Christmas Wishes to the UK on Defense

Lessons on Defence Policy from America in 2012, Centre for Policy Studies, December 29, 2011. "My wish is that Britain will in 2012 learn a lesson from America on its defence policy. The lesson is not simply that Britain should spend more money on defence. It certainly should do that, but Britain’s limited and steadily shrinking defence budget is only a symptom of Britain’s underlying problem. Its real problem is that, while America regrettably takes defence less seriously than it used to, it is still far better off than Britain, which no longer treats defence as a centrally important political issue. The lesson Britain should learn from America, therefore, is that defence is a core duty of the state, and it is worthy of appropriately serious political care and attention. My policy wish to Britain thus takes the form of three Christmas wishes."

The Price of Big Government That We're Not Paying

Government Must Be Both Limited And Competent, Yorkshire Post, December 27, 2011. "In his 1978 essay on “The Power of the Powerless,” the late Vaclav Havel wrote eloquently about the importance of that sign. Under Communism, a greengrocer puts a “Workers of the world, unite!” sign up in his window. He doesn’t care what the sign says, he cares what it means. And what it means is that he’s willing to say the conventional thing, to be obedient. He knows he’s sacrificing tomorrow, but he’s gaining security today. Havel wanted elections, and it was the glory of his life that he got them, and won them. But in a democracy, an elected government exists to govern. And that is where we are failing. We are excellent at holding elections. What we do not do is govern. Our system is not like the Communist regimes that Havel detested. But we want what the greengrocer wanted. We want a quiet life. The cost of that today is the sacrifice of tomorrow."

State-Based Factors in the 2012 Elections, Part 2

The Varying Fortunes of Red and Blue States, Part 2, Centre for Policy Studies, December 22, 2011. "When Henry Ford put the buggy whip manufacturers out of business, that was a good thing. But you’d never know this by listening to the President. All the evidence goes to show that he and his followers believe what they are saying. And that in turn goes some distance to explaining why America’s red states are growing, and why the President’s path to re-election in 2012 is narrow. In other words, if the fundamental advantage of the left in America is the rise of administrative and bureaucratic government, the fundamental advantage of the right is, as Lady Thatcher put it, that sooner or later socialism runs out of other people’s money."

Whatever It Is, It's Not Strategy

Biden on the Taliban: They Call It ‘Strategery', Contentions, December 21, 2011. "The problem is not that Obama and Biden are uninterested in the evidence of our failed efforts to engage the Taliban. The problem is that – as Max notes in another context – they want to get out of Afghanistan, and they believe that they can facilitate this in the American political context by depicting the Taliban as irrelevant to our security interests. And sadly, the evidence of the steadily-declining popular support for the war over the past year suggests that, politically, this calculation is correct."

Arms Trade Treaty Will Promote, Not Limit, Arms Sales

The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty Is A “Bulletproof” License to Sell, The Commentator, December 21, 2011. "The broader question is simple: how can a “bulletproof” treaty on the one hand require arms sellers to discriminate between good and bad regimes when supplying arms, and on the other hand demand that the treaty’s criteria not be applied in a discriminatory way? The answer is simple: this is not a “bulletproof” treaty. It is not even a serious one. In practice, the world’s bad actors will cite the treaty to justify selling arms anywhere they see fit, while the West’s activists will use it to try to curtail arms sales to democracies like Israel that they dislike."

State-Based Factors in the 2012 Election

The Varying Fortunes of Red and Blue States, Centre for Policy Studies, December 19, 2011. "What is striking is the number of firmly Democratic states that are delivering – and in many cases have delivered for decades – mediocre economic performances, frequently with huge pension bills impending to boot. Under the circumstances, it’s not surprising that they’re losing population."

Fog In Channel, Commentators Cut Off

Britain's 'Isolation', Contentions, December 18, 2011. "To me, the funniest – and most revealing – part of the entire affair is the argument that Britain will suffer for its ‘isolation.’ The nicer version of the argument holds that the EU is about to make a lot of rules – or, to be more exact, about to make even more rules – that will be bad for Britain, and Britain needs to be at the table to mitigate the damage they’ll do. The less nice version of the argument is that the EU, long generous and forbearing towards an ever-wayward Britain, will now lose patience and wreak a mighty vengeance upon it. Given the EU’s current difficulties, this makes me chuckle. No matter which version of the argument is proffered, though, it comes down to the underlying assumption that the EU is akin to a hostage-taker who punishes disobedience by his captives. That may be so. But if it is so, why stick around at all?"

