Follow us on social

Shutterstock_1276349422-scaled

Advocacy groups to Congress: Don’t militarize infrastructure bills

There are bipartisan efforts to sneak more money into the Pentagon’s already bloated and unaccounted for coffers.

Reporting | Military Industrial Complex

Nearly 50 advocacy groups representing a wide array of issue areas — from faith-based to government oversight organizations — sent a letter on Thursday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer advising them that adding additional money for the Pentagon any upcoming infrastructure legislation will do nothing to create jobs and modernize the U.S. economy, while making security challenges worse. 

The groups — including Public Citizen, the Sunrise Movement, and Demand Progress* — note that President Biden’s proposed Pentagon budget is already too high and that DOD has never passed an accounting audit. 

“We are a nation experiencing multiple crises,” they write. “We are recovering from a year of record unemployment and housing insecurity, reeling from the loss of loved ones, staggering under the weight of multiplying medical and student loan debt, confronting systemic racism and violent white nationalism, and combating the ongoing climate crisis. Militarized spending has not solved these problems, and in many ways has made them worse.”

The groups say that “​​[r]equests for additional Department of Defense spending have cropped up outside of the traditional budget authorization process, with legislators on both sides of the aisle attempting to tuck pet projects into the large-scale spending package.”

And this wouldn’t be the first time in the past year that the military industrial complex has benefited from unrelated spending. Last September, DOD funnelled most of the $1 billion Congress allocated for COVID relief to defense contractors, which were then used to, as the Washington Post reported at the time, “make things such as jet engine parts, body armor and dress uniforms.”

“[T]o add Pentagon pork to an initiative meant for the prosperity and safety of our communities would be truly callous,” said Erica Fein, Senior Washington Director at Win Without War, a group that also signed the letter. “Dollar for dollar, more jobs are created when invested in sectors like clean energy and education than in defense spending.” 

*The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft is also a signatory.


Photo: Michael Candelori via shutterstock.com
Reporting | Military Industrial Complex
POGO The Bunker
Top image credit: Project on Government Oversight

Yes to 'Department of War' name change

Military Industrial Complex

The Bunker appears originally at the Project on Government Oversight and is republished here with permission.

keep readingShow less
Bidenites make soft landing in heart of lucrative war industry
Top photo credit: Brett McGurk (Kuhlmann /MSC/Wikimedia Commons) and Lloyd Austin ((DoD Photo by U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Jack Sanders).

Bidenites make soft landing in heart of lucrative war industry

Military Industrial Complex

In 2021, Ret. Gen. Lloyd Austin declared he had “no intent to be a lobbyist.” On June 3, less than six months after leaving office, former President Joe Biden’s Secretary of Defense announced that he would be launching a new strategic advisory firm called “Clarion Strategies.” Some Senators allege this is simply lobbying by another name.

A pitch deck obtained by Politico noted that Clarion Strategies’ name is a “nod to its aim to equip clients with the clarity they need to navigate geopolitical upheaval driven by the war in Ukraine, advancements in defense technology like AI and unmanned systems, global trade shifts and emerging alliances among U.S. adversaries like Russia, China, North Korea and China.” In other words, the new firm is very much hoping to court clients from the defense industry.

keep readingShow less
Trump and Keith Kellogg
Top photo credit: U.S. President Donald Trump and Keith Kellogg (now Trump's Ukraine envoy) in 2017. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY

Trump's silence on loss of Ukraine lithium territory speaks volumes

Europe

Last week, Russian military forces seized a valuable lithium field in the Donetsk region of Ukraine, the latest success of Moscow’s grinding summer offensive.

The lithium deposit in question is considered rather small by industry analysts, but is said to be a desirable prize nonetheless due to the concentration and high-quality of its ore. In other words, it is just the kind of asset that the Trump administration seemed eager to exploit when it signed its much heralded minerals agreement with Ukraine earlier this year.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.