The Iranian threat yet again finds itself on the front page of America’s newspapers this morning, this time with news that the rogue regime has sentenced a U.S. citizen to death for working for the CIA and that it has started refining uranium deep inside a mountain bunker. Meanwhile, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is launching a week-long trip through South America in order to bolster ties with his allies in the region in hopes of strengthening the country’s challenge to the United States. This news comes just after a series of …
President Obama visited the Pentagon on Thursday to outline his plan for gutting our nation’s military. Obama’s vision makes America more vulnerable to foreign threats and leaves our armed forces less able to provide for the common defense. As we’ve previously illustrated, Obama has proposed significant reductions to the Pentagon’s budget. This week’s chart shows how sharply defense spending has dropped as a percentage of the total federal budget — currently well below its historical average despite ongoing operations overseas. The chart also debunks the myth that our Founding Fathers …
Yesterday at the Pentagon, President Obama offered up his revisionist view of the past three years of history in order to make the claim that the world is, thanks to him, a safer place, thereby justifying draconian cuts to the U.S. military. The trouble is, the vision he offers is full of holes. From the President’s speech, in which he declared victory over our enemies and paved the way for a world where U.S. military might is no longer necessary: In short, we’ve succeeded in defending our nation, taking the …
The U.S. military is on a dangerous course. Under the projected defense spending caps brought on by the Budget Control Act of 2011, funding for modernizing the military will be squeezed to a dangerous degree. That includes reduced spending on the procurement of new weapons and equipment and research and development on new defense technologies as the infographic below shows. (Article continued below.) In a new paper, Heritage’s Baker Spring, the F. M. Kirby Research Fellow in National Security Policy, explains the impact the reduced funding will have on America’s defenses: The result …
On this day 70 years ago, President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed a joint session of Congress and requested a declaration of war against Japan following the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor the day before. Roosevelt’s words carried forth across the nation via radio, and the consequences of the actions America would take would be felt around the world–and across history. The lessons America learned in those fateful days should be remembered even today. Roosevelt noted that the day of Japan’s attack would be “a date which will live in infamy,” and …
Seventy years ago today, the Japanese shocked the American conscience and propelled the United States into World War II when it attacked Pearl Harbor. With 353 fighters, bombers and torpedo planes, Japan’s strike took the lives of 2,402 Americans and wounded 1,282 others. President Franklin Roosevelt accurately described it as “a date which will live in infamy.” As we reflect on that fateful day, Americans should remember that the strike came without notice or even a declaration of war–despite many Americans’ desire for isolationism even in the face of mounting …
Tonight at 8 p.m. ET, eight Republican presidential candidates will take the stage at Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C., to tell America where they stand on foreign policy and national security in a special debate hosted by The Heritage Foundation and the American Enterprise Institute, broadcast on CNN and moderated by Wolf Blitzer. The debate marks the first time that either Heritage or AEI — both nonprofit, nonpartisan research institutes — has sponsored a presidential debate. Businessman Herman Cain, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, Texas Governor Rick Perry, former Speaker …
The U.S. military and America’s national security stands at the brink. This week, a congressional “super committee” was due to develop a plan to reduce the federal deficit by more than $1.2 trillion over the next 10 years. Failing to enact the plan by January 15, 2012, would result in automatic cuts to military spending–a scenario that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta describes as “devastating.” The super committee’s ability to succeed remains in serious doubt, with reports of its deadlock and failure headlining newspapers this morning. Meanwhile, Republican presidential candidates are …
The Heritage Foundation and American Enterprise Institute host a Republican presidential debate on CNN this Tuesday at 8 p.m. on the subjects of foreign policy and national security. At a time when domestic issues dominate the headlines, Tuesday’s debate offers an opportunity to refocus our attention on matters of constitutional significance. The Founding Fathers spelled out in the U.S. Constitution that the federal government must provide for the common defense. Yet defense spending has fallen below its 45-year historical average. It is projected to drop to 3.4 percent of gross …
In 1969, as President Nixon’s Domestic Policy Council sought ways to spend the forthcoming “peace dividend”—savings projected from the wind-down of the Vietnam War—council members ran into an inconvenient fact: The fiscal windfall did not exist; any post-war “savings” were already committed to a range of new spending, including some of the blossoming Great Society programs of the previous Administration. It was the first time total government spending did not decline after a war. Today, some members of the congressional “super committee” want to go back to the future—by spending …
