What does a $961bn defence budget get you these days?

The question is how all that cash will be spent—and even whether it will be enough

THE PRESIDENT likes big numbers and big guns. So it is only fitting that he ispromising a defence budget that would hit the dizzying sum of $1trn. “Nobody’s seen anything like it,” Donald Trump boasted this year. “We’re very cost conscious, but the military is something that we have to build.”

US President Donald Trump.(AFP)

As is sometimes the case with this administration, the maths are muddled. This year’s budget is a hotch-potch of two bills: the regular base defence budget and funding from the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” (BBB), a one-off tax and spending bill passed in July. The base budget request for 2026 is $848bn, the same as last year and therefore a cut once inflation is factored in. The BBB provides a $150bn injection to be spent over four years, $113bn of which will be cashed in next year. That brings the Pentagon’s budget to $961bn for 2026, short of the trillion-dollar mark but a record-breaking sum nonetheless.

The question is how all that cash will be spent—and even whether it will be enough. Lawmakers are tetchy about using one-off spending bills to increase defence budgets, unless they are supplements for particular wars. The combination of a flat base budget and shifts in the administration’s priorities is already creating trade-offs that involve pruning some programmes. To get a sense of which are faring best, consider three buckets: the strengthened (those that get more funding), the stalled (those with flat funding or cuts) and the slashed (cancelled outright).

US defence expenditure. (The Economist)

The BBB promises a boost to some areas. Spending is being lavished on Trumpy pet projects, including $25bn for the Golden Dome missile-defence system and $1bn for border security and counter-narcotics. Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defence, who portrays himself as a relatable G.I. Joe, has also bigged up investments to improve soldiers’ quality of life. Around $9bn is earmarked for military-housing subsidies, refurbished barracks and improved health and educational assistance.

Yet most BBB funds are going to bipartisan congressional priorities. That includes $40bn for stockpiling munitions, expanding reserves of critical parts and modernising depots and shipyards. Another $16bn is earmarked for “scaling low-cost weapons into production”, which includes drones and the like. Another big winner is shipbuilding: $29bn will go to the procurement of at least 16 new warships, including two Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and one Virginia-class nuclear-attack sub, as well as scads of unmanned ships.

But the freezing of the Pentagon’s base budget is stalling some important programmes. Take the F-35 stealth fighter. The Pentagon is expected to buy only 47 next year, rather than 74 as originally planned. America’s fighter fleet is already stretched thin and being asked to do more in places like the Pacific. Funding is pouring into future platforms like the F-47, but that aircraft is not expected to reach full operational capability for another decade at least. A slew of humdrum, though no less important initiatives are also being pruned to save money: the number of flying hours for combat pilots, for example, is being cut by 5%, placing them below the inadequate level allotted to Soviet pilots during the cold war.

Most baffling are some of the slashed programmes. One is the E-7 Wedgetail, a newish command-and-control aircraft equipped with radar and other sensors to peer into distant airspace. Criticised as expensive and vulnerable, the Wedgetail is to be replaced with space-based sensors. But these are mostly untested. Mr Hegseth has also ordered the retirement of “obsolete” armoured vehicles, light tanks and crewed planes. Some of these platforms would probably be of little use in a high-intensity scrap, but critics think the decision over-hasty and ill-considered.

The army, navy and air force, along with regional commands such CENTCOM or EUCOM, habitually grumble about stagnating budgets and programme cuts. Since 2020 the price tag of their “unfunded priorities”—equipment wish-lists that fail to make it into the president’s budget—has risen by 73% to around $134bn, says the Government Accountability Office, the Congressional watchdog.

Congress could provide more money. The Senate Armed Services Committee wants to top up the Pentagon’s budget with an extra $22bn, and reverse the decision to slash the Wedgetail. The House of Representatives would like more F-35s. Whether they will prevail is another matter. Fiscal hawks in the House are sure to balk at more spending. Political deadlock means that budgets are rarely passed on time anyway. The likely outcome is another year-long “continuing resolution”, which would cap the budget at last year’s level, with some minor adjustments. A trillion dollars isn’t what it used to be.