The late U.S. Senator Malcolm Wallop (R–WY), who was the first Chung Ju-Yung Fellow for Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, will be missed by many. His tireless contributions to this country in foreign and defense affairs are significant and will long be remembered. Senator Wallop supported a strong national defense and the 1976 “Team B Strategic Objectives Panel,” which laid the intellectual foundation for the Reagan arms buildup. In the 1970s, Senator Wallop was at the forefront of the effort to enact legislation to develop defensive systems to protect …
Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. Economy Needs Tax Reform, Not Tax Hikes – J.D. Foster Paul Ryan Schools Sebelius at Hearing … Ouch! – Kathryn Nix Republicans Split on Trade Tactics – Vicki Needham NAT GAS Act Isn’t the Solution for Energy – Calvin M. Dooley Welcome to Jimmy Carter’s 2nd term – Charles Hurt The Primary Education of Indiana’s Dick Lugar – Shira Toeplitz In the Murdoch Hacking Scandal, Roger Ailes Stands to Gain – …
Comparing the foreign policies of Presidents Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama has been like comparing apples to, well, apples. Carter tried accommodating America’s enemies. He cut back on defense. He made humility the hallmark of American diplomacy. Sound familiar? It might be too much to argue that the current President’s doctrine plagiarized the peanut farmer. But it is not too much of a stretch. Carter and Obama not only had similar styles of engaging with the rest of the world, but both of their presidencies fell into the same pitfalls. …
The Castro regime in Cuba currently has three key objectives: The first is to manage its present economic crisis. The second is to protect the stability and longevity of the revolution’s senior leadership as it succumbs to the infirmities of age, cumulated policy failures, corruption, and growing dissent. Finally, the regime aims to insulate the island and the Cuban Revolution from the winds of democratic/popular change that are blowing so strong in the Middle East and elsewhere. To advance all three objectives, the Cuban regime extended an invitation to former …
The Obama Administration has already presided over the steepest rise in gas prices since the Carter Administration. And like President Jimmy Carter, PresidentBarack Obama has restricted traditional domestic energy development at every turn. According to the Energy Information Administration, President Obama’s Gulf drilling moratorium will cause domestic offshore oil production to fall 13% this year . Absent the Obama moratorium, the EIA had predicted a 6% increase in offshore production from 2010 levels. That means President Obama’s Gulf moratorium alone will cost American consumers 220,000 barrels of domestic oil production …
From the outset of the Obama presidency and the emergence of the Obama Doctrine, the similarities between this Administration and that of Jimmy Carter have been striking. Like Obama, Carter trumpeted soft power and international institutions as the means to solve the most perplexing foreign policy problems. The programs of both Presidents hinged on the cooperation of adversaries who interpreted the U.S. initiatives as signs of weakness, and in the second half of their presidencies, both faced the prospect of sharp reversals.
When President Obama entered office he adopted a doctrine toward national security that mirrored President Jimmy Carter’s reliance on diplomacy and the United Nations. America’s enemies saw Carter as a paper tiger and by the second year of his administration the president saw almost unprecedented challenges to his leadership worldwide. Reading the world headlines today it seems like a case of deja vu all over again—adversaries are coming after Obama with a vengeance. North Korea has thrown down the gauntlet. The White House has looked impotent in dealing with WikiLeaks—and …
They remade the Brady Bunch, Charlie’s Angels, and The A-Team—why not replay the presidency of Jimmy Carter? The Wall Street Journal’s John Fund joined the chorus last week with a piece titled The Carter-Obama Comparisons Grow: “Mr. Carter himself heightening comparisons with his own presidency,” Fund wrote, “by publishing his White House diaries this week. ‘I overburdened Congress with an array of controversial and politically costly requests,’ he [President Carter] said on Monday. The parallels to Mr. Obama’s experience are clear.” Nowhere does the comparison seem more apt than issues …
Americans appear to be taking a cue from the Obama Administration on foreign policy and the U.S.’s role in global affairs. Much like President Carter’s contention that a “national malaise” had befallen Americans in the late 1970s, making everyone depressed if they were not so already, President Obama’s constant refrain that the United States has much to be humble about and should act accordingly, has taken a toll on Americans’ view of their role in the world. The new opinion poll by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs suggests that …
James Downie, standing in for Jonathan Chait at The New Republic, believes that The Heritage Foundation’s view of the relationship between first principles and foreign policy is wrong, and contrary to George Washington’s vision. Inevitably, he seeks to prove his point by quoting Washington’s Farewell Address. His case would be even less persuasive if he’d read a little more, or a little more thoroughly. But before we go into that, it’s worth drawing attention to Downie’s concluding point: “the Founding Fathers don’t provide much of a foundation at all” for …
