Author Archive

Ben Freeman

Ben Freeman
Ben Freeman is the Director of the Foreign Influence Transparency Initiative at the Center for International Policy and author of The Foreign Policy Auction.
Ideas

Don’t Overinflate the Pentagon Budget

There are plenty of perennial problems draining the military’s coffers that need attention.

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Hold the UAE Accountable for Meddling in US Politics

Letting the Emirates go unpunished sends the wrong signal to perpetrators of foreign influence operations.

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Overspending on the Pentagon Won’t Make Us Safer

We spend far more on the military than the countries we most fear, while shorting the things that would actually help us compete.

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Would a $700 Billion Budget Really Sink the Pentagon?

Resistance is already forming to a proposed decrease in 2020 spending. It’s important to understand just what that decrease means.

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Putting the Pentagon's Pennies in Perspective

$80 billion is a lot of money. And that's just the "modest" increase on this year's defense budget.

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How Budget Battles Undermine National Security

Congress should raise the debt limit and break its dependence on continuing resolutions.

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‘Back to the Future’ Foreign Policy

Defense spending as a share of GDP measures militarization of our society, but that does not necessarily mean strength. By Ben Freeman and Mieke Eoyang

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Three Myths About the Defense Budget

Critics who say the Pentagon’s FY15 budget request is a ‘skeleton budget’ that sets us back to pre-War War II levels are wrong. Here’s why. By Ben Freeman