PRESS ROOM

Democratic Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii was legendary for “bringing home the bacon” from defense spending, and from 2007 to 2011 he received over $117,000 in campaign contributions from the companies that benefited from his earmarks—over half of which came from Lockheed Martin (William D. Hartung, “Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex,” 2011).

Longtime Defense Department watchdogs William Hartung, of the Center for International Policy, and Mandy Smithberger, of the Project on Government Oversight, strongly urged against the creation a Space Force in Oct. 2019, writing that a new military branch was likely to increase bureaucratic waste and develop costly weapons systems rather than manage risks cooperatively.

William Hartung stated why the president should fight the fight for nuclear arms control in his story “Biden Can Make History on Nuclear Arms Reduction: “he (Biden) should cancel the plan to spend $264 billion to develop, build and operate a new Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM).

“'It doesn’t include the thousands who are part of U.S. special operation and NATO special operation teams, CIA teams, as well as the dozens of squadrons of attack aircraft and bombers, whether they be manned or drone, that are in the area,' Matthew Hoh said on Democracy Now! 'The potential for the United States to remain involved militarily is quite high, even if all 3,500 acknowledged U.S. troops are withdrawn, as well as the NATO troops.'"

"In the absence of congressional action to better regulate foreign influence in America, some states have felt compelled to fill the void and enact reforms of their own. But, the best solutions to protect the country from malign foreign influence have, and must, come from the Congress. Piece-meal approaches will only create more opportunities for malign foreign actors to exploit an already vulnerable US political process."

"The modern day MIC has grown into a monster of vast proportions beyond what even Eisenhower would have envisioned. Not only does today’s MIC involve the military, weapons makers and Congress, but it also includes countless government officials, the oil industry, service companies and contractors, surveillance and technology companies and think tanks that have managed to imbed their imperialist agendas into White House administrations (William D. Hartung, “Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex,” 2011). An understanding of the enormous breadth and reach of today’s MIC is essential for appreciating the countless ways in which it intersects with modern-day corporate media."

With seven firms registered as foreign agents for the government in Taipei and its de facto embassy in Washington, Taiwan’s lobbying operation in Washington is dwarfed by those of other US-friendly nations, such as Japan and South Korea. Still, the island of 23.5 million people punches far above its weight in influencing US foreign policy in the Asia-Pacific. Our report aims to ensure that policymakers and the public are conscious of Taiwanese lobbying when weighing which policies are in the US interest.

The exaggeration of threats to the United States has been the critical component over the years in the militarization of our national security policy. Such exaggerations of the Soviet threat fostered the huge strategic buildup during the Cold War; the unneeded peacetime buildup by the Reagan administration; and the massive increases in defense spending during the Bush II administration. The exaggeration of the threat of international terrorism has produced two decades of costly warfare.

"One answer is in a Feb. 9 report by William Hartung of the Center for International Policy, titled “Inside the ICBM Lobby: Special Interests or the National Interest?” Hartung describes the vast sums of money spent by weapons contractors on lobbying and campaigning contributions in order to buy votes from lawmakers in states that host the missiles, air bases, or the contractors themselves (Montana, North Dakota, Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming) — even though, as the report notes, there is 'no militarily sound reason to build a new ICBM.'”

"Washington’s hypocrisy and the frontiers of its New Cold War (of choice) appear to know no bounds. Eastern Europe is the classic theater of course, but you’ll hear the Pentagon’s new buzzword-acronym priority purpose, "great power competition" (GPC) – etched in senseless stone with the 2018 National Defense Strategy (NDS) – peddled to justify military missions in the Middle East, Central and East Asia, across Africa, and now at the very "roof of the world:" the frigid Arctic."

"Rescuing the best aspects of Obama’s nuclear policies is a worthy undertaking, but President Biden can and must go further. A good place to start would be by revisiting the Pentagon’s costly and unnecessary nuclear weapons modernization plan. As part of that effort, he should cancel the plan to spend $264 billion to develop, build and operate a new Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM)."

"'From its role in the brutal intervention in Yemen, to its violation of the UN arms embargo on opposition forces in Libya, to its severe internal human rights abuses, the UAE should not be receiving US arms sales at this time,' Hartung said.

'Continuing to endorse and enable the UAE's reckless conduct in the Middle East and North Africa will only serve to undermine stability in the region and reduce the prospects for a peaceful resolution of conflicts in the area."