WILLIAM HARTUNG
Director, Arms & Security Program
William D. Hartung is the director of the Arms and Security Program at CIP and a senior adviser to the center's Security Assistance Monitor. He is the author of Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (Nation Books, 2011) and the co-editor, with Miriam Pemberton, of Lessons from Iraq: Avoiding the Next War (Paradigm Press, 2008). His previous books include And Weapons for All (HarperCollins, 1995), a critique of U.S. arms sales policies from the Nixon through Clinton administrations.
From July 2007 through March 2011, Mr. Hartung was the director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation. Prior to that, he served as the director of the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute. He also worked as a speechwriter and policy analyst for New York State Attorney General Robert Abrams. Bill Hartung’s articles on security issues have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, The Nation, and the World Policy Journal.
He has been a featured expert on national security issues on CBS 60 Minutes, NBC Nightly News, the PBS Newshour, CNN, Fox News, and scores of local, regional, and international radio outlets. He blogs for the Huffington Post, the Hill, and Medium.
Recent Publications
Profiteers Of Armageddon: Producers Of The Next Generation Of Nuclear Weapons
by William Hartung
It’s long past time that we stopped allowing special interest lobbying and corporate profits
stand in the way of a more sensible nuclear policy.
Latest News
“An Outrage”: House Passes Largest Military Budget in Generations Despite End of Afghanistan War
William Hartung interviewed
Arms and Security Program
“The last thing we need to do is be throwing more money at the Pentagon,” says William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Project at the Center for International Policy. “This whole idea that China and Russia are military threats to the United States has primarily been manufactured to jump up the military budget.”
Yemen and the U.S.’s massive Saudi arms deal
William Hartung quoted
Arms and Security Program
Mehdi Hasan quoting our report, "Arming Repression: U.S. Military Support for Saudi Arabia, From Trump to Biden." The MSNBC show covers the $650 million arms sale to Saudi Arabia, which will allow the Kingdom to maintain attack helicopters, despite their previous use against Houthis in Yemen.
Anti-Boycott Laws Threaten Free Speech + U.S. Arms Enable Saudi Assault on Yemen
William Hartung interviewed
Arms and Security Program
Our William Hartung was interviewed in Parallax Views, a popular progressive podcast, on the war in Yemen and how U.S. arm sales have enabled the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to carry out deadly blockades and bombings on Yemeni people.
Senate Votes Down Resolution to Block $650 Million Missile Sale to Saudis
William Hartung quoted
Arms and Security Program
Paul Wrote: "According to William Hartung, no weapon is exclusively defensive and continued American arm sales means continued death and starvation in Yemen.”
The World Keeps Yemen Waiting With Deadly Results
William Hartung quoted
Arms and Security Program
Biden said early this year that the U.S. would halt "relevant arms sales" to the Saudis, but that has proven to be an empty promise. As William Hartung explains, the latest sale of air-to-air missiles will enable the Saudis to enforce their air blockade of Yemen, and that is part of a killing blockade that has done so much to contribute to the indirect causes of starvation and disease that have claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Selling air-to-air missiles to a government that is busy strangling a country by land, air, and sea is aiding and abetting in the strangulation of innocent people. In addition to giving the Saudis the means to deprive Yemenis of access to medical care by keeping the air blockade in place, the sale of these missiles signals to the Saudi government that Biden is going back to business as usual and they have nothing to worry about.