Xinhua Commentary: Whose interests does record-high U.S. defense budget serve?

BEIJING, Dec. 22 (Xinhua) -- The recent approval by the U.S. Congress of the 895-billion-U.S. dollar defense policy bill for 2025 is a sobering reminder of Washington's insatiable appetite for military spending.

Behind the rhetoric of "defending the homeland" and "countering global adversaries," the primary driver of the record-breaking National Defense Authorization Act for fiscal year 2025 appears to be a far more sinister ambition: the expansion of American military hegemony, a goal that often destabilizes other regions and feeds into its own military-industrial complex.

The staggering U.S. military outlay continues to rise, an endless cycle that has persisted from the Vietnam War to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. military intervention often exacerbated rather than mitigated conflicts.

Today, the focus has shifted to the so-called "great power competition," a belligerent narrative fueling global tensions and justifying the ever-growing budgets of U.S. defense contractors.

The 2025 defense policy bill is a case in point. With its 107 mentions of China, the bill reads like a manifesto of Washington's increasingly paranoid agenda to confront China and lawmakers' blatant effort to safeguard the interests of American defense contractors.

Not only does the bill target sensitive sectors like lidar and semiconductor equipment, but it also extends to more trivial areas, such as the import of Chinese garlic. This absurd inclusion reveals just how far Washington is willing to go to weaponize its regulatory powers in the name of national security.

In reality, the mounting military expenditures serve the needs of special interest groups, rather than address real security threats.

The military-industrial complex -- a symbiotic relationship between government officials and private defense contractors -- has benefited from nearly every military conflict the United States has entered over the past few decades.

A report from the "Costs of War" project under Brown University shows that Pentagon spending has totaled over 14 trillion dollars since the start of the war in Afghanistan. One-third to one-half of that total has gone to defense firms, many of which have direct ties to former government officials.

This "revolving door" between government service and the defense industry is one of the most glaring symbols of the corruption at the heart of America's military policy.

According to The New York Times, at least 50 former Pentagon and national security officials, most of whom left the federal government in the last five years, are now working in defense-related venture capital or private equity as executives or advisers.

They continued to interact regularly with Pentagon officials or members of Congress to push for policy changes or increases in military spending that could benefit firms they have invested in.

Meanwhile, skyrocketing military spending has imposed a huge burden on the U.S. fiscal budget, squeezing resources that could have been used for social welfare.

According to the Institute for Policy Studies, a think tank based in Washington, U.S. taxpayers on average contributed 1,087 dollars to Pentagon contractors, compared with 270 dollars for basic education.

A growing number of Americans are discontented with the continued consumption of national resources by the military-industrial complex, while crucial areas of people's livelihoods receive insufficient attention.

As noted by Bernie Sanders, the independent senator representing the state of Vermont, who voted against the bill, the United States does not "need a defense system that is designed to make huge profits for a handful of giant defense contractors while providing less of what the country needs."

In reality, under the cover of "national security," the American military policy continues to serve the interests of a powerful few, not the general public. ■