NDAA 2024 - Treaties, Interpol, and Taiwain

NDAA 2024: Increasing the Readiness of the U.S. Military, edited by Maiya Clark, Heritage Foundation Special Report #269, March 22, 2023,sections 64-66. "Congress should condemn the Attorney General and the Secretary of State for refusing to publish a substantive report in compliance with Section 6503 of the FY 2022 NDAA. It should reiterate its request for such a report, this time requiring that the report draw on all available public evidence, including that already published by the State Department, and state that it will respond with hearings to any failure to produce a substantive report."

Leftists and the PRC, Together in the ATT

How Progressives Enable China’s Exploitation of the Arms Trade Treaty, with former Heritage intern Sterling Mosley, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3746, January 30, 2023. "While achieving greater transparency in the arms trade is sensible in theory, the ATT has neither promoted meaningful transparency nor prevented nations from supplying regimes with arms to commit crimes against humanity. The treaty has only hampered Western democracies. China only signed the ATT at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic in an effort to save face. Since signing, China has continued to export conventional weapons to repressive dictatorships.Revealingly, after China signed the treaty it joined the progressive supporters of the ATT—from governments to politicians to media to nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)—by criticizing the U.S. for refusing to follow suit. China’s participation in the treaty is mere window-dressing, and the ATT’s supporters are complicit in ignoring China’s violations. These failures demonstrate again that the ATT is merely a political weapon aimed at the U.S. and its allies."

Why the ATT Is A Bad Idea, Part Infinity

War in Ukraine Shows Why Arms Trade Treaty Remains Bad Idea, Daily Signal, August 24, 2022. "The nations that have signed the Arms Trade Treaty are meeting this week in Geneva. In 2016, the Obama administration took the U.S. into the treaty. In 2019, the Trump administration took us out of it. The latter decision keeps on looking better and better."

Land Mines, Clusters, ATT, and Interpol in FY2023 NDAA

How the National Defense Authorization (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2023 Should Prepare the Military for Great-Power Competition, edited by Frederico Bartels, Heritage Foundation Special Report #257, March 10, 2022, see recommendations 59 and 60.

ATT Is Bad for CATP

The Biden Administration’s Conventional Arms Transfer Policy Should Not Be Handcuffed by the Arms Trade Treaty, Hertiage Foundation Issue Brief #5235, November 1, 2021. "The Biden Administration is reviewing its Conventional Arms Transfer Policy (CATP), which governs conventional weapons export. A State Department official has indicated this review would determine “the proper relationship of the United States to the Arms Trade Treaty.” Incorporating the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in a revised CATP would be a grave error. The ATT would raise serious barriers to the conduct of U.S. foreign policy—and transform difficult questions of arms export policy into matters of law. The ATT is used solely to constrain the U.S.’s democratic allies: Most of its members do not take it seriously. The U.S. should continue to have a CATP that allows policymakers to weigh all relevant factors—not be handcuffed by the ATT."

Quit the PoA

The United States Should Withdraw from the U.N.’s Programme of Action on Small Arms, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #5040, February 20, 2020. "The last meeting of 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), held in 2018, broke a U.S. red line and violated the PoA’s own rule of working by unanimous consent. The PoA has few if any substantive achievements. The only reason for the U.S. to participate was to prevent the PoA from making bad decisions and seeking to bind the U.S. with progressive norms. Now that the PoA has abandoned the principle of unanimity that allowed the U.S. to prevent bad outcomes, there is no reason for the U.S. to continue to participate. The U.S. should therefore take no part in the June 2020 meeting of the PoA."

Surprise, Surprise, the ATT's A Failure

Even Friends of the Arms Trade Treaty Admit It’s Not Working, Daily Signal, August 30, 2019. "The nations that are party to the Arms Trade Treaty gathered for their annual meeting this week in Geneva. The United States is not there, as President Donald Trump wisely withdrew from the treaty last month. The U.S. isn’t missing much in Switzerland. Even the treaty’s friends admit it’s a failure."

Finally, We're Out

How the U.S. Should Follow Up Its Unsigning of the Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4995, August 20, 2019. "President Trump’s decision to notify the United Nations that the U.S. does not intend to become a party to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), and thereby to unsign the ATT, was proper and wise. The failure of the ATT is demonstrated by the poor track record of its states parties in fulfilling their reporting and financial requirements. The U.S. should follow up its unsigning of the ATT by putting further diplomatic pressure on the treaty and on the related network of U.N. small arms instruments."

Britain's Activist Courts and the ATT

Britain’s Foolish Advocacy of the Arms Trade Treaty Bites Back, Forbes, June 25, 2019. "The British Court of Appeal has ruled that British arms sales to Saudi Arabia are unlawful, on the grounds that British ministers had “made no concluded assessments of whether the Saudi-led coalition had committed violations of international humanitarian law in the past, during the Yemen conflict, and made no attempt to do so.” This ruling offers further proof, if any is needed at this point, that the primary – and indeed, the only – purpose of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is to constrain the Western democracies."

