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We can have the most powerful fighting force in the history of the world without spending 1 trillion dollars a year

We spend about 1/2 of the budget on paying the troops. The other half includes such things as fuel and ammunition.

Our potential adversaries spend much less per troop. They can put bigger armies into the field. They also use what would be called deceptive accounting practices anywhere in the West, so the reported amounts they spend on their military are massively understated.

Welfare recipients don't provide any goods or services for the money they get.

Could it be more efficient? Yes, but most of the inefficiency is driven by Congress and the military bureaucracy. Funding, and thus execution, of R&D is very unstable.

As the number of weapons systems developed and procured continues to shrink, so does the number of companies involved and there have been many consolidations, especially under Clinton, but under Obama as well. The companies, being bigger, develop more layers of management, and more internal bureaucracy, which also contributes to the general froth and stop/replan/start nature of the industry.

I was supporting 3 different projects when I worked at Ft. Hood. One was the existing system, one a near term future development, and one a longer term dual purpose system.

All three suffered from the start/stop issue, and eventually all three were canceled, and the mission had to continue without any of them. My job was canceled along with the systems.

The next project I worked on, a joint development of US, Italy and Germany, suffered from the same start/replan/start issue, mainly due to two factors. Obama, in one of his early acts in '09, declared the US would not procure the system, but would live up to it's development agreement with the other nations. Congress said, if we're not going to buy it, why should we pay for (part of) the development? only because of the "continuing resolution" nature of the funding, did the project continue, but at lower levels than originally planned. The last couple of years there actually was a defense budget, but it went down to the wire every year, and funding was always in question.

When flight test finally came, after I'd been cashiered again, the missiles shot down both targets as promised. 3rd missile was wasted as the 2nd hit the more difficult target, which had two missiles assigned to it, per doctrine. So, we delivered for our Welfare checks.

Providing for the Common Defense, is the main function of the federal government. Diplomatic and trade interactions with other nations follows that. But those are not what the federal government spends the bulk of the money on. Look to those other areas, not provided for in the Constitution, which have grown exponentially in the last 1/2 century, for the solution to the spending/borrowing problem.