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Ben Wolfgang

Ben Wolfgang

bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com

Ben Wolfgang is a national security correspondent at The Washington Times, a senior member of its Threat Status team, and the host and producer of the award-winning Threat Status Podcast. Ben covers national security, foreign policy, military affairs, the defense industry and the rapidly evolving landscape of military technology.
A Pennsylvania native, he joined The Washington Times in 2011 after serving as a political reporter at The Republican-Herald in Pottsville, Pa. Over the course of his career, Ben has covered the White House, Congress, and four presidential campaigns.
His reporting has earned recognition from some of journalism's most respected organizations, including the Virginia Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists' Washington, D.C. Chapter, among other honors.
Ben has interviewed heads of state, chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, senior military commanders, cabinet secretaries, senior government officials, and the CEOs of many of the nation's largest and most influential defense companies.
Ben is a frequent guest on broadcast media, with appearances on C-SPAN, the Sirius XM POTUS channel, and other outlets.
He can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.

Articles by Ben Wolfgang

Pentagon spokesman John Kirby puts his mask on following a media briefing at the Pentagon in Washington, Monday, May 3, 2021. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Pentagon drops indoor mask requirement

Fully vaccinated individuals no longer need to wear masks indoors at the Pentagon or other Defense Department facilities, military officials said Friday.

May 14, 2021
An Israeli artillery unit fires toward targets in Gaza Strip, at the Israeli Gaza border, Thursday, May 13, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israeli-Palestinian fighting sparks bitter political battles

Israel wants the world to unite behind its war against Iran-backed Hamas, which it escalated Friday morning, but the fighting has sparked division, including in Washington, where shouting matches on Capitol Hill, charges of antisemitism and bitter foreign policy fights have broken out as lawmakers draw their own battle lines.

May 13, 2021
Israeli police patrol during clashes between Arabs, police and Jews, in the mixed town of Lod, central Israel, Wednesday, May 12, 2021. As rockets from Gaza streaked overhead, Arabs and Jews fought each other on the streets below. Rioters torched vehicles, a restaurant and a synagogue in one of the worst spasms of communal violence that Israel has seen in years. (AP Photo/Heidi Levine)

Israeli-Palestinian clash rattles Trump Abraham Accords, Biden agenda

Escalating Israeli-Palestinian violence is threatening to undermine progress made by the Trump administration's Abraham Accords and drive a new wedge between Israel and the Arab world, all while President Biden scrambles to address the crisis that has eclipsed his own foreign policy priorities.

May 12, 2021
An Israeli soldier stands guard next to an Iron Dome air defense system as smoke rises from an oil tank on fire after it was hit by a rocket fire from Gaza Strip, near the town of Ashkelon, Israel,, Wednesday, May 12, 2021. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)

Israel’s vaunted Iron Dome stretched to limit by Hamas rocket barrage

Israel's state-of-the-art Iron Dome missile defense system is facing its toughest test to date amid rapid-fire rocket attacks from Hamas, with military analysts in Israel openly wondering whether the Palestinian militant group has found a strategy to partially pierce the shield.

May 12, 2021
Russian President Vladimir Putin, center, and Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmon, left, attend a wreath-laying ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier after the Victory Day military parade in Moscow, Russia, Sunday, May 9, 2021, marking the 76th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. (Mikhail Metzel, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)

Joe Biden seeks Russia penalty to stop cyberattacks

Major cyberattacks with links to Russia have grown bolder even in the face of escalating U.S. economic sanctions, presenting a high-stakes dilemma for President Biden as he weighs how to respond to the devastating assault on the Colonial Pipeline and what tools America may have at its disposal to punch back.

May 11, 2021
Colonial Pipeline storage tanks are seen in Woodbridge, N.J., Monday, May 10, 2021. Gasoline futures are ticking higher following a cyberextortion attempt on the Colonial Pipeline, a vital U.S. pipeline that carries fuel from the Gulf Coast to the Northeast. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Colonial Pipeline, hit by cyberattack, may be back up and running by end of week

The Biden administration on Monday confronted another major cyberattack with apparent links to Russia while the U.S. energy industry slowly got back on its feet after a crippling assault on the Colonial Pipeline underscored deep vulnerabilities in critical American infrastructure that security experts say must be fixed.

May 10, 2021
Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark A. Milley has expressed his support for changing how the military conducts investigations of sexual assault. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)  **FILE**

Momentum builds to change military rules on harassment in the ranks

The polarizing push to pull sexual assault cases from the chain of command -- an idea that now appears inevitable amid openness from top Pentagon commanders and support from even some of the most outspoken pro-military conservatives on Capitol Hill -- would represent a fundamental change to one of the core tenets of U.S. military practice.

May 8, 2021
The HMS Queen Elizabeth left Portsmouth Naval Base on Saturday for exercises off Scotland before a 28-week trip through the Pacific that will take the Royal Navy to more than 40 countries. (Associated Press)

Boris Johnson South China Sea carrier deployment to project Britain power

Post-Brexit Britain is thrusting itself into 21st-century great power competition with the deployment of a massive carrier strike group through Asia and the bitterly contested South China Sea this month, marking the Royal Navy's most ambitious mission since the Falklands War of the early 1980s.

May 4, 2021
National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan listens during a meeting with President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga in the State Dining Room of the White House, Friday, April 16, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) ** FILE **

White House denies Iran’s sanctions, prisoner deal claims

Biden administration officials on Sunday morning denied reports from Iranian state-run media that the U.S. and Britain have agreed to free up $7 billion in frozen Iranian funds in exchange for the release of American prisoners held in the Islamic republic.

May 2, 2021
In this Jan. 15, 2018, photo, U.S. Marines watch during the change of command ceremony at Task Force Southwest military field in Shorab military camp of Helmand province, Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Massoud Hossaini) **FILE**

U.S. base in Afghanistan hit by rocket fire as troops begin withdrawal

In an ominous kickoff to the mission to leave, U.S. forces returned fire over the weekend after rockets hit a key air base in Kandahar, Afghanistan, while America's top general on Sunday warned of "bad possible outcomes" in the country after all U.S. and NATO troops complete their withdrawal.

May 2, 2021