The Program: What Price Defense: Does America Need a $1 Trillion Pentagon Budget?

Drawing on his new book, coauthored with Ben Freeman, The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America Into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home, William D. Hartung will address the question of how much is enough to provide an effective defense for the United States. He will question whether our “cover the globe” strategy, which calls for America to be able to intervene virtually anywhere in the world on short notice, makes sense.  And he will look at the influence of arms contractors over our budget and our foreign policy.

Presenter: William D. Hartung

William D. Hartung focuses on the arms industry and US military budget. He was previously the director of the Arms and Security Program at the Center for International Policy and the co-director of the Center’s Sustainable Defense Task Force. Bill is the co-author, with Ben Freeman, of the recently released The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home. He is also 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). And Weapons for All (HarperCollins, 1995) is a critique of US arms sales policies from the Nixon through Clinton administrations.

Thursday, February 19th, 2026 – 6:00 PM
Albuquerque Country Club, 601 Laguna SW