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The new year opened with the shocking US invasion of Venezuela. Perhaps, like us, you are reeling at the blatancy. But in some ways, it’s a fittingly explosive start to a remarkable year in military-industrial America — 2026 is the first year that the Pentagon budget will top $1 trillion.
This historic turn comes in line with mounting imperialist threats and in direct contrast to some of Trump’s earlier rhetoric, such as at a 2024 campaign rally when he promised “a much-needed cleanup of the military-industrial complex to stop war profiteers.”
The US still spends more on its military budget than the next nine countries [ [link removed] ] combined.
Longtime arms industry researcher and Inkstick board member William D. Hartung has just published a book, The Trillion Dollar War Machine, [ [link removed] ] along with co-author Ben Freeman that unpacks the implications of this astronomical spending. We sat down with Hartung to discuss what to look out for this year.
In a wide-ranging interview, we discussed why we need to watch the military buildup in the Pacific and the importance of Guam in rising tensions with China. We got into Northrop Grumman’s controversial new nuclear missile and the difference between the new tech bros-turned defense contractors, like Elon Musk and Palmer Luckey, compared to the old timers like Lockheed Martin.
And we asked whether the trillion-dollar war budget is here to stay.
Read at Inkstick: The Year of the Trillion-Dollar US Military Budget Begins [ [link removed] ]

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