On Brexit As Means, Not End

Can Britain Learn to Stand Up for Itself?, Yorkshire Post, March 22, 2014. "There is a sense in which complaining about the EU risks being an end in itself. It satisfies a deeply-held need in modern society: to have something to gripe about. And that actually suits the EU chorus just fine, because one reason politicians of all stripes love the EU is that it gives 
them an excuse for anything that goes wrong. Leaving the EU implies that Britain is going to commit itself to everything the EU dislikes: freedom, and preferring deeds to words. That approach will make Britain’s moribund foreign policy relevant again. But it is an approach that will take leadership and commitment, and planning that needs to start now."

What We Can Do Now About Ukraine

Ten Ways the West Can Help Ukraine, Newsday, March 21, 1014. "It's not good enough to say the United States can do nothing to help Ukraine and deter Russia from future bullying and aggression. While we cannot overcome six years of errors in a day, we are only as powerless as we want to be. Here are 10 ways we can start to do better."

Freedom in Bournemouth

At Britain’s CPAC, Heritage Joins Conservative Allies, Heritage Foundation Foundry, March 19, 2014. "The Heritage Foundation was proud to be the only American think tank invited to participate in the inaugural Freedom Festival, Britain’s equivalent of the Conservative Political Action Conference in the U.S. Organized by the leading center-right think tanks and activist organizations in Britain, including such stalwarts for freedom as the Freedom Association, the TaxPayers’ Alliance, and Margaret Thatcher’s own Centre for Policy Studies, the Freedom Festival was a three-day long event held on the sunny south coast of Britain in Bournemouth. If there was one opinion that united the conference, it was dislike of Britain’s membership in the European Union."

The Troubled European Periphery

Europe Must Wake Up to New Danger, Newsday, March 7, 2014. "If you looked out from Europe in the 1990s, you could see sunshine on the horizon. With the end of the Cold War, NATO appeared to be on the road to irrelevancy. But the sunshine has faded. Russia's dismemberment of Ukraine should remind Americans and Europeans that European security, for which all of us paid a high price over the past hundred years, is not assured."

Iran Sues Europe, and Wins

Of Mullahs and Lawyers, with Andrew Southam, Weekly Standard, February 24, 2014. "For the past year, British and European Union sanctions against Iran have faced a string of legal challenges and lost nearly every round. The sanctions relief offered by the so-called interim nuclear deal between the P5+1 and Iran conceals the broader problem that the European legal basis for sanctions is eroding. Iran is expert in the waging of terror wars. It’s also, it turns out, good at lawfare."

Here's a New Idea: Blame the U.S.!

Hypocritical NGOs Like to Blame US While Turning Blind Eye to Terror, Fox News, February 19, 2014. "Supposedly, the treaty is about cutting off the supply of arms to terrorists and dictators. But the evidence shows that the NGOs are, in practice, more interested in the supposed misdeeds of the United States and other democracies than they are in stopping terror and dictators."

Non-Profts Aren't A Sector, They're Life

Nonprofit Model Entirely Misleading, Newsday, February 16, 2014. "One of the many virtues of the United States is it has an exceptionally lively nonprofit sector. There is an organization for everyone, and every organization speaks for itself. Europe is less fortunate: there, government funding of nonprofits is the norm. But at least Europe is waking up to the dangers of subsidies. We seem to be going to sleep."

International Sports, National Dictators

Olympics’ Edifice Complex Is Ultimately a Loser, Newsday, February 3, 2014. "The Olympic Winter Games start Friday in Sochi, Russia. They were supposed to cost $12 billion, but the latest estimate is higher: more than $50 billion. Small wonder that, increasingly, the nations that want to host international sporting events are corrupt, publicity-seeking dictatorships or deluded Keynesians."

Obama's Three Failed Middle East Aims

Barack Obama’s Mideast Strategy Has Failed, Newsday, January 17, 2014. "The damning report of the Senate Intelligence Committee on Benghazi confirms that the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. compound was planned and carried out by al-Qaida."

Top Five for 2014

Top Five Foreign Policy Priorities for 2014, with Nile Gardiner and James Phillips, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4123, January 14, 2014. "In 2014, the U.S. should be willing to stand up to those who threaten its interests while it stands with those who share its values and goals. Foremost among those values are the principles of sovereignty and self-determination, which must be as central to U.S. foreign policy as they are sacred to its system of government. Here are the top five foreign policy priorities for the Administration and Congress in 2014."

An Update on Looming ATT Dangers

After U.S. Signature, Dangers of U.N. Arms Trade Treaty Begin to Surface, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4216, January 14, 2014. "After U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry signed the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) in September, a bipartisan majority of the Senate stated its opposition to ratifying the treaty. Over the past months, the dangers of the ATT have become increasingly obvious, and supporters of the treaty have been increasingly assertive in their claims and their criticism of the United States. The wisdom of the Senate’s opposition to the treaty having already been amply demonstrated, it is time for both the Senate and the House to hold hearings on the ATT."

A Narrative and Analysis of the Arms Trade Treaty Process

The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty: A Process, Not An Event, Journal on Firearms and Public Policy, vol. 25 (Fall 2013), available in PDF only. "The ATT is ambiguous for a reason. There was no chance that all the world’s nations would ever have been able to negotiate a clear treaty, with careful definitions, regulating the entire world’s trade in conventional arms. Moreover, if they had been able to do so, it is very unlikely that such a treaty would have been acceptable to the United States, because it would almost certainly have sought to place unacceptable limits on civilian ownership."

