There are lots of ways to measure defense spending - absolute dollars, percent of GDP, percent of Federal budget. All of those ways have denialists telling us that the budget is in-line with historical norms. However, the only way of measuring that matters is relative to what can actually be afforded...
The Pentagon needs to factor into their "planning" that those fancy warships "protecting" the South China Sea are paid for by China...
The defense budget relative to the U.S. deficit:
Data from:
Defense Expenditures Annual
Annual surplus / deficit
