Putin's Martyr Complex and Russia's WMDs

The U.S. and Its Allies Must Understand and Respond to Russia’s Nuclear Threats, with Robert Seely PhD MP and Colonel Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #5373. "Vladimir Putin’s dreams of Ukraine re-incorporated into Russia, of breaking up NATO, and of Russia leading a global anti-Western alliance are collapsing about him. Disaster for Russia’s imploding armed forces may well await, and, eventually, Ukraine’s armed forces will likely threaten to break Russia’s land corridor linking Crimea to the Donbas. At that point, Putin will make one of the most fateful decisions of the century: to use nuclear or chemical weapons or not. The U.S. must minimize that threat and ensure the protection of the American public and of U.S. allies."

My NDAA Priorities for FY2022

Improving the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2022, edited by Frederico Bartels, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3673, December 3, 3021. "The Armed Forces are in the midst a substantial change in how they execute deterrence and prepare for war. The effort to refocus the Department of Defense on great-power competition started in earnest with the 2018 National Defense Strategy. This refocus is not a discreet event but an ongoing process that will take time and resources. The challenges to increase the size of the Navy are representative of the necessary time horizon for the other branches of the military. In this endeavor, Congress is an equal partner with the executive branch, and the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) represents a critically important opportunity to strengthen the national defense."

Interpol Priorities in 2021

Key Priorities for the U.S. at the 2021 Meeting of the Interpol General Assembly, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3664, November 1, 2021. "The 89th annual meeting of the Interpol General Assembly to be held this November 23–25 in Istanbul, Turkey, will be dominated by the election of a majority of Interpol’s Executive Committee, including a new president of Interpol, and the election of all seven members of Interpol’s appellate body, the Commission for the Control of Interpol’s Files. The United States should work with other democratic nations to form a democratic caucus in Interpol to ensure that qualified candidates from law-abiding democracies fill these positions. While the agenda for Interpol reform is wide, the United States should recognize that the autocracies are bidding in particular to win Interpol’s presidency, and defeating that bid—not reforming Interpol—will have to be the top priority in 2021."

Guns and Silliness at the U.N. in 2021

At the 2021 U.N. Programme of Action on Small Arms Meeting, the U.S. Should Get Real, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3613, May 4, 2021. "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, violated the PoA’s principle of working by unanimous consent. The PoA has few, if any, achievements. U.S. participation in it merely lends it a credibility it does not deserve: The only reason for the U.S. to participate is to prevent the PoA from making bad decisions. Now that the PoA has abandoned the principle of unanimity that allowed the U.S. to prevent bad outcomes, the U.S should not participate in the 2021 meeting of the PoA unless the PoA is reoriented to focus on specific, realistic, and relevant goals."

My Fish Paper

The Central Arctic Ocean Fishing Agreement: A Challenge for U.S. Diplomacy, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3606, April 16, 2021. "The Agreement to Prevent Unregulated Commercial Fishing on the High Seas of the Central Arctic Ocean, signed by the U.S. in October 2018 and ratified in August 2019, seeks to apply precautionary conservation and management measures to ensure the sustainable use of fish stocks in Arctic waters outside the jurisdictions of the signatory nations. The agreement has a laudable goal and is largely sensible, but it suffers from defects of both substance and process: It is vulnerable to free-riding and, by the rules of the State Department, should have been a treaty. The agreement is acceptable only as an interim measure. The U.S. should seek to replace it with a multilateral treaty that binds all major fishing nations."

Avoiding TTIP Redux

Ten Principles for U.S. Trade Negotiations with the European Union, with Gabriella Beaumont-Smith, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3480, April 8, 2020. "Since the collapse of the negotiations for the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) in 2016, trade tensions between the U.S. and the European Union have increased. In July 2018, the U.S. and the EU agreed to negotiate a trade agreement, and in October 2018, the U.S. released its negotiating objectives for trade talks with the EU. These objectives are generic and based on a vision of “balanced” and managed trade that is excessively pessimistic about the value of free trade. Negotiating with the EU will not be easy: The EU’s support for regulatory harmonization and its proclivity for accompanying its free trade agreements with broad political declarations are both unacceptable. The U.S. and the EU should learn the lesson of TTIP, and prefer a narrow, principled agreement that increases market-based competition and which can be negotiated rapidly, to an effort to negotiate a wider agreement that fails and thereby only gives rise to further animosity."

A Practical Step Towards Improved Anglo-American Cooperation

The U.S. Should Pursue Visa Liberalization with the United Kingdom, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3461, January 10, 2020. "The term “visa liberalization” refers to a policy of making it easier for defined categories of foreign nationals to obtain valid visas to live and work in the United States. Visa liberalization with nations whose citizens respect the terms of their entry to the U.S. is not part of U.S. immigration policy. Rather, it is a way of reducing barriers to trade with foreign nations and increasing investment in the United States. The U.S. has pursued a policy of visa liberalization toward different foreign nations in different ways, including through U.S. statute, through a free trade area agreement, and through legislation associated with such an agreement. In spite of the Trump Administration’s “Hire American” policy, it has supported visa liberalization with New Zealand. Both the British and the American governments are eager to negotiate a free trade area agreement after the U.K. leaves the European Union. As part of this area, the U.S. should support, and the U.K. should seek, uncapped reciprocal visa liberalization for nonimmigrant professionals seeking to live and work in the U.S. or the U.K."

