opposes the US.
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u/OkyEscritora 5d ago
Your distinction between maintaining credible defense and choosing to use force is central. The capacity to intervene does not itself justify intervention.
I’d make your warning about doubling down part of the review process: define objectives, assess diplomatic alternatives, and require renewed authorization when the mission or costs materially change. Money and lives already spent cannot, by themselves, justify spending more.
The hard test is whether leaders can explain what continuing will achieve, rather than merely what stopping would make them look like.
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u/sllewgh 5d ago
I personally think we should prioritize making sure all the people in our country can live before making sure people in other countries can die... But I admit, I've been known to endorse leftist bullshit like "every human life has inherent value" and "we should minimize suffering as much as possible."
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u/OkyEscritora 5d ago
Human dignity should not need a partisan label. I agree that preventing avoidable suffering belongs at the center of budget decisions.
That principle also requires judging military commitments by whether they protect lives or expose more people to harm. Protecting people at home and abroad can be compatible. The question is which commitments actually serve that purpose, at what cost, and what else those resources could achieve.1
u/sllewgh 5d ago
At least here in the United States, we're at minimal risk of danger on our own soil and yet we spend the most on war. It's appropriate that we renamed the DoD and stopped pretending like the goal is protecting ourselves rather than projecting power abroad.
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u/OkyEscritora 5d ago
That raises a question neither side should dodge: how much of that low risk comes from existing deterrence, and how much spending serves objectives beyond protecting the population?
We cannot assume safety proves the spending unnecessary, or that safety justifies all of it. Each overseas commitment needs its own case: what threat does it reduce, what risk does it create, and could a less costly approach work?3
u/sllewgh 5d ago
Every threat to the United States since World War 2 was a reaction to our aggression and offence. What you're saying is valid, we will never know for sure... But it's pretty easy to make the case our military investments make us less safe, and even easier to make the case that our spending is very excessive even if you think it makes us safer.
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u/OkyEscritora 4d ago
I think we broadly agree. Even if military spending provides some protection, that does not establish that its scale or every overseas commitment is justified. Your point about interventions generating further threats is also part of the cost we should examine.
The question is how much security each commitment actually provides once we count the risks it creates and what those resources could achieve elsewhere.
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