Donald Trump has doubled down on Obama’s wars, sending more troops, dropping more bombs, launching more drone strikes, and killing more civilians than his predecessor. And that’s even before Trump starts any new wars of his own.
The most unique aspect of the Sanders speech was his focus on global inequality, a glaring phenomenon that is rarely discussed by U.S. politicians. He called out not only the banks and the oil companies, but also U.S. arms companies that have too often used their influence to distort U.S. foreign policy in ways that make war more likely.
The recent surge in U.S. arms transfers to the Middle East is part of an unprecedented boom in major U.S. arms sales that has been presided over by the Obama administration.
As President Obama has indicated on numerous occasions, the political fight over the Iran nuclear deal boils down to a stark choice: diplomacy or war.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) has released its annual assessment of the global arms trade, and the United States once again has the dubious distinction on coming in at the number-one spot.
After months of criticism from hawks on the right and humanitarian interventionists on the left about its alleged projection of “weakness” on the world stage, the Obama administration hit back this week with a speech by the President at the West Point military academy designed to lay out his foreign policy “vision.”
In the near future, smugglers will likely have an easier time of it due to the Obama administration’s plans to dramatically loosen U.S. arms export controls.
Media accounts of U.S. arms sales have focused on assistance to Egypt and Syrian. What are the consequences of this policy for global security and human rights?
Last July’s UN meeting to create a global Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) ended in disappointment when the United States pulled back at the last minute, claiming that the treaty needed “more study.” While imperfect, the version of the treaty that was under consideration last summer would have marked a significant step forward in efforts to limit senseless violence on an international scale.
You can’t open a newspaper or watch a TV news program anywhere in the U.S. these days without endless speculation about the impending “fiscal cliff” – a combination of automatic spending cuts and tax increases that will occur if Congress and the President don’t come up with a deal to cut the federal budget deficit. The first thing to know is that for the most powerful sectors of U.S. society, there will be no “fiscal cliff” – they are sitting on plenty of cash and can easily weather any short-term reductions in their revenues.