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Ben Friedman

@benjaminfriedman.bsky.social
640 followers 252 following 265 posts

Policy Director at Defense Priorities. Columbia Heights resident. Supporter of restraint in US foreign policy and the Boston Celtics.

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Reposted by Ben Friedman
Moritz S. Graefrath @moritz-graefrath.com · 04/07/2026
In our latest, @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social and I argue that the Trump administration has the wrong approach in Europe—not, as many say, because it pushes to withdraw from the continent, but precisely because it is *not* serious about disengaging from Europe. warontherocks.com/misguided-an...
warontherocks.com
Misguided and Misunderstood: Trump’s Approach to U.S. Troops in Europe
For many observers, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s speech on the future of NATO, delivered in Brussels on June 18, 2026, constituted a perfect
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Reposted by Ben Friedman
Kyle Haynes @kylehaynes.bsky.social · 02/06/2026
Good lord that is not how escalation dominance works.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
We'd all be better off if all the time spent worrying about the Thucydides trap went into thinking about security dilemmas. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...
theguardian.com
What is the Thucydides Trap and why did Xi Jinping mention it in his meeting with Donald Trump?
China’s leader raised the ancient Greek historian Thucydides when he met the US president in Beijing
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Reposted by Ben Friedman
Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
SCOTUS in the Prize Cases (1863): "The proclamation of blockade is itself official and conclusive evidence to the Court that a state of war existed..."
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Reposted by Ben Friedman
Brian Finucane @bcfinucane.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Whether or not there is any factual basis to his statement, notable that POTUS is workshopping victory narratives.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
There was no good reason for war (not missiles, nukes, proxies certainly not regime change fantasies) but the war predictably created one big problem by pushing Iran to attack oil shipments. Exiting requires dealing with that, by reining in Israel, for starters.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
TACO time in Iran I argue here. www.theamericanconservative.com/let-iran-be-...
theamericanconservative.com
Let Iran Be Someone Else’s Problem
President Trump should declare victory and get out—and rein in Israel if needed.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 17/02/2026
No one who ever met Epstein is allowed to work anymore I guess. What is even the rationale for caling for Wasserman's head? Sexting with Ghislaine Maxwell 20 plus years ago? Going on Epstein's plane to a Clinton Foundation meeting? www.espn.com/olympics/sto...
espn.com
Mayor urges Wasserman to resign as head of 2028 L.A. Olympics
The mayor of L.A. has called for Casey Wasserman to resign as head of the 2028 Olympics organizing team because of his ties to Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend.
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Reposted by Ben Friedman
Dave Weigel @daveweigel.bsky.social · 30/01/2026
Trump's 2024 campaign saw some voter angst, in its data, about him getting elected and being obsessed with revenge. He used a Fox town hall, programmed against the final GOP primary debate to say he would be "too busy" for revenge. (He also got the Q in advance.) www.nytimes.com/2024/01/10/u...
nytimes.com
‘I’m Not Going to Have Time for Retribution,’ Trump Says at Town Hall (Published 2024)
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Reposted by Ben Friedman
Radley Balko @radleybalko.bsky.social · 24/01/2026
And he didn’t. He tried to help a woman who’d just been assaulted. There was nothing rash, stupid, or radical about what he did. He showed kindness. And they killed him for it.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 13/01/2026
Let's see if this thing works. Our Man in Havana no longer satire? www.cnn.com/2026/01/13/p...
cnn.com
Pentagon bought device through undercover operation some investigators suspect is linked to Havana Syndrome | CNN Politics
The Defense Department has spent more than a year testing a device purchased in an undercover operation that some investigators think could be the cause of a series of mysterious ailments impacting sp...
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 05/01/2026
What are the odds Maduro gets acquitted? Seems like the drug trafficking charges in his indictment may be pretty flimsy and he could walk. What happens then? Drone strike in Manhattan?
