Inside America’s Trillion-Dollar Military Arsenal

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The White House puts overall defense funding at $1 trillion for 2026, but a funding vote does not put a weapon in service. The Navy purchased two Virginia-class attack submarines a year from fiscal 2011 through fiscal 2024. Shipyards have never reached that pace: since 2022 production has been limited to about 1.1 to 1.2 boats a year, creating a growing backlog of submarines bought but not yet built, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

The harder question is not how much America’s arsenal costs but what military capability the money buys. The answer turns on the missions assigned to the force and the capacity to build, maintain and operate the weapons needed to carry them out.

The trillion-dollar figures measure different things

Lifetime costs: operating a fleet over decades

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported on June 11, 2026, that the United States’ F-35 support costs were estimated at $1.6 trillion, as of 2024, for the program’s lifetime through 2088. That is a commitment to keep a fleet operating over decades, not the purchase price of one fighter.

A carrier’s procurement estimate

For the carrier John F. Kennedy, the Navy’s fiscal 2026 budget submission estimated a procurement cost of about $13.2 billion and requested $150 million to cover cost growth.

A weapon’s life-cycle cost, as the defense department’s costing guide defines it, is the sum of research and development, investment in procurement and military construction, operating and support costs, and eventual disposal. An annual request, a ship’s procurement estimate and a fighter program’s lifetime support bill answer different questions.

Fiscal 2026: funded resources include multiyear money

Reconciliation lets Congress use a faster legislative procedure to change spending, revenue or debt-limit laws, beginning with instructions to committees in its budget resolution.

The White House’s fiscal 2027 budget proposal describes an overall defense funding level of $1 trillion for 2026. The defense department’s fiscal 2027 budget overview counts money from Public Law 119-21, passed through the budget process called reconciliation, among its enacted resources for fiscal 2026. Congress appropriated that money for fiscal 2025 but made it available for use through fiscal 2029, to be allocated across years under spending plans. So the $1 trillion headline is not all new money approved for one year, and it is not the value of the weapons the military already owns.

Fiscal 2027: the president’s request

Discretionary spending is controlled through annual appropriations; mandatory spending is controlled outside that process.

President Trump’s fiscal 2027 budget requested $1.5 trillion in overall defense resources, including $1.1 trillion in base discretionary funding for the defense department and a proposed $350 billion in additional mandatory resources. Here, the discretionary request seeks money through regular appropriations; the proposed mandatory funding would come through separate legislation passed under reconciliation. A request states what the president wants funded; it doesn’t by itself authorize the government to spend that money.

The broader national-defense budget category also includes atomic-energy defense activities, primarily at the Energy Department, and other defense-related work such as Federal Bureau of Investigation counterintelligence. A defense-department total and a national-defense total therefore cover different activities.

Not all defense spending buys weapons. The department’s fiscal 2027 overview separates its proposed discretionary and mandatory funding into accounts for equipment purchases, research, operations and personnel.

Different weapons solve different military problems

Land combat and ship-to-shore movement

The arsenal’s variety follows from the variety of work expected of it. The Army describes the Abrams tank as a tracked land-combat assault weapon. The Bradley infantry fighting vehicle combines reconnaissance with protection, transport and firepower for infantry squads. Army precision rocket-and-missile launchers provide both close- and long-range fire support to joint and expeditionary forces. Moving protected infantry, assaulting on the ground and providing fire support are related tasks, not interchangeable ones.

The Army reported January 16, 2026, that it had unveiled an early M1E3 Abrams prototype designed to reduce weight and logistical demands while adapting to threats including drones and long-range precision weapons.

The Marine Corps’ Amphibious Combat Vehicle carries Marines from ship to shore, provides mobility ashore and supplies direct fire support to infantry fighting on foot.

Ships and submarines

Navy aircraft carriers embark air wings with fighters capable of both air-to-ground strikes and air-to-air combat. DDG-51 is the designation for Arleigh Burke-class destroyers. The Navy’s DDG-51 destroyers are multi-mission surface ships emphasizing air defense and operations in the open ocean. They carry Aegis, an integrated ship combat system, and many can also conduct ballistic missile defense.

Nuclear-powered attack submarines can conduct covert reconnaissance, support special operations, strike land targets with Tomahawk missiles and fight submarines or surface ships when appropriately equipped and armed. Nuclear propulsion describes how a submarine is powered; it does not make every attack submarine a strategic nuclear-weapons platform.

The Navy had 293 battle-force ships on October 1, 2025, CRS reported; battle-force ships are the types that count toward the Navy’s quoted fleet size. A fleet count measures quantity, not whether those ships are available for their assigned missions.

Aircraft and space systems

The F-35 comes in an Air Force conventional-takeoff-and-landing variant, a Marine Corps short-takeoff-and-vertical-landing variant, and a Navy and Marine Corps carrier variant. The KC-46A tanker provides aerial refueling for Navy and Air Force aircraft, a role the fiscal 2027 budget continues to fund. The Air Force also provides heavy transport and longer-range missions. Combat aircraft are only part of an air force’s capability; support aircraft help determine what operations the force can sustain.