Go Where The Going (Might Be) Easier

A Ground Game That Could Favor the U.S., Newsday, January 3, 2014. "As in the previous decade, freedom made little headway in 2013. Throughout that period, the United States has labored unsuccessfully to build free governments in the Middle East and Africa. In 2014, we should seek to promote freedom where the going may be easier."

A New Year's Interpol Wish List for Jeh Johnson at DHS

New Homeland Security Chief Jeh Johnson Must Fight Interpol Abuse, Washington Times, January 2, 2014. "In his confirmation hearing to be secretary of the perennially troubled Department of Homeland Security, Jeh Johnson emphasized that his priorities would be to fill senior DHS vacancies, improve its management and raise its morale. But now that he's on the job, Mr. Johnson is responsible for more than just the DHS. He also helps lead the National Central Bureau, through which the U.S. works with Interpol. The bureau's budget is only about $30 million, but that is no measure of the troubles it can cause."

Cost Imposition, Iran, and Syria

U.S. Syria Policy Has No Staying Power, Newsday, December 20, 2013. "Sooner or later, this war will end. So the United States must decide who it wants to win. And the victor must not be the Assad regime. The dangers of an Islamist takeover are undeniable. But Assad also has Islamist allies based in Tehran. And unlike the Syrian rebels, Tehran's radicals have a nuclear weapons program."

The Case of Zurab Adeishvili

Zurab Adeishvili and the Trouble with Interpol, Contentions, December 16, 2013. "Interpol is in many ways a strange organization. Strange, because most of what people know about it is wrong. For example, it’s not an international police force; it’s more like an international police bulletin board. Strange because, unlike too many international organizations, it exists more for what it does than what it says. And strange because, though like the U.N. it’s numerically dominated by the autocracies, it has escaped being organizationally dominated by them: the secretary general of Interpol has always been French, British, or–as today–American."

Interpol and the Risks of Irresponsibility

Don’t Look to Hollywood for the Truth About Interpol, Heritage Foundation Foundry, December 16, 2013. "This week on the big screen, martial arts master Jason Statham tangles with James Franco in Homefront. Statham’s on-screen backstory? He’s a British Interpol agent who retires to rural Louisiana, where he runs afoul of Franco and his gang. As a story, it’s not bad. But as a depiction of Interpol, it’s laughable."

Ten Years After Saddam's Fall

Lesson of Saddam’s Fall is that War Can Be Best Way to Justice, Yorkshire Post, December 13, 2013. "It was only a decade ago that US forces pulled Saddam Hussein out of his spiderhole at a farmhouse in ad-Dawr, near his home town of Tikrit. That success – indeed, that war – seems now to belong to another century. But it’s not so far removed from today’s travails."

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."

What Hollywood Gets Wrong About Interpol

Hollywood, ‘Homefront,’ and the Very Real Problems Facing Interpol, Foxnews.com, December 9, 2013. "Because of its autocratic members, Interpol is drifting into trouble. And while Jason Statham can punch his way out of his difficulties, the same isn’t true of Interpol’s victims, who are trapped in a legal nightmare. Hollywood doesn’t have a clue about the real Interpol. And thanks to it, neither do most Americans. The U.S. should strongly support the things that Interpol does well. But it should also take steps to ensure that Interpol does not allow rogues like Iran and Russia to abuse it for their own evil purposes."

What Bad Deals Have In Common

President Obama Flunks ‘Make A Deal 101’, Newsday, December 6, 2013. "The administration has made four big international deals since 2009: the New START Treaty with Russia, the UN Arms Trade Treaty, the Syrian chemical weapons arrangement and, now, the enrichment deal with Iran. They share a disturbing set of characteristics."

Reasons for Caution on TTIP

Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP): Pitfalls and Promises, with Rea S. Hederman Jr., Bryan Riley and Luke Coffey, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4100, December 5, 2013. "The promotion of economic freedom is a vital part of U.S. foreign and domestic policy. A TTIP that genuinely reduced trade barriers would contribute significantly to this aim. But, though negotiations are still at an early stage, there are reasons to be concerned that TTIP will not free trade but instead build a transatlantic managed market. This would reduce or even eliminate U.S. gains from TTIP and would not promote economic freedom. The U.S. should continue negotiating but be cautious and assess any agreement on its merits."

The Need For A Positive No to the EU

UK Needs Freedom to Pick Talent from the Whole World, Yorkshire Post, November 23, 2013. "The EU’s problems are real, and underneath, they will drive voting in the referendum. But the Out campaign needs not just the Thatcherite spirit of rebellion: it needs her optimism. Even in terms of immigration, the EU means favouring talent from Europe, a tiny part of the world, at the expense of talent from the rest of it. And that makes less sense today for Britain than it ever did in the past."

A Question of National Honor

When We Leave, Friends Suffer First, Newsday, November 22, 2013. "My bottom line on U.S. foreign policy is to keep faith with our friends. Once we make a promise, we uphold it. Now, if a friend breaks faith with us, the deal is off. We're called upon to be true to our word, not to be suckers."

On the Curious Contradictions Between Obama's Foreign and Domestic Policies

Barack Obama Doubles Down Abroad, Newsday, November 8, 2013. "Obama's policy of backing down abroad and doubling down at home is out of sync with the American system. Under the Constitution, the president is supposed to be energetic abroad, but restrained at home. This president has been the reverse. His approach has served the nation poorly, and in any deal with Iran, it will prove disastrous."