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
Sad to see Shapiro, who got his start trafficking in conspiracy and dishonesty for Breitbart, slamming the door in the face of the young grifters following in his footsteps. @daveweigel.bsky.social slate.com/news-and-pol...
slate.com
"Friends of Hamas" Revisited
Last week, after seeing references to a group allegedly named "Friends of Hamas" hidden somewhere in Chuck Hagel's financial records, I did roughly 20...
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Reposted by Ben Friedman
Nicholas Slayton @nslayton.bsky.social · 19/12/2025
With this today the death toll now passed 100. 104 if I have my math correct. 104 people killed with zero evidence since Sept. 2. Two people have survived and been repatriated and released. 104 people dead under dubious legality.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
Predictably people are saying this harms the credibility of ISW's map. But the ISW map enterprise lost credibility with me a couple years ago when they published analysis preposterously claiming that a drone attack on the Kremlin was actually a Russian false flag attack on itself.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 12/12/2025
It's pretty wild that someone at the Institute for the Study of War falsified their widely-cited war map to win a Polymarket bet. ISW fired the employee but didn't say why. responsiblestatecraft.org/isw-polymark...
responsiblestatecraft.org
Think tanker altered Ukraine war map before big Polymarket payout
The Institute for the Study of War disavowed the edit, removed the employee, but is staying quiet, raising questions about the credibility of ISW and prediction gambling
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Reposted by Ben Friedman
Peter Baker @peterbakernyt.bsky.social · 06/12/2025
Trump national security strategy says US should stop "hectoring" repressive nations in the Middle East about human rights then goes on to hector democratically elected European nations about their domestic policies. www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/w...
nytimes.com
Trump Administration Says Europe Faces ‘Civilizational Erasure’
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 03/12/2025
I partially disagree. Good writing is related to cleat thinking yes, but not necessarily deep expertise or insightfulness. I changed my mind on this due to various professional writers--reporters and magazine types--becoming abominable but compelling foreign policy pundits.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 25/11/2025
Being honest about what happened here, the Europeans and the US Secretary of State managed to insert poison pills into the peace deal Witkoff had put out, making it more unacceptable to Russia and thus ensuring the war continues. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/1...
washingtonpost.com
U.S., Ukraine move forward on peace deal, but Russian rejection is likely
Putin has said the earlier U.S. plan, which Ukraine saw as too pro-Russian, should be the basis for talks and is unlikely to back down.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
It's one thing to argue Saudi Arabia is an important country, so we take meetings, put aside moral outrage, and do business. But the gratuitous ass-kissing, including a flyover, is needless. Why not just shrug and say we have a free press; we don't tell them what to ask? It's egregiously unamerican.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 18/11/2025
Even worse than this bit is how he went on to call the reporter embarrassing and "insubordinate" and threaten her employer's ABC's license. Just autocratically bullying the media to show off to MBS.
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ACLU @aclu.org · 05/11/2025
This is the 16th strike of its kind this year — and at least 66 people are dead because of the government’s rash actions. These extrajudicial strikes are illegal under both international and domestic law.
nbcnews.com
2 killed in U.S. strike on alleged drug boat in Eastern Pacific, Hegseth says
Two people on board an alleged drug-smuggling vessel in the Eastern Pacific were killed by a U.S. military strike, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Tuesday
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
If you're gonna build a coalition to change US Israel policy, especially on the right, you're gonna have an anti-semitism problem.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
Vance responds that we often have different interests than Israel and had to pressure them to get the latest ceasefire, which is mildly good and what passes for boldly critical of Israel in DC, but he avoids telling the guy we don't have a state religion.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
See the promise and peril of the right's emerging anti-Israel politics here. This guy asks Vance why we support Israel, sensibly suggesting we shouldn't while flashing Christian Nationalism by saying they have a different religion than "us" and are hostile to ours. www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Bn...
youtube.com
JD Vance Responds To Man Who Says Israel's 'Religion... Openly Supports The Prosecution Of Ours'
YouTube video by Forbes Breaking News
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 30/10/2025
If we can't stop this shit, let's at least all call them stormtroopers. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
washingtonpost.com
Pentagon readying thousands of Guard ‘reaction forces’ as U.S. mission widens
The Defense Department’s newly established “quick reaction force” within the National Guard is being readied for civil unrest missions in U.S. cities.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 10/10/2025
A security guarantee by executive order is not much of a security guarantee. And even if it were a treaty, no US President can't he trusted to restrain Israel. Next president can and should ignore. www.axios.com/2025/10/08/t...
