Elon Musk Is Right To “DOGE” The Pentagon
The greatest existential national security threat facing the United States is neither China nor Russia. It is, in fact, the nation’s endlessly ballooning national debt.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has called for the Pentagon’s senior leadership to develop plans for slashing the defense budget by 40 percent, at a rate of eight percent from the defense budget in each of the next five years, according to a memo obtained by the Washington Post. Seventeen categories of spending were exempted by the Trump administration’s secretary of defense, including border security operations, one-way attack drones, and missile defense.
The U.S. defense budget for 2025 is approximately $850 billion, which has exploded since 2010. Despite the increases in spending, the U.S. military’s capabilities have declined year-over-year. The Defense Department cannot build warplanes, warships, and other strategic platforms in any large quantity, or produce them affordably—or in a timely manner—let alone win a war. In short, spending more money each year on the military is not working.
The U.S. National Debt is the Greatest National Security Threat
The greatest existential national security threat facing the United States is neither China nor Russia. It is, in fact, the nation’s endlessly ballooning national debt. America’s global power is predicated upon the ubiquity of its national currency, which itself is built on the stability of its economy. But the way that the U.S. federal government has printed and spent its money rather than simply control its excess spending has created the greatest debt bomb in history. The top five expenditures for the U.S. federal government, according to the Department of Treasury are Social Security, Medicare, interest on the ballooning debt, national defense, and health.
President Trump, with the help of billionaire Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has already begun the painful process of reining in spending. The agency is investigating Social Security and apparently making moves to address the excesses of Medicare and Medicaid. Now, it seems the Trump administration is interested in DOGE-ing the defense budget, if the Washington Post’s report is to be believed. (It is worth noting that the Pentagon denies the veracity of this report.)
Even if the report is inaccurate, Secretary Hegseth must address the monumental spending crisis in his department. Given the Trump administration’s obvious commitment to cutting costs and making the federal government more efficient, it is likely that there is much truth to this report.
The U.S. Defense Budget is Washington’s Holy Grail
Once the DOGE-ing of the defense budget commences in earnest, Americans should expect those who live in Washington to begin screaming like stuck pigs, since the defense budget is the Holy Grail of the capital city’s economy. We’ve already seen a preview of what will happen with the initial cuts DOGE made to USAID and the changes to the Department of the Treasury’s payment system. Going after defense spending, as the Washington Post piece suggests, will slaughter many sacred cows in Washington.
Yet, with a national debt of nearly $37 trillion (and counting), no program or department in Washington should be too sacred. Because if the rest of the world concludes that the U.S. debt is unmanageable, the chances increase greatly that a challenge to the supremacy of the U.S. dollar, such as the one posed to it by the BRICS economic alliance being led by China, will knock the U.S. dollar from its pedestal. Once that happens, the U.S. economy will collapse like a house of cards.
The Case for DOGE
Unless the debt can be controlled.
That’s why DOGE, and similar policies enacted by the Trump administration, are so key. Once the U.S. debt is under control, no matter how hard in the near-term it is (and it will be difficult for everyone), the dollar can be saved, and the threat to America’s dominant global position might be averted.
Here’s where the brilliant part comes in. It’s the part that shows, unlike Trump’s shambolic first term, the second term really does have a comprehensive strategy for achieving these herculean goals.
Shortly before Trump was inaugurated, the so-called “Broligarchs”—the tech billionaires who supported Trump’s return to the White House, such as Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and others—announced their intentions to form a consortium that would challenge the vise-like grip that the major defense contractors have on the Defense Department. This consortium would include Palantir, Anduril, SpaceX, OpenAI, Saronic, and Scale AI.
What’s more, Musk has made several comments of late that have rankled even some of his biggest fans at the Pentagon. Immediately after the election, Musk questioned the need for the expensive F-35 Lightning II. Not long thereafter, Musk spoke to the United States Army and indicated that, based on the example of the gruesome frontline combat in the Ukraine War, manned platforms being sent to the frontlines of any war is a bad idea.
Instead, both in the air and on the ground, Musk said unmanned systems powered by increasingly advanced artificial intelligence (AI) would be the future of combat. Beyond Musk’s comments, too, the world’s advanced navies have understandably become interested in unmanned warships and submarines.
Combine these facts, and you see a longer-term plan both for decreasing the Pentagon’s Byzantine budget all while increasing its lethality. Secretary Hegseth must seriously address the excessive defense expenditures to ameliorate the threat that America’s out-of-control debt poses to the country. At the same time, Musk and his allies in Silicon Valley must come in and enhance the U.S. military’s martial prowess.
Can We Cut Costs While Enhancing Lethality?
Few other major defense contractors are capable or willing to lower costs while increasing lethality (and to be fair, this is partly born out Congress’ insistence that systems be built in multiple districts for political purposes). If Musk and his tech tycoons can assist Secretary Hegseth in achieving 40 percent budget cuts over the next five years without risking lethality, then both the national debt will be seriously cut down and the country will be made far more secure than it ever has been.
The only real questions left to answer are: how effective will the Trump administration be in getting control over the elephantine defense bureaucracy without jeopardizing important defense programs, and will Congress—the real cause of the debt—go along with these changes?
Time will tell.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, National Review, The American Spectator, MSN, the Asia Times, and countless others. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.
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