On March 22, Representative Paul Ryan (R–WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee, sat down with Heritage’s David Addington, Michael Franc, and Stuart Butler to discuss his budget proposal The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America’s Promise and President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget. Ryan’s assessment of defense spending, in particular, was cogent. He voiced concerns that President Obama’s defense budget was a budget-driven process and wasn’t based upon on our strategic requirements and the threats that we face. He said that after 10 years of war and wear and …
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano told Congress whom she trusts on February 15 when she responded to Congressman (and former Federal Flight Deck Officer) Chip Cravaack’s (R–MN) question at a House hearing. The exchange is exemplified with these remarks: Cravaack: “Is a Federal Flight Deck Officer the last line of defense for our travelling public?” Napolitano: “I think the armed cockpit door actually is.” The term “armed cockpit door” must have been a mistake; she likely was referring to the armored or reinforced cockpit doors installed after 9/11. However, …
This October marks the 10-year anniversary of the Beltway sniper attacks, a series of killings that gripped the Washington, D.C., metro area with fear. Until being brought to justice, John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo methodically gunned down nearly a dozen innocent civilians. This past week, citizens in the area of Toulouse, France, had to endure a similarly terrifying experience. Twenty-three-year-old Mohammad Merah, a self-proclaimed operative of al-Qaeda, is suspected of having murdered seven individuals in a series of deliberate shootings that took the lives of three French paratroopers, …
This morning at The Heritage Foundation, Representative Paul Ryan (R–WI), chairman of the House Budget Committee, sat down with Heritage’s David Addington, Michael Franc, and Stuart Butler to discuss his budget proposal The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America’s Promise and President Obama’s fiscal year (FY) 2013 budget. The importance of maintaining a strong national defense while confronting the nation’s spending crisis played a prominent part in Ryan’s remarks. In surveying the state of the U.S. military today and potential threats on the horizon, Ryan said that the President’s defense budget …
Snap a few pics. Grab a falafel. Plan a terrorist attack. Eileen Sullivan reports for the Associated Press that the New York City Police Department is playing cat and mouse in Manhattan with the Iranian intelligence service. No big surprise here. Iranian intelligence has been busy in the United States and Canada for some time. Washington got another wake-up call recently when authorities foiled a plot aimed at bombing the Saudi ambassador in our own backyard. That was followed by a chilling admission from the head of the U.S. intelligence …
A wannabe al-Qaeda went on a killing spree in France. Don’t breathe a sigh of relief because it happened over there. It can happen here. At least 45 plots aimed at the U.S. since 9/11 have been thwarted. Good work—but cold comfort. We have not stopped all of them. When Major Nidal Hasan allegedly shot dead his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, it was after having told an al-Qaeda recruiter, “I can’t wait to join you [in the afterlife].” Alone or in small numbers, a few can slaughter many innocents—and …
Displaying confidence in the American strategy in Afghanistan, Retired General Jack Keane, a well-respected commentator on national security affairs, emphatically stated in an interview with Fox News that reacting to the tragic murder of 16 Afghan civilians by accelerating the withdrawal of U.S. troops would be a mistake, and one that the United States cannot afford. Despite the recent troubles in Afghanistan, Keane noted military progress that has been made in southern Afghanistan over the last 18 months. This progress, he believes, can be replicated in eastern Afghanistan, where the …
The defense commitments in Chairman Paul Ryan’s (R–WI) budget proposal, “The Path to Prosperity: Restoring America’s Promise,” are a step in the right direction. The budget makes a down payment on the defense the United States needs, moving toward rebuilding a defense posture that has been strained by 10 years of war. The proposal is consistent with the principle that national defense is the federal government’s most important priority, whereas President Obama’s budget will make defense the lowest priority by later this decade. Under the Budget Control Act of 2011, …
After President Obama released his fiscal year 2013 budget, it became clear that the Administration reneged on its promise to fully fund the needs of the U.S. nuclear complex to the Senate pursuant to its advice and consent to the New Strategic Arms Control Treaty (New START). Thankfully, though, some in Congress are well aware of the value that U.S. nuclear weapons provide as the nation’s ultimate insurance policy. Representative Mike Turner (R–OH), chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, recently introduced the Maintaining the President’s Commitment …
Representative Howard “Buck” McKeon (R–CA), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, spoke last week at the Reagan Library on national security and the declining defense budget. He expressed his concerns and strategies to address the current state of our armed forces, specifically the effects that budget cuts will have on U.S. troops. McKeon painted a clear picture of the significance of the proposed troop reduction: “Instead of coming home to ticker tapes, these brave men and women will come home to pink slips. Instead of marching in victory parades, …
