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The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home
A hard-hitting investigation into how the Pentagon’s runaway spending embroils America in foreign wars, squanders its wealth, and enriches a privileged elite
America spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on its military. This extraordinary spending not only detracts from our ability to address pressing social problems but compels us into foreign wars to justify our vast arsenal. Sold to us in the name of “security,” our military industrial complex actually makes us far less safe.
Top policy experts William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman follow the profits of militarism from traditional Pentagon contractors, which receive more than half of the Pentagon’s budget, to the upstart high-tech firms that shamelessly promote unproven and destabilizing technologies. They unmask the enablers of the war machine—politicians, lobbyists, the media, Hollywood, think tanks, and so many more—whose work enriches a wealthy elite at the expense of everybody else, spreading conflict around the world and embroiling America in endless wars.
A damning tour de force, The Trillion Dollar War Machine shows who is pulling the strings and pushing for war, and offers a blueprint for how we can shut down the war machine and restore American security and prosperity.
America spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on its military. This extraordinary spending not only detracts from our ability to address pressing social problems but compels us into foreign wars to justify our vast arsenal. Sold to us in the name of “security,” our military industrial complex actually makes us far less safe.
Top policy experts William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman follow the profits of militarism from traditional Pentagon contractors, which receive more than half of the Pentagon’s budget, to the upstart high-tech firms that shamelessly promote unproven and destabilizing technologies. They unmask the enablers of the war machine—politicians, lobbyists, the media, Hollywood, think tanks, and so many more—whose work enriches a wealthy elite at the expense of everybody else, spreading conflict around the world and embroiling America in endless wars.
A damning tour de force, The Trillion Dollar War Machine shows who is pulling the strings and pushing for war, and offers a blueprint for how we can shut down the war machine and restore American security and prosperity.
336 pages, Hardcover
Published November 11, 2025
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421 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
September 10, 2025
Whether "fate" or whatever you want to call it, the day before I started reading this book I had a conversation with an acquaintance about how it feels like war and the military are the religion of the United States of America. This is essentially the central thesis of the book.
The authors offer a comprehensive deep-dive and analysis into the centrality of military in American culture, ranging from government spending, policy, tech, academia, and media. Some key talking points that stuck out include:
-Since the Eisenhower era, presidents from both political parties have increased federal budget allotted to the military (oh, the illusion of choice). Thanks to some nice little loopholes, the Big 5 gets to influence a lot of policy thru lobbyists (and the constitution? can be easily bypassed. The law doesn't matter when money is involved).
-After Americans became disillusioned with the idea of "sending our own boys to die abroad" during the Vietnam War, Carter ushered in this new era of supplying local entities to fight proxy wars for the US.
We have spent trillions supplying some ruthless dictators with weapons to fight democratically elected candidates in various regions of the world (and yet somehow the government claims we spend more on social security, even when the US has the worst welfare and life expectancy of any developed nation).
-A lot of the military spending isn't going towards creating new jobs for regular-degular Americans, like Biden asserted as an excuse to justify all the weapon$ sent to Ukraine. In fact, most of it goes towards funding defunct projects at the Big 5 (Lockheed, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics) like the infamous F-35 or the Sentinel program.
-If you thought academia was safe, think again! As an engineer in academia, it's always frustrating to see how the labs that do research for the military get bottomless pits of money compared to even the average NIH/ NSF-funded labs. That's not even mentioning the amount of predatory recruiting the Big 5 do on campuses, going as far as to host "Lockheed Day"-type dystopian events.
-The military also blows a lot of money on sporting events and movies. Your first-person shooter videogames are not harmless either.
Overall, this book was incredibly well-researched and structured. The language was accessible to a lay audience and the authors don't assume large amounts of prior knowledge to understand the concepts brought forth. I appreciated how recent it is, highlighting how this all plays out in US involvement in the genocide happening in Gaza, and highly recommend everyone who's concerned about how their tax dollars are spent reads it.
The authors offer a comprehensive deep-dive and analysis into the centrality of military in American culture, ranging from government spending, policy, tech, academia, and media. Some key talking points that stuck out include:
-Since the Eisenhower era, presidents from both political parties have increased federal budget allotted to the military (oh, the illusion of choice). Thanks to some nice little loopholes, the Big 5 gets to influence a lot of policy thru lobbyists (and the constitution? can be easily bypassed. The law doesn't matter when money is involved).
-After Americans became disillusioned with the idea of "sending our own boys to die abroad" during the Vietnam War, Carter ushered in this new era of supplying local entities to fight proxy wars for the US.
We have spent trillions supplying some ruthless dictators with weapons to fight democratically elected candidates in various regions of the world (and yet somehow the government claims we spend more on social security, even when the US has the worst welfare and life expectancy of any developed nation).
