Newsweek
Lindsay Koshgarian
03/28/2022
Like the rest of the world, I've looked on in horror at Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It's heartbreaking to watch Ukrainians flee their homes as their cities are mercilessly bombarded. And yet as bad as this situation is, none of it justifies the $782 billion military budget just passed by Congress and signed by President Joe Biden.
That won't help Ukraine, and it won't help ordinary Americans either. The only winners are for-profit military contractors. It's tempting to think—as many in Congress and the military brass would have us believe—that the more money we give to the Pentagon, the safer the world will be. But it was never that simple.
Colossal military spending didn't prevent the Russian invasion, and more money won't stop it. The U.S. alone already spends 12 times more on its military than Russia. When combined with Europe's biggest military spenders, the U.S. and its allies on the continent outspend Russia by at least 15 to 1.
