"For several years now, U.S. defense spending has outpaced the military expenditures of all the rest of the world combined, but somehow the average American feels short-changed. The staggeringly large budget -- featuring a spending rate of $1.75 billion per day - seems to have too little room for maintaining vermin-free veterans' care facilities, or putting better armor on all humvees in Iraq. So a natural question is, "What is the Pentagon buying with its countless billions?" About half of the budget goes to maintain weapons systems and to pay personnel. A quarter goes to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most of the remainder is spent on trying to figure out the kinds of weapons that will be needed in future wars and to develop them."