“The best defense is a good offense,” as the old saw goes. The nature of that “good offense” matters, though. Too often, American officials mistake “any offense” for a “good offense.” As tensions between North Korea and the United States continue to escalate, it is apparent that American…
Today on the Daily Standard Podcast, associate editor Ethan Epstein talks with host Eric Felten about all the things the Obama administration could have done, but didn't, to discourage North Korea's nuclear and missile programs.
As Kim Jong-un’s cavalcade of menace has proceeded across the 2017 calendar, revealing a North Korean arsenal that now includes a hydrogen bomb and missiles capable of reaching New York City and Washington, D.C., America’s strategic posture has been old and familiar (if now more colorfully…
This week on the Confab, national correspondent Peter Boyer talks with host Eric Felten about the revival of missile defense efforts in the face of North Korean rocket advances. And associate editor Ethan Epstein comes by to discuss Russia's promotion of Black Lives Matter in social media ads.
As Kim Jong-un’s cavalcade of menace has proceeded across the 2017 calendar, revealing a North Korean arsenal that now includes a hydrogen bomb and missiles capable of reaching New York City and Washington, D.C., America’s strategic posture has been old and familiar (if now more colorfully…
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Tuesday that President Trump has indicated to him that the administration is prepared to strike North Korea to prevent an attack against the U.S.
The Trump administration will announce Thursday an agