Is the US crippling itself by overspending on defense?

Part of the reason why China's GDP is absolutely rocketing past the US is because of their relatively low defense spending (~1.8% of GDP), compared to the US's official defense spending at 3.74%. However, since the Bush administration, various top officials including a VPOTUS has clarified that there are hidden "dark budgets" and "shadow departments" that are given funding to develop defense-related projects but downplaying military spending from the public eye. These same sources has said that true US expenditures were over 1 trillion nominal in the early 2000s, and are estimated to currently be 1.1 trillion (official figure is 780 billion). This means that the US is fushing 5.33% of its GDP down the drain every year on achieving "military hegemony".

Is this really a wise move by the US? Their military isn't even that formidable, given most of the budget is sucked up by the military-industrial complex or blown on dead-end projects due to rampant corruption. 
 

The US air force and carriers is the only advantage that the US has over China, despite China spending something like 1/3 of what the US officially does. China has superior missiles, ICBMs, infantry, artillery, destroyers and submarines. 
 

Is the US doomed to have a collapsing economy due to their overspending?

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4 Comments
 

There is a good Youtube video about how the defense budget is bloated and given to people who are severely underqualified or missued. US probably can relocate these budget to a better use definitely.

Though this argument probably applies for China as well in your example as I'm sure the CCP officials "reallocate" expenses into their pocket before dropping them into the bucket (tbh not only china but a lot of countries as well)

 

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