My Fish Paper

Commercial Fishing in the High Seas Arctic: The U.S. Needs A Treaty, Not An Executive Agreement, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3375, January 15, 2019. "On October 3, 2018, the U.S. signed the Agreement to Prevent Unregulated Commercial Fishing on the High Seas of the Central Arctic Ocean, which applies precautionary conservation and management measures to ensure the sustainable use of fish stocks. While the agreement has a laudable purpose, it is susceptible to being undermined by non-parties, and should have taken the form of a treaty, not an executive agreement. The U.S. should seek to negotiate such a treaty."

The U.S. Goal Is to Ensure the PoA Continues To Do Nothing

U.S. Goals at the 2018 Review Conference of the U.N.’s Programme of Action on Small Arms, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3313, May 14, 2018. "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) is a political mechanism, which works by unanimous consensus for encouraging voluntary cooperation against the illicit small-arms trade. It is a substantive failure, but that is unlikely to stop the PoA’s forthcoming Third Review Conference from seeking to expand the PoA in unproductive ways—including by advocating an unworkable plan for the registry of individual rounds of ammunition and supporting new technical requirements for civilian firearms. If the U.S. continues to participate in the PoA, it should send a strong delegation to the Conference to effectively oppose these ideas. Likewise, the U.S. should staunchly reject all efforts to transform the PoA into a treaty and not be taken in by Trojan Horse strategies designed to impose constraining international norms on the U.S."

U.S. Responses to Palestinian Membership of Interpol

How the United States Should Respond to Palestinian Membership in Interpol, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder, May 1, 2018. " SUMMARY The Interpol General Assembly’s September 2017 decision to admit the Palestinian Authority to membership was a grave error. The Authority will likely use its membership both to pursue its political and legal war against Israel and to harass opponents abroad. The PA’s membership further debases Interpol, an international organization of police and law enforcement organizations that is constitutionally required to focus exclusively on ordinary crime. It also reflects awareness by autocracies that Interpol can be a valuable instrument of oppression and that the Western democracies’ historically dominant role in Interpol is fading. The U.S. and other like-minded nations should limit the damage that the Authority can do through Interpol and develop a strategy to resist the organization’s wider politicization."

A Summary of the Case for Unsigning the ATT

Why the U.S. Must Unsign the Arms Trade Treaty in 2018, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3287, February 22, 2018. "The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) is one of a number of treaties that work not through verifiable commitments but by promoting restrictive norms. Over time, as similar treaties have done, the ATT will shape U.S. policymaking, as the undefined standards at its heart evolve and are applied through political pressure, moral suasion, or the actions of the courts. Even by the standards of the Obama Administration, the ATT is a substantive failure, and it lacks congressional support. But for the progressive activists behind the ATT, its inevitable inability to improve the world’s incompetent and malevolent nations is irrelevant. No U.S. action can eliminate the long-term risks posed by the ATT, but the U.S. can and should mitigate them by “unsigning” the treaty."

The EU's Data Protection Regulations

The U.S. Must Draw a Line on the EU’s Data-Protection Imperialism, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3276, January 9, 2018. "On May 25, 2018, the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will come into force. Described by the European Commission as a measure to strengthen individual rights in the digital age and facilitate business, the GDPR embodies and expands the EU’s effort to apply its data-protection standards to governments and private enterprise inside and outside the EU. Together with an EU directive governing the processing of personal information by government authorities, the GDRP will mark the beginning of another phase in a long-running struggle between the U.S. and the EU over the handling of individual data by U.S. corporations and the U.S. government."

Recommendations on ATT and Land Mines for FY 2017 NDAA

The 2017 NDAA Should Begin Rebuilding America’s Military, with lead co-author Justin Johnson and others, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3105, March 28, 2016. "It is the responsibility of Congress to ensure that the armed forces have the capacity and capability to protect the nation’s vital interests. Congress should specifically preserve military capacity and maintain options so that the next President can grow the military and improve American security. The fiscal year 2017 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) should focus on building a stronger military that can better protect America while bolstering partnerships with friends and allies around the world."

