Hosted by Philip Maldari, 10 May 2020
In the News
How ‘The New York Times’ Deceived the Public on North Korea
by Tim Shorrock, The Nation, 16 November 2018.
“…a heated exchange on Twitter caught the attention of Charles Knight, an analyst with the Project on Defense Alternatives. Knight, in an e-mail, said he had concluded that Cha has been ‘enabled’ by Sanger and the editors of the Times to ‘be the agent of the opening salvo of an offensive by the most reactionary elements of the US national security and foreign policy establishment against the Korean diplomacy of both the Trump administration and South Korea.”
Is Lockheed Martin too big to fail?
by Leigh Munsil and Austin Wright, Politico, 12 August 2015.
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“I have never known a congressperson who will oppose federal spending that provides many jobs in their district,” said Chares Knight of the Project on Defense Alternatives, a Washington think tank focused on defense reform. “What makes compelling political sense for the individual member of Congress often ends up in distorting federal spending priorities. As Lockheed Martin becomes even more dominant in the defense sector it becomes more likely that defense spending choices will be distorted by the particular business interest of this one giant corporation.”
Despite Public’s War Weariness, U.S. Defence Budget May Rise
by Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service, 15 October 2014.
“…even if the defense budget does indeed increase over the next few years, it should not be taken as a popular mandate for military activism, particularly for protracted military commitments of large numbers of ground troops, given the persistent public disillusionment with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.” ~ Carl Conetta
Hagel: Pentagon Prepared to Make ‘Big Choices’ to Reduce Spending
by Sandra I. Erwin, National Defense Magazine, 03 April 2013. HTML
“Current military budgets do not distinguish between ‘needs and wants,’ Benjamin Friedman, a national security analyst at the Cato Institute said at a recent conference hosted by the Project on Defense Alternatives. A reexamination of the military structure has been long overdue, said retired Army Col. Douglas Macgregor. During World War II, he said, the U.S. military had eight four-star generals and admirals leading a force of more than 15 million personnel. Today, there are 38 four-stars leading an active-duty force of 1.4 million. What is needed today, he said, is not only to cut spending but also to develop a coherent national security strategy, which has not been done since 1989. Gordon Adams, a professor of national security at American University and a former budget official during the Clinton administration, has blasted the Pentagon for living in denial about the coming defense drawdown.”
A Growing Consensus for Shrinking the Defense Budget?
➪ HTML by Charles S. Clark, Government Executive, 26 March 2013. “…visions for the new era in American defense strategy ranged from further troop reductions to narrower overseas missions to abolishing the Marine Corps.”
Top Pentagon thinker bemoans “civilian subjugation to the military.”
➪ HTML by Bryan Bender, Boston Globe, 26 March 2013. “…a national security establishment, in [Gregory] Foster’s view, that perpetuates an approach to the world that is overly confrontational, lacks critical thinking about long term objectives, and even undercuts the strategic aims of democracy.”
Funding the military of the future
➪ HTML by Amber Corrin, FCW, 26 March 2013. “Conetta said that reasonable alternatives to today’s military could be based on a different approach – one that helps sustain the economy and receives no more than 2.2 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product; emphasizes defense over global environment-shaping; and focuses on multi-lateral cooperation.”
PDA Joins Center for International Policy
30 January 2013. The Project on Defense Alternatives has joined the Center for International Policy as part of the latter’s Common Defense Campaign. The Center’s staff supports an energetic program addressing both traditional and new security concerns. CIP’s Common Defense Campaign aims for a reset of defense policy along more realistic, cooperative, and affordable lines.