There’s an old saying that nations must choose between guns or butter. They can spend big on their military, or they can fund social welfare. But if they try to accomplish both simultaneously — as Lyndon Johnson did in the 1960s — then the results can be disastrous.
Every US president since 1945 has faced that dilemma and Donald Trump is no different. Exactly what he plans for defense spending isn’t clear, and whatever he says now may be subject to change later. He has vowed to cut billions from the Pentagon budget, ostensibly to eliminate fraud and waste. On the other hand, defense spending soared — as much as 16% by some estimates — during his first term. Congressional Republicans say spending must rise from around 3.4% of GDP to 5%.
Either way, that dilemma between defense and social spending will hover in the background. Yet Donald Trump is not a man who accepts dilemmas. Somehow there is some sort of deal out there that will allow America to have both guns and butter.
But even for a president who wrote a book called “The Art of the Deal,” this is no easy task. Despite dominating — or intimidating — the Republican Party, finding a solution between clashing agendas will be difficult in the polarized, toxic, take-no-prisoners world of current American politics.
There are hawkish Republicans — such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who are likely to support more defense spending, in response to growing Chinese power and the belief that the world perceives America as weak. That means embracing alliances and allies such as NATO. Another Republican faction wants America to retreat into isolationism, and focus on domestic programs rather than be the world’s only superpower. Still more conservatives demand lower government spending at all costs: the House Freedom Caucus tried to torpedo the Biden administration’s 2023 defense budget to get more non-defense cuts.
These arguments have roiled America since George Washington warned the newly independent nation in 1796 to “steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the foreign world.” But while Trump may dream of returning America to the “splendid isolation” of the 19th Century, the 21st Century has arrived with a new set of challenges. Russia is invading its neighbors, China is growing more powerful and seizing, or simply manufacturing new territory, while the Atlantic and Pacific don’t shield America as they did in 1885.
In theory, the US government’s cash cow should be plump enough to disgorge all the butter and guns America needs. US defense spending has been about 3% of GDP for the past decade, down from around 4.5% in 2010 during the Global War on Terror, and around 10% at the height of the Cold War. Though President Biden was derided by Republicans for being weak on defense, his proposed $850bn Department of Defense budget for 2025 is still larger than the GNP of most nations.
However, much of that budget pie has already been eaten. The bulk of the federal budget — nearly $7 trillion in 2024 — goes to mandatory programs such as Social Security. Discretionary spending, which covers defense as well as education, food safety, law enforcement and other functions, accounted for around $1.6 trillion in 2024, of which about half went to the military.
It is rarely stated, and yet true, that the US faces a similar dilemma to its European allies. Social spending is even higher as a proportion of national wealth, but debt is as just as high and finding urgently required money for defense is a very tough ask.
Though Elon Musk might wish otherwise, cutting entitlement programs such as Social Security is a political bomb that even a Republican-dominated Congress will be reluctant to touch. Especially considering that Trump’s electoral base is in conservative Red states, which actually receive more federal funds than liberal Blue states.
As for discretionary spending, these are the sort of services that citizens either don’t notice or take for granted. Or, at least until the government eliminates them. The public will express its displeasure over overcrowded schools and rising crime. But mass protests over the US pulling out of NATO? Not likely.
If this were merely a matter of juggling revenue and expenditure, it would be government as normal. Choosing between competing priorities is what leaders are supposed to do, even if it’s some frazzled treasury official in a basement office who has to make the numbers work.
Some leaders refuse to make those fiscal choices. Lyndon Johnson tried to defeat Communism in Vietnam, while eradicating poverty at home with his Great Society program. He also didn’t want to raise taxes to pay for all this, which resulted in budget deficits, inflation and the economic crisis of the 1970s.
With Trump, the issue may not be lofty goals. It’s more that he doesn’t like to lose, whether elections, real estate deals or anything else. Abandoning tax cuts to pay for defense would seem to him a limitation of his power, which he would take as a defeat.
However, Trump may convince himself that he doesn’t need to choose between guns and butter. He will be assured by his advisers, such as Musk and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, that there is plenty of extra money to be found by eliminating wasteful spending, including billions from the Pentagon.
Waste and the Pentagon indeed go together. But whether there is enough pork to pay for a bigger military — or that Trump and Musk can reform the military without breaking it — is another matter.
Trump is no stranger to legal issues over accounting practices. But defense budgets allow a fair bit of fiscal creativity.
For example, new weapons can be authorized but not funded, or procurement stretched out over years to give the appearance of lower costs. The F-35 fighter, for example, first flew in 2006; the US Air Force isn’t scheduled to get the last jet until 2049.
Trump is demanding that NATO states increase their defense budgets, even at the cost of domestic programs. The question is whether he expects the same of Americans.
Trump will want his guns and his butter. How he will do this is a mystery, at least for now, possibly even to Trump himself.
Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Business Insider, Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers University. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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