The Social Vision of the Magna Carta

Magna Carta: It’s Not Just About Rights, National Review Online, June 15, 2015. "The characteristic argument of liberalism today is, first, that every institution — family, church, business, art, education, travel, leisure, entertainment — is fundamentally political, and so not really separate from the political realm at all. It’s all politics all the way down, a claim that would (and did) horrify British conservative philosopher Michael Oakeshott. And that claim opens the door to a second one, which is that, as everything is political, all the peaks need to do the same job as the government — and if they do not, they will be forced to do so."

Inaction This Day

Should Obama Pester, Nag, and Bite? Yes, Newsday, June 14, 2015. "During a news conference Monday at the G-7 meeting in Germany, President Barack Obama acknowledged that his administration does not have a "complete strategy" to defeat the Islamic State group. That much is obvious. What's as troubling as his strategic failure is the president's explanation of why he has failed."

At the UN, the US Fires Back

At a U.N. Meeting on Guns, the U.S. Stands Up Under Fire, National Review, June 5, 2015. "This week, Turtle Bay is hosting the second Meeting of Governmental Experts 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 – mercifully abbreviated to MGE2 and PoA, respectively. The PoA is a strange entity. It’s a political agreement, not a treaty, so it’s never come before the Senate and it has no binding legal force. But that doesn’t make it harmless. It’s one of the many international institutions engaged in creating so-called “norms” that will constrain the U.S., though not the U.N.’s many dictatorships. But despite its painful name and dubious intentions, it’s more amusing than most such institutions."

What's Good, and Bad, in the Draft PoA Chairman's Summary

Challenges, and Successes, for United States at UN Small Arms Meeting, Daily Signal, June 5, 2015. "Today, the second meeting of government experts for the U.N. “Programme of Action on Small Arms and Light Weapons” wraps up in New York. In theory, the PoA, as it is known, is about controlling international arms smuggling. In practice, a lot of nations want to make it about gun control. So far, the U.S. has fought a good fight. But the rough draft of the chairman’s report, which I’ve just seen, makes it clear there’s more to do."

Liberalism and the Fate of the Special Relationship

The US-UK-EU Triangle, The American Interest, June 2, 2015. "The Special Relationship between the United States and the United Kingdom is a political creation that reflects underlying realities. To assess the future of that relationship, and how the EU will affect it, we need to know how it began. For the relationship to come into being, the UK and the U.S. had to meet two necessary but not sufficient conditions. The fate of the relationship rests on whether or not those two underlying conditions endure."

Dogs and Cats, Living Together!

Climate Change Is Not A National Security Threat, Newsday, May 31, 2015. "Earlier this month, the Obama administration released its latest blast on climate change: a cut-and-paste job from its own reports proclaiming that climate change has serious national security implications. This is embarrassingly shoddy stuff. But it's shoddy for a reason."

More Evidence of PoA Failure

Declines in National Reporting Reveal Failure of U.N.’s Programme of Action on Small Arms, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4412, May 28, 2015. "The decline of PoA reporting implies that while many U.N. nations were eager to win political kudos by participating initially in the PoA or by signing the ATT, they are unwilling, or unable, to live up to their commitments under it. This points to a fundamental problem with institutions like the ATT: What is lacking in this world is not commitments and rules, but nations with competent and honest governments. If nations cannot do the simple job of making even an inaccurate or dishonest PoA report, there is no reason to believe they can or will do the much harder jobs mandated by the ATT."

Against TTIP, Contra Mundum, Part II

TTIP: Small Upside, Big Downside, CapX, May 17, 2015. "One of the best things about the debate between believers in the free market over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the so-called US-EU free trade area, is that it cuts to the heart of a larger question: how do we advance freedom in practice? A lot of opponents of TTIP on the left (and some on the right) reject it either because they hate free trade and the free market, or because they are old-fashioned protectionists. That’s not true of any of the participants in this debate. We’re all free marketeers: we just disagree on how to get there."

In Praise of Colin Dueck

, Newsday, May 16, 2015. "On Tuesday, President Barack Obama lost a vote on trade policy in the Senate. The strange thing is why he lost. For years, conservatives have voiced impatience with Obama's foreign policy. But this time, all but one Republican voted for him, and all but one Democrat voted against him."

I Guess I'm the Smart Money

They Said It Couldn’t Be Done, Weekly Standard, May 15, 2015. "The smart money said there was no way the Conservatives could win a majority in last Thursday’s general election in Britain. On the left, the New Statesman’s widely followed May2015 blog offered a cogent argument that there would be a blocking majority even against any repeat of the Conservative-led coalition government. On the right, columnist Matthew Parris echoed many Tories in fearing that the British people were about to make a terrible mistake. But it turns out that you hold elections because you don’t know the result in advance. On May 7, the British people returned a majority Conservative government. The smart money was wrong."

The Possible Populist Future in British Politics

A Very British Shock Result and What It May Mean, Yorkshire Post, May 12, 2015. "I’VE studied Britain for 20 years, but this last week gave me an appreciation for its politics I’ve never had before. Over the last seven days, I followed Conservative candidates in Darlington, Bradford West and Brent Central as they canvassed and addressed the public. All worked hard; all were worthy, and all were in tough constituencies. In the end, none won. Like every other commentator, I failed to predict accurately the outcome of the election. I thought the Tories would win 280 seats. But fortunately, learning isn’t all about making bad predictions."

Why Galloway Went Down

Bradford West, Tower Hamlets, and George Galloway, Weekly Standard, May 7, 2015. "It’s possible that George Galloway, the Member of Parliament for Bradford West in the United Kingdom, will lose his seat in the general election today. It would be nice if this reflected a revolt by his constituents against his habit of blaming “Zionists,” the U.S., and Britain for all the world’s ills. In practice, it’ll be because he’s done nothing of substance for his constituents since he was elected in a notorious 2012 by-election. But you take your wins where you can get them."

