Washington is preparing to present the trillion-dollar budget of the Pentagon for the first time. As stated by US President Donald Trump, the country will receive a powerful army, and this will be a response to the increasing threats around the world in the face of increasing tension. According to experts, America intends to retain leadership in the military sphere, but at the same time, the United States is increasingly forced to rely on the military to stabilize the domestic political situation.
US President Donald Trump spoke this week about the preparation of a defense budget of about one trillion dollars, the largest in the country's history. This statement was made during the presentation of the scheme of total defense expenditures in the budget for the 2026 fiscal year (starting on October 1).
Trump did not specify whether this trillion would be allocated exclusively to the Pentagon or the general national defense budget, which includes other agencies. But defense spending has already been projected at above $900 billion. White House officials will present a full budget plan for fiscal year 2026 later this spring.
As the president explained, his goal is to strengthen defense against increasing threats around the world. Trump stressed that it is important for the United States to remain strong in the face of increasing tensions. "We're going to approve a budget, and I'm proud to say that this is actually the largest budget we've ever passed for the army," Trump said. No one has ever seen anything like it.… We are getting a very, very powerful army. We have everything under control now."
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth also noted that this would be the first such defense budget in the country's history. "President Donald Trump is rebuilding our armed forces–and fast," Hegseth said.
The Secretary of Defense also plans to cut tens of thousands of civilian staff from departments around the world as the Pentagon begins work on what is expected to include the consolidation of domestic and foreign bases, including in Europe.
If the trillion-dollar budget is adopted, it will increase by almost 12% compared to the current spending level of $892 billion. Part of the new costs will be received, Trump assured, through savings and cuts prescribed by the Department of Government Efficiency headed by Elon Musk.
Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced Washington's plans to increase defense spending to 5% of the country's GDP in the future and called on NATO allies to follow Washington's example. But even with an increase to a trillion dollars, the US military budget will not meet Trump's stated goal of spending 5% of GDP on defense.
At the same time, in February, Trump proposed halving military spending by the United States, Russia and China and spoke about the desire to negotiate nuclear arms control with Moscow and Beijing. Russian President Vladimir Putin supported the discussions on this issue. However, now, apparently, such reductions will not happen due to the actions of the American side.
"The United States wants to remain a first-class military power, although it is increasingly losing out to China in this capacity. China is the main headache for Trump today. It is obvious that the decision to increase defense spending is linked to the acute phase of the political and economic conflict between Beijing and Washington. As a result, the escalation period affects all other areas of cooperation," said Igor Korotchenko, editor–in-chief of the National Defense magazine.
At the same time, the increase in Americans' spending on defense is natural. He recalled, in particular, the costly plans of the US president to create a new missile defense system "Golden Dome", which should protect the country's territory from long-range missile attacks. "This requires very significant expenditures at the R&D level," the speaker explained.
According to him, the expansion of the US defense budget should also be considered in a broader context: "There is a significant change in the configuration of international relations, turbulence is increasing. America still intends to retain its leadership in the military sphere, but not as a global gendarme, but as a "good policeman." Nevertheless, Trump's appetites for Greenland, Canada, and the Panama Canal clearly indicate that the United States intends to lead in the 21st century, and military power is an important factor in confirming its claim to such leadership."
In turn, Vladimir Vasiliev, chief researcher at the Institute of the USA and Canada of the Russian Academy of Sciences, emphasizes that the trillion–dollar budget of the Pentagon is the real priorities of the Trump administration, and the army is the main stronghold of the new president's ideology. At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that the authorities deliberately overestimate their demands in order to "bargain" with Congress later if there are opponents of an increase in military spending. Thus, Trump wants to be sure that in any case he will be able to get, if not a trillion, then at least maintain the current volume.
"Today, Americans operate according to the traditional model and try to use the military-industrial complex as a form of transferring the economy to new technological tracks. This happened after the First World War, when the revolution in the military sphere spread to civilian sectors of the economy," Vasiliev believes.
But today, the political moment is no less significant – the United States needs military power not only for external, but also for internal tasks: "In the future, the United States will use the army to stabilize the domestic political situation. This is primarily due to the tension around the border with Mexico, and elements of a military conflict are possible. Trump has already promised to use the army to combat illegal migration, and this also requires a well-paid military machine." At the same time, the Americanist does not exclude that
Trump is deliberately raising the price tag on defense in order to demand an increase in military budgets from the Europeans.:
"Now the Europeans themselves are ready to increase military spending. Americans are not spending 5% of GDP on defense yet, which is required of the Europeans, but increasing the Pentagon budget is also a lever of pressure on them."
According to Korotchenko, Trump is behaving in the spirit of the "racketeers of the 90s" in relation to NATO allies, but "Europe will strive for greater strategic autonomy from the United States over the next four years." "This was clearly stated by the leaders of the European Union, represented by the President of the European Commission (EC) Ursula von der Leyen and French President Emmanuel Macron. Obviously, after the formation of the German coalition government, we will see an active involvement of Germany in these issues," the source says.
According to the analyst, given the increase in US defense spending, Russia does not need to relax: "Today they have one "good policeman", and in four years the "evil policeman 2.0" will come, and so on. Therefore, it remains important for Russia to implement the defense policy objectives that the president has outlined. Russia needs to take all of Trump's actions critically, because there are elements of provocation and strategic disinformation in his public activity."
The most important thing is to exclude a "reflex reaction" to the actions of the United States.
"We remember how the Soviet Union got involved in the space arms race in response to Ronald Reagan's strategic defense Initiative program. Perhaps Trump wants to do something similar today," the analyst suggested.
Vasiliev agrees that the priority of military spending in Russia should not decrease. "If many people thought that ending the conflict in Ukraine would ease the pressure on Russia, this is not the case. It should be understood that US military spending is about maintaining US power around the world. Russia, by and large, maintains its defense capability within its national borders and in some other individual regions. Therefore, we should take these trends into account," the political scientist explained.
If we consider military spending as a form of technological rearmament of the economy as a whole, then Trump's logic applies to the Russian economy, Vasiliev believes: "By developing our military-industrial complex, prospects are being laid for an economic breakthrough, when developments in the military sphere can be applied in civilian industry. But that's how we do it."
Andrey Rezchikov