axios.com
What to make of Qatar's diet Article 5 protections
Trump "may well have intended it one way, and the region could interpret it in another," said one expert.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 02/10/2025
The war on drugs keeps getting more literal. www.nytimes.com/2025/10/02/u...
nytimes.com
Trump ‘Determined’ the U.S. Is Now in a War With Drug Cartels, Congress Is Told
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Reposted by Ben Friedman
Sleeping Monkey @sleepingmonkey.bsky.social · 17/09/2025
This is extremely similar to what Duterte did in the Philippines. Killing of supposed drug dealers without due process. Dictator level stuff, scary.
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Reposted by Ben Friedman
Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
I wrote in my book that "Trump had learned the foremost lesson of 9/11: the terrorists were whomever you said they were." Now "terrorism" is what he's using to apparently provoke a war with Venezuela.
forever-wars.com
Terror on The High Seas
In the latest migration of a term with lethal consequences, "terrorism" is a pretext for murdering 11 people in international waters
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 04/09/2025
I can't speak for Ukraine, but the fact that Europeans feel compelled to call their proposed force for post-war Ukraine a "reassurance" force suggests it is not gonna be backed by a credible threat and won't be reassuring at all. apnews.com/article/russ...
apnews.com
Macron says 26 countries pledge troops as a reassurance force for Ukraine after fighting ends
French President Emmanuel Macron says that 26 of Ukraine’s allies have pledged to deploy troops as a “reassurance force” for the war-torn country once fighting ends in the conflict with Russia.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
Along with Trump and Rubio, the bipartisan empowerment of presidents to blow up whoever they want by calling them terrorists is the big culprit here.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
The purpose of attacking the ship seems to be to pretend are a we're at war with criminals and Venezuela, not to stop drugs or terrorism. In that sense it's a big escalation over the worst belligerence of the drone wars.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
Blowing up a boat and killing 11 people and in the name of stopping a drug shipment is a depraved act of needless violence. If it's a drug shipment, stop it with the Coast Guard. www.reuters.com/world/americ...
reuters.com
US military kills 11 people in strike on alleged drug boat from Venezuela, Trump says
The U.S. military killed 11 people on Tuesday in a strike on a vessel from Venezuela allegedly carrying illegal narcotics, President Donald Trump said, in the first known operation since his administration's recent deployment of warships to the southern Caribbean.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 19/08/2025
This news is a throwback to the aughts, with Marco Rubio doing his best to resurrect the dumbest parts of the war on terror, conflating Islamism and terrorism. www.jns.org/muslim-broth...
jns.org
Muslim Brotherhood terror designation ‘in the works,’ Rubio says
“As long as Hamas exists, there will be no peace in Gaza,” the U.S. secretary of state told the radio host Sid Rosenberg.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
Despite everything autocratic thing that's happened this year, it's still shocking to me that these huge law firms are agreeing to be subordinated to Trump: working pro bono on an insane protectionist agenda. Corrupt, autocratic, and barely even a scandal. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/13/u...
nytimes.com
Law Firms That Settled With Trump Are Pressed to Help on Trade Deals
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 14/08/2025
This article asserts baselessly that Putin is already reordering the world in Russia's favor just by having a summit with Trump. The implication is Russia isn't a major power unless we treat it as one, an idea Ukraine war should have disabused people of. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...
washingtonpost.com
Even before Alaska summit, Putin is redrawing global order to his liking
The Alaska summit between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin represents a return to great-power politics in which big countries call the shots.
