# America's wartime defense budget: $1.5 trillion to deliver a military able to fight everyone - except China..... Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-grumpy-strategists-6607649/america-s-wartime-defense-budget-1-5-trillion-to-deliver-a-military-able-to-fight-everyone-except-china Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-grumpy-strategists-6607649/america-s-wartime-defense-budget-1-5-trillion-to-deliver-a-military-able-to-fight-everyone-except-china.md Podcast: [The Grumpy Strategists](https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-grumpy-strategists-6607649) Published: 2026-04-09T06:28:52+00:00 Episode link: https://rss.com/podcasts/the-grumpy-strategists/2712168 Audio file: https://content.rss.com/episodes/228146/2712168/the-grumpy-strategists/2026_04_09_12_24_35_853a0763-5a18-4b9e-bf42-6e6a86246c84.mp3 Processing state: not_requested JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-grumpy-strategists-6607649/episodes/america-s-wartime-defense-budget-1-5-trillion-to-deliver-a-military-able-to-fight-everyone-except-china Duration seconds: 3214 ## Resource Back in the SAA Bunker deep in the Brindabellas, Marcus & Michael declare energy independence (okay, thanks to government subsidies) and ponder the details of the Trump Administration's new Defense budget. $1.5 trillion dollars delivers an all you can eat buffet of spending for everyone involved in the Military Industrial Complex. The traditional big end of town - Lockheed, RTX Raytheon, Northrop and Boeing get cash, & so do tech bro outfits like Anduril & Palantir. Just the US Army's missile budget is now bigger than the total budget of the US State Department - take that you peacenik diplomats. America First is looking like not just having a Department of War, but an entire Government of War. There are some minor problems: 1. given the real world usage rates in Iran, this 43% increase in annual spending won't produce enough expensive missiles & interceptors to fight even a short war with an adversary like China - so, not the strongest deterrent message. And 2. it looks a courageous assumption to think that US defence industry can ramp up at the scale and speed this cash splash desires. The budget describes a bad plan, that fails to adjust to the practical realities revealed in the Iran war - unless the plan is to be able to fight anyone except China or Russia..... ## Actions - request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/the-grumpy-strategists-6607649/episodes/america-s-wartime-defense-budget-1-5-trillion-to-deliver-a-military-able-to-fight-everyone-except-china/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode. - read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/the-grumpy-strategists-6607649/america-s-wartime-defense-budget-1-5-trillion-to-deliver-a-military-able-to-fight-everyone-except-china.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource. A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed. ## Transcript Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.