Bound to Vagueness

Trump’s Rejection of the Arms Trade Treaty is Based on Reality, The Hill, May 23,2019. "Why is the treaty so vague? The ATT’s negotiators wanted to get all the world’s nations on board. The only way to do this was to make the treaty as vague as possible. But treaties are contracts that bind the United States. Being bound to vagueness is inherently dangerous."

How to Keep Winning on the ATT

Key Steps for the U.S. After the Unsigning of the Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4963, May 22, 2019. "President Trump’s decision to unsign the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is legal, correct, and wise. The Administration should now take the steps necessary to make this decision fully effective. By following through at the United Nations and in the U.S. Senate, putting financial and diplomatic pressure on the ATT, and withdrawing from the U.N. network of related institutions, the U.S. can put severe pressure on this severely flawed agreement."

Neither the Power Nor the Glory

The End Of The Arms Trade Treaty, An End To Illusion, Forbes, May 7, 2019. "The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which President Donald Trump announced on April 26 that he would unsigned, is fundamentally unserious. It embodies the fantasy that the path to a better world rests in the piling up of unverifiable promises. Its illusions are a distraction from the problem it purportedly seeks to solve."

I Told You So

Reflections on President Trump’s Unsigning of the Arms Trade Treaty, Forbes, April 30, 2019. "On Friday, President Trump announced that he will unsign the Arms Trade Treaty . The reactions tell you all you need to know about the treaty and its supporters. But to me, the biggest surprise — though it shouldn’t have been a surprise— was the way that the Treaty was assumed to be beyond criticism, and obviously a good thing, merely because it’s an example of multilateral diplomacy."

Time for a Victory Lap

Trump Just Ditched A UN Arms Treaty, and He Was Right to Do It, Heritage Daily Signal, April 26, 2019. "On Friday, at the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association, President Donald Trump announced that he was un-signing the Arms Trade Treaty. As he put it, “The United Nations will soon receive a formal notice that America is rejecting this treaty.” He then pulled out a pen and, in front of the entire audience, signed a message asking the Senate to end its consideration of the treaty."

The ATF Gets Worse Under Trump

Why Is the ATF Making Secret Rules for the Firearms Industry?, "Anyone who says that the firearms industry just hates the ATF because the ATF is reining in the cowboys by private letter is, frankly, ignorant. The firearms industry is already one of the most heavily-regulated in the United States. Anyone who works in this industry and doesn’t follow the rules can get in big trouble very quickly. What the firearms industry wants is for ATF policies and interpretations to be open and transparent so as to promote an even playing field."

The Annual NDAA Blockbuster

The Role of the 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in Rebuilding the U.S. Military, contributor, Heritage Foundation Special Report #208, February 6, 2019. "The FY 2020 defense budget will be the most important defense budget of the Trump Administration. In great measure, the FY 2020 budget will determine the destiny of the military rebuild championed by President Trump and by Congress. Due to recent budget increases, the military has seen gains in readiness, but the rebuild is far from a completed task. Every service has expressed the imperative to increase in size and in capabilities in order to counter great power competition as described in the National Defense Strategy. The FY 2020 defense budget represents the fork in the road for the military rebuild and for the viability of the defense strategy. The 2020 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will be a clear signal of how Congress intends to shape the resources that will define the military’s effort and direction. In this Special Report, Heritage Foundation analysts detail 57 recommendations for Congress on how to continue the crucial rebuilding of the U.S. military through the 2020 NDAA."

What's Been Done, and Not Done, on Firearms

I Spoke with Gun Manufacturers From Across America. Their Optimism is Waning, Daily Signal, January 28, 2019. "Two years ago at the annual SHOT Show—the Shooting, Hunting, and Outdoor Trade Show, run by the National Shooting Sports Foundation—Second Amendment supporters felt optimism that the first year of the Trump administration would bring good things to firearm makers, sellers, and users. This year, there was a lot less optimism."

Order A Salad, Get The Menu

Why the Arms Trade Treaty Is No Answer for the Saudi Problem, Forbes, October 31, 2018. "As part of the reaction to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, and as part of the wider left-wing preference for siding with Iran instead of Saudi Arabia, progressives who were already thoroughly in favor of the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) are arguing that Western governments should ratify it, or uphold it, in order to cut off arms sales to the Saudis. This is a terrible argument."

The ATT Circus Leaves Town

The Annual Arms Trade Treaty Conference Sputters to a Close, Forbes, August 31, 2018. "The Conference of States Parties (CSP) to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) closed on Friday in Tokyo. This circus will come to town in Geneva again next August, but I can’t believe anyone is eager for the big top to re-open. Of all the ATT meetings I have attended since 2012, this was by far the least consequential."

A Gilded Waste of Space

This Arms Treaty Is a Pathetic Waste of US Cash. We Should Pull Out, Daily Signal, August 31, 2018. "If you were debating the arms trade, what would you want to talk about? Iran’s support for the Houthi rebels in Yemen? China’s sale of arms in Africa? How guns flow from Libya to ISIS? No, that’s boring. How about debating which bureaucrat should control the travel stipends to attend the debate? That’s the good stuff."