Cheney v. Pence

Trump’s Right: Allies Need To Do More, Newsday, March 17, 2019. "Former Vice President Richard Cheney and current Vice President Mike Pence had an argument last week. It revolved around a major theme in the Trump administration’s foreign policy: that U.S. allies should pay more of the costs of the American security guarantee."

Just Rip It Off Already!

Britain’s Brexit Delay is Ridiculous, Washington Times, March 15, 2019. "Britain’s House of Commons has voted to request a delay in Britain’s exit from the European Union. It’s like a kid who removes a band-aid slowly hoping it’ll hurt less. Far better to rip it off and be done with it."

Walking Away -- The Right Call

Trump’s Successful North Korea Summit, Newsday, March 3, 2019. "The collapse of the second summit between President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un is being treated by many as a failure. In fact, the summit was a failure only if you believe that arriving at a bad agreement is the definition of success."

How Much Do We Pay Together?

How Large is the Democratic World's Financial Contribution to Interpol?, Forbes, February 28, 2019. "t seems likely that, given the size of the Foundation’s gifts (which amount to 5.74% of Interpol’s total revenue in 2017), the democratic share is less than their 84.15% share of the assessed contributions. A reasonable estimate is that the democracies are responsible for between 75% and 80% of Interpol’s funding , and that UAE controls the single largest non-democratic share (about 3.5 times larger than China’s contributions)."

How Much Do We Pay?

How Large Is the U.S. Budgetary Contribution to Interpol, Forbes, February 28, 2019. "All told, therefore, U.S. payments to Interpol likely amount annually to around 17 million Euros, or $19 million. That is around 15.5 percent of Interpol’s total operating expenses, which seems a reasonable estimate of the share of Interpol’s budget paid by the U.S."

Competition, the Reality

In the Left’s World, It’s All About Us, Newsday, February 17, 2019. "On Wednesday, the House of Representatives made a rare use of the War Powers Act by voting 248 to 177 to cut off U.S. military assistance for Saudi Arabia’s war in Yemen. Yet again, the left has refused to recognize that international relations are fundamentally competitive."

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."

At Your Throat or At Your Knees

Europeans Forgive the Russians, Again, Newsday, February 3, 2019. "In recent years, Germany has often been lauded as a heroic defender of the free world. As former Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes relates, President Barack Obama said goodbye to Chancellor Angela Merkel with a sad “She’s all alone.” But Germany is not alone. It is trying to cut deals with Russia. Russia is far more popular in Germany than Obama’s whimper implied."

Ignorance in the Eye of the Beholder

Are Brexit Supporters Ignorant?, Forbes, January 31, 2019. "One of the common tropes of opposition to Brexit — Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU) as the result of the national referendum held in June 2016 — is that voters who supported remaining in the EU are better informed than those who voted to leave. This claim has a distinct feeling of sour grapes: no one would have much cared why anyone voted for Brexit if Remain had won. Arguments that Remain is the smart take are primarily about discrediting Brexit."

The Right Path in ITAR Reform

No, Firearm Exports Aren’t Being Decontrolled, Forbes, January 30, 2019. "Over the next month, expect the left-wing press to tell you that the Trump administration, with its usual disregard for all that is right and sensible, is decontrolling exports of firearms, which will inevitably result in a flood of American firearms washing around the world and allow any terrorist or dictator to buy from the American market. All this is a flat-out falsehood."

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."

The Long Hard Road to . . .

Fear Factor: Brexit’s Long and Hard Road, Newsday, January 20, 2019. "On June 23, 2016, Britain voted — after a national referendum of unparalleled intensity — to leave the European Union. The complicated path Britain has taken to exit the EU reflects the history of the European issue — and why Britain voted rightly."

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."

A Trump Strategy?

Trump Faces Decisions of Great Powers, Newsday, January 6, 2019. "From criticizing NATO and the World Trade Organization, to quitting the UN Human Rights Council, to dropping out of the Paris climate deal and the Iran nuclear deal, and now to pulling U.S. forces out of Syria, President Donald Trump is not shy about making big calls. And those big calls all have the same target."

ICE's Interpol Errors

ICE Wrongly Continues to Use Interpol Red Notices for Targeting, Forbes, December 19, 2018. "Earlier this month, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced it had arrested 105 people in an operation “targeting criminal aliens and public safety threats.” The agency described four of those arrested as having “Interpol warrants.” These arrests are part of a larger, disturbing pattern of ICE reliance on Interpol Red Notices to target individuals for arrest. It’s a practice which runs a serious risk of allowing Vladimir Putin to pick his victims in the United States."