Treating Energy As A Trade Commodity

The Economic and Geopolitical Benefits of Free Trade in Energy Resources, with Nicholas Loris, Luke Coffey, James Phillips, Dean Cheng, Ana Quintana, Lisa Curtis, and William Wilson, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3072, October 9, 2015. "America has an abundance of natural resources, including sufficient energy reserves to provide Americans with affordable and reliable energy well into the future. With its plentiful reserves of coal, natural gas, and oil, the United States is already a global leader in energy production and has the potential to be a major supplier to the rest of the world. As is the case for many other countries around the world, the United States benefits from free trade because of private property rights. Individuals, in large part, have owned and had the ability to produce America’s natural resources—which is a primary reason why the U.S. is a global energy leader. Individuals extract and sell the energy sources, and the market—not Washington, D.C.—should determine where it goes. Allowing U.S. energy exports would provide a huge boon to the American economy, creating jobs, expanding the economy, and strengthening relationships with global trading partners and important allies."

ATT and Land Mine Recommendations for NDAA FY 2016

10 Objectives for the FY 2016 National Defense Authorization Act, with Steven P. Bucci, Dean Cheng, Brian Slattery, Michaela Dodge, Luke Coffey, David Inserra, and Charles Stimson, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #3002, March 16, 2015. "The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is a central piece of legislation for Congress each year. The NDAA is one of the last remaining bills that enjoys true bipartisan consensus, in part because Congress understands the critical need to set defense policies and guidelines for national security. The FY 2016 NDAA will continue in this tradition. The NDAA does, however, face a range of problems. A team of Heritage Foundation national security experts have compiled a set of 10 objectives—addressing issues from military morale to missile defense to Taiwan and China—that Congress should support."

Promoting the Obvious: Free Trade Between the US and the UK

Freedom from the EU: Why Britain and the U.S. Should Pursue a U.S.-U.K. Free Trade Area, with Nile Gardiner, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief, September 26, 2014. "A referendum on British membership in the European Union is scheduled for 2017. EU supporters argue that exit from the EU would hurt Britain’s economy and, in particular, its ability to negotiate trading arrangements with the rest of the world—a responsibility currently exercised by the EU on behalf of all of its member states. But there is every reason to believe that Britain, the world’s sixth-largest economy, would be able to negotiate trade agreements independently. If Britain does decide to leave the EU, one of its central priorities should be to negotiate a modern free trade area (FTA), based on sovereignty and freedom, with the United States. This is a goal that the U.S., which should abandon its policy of supporting the EU at the expense of the sovereignty of its member nations, should also champion."

The Economic Case for and Against TTIP

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP): Economic Benefits and Potential Risks, with Luke Coffey and Bryan Riley, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2952, September 17, 2014. "The United States and the European Union are negotiating a trade agreement—the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP)—that politicians and commentators on both sides of the Atlantic hail as the answer to the woes of the transatlantic relationship, as a solution to the EU’s economic difficulties, and as heralding the creation of a new institution that will reinvigorate the Western alliance. But no U.S.–EU agreement can do all that has been claimed of the TTIP, and there are reasons to believe that its benefits have been oversold. The U.S. should support all measures that would promote growth and employment by increasing economic freedom, but it should not accept any agreement that could increase government regulation in the name of promoting free trade and create a transnational regulatory body that could infringe on U.S. sovereignty."

Interpol's Strengths and Abuses

Necessary Reforms Can Keep Interpol Working in the U.S. Interest, with David Kopel, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2861, December 11, 2013. " The U.S. should act to protect U.S. citizens and individuals with a U.S. nexus who are unjustly targeted by an Interpol notice or diffusion and should seek to reform Interpol’s diffusion system."

A Review of the ATT Text and Process

The U.S. Cannot Fix the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2774, March 13, 2013. "The failure of the initial negotiating conference for the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) has been wrongly blamed on the U.S. This false accusation and the conference’s lack of seriousness illustrate the fundamental flaws of any global treaty on the conventional arms trade. While improving the currently unacceptable treaty text may be possible, the treaty would still fail to achieve its purported aim and would pose irremediable risks to U.S. national interests. Yet if the U.S. blocks the adoption of a consensus text at the March conference, a significant number of states will likely negotiate a treaty outside the U.N. system. Participation in this conference is therefore a no-win game that the U.S. should decline to play on the grounds that it already has, and will continue to operate and reform, a world-class export control system that substantially achieves the supposed object and purpose of the proposed treaty."

The Falklands Are British

The United States Should Recognize British Sovereignty Over the Falkland Islands, with Nile Gardiner and Luke Coffey, Heritage Foundation Backgrounder #2771, March 4, 2013. "In order to assert their inherent right to choose their own form of government, the inhabitants of the Falkland Islands will hold a referendum on March 10–11, 2013, to decide whether they wish to maintain their allegiance to Great Britain. Britain has administered the Islands peacefully and continuously since 1833, with the exception of the two months in 1982 when the Islands were invaded and illegally occupied by Argentine forces. The Obama Administration has backed Argentina’s calls for a U.N.-brokered settlement for the Islands and so far has refused to recognize the outcome of the referendum. This policy poses serious risks to U.S. interests and is an insult both to Britain—the U.S.’s closest ally—and to the rights of the Islanders."