To put this request into proper perspective: When the United States was preparing for nuclear war with a peer competitor, as it was commonly thought to be doing during the five decades of the Cold War, it still asked for less funding (corrected for inflation) than the Pentagon is seeking now. The real question is whether this current stratospheric level of funding is warranted. And if it is, are we spending our money on the actual threats we face, or are we throwing money after programs that have been rendered obsolete?

One case in point is the F-22 Raptor plane. Originally intended for air-to-air combat, this aircraft now has a questionable role in determining U.S. security. Whom exactly this fighter would be fighting is unclear. As Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently pointed out, “The reality is, we are fighting two wars, in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the F-22 has not performed a single mission in either theater.”

Even so, the Pentagon wishes to limit its purchases of the F-22 to “just” 183 of them, at a cost of $140 million…each. This is still not enough for the Air Force, which vehemently insists that 381 are still needed as initially planned. The Air Force as a service is trying to find direction in a time when the chance of aerial dogfights is slim to none, and it is understandable that some old procurement inclinations reassert themselves from time to time. But it is inexcusable to put this sort of funding into a program that does little to strengthen U.S. security when so many other more pressing needs for the military go unmet.

Along those lines, the Pentagon is asking for an additional $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (this would be on top of the nearly $700 billion that has been spent on them to date). There are two things wrong with this. To begin, this extra funding is being requested as a supplemental appropriation outside the normal budget request. Such a supplemental account was typically used to handle emergency situations and could not have been accounted for in the regular annual budget request. Five years after the United States invaded Iraq, it cannot have come as a surprise to Pentagon planners that they needed funding for those wars. It’s similar to considering your rent a surprise expense.

Furthermore, the wars are costing the United States $12 billion a month. Even those of us who are not gifted at math can figure out that the $70 billion will be burned through before the end of the fiscal year, and will run out right as the George W. Bush administration is leaving the White House. How fortuitous for the current administration and how calamitous this will be for the next one, which will have as one of its first tasks in office to scramble to figure out wartime funding. No matter how one feels about the war in Iraq, this is a dirty trick to pull.

So the Pentagon is asking for record amounts for programs we no longer need and insufficient sums for wars we are actually fighting. With distorted priorities like this, it makes one wonder how secure we actually are.