You may have heard in some circles that cuts in the military budget are going to gut America's ability to defend itself. But, in fact, after a brief drawdown, defense spending, adjusted for inflation, is going to be higher during the coming decade than in the past one.
Here are two charts illustrating this fact:
Even without the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense spending will be
close to its all-time, inflation-adjusted peak in the early 2020s.
Here's another way to look at what military spending will look like over the next 10 years. It should be noted that these charts only cover DOD and directly related spending. They do not cover Veterans Affairs, a big hunk of which is paying the price of previous wars, the interest on the national debt that covers the cost of borrowing for war, the maintenance and upgrading of the nation's nuclear arsenal and that part of Homeland Security spending related to defense.
Inflation-adjusted using 2013 dollars.