The funny thing is, you guys all think the 600 or 700 billion dollars the US spends as part of the defense budget includes maintenance of the nukes. Nuke maintenance is actually part of the non-defense budget, its part of the budget of the Department of Energy. Military budget of the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Our country spends closer to 1 Trillion annually on military expenses, not including the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan which are extra on top of THAT. After all, if our military expenses are 1/4th of the budget, shouldn't 1/4th of our interest payments on the debt ALSO be included as "military expenses"? Thats how a private business would have to expense interest payments for its operations. Shouldn't nuke maintenance be part of our defense budget? .... but its not. Shouldn't VA and veteran's benefits be considered part of the defense budget? ... but they're not. What about homeland security? .... its not. 1 trillion dollars is a much closer figure for what we spend annually on defense. Roughly 5-6 times our closest rival.