The Global Positioning System (GPS) provides worldwide positioning, navigation and timing information to military and civilian users, with Space Force responsible for its satellites and ground-control systems. Space Force’s other functions include satellite communications, missile warning and the launch and control infrastructure needed for access to space. The machinery behind the arsenal includes systems that deliver information rather than fire weapons.

Missile defense and its limits

CRS describes Ground-based Midcourse Defense as a defense against a limited intercontinental ballistic missile attack from North Korea or Iran during the missile’s midcourse phase. Midcourse is the part of flight after powered launch and before final descent, when the missile coasts without engine power. The 2022 Missile Defense Review warned that this system was neither intended nor capable of defeating large, sophisticated Russian or Chinese ballistic missile threats.

The fiscal 2027 budget’s Golden Dome initiative seeks a broader architecture against ballistic, hypersonic and cruise missiles, with further development of sensors, interceptors and command-and-control systems. The expanded protection is an objective of investment, not proof that a completed shield already delivers it.

A weapons request still needs a spending decision

The defense department connects military capability requirements to resource decisions through its Planning, Programming, Budgeting and Execution process. Planning guidance sets force-development priorities, service funding plans cover five years, and budget submissions translate the first year into amounts presented to Congress.

A defense authorization law establishes or continues programs and policies and guides the use of appropriated money, but it does not provide spending authority. Permission to maintain a program and money to carry it out are separate decisions.

In the enacted National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026 and defense appropriations law, Congress provided more funding than requested for Virginia-class submarines and Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and less for the E-2D Advanced Hawkeye aircraft. The president’s preferred mix of weapons need not be the mix Congress funds.

As of September 1, 2026, the House had passed the fiscal 2027 authorization bill, on July 22, but no authorization law had been enacted, CRS reported. The Senate committee had reported its bill, but a July vote to limit debate on taking it up failed, with no further steps toward floor consideration as of September 1. As of September 3, 2026, Congress had not passed the regular fiscal 2027 defense appropriations act, CRS reported.

An unfinished regular appropriations bill need not leave agencies without funding. The Continuing Appropriations and Extensions Act, 2027 (Public Law 119-103), signed September 2, 2026, authorized temporary funding beginning October 1 and ending December 11 for agencies covered by all twelve regular appropriations bills. For most programs, it uses rates based largely on fiscal 2026 funding, with program-specific exceptions and limits. Temporary funding keeps operations funded for a defined period; it is not enactment of the president’s entire annual weapons request.

From development and testing to production

Congress can provide money without settling the defense department’s acquisition approvals. A designated milestone decision authority, the official responsible for the program, has authority to approve entry into the next acquisition phase.

Under the Major Capability Acquisition process, a phase called engineering and manufacturing development builds, tests and evaluates the weapon before production decisions. Exiting that phase requires a stable design, demonstrated performance against validated requirements and other specified readiness criteria.

At the full-rate production review, the milestone decision authority assesses initial operational testing, manufacturing and deployment to decide whether to approve proceeding to full-rate production. Proceeding requires controlled manufacturing, acceptable performance and reliability, and adequate support.

The F-35 shows why purchase and readiness diverge

GAO defines the mission-capable rate as the share of time an aircraft can perform one of its assigned missions, and the fully mission-capable rate as the share when it can perform all its missions. Across the F-35 fleet, the mission-capable rate fell from 67 percent in fiscal 2021 to 44 percent in fiscal 2025, while the fully mission-capable rate fell from 38 percent to 25 percent. An inventory of fighters can stay impressive while the availability of their capabilities deteriorates.

Operating and supporting a weapons system includes personnel, supplies, software, equipment, maintenance and system-specific training throughout its operating life. GAO identified insufficient F-35 spare-parts planning in 2019 and says better parts modeling, more spare-parts investment and faster repairs should improve the fleet’s parts supply.

The F-35 support strategy aims for mission-capable and fully mission-capable rates of 80 percent and 65 percent by 2030, with about $13.7 billion in investment beyond previously planned spending through fiscal 2031.

For the F-35, the Joint Program Office manages ongoing-support contracts with Lockheed Martin Aeronautics for the air vehicle and Pratt & Whitney for propulsion. GAO recommends plans to manage the support strategy’s risks, better incentives in support contracts and stronger safeguards for information about performance-linked payments.

Nuclear replacements make a different long-term commitment

Nuclear deterrence aims to discourage a nuclear attack on the United States by threatening a nuclear response. The nuclear triad consists of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles on strategic submarines, and long-range heavy bombers. Their strengths complement one another, according to the defense department’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review as cited by CRS: submarine missiles are the most survivable; land-based missiles contribute to stability and, like submarine missiles, are not vulnerable to air defenses; and bombers can visibly deploy to signal deterrence and reassure allies.

