Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
America spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on its military – extraordinary spending not only detracts from our ability to address pressing social problems but compels us into foreign wars to justify our vast arsenal.
Sold to us in the name of "security," our military industrial complex actually makes us far less safe.
Top policy experts William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman follow the profits of militarism from traditional Pentagon contractors, which receive more than half of the Pentagon's budget, to the upstart high-tech firms that shamelessly promote unproven and destabilizing technologies. They unmask the enablers of the war machine--politicians, lobbyists, the media, Hollywood, think tanks, and so many more--whose work enriches a wealthy elite at the expense of everybody else, spreading conflict around the world and embroiling America in endless wars.
Buy the book here: bookshop.org/p/books/the-trillion-dollar-war-machine-how-runaway-military-spending-drives-america-into-foreign-wars-and-bankrupts-us-at-home-ben-freeman/e7d4a2e1b1867765?ean=9781645030638&next=t&next=t&affiliate=95814
Quincy Institute is an independent, nonprofit think tank. To support our work:
Help fund our research: quincyinst.org/donations
Read our reporting: ResponsibleStatecraft.org
TikTok: / quincyinst
Twitter: https://x.com/QuincyInst
Facebook: / quincyinst
Instagram: / quincyinst
Website: quincyinst.org
America spends nearly a trillion dollars a year on its military – extraordinary spending not only detracts from our ability to address pressing social problems but compels us into foreign wars to justify our vast arsenal.
Sold to us in the name of "security," our military industrial complex actually makes us far less safe.
Top policy experts William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman follow the profits of militarism from traditional Pentagon contractors, which receive more than half of the Pentagon's budget, to the upstart high-tech firms that shamelessly promote unproven and destabilizing technologies. They unmask the enablers of the war machine--politicians, lobbyists, the media, Hollywood, think tanks, and so many more--whose work enriches a wealthy elite at the expense of everybody else, spreading conflict around the world and embroiling America in endless wars.
Buy the book here: bookshop.org/p/books/the-trillion-dollar-war-machine-how-runaway-military-spending-drives-america-into-foreign-wars-and-bankrupts-us-at-home-ben-freeman/e7d4a2e1b1867765?ean=9781645030638&next=t&next=t&affiliate=95814
Quincy Institute is an independent, nonprofit think tank. To support our work:
Help fund our research: quincyinst.org/donations
Read our reporting: ResponsibleStatecraft.org
TikTok: / quincyinst
Twitter: https://x.com/QuincyInst
Facebook: / quincyinst
Instagram: / quincyinst
Website: quincyinst.org
