Hitchens, Churchill, and The Monarchy

Churchill, Edward VIII, and ‘Arms and the Covenant’, Contentions, January 26, 2011. "Christopher Hitchens doesn’t like The King’s Speech. Not because of its cinematic qualities, which he appreciates, but because of its political ones. According to him, the movie is a “a gross falsification of history” because it shows Churchill as “generally in favor of a statesmanlike solution to the crisis of the abdication” and because it neglects to portray Edward VIII as “a firm admirer of the Third Reich” and George VI as an appeaser and anti-Churchill."

Decline and Fall?

The Links Between Economic Freedom and American Leadership in International Security, Heritage Foundation Foundry, January 13, 2011. "Economic freedom is not just a pocketbook issue: it is fundamental to American security. For the sake of its leading role in the world, as well as the prosperity of its citizens, the U.S. must return to the ranks of the economically free."

The Five Myths of US Defense Spending

Demystifying Defense: Exposing Myths About US Military Expenditures, Harvard International Review, Spring 2009, Vol. 31, No. 1. "The most serious impediments to a serious discussion of defense spending are the myths that surround it. Until these myths are cleared away, no rational debate regarding what the US and its allies around the world should do to secure their interests is possible. The most urgent need, therefore, is for politicians and the public to know how much the US and other powers spend, to place these expenditures and their trends in historical context, to weigh the dangers of both excessive and insufficient defense spending, to understand why the US and the world's democracies maintain armed forces, and why the US spends so much relative to its potential adversaries. Absent this knowledge, the political process that shapes defense spending in democracies will not work effectively, and their defense will suffer. In short, for today's democracies, defense spending is not an economic problem. A people who lack the will to pay will eventually find they are a target for those who have the will to fight."