Understanding American Security

Understanding American Security, with Luke Coffey, Heritage Foundation Special Report, November 29, 2012. "As long as Americans value independence and liberty, the U.S. will need powerful armed forces to deter and defeat its enemies. But what we have to do to stay secure changes over time. A hundred years ago, we did not need an air force. Today we do. We know we need to provide for the common defense. But how should we do it now?"

What New CPS Guidelines Tell Us About the UK Forum Bar

Extradition: CPS Guidelines & The Paradoxical Forum Bar, with Andrew Southam, The Commentator, November 15, 2012. "In late October, the Crown Prosecution Service, in a step that attracted little public attention, issued new, enforceable guidelines on how to prosecute alleged extradition crimes. The guidelines are interesting partly because they reinforce both modern extradition practice and longstanding tradition."

Bloggers Briefing Comments on ATT

VIDEO: The Bloggers Briefing featuring the Food Marketing Institute, and Ted Bromund, Heritage Foundation Foundry, November 13, 2012.

In the UN, More ATT

The Arms Trade Treaty Moves Forward, Heritage Foundation Foundry, November 13, 2012. "On Wednesday, the First Committee of the U.N. General Assembly approved a resolution to hold a final negotiating conference on the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on March 18–28, using the treaty text from last July’s conference, and under the rule of consensus (i.e. any nation can block the treaty by objecting to it). The General Assembly must now consider the resolution, but it is a foregone conclusion that they will approve it by an overwhelming margin."

A Post-Election Review

"Don’t Criticise Romney, Just Blame A World That’s Changing," Yorkshire Post, November 13, 2012, not available online. "Republicans are taking Mitt Romney’s defeat at the polls hard – especially because he seemed to have a chance of victory. That proved to be an illusion. In politics, defeat produces nothing as reliably as blame, and the usual place to put the blame is on the candidate and his campaign."

A View of the Election from Ohio

Message From the Heartland Tells Obama That The Battle Isn’t Over Yet, Yorkshire Post, November 6, 2012. "As it happens, I’m from Ohio. I don’t claim any great insight into the state, as I moved away when I went to college, over 20 years ago. But I happened to visit last weekend and was struck by what I saw."

Back to the UN Arms Trade Treaty

The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty Is Back (and Actually, It Never Left), Heritage Foundation Foundry, November 1, 2012. "The First Committee of the U.N. General Assembly is considering a resolution to convene “the Final United Nations Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty” in New York next March. Last July, a U.N. conference to negotiate an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) collapsed when it because obvious that the draft treaty was not ready for prime time. But as I wrote at the time, the conference’s collapse was “not the end of the process. It is the end of a phase.” That next phase of the ATT is now well under way."

Live Blogging the Final Presidential Debate for the BBC

Obama and Romney in Final Push, BBC News, October 23, 2012. A heavily edited set of responses to the final presidential debate, matched with opposing responses from P.J. Crowley.

Live Blogging the Final Presidential Debate

Heritage Experts Live Blog the Final Presidential Debate, Heritage Foundation Foundry, October 22, 2012. "The discussion of the U.S.’s place in the world in tonight’s debate was unsatisfactory. To the extent that it focused directly on that subject, both Obama and Romney sought to reduce it to a question of defense spending, which the President was eager to cut. That is the wrong approach; much better is to assess what the U.S. needs to carry out its responsibilities and budget accordingly. But both men largely fought shy of presenting any larger vision of the U.S.’s role in the world, and sought to focus their remarks on domestic policy."

Pre-Debate Post on US Role in the World

Debate Prep: The U.S. Role in the World, Heritage Foundation Foundry, October 22, 2012. "At the Heritage Foundation, we agree on the centrality of American leadership. But leadership is just a word: anyone can say that they believe in it. To be real and effective, leadership needs to be backed up by priorities, by policies, by budgets, and by the strength of the nation. And that is a good place to start."

Dispelling Mythologies About US-UK Extradition

The McKinnon Case and the U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty, Heritage Foundation Foundry, October 18, 2012. "On Tuesday, British Home Secretary Theresa May announced in the House of Commons that Gary McKinnon, who has acknowledged hacking into U.S. government computers, would not be extradited to the U.S. because he was mentally ill, and extradition would therefore violate his human rights."

Extradition By The Numbers

The Numbers Behind the Extradition Controversy, with Andrew Southam, The Commentator, October 15, 2012. "But if you want to talk about numbers, consider this: the ratio between U.S. and U.K. extradition requests is not going up. It is going down. Since 2003, U.S. requests have outnumbered British ones by over two to one (130 to 54). By comparison, between 1964 and 1994, the U.S. filed almost three times as many extradition requests (301) in Britain as Britain (108) did in the U.S."

The EU: Effect, Not Cause, Of Peace

The EU’s Nobel Peace Prize: Not Just a Laughing Matter, Heritage Foundation Foundry, October 12, 2012. "The lesson of the EU’s prize—taken with the three prizes that the U.N. has won in various guises over the past decade and President Obama’s award in 2009 for promising to be more multilateral—is that the Nobel Committee, like a lot of elites, think that the way to promote peace is to diminish national sovereignty and the democratic control of politics by relying on supranational institutions of regional (or global) governance."

Rapid Debate Responses

LIVE BLOG: Biden, Ryan Square Off in Vice Presidential Debate, Heritage Foundation Foundry, October 11, 2012. Instant reaction on various subjects, including Afghanistan, Libya, Iran, and the economy, raised in the debate.

