William Hartung

William Hartung

William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. He is the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Nation Books, 2011). He is the co-editor of Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War (Paradigm Press, 2008).

 

Articles by this author

A new report from the Project On Government Oversight has documented 645 cases in 2018 alone in which former government officials held jobs at the top 20 Pentagon contractors. (Photo: David B. Gleason/flickr/cc) Views
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
Our Man From Boeing: The Pentagon's Revolving Door Spins Fast
The way personnel spin through Washington’s infamous revolving door between the Pentagon and the arms industry is nothing new. That door, however, is moving ever faster with the appointment of Patrick Shanahan , who spent 30 years at Boeing, the Pentagon’s second largest contractor , as the Trump...
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Invest in virtually anything but buying more weapons and waging more wars and Americans will be better off. (Photo: ACLU) Views
Thursday, November 01, 2018
Pentagon Socialism
Given his erratic behavior, from daily Twitter eruptions to upping his tally of lies by the hour, it’s hard to think of Donald Trump as a man with a plan. But in at least one area -- reshaping the economy to serve the needs of the military-industrial complex -- he's (gasp!) a socialist in the...
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"Regardless of what ultimately happened to [journalist Jamal] Khashoggi," writes Hartung, "continuing U.S. arms sales and military support to Saudi Arabia under current circumstances is immoral." Views
Monday, October 15, 2018
Jobs Are No Excuse for Arming a Murderous Regime
If the Saudi government is indeed behind the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi there should be consequences—political, military, economic, and reputational. Unfortunately, President Trump begs to differ. His reaction to questions about whether the United States would cut off arms sales to Saudi...
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The president is now urging Congress and the military to embark on a project that could cost countless hundreds of billions of dollars and, in return, make America—and the world—less safe. (Photo: Trump Make America Great Again Committee) Views
Tuesday, September 25, 2018
Trump's Space Force: To Boldly Go... Nowhere!
On June 18th, President Trump announced that he was directing the Pentagon to develop a new branch of the U.S. military, a “Space Force” that would give the U.S. “dominance” in that realm. It would be, he said -- and here he used a classic phrase from the Jim Crow era of racial segregation -- “...
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The best way to bring the suffering in Yemen to an end is for Congress to reassert its war powers and end U.S. refueling of Saudi aircraft and other support for this brutal war, and to block a proposed sale of guided bombs to Saudi Arabia and the UAE scheduled to be formally notified to Congress later this year. (Photo: Screenshot) Views
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
Congress Can Help End the Suffering in Yemen
The Saudi intervention in Yemen—carried out with U.S support—ranks alongside the war in Syria as the world’s worst humanitarian catastrophe. Without concerted action by Congress, things will get worse before they get better. The people of Yemen have already been subjected to unimaginable suffering...
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"In a political climate dominated by an erratic president in the pocket of the NRA and a Congress with large numbers of members under the sway of the gun lobby, however, only a strong, persistent public outcry might make a difference." (Photo: Chayak / Flickr) Views
Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Donald Trump, Gunrunner for Hire
American weapons makers have dominated the global arms trade for decades. In any given year, they’ve accounted for somewhere between one-third and more than one-half the value of all international weapons sales. It’s hard to imagine things getting much worse -- or better, if you happen to be an...
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"The Trump administration’s decision to blatantly put jobs and economic benefits for U.S. corporations above human rights considerations and strategic concerns is likely to have disastrous consequences." (Photo: David B. Gleason/Flickr/cc)"The Trump administration’s decision to blatantly put jobs and economic benefits for U.S. corporations above human rights considerations and strategic concerns is likely to have disastrous consequences." (Photo: David B. Gleason/Flickr/cc) Views
Monday, July 02, 2018
Trump's "Infrastructure" Plan? Weaponized Keynesianism and a Pumped Up War Budget
Other than shouting about building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, one of Donald Trump’s most frequently proclaimed promises on the 2016 campaign trail was the launching of a half-trillion-dollar plan to repair America’s crumbling infrastructure (employing large numbers of workers in the process...
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"If such deep connections between Saudi Arabia and the Trump administration sometimes seem to surface out of nowhere, they all too often stem from an extraordinarily influential, if largely unpublicized, Saudi lobbying and public relations campaign." (Photo: White House/Flickr/cc) Views
Thursday, May 10, 2018
Arms and Influence: How the Saudis Took Donald Trump for a Ride
It’s another Trump affair -- this time without the allegations of sexual harassment (and worse), the charges and counter-charges, the lawsuits, and all the rest. So it hasn’t gotten the sort of headlines that Stormy Daniels has garnered, but when it comes to influence, American foreign policy, and...
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"A war with Iran is not likely to play well with the American public at large or even with Trump’s base, the majority of whom believed him when he said he wouldn’t repeat the mistake of launching yet another Mideast war." (Photo: Screenshot) Views
Wednesday, May 09, 2018
Make No Mistake: Trump Is Paving the Way For War with Iran
President Trump’s decision to violate and withdraw from the Iran anti-nuclear deal is one of the most dangerous foreign policy blunders in recent memory, setting the stage for a war that one analyst has noted could “make the Afghan and Iraqi conflicts look like a walk in the park.” The decision to...
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"Selling weapons to dictatorships and repressive regimes often fuels instability, war, and terrorism, as the American war on terror has vividly demonstrated for the last nearly 17 years." (Photo: Ahmed Farwan/Flickr/cc) Views
Monday, April 02, 2018
Weapons For Anyone
It’s one of those stories of the century that somehow never gets treated that way. For an astounding 25 of the past 26 years, the United States has been the leading arms dealer on the planet, at some moments in near monopolistic fashion. Its major weapons-producers, including Boeing, Raytheon, and...
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