January 18, 2026: The United States spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on defense and currently that’s about 3.5 percent of GDP. American political and military leaders want to modify the way the industrial base of defense manufacturers and military planners work together. This will be done by improving flexibility, elasticity, and surge capacity. This means defense firms and military planners work together to develop and approve plans for increasing production of key weapons and munitions. Once completed, these plans would have pre-approved schedules and payments. These would be updated annually to deal with inflation and other factors that increase costs, develop production or otherwise disrupt the ability to get the military what they need when they need it. Then there is surge capability, the need to quickly provide more of an item after combat operations revealed such a need.

Supporting weapons and more complex munitions is another capability that depends on defense manufacturers and contractors. These firms and the military can cooperate in identifying the firms and key individuals who make this happen and how this category of personnel can be increased in wartime.

Another overlooked problem is the cost of maintaining adequate reserves of munitions and spare parts. This is often neglected in peacetime because these items are expensive to purchase and store in warehouses for decades. The risk is that these items will eventually become obsolete or expire. Munitions contain rocket motors, explosives, batteries and electronics that become unusable after a decade or more. Disposing of elderly and unreliable rocket motors and explosives is expensive, and that is often used as a reason not to stockpile a lot of these items that are essential to win the early battles of a war. Maintaining adequate stockpiles is a political as well as a logistical problem. Solve this problem and you save a lot of lives in the early stages of a war and win battles you might otherwise have lost.

Making all these adjustments will be expensive in terms of time, money and political resources. This is why it is rarely done. Nations that prepare, despite the costs and political opposition, win more of their first and subsequent battles in wartime. Many wars are avoided if a foe knows and understands how well prepared their opponent is.

A major problem with implementing these plans is the ability to pay for it. Peacetime military budgets are already a burden for many nations. For example, total worldwide defense spending for 2025 was $2.94 trillion. This was an 8 percent increase over 2024’s $2.72 trillion. Spending was up 7.4 percent in 2024, 6.5 percent in 2023 and 3.5 percent in 2022. These increases were the result of the Ukraine War and other European countries rearming and expanding their militaries to deal with increasing Russian aggression. This includes published Russian threats to attack NATO countries once Ukraine is subdued. Note that Ukraine is spending about 34 percent of their GDP yearly to fight the Russian invaders. Their prewar defense spending was less than a tenth of their wartime spending.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has had the largest defense budget. This is currently $997 billion and expected to reach a trillion dollars by 2027. This large budget supports 1.32 million military personnel and nearly a million civilians. Two other countries have more troops. China has two million military personnel on duty and spends $314 billion while India has 1.475 million troops and spends $86 billion. The United States accounts for over a third of the annual defense spending worldwide. Constant deployments of ships, aircraft and troops keeps everyone aware of what it costs and how long it takes to build equipment and train personnel. Domestic politics can often impede these efforts and unexpected conflicts can create problems that could have been avoided. Money alone will not solve problems; more effective and timely preparations will.