Summary
We support:
- Maintaining U.S. defense expenditures at or above 3% of GDP in periods without major conflict
- Increasing spending as necessary during periods of significant military conflict
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Background
We believe that America needs to maintain a military infrastructure sufficient to defend our national interests and to fulfill our obligations for mutual defense of our allies.
This will require the U.S. to remain the most powerful military for the foreseeable future. This suggests that defense spending will run at or above 3% of U.S. GDP in periods without major conflict. For context, China spends about 1.75% of its GDP on defense. Russia spends historically spent about 4.3% of its GDP on its military, but its GDP is only about 7% that of the U.S. Russia is currently spending over 7% of its GDP on its military, because of its war against Ukraine.
At the same time, we cannot be the world’s police and our allies need to take on a bigger role in contributing to our mutual defense. They are unlikely to do that unless we make it clear that we do not intend to bear this burden largely alone, as we did throughout much of the Cold War.
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