About Common Defense Campaign
Winding down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and promoting affordable security.
The Center for International Policy’s Common Defense Campaign has three specific goals: 1) to wind down the war in Afghanistan; 2) complete the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq; and 3) make real, lasting cuts in the military budget. An equally important but harder to quantify goal is to change the way America relates to the rest of the world. Gone are the days when America could go it alone.
America spends well over one trillion dollars a year on the military when spending by other government departments is included, including the Energy Department’s budget for nuclear weapons and $81 billion for intelligence agencies. Given that America’s annual deficit is about one-and-a-half trillion dollars, one could argue that military spending is all borrowed money.
The growing consensus that military spending must be brought under control presents an historic opportunity to both cut spending and also to reevaluate how and when America uses its military forces. We see an opportunity for an alliance with conservatives who share our skepticism about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and believe that the Pentagon budget is rife with waste and unnecessary spending that has nothing to do with national defense.
The Common Defense Campaign coordinates the work of CIP’s five security projects: the Afghanistan Study Group, the Win Without War coalition, the Asia Project, the Arms & Security Project, the Project on Defense Alternatives and the National Security Project.
