The Atlantic

Giving the Military More Money Won't Make It Win More

The fallacy at the heart of the new defense budget

by Dominic Tierney Mar 20, 2017 4 minutes
Source: Jonathan Ernst / Reuters

Donald Trump’s military policy is a win-win proposition: The United States will win, and then it will win some more. Last week, the White House released its proposed budget, which calls for $639 billion in defense spending—a $54 billion increase from 2017 levels—along with massive cuts for diplomacy and foreign aid. Congress is likely to amend these plans, but they nevertheless signal how the administration views defense policy.

A core tenet of the emerging Trump doctrine is that more military spending will translate into victory on the battlefield. According to the president, “We have to start winning wars again. I have to say, when I was young, in high school and college, everybody used to say we never lost a war. We never lost a

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