Trump’s Recipe for Accelerated U.S. Decline

Usually stated much less forcefully by U.S. media is the parallel question: Who speaks for the United States? The putative successor in Iran, Mojtaba Khamenei, the previous leader’s son, is said to be recovering from injuries in the attack on his father and has not since made a public appearance. The president of the United States, Donald Trump, by contrast, is everywhere at once, both literally and figuratively.

In the space of a single recent 24-hour news cycle, Trump went from issuing threats of wholesale, indiscriminate violence against Iran unless it capitulated to his demands, to declaring a two-week cease-fire that appeared to make major concessions to Tehran while also claiming a U.S. victory.

In other words, no sooner had the White House threatened to commit what many international law experts believe would be clear war crimes than it proclaimed that Iran’s shadowy leadership was composed of reasonable actors. So reasonable, in fact, that the morning after Trump called off his warning to destroy Iranian civilization, he was invoking the possibility of Washington and Tehran jointly administering the strategic Strait of Hormuz for profit.

The many profound incoherences in Trump’s foreign policy, of which this is the latest and perhaps the greatest example, defy rational explanation and seem unrelated to any sensible theory of power or statecraft. Trump appears to revel in the attention he draws with his rash and erratic pronouncements. But there is something supremely dangerous to the future of the United States, and indeed the world, that risks getting lost amid the constant surprises and distractions brought about by Trump’s steady stream of provocations.

Scarcely a week ago, the White House announced that it intended to seek a 40 percent increase in the country’s military spending in its 2027 budget—totaling $1.5 trillion—which would lift the Pentagon outlay to historic heights, including during times of world war.

There appears little chance Congress would pass such an expansion of military spending outright. As Trump’s recent comments about the federal government’s inability to pay for Medicare and Medicaid while “fighting wars” seem to concede, significantly ramping up defense spending would require a radical recentering of the state’s role on defense and national security. The U.S. government would be able to fund little else, besides servicing the country’s enormous debt.

Yet in addition to fundamental concerns about the future health and welfare of U.S. society, there are other deeply compelling reasons to push back sharply against such an extreme budgetary request. The first is immediate. Trump has steadily revealed himself to be an unstable and increasingly reckless leader. In his second term, the unchecked personal authority he has accumulated—enabled by a weak and poorly qualified cabinet and a supine (albeit thin) Republican majority in Congress—seems to have completely gone to his head. This has fed the worst kinds of delusions in Trump about the limitless nature of U.S. power while stoking the personal grandiosity that has always characterized him.

Such an irresponsibly inflated Pentagon budget would magnify the hubris that has already set in around this presidency, along with Trump’s belief that there are few problems the copious application of hard power cannot resolve. This would be devastating to both U.S. interests and the broader interests of peace and human development on the planet.

The other reason to oppose such rampant growth in U.S. militarism is based on a combination of a long-term sense of the country’s trajectory as a so-called great power and a reading of the past. Turning the United States into a modern Sparta through unbridled armament would weaken the country’s social welfare, including health and education, both of which are important and yet overlooked components of comprehensive power. Meanwhile, it would also weaken the country economically, accelerating growth in the national debt for unproductive purposes.

Beyond what a reasonable assessment of national defense needs deems necessary, buying weapons systems ceases to be an investment and is akin to burying capital. In other words, it does not contribute meaningfully to the growth of productive sectors of the economy.

At a time when China is increasingly outcompeting the United States in a growing number of frontier industries, from electric vehicles to batteries to renewable energy, the diversion of the country’s resources into over-armament amounts to a foolish choice. Add to that the fact that the United States seems unable to invest in the upkeep of critical national infrastructure—including roads, rail, bridges, tunnels, power grids, air traffic control, and the water supply—and the request for a gross over-investment in weapons systems begins to resemble a recipe for accelerated decline.

For sure, in the short term, Trump or some early successor might succumb to a kind of sugar high. But the steep and painful bill for this will be inescapable, even if it is only faced by a future generation that must grapple with not just the debt and decay these policies will bring on, but also the decline in national standing that will inevitably accompany them.

The historical piece of this involves great-power competition and how the Soviet Union fell into irrevocable decline. Experts differ on the extent to which arms outlays contributed to this, but there is a widespread consensus that the vastly more productive U.S. economy allowed Washington to force the Soviet Union into what became for it a ruinous arms race.

The contrast with what is taking place at present is instructive and should worry even the most ardent proponent of increased U.S. military spending. Although its military is large and its defense spending has steadily increased in recent years, Beijing appears less vulnerable to the kind of trap that Washington laid for the Soviets.

For one, the Chinese economy is far more modern and diversified than the Soviet economy ever was. China has not only proved capable of rapid innovation across many domains, but it also ranks as the world’s leading industrial power, far ahead of the United States. At the same time, even as its military strength grows, China seems wary of trying to match the United States system for system. Even after many years of expansion, its power projection remains largely regional in scope, and its nuclear deterrence, though growing, shows little sign of prioritizing matching the U.S. arsenal for sheer size.

This leads us to the ironic conclusion that it is the United States, not China, that most risks failing to learn the lessons of recent history, which saw the dissolution of an overextended superpower. If Congress approves a wildly exaggerated budget request for the Pentagon, we may eventually see Washington follow the Soviets into decline, only this time, in a foolish race with itself.