The United States' federal deficit reached $1.8 trillion this year, according to U.S. Treasury data, and economists warn it could exceed $2.0 trillion in the months ahead. In an editorial published on Labor Day 2026, the Washington Post laid out the threat that federal government debt poses to the U.S. military. The editorial places the paper squarely within a long-running fiscal debate: the Congressional Budget Office has repeatedly warned in its long-term budget outlook that rising debt held by the public increases the risk of a fiscal crisis and constrains lawmakers' ability to respond to emergencies, a concern that has also been voiced by defense secretaries and Joint Chiefs chairmen across administrations of both parties.

"Defending the country is Washington's most fundamental responsibility," the Post's editorial board wrote. "Governments are expected to take on debt in wartime and pay it down in peacetime. Stretching the market for government debt to the limit in peacetime is a dereliction of duty and, ultimately, a danger to national defense."

The editorial detailed the defense challenges confronting the United States, explaining how the ever-growing federal deficit erodes military preparedness. "The enemy gets a vote in foreign affairs, and nobody knows what the 2030s will hold," the Post wrote. "Will China invade Taiwan? Will NATO allies need defending against Russia? Will terrorism in the Middle East or Africa require a response from the United States? Will another emerging threat demand American action? The Federal budget is not prepared for such contingencies. Judging by the size of the deficit alone, one might assume the U.S. is already fighting a war far more involved than the on-again, off-again bombing of Iran. The additional burden of borrowing to finance a full-scale, protracted conflict could push the budget into more dangerous territory than it already is."

The Post recalled that in 2010, Michael Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "The most significant threat to our national security is our debt." At that time, according to the editorial, the "national debt was about $27 trillion lower than it is today." Mullen's warning has since been echoed by subsequent defense leaders, including former Defense Secretaries Robert Gates and Leon Panetta, who have both publicly linked the national debt to national security risk in speeches and congressional testimony.

"National security is the primary purpose of the federal government," the Post argued. "For much of American history, defense accounted for the bulk of federal spending. It was possible to identify wars just by looking at peaks in the debt-to-GDP ratio. Then, when the war was over, the ratio came back down as the need for taking on debt receded. That's no longer the case because non-defense spending has overwhelmed defense." The fiscal arithmetic behind that shift reflects a well-documented trend: mandatory programs such as Social Security and Medicare, along with net interest on the debt, now make up a growing share of the federal budget, and interest costs alone have climbed as federal debt has grown and borrowing costs have risen, leaving a smaller share of the budget for discretionary programs, including defense.

The editorial emphasized that the military faces "unknown needs of the future," and that the deficit leaves the United States ill-prepared for those challenges.

"Drone warfare, based on the experience of Ukraine, requires much nimbler procurement systems, as technology can become obsolete in months rather than decades," the Post explained. "Each unit of unmanned technology is cheap, but costs accumulate due to the enormous quantity of drones required and their quick depletion. Drones are not replacing more expensive conventional weapons, at least not right away, so they'll be an added cost in the 2030s. They Won't supplant existing spending. There is plenty the Pentagon can do to be more efficient. It's a government bureaucracy like any other, prone to bloat as bureaucrats measure their success by the size of their budgets. The inherently uncompetitive defense market, where one customer deals with a handful of contractors, isn't conducive to cost effectiveness."