Section: Institute for Policy Studies (USA)
The U.S. Still Spends More on Its Military Than Over 144 Nations Combined
World military spending has reached a new record high of $2.24 trillion in 2022, according to new data published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). That’s up 3.7% since the previous year, including the steepest increase among European nations since the end of the Cold War over 30 years ago. The United States...
REPORT: Sending Arms or Twisting Arms: The U.S. Role in the Ukraine War
Sending Arms or Twisting Arms: The U.S. Role in the Ukraine War John Feffer Summary: In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the United States has backed the government in Kyiv with military hardware and economic assistance. The Biden administration has also done its best to constrain Russia’s ability to wage war...
Colombia Adopts an Unprecedented Energy Policy—but Needs Help to Pull It Off
Gustavo Petro doesn’t just want to transform his own country; he wants to change the world. The new leader of Colombia, who took office last August, is targeting what he calls his nation’s “economy of death.” That means pivoting away from oil, natural gas, coal, and narcotics toward more sustainable economic activities. Given that oil...
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil
The prospect of a nuclear holocaust has always been terrifying. But in the last years of the Cold War and the three decades that followed its end, the existential challenge of nuclear weapons became less of a clear and present danger. Sure, in the post-1991 era, nuclear war could still happen by mistake. It could break out between two actively...
Ukraine and the Lessons of the Iraq War
Leaving aside the manufactured justifications, the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 to reassert U.S. power in the Middle East and reduce the influence of Iran. It wasn’t terrorism or yellow cake or even Saddam Hussein’s appalling human rights abuses that motivated one of the most tragic of U.S. foreign policy blunders. It was...
Russian War Crimes in Ukraine 20 Years After US Criminal Invasion of Iraq
This week marked the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. The war left at least 800,000 to 1.1 million Iraqis dead, and certainly many more injured, maimed, and permanently displaced. The invasion and subsequent military occupation destroyed Iraq’s once-modern infrastructure and much of its environment while...
One of the Highest Military Budgets in History
Last week, the White House released President Biden’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2024, which begins October 1 of 2023. As usual, the biggest portion of the discretionary budget request – 52 percent – was for military spending. While that’s usual, what’s not usual is the sheer level of that military spending. The Biden...
Can the World Save the World?
The United Nations has convened 27 conferences on climate change. For nearly three decades, the international community has come together at a different location every year to pool its collective wisdom, resources, and resolve to address this global threat. These Conferences of Parties (COPs) have produced important agreements, such as the Paris...
We Need to Cut the Military Budget, But Don’t Trust the Far Right to Do It
This article was jointly produced by Foreign Policy In Focus and InTheseTimes.com. Since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives earlier this year, the so-called “Freedom Caucus” — the badly misnamed right-fringe of the congressional GOP — has been flexing its influence. Caucus members are deeply invested in an agenda that would...
Seven Things We Could Do If We Cut the Pentagon by $100 Billion
What would be possible if we had an extra $100 billion to spend on urgent human needs? Just weeks ago, Congress and President Biden agreed to a $858 billion Pentagon and war budget. That’s the highest the military budget has been since World War II. About half of the Pentagon budget every year goes to corporate contractors who pay their...
