The Department of Defense released its figure for the 2009 budget: $518.3 billion. As this article points out, that number is only the military portion of the budget. There are other expenditures that could be easily classified as funding national security also. First, the $70 billion the DOD requested to fight the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Secondly, the requested $17.1 billion the Department of Energy needs to maintain our country's nuclear weapons. Then there is Homeland Security, the Department of Veterans’ Affairs, the State Department, and many other departments and agencies that relieve the DOD of some of the debt burden. The grand total of our national security state comes to well over $600 billion.
America's national security budget is only 4-5% of its GDP, which ranks it 28th in the world on military expenditures as a percentage of GDP. However, the US ranks #1 on total expenditure and in fact, spends more on defense than every other country in the world combined.
