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National Security and Foreign Policy
65 posts, newest first (page 2 of 3).
Cyberwar Has No Declaration, So When Is a Hack an Act of WarLaw and doctrine cannot say when a cyberattack becomes an armed attack, and the fog invites aggression. The standard, the history, the case for announced lines. The Strategic Petroleum Reserve Was Built for War, Not for Gas PricesCongress built the reserve in 1975 to survive a supply cutoff like the 1973 embargo. Using it to steer pump prices spends a military asset on politics. The Defense Production Act of 1950 Is a Wartime Tool with Peacetime HabitsPassed for the Korean War, the Defense Production Act lets presidents steer contracts and fund factories. Both parties now stretch it far past defense. Defense Contractors Do Not Start Wars, and Six Other Slogans ExaminedSeven popular slogans blame war on profit. Tested against the 1961 farewell address, budget shares and the 1990s consolidation, most of them fail. Zumwalt, the Littoral Combat Ship and the Lessons of Procurement FailureTwo Navy programs, one cut from 32 ships to three and one retired early, show how requirements creep and concurrent design waste billions, and what to demand. The Pentagon Has Never Passed an Audit, and Conservatives Should MindA limited-government movement cannot exempt the biggest discretionary agency from the books it demands of everyone else. Here is what a failed audit means. Defense Spending as a Share of the Economy, From Korea to the 2010sMeasured against the economy, defense fell from a Korean War peak to near historic lows while entitlements grew. The Pentagon is not what drives the debt. Read the North Atlantic Treaty, All Fourteen Articles Take Ten MinutesThe 1949 NATO treaty is short, plain and more modest than critics or champions say. Read it article by article, with what each clause means for the Senate. The 2014 Wales Pledge Explained, Where NATO's Two Percent Came FromNATO's two percent of GDP is a guideline from a 2014 summit, with a forgotten equipment goal, not a treaty duty. Here is the text, the math and what it means. The INF Treaty Proved Arms Control Works Only When You Hold CardsThe 1987 INF Treaty was won by deploying the missiles the protesters wanted stopped, and it died when Russia cheated. The story shows what treaties need. Should Conservatives Back Ukraine? Two Honest Answers, Weighed FairlyTwo conservative camps answer the Ukraine question in good faith. Here are both cases at full strength, a table that compares them, and a verdict. Russia's Wars in Georgia and Crimea Were Warnings the West Chose to IgnoreA dated record from Putin's 2007 Munich speech through the 2008 war and the 2014 annexation shows how muted Western responses shaped what Moscow tried next. Is the Alliance with Israel a Burden or a Bargain, the Ledger ExaminedThe aid figures critics cite are real, but a fair ledger also counts what America gets back, and the restrainer case deserves an answer on its own terms. The 1973 Airlift That Saved Israel and Cost America an Oil EmbargoOperation Nickel Grass rescued Israel in the Yom Kippur War, and the Arab oil embargo that followed taught America that energy is a security question. Israel Bombed Osirak in 1981 and the World Later Thanked It in PrivateIsrael's 1981 raid on Iraq's reactor drew unanimous condemnation at the UN, then spared the 1991 coalition a nuclear-armed Saddam Hussein. Beirut 1983 Was the First Lesson in How Iran Fights Through ProxiesThe 1983 Beirut barracks bombing killed 241 Americans and introduced deniable war through Hezbollah, and how America left Lebanon taught its enemies a lesson. Operation Praying Mantis and the Day the Navy Answered Iran in 1988After an Iranian mine nearly sank a U.S. frigate in 1988, the Navy answered in a single day, and the story is a lesson in proportionate force. Iran's Nuclear Program From Natanz in 2002 to the JCPOA's End, a TimelineTwo decades of Iran's nuclear program, dated and explained, showing a pattern of concealment discovered by outsiders and not volunteered by Tehran. CoCom Kept Western Technology from Moscow for Forty Years, a Model for ChinaA forgotten committee in Paris denied the Soviet bloc Western technology for four decades, and its record answers anyone who says export controls never work. The Thucydides Trap Is a Bad Excuse for Giving Ground to BeijingThe idea that a rising and a ruling power are fated for war is used to excuse appeasement, and the history behind it says the opposite. An International Tribunal Ruled Against China in 2016 and Beijing ShruggedA five-judge tribunal demolished the nine-dash line in 2016, and China ignored it, which tells us what law is worth without power behind it. When Clinton Sent Two Carrier Groups to the Taiwan Strait in 1996The 1995-96 Taiwan Strait crisis showed the value of a show of force and taught Beijing a lesson that shaped its military buildup for decades. The Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 Is Not a Treaty, So What Does It PromiseWhen Carter ended the defense treaty with Taiwan, Congress wrote a statute to keep the commitment alive; here is what the Act does and does not oblige. The Shipbuilding Gap with China Is an Industrial Story Before a Navy StoryA navy is only as large as the yards that build and repair it, and a nation that stopped building commercial ships cannot surge warships.
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