-A lot of the military spending isn't going towards creating new jobs for regular-degular Americans, like Biden asserted as an excuse to justify all the weapon$ sent to Ukraine. In fact, most of it goes towards funding defunct projects at the Big 5 (Lockheed, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, General Dynamics) like the infamous F-35 or the Sentinel program.
-If you thought academia was safe, think again! As an engineer in academia, it's always frustrating to see how the labs that do research for the military get bottomless pits of money compared to even the average NIH/ NSF-funded labs. That's not even mentioning the amount of predatory recruiting the Big 5 do on campuses, going as far as to host "Lockheed Day"-type dystopian events.
-The military also blows a lot of money on sporting events and movies. Your first-person shooter videogames are not harmless either.
Overall, this book was incredibly well-researched and structured. The language was accessible to a lay audience and the authors don't assume large amounts of prior knowledge to understand the concepts brought forth. I appreciated how recent it is, highlighting how this all plays out in US involvement in the genocide happening in Gaza, and highly recommend everyone who's concerned about how their tax dollars are spent reads it.
February 12, 2026
Stiglitz and Bilmes in their book The Three Trillion Dollar War were thorough, unrelenting and on-point in their criticism of the Iraq invasion. I wish that was the case with this examination of the massive machine behind the Pentagon's nearly trillion dollar annual budget. The authors propose stripping funds from the Military Industrial Complex (MIC), only to add to the Welfare Industrial Complex (WIC) and the Global Warming/Climate Industrial Complex (GWIC). Both the WIC and GWIC use many of the same tactics as the MIC to ensure that their taxpayer financed gravy train keeps rolling.
The book presents to the reader ideas almost never discussed, the most interesting of which is eliminating the land-based ICBMs from the nuclear arsenal. They argue that a two pronged (submarines and aircraft) nuclear capability is more than adequate, much safer and much less expensive than the nuclear triad in place since the 1950s.
It describes at length how the financial tentacles of the MIC reach into Hollywood, universities, research think tanks, the news media, gaming and endless lobbying of Congress by both government personnel and military contractors. The MIC prevents opposing viewpoints through exercising financial and access pressure points. The MIC also pollutes discourse by recipients of its largesse failing to disclose their conflicts of interest. For example, a retired general or admiral will spout off on television in a very authoritative manner, without disclosing that he or the research foundation which employs him are financed by the manufacturer of the weapon he is promoting.
Unfortunately, the authors rather extreme leftwing politics frequently limit the solutions they propose. The Poor People's Campaign largely socialist proposals are recommended, but the libertarian Cato Institute is nowhere to be seen. Moving money from defense to social programs is proposed, but not reducing spending to slow growth of the $38 trillion national debt. And green energy is frequently hyped, without acknowleding that windmills and solar panels do not supply persistent power and require oil and gas backup.
Alleged systemic racism, water in Flint Michigan, wages in West Virginia, Martin Luther King, inequality, lbxyz rights, charging House Speaker Mike Johnson with claims of racism, all take a star turn in a book that is promoted to be about the Pentagon's budget and how to bring it under control. The books authors and editors should have pruned about 50 pages of kooky leftwing jibber jabber and ad hominem attacks and stuck to the subject matter.
The book presents to the reader ideas almost never discussed, the most interesting of which is eliminating the land-based ICBMs from the nuclear arsenal. They argue that a two pronged (submarines and aircraft) nuclear capability is more than adequate, much safer and much less expensive than the nuclear triad in place since the 1950s.
It describes at length how the financial tentacles of the MIC reach into Hollywood, universities, research think tanks, the news media, gaming and endless lobbying of Congress by both government personnel and military contractors. The MIC prevents opposing viewpoints through exercising financial and access pressure points. The MIC also pollutes discourse by recipients of its largesse failing to disclose their conflicts of interest. For example, a retired general or admiral will spout off on television in a very authoritative manner, without disclosing that he or the research foundation which employs him are financed by the manufacturer of the weapon he is promoting.
Unfortunately, the authors rather extreme leftwing politics frequently limit the solutions they propose. The Poor People's Campaign largely socialist proposals are recommended, but the libertarian Cato Institute is nowhere to be seen. Moving money from defense to social programs is proposed, but not reducing spending to slow growth of the $38 trillion national debt. And green energy is frequently hyped, without acknowleding that windmills and solar panels do not supply persistent power and require oil and gas backup.
Alleged systemic racism, water in Flint Michigan, wages in West Virginia, Martin Luther King, inequality, lbxyz rights, charging House Speaker Mike Johnson with claims of racism, all take a star turn in a book that is promoted to be about the Pentagon's budget and how to bring it under control. The books authors and editors should have pruned about 50 pages of kooky leftwing jibber jabber and ad hominem attacks and stuck to the subject matter.
February 12, 2026
this book was very eye-opening. i learned many things about how the system works, and tbh, some parts surprised me. i recommend it if you want to know more about politics and war spending.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews