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The Pentagon & Militarism blog
The Budapest Memorandum and the Nuclear Arsenal Ukraine Gave Up What Ukraine got in 1994 for giving up the third-largest nuclear arsenal, why it got assurances, not guarantees, and what that teaches about nonproliferation. When Bernie Sanders and John McCain Wrote a Veterans Bill Together After the 2014 Phoenix VA wait-list scandal, a democratic socialist from Vermont and a Republican war hero from Arizona wrote a reform law together. How they did it, and what came after. Barbara Lee's Lone Vote Against the 2001 War Authorization On September 14, 2001, Barbara Lee cast the only vote against the war authorization. How that 60-word law was stretched for twenty years, and what her dissent got right. Conditioning Military Aid and the Old Argument Over Leverage on Allies When Ronald Reagan suspended cluster munitions shipments to Israel in 1982, he joined a long American argument: should military aid to partners come with conditions, and does leverage ever work? Don't Ask, Don't Tell From the 1993 Compromise to the 2010 Repeal How a 1993 compromise meant to ease the military ban on gay service members ended up discharging thousands, and the votes, lawsuits and Pentagon study that finally repealed it in 2010. How Senator Harry Truman's Committee Investigated Wartime Contract Waste A little-known Missouri senator drove to military bases in 1941, found waste, and built a bipartisan committee that became the model for policing defense spending. The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and the Two Senators Who Voted No In August 1964 only Wayne Morse and Ernest Gruening voted against the resolution that opened the way to the Vietnam war. What they saw, and what later disclosures showed. The June 2025 Strikes on Iran and the War Powers Question Congress Left Open In June 2025 the US bombed Iran's nuclear sites without asking Congress, and the Senate declined to object. What the law says, what each side argued, and what remains unsettled. The Leahy Law and the Rule That US Weapons Not Go to Abusive Units How a 1997 Leahy amendment came to bar US aid to foreign security units credibly implicated in gross abuses, how vetting works and why critics call it uneven. The Military's Transgender Ban From 2017 Posts to the 2025 Order How transgender military service went from allowed in 2016 to banned by posts in 2017, restored in 2021 and banned again in 2025, and what the Supreme Court's May 2025 order changed. The PACT Act and the Long Fight for Veterans Exposed to Burn Pits How veterans sick from burn pit smoke won health care after years of denials, a stalled Senate vote and days camped on the Capitol steps, and what the PACT Act shows about winning together. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 and the Veto Congress Overrode How Congress overrode Richard Nixon to pass the War Powers Resolution in November 1973, what the law requires, and why presidents of both parties have pushed past it.