The 35 Weapons the Military Will Spend the Most on Next Year

The United States spends more than $800 billion in defense every year. Of that, a large portion goes to the procurement of new weapons systems. The 2024 budget request included $315 billion to buy weapons, vehicles, ammunition, and technology. Some of the largest weapons allotments are $61.1 billion to aircraft systems, $48.1 billion to shipbuilding and maritime systems, and $30.6 billion to missiles and munitions. (See the U.S. Military’s longest-range missiles.)

To identify the billion dollar weapons the U.S. military will spend the most on next year, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed the DoD’s recently-released Fiscal 2024 Budget Request. Each of the weapon systems on this list has a planned cost of over $1 billion in the 2024 fiscal  year.

The spending totals include both procurement costs (purchasing completed weapons systems) as well as research, development, test, and evaluation, and the costs of modifying and otherwise upgrading existing weapons systems. The quoted descriptions of the spending, as well as the breakdown as to where in the military each system will go, comes directly from the DoD budget proposal, from the Program Acquisition Cost By Weapons System document. 

These weapons include missile defense systems, tactical vehicles, aircraft, submarines, and surface naval vessels. Some weapons allotments are also budgeted for cybersecurity defense systems, a space-based missile warning system, and chemical weapon demilitarization. The latter includes a program to destroy former U.S. chemical weapon production facilities and safely dispose of America’s chemical weapon stockpiles in compliance with the 1997 Chemical Weapons Convention treaty. Here are 10 horrifying chemical weapons and the wars they were used in.

Click here to see 35 billion-dollar weapons in the 2024 US military budget.

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