Follow us on social

Money

Will Congress force the Pentagon to share the ‘true cost of war’?

Bipartisan organizations are fighting to make sure a House-passed transparency measure isn’t a casualty of a smoke-filled room.

Reporting | Military Industrial Complex

Each year, the Senate and House each pass their own version of the National Defense Authorization Act, one of the few annual “must pass” bills. After going through months of public debate, the dueling versions of the bill are brought to the proverbial smoke-filled rooms of Capitol Hill, where top lawmakers quietly trade pet projects and hammer out the text that will reach the president’s desk.

Last year, one provision that never made it out of those smoke-filled rooms was an amendment, sponsored by Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and passed by the House, that would have forced the Pentagon to disclose the full cost of America’s “pointillist empire” of overseas bases. 

This time around, activists are fighting to make sure that won’t happen again. “This amendment is crucial as taxpayers and other citizens remain concerned — and inadequately informed — about the cost to U.S. taxpayers of the wide range of U.S. military activities abroad,” wrote a broad group of activist organizations and research centers in an open letter to congressional leadership.

The letter’s signatories include the Friends Committee on National Legislation, R Street Institute, Just Foreign Policy, the Project on Government Oversight, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and the Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft.

The Bowman amendment, if maintained in the final bill, would build on previous efforts to increase transparency of Pentagon spending by forcing the Department of Defense to publicly share data on the cost of all of the military’s overseas operations. This would mean more transparency about the price tag of training dozens of foreign militaries, maintaining hundreds of bases, and carrying out a range of covert and drone operations, among other things.

“The American people deserve to know the true cost of war,” Bowman said in a statement.

The open letter comes amid a sharp increase in military spending, which is slated to reach $886 billion next year. Pentagon outlays now make up roughly half of the federal government’s entire discretionary budget. Meanwhile, some lawmakers are pushing for an emergency bill to add extra military funding while domestic spending is restricted by caps.

“Many Americans want greater public scrutiny and debate about the balance our nation strikes between spending on our military presence abroad and spending on other domestic priorities,” the open letter argues. “These debates will only become more relevant as our military budget approaches the $1 trillion mark.”

“[W]e urge you to do everything within your power to ensure that Rep. Bowman’s common sense, non-controversial, House-passed amendment is maintained in the final version of the NDAA,” the groups wrote.


(phanurak rubpol/shutterstock)
Reporting | Military Industrial Complex
Trump and Putin on phone
Top photo credit: Donald Trump (White House photo) and Vladimir Putin (Office of the Russian Federation President)
US-Russia talks: The rubber finally hits the road

Good, bad and ugly: Impact of US Iran strikes on Russia war talks

Europe

To a considerable degree, President Donald Trump won the presidency in 2024 because voters embraced his message of keeping America out of protracted conflicts and his promise to end the war in Ukraine.

The administration has made substantial operational headway, particularly in reopening stable channels for dialogue with Russia, but it has proven difficult to arrive at a framework for a negotiated settlement that enjoys buy-in from all the stakeholders — Ukraine, Russia, and Europe.

keep readingShow less
Trump Netanyahu in Washington
Top photo credit: Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu (Joshua Sukoff / Shutterstock.com)

Netanyahu returns to DC — in triumph or with more to ask?

Middle East

On Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu will arrive in Washington for his third visit of Trump’s second term. Today also marks 21 months of Israel’s war on Gaza. The purpose of the visit remains unclear, and speculation abounds: will Trump and Netanyahu announce a real ceasefire in Gaza? Will Syria join the Abraham Accords? Or might Trump greenlight even broader Israeli action against Iran?

Before Netanyahu’s visit, Trump posted an ultimatum on Truth Social, claiming Israel had agreed to a 60-day ceasefire. He urged Hamas to accept the terms, threatening that “it will only get worse” if it doesn’t. Although Trump intended to pressure Hamas, reiterating a longstanding narrative that portrays the group as the obstacle to peace, Hamas has long maintained that it will only accept a ceasefire if it is part of a process that leads to a permanent end to Israel’s war and its complete withdrawal from the enclave. Netanyahu, for his part, remains adamant that the war must continue until Hamas is eliminated, a goal that even the IDF has described as not militarily viable.

keep readingShow less
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

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.