There are moments in the history of capitalist decay when the contradictions of imperialism reveal themselves in stark, unavoidable clarity. Today, as the U.S. military budget surges toward the trillion-dollar threshold in fiscal year 2026, we witness precisely such a revelation: a parasitic apparatus that devours the surplus value produced by the working class, redirecting it toward endless wars of plunder and domination while the masses at home endure poverty, homelessness, and crumbling social infrastructure.
Contrast this with the socialist path: in Cuba, despite decades of genocidal blockade, resources are mobilized for human needs − doctors sent abroad, universal healthcare at home. Yet in the belly of the imperialist beast, the U.S. budget escalates relentlessly, from an inflation-adjusted $506 billion in 1980 to $820 billion in 2023 − a 62% rise − now pushing over $1 trillion in FY2026 requests. This growth is no aberration; it is the deliberate strategy of the bourgeois ruling class to perpetuate exploitation and crush any challenge to their order.
From Cold War Opportunism to the Endless "War on Terror"
The trajectory of the U.S. military budget mirrors the deepening crisis of capitalism, marked by successive waves of militarization to counter revolutionary advances and internal contradictions. In the post-World War II era, spending peaked at 10% of GDP during the imperialist aggression in Korea and Vietnam, where the U.S. sought to drown national liberation movements in blood while bolstering the military-industrial complex. The Reagan years saw a surge to 6% of GDP, arming counter-revolutionaries from Nicaragua to Afghanistan in a desperate bid to roll back socialism. Then came the post-9/11 "War on Terror," a euphemism for naked imperialist plunder, ballooning total costs to $8 trillion and reshaping the global order in favor of U.S. monopoly capital.
In recent years, the escalation has been unabated: FY2021 at $806 billion, FY2022 $861 billion (a 6.76% increase), FY2023 $820 billion, FY2024 $997 billion, and the FY2026 request for $892.6 billion in DoD funding alone, totaling $961.6 billion with additional elements − thrusting past $1 trillion through congressional reconciliation. As a share of GDP, it hovers deceptively at around 3% since the 2010s, but the absolute figures explode amid economic expansion, concealing the regressive tax burden on the proletariat whose wages remain stagnant under inflationary pressures.
This "stability" masks rampant inflation in procurement − 38% of the budget on operations, 17% on weapons − channeling trillions to bourgeois profiteers like Lockheed Martin, who amassed $313 billion in contracts from 2020-2024.
The U.S. outspends the next nine countries combined, a testament to its role as the chief enforcer of global capitalist exploitation. What occurred in these budgetary surges was not a neutral "defense" policy, but a strategic reorientation that legitimizes opportunism and weakens the international working-class movement from within.
The Bloody Footprint of Imperialist Plunder
U.S. operations abroad are not defensive maneuvers but offensive campaigns to secure capitalist hegemony, as Lenin exposed in his analysis of imperialism as the monopoly stage of capitalism. The post-9/11 wars have drained $8 trillion from the public coffers, with Afghanistan alone costing $2 trillion over two decades of propping up corrupt puppets to exploit resources and suppress the masses. Iraq and Syria add another $2.89 trillion, including $1.79 trillion in direct expenditures and $1.1 trillion in projected veterans' care − a grim tally of destruction for oil and strategic control.
The aggression continues unabated: Since 2022, $65 billion in aid to Ukraine has fueled a proxy war against Russia, enriching arms giants like Raytheon while Ukrainian workers are sacrificed on the altar of NATO expansionism. In Gaza, $21.7 billion to Israel since October 2023 bankrolls the Zionist settler-colonial genocide, supplemented by $9.65-12.07 billion in regional operations against Yemen and other resistance forces − economic warfare disguised as "security." Venezuela faces operations nearing $3 billion under the guise of "Caribbean Surge," a brazen attempt at regime change to seize socialist oil reserves, echoing the barbarism of Iraq.
Rotational deployments, such as Europe's Armored Brigade Combat Teams, inflate costs by $70 million annually over permanent basing, all to project flexible imperialist power. The 750 overseas bases hemorrhage $55 billion yearly, while foreign arms sales to Europe alone reached $170 billion in 2023-2024. These expenditures represent not just waste, but forfeited opportunities for the proletariat: $8 trillion could eradicate homelessness or provide universal healthcare multiple times over, yet under capitalism, they serve only to perpetuate class oppression and counter-revolution.
Starving the Masses: The Domestic Toll of Militarized Capitalism
The military budget's gluttony stands in sharp contrast to the starvation of social needs, exposing the class character of bourgeois rule. Defense consumes 13% of the federal budget − $820 billion in 2023 − while Social Security (20-25%, $1.2 trillion) and Medicare/Medicaid (5.4% of GDP, $1.34 trillion) face relentless attacks from austerity hawks. Non-defense discretionary spending languishes at a historic low of 3.1% of GDP, gutting education, housing, and environmental programs amid total federal outlays at 23% of GDP.
Redirecting even a fraction of this trillion-dollar war machine could revolutionize society: $80 billion annually for free college, $200 billion for universal childcare, or massive investments in climate infrastructure to combat the ecological devastation exacerbated by military emissions. This is the Marxist truth − the budget reflects the dictatorship of capital, where workers pay through regressive taxes, and elites reap the profits. Compare the U.S.'s 3% GDP on arms to Cuba's socialist priorities: free healthcare and education for all, despite imperialist siege. The chronic crisis of overaccumulation demands such militarism, but it also sows the seeds of its own overthrow.
The U.S. military budget's inexorable growth − to over $1 trillion in FY2026 − fuels abroad atrocities totaling $8 trillion post-9/11, billions in Ukraine, Israel, and Venezuela, all at the expense of the global proletariat. This is the profound crisis of the international capitalist system, facing ideological, political, and organizational decay. Comrades, the time demands action: Build anti-imperialist fronts − united coalitions of working-class organizations, communist and socialist parties, trade unions, and progressive movements worldwide − to mobilize against imperialist wars, foster international solidarity with national liberation struggles, organize strikes and boycotts in the arms industry and related sectors, reject bourgeois illusions of reform, and unite in the struggle for socialist revolution to dismantle the military-industrial complex. As Lenin warned, "Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism" − a stage ripe for overthrow. The beast swells, but the revolutionary forces of the working class grow stronger.
* Nathan Richardson is a writer: dawn1776.substack.com
