Tag: military industrial complex

How Much the U.S Really Spends to Defend Other Nations From Military Aid to Global Bases and Deploying Navel Fleets

The United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars every year to defend countries that pose no direct threat to its borders. From maintaining troops and bases across Asia and Europe to deploying carrier strike groups in distant seas, Washington shoulders an immense financial burden to uphold what it calls the global security order. Nations such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Israel depend heavily on U.S. protection — a policy that blends deterrence, influence, and strategic dominance. But few Americans realize just how much this protection actually costs.

A vast network of overseas bases

The U.S. military maintains around 750 overseas bases in more than 80 countries, supporting about 200,000 active-duty troops stationed outside the continental United States. These facilities — from Okinawa and Yokosuka in Japan to Osan and Camp Humphreys in South Korea, Ramstein Air Base in Germany, and Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean — serve as the backbone of U.S. global power projection.

Operating and maintaining these installations costs U.S. taxpayers approximately $55–70 billion annually, according to estimates by the Department of Defense and the Costs of War Project at Brown University. While host nations like Japan and South Korea contribute to housing and infrastructure expenses, the majority of the logistical, training, and personnel costs still fall on Washington.

For example:

  • Japan: The U.S. spends about $5.5 billion per year on operations, personnel, and logistics, even though Tokyo contributes about $2 billion through its “host-nation support” program.
  • South Korea: About $3.5–4 billion per year in U.S. military expenses, partially offset by Seoul’s contribution under the Special Measures Agreement.
  • Germany: Roughly $4–5 billion annually to sustain troops and infrastructure, including bases like Ramstein and Grafenwoehr.

These bases are not only costly but strategically positioned — allowing the U.S. to respond to crises in Asia, the Middle East, and Europe without delay.

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Army Secretary: Love the killer drone or be left behind

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll’s opening remarks at this year’s United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting & Exposition — that drones will “absolutely dominate warfare in the twenty-first century” — set the tone for a conference swarming with them.

Describing them as cheap, yet cutting-edge warfighting tools, Driscoll sold drones as a fundamental shift in how wars will be fought — and thus an essential asset to the Army of the future.

“If small arms defined the twentieth century, drones will define the twenty-first. They are the perfect convergence of artificial intelligence, advanced materials, batteries and propulsion systems, sensor fusion and much more,” Driscoll told attendees. “They will absolutely dominate warfare in the twenty-first century.”

Drones “are reshaping how humans inflict violence on each other at a pace never witnessed in human history. They are cheap, modular, precise, multi-role and scalable, and we will rapidly integrate them into our formations,” he said.

Driscoll’s words were music to industry’ ears at AUSA, where scores of tech-forward companies hungry for collaboration with the DoD promoted their state-of-the-art drones to these ends.

Of course the drones’s lethal capacities were at center stage. Elbit America’s display presented its Skystriker loitering munition as a “one-shot, one-kill system” and as a “high lethality warhead for a variety of targets.” A representative for DraganFly, meanwhile, stressed their drones’ ability to carry explosives. And General Atomics’ flyers depicted one of its models equipped and firing a laser weapon — the “High Energy Laser (HEL) Weapon System.”

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How the Military Exposed the Tools That Let Authorities Break Into Phones

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) really doesn’t want the public to know what it’s doing with Cellebrite devices, a company that helps law enforcement break into a locked phone. When it announced an $11 million contract with Cellebrite last month, ICE completely redacted the justification for the purchase.

The U.S. Marine Corps has now done the opposite. It published a justification to a public contracting platform, apparently by mistake, for a no-bid contract to continue putting Cellebrite’s UFED/InsEYEts system in the hands of military police. The document is marked “controlled unclassified information” with clear instructions not to distribute it publicly. UFED/InsEYEts “includes capabilities exclusive to Cellebrite and not available from any other company or vendor,” the document claims, before going on to list specific capabilities for breaking into specific devices.

Reason is posting the document below, with phone numbers redacted.

