Defense

Fact Check: Has President Obama 'Depleted' The Military?

Condemning a Democratic president for lavishing money on social programs at the expense of national defense is red meat for Republican voters. And compared to the peak of war-time spending at the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — and the expectations that Pentagon planners once had for how much spending would grow — the defense budget is down, as Trump charged.

So is the American troop presence in both countries, necessitating far less funding than was needed at the peak of the war. Whether Obama has deployed the "correct" American troop presence or pursued the right overall strategy for those ongoing wars and the newer conflict in Syria, are themselves the subject of separate debates.

Post-9/11 Pentagon spending peaked in 2009 at more than $691 billion — a combination of the Defense Department's request for basic funds and the supplemental request it made for wartime spending. Last year, those two accounts amounted to just over $580 billion (though the Stockholm International Peace Institute, or SIPRI, put total U.S. spending on its military in 2015 slightly higher at $596 billion). Meanwhile, every dollar buys less than it used to.