The UK Election, Featuring An Entirely Wrong Prediction

The UK’s General Election Will Be Either a Mess or a Disaster, National Review, May 7, 2015. "The recurring theme of election coverage in Britain this year has been that no one cares about the campaign. The satirical magazine Private Eye’s cover this week shows a sleeping David Cameron, with the caption “Passionate Cameron catches national mood.” Funny stuff, but wrong: The campaign has failed to move voters not because it’s been dull, but because Britain is balanced on an ideological knife edge, caught between a fading belief in a limited state and a pudgy love affair with banning, restricting, taxing, and spending. That knife-edge balance will find its reflection in today’s results."

The Election, Viewed from Brent Central

Why Britain’s Conservatives are Facing Defeat: They’re Short-Sighted, National Review, May 6, 2015. "The constituency of Brent Central, in northwest London, is a strange place. It’s new, for one thing: It was created by amalgamating and splitting several other constituencies in 2010. If the incumbent member of Parliament, Sarah Teather, had not decided to stand down, it might have stayed Liberal Democrat, which — in this election, when the Liberal Democrats are forecast to lose about half their seats — would have been an achievement for that party."

The Election, Viewed from West Bradford

A Conservative Takes on Britain’s Israel-Hating Windbag Par Excellence, National Review, May 6, 2015. "Bradford in Yorkshire doesn’t look like you’d expect it to. It’s notorious as the home of several of Britain’s worst race riots, and, since 2012, as the parliamentary constituency of George Galloway, the Soviet apologist and anti-Israel demagogue whose 1994 salute to Saddam Hussein’s “courage” marked the start of a new and more vicious phase of his career as a hater of the West. So you’d expect Bradford to be a post-industrial wasteland. Instead, it’s a city with a heart of broad, strong, Yorkshire stone and beautiful vistas over the dales. Rarely does a place look so much better than its reputation. But you know what they say about appearances."

The Election, Viewed from Darlington

In Northern England, the Tories Look to Regain a Little Lost Ground, National Review, May 5, 2015. "Darlington, a market town in County Durham in England’s northeast, is the kind of constituency that the Conservative party needs to win if it wants to form a government after the British general election this Thursday, May 7."

Strategy Without Prediction

U.S. Ignores Lesson Of NFL Draft at Its Own Peril, Newsday, May 3, 2015. "The NFL draft offers a few college football players the opportunity to fulfill their dreams. It offers us fans the opportunity to speculate, to cheer and to condemn. But it offers everyone something more: a lesson in American grand strategy."

Who Do We Want to Win?

Which Side is Obama on in Mideast?, Newsday, April 18, 2015. "Every war poses a basic question: Whom do you want to win? After six years, the Obama administration's answer to that question in the Middle East is hopelessly confused."

The Decline and Fall of British Liberalism

Election Reveals Battle for Britain’s True Liberal Soul, Yorkshire Post, April 17, 2015. "THE debates between the party leaders have made one thing clear. The election isn’t just a struggle between the Tories, Labour, and the rest. It’s a moment that reveals the state of British liberalism. By liberalism, I don’t mean the nanny-statism that today passes for liberalism, with its identity group politics, its ravenous appetite for state spending in the name of appearing to care and its 
love of top-down control."

Against TTIP, Contra Mundum

TTIP Benefits Crony Capitalists, Not Free Enterprise, CapX, April 9, 2015. "The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) is often described as a free trade agreement between the U.S. and the European Union. If that were true, it would deserve the support of everyone who believes that economic freedom is vital for growth, and offers our best defense against the power of vested interests. But TTIP is both far more and far less than a free trade agreement. Indeed, it’s testimony to the fact that, between the U.S. and the EU, the free trade agenda, as we have conceived of it since 1945, is dead."

Congressional Leadership on ATT

GOP, Democrats Unite in Opposing UN Arms Trade Treaty, Daily Signal, April 6, 2015. "The fruit of the Arms Trade Treaty is criticism of the democracies. That is no surprise: Its supporters explicitly declare this was the creation of a “progressive” coalition, and the guiding star of progressivism in foreign policy is the belief that the U.S. is wrong. That’s a fundamental reason why the treaty is a bad idea, and it’s why the continued leadership of Congress in opposing the agreement is welcome and valuable."

The Mirage of Engagement

‘Tent’ Membership Has Its Problems, Newsday, April 5, 2015. "The nuclear deal with Iran announced by President Barack Obama on Thursday is a mirage -- an agreement now to agree later. But it stands for something bigger: the belief that it's better to have the bad guys inside the tent than out of it."

On Recognizing Friends and Enemies

Conservatives and Liberals Need to Rethink Their Mideast Priorities, Newsday, March 22, 2015. "In the wake of Benjamin Netanyahu's victory in Israel, American leaders -- both conservatives and liberals -- should rethink their approach to the Middle East. Conservatives need to recognize more clearly who our enemies are; liberals need to learn to recognize our friends."

Meet Mr. Camerband

From Butskell to Camerband, Weekly Standard, March 20, 2015. "Today, the strenuous partisan warfare between Cameron and Miliband belies the emergence of a comparable composite, Mr. Camerband, who embodies a near-convergence that goes well beyond finance. The only exceptions in the current Tory-led coalition are Michael Gove’s reforms in education, which got him demoted, and Iain Duncan Smith’s welfare revolution, which has survived largely thanks to Smith’s passionate commitment and seniority within the party."

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."