A Case for Public, Not Private, Austerity

As Spain and Greece Burn, Estonia Offers a Lesson, with Ryan Bourne, Heritage Foundation Foundry, September 28, 2012. "Usefully, the Eurozone crisis has provided a natural experiment in how to deal with a severe downturn. The results of that experiment have not favored the unsophisticated Keynesian view that more borrowing is the answer. The highly indebted Southern European states decided to run big fiscal deficits in the aftermath of the crisis, and now face suffocating debt burdens and still-uncompetitive labour markets. On the other side of the spectrum, the Baltic nations (especially Estonia and Latvia) cut government spending and liberalized their economies. While the short term effects were painful, these two countries grew by 8.3 percent and 5.5 percent last year—remarkable when you consider that Greece, Spain, and Italy are in recession."

The Failings of Private Austerity

Why Larry Summers Is Wrong About the British Economy, with Ryan Bourne, Heritage Foundation Foundry, September 20, 2012. "Despite all the talk about huge spending cuts, spending has actually increased in real terms since 2010, while new tax hikes have been piled on top of the tax rises implemented by the previous Labour government.

The O'Dwyer Extradition Case

Why It Is Fair to Extradite Yorkshire Web Piracy Suspect, Yorkshire Post, September 20, 2012. "I do not expect that a defense of Richard O’Dwyer’s extradition will be popular. But I do believe that the extradition arrangements between Britain and the U.S. are fair, and that O’Dwyer’s case illustrates why."

The Transnationalist Strategy and the First Amendment

Re: WH Asks YouTube to Pull Anti-Islam Video, Contentions, September 19, 2012. "The problem with the White House’s efforts is not just that they are wrong in principle and feeble in practice. It’s not just that it has handed all the agenda-defining power to Islamist radicals, and refused to recognize that the video is an act of political judo against the U.S., and a pretext for violence, not its cause, in the Middle East. It’s not even just that it plays into the Organization of the Islamic Conference’s seemingly-lost campaign for U.N. action against the ‘defamation of religion,’ which the Obama Administration rightly opposed."

Defending the US-UK Extradition Treaty

Why the US-UK Extradition Treaty is Good Law, ConHome, September 17, 2012. "Hard cases make bad law, the saying goes, and some of the cases that have attracted British attention – and condemnation -- to the 2003 Extradition Treaty between the U.S. and Great Britain are indeed hard. But not all of them are. Indeed, most extraditions from Britain to the U.S. – and all of them from the U.S. to Britain – excite no public controversy at all. The Treaty deserves more than to be condemned by anecdote; it deserves to be examined on its merits."

Arms Control and the Need for Verification

Missing the Point on Arms Control, Contentions, September 13, 2012. "Over the last several weeks, Rose Gottemoeller, the Acting Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, has given speeches in Stockholm and Helsinki that, while focusing on Europe, set out the Administration’s broader philosophy on arms control and verification. This philosophy is profoundly misguided."

Stolen Valor and the Origin of the 'Crazy Vet'

Re: The ‘Crazed Veteran’, Contentions, September 13, 2012. "The virtue of Stolen Valor is the way that it methodically and systemically uses documents obtained by Freedom of Information Act requests to reveal fraud after fraud, fake after fake, and lie after lie from supposedly traumatized veterans who in reality rarely even served in the military or saw combat at all."

The EU's Explicitly Elite Approach

The EU’s Pursuit of Stability Über Alles, Contentions, September 12, 2012. "The EU turned from an instrument for restoring a degree of stability to one dedicated to the preservation of the status quo. That approach – and Dalrymple is absolutely right about this – is bound to fail. It means the EU, which still talks a lot about increasing Europe’s power in the world, is more interested in pursuing policies which guarantee Europe’s continued relative decline. It also means that the reality of German dominance of the EU – politics win in the short run, but economics win in the long haul – is becoming ever more obvious to most Europeans, which is one reason why the EU is less popular now than ever."

UN Programme of Action Lives On

U.N. ‘Programme of Action’ Does Little Damage, So Far, Heritage Foundation Foundry, September 11, 2012. "The 2012 Review Conference for the U.N.’s “Programme of Action to Prevent, Combat, and Eradicate the Illicit Trade in Small Arms and Light Weapons in All Its Aspects” (PoA), concluded with a consensus agreement on Friday. The agreement continued the PoA’s track record of over-promising and under-delivering, but, in the context of the PoA, that is about the best outcome the U.S. could realistically have achieved."

The PoA --Time for the US to Quit This Farce

U.S. Should Quit U.N.’s ‘Programme of Action’, Heritage Foundation Foundry, September 4, 2012. "So let’s sum up: The PoA has achieved little of use, has a constantly expanding agenda, promotes restricting civilian firearms ownership, and seeks to advance this agenda by the slow elaboration of international norms. It is high time for the U.S. to quit this farce."

Defending the US-UK Extradition Treaty

The U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty: Fair, Balanced, and Worth Defending, with Andrew Robert James Southam, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2723, September 4, 2012. "The 2003 Extradition Treaty between the United States and Great Britain is intensely controversial in the United Kingdom. The treaty resulted from a British process and is a modern and praiseworthy approach to extradition that is based on an objective evidentiary test, requires dual criminality in all cases, and has a proportionality standard. The European Union’s European Arrest Warrant does not have these virtues and therefore urgently needs reform, as does Britain’s participation in the Council of Europe’s European Convention on Extradition and acceptance of the jurisdiction of the supranational European Court of Human Rights. While Anglo–American cooperation on the treaty and on extradition and international criminal justice can be improved, the 2003 U.S.–U.K. Extradition Treaty is fair, balanced, and worth defending."

U.S. Campaign All Tied Up WIth Somewhere To Go

"Even Money and Media Can't Bring This Election to Life," Yorkshire Post, August 31, 2012, not available online. "The U.S. campaign seems to be a race that no one can win. But it isn’t for lack of trying. The British media report obsessively on the U.S. campaign, but they can’t convey its curious lack of momentum. President Obama has a lead of a single point over Mitt Romney in the latest poll of polls, but both candidates are trapped in a narrow range."