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More Than An Accident? Kyle Bass Sounds Alarm On U.S. Military Explosives Supply Chain After Tennessee Plant Blast

The massive blast that rocked a Tennessee explosives plant last week that killed 16 people has caught the attention of Kyle Bass, founder and chief investment officer of Hayman Capital Management, who warned about potential sabotage by foreign adversaries. Investigators are still trying to determine what sparked the explosion.

“The Accurate Energetics Systems explosion in Tennessee demands urgent, independent scrutiny. With China moving aggressively toward Taiwan and historical precedents of sabotaging munitions facilities, we cannot dismiss the possibility this was more than an accident,” Bass wrote on X. 

He continued, “AES provides over 60% of the Department of War’s high-explosives systems, losing it for years is a strategic shock. Every indicator and warning in the system is flashing red.” 

AES’ explosives are used in a wide range of conventional munitions and related weaponry primarily as the explosive fill, booster/initiator, or engineered charge. It’s publicly known that the U.S. Army and Navy have awarded AES military contracts for bulk explosives, landmines, breaching charges, etc. 

A sizeable concentration of America’s energetic-materials production supply chain appears to be linked to AES. 

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Democrats Block Legislation To Pay Troops During Shutdown

Democrats blocked the Senate from considering a defense spending bill on Thursday afternoon that would pay military service members during the shutdown.

Senators voted 50 to 44, with just three Democrats breaking with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to advance a full-year defense appropriations bill. The failed vote comes as Congress is locked in a stalemate to end the 16-day shutdown with Democrats largely refusing to cross party lines and reopen the government.

The defense appropriations bill would fund the Department of War for the upcoming fiscal year and ensure that active-duty troops do not miss a paycheck during the shutdown. The measure also includes a military pay raise.

Military personnel would have gone without pay for the first time in U.S. history on Wednesday if President Donald Trump had not tapped unused Pentagon funding to temporarily cover troop pay.

However, there is no guarantee of future paychecks for military personnel if the shutdown continues into November.

Democratic Sens. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania, Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada and Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire joined Republicans in advancing the defense spending bill that would fund troop pay for the entire fiscal year. The funding measure notably passed out of the Appropriations Committee with near unanimous support in July.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune blasted Democrats for filibustering the measure during a fiery speech on the Senate floor.

“After voting last week for an authorization bill to increase troop pay, Democrats just voted against the bill that would actually pay the troops,” Thune said.

“They’re happy to sacrifice any American and evidently any principle to their political goals,” Thune continued. “Democrats like to position themselves as the party of the little guy and the defender of hard-working Americans, but as this vote makes clear, who do Democrats really care about?”

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CDC, NIAID, DARPA Infect 36 People with Lab-Made Epidemic Influenza Virus: Journal ‘Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses’

The U.S. military and Health and Human Services (HHS) have funded an experiment that infected 36 individuals with an epidemic influenza A/Wisconsin/67/2005 (H3N2) virus that was manufactured in a laboratory, according to a June study published in the peer-reviewed journal Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses.

Congress, the White House, the Department of Energy, the FBI, and the CIA have confirmed that the COVID-19 pandemic was likely the result of lab-engineered pathogen manipulation.

But the government is not only engineering outbreak pathogens in the lab—they’re intentionally infecting people with them.

The influenza strain A/Wisconsin/67/2005 (H3N2) used in the new study is associated with several influenza epidemics, notably during the 2005-2006 and 2006-2007 seasons, reportedly causing widespread outbreaks.

The DARPA-funded experiment’s implications reach far beyond academic inquiry, raising grave national security concerns because lab-engineered viruses have the potential to ignite epidemics and pandemics if accidentally or deliberately released.

It also raises serious informed-consent questions, since participants who became contagious could have exposed others outside the study to a laboratory-created pathogen without their knowledge.

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Defending Against Strained Grids, Army To Power US Bases With Micro-Nuke Reactors

As soaring demand for electric power threatens to rapidly overtake America’s supply, the US Army on Tuesday announced a plan to install nuclear microreactors at bases across the country. “What resilience means to us is that we have power, no matter what, 24-7,” said principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army Jeff Waksman after the program was unveiled at the Association of the United States Army (AUSA) Annual Meeting Warriors Corner panel. 

