Exorbitant and Rising Debt Is a National Security Threat

In the current American political circus, in which both political parties stoke their supporters by attacking the other on polarizing social issues—abortion, DEI, transgender rights, etc.—more boring issues, such as huge budget deficits and the ballooning national debt, have long been forgotten. The last time these topics became a major issue in a presidential campaign was during the 1992 election, thanks only to a very successful independent candidacy by budget hawk Ross Perot.

Otherwise, the media covers the budget’s red ink only when the national debt passes another milestone on its way skyward, as it recently did by crossing the $40 trillion mark. Yet burgeoning debt has blatantly bad economic consequences and is, although less obviously, a threat to national security.

The reason that deficits and debt have not been a bigger campaign issue is that both the Republican and Democratic parties know they can win votes from various constituencies through lavish government spending, while avoiding losing votes by keeping taxes relatively low for the general public. All of this produces insufficient inflows to and excessive outflows from the government’s coffers, requiring increased public borrowing and generating a soaring national debt. Over the next decade, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the gross national debt will increase to a whopping $62 trillion.

The average voter, from personal experience or attempted avoidance thereof, is probably aware that excessive debt is bad, but he or she may be less clear about its deleterious national economic consequences. Even less obvious are the national security ramifications.

First, economically, rising government debt can crowd out more efficient private borrowing and increase interest rates. This slows economic growth and reduces national income by increasing payments to foreign lenders. Contributing further to higher interest rates, humongous debt leads markets to downgrade U.S. government debt because of increased risk, forcing taxpayers to pay more in interest. Finally, current generations are essentially living high on the hog while foisting the loan-repayment bill (with interest) onto their children and grandchildren.

But why is an escalating debt a national security issue?

First and foremost, any nation must have a healthy economy to support its defense spending. In the worst-case scenario, if a country’s spending on its military, intelligence capabilities, wars, foreign aid, and diplomacy becomes too large relative to its economy, that imbalance could cause its empire to collapse or retract.

Historically, while some empires fell because they were conquered, many others collapsed for financial reasons—often because their militaries became too expensive or they entered too many costly wars. Recent examples include the Soviet Union, whose tottering communist economic system could not support its empire and excessive military spending, and the British and French empires, which drained their treasuries despite being on the winning side of two massive world wars.

Similarly, the debt-laden U.S. superpower is declining relative to a rising China. In fact, ironically, although U.S. debt held by China has recently been declining, Beijing still lends the United States money, helping it afford an ever-increasing military budget. That budget is likely to exceed $1 trillion in fiscal year 2027 and is primarily oriented toward a future war with… well… China.

Of course, if any such potentially horrendous conflict were to occur, it would be even worse if it happened before the United States extricated itself from the latest needless war of choice against Iran. Since the turn of the millennium, the United States has been entangled in many similar quagmires across the Greater Middle East—Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and the ongoing global war on terrorism—all of which have required new debt.

As with the fallen empires of yore, the debt accumulated by the overextended U.S. empire drags down domestic economic growth, which is the primary underpinning of any nation’s security.

Part of any plan to reduce the national debt must involve significantly cutting spending on unnecessary wars of choice, excessive foreign “defense” commitments, redundant military bases, and expensive, vulnerable weapon systems (such as tanks and surface ships). Buying too many of those systems merely lines the pockets of a competition-sheltered U.S. defense industry while stifling investment in cheaper, more effective technologies, such as aerial, undersea, and surface drones.