The Programme of Action is Ineffective and Dangerous

The U.S. Should Withdraw from the U.N.’s ‘Programme of Action’ on Small Arms, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3714, August 31, 2012. "The PoA contains a range of commitments on which participating nations have agreed to report biennially. It is not a treaty process: it is, in theory, a mechanism for encouraging voluntary cooperation. In practice, it has achieved little. On August 29, the U.N. released its International Small Arms Control Standards (ISACS), which epitomizes the PoA’s promotion of gun control norms. Since the PoA is ineffective and seeks to constrain freedoms protected by the Constitution, the time has come for the U.S. to withdraw from it."

Did US Arms Sales Really Triple in a Year?

Iran Drives Spike in US Arms Sales, Contentions, August 28, 2012. "The New York Times’ Thom Shanker cites a new Congressional Research Service report to make the startling claim that “weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high” of $66.3 billion, an “extraordinary increase” from 2010’s total of $21.4 billion and one that represents “three-quarters of the global arms market.” The full report, by Richard Grimmett and Paul Kerr, is available here. While the dollar figures that Shanker cites are accurate, the context he provides is not."

The Superstitions of Academic Freedom

Ayn Rand and the Academy, Contentions, August 28, 2012. "The most stifling part of the ivory tower atmosphere is not the way it turns some authors into nonpersons. It’s the tedious artistry inherent in the way smart people write on interesting subjects only to serve the agenda of snipping at conservatives."

Washington Post Credulity on China's Arms Exports

China’s Arms Exports Aren’t Mistakes, Contentions, August 28, 2012. "Colum Lynch had an interesting feature on China’s arms exports to sub-Saharan Africa in the Washington Post this weekend. His premise was that, while China does all it can to prevent this trade from becoming public knowledge, it is conducted without the approval of China’s diplomats. This may in some cases be true: the Chinese Foreign Ministry may not know about China’s exports of incendiary cartridges. But that just sums up the problem, which is that China is not a nation governed by law. Expecting it to have regular, lawful processes is quite beside the point."

Stopping the Arms Trade Treaty, Again

U.S. Should Act to Stop Renewed Rush to Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation issue Brief #3690, August 2, 2012. "The U.N. negotiating conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) ended on July 27 without reaching consensus on a treaty, but the ATT is far from dead. The conference was only one step in the process. When the U.N. General Assembly (GA) meets in September, it will have before it the report of the negotiating conference and the draft treaty text. The ATT’s proponents plan to vote it through the GA. The U.S. should act now to stop this renewed rush to adopt the ATT."

A Few Reasons Why the ATT Conference Failed

True Belief and True Failure at the United Nations, The Commentator, July 30, 2012. "What was missing was people who knew what they were doing. The ATT was never about banning; it was about regulating, a far more complex activity. And since far too many nations lack the administrative capacity to control their borders, they also lack the ability to negotiate a treaty controlling the arms trade."

On the ATT, the End of the Beginning

The End of the U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty – For Now, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 30, 2012. "In other words, this is not the end of the process. It is the end of a phase. No one who was concerned about the ATT should be under any illusions that this is more than a tactical defeat for the treaty—or the U.N.’s broader program, of which the ATT is only a part."

The Problem of the A/B Treaty

The Meme of the ‘Weak’ Arms Trade Treaty, The Commentator, July 27, 2012. "WhatI find even more difficult to understand is the idea that the current treaty draft is somehow particularly weak. Of course the current draft would do nothing to stop Russia from arming Syria. But even if the NGOs got everything they want, that treaty would not stop Russia either. The error of the treaty’s supporters is this – they believe that better-drafted laws stop crime. Wrong. Cops on the beat stop crime. You can have the best-written laws in the world, but without enforcement, the law is merely words."

Britain, the Small Island: A Case of Rhetorical Abuse

The Rise of Euroscepticism and the Misuse of British Rhetoric, Centre for Policy Studies, July 27, 2012. "The real irony is this: back in the 1960s, the idea that Britain’s economic future lay in Europe, not the Commonwealth, seemed like a good bet. But those anachronistic imperialists may have been wiser in the long run. The idea of a Commonwealth economic union, true, is still a non-starter, but the thought that Britain has more to gain by focusing on the growing world outside Europe, rather than the shrinking economies inside it, now looks sensible. It’s a strange day when David Cameron channels Lord Beaverbrook to argue the case for Europe, and an even stranger one when the argument Beaverbrook was actually making looks better than the Prime Minister’s."

Reactions to the ATT's Second Draft

U.N. Negotiations on Arms Trade Treaty Near End, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 27, 2012. "The U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) conference released a second draft text late in the afternoon on Thursday. After initial reactions from states, the questions still at issue came into focus."

In the American Campaign, The Delicate Balance Against Freedom

"The Fight for Freedom Cannot Be Outsourced," Yorkshire Post, July 27, 2012. Not available online. "What we need in the U.S. is not an anti-business agenda. Nor is it a pro-business agenda. Backing business is not the same as supporting the free market, and top-down decisions by a few are no more efficient, and less moral, than decisions by the many. Outsourcing, giving back, and infrastructure are all distractions: what we need are voices across the political spectrum speaking up for freedom."

How to Solve the Crime Problem: Ban It!

The United Nations Drafts a Law Banning Crime, National Review Online, July 25, 2012. "If the nations of the world wanted higher standards on their arms imports and exports, they could have them today. If they wanted to respect U.N. Security Council sanctions and embargos, they could do so today. But they don’t, and they don’t. In spite of the complexities of drafting a text that satisfies everyone’s hypocrisy, the July conference may end up producing a treaty. But it won’t matter to the people of Syria or Somalia — never mind Iran or North Korea. And it won’t stop the NGOs from blaming the U.S. and, sooner or later, demanding yet another treaty. The only thing it will do is give Harold Koh a bit more to chew on, and add another layer of legal complexity to U.S. commercial interests and foreign and security policy. At the U.N., they call that a good day’s work."

The ATT Will Become A Zombie Treaty

, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 25, 2012. "The outcome of the U.N. Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is still uncertain, but one thing’s for sure: The ATT is not going to go away."

Treaty 401

Arms Trade Treaty: Media Need an Advanced Class on Treaties, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 24, 2012. "In answering media questions on the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), I have found that hosts frequently state, as a matter of fact, that treaties require a two-thirds Senate majority, and if they don’t get it, they have no legal effect. Like all things, it’s not that simple. Here’s a short primer on when and how treaties can have legal effect."

Problems with the Next to Final ATT Draft

Reaction to the Latest Draft of the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 24, 2012. "In early July, I spent two weeks at the U.N. conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The conference ends on July 27, and I’m back for this final week. The president of the U.N. conference on the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) has just released a draft treaty text. Here is a quick reaction to it."

The ATT's Fundamental Flaws

Five Fundamental Flaws in the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 23, 2012. "The overwhelming majority of commentary in the United States on the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) has focused on the possible risks it poses to rights protected under the Second Amendment. There is nothing wrong with being watchful on this front, but the ATT raises broader concerns for U.S. foreign policy. Indeed, the ATT is inherently flawed simply because of the beliefs on which it is based and the process by which it is being drafted. Here are five reasons why."

The US, Britain, and the Security of the 2012 Olympic Games

U.S. Should Assist Britain in Meeting Security Threats to the 2012 London Olympic Games, with Steven Bucci, Luke Coffey, Jessica Zuckerman, and Robin Simcox, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2711, July 16, 2012. "The 2012 Summer Olympic Games and the Paralympics will be held from late July through early September in London. They are an obvious target for attacks by radical Islamist terrorists, as well as anti-capitalist anarchists, supporters of various national causes, and other groups. Britain is one of the world’s most experienced and capable practitioners of counterterrorism, and though the threats to the Summer Games are serious, Britain is well-placed to cope with them. But the scale of the threat and the strain that they will place on Britain’s armed forces mean that the U.S. can and should provide supporting assistance to British authorities."

The UN, Gun-Grabber?

Can the U.N. Grab Americans’ Guns?, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 13, 2012. "For much of the past two weeks, I’ve been attending the U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty conference in New York and blogging on the craziness of Turtle Bay. A number of comments on my blog—and of course many external commentators—have raised the question of whether the ATT is, pure and simple, a “gun grab” treaty."

My Statement to the UN ATT Conference

Heritage Analyst Speaks to U.N. Arms Trade Treaty Conference, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 11, 2012. "I hope the democracies at this conference will reject the naive beliefs on which the ATT is founded and instead craft a treaty that recognizes that abuses in the arms trade stem ultimately from the member states of the United Nations itself."

The Administration Is Wrong: ATT's Criteria Are Not Ours

The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty’s Criteria for Transfers Pose Problems for the U.S., Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2706, July 9, 2012. "The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is being negotiated in July. The framework on which the ATT is likely to be based is clear: it will set out criteria that signatories must apply to proposed arms transfers, and require them to decide if the proposed transfer poses a risk under any of the criteria. This approach is troubling in part because the criteria are likely to be ill-defined. It is also troubling because the ATT’s ‘checklist’ model differs fundamentally from the ‘guidance’ model the U.S. currently employs. Worst of all, though, is the fact that the ATT will enumerate criteria that will be easy to expand in ways that the U.S. cannot control. If the ATT is to exist, it should be based on a commitment by willing and democratic signatories to develop effective systems of border and export control."

UN ATT Conference: First Week Roundup

A First-Week Roundup from the U.N.’s Arms Trade Treaty Conference, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 9, 2012. "My own view is that the conference is likely to produce a treaty. But it’s quite clear that all the treaties in the world cannot come close to making up for the insincerity, the incapacity, and a few actually honest differences of opinion on display daily at the United Nations."

UN ATT Conference, Day Four: Venezuela Wins!

Day Four: As ATT Conference Work Begins, Venezuela Wins the Crazy Prize, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 6, 2012. "In previous sessions, Cuba, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia had all put in strong showings with speeches that were unprincipled and autocrat-friendly, but when it came to crazy, Venezuela lapped the field with a speech that will be tough to beat. In a lengthy rant attacking the “maturity” of the assembled nations, it denounced the “imperial powers” for arming the Libyan rebels who overthrew Muammar Qadhafi, demanded that the world look seriously at controlling the “imperialists” (i.e., the U.S.) who had nuclear weapons, condemned foreign aid providers for insisting on the “downsizing” of governments, and stated that it needed arms to deal with internal threats (i.e., to continue to oppress its own population."

UN ATT Conference, Day Three, Part Two: The US Speaks

Day Three: At the Arms Trade Treaty Conference, the U.S. Speaks, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 6, 2012. "The U.S. and the rest of the P5 want an ATT that is based fundamentally on “effective systems [of national control] based on common international standards,” with authority for approving transfers remaining the right and responsibility of sovereign nations. The scope of the treaty should be as broad as possible—so long as it is practical. An Implementation Support Unit in the U.N. “could” be created to facilitate information exchange, match needs for foreign aid with those supplying it, and “promote the value” of the ATT."

UN ATT Conference, Day Three: The Supervillains Attack!

Day Three: At the ATT, the International League of Supervillains Speaks, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 5, 2012. "Immediately, the objections from the International League of Supervillains came fast and furious: from Iran (which complained about visa issues and opposed having meetings in parallel), Algeria (which argued that the purpose of the treaty was unclear and could not understand why so many draft treaty texts were circulating), Cuba (which wanted agreement on treaty objectives but objected to having any meetings in parallel), and Syria (which, in distracted and rambling remarks, said the same thing)."

UN ATT Conference, Day Two: More Palestinians

Day Two: Palestinian Issue Continues to Vex Arms Trade Treaty Conference, Heritage Foundation Foundry, July 5, 2012. "By agreeing to treat the Holy See and the Palestinians as equivalents at the ATT conference, the U.S. has given tacit support to a future Palestinian bid for non-member state observer status. It is unlikely that maintaining a U.S. presence in the room is worth giving the Palestinians this benefit, especially since the final treaty is almost certainly to be ineffective at best, counterproductive at worst."

UN ATT Conference, Day One: Palestinians

Day One: At Arms Trade Treaty Conference, U.S. Opposes Palestinian Inclusion, Heritage Foundry Foundry, July 3, 3012. "The much-heralded United Nations conference to negotiate the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) launched with a media and propaganda blitz, but the reality on the ground was less impressive. Not only did the conference achieve nothing in its first day, but it never got started. By closing time at 6 p.m.—U.N. translators don’t do overtime, so U.N. events end on time—the best the assembled nations could do was to agree to meet again at 10 a.m. on Tuesday in an effort to get the conference launched."

The UN Steps on Its Shoelaces

The U.N. Speaks: The Arms Trade Treaty Will Affect ‘Legally Owned Weapons', Heritage Foundation Foundry, June, 22, 2012. "Yesterday, the U.N. released its press kit for the July conference that will finalize the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT). The most interesting item in the kit is a lengthy paper by the U.N.’s Coordinating Action on Small Arms (CASA) program titled “The Impact of Poorly Regulated Arms Transfers on the Work of the UN.” This paper perpetuates the belief, on which much of the ATT is based, that the big problem the world faces is a lack of agreed standards on arms transfers. That’s wrong: The big problem the world faces in this regard is that many U.N. member states are dictatorships, supporters of terrorists, or simply incapable of controlling their own borders."

Sen. Moran's Leadership on ATT

Senator Moran Speaks at Heritage on the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Foundry, June 21, 2012. "Yesterday, Senator Jerry Moran (R–KS) gave an important speech at The Heritage Foundation on the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), negotiations on which will open on July 2 in New York. Through letters to the Administration, legislation, and amendments, Moran has played the leading role in seeking to ensure, with his colleagues in both parties, that the ATT does not infringe on rights protected under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Moran made a valuable contribution by pointing out that concerns about the ATT should not focus only on the Second Amendment. As he noted, the ATT will apply equally to dictatorships and democracies, a dangerous idea that implies that dictatorships have the same right to buy and sell weapons that democracies do. But in the context of the Second Amendment, the Senator noted that we should not be content with the Administration’s pledge not to negotiate a treaty that infringes on our rights. That is a step forward, but it is not enough. The Senator then set out four criteria that would put flesh on the bones of that pledge."

Thirty Year On, Lessons from the Falklands

Falklands War: Lessons of Liberation Ring True for U.S. Today, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3639, June 14, 2012. "The Falklands War illustrates the fundamental point that, in international affairs, one should always treat one’s friends better than anyone else. But it also offers a number of lessons for America as it struggles to avoid the devastating effects of defense sequestration and to maintain a military that provides for the common defense."

No Responsibility Here!

Out of Touch and Out of Favor . . . U.S. Voters Turn Their Backs on Obama’s World in Washington, Yorkshire Post, June 8, 2012. "Washington inherently likes nothing better than spending other people’s money. That’s why it’s so regularly out of touch. The President has spent four years cheerleading big government. He’s not the only one suffering from that, but whether he likes it or not, he personifies Washington. And in November, Washington’s irresponsibility could end up being a very big story indeed."

The ATT Will Be Bad for the US-Taiwan Alliance

Arms Trade Treaty Could Jeopardize U.S. Ability to Provide for Taiwan’s Defense, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3634, June 8, 2012. "The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) will be negotiated in July in New York. One reason to be concerned about the ATT is the risks that it poses to America’s ability to sell arms to Taiwan. The U.S. is legally—as well as strategically and morally—obliged to provide for Taiwan’s defense. It should neither sign nor ratify a treaty that would increase the difficulty of meeting that commitment."

Terrorist Legitimation, UN-Style

Arms Trade Treaty Risks Increasing the Threat of Armed Terrorism, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3624, June 5, 2012. "The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) will be negotiated at a conference held July 2–27, in New York. The ATT purports to seek, in part, to reduce the ability of terrorists to acquire conventional weapons. But as the U.N. has not defined terrorism, it is at best unclear how the ATT will achieve this aim. Moreover, if the U.N. negotiations follow precedent, the ATT will include a clause that legitimates the supply of arms to terrorists."

A Classic Aspirational Treaty

The Risks the Arms Trade Treaty Poses to the Sovereignty of the United States, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3622, June 4, 2012. "The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) will be negotiated in July in New York. One reason to be concerned about the ATT is the risks it poses to U.S. sovereignty. Some of these risks are specific to the ATT, but the fundamental problem with the ATT is that it is an aspirational treaty and, as such, will impose constraints on the U.S. that will not in practice affect the dictatorial regimes at which the treaty is nominally aimed."

The Coming Anti-American Campaign

When the UN Arms Trade Treaty Fails, What Next?, The Commentator, May 31, 2012. "So what happens when the Treaty doesn’t work? You can bet that the ATT’s proponents aren’t going to accept that they were wrong. They’ll do three things. First, they’ll blame the U.S. (and Britain, but mostly the U.S.) for the Treaty’s failure. Second, they’ll argue – no matter who is actually doing the arms supplying, and to what conflict – that the U.S. and Britain are ‘setting a bad example’ by engaging in even the well-regulated sale of arms to fellow democracies. Third, they’ll assert that the treaty needs to be tightened up, and its review conferences will be an occasion for running battles between countries that are easily swayed by left-wing NGOs and British and American diplomats who don’t want to double down on failure."

Too Much Is Never Enough, Apparently

A Bottom Up Look at the Top Down, Centre for Policy Studies, May 30, 2012. "If you believe that it is not possible to demonstrate that any particular level of taxation, welfare spending, or redistributive policies are economically counter-productive, and if you are in principle in favor of these things, then when do you say “enough,” and why do you decide to say it? A reliable way to get liberals excited is to say that they’re socialists. Fine, they’re not. But if Britain – where the government currently spends 50 percent of the nation’s GDP – is not verifiably well past the point of diminishing returns on state spending, where does that point lie? Is it 60 percent? 70 percent? 99 percent? If neither evidence nor principle tells you when to stop – and to go into reverse – then what does? At what point does the distinction between a really big government and socialism become irrelevant?

Bigger, But Not Better

From Britain, More Evidence That Smaller Government Is Better Government, Heritage Foundation Foundry, May 29, 2012. "The past week has seen the publication of two important studies on the virtues of smaller government by our friends in the United Kingdom. Neither paper is short, and both are technical in places, but they are both analytically careful and important contributions to the most important debate of our time, over when government grows so large that it becomes incompatible with the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

The Economist's Curious Views on Unions

Britain, Europe, Scotland – and the Economist, SAIS Review, May 7, 2012. "No policy can contribute to solving every problem, as E.E.C. membership claimed to do, and policies that pretend to do so are answers in search of a question. Arguments about Britain’s European destiny are so much fluff: there is no end of history, and if there is, the EU is not it."

Obama's No Shoo-In

"Obama Must Not Celebrate Yet As US Voters Look For More Than Likeability in White House Race," Yorkshire Post, May 4, 2012. Not available online. "When I was in London last month, everyone agreed on two things: David Cameron is doing badly, and Barack Obama is doing well. So well, in fact, that Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican nominee, has no chance at all to win in November. The only question in the British mind appears to be about Obama’s margin of victory."

Extremism: A Classic Irregular Verb

Are Republicans Crazy?, The Commentator, May 2, 2012. "My own view is that error and unreason are widely distributed across humanity, and any reasonably-sized group of people is likely to contain a similar amount of both. To an extent, that’s one reason I’m conservative: since people (including the very educated) are likely to get it wrong most of the time, I think it’s prudent to keep government as small as possible so as to limit its opportunities for inflicting damage. On the other hand, so much contemporary liberalism – dating back to the Progressives of the late-nineteenth century – is based on the idea that while the people are dopes, the elites are wise."

American Conservatives and the Constitutional Order

Limitless Liberalism, Centre for Policy Studies, May 2, 2012. "One of the subjects I found the least understanding about in Britain – though not, I hasten to add, in the Centre – is the connection that American conservatives draw between constitutional and limited government, American exceptionalism, and their discomfort with both the American Progressivism and the Obama administration. A common motif in press comment in Britain (and in the U.S.) is that Republicans or conservatives – the mash-up of the two is revealing, if incorrect – are simply unreasonable, petulant, and extreme. That charge is false, but it is a very old one, and it reveals something about the nature of the fundamental conflict in the U.S. political system."

Risks to Second Amendment from ATT

American Rights Need American Defenders, Hays Daily News, Kansas, March 30, 2012. "Is the Arms Trade Treaty about a U.N. army coming to take away our guns? That’s crazy. But this is a pro gun-control administration, negotiating at the pro gun-control U.N. with countries that have no Second Amendment. A treaty could fall far short of gun confiscation and still restrict our freedoms."

The Tappin Case, Round Two

Answers to Questions on the Tappin Extradition Case, The Commentator, March 22, 2012. "A few weeks ago, I wrote an article on extradition from the United Kingdom to the U.S., inspired by the furor over the case of Christopher Tappin. The gist of the article was that the U.K. wanted the 2003 U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty and the accompanying and broader Extradition Act of 2003, that the claims made about the unfairness of the Treaty are false, and that Ministers in Her Majesty’s Government should have the courage to say so. These are not popular views, in large part because they are rarely if ever expressed in Britain. So in the spirit of encouraging debate, I’ll return to the question, and present some new documents that critics of the Tappin case should read."

Establish U.S. Red Lines on ATT

U.S. Needs Red Lines for Arms Trade Treaty Negotiations, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3548, March 22, 2012. "The final Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in February decided that, in preparation for the July 2–27 conference in New York that will finalize the ATT, U.N. member states should by March 31 submit short statements on the provisions that they believe should define any ATT. The U.S. should use this opportunity to establish firm red lines for the July conference and to make it clear that it will reject an unacceptable ATT that originates in either the July conference or in any other venue."

Unacceptable Ambivalance on Falklands

Obama’s Private Assurances on Falklands Not Good Enough, Contentions, March 18, 2012. "Until I hear President Obama state, on the record and publicly, that the U.S. sees no reason for negotiations over the Islands because it recognizes British sovereignty over them, I am going to take this brief, private interchange reported at second hand for what it is worth: not very much at all."

Two Lightweights Prop Each Other Up

"United By Appearance Not Substance," Yorkshire Post, March 17, 2012. Reviewing the March 2012 Obama-Cameron Summit. Not available online. "Palling around with Obama is part of that policy of appearances, of winning credibility by association. It is a strange fate for Cameron, who made waves in 2006 with his call for a Britain that was “solid but not slavish” in friendship with America. But in 2012, Britain is short on friends. The much-touted revival of Commonwealth ties has fallen flat, and the very idea of drawing closer to Europe is profoundly unpopular, not to mention economically suicidal."

Two Terrible Speeches

Why Writes This Stuff?, Contentions, March 15, 2012. "Look – writing welcoming remarks must be a tedious job, and I wouldn’t like to do it for anything. But would it be too much to ask that his speechwriters avoid obvious solecisms? If you’re going to use the tired ‘the British burned the White House’ joke, don’t follow it up, two paragraphs later, with the claim that “through the grand sweep of history, through all its twists and turns, there is one constant – the rock-solid alliance between the United States and the United Kingdom.” So, except for the whole burning thing, it’s a constant?"

What the Summit Should Have Done

At Obama-Cameron Summit, U.S. and Britain Should Take Action to Rebuild Alliance, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3533, March 8, 2012. "The U.S. and Britain face a number of serious issues at home and abroad. But the most important need is for the U.S. to demonstrate that Europe matters, that the institutions of the EU are no substitute for—and are in fact inferior to—the legitimacy of democratic and sovereign European nations, and that, instead of seeking to reset relations with autocracies like Russia, it will give the highest consideration to the concerns of its allies. The U.S. and Britain are close enough and important enough to each other to disagree on occasion, as they have in the past. But if Britain decides to continue the downgrading of its security role or the U.S. continues to care less about transatlantic security and political cooperation, the problem will not be an Anglo-American disagreement. It will be the slow disappearance of the Special Relationship."

Why Your Cell Phone Doesn't Work

Big Government and the Spectrum Problem, Contentions, March 8, 2012. "Larry Downes has a remarkable column on CNET news about the shortage of spectrum for use by mobile broadband. It is a catalog of government ineptitude, incompetence, regulatory capture, and short-sightedness."

The No Good, Very Bad Ike Memorial

Ordered Liberty and Controlled Chaos, Contentions, March 7, 2012. "Gehry’s philosophy of design reminds me of my encounters with deconstructionist theory in graduate school: disorienting, until you realize that the point of the enterprise is not to convey meaning but to smash it, while all the while assuming a pose of ironic, superior, unsmashed detachment in order to win immunity from criticism. Gehry’s leitmotif is that “life is chaotic, dangerous, and surprising,” democracy is either chaos or at best “controlled chaos,” and so buildings should be chaotic as well. This is the kind of thing that sounds well until you think about it for five seconds. Modern democracies are in fact the most unchaotic, predictable, secure societies in the history of the world – the only way they look chaotic is next to the Garden of Eden, or the paradise of the planner."

Here's One Thing You Missed: The Cuts Don't Exist

Britain Shows No Sign of Shaking Addiction to Debt, Taxes and Regulations, Contentions, March 7, 2012. "With British Prime Minister David Cameron’s state visit impending next week, we can expect to hear a good deal about – though see nothing very much done about – Afghanistan, the NATO Summit, Libya, and Syria, But we’re also likely to get a smattering of commentary about Britain’s parlous fiscal position. If we’re lucky, the media will talk about “Tory spending cuts.” If we’re really lucky, they’ll call them “savage.” Writ large, it’s useful to remember one thing about these spending cuts: they don’t exist."

The Tappin Extradition Case

A Few Home Truths About Extradition from the United Kingdom, The Commentator, March 2, 2012. "As Mr. Grieve has conceded in one of his more sensible reflections, the Tappin case is controversial because Mr. Tappin appears to be an eminently respectable man. Unfortunately, it is possible for a man to appear to be respectable, and even to be the President of the Kent Golf Union, and still to be creditably accused of a serious crime. If Mr. Tappin is found innocent, there will be no public outcry in the U.S. But if the U.S. trial proceeds fairly – as I believe it will – and especially if he is found guilty, I trust there will be public and government recognition in Britain that the critics were wrong, and that the extradition system – and the American system – works."

Are Ron Paul's Supporters 'Right-Wingers'?

Democrats, Republicans, and Ron Paul, Centre for Policy Studies, March 2, 2012. "What is just as interesting is that the less well-off, less-educated, the less-religious, the young, and the unmarried, most of whom normally lean Democratic, are this time out going disproportionately (though not in large numbers) for Paul. It is an open question whether that trend is best described as reshaping the Republican Party by bringing new voters in, reshaping the Democratic Party by leading traditional voters out, or as the action of voters fundamentally unaffiliated with either party – and, absent Paul, likely to back neither.

European Integration As Means, Not Ends

Five Conservative Principles That Should Guide U.S. Policy on Europe, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3524, March 1, 2012. "A strong transatlantic alliance should be at the heart of U.S. foreign policy. Washington should reinvigorate partnerships with America’s key friends and allies in Europe. It should adopt policies that advance national sovereignty and economic freedom across the Atlantic, rather than subvert them."

What The US Must Do Now About the ATT

U.S. Must Stand Its Ground on U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3513, February 21, 2012. "The final Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) was held last week. The purpose of this PrepCom was to adopt rules of procedure for the U.N. Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, which will be held in New York July 2–27. This conference is intended to complete the negotiation of the ATT and thus open the treaty for signature and ratification. The outcome of the PrepCom makes it even more vital for the U.S. to establish its red lines and stand its ground before and during the July conference."

Consensus and Transparency Dominate Final ATT PrepCom

U.S. Must Address Critical Questions at Final Preparatory Committee on U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #3500, February 13, 2012. "The final Preparatory Committee (PrepCom) for the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) will be held on February 13-17. The purpose of this PrepCom is to determine the rules of procedure for the U.N. Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty, which will be held in New York from July 2-27. This Conference is intended to complete the negotiation of the ATT, and thus open the treaty for signature and ratification. At the final PrepCom, the U.S. must address critical questions about the rules of procedure that will shape the outcome of the July conference."

Obama's Dirty Trick on UK Defense Strategy

Obama Retreats from Old Military Alliances, Yorkshire Post, February 10, 2012. "For the first time since the mid-1950s, Britain has a defense strategy that fails to mesh with America’s: it is best able to wage the kind of wars that the U.S. says it no longer cares to fight. The sad, sudden American retreat has badly dented the basis of Britain’s defense planning, and served a much wider notice that the U.S. would prefer to spend more on welfare and less on warfare. Unfortunately, its enemies are unlikely to share those priorities."

Syria Shows Obama Doctrine (In)action

Syria: A Perfect Illustration of the Obama Doctrine’s Failure, Centre for Policy Studies, February 9, 2012. "Obama has little to gain by putting foreign policy on the front pages and, it would appear, little desire to put them front and center either. He needs only to do just enough -- in the form of speeches, symbolic actions, gestures to the left, and not very covert military operations -- to neutralize the charge that he’s not interested in American leadership. Syria testifies to the fact that the dreams of his early administration have comprehensively failed, and that he’s now relying on ad hoc approaches. True, all foreign policy is to an extent improvisation, but great improvisers work off the melody. Right now, the Obama Doctrine is a discordant mess."

On the 2012 SOTU

American Leadership AWOL Again, Heritage Foundation Foundry, January 24, 2012. "The President’s remarks in his State of the Union Address on foreign policy were formulaic. This Address was about domestic policy and, ultimately, about the 2012 election, which the President clearly believes will be won or lost on the basis of his record at home. Unfortunately, that does not absolve him of his responsibility to do more than slot token references on events abroad into his remarks."

On Tevi Troy's Article on Think Tanks

A View of Think-Tanks from America, Centre for Policy Studies, January 23, 2012. "Working as I do at the Heritage Foundation, and writing for the Centre for Policy Studies, may put me in danger of mistaking the trees for the forest. Still, British readers should check out Tevi Troy’s article “Devaluing the Think Tank,” in the latest issue of National Affairs, available free online. Troy’s claim is that U.S. think tanks play “a central role in policy development,” but that, “while most think tanks continue to serve as homes for some academic-style scholarship regarding public policy, many have also come to play more active (if informal) roles in politics." "

A Case Study of Media Error (Or Bias)

Politifact’s Pants on Fire, Contentions, January 20, 2012. "I’ve worked with PolitiFact before, and while I’ve not agreed with previous pieces, they were at least defensible. What it comes down to is that Romney’s claim is factually correct, but assessing the context would require a book-length analysis that would be subject to a wide amount of legitimate dispute over many factors, some of them fundamentally unknowable. Even if applied earnestly and knowledgeably, fact-checking is terrible at assessing this kind of context, precisely because the facts are not known: it’s why Churchill described strategic leadership as an art, not a science. Fact-checkers would have a better sense of their potential contributions and limits if they bore Churchill’s wisdom in mind, and recognized that checking facts is not the same thing as criticizing art."

Reviewing "The Iron Lady"

'Iron Lady' Bias Can't Diminish Thatcher, Contentions, January 18, 2012. "The Iron Lady is not a particularly good movie. In structure and feel, it’s much more a one-woman play than it is a film. But on the screen it’s a success nonetheless, if only because, perhaps without meaning to, it displays conviction politics in their purest, most elemental, and most attractive form."

Economic Freedom Means More Than Austerity

In Europe, Reducing Spending Necessary, But Not Sufficient, To Restore Economic Freedom, Heritage Foundation Foundry, January 17, 2012. "If the 2012 edition of Heritage’s Index of Economic Freedom has bad news for the United States, the news for Europe is not much better. The 43 nations of the European region did manage to lose less economic freedom than did the United States, but a decline is still a decline. And the European decline was broad-based: Only nine countries made gains, and every one of the top 10 declined—in some cases, dramatically. The underlying driver of the declines in many cases will come as no surprise: higher levels of government spending."

Morning Bell on the Iron lady

Morning Bell" The Real 'Iron Lady', Heritage Foundation Foundry, January 11, 2012. "Tomorrow brings the nationwide release of The Iron Lady, starring Meryl Streep as Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Streep referred to the challenge of portraying Lady Thatcher as “daunting and exciting,” and as requiring “as much zeal, fervour and attention to detail as the real Lady Thatcher possesses.” Her performance has already been widely praised by critics, but for those who respect Lady Thatcher, not all the omens are positive. In an interview, Streep compared Lady Thatcher to King Lear and commented that what interested her about the role “was the part of someone who does monstrous things maybe, or misguided things. Where do they come from?” That doesn’t sound good."

University Travel and Totalitarians

Blue State Travel to Cuba, Contentions, January 3, 2012. "A friend has forwarded me a solicitation from the University of Michigan’s Alumni Association to join them on a “Cultural Connection” visit to Cuba. It is a depressing piece of moral blindness. For $3,845, Wolverines can enjoy an eight day trip, complete with “a visit to a local health clinic” to “learn about socialized medicine and the delivery of social services in Cuba,” a trip to an art institute to “compare and contrast the role of the arts in Cuba and the United States” and “identify any differences in the opportunities for artistic expression,” and a “substantive discussion” with the management team of a dance company to explore “the political and financial challenges they face” (i.e. the U.S. embargo) in exporting Cuban dance culture. There is a good deal more in the same vein, including a visit to the Museum of the Revolution and dinner at the Restaurante Vieja Havana, “formerly the American Club,” but you get the picture. It would be pleasant if moral blindness was all that was involved here, but sadly, it’s not."