A speech by Chinese leader Hu Jintao, who is head of the powerful Central Military Commission that oversees the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA), has attracted a fair amount of attention. Western news reports note that Hu talked about the need to “accelerate its transformation and modernization in a sturdy way, and make extended preparations for military combat in order to make greater contributions to safeguard national security.” This has raised concern that China is preparing for conflict, perhaps in the context of the ongoing South China disputes, or with …
At the height of the debate over Obamacare, when the White House’s leftist allies were in full panic mode, The Washington Post’s Ezra Klein accused Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) of being “willing to cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.” Lieberman’s crime? He opposed including an expansion of Medicare in the health regulation bill. Now that the President’s signature foreign policy achievement, the New START nuclear agreement with Russia, is on the ropes, the left is again back to their hyperbolic ways. Ploughshares Fund president Joseph Cirincione told …
The Obama Administration has been quick to point out that it has exempted the defense budget from its proposed freeze on other elements of discretionary spending in its budget. While the Administration has announced in the budget that it is requesting a $33 billion supplemental appropriation for defense in the current fiscal year and is providing modest real growth in the overall defense budget in fiscal 2011 over its new fiscal 2010 baseline, the five-year defense budget is well below “freeze” levels. This is because it proposes to reduce the …
Maintaining and modernizing our armed forces doesn’t just protect America, it fulfills the Constitution’s mandate to “provide for the common defense.” Yet the defense budget appears to be one place where President Barack Obama and Congress are looking to offset massive new spending elsewhere – “stimulating” or otherwise. “The Pentagon faces a $100 billion annual shortfall in its procurement and modernization accounts,” warns Kim Holmes, Heritage’s vice president for defense and foreign policy studies. “The question facing Mr. Obama is not whether to trim a few expensive and unnecessary weapons …