Pursuant to what has been christened the “Janus Program,” the Pentagon is charged with bringing the first reactor online no later than September 30, 2028, and is currently identifying the first nine posts that will receive two reactors each. Those reactors will generate less than 20 megawatts of power, according to the Wall Street Journal. That’s comparable to the demands of a single, small town. In addition to preserving the installations ability to function in the face of overwhelmed grids, the reactors will also serve as a safeguard against cyberattacks and weather catastrophes. The program is empowered by Executive Order 14299, “Deploying Advanced Nuclear Reactor Technologies for National Security,” which was signed by President Trump in May. 

The microreactors will be owned and operated by private companies that will be selected in 2026; the budget has yet to be disclosed. “The race today is to actually develop the capability. We are all trying to figure out who can turn these things on,” Isaiah Taylor, chief executive and founder of microreactor startup Valar Atomics, told the Journal. The Janus Program comes after six years of Army work with startup companies to develop microreactors for service around the globe. The Air Force has its own parallel program, with eight companies pursuing contracts to power USAF installations. Microreactors are roughly the same size as a shipping container, and are meant to be easily transportable and rapidly brought online upon arrival. 

“Since the Manhattan Project, the Department of Energy and the Department of War have forged one of the defining partnerships in American history—advancing the science, engineering, and industrial capability that power our national security,” said Energy Secretary Chris Wright. “Under President Trump’s leadership, we’re extending that legacy through initiatives like the Janus Program, accelerating next-generation reactor deployment and strengthening the nuclear foundations of American energy and defense.”

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Military Analyst Warns US Doesn’t Have Enough Tomahawks To Send To Ukraine

Military analysts have told the Financial Times that even if President Trump decides to approve US Tomahawk transfers to Ukraine, this will have limited impact on the trajectory of the war, given especially that a mere dozens will be available to send.

The report also suggests that the US is involved in too many conflicts at once, and that Pentagon stockpiles of advanced weapons are being depleted.

Trump started this week by issuing more ambiguous and vague statements on the Tomahawk issue. On Monday he had said Tomahawks are a “very offensive weapon,” noting, “honestly, Russia does not need that.” He hinted he ‘might’ pull the trigger on this escalation, amid Moscow warnings and threats.

FT found that out of over 4,000 Tomahawk missiles in the US arsenal, only “a few” could be given to Ukraine:

Mark Cancian, a former Pentagon official now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank, estimated in a recent war game that the US had 4,150 Tomahawks in total. However, the US would probably be able to supply only a few to Ukraine.

This is in light of the fact that, out of the 200 the Pentagon has procured since 2022, it has already fired more than 120, according to defense experts. The defense department has requested funding for only 57 more Tomahawks in its 2026 budget. Washington would probably also need Tomahawks for any strike on Venezuelan soil.

Again, this reference to Venezuela is interesting, at a moment of unprecedented American military build-up in the southern Caribbean near the Latin American country’s coast. The US has also been expending its missiles on defending Israel, which happened at an increased pace especially over the past year.

Another Washington-based US military analyst put a number to how many Tomahawks American could afford to hand over:

Stacie Pettyjohn, director of the defense program at the Center for a New American Security think-tank, said Washington could spare some 20 to 50 Tomahawks for Ukraine, “which will not decisively shift the dynamics of the war”.

While the long-range missiles could complement Ukraine’s own long-range attack drones and cruise missiles “in large complex salvos to greater effect”, they would “still will be a very limited capability . . . certainly not enough to enable sustained, deep attacks against Russia”, they added.

And of course, the understated if not unspoken part is that all of this risks WW3 with Russia, something that Trump has repeatedly and openly voiced that he wants to seek to avoid at all costs.

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Will Russian-US Tensions Likely Spiral Out Of Control If Ukraine Obtains Tomahawk Missiles?

The precedent set by Russia’s restrained response to Ukraine obtaining the F-16s, which could also be nuclear-equipped, suggests that tensions with the US will remain manageable if Ukraine obtains the Tomahawks too due to the modus vivendi that’s arguably been in place for managing them.

The latest talk about the US transferring longer-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine, which Putin said earlier this month could only be used with US military personnel’s direct involvement, has prompted concerns about a potentially uncontrollable escalation spiral. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov assessed that such a development would lead to “a significant change in the situation” but nonetheless reaffirmed that it wouldn’t prevent Russia from achieving its goals in the special operation.

Ukraine’s explicitly stated goal in obtaining these arms is to “pressure” Russia into freezing the Line of Contact without any concessions from Kiev, which would essentially amount to Moscow conceding on its aforesaid goals since none would be achieved in full should that happen, ergo why it hasn’t agreed. In pursuit of that end, Ukraine threatened to cause a blackout in the Russian capital, which would likely be accompanied by more attacks against civilian and military logistics targets far behind the frontlines.

Some are therefore worried that that Russian-US tensions could spiral out of control, especially after Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov noted that the Tomahawks can be nuclear-equipped, but the precedent set by the F-16s suggests that they’ll remain manageable. Putin himself warned in early 2024 that they too could be nuclear-equipped, yet Russia ultimately didn’t treat their use as a potential nuclear first-strike. This is arguably due to the modus vivendi that was described here in late 2024:

“[Comparatively pragmatic US ‘deep state’ figures] who still call the shots always signal their escalatory intentions far in advance so that Russia could prepare itself and thus be less likely to ‘overreact’ in some way that risks World War III. Likewise, Russia continues restraining itself from replicating the US’ ‘shock-and-awe’ campaign in order to reduce the likelihood of the West ‘overreacting’ by directly intervening in the conflict to salvage their geopolitical project and thus risking World War III.

It can only be speculated whether this interplay is due to each’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (‘deep state’) behaving responsibly on their own considering the enormity of what’s at stake or if it’s the result of a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’. Whatever the truth may be, the aforesaid model accounts for the unexpected moves or lack thereof from each, which are the US correspondingly telegraphing its escalatory intentions and Russia never seriously escalating in kind.”

The latest talk about the US transferring longer-range Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukraine fits the pattern of leaks serving to tip Russia off about this preplanned escalation so it can prepare its responses in advance. Time and again, Putin has exercised an almost saintly degree of self-restraint in refusing to escalate, whether symmetrically or asymmetrically. Readers can learn more about these precedents from the eight analyses enumerated in the one from late 2024 that was hyperlinked to above.

The only exception was him authorizing the use of the Oreshniks in November after the US and UK let Ukraine use their long-range missiles inside of Russia, obviously through the direct involvement of their military personnel, which he might repeat if Ukraine obtains the Tomahawks. He didn’t authorize them after Ukraine’s strategic drone strikes against parts of Russia’s nuclear triad in June that were much more provocative, however, which might have been due to his diplomatic calculations vis-à-vis Trump.

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Anduril Founder Urges Rapid Reindustrialization As U.S. Defense Supply Chain Remains Alarmingly Reliant On China

China’s latest decision to expand rare earth export controls, adding holmium, erbium, thulium, europium, and ytterbium to the restricted list just days ago, serves as yet another wake-up call for the Trump administration and Washignton as a whole. The U.S. remains dangerously dependent on China, the world’s largest producer of rare earths, for these critical minerals that are essential inputs into the manufacturing of drones, humanoid robots, EVs, and advanced weaponry. 

Anduril Industries founder Palmer Luckey sat down with Bloomberg on Friday to discuss how America’s defense supply chains are dangerously reliant on China. He said the U.S. must urgently “reindustrialize” and rebuild its capacity to produce rare earths, semiconductors, and advanced computing hardware domestically if it wants to survive the 2030s. 

“I mean, the reality is that our interests are relatively divergent at this point,” Luckey said, referencing President Trump’s late tariff threats (read here) against Being. “We need to make our own chips, our own computers, our own products downstream. China has a lot of leverage right now, and that makes it very hard to negotiate. They do have a lot of leverage right now, and so it’s very hard to make deals with them. I think it’s actually healthy for the US-China relationship for it not to be so dependent on China right now.”

Luckey noted that Anduril, one of the fastest-growing defense technology startups in the U.S, has been heavily sanctioned by China, forcing it to eliminate all supply chain exposure in China. 

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