The defense department modernizes the military delivery systems, while the National Nuclear Security Administration, an Energy Department agency, implements warhead modernization. The Congressional Budget Office estimated in 2025 that operating and modernizing nuclear forces would cost $946 billion over the following ten years, according to a CRS primer updated April 1, 2026. That projection covers operation as well as replacement and spans a decade, so it is not another annual defense total.

The B-21 Raider is a stealth bomber for conventional and nuclear munitions, intended to replace the B-1 and B-2, with development and production proceeding together, according to the defense department’s budget overview. Columbia-class ballistic-missile submarines are in production to replace the Ohio class, which the Navy will keep operating and maintaining during the transition. The Air Force’s Sentinel missile program is intended to replace the Minuteman III land-based intercontinental ballistic missile. Replacement creates overlapping demands: building the successor does not automatically end the cost of supporting the force it will replace.

In January 2024, the Air Force reported at least a 37 percent increase in Sentinel’s estimated cost per unit, from $118 million to $162 million in 2020 dollars. That increase counts as a critical breach under the Nunn-McCurdy Act. The law requires the defense department, unless it ends the program, to certify that the program is essential to national security, has no cheaper alternatives and can be managed. In July 2024, the department certified continuation but withdrew the program’s Milestone B approval, an earlier acquisition go-ahead, and cited a $141 billion estimate for a modified Sentinel program.

In February 2026, the Air Force announced plans to complete Sentinel’s restructuring and obtain a new Milestone B decision by that year’s end, with initial capability targeted for the early 2030s. Those were targets for approval and usable capability, not announcements that either had been achieved.

Money cannot instantly expand a shipyard

Navy shipbuilders have trouble recruiting, training and retaining trades workers such as welders and pipefitters, GAO reported, and programs including the Virginia-class submarine have cited workforce problems as a cause of delays. Shipyard representatives told GAO that low wages made hiring and retention difficult, and Navy officials told GAO low wages can cause newer workers to leave for similarly paid, less physically demanding jobs.

GAO says the defense department had already invested more than $10 billion in the submarine industrial base but lacked a clear estimate of how much additional funding was needed to solve its capacity problems. GAO also found gaps in oversight of some of the costliest industrial-base investments.

The Army’s budget overview describes a $4 billion modernization of 23 government industrial sites and an additional $7.3 billion in its discretionary request to expand munitions production, including artillery ammunition. The arsenal includes the capacity to replenish supplies as well as the equipment that consumes them.

The next dollar depends on the missions chosen

Readiness and production constraints do not settle how large the force should be. The administration’s 2026 National Defense Strategy prioritizes homeland defense, deterring China, strengthening alliances and modernizing military capabilities through a stronger industrial base. The administration argues that strong defenses and collective security with allies can prevent Chinese dominance and preserve a balance of power in the Indo-Pacific.

The administration’s proposed $102.2 billion air-power portfolio includes fighters, the B-21 bomber, mobility aircraft, tankers and uncrewed systems, with keeping pace with competitors as its stated purpose. It argues that shifting spending from aging equipment toward procurement and research will build capabilities that prevent war or prevail if war occurs. It also calls for allies to lead against threats in their own regions with more limited US support as the United States prioritizes its homeland and deterring China.

Writing for the American Enterprise Institute, Elaine McCusker and Richard Sims argue that the proposed $1.5 trillion fiscal 2027 budget would expand military production and address gaps in readiness and weapons stockpiles.

The Quincy Institute is a research institution that advocates military restraint and diplomatic engagement.

The Quincy Institute, a research group that opposes the proposed increase, argues in its analysis of the fiscal 2027 request for a more restrained but still robust approach to countering China, a smaller US role in Europe’s defense and avoidance of large-scale stability operations. Quincy points to the substantial defense resources of wealthy European and Pacific allies. It compares the long-run annual cost of military plans with the proposed funding total, arguing that security commitments help determine the spending needed. This is a challenge to the missions assigned to the force, not just a demand to buy the same force more cheaply.

Separately, Quincy estimates that a more restrained strategy could cut annual defense spending by roughly $150 billion below the funding level already approved, a different yardstick from the proposed fiscal 2027 request. The estimate draws on a 2022 alternative-strategy study, with the long-run plan costs expressed in 2026 dollars. Such savings depend on adopting different missions and force plans; they are not money saved while preserving every existing commitment.

Quincy also argues that higher debt can weaken the economic foundation of long-term security and military capability. The policy choice turns on what threats the United States expects to confront, what allies will undertake and what usable capability each funding plan can deliver.

Examine a weapons proposal and contact Congress

To examine a weapons proposal, start with the defense department’s Program Acquisition Cost by Weapon System, procurement spreadsheets, research-and-development spreadsheets and service budget justification books, the records CRS uses in its fiscal 2027 comparison. GAO’s recommendations tracker provides updated information when it confirms the agency’s response actions. Compare the budget’s promised purchases with an oversight report’s account of readiness or delivery, keeping their periods and measures separate.

For a funding decision worth raising with Congress, use USA.gov’s directory to find contact information for US senators and representatives.