The US social contract depends on sufficient deterrence and stability in the external world.

Calls to cash out the Pentagon to fund domestic promises miss a basic point: credible US power is itself a kitchen-table policy. It keeps trade lanes open, market access possible, money cheap, and breakthrough technologies moving into American factories. It gives the United States leverage at the negotiating table, turning security guarantees into bargaining power that opens foreign markets to American companies. When those pillars wobble, grocery bills, mortgage rates, net worth, and payrolls move the wrong way.

Start with trade corridors, the maritime, undersea, orbital, and digital arteries through which goods, energy, data, and payments flow. When those arteries are threatened, costs jump quickly. Rerouted ships mean longer voyages, tighter schedules, and higher war-risk insurance. Those line items don’t stay on spreadsheets; they migrate to the checkout aisle and the small-business cash-flow statement. The inflation pass-through from freight costs is real and lagged: protecting lanes today cushions prices a year from now. The same logic applies to energy chokepoints. Disruptions at narrow straits ripple into US fuel prices and freight rates even when cargoes are bound for other continents. Securing chokepoints is not charity for allies; it is price-stability work for American households.

The cost of money also depends on credibility. Historically, military dominance makes one’s currency dominant. The dollar’s central role in global finance reflects confidence in US power and institutions. Investors pay a safety and liquidity premium for Treasuries, which provides a convenience yield that lowers Washington’s borrowing costs and, by extension, mortgages, auto loans, municipal bonds, and small-business credit. Let that premium erode, through doubts about US power, payment rails, settlement continuity, or cyber resilience, and Americans pay first and monthly.

Then there is technology. Mission-driven budgets pulled the internet’s precursor across the commercialization gap and built the global positioning system that undergirds logistics, agriculture, and finance. Today’s frontier, resilient space systems, secure communications, AI-enabling hardware, advanced materials, and energy storage, will not scale on press releases. It will scale when procurement demands performance, sets technical targets, and places patient orders that make domestic production economical.

And finally, there is market access and negotiation leverage. US military power does more than deter aggression; it shapes negotiation leverage and provides market access. Security guarantees, convoying, and corridor protection create stability that other economies rely on. That stability can and should be exchanged for preferred access and better deals. 

To be candid: after the Cold War, Washington too often offered market access as a gift to other nations, romanticized convergence with Beijing, guaranteed security without getting enough in return, engaged in military adventures that made little economic sense, and applauded supply-chain elongation. The bill arrived in the form of wasteful spending, increased national debt, unfair trade practices, job losses, market share declines, and production stoppages. The remedy isn’t withdrawal; it’s discipline.

America’s power dividend should go to Americans first, and its success should be judged by the outcomes people feel. Here is how:

First, price access to the US market like the strategic asset it is. Reciprocity on data security, intellectual property, and fair competition is the price of admission. Where partners meet verifiable standards, they deepen trade. Where they do not, shift critical production to trusted vendors within defended corridors. The goal is disciplined interdependence, fewer coerced supply chains, and shorter, rarer interruptions.

Second, use defense demand to anchor dual-use production at home. Only the Pentagon can place the long, patient orders that make leading-edge fabs, advanced packaging, power electronics, composites, and machine tools economical at scale. Open architectures and modular upgrades expand the supplier base beyond incumbents, enabling innovative, smaller firms to scale here rather than abroad. Measure progress in plants, payrolls, and parts stamped “Made in America.”

Third, harden dollar settlement and payment rails. Treat payment continuity like household economics because it is reliable, clearance underwrites low, stable monthly payments. Regular stress tests, credible consequences for attackers, and redundant systems in critical areas preserve the safe-asset premium that keeps borrowing costs low.

Fourth, leverage security to gain market access and better deals. Where America provides deterrence, convoying, or corridor security, negotiate security-for-access deals that grant US firms faster and more predictable entry to those markets. When the United States underwrites security, US workers and investors should capture a fair share of the upside.

The “guns versus butter” dichotomy is a false choice. The real decision is between a social state supported by low inflation, low borrowing costs, rising productivity, and one perched on the opposite. If the goal is a better, more reliable social contract, the precondition is an external environment that keeps living and financing costs in check.

That requires credible power, applied with restraint and aimed at the levers that move household economics. Keep the corridors predictable. Price market access. Buy the capabilities that move prices, not the ones that flatter PowerPoint. Protect the payment and settlement systems. And use the leverage our security provides to open doors for US companies. Power is not a trophy; it’s a tool, one that can lower bills, steady paychecks, and raise the ceiling on American prosperity.