Hegseth: We must spend big on defense to save America’s economic might
Urgency, speed, efficiency, competition and lethality: These are the new guiding principles of our War Department.
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This moment requires defense hawks and fiscal hawks to pull together, and I’m proud to call myself both.
Our growing national debt is indeed a threat.
That’s evident to me as a taxpayer and as a Cabinet secretary — so, unlike Pentagons of the past, we’re leading the way on fiscal discipline, spending taxpayer dollars wisely.
Yet the single greatest threat to America’s national security today is under-investment in military spending.
If America loses its unquestioned military edge, no amount of fiscal austerity can maintain this nation’s economic health.
That’s why President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.5 trillion fiscal year 2027 defense budget, a generational investment in cutting-edge military advantage, is my department’s No. 1 priority.
Our job, in conjunction with Congress, is to stop at nothing — between the base budget, a supplemental request and a reconciliation package — to ensure we deliver on the commander-in-chief’s vision for American defense dominance: a common-sense, America First military.
The future of America’s economic and fiscal health depends on it.
The American people can be forgiven for taking the military aspect of our economic engine for granted.
For decades the Pentagon has quietly underwritten the foundation of American prosperity — from the dominance of the US dollar to the stability of borrowing costs to the protection of global trade.
It’s not the Treasury Department alone that keeps the dollar stable, it’s also the US Air Force.
It’s not the Federal Reserve alone that determines interest rates, it’s also the US Marine Corps.
It’s not the Commerce Department alone that maintains free trade, it’s also the US Navy.
It’s prosperity through strength, and the economic consequences of having the world’s strongest military safeguard economic stability, predictability and American advantage are almost endless.
When America is unchallenged militarily, economic possibilities abound: We borrow cheaply, transact freely and set the terms of global trade.
Without that military power, all this becomes uncertain — because instability and volatility do vast damage to markets, investments and ultimately American jobs.
As other nations, notably China, are undertaking historic military buildups, we must rebuild a military degraded under anemic Biden defense budgets, while investing heavily in cutting-edge capabilities.
The domains of space, sub-sea, cyber, AI, autonomous systems and long-range strike will determine future battlefields — and will in turn determine our economic and fiscal prospects.
My department has been briefing every member of Congress on the urgent nature of global threats, and about how this once-in-a-lifetime budget not only meets those threats, but surpasses them.
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Militarily — matching capability to threats — the president’s defense budget meets the moment, and the same goes for our department’s fiscal efforts.
The Pentagon has never before passed a comprehensive financial audit, the only major US federal agency to never do so.
Worse, the Pentagon has never cared to pass an audit.
No longer: The War Department is now on track to pass an audit by 2028, years sooner than expected.
We made it a priority from Day 1, and the process is forcing every corner of the Pentagon to go line by line with exacting detail.
Deputy Secretary Steve Feinberg spent the past year going through every line of the budget, gaining a granular understanding of our balance sheet.
This never-before-done, grinding review enabled us to streamline our budget by dramatically reducing non-priority spending, exposing billions in redundancies.
It allowed us to shift tens of billions of dollars to our highest-priority missions.
Finally, we’ve completely flipped our department-wide acquisitions approach from bureaucratic process to business performance.
We hired world-class businesspeople to cut deals that put the department, and the taxpayer, first.
In exchange for longer-term orders, defense contractors are now investing their own private capital in new manufacturing plants and assembly lines — putting hundreds of thousands of Americans to work, and saving our department tens of billions.
Our warfighters will get the weapons, platforms and technology they need ahead of schedule: tomorrow’s weapons today, not yesterday’s weapons tomorrow.
Our newest programs are now ahead of schedule and under budget, and we’ve got legacy programs moving years faster.
Large defense contractors understand they must adapt to this new business approach, or we’ll replace them.
New companies now compete on a level platform.
When I was in uniform, I can recall hearing Admiral Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, repeatedly say: “America’s national debt is the single greatest threat to our national security.”
Admiral Mullen was right — well, half right.
The national debt is incredibly important, but fiscally responsible defense spending is even more so.
We can, and must, do both.
That starts when Congress’ defense and fiscal hawks unite — and pass the president’s historic defense budget.
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Pete Hegseth is the United States Secretary of War.
