Ice-breakers are an essential component of maritime and national security infrastructure. It is time to determine the fate of U.S. ice-breakers Polar Sea and Polar Star. Both parties are grappling over the future of the two nearly 40-year-old ships. The argument falls during the heated economic budget crisis, centering on …
Most of the doomsday budget-cutting talk has focused on the Pentagon—and rightly so, as cuts being bandied about will unquestioningly turn the United States into a second-class military power. The worst news, however, is that the cuts could have an even more disastrous impact on homeland security, in particular the …
In the 1970s, rather than rebuilding the military after the Vietnam War, President Jimmy Carter let it go hollow—the military looked okay on paper, but readiness dropped to appalling levels. President Bill Clinton adopted a similar strategy after the Cold War. They both did it for the same reasons: Wanting …
There she goes again. DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano just can’t speak in public without destroying any remaining confidence Americans have left in her agency. CNS News reports that at a conference devoted to “environmental justice”, Secretary Napolitano announced that the Department of Homeland Security would be creating the “Climate Change …
“The Heritage Foundation Homeland Security 2020: The Future of Defending the Homeland” conference begins today with a focus on maritime security. This morning’s panel will be looking into two very important topics: the very broad topic of government policy for defending domestic waters, and the more specific topic of the …
President Obama wishes everyone would stop talking about the oil spill. His federal government’s response has been incompetent at best, malevolent at worst. Yet, lacking any evidence of a credible response, Obama still sent Carol Browner to the Gulf on a victory lap last week after oil stopped appearing on …
To many along the Gulf Coast, the oil spill response is Katrina… with a difference. With Katrina, says Mark Riley, an official in Louisiana’s Homeland Security and Emergency Preparedness Department, the problem was that the federal government showed up with its “hurricane bag” and found a disaster. This time, they showed …
Conservatives began talking about rescinding the stimulus after President Obama signed it into law. Liberals are starting to listen. House Democrats approved an amendment to the Afghanistan and Iraq war supplemental yesterday, 239 to 182, that cuts more than $1.6 billion originally allocated for the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (complete …