If It Happened Here, What Would They Say?

The German 'Kebab Murders', Heritage Foundation Foundry, December 16, 2011. "What if in America there was a gang of neo-Nazis who, over the course of 14 years, murdered 10 people, nine of them “foreigners” and one a policewoman? What if the gang had also carried out a nail-bomb attack in an immigrant neighborhood? What if immigrant (in this case, Turkish) households and apartments were attacked with Molotov cocktails and spray-painted with Nazi SS symbols?"

Arms Trade Treaty Truths Revealed

Hypocrisy Alerts on the U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Foundry, December 16, 2011. "There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about the arms trade. One is that lots of nations supply arms to terrorists and dictators as a matter of policy, or because they simply want the money. Another is that many of the world’s nations do not control their own borders, or their own territory, and so are in no position to control the arms trade. Neither of these problems will be addressed by a treaty that, according to its own draft text, is supposed to be “non-discriminatory.” In other words, the treaty is at once supposed to encourage nations to be more discriminatory in their arms exports to other nations, and to be applied without discriminating against anyone. The U.S. is not going to leave the Second Amendment issues aside, but even if it did, the treaty’s internal hypocrisy is an excellent reason to believe that it’s not worth backing."

On Cluster Munitions, Stay the Course

U.N. Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons: What the U.S. Should Do, with Steven Groves, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3434, December 16, 2011. "On November 25, the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW), a U.N.-based process through which participating nations adopt protocols to regulate or limit the use of conventional weapons, failed to reach agreement on a new protocol to regulate cluster munitions after four years of intensive negotiations. The U.S. had backed the new protocol but was defeated by a group of nations that have joined the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM). The U.S. should recognize that the time is not ripe for any further negotiation. It should not attempt to restart the CCW process, nor should it sign the CCM. Rather, it should stay the course on its existing policy of phasing out less reliable munitions."

The Second Amendment and the UN Arms Trade Treaty

Why the U.S. Should Be Concerned About the Domestic Effects of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation WebMemo #3430, December 13, 2011. "Negotiations for a new U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) are supposed to be finalized in July 2012. Some of its supporters argue it would have no “impact on the ability of individuals within the United States to acquire and possess firearms.” Even if this is true, it is not the only reason to be concerned about the treaty. But if the treaty comes before the Senate, its domestic effects will be of central importance. While the treaty is not yet complete, analysis of the current draft demonstrates that there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about its potential domestic effects."

Demography Is Not (Political) Destiny

Can There Be An Enduring Systematic Advantage in American Politics?, Centre for Policy Studies, December 12, 2011. "The quest for an enduring systematic, demographic advantage in American politics is doomed to failure. The evidence of the past 200 years is that, while one party or another can enjoy a temporary advantage, the nation is too large, too diverse and too mobile for either side to win in an enduring way. In other words, in American politics, there are permanent battles, but no permanent victories through demography. If one side does have an enduring advantage, it lies not in demography, but in the steady expansion of the bureaucratic and administrative state, which inherently favors the left and which threatens to make the normal governing activity of Congress steadily more irrelevant."

The Euro Deal: Building A Better Titanic

Why the Euro is Fighting a Losing Battle, with Sally McNamara, Foxnews.com, December 10, 2011. "The entire Eurozone economy hardly grew at all in the third quarter. This is not just a symptom of the crisis: it is a fundamental cause. Even if Greece abandons its fiscal sovereignty, it will still be 30 percent less competitive than Germany. A new European treaty might buck up the markets for a bit, but it won’t resolve the underlying issue. The EU’s effort comes down to promising to build a better Titanic next time: it does nothing to help the current passengers."

American Geographic and Electoral Mobility

Americans Move, But Will the Result Change?, Centre for Policy Studies, December 8, 2011. "The political effects of this shift are equally stark: in 2012, the Republicans will gain a net total of six electoral votes, if the states vote as they did in 2008. Of course it is unlikely that the state votes will remain unchanged, but the fact remains that President Obama will have to run harder in 2012 just to stay in place. The long-run trends of American geographical mobility are telling, slowly, against him."

Deficit Hawks and Deficit Chickens

Obama Plays the Card of Financial Responsibility, Yorkshire Post, December 2, 2011. "Playing the responsible spender card is shrewd from another point of view. Americans naturally look on Congress with a degree of disdain, while according the President the respect that goes with his office. Right now, the American people have no particular affection for Obama, but their opinion of Congress could hardly be worse. By positioning himself as the adult in the room, Obama plays to the American tendency to view Congress as a collection of squabbling children."