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Reposted by Ben Friedman
Emily Tamkin @emilyctamkin.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
For @forward.com, I wrote about how we know that Israel has been withholding food as a military tactic because Israeli officials have said versions of “we are withholding food as a military tactic” for the entirety of the war and pretending otherwise is willful ignorance forward.com/opinion/7586...
forward.com
Is starvation in Gaza really Israel's fault? The facts are clear
Rising starvation in Gaza may have a number of factors. But Israel's wartime policies on humanitarian aid are inarguably among them.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
This suggests the opportunity for an off-ramp, which may be facilitated by Israel running low on a few key things, and thus willing to quit after they hit a few more militarily useless targets in a bank-shot attempt to destabilizie the Iranian government.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 23/06/2025
Both the US strikes on Iran and their retaliation today seem partly theatrical. The US didn't do the sustained campaign likely in the can to really cripple Iranian nuclear weapons program, and the Iranians shot at well-defended bases with warning. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/06...
nytimes.com
Live Updates: Iran Fires Missiles at U.S. Base in Qatar
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 17/06/2025
This binary view is wrong. The third choice is to live with Iran as a nascent nuclear weapons state, as we've been doing for a while, or fully nuclear one, and pressure Israel to not destabilize the situation by bombing. www.nytimes.com/2025/06/16/u...
nytimes.com
Trump’s Iran Choice: Last-Chance Diplomacy or a Bunker-Busting Bomb
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 13/06/2025
Under no circumstances should we get sucked into Israel's preventive war on Iran, which will likely prove counterproductive. The question is how bad it gets.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 12/06/2025
If Israel bombs Iran in an attempt to kibosh US negotiations and drag us into a war, can we stop underwriting their military? Or at least acknowledge we shouldn't pay them to screw us? www.timesofisrael.com/us-begins-ev...
timesofisrael.com
US begins evacuating Mideast embassies, army bases as Iran nuclear talks come to a head
CENTCOM chief shelves Senate testimony as nonessential embassy staff, troops' dependents depart region; Iranian defense minister threatens to strike US bases amid stalled talks
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 28/05/2025
Long and short of this is Israel is considering striking Iran in order to screw up US diplomacy and expecting US help if they do. What is stronger than chutzpah? www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/u...
nytimes.com
As Trump Seeks Iran Deal, Israel Again Raises Possible Strikes on Nuclear Sites
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 27/05/2025
News article advocating endless US war in Somalia, in part by overstating Al Shabab's threat to the west. www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/0...
washingtonpost.com
How U.S. cuts in Somalia could imperil the fight against al-Shabab
Somalia’s government has increasingly turned to Turkey to repel al-Shabab, as America’s diminished focus on Africa scrambles global power dynamics.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 16/05/2025
If Trump indeed agreed to get the last US hostage freed in exchange for getting the blockade of Gaza lifted and then ignored the obligation, it's no favor to the remaining hostages. If the US won't honor its own agreement, who will push Israel to honor theirs? www.dropsitenews.com/p/witkoff-ha...
dropsitenews.com
Hamas Says Witkoff Personally Promised to Lift Gaza Blockade in Exchange for Edan Alexander
The U.S. immediately broke the deal, senior Hamas official Basem Naim tells Drop Site. “They threw it in the trash” and there has been “zero” progress on a Gaza ceasefire.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
It's very DC to treat this Qatar aircraft gift, which is potential (arguably open) corruption of US foreign policy as primarily a security problem because of bugs and so forth. www.washingtonpost.com/national-sec...
washingtonpost.com
Trump’s gifted Qatari 747 would be a security problem, officials say
The Qatari luxury jet offered to Trump is in San Antonio, Texas, suggesting that improvements to the plane may already be underway. But officials have raised security concerns.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 12/05/2025
Is Trump being bribed by Qatar good because it somewhat reduced the odds of a war with Iran? www.nbcnews.com/news/amp/rcn...
nbcnews.com
Trump administration will accept a luxury jet from Qatar to use as Air Force One
Trump is expected to discuss arrangements for the plane during his visit to Qatar this week, one source said.
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Ben Friedman @benjaminfriedman.bsky.social · 06/05/2025
It's confusing, but for the US it's a win if we are quitting a failing little war and letting Israel fight its own battles.
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