Weapons Journal: Military Expenditures

A pie chart of military expenditures in 2007. From Globalissues.org.

The suggested US defence budget by the current administration, presented by secretary Gates, will increase fixed spending by almost 4% from the previous fiscal year. The request is for US$534 billion, up from US$515 billion under president George W. Bush. These totals do not include appropriation for the Af-Pak and Iraq wars.

I have a hard time understanding why news articles on the latest US defence budget mostly contain the following phrases in their titles: ‘deep cuts’, ‘takes a scalpel to the budget’, ‘costs cut’. The military budget is to be increased. The same articles that claim a budget cut never tell the reader what the previous year’s budget was but they do make select budget item comparisons from 2009 to 2010 showing cuts to specific programs. I had to look at the US military’s own budget reports to get the 2009 number since I couldn’t easily find it in the news.

China’s official military budget for 2007 was US$45 billion, up 17.8% from the previous year.