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IPFS News Link • Military Industrial Complex

A long overdue discussion on Pentagon spending

• https://thehill.com/opinion BY WILLIAM D. HARTUNG

One of his key arguments has been that we can't reduce Pentagon spending without a "conversation about what's the strategy, what's the plan going forward." 

It's long past time to have that conversation. One contribution has already been made by the Center for International Policy's Sustainable Defense Task Force (SDTF), a group of former White House, congressional and Pentagon budget officials, retired military officers and think tank experts from across the political spectrum that we co-chaired. The task force has set out a blueprint for saving over $1.2 trillion over the next decade by taking a more realistic view of the challenges posed by Russia and China, cutting the size of the armed forces, ending endless wars, rolling back the Pentagon's costly and dangerous nuclear weapons buildup, reviving nuclear arms control and cutting back the department's employment of private contractors. Given a more sensible strategy and a thorough effort to scrutinize misguided and wasteful spending, America and its allies can be made safer for less.

The discussion of Pentagon spending must be grounded in a realization that military force is not the answer to the most urgent challenges we face, as the global pandemic has made abundantly clear. The SDTF made this point in its June 2019 report:


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