The virtual seminar will be held from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. (E.T.)
Discussions of United States nuclear weapon policies traditionally concern themselves largely with weapons technologies and systems, military postures, plans, and adversaries. What passes as policy analysis and debate typically includes advocating for or against a nuclear doctrine or plan and particular numbers and types of weapons systems deemed likely to threaten and coerce adversaries. Despite the enormous budgets involved and the role of Congress, largely missing are considerations of how political economy plays a role in nuclear decision-making. In particular, economic factors, such as jobs, profits, and revenues for key locales also serve as drivers of US nuclear weapon policy. This presentation will look at how parochial economic considerations often preclude serious consideration of nuclear arsenal, policy, and posture options as part of nuclear weapon spending choices in Congress, and also create elite and grass-root pressures to maintain existing nuclear weapon systems. It draws on the recently published book, The Trillion Dollar War Machine (2025, co-authored with Ben Freeman).
About the speaker: William Hartung is a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. 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, and a Senior Research Fellow at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research, New York. He has been an analyst of US weapons-making corporations since the 1970s, beginning his career at the New York-based Council on Economic Priorities looking at the dependence of US local and state economies on military spending. His other published books include And Weapons for All (1994), and Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex (2011).