The Palestinians Get Started With Interpol Abuse

The Palestinian Abuse of Interpol Has Begun, Forbes, December 14, 2018. "In “How the United States Should Respond to Palestinian Membership in Interpol,” a lengthy paper published in May, I pointed out that the Palestinian Authority said it wanted to get into Interpol for political reasons, and that it had repeatedly given notice of its intention to abuse Interpol. In other words, the Palestinians want to use Interpol for political purposes. I also pointed out that, while Palestinian membership would pose a risk to Israeli officials and, more seriously, to the friends of Israel around the world, “the most likely targets are in fact Palestinian opponents of the Palestinian Authority.” The risk to Interpol, I predicted, was that it would become part of the Palestinian knife fight for control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and for the succession to the aging Palestinian president for life Mahmoud Abbas. That prediction has come true."

How The U.S. Can Curb Interpol Abuse

10 Ways the U.S. Can Curb Interpol Abuses, Just Security, December 11, 2018. "Interpol is not an international police agency. It’s a bulletin board on which notices are posted, and a communications system by which messages are sent. The board and the system have rules, the most important of which is that — as required by Interpol’s Constitution — they cannot be used for political, racial, religious, or military purposes. Interpol cannot stop its member nations, which are fully sovereign, from creating and prosecuting political offenses. All it can and is required to do by its Constitution is ensure that it is used only in connection with genuinely criminal offenses. Unfortunately, Interpol is falling short on that count. But there are ways to improve its record."

The Great French Illusion

Macron Gas-Tax Retreat Is No Surprise, Newsday, December 9, 2018. "The latest riots in Paris — the most extensive since 1968 — show that while Europeans may pay higher gas taxes than we do, they don’t enjoy it. But the riots aren’t just about the price at the pump. They reflect the irrelevance of Emmanuel Macron, France’s latest man on a horse, to the problems that led to his election — and those problems are not uniquely French."

What We, And They, Are Doing Wrong

A New Approach to Europe: U.S. Interests, Nationalist Movements, and the European Union, Heritage Foundation Lecture #1300, December 4, 2018. "Current European policy combines low growth, low levels of job creation, high levels of unskilled immigration, increasing levels of supranational control, a rejection of the assimilative force of national identity, and lashings of deeply felt guilt. The first error of U.S. policy toward Europe is supporting the errors of its fiscal and monetary systems. The second error the U.S., and Europe, have made is to neglect security. The threats to European security today come from two quarters: Russia and the Mediterranean, the latter due in large part to the effects of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s cataclysmically irresponsible open-borders policy."

Interpol -- The Basics

What Not To Believe About Interpol – Exploding Five Myths, Just Security, November 26, 2018. "If Interpol is to be fixed — and by fixed I mean that Interpol should operate according to its own rules — we have to know the difference between the truth about how Interpol actually works, and the myths about it that are widely believed."

The Importance of Interpol's Executive Committee

Putin’s Man Isn’t The Only Candidate Who Matters At Interpol, Forbes, November 20, 2018. "Understandably, all of the press coverage of this week’s meeting of the Interpol General Assembly in Dubai has focused on the possibility that Vladimir Putin’s candidate, Russian abuser-in-chief Alexander Prokopchuk, will be elected the next President of Interpol. But that’s not the only election that matters."

Right In Retrospect

Presidencies in the Rear View Mirror, Newsday, November 19, 2018. "Presidents are often hailed in retrospect for what were condemned as failures while in office. The converse is true, too: victories in the Oval Office are frequently ephemeral. President Donald Trump may be the exception to many rules, but in this regard, he is conforming to the pattern of his predecessors."

The Wrong Man to Lead Interpol

The Election of Russia’s Abuser-in-Chief to Lead Interpol Would Raise Fundamental Questions, Forbes, November 18, 2018. "Reports in the British press indicate that Alexander Prokopchuk, who has served in Russia’s Interior Ministry since 2003 and as Interpol’s Vice-Chair for Europe since 2016, will be elected as the new president of Interpol at the meeting of the Interpol General Assembly now taking place in Dubai. If accurate, this report raises fundamental questions for all democratic nations in Interpol."

Goodbye, Mother

Uncrowned Queen of Europe, Newsday, November 4, 2018. "German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s decision to surrender her leadership of the Christian Democratic Union is a surprise, though not a shock. The causes of her departure reveal the folly of the course that Germany followed under her leadership."

Dubai Priorities for Interpol

Key Goals for the United States at the 2018 Meeting of the Interpol General Assembly, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief, November 2, 2018. "Absent U.S. action, Interpol, which is heavily used by U.S. law enforcement, will continue to lose credibility in ways that will damage both the institution itself and the interests of the U.S."