PRESS ROOM

Press reports indicate that the Biden administration’s Pentagon budget proposal may come in at close to last year’s levels, well over $700 billion. But the Biden administration has suggested that the composition of the budget could change considerably, most notably by cutting spending on “legacy systems.”

The administration has yet to specify precisely what qualifies as a legacy system, but the concept is clear enough: weapons of long standing that may have parochial support in Congress and the military services but are not well suited to addressing future challenges. There is one costly system that is not generally thought of in these terms but should be: the new ICBM — formally known as the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent, but more accurately characterized as a money pit that adds nothing to our defense.

Last March, the Trump administration implemented regulations to make it easier for U.S. companies to export firearms. Since the new rules took effect, overseas sales of U.S. semiautomatic pistols more than doubled, with potentially devastating consequences. The Biden administration should restore the previous restrictions and take additional measures to prevent U.S.-supplied guns from ending up in the hands of criminal gangs, human rights abusers and terrorists.

The new report, authored jointly by Center for International Policy and the Arms and Security Program, paint an in-depth look at the lobbying efforts of defense contractors to block proposals to decrease or limit the ICBM program, and support a brand-new system by Northrop Grumman.

In his latest talk for the Watkins Museum (FREE History series) located in Lawrence, KS, Danny Sjursen discuss the broad contours of peace activism and foreign policy dissent during the “long” Cold War—offering connections&contrasts to similar movements during the last 20 years of America’s post-9/11 “forever wars.”

A study published by the Centre for International Policy on Tuesday said Northrop Grumman and its top subcontractors spent over $119m on lobbying in 2019 and 2020 alone and employed a total of 410 lobbyists including many former officials.

Get to better know America’s “ICBM Lobby,” via a new 32-page report (PDF) from the Center for International Policy’s William Hartung.

"Scott talks to Danny Sjursen about the leaked Biden administration plan to withdraw all U.S. troops from Afghanistan. The document evidently represents the Biden administration’s new take on the deal reached with the Taliban during the Trump administration, which laid out a May 1st deadline for withdrawal. But Sjursen stresses that this plan isn’t really new—in fact, there’s nothing “new” to be done or said about Afghanistan at all."

If such legislation does end up on Biden’s desk, “it would put him in a very difficult position as to whether to veto”, said William Hartung, director of the arms and security program at the Center for International Policy, a US-based think tank.
“If those bills gain steam, it might even get the administration to rethink parts of its policy prior to a bill actually passing,” Hartung told Al Jazeera.

The United States bears responsibility and has tarnished its image by providing support and arms for those operations, primarily to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Much more needs to be done to ensure a peaceful resolution to the war in Yemen. But at least for now, with respect to the direction of U.S. policy in Yemen, we can breathe a very tentative sigh of relief.

Dave Forsyth and retired Major Danny Sjursen talk about what Joe Biden’s foreign policy will look like. Same aggression in the middle east and a return to Obama’s playground Africa. He will be hawk to Russia and China. Endless war goes on and on."

The left-leaning Center for International Policy is out with a new report outlining its ties to the contractors that are building the new Ground Based Strategic Deterrent, the program expected to get some of the most scrutiny in upcoming budget battles.

“Records show that the Saudi government has not abandoned its Washington-focused lobbying. Their consultants reported more than 650 contacts with the House and Senate and another 123 with D.C.-based think tanks, according to the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative's analysis. However, there's been a remarkable shift in focus,” according to Ben Freeman, the initiative’s director. “More than 1,000 of the country's nearly 2,000 reported lobbying contacts in 2020 were to individuals and groups outside the Beltway.”