William D. Hartung is Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, which serves as a resource for journalists, policymakers, and organizations focused on issues of weapons proliferation, military spending, and alternative approaches to national security strategy.

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Don’t Cut Programs that Help Communities Adjust to Pentagon Spending Reductions

Spring budget season is almost over, and the House and Senate have once again placed parochial politics above budget discipline in their consideration of the Pentagon budget.

Defense Industry Scare Tactics Won’t Create Jobs

Neither party adequately addresses the largest item in the discretionary budget: the Pentagon.

Obama and the Permanent War Budget

The Pentagon is insatiable. Here’s how to cut off its food supply.

Why Bush Was Good for Foreign Policy (Satirists)

Say goodbye to eight years of rich material.

Invitation to Steal: War Profiteering in Iraq

The religion of privatization: fully tested in Iraq. Ready for the discard pile.

Lessons From Iraq: Avoiding the Next War

The Iraq War disaster could actually have an upside of sorts. It should put quite a few policies and practices permanently off-limits. Here’s a list, to argue about.

Dems: What about the Military Budget?

The Democratic candidates will debate each other tonight, but not the metastasizing military budget.

Best of Bush 2007

Bush’s foreign policy wasn’t a complete wash. As Monty Python says: always look on the bright side of life.

An Evening of Reflection: FPIF’s 10th Anniversary

Join the online celebration of the first 10 years of Foreign Policy In Focus!

U.S. Must Broker Mideast Cease-Fire

The United States supplies most of Israel’s weapons, and it bears some responsibility for the escalating violence in Israel and Lebanon. It must now use its influence to call for an immediate cease-fire in the assault that has killed so many innocent civilians.

Who’s Arming Israel?

Everyone’s talking about the arms suppliers behind Hezbollah. But who’s supplying Israel?

Missile Defense Program Wasteful and Unnecessary

More money does not equal more security.

Democrats Talk Tough

Trying to beat the Republicans at their own game–fear-mongering in the service of ever higher military budgets–is a losing proposition.

Star Wars Revisited

On May 1, 2001, President Bush reiterated his campaign pledge to deploy a multitiered ballistic missile defense system as soon as possible.

“Pentagon Priorities Put Troops, Security At Risk”

Continuing to fund these big-ticket systems is one reason the Army is still scrambling to provide adequate body armor and well-protected Humvees to our troops in Iraq.

Capturing Saddam Hussein: Will It Mean a New Day for Iraq?

The capture of Saddam Hussein is an historic event by any standard. But aside from providing some dramatic footage for global TV audiences, what has really changed, for the people of Iraq, the Middle East, the United States, or the world?

Bombings Bring U.S. ‘Executive Mercenaries’ Into the Light

You had probably never heard of the Vinnell Corp. before the brutal bombing that killed at least nine of its employees in Saudi Arabia this week, but you should have.

The Empty Promise of Global Missile Defense

The Bush administration has been widely criticized worldwide for its go-it-alone foreign policy. But in one area the administration is enthusiastically embracing multilateralism, along with the Pentagon and U.S. defense corporations is missile defense..

Farewell Crusader? Insiders Will Cash In Regardless

A year and one-half into his tenure and on the brink of pushing the military budget over $400 billion per year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has finally decided to cancel a major weapons program in the name of military “transformation.”

U.S. Arms Transfers and Security Assistance to Israel

U.S. press coverage of Israeli attacks on the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian towns on the West Bank often treat the U.S. government as either an innocent bystander or an honest broker in the current conflict, often without giving a full sense of th

    Africa, Arms Control and Disarmament, Arms Trade, Central and Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, Latin America, military budget, Military Strategy, Military/Peace, nuclear weapons, U.S. Military/Security Policy