By Sarah Lazare, In These Times

In July 2019, while cam­paign­ing for the Demo­c­ra­t­ic nom­i­na­tion for pres­i­dent, Joe Biden declared in a for­eign pol­i­cy speech, ​“It’s past time to end the For­ev­er Wars, which have cost us untold blood and trea­sure.” But the pres­i­dent-elect — who as vice pres­i­dent over­saw wars in Yemen, Libya, Afghanistan and more — is already embrac­ing per­son­nel with strong ties to the mil­i­tary appa­ra­tus dri­ving this end­less combat.

On Novem­ber 10, Biden announced his agency review teams, which he says ​“are respon­si­ble for under­stand­ing the oper­a­tions of each agency, ensur­ing a smooth trans­fer of pow­er, and prepar­ing for Pres­i­dent-elect Biden and Vice Pres­i­dent-elect Har­ris and their cab­i­net to hit the ground run­ning on Day One.”

Of the 23 peo­ple who com­prise the Depart­ment of Defense agency review team, eight of them — or just over a third — list their ​“most recent employ­ment” as orga­ni­za­tions, think tanks or com­pa­nies that either direct­ly receive mon­ey from the weapons indus­try, or are part of this indus­try. These fig­ures may be an under­count, as In These Times was not imme­di­ate­ly able to exhaus­tive­ly source the fund­ing of every employer.

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