PRESS ROOM

The CIP report [] found that several Middle Eastern countries were among the top foreign donors to Washington-based think tanks. The UAE and Qatar were among the top ten countries donating to these institutions, donating $15.4m and $8.5m respectively, according to the report. Morocco, meanwhile, was included in the top 20 countries with donations totaling $2.8m.

In the spring of 2019, the US House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Appropriations Committee were inundated with letters of similar content. " The purchase of the S-400s was not a matter of preference, but of necessity, " he said, adding that Turkey's possible withdrawal from the F-35 5th generation aircraft program "makes no sense " and " undermines NATO's overall deterrent capability."

Biden said early this year that the U.S. would halt "relevant arms sales" to the Saudis, but that has proven to be an empty promise. As William Hartung explains, the latest sale of air-to-air missiles will enable the Saudis to enforce their air blockade of Yemen, and that is part of a killing blockade that has done so much to contribute to the indirect causes of starvation and disease that have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Selling air-to-air missiles to a government that is busy strangling a country by land, air, and sea is aiding and abetting in the strangulation of innocent people. In addition to giving the Saudis the means to deprive Yemenis of access to medical care by keeping the air blockade in place, the sale of these missiles signals to the Saudi government that Biden is going back to business as usual and they have nothing to worry about.

The Biden administration’s decision to sell $650 million in air-to-air missiles and related equipment to Saudi Arabia is a violation of President Biden’s pledge to treat Saudi Arabia as a “pariah” and to end the sale of weapons that can be used in its brutal war in Yemen, a conflict in which nearly a quarter of a million people have died since it was initiated in March 2015.

As Pentagon experts William Hartung and Mandy Smithberger explained recently, even an exceedingly modest reduction in Pentagon spending of $1 trillion, or 15 percent of total current expenditures over the next decade (as recommended recently by the Congressional Budget Office), would still leave the Pentagon with a staggering $6.3 trillion to spend in those same years. Unfortunately, everything’s moving in the other direction. As those two authors remind us, only recently the Biden administration requested $750 billion for the next Pentagon budget and for nuclear weapons development at the Department of Energy.

Some may argue that helping the Afghan people will sometimes inadvertently or indirectly benefit the
Taliban as their de facto government. This potential reality must be viewed against the imperative of saving lives and preventing unnecessary suffering.

In October, the Washington-based Center for International Policy published a report detailing Turkey’s lobbying activities, including the companies it hired to promote Turkish policy and the amount of money it paid.

As the ongoing Saudi-led military intervention in Yemen's civil war continues to kill, maim, and displace civilians—over 300,000 of whom have died during more than seven years of fighting—a report published Thursday urges the Biden administration to end critical U.S. support for the atrocity-laden campaign by blocking pending arms sales and stopping future weapons transfers.

William Hartung of the Center for International Policy compares the current debate to the late 1950s when Democratic politicians and military officials railed against a supposed U.S. “missile gap” with Russia. The outgoing Eisenhower administration and the new President John F. Kennedy used the controversy to launch the United States on a massive intercontinental ballistic missile construction program.

Like in the Cold War, the United States is attempting to contain the influence of a great power rival in Southeast Asia. To counter China, the United States’ approach to its relationship with the Philippines invokes déjà vu. Despite the passing of decades, the players, strategy and results remain the same.

William Hartung appeared on the podcast "Keeping Democracy Alive" and talked about cutting Pentagon spending.

It’s easy to be all for cutting “waste” in the Pentagon budget but that enables continuing plans to spend 7.5 trillion over ten years. And on what? Could shoveling money to the military make us less secure? On this show William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy examines a new Congressional Budget Office plan to cut one trillion over ten years. Today every dollar spent by weapons lobbyists brings them nearly 2 thousand back. Hartung explains how making this moderate cut would actually create more jobs. You can help congress to see that.