Using the military for domestic law enforcement is a troubling distraction from their core responsibility: to deter and if necessary defeat the United States’ foreign adversaries. The Pentagon is rightly trying to increase readiness, but in a letter to The Wall Street Journal, Mackenzie Eaglen warns that the administration is still not doing enough to build up weapon stocks for a serious conflict.
One shortcoming is that the administration is not effectively working with our allies to develop an integrated strategy for expanding defense industrial capacity and technological innovation. In a new report, William C. Greenwalt highlights the neglect of the National Technology and Industrial Base—a congressionally mandated policy framework to advance just such an aim.
Unfortunately, the policymaking process is largely on hold in Washington as we enter the 10th day of a government shutdown. As Democrats and Republicans wrangle over $350 billion in Obamacare subsidies, AEI Domestic Policy Studies Director Matthew Continetti draws attention to the much more serious problem both parties are ignoring: the unsustainable growth of our debt and deficit.
This week, Danielle Pletka and Gary J. Schmitt released the fifth and final episode in their “Iraq War: 20 Years Later” video series. Featuring interviews with leading decision-makers and experts, including Generals Jack Keane and David Petraeus, weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, and historian Melvyn Leffler, these documentaries comprehensively assess the successes and failures of more than three decades of US policy in Iraq with a rigorous, fact-based approach that dispels many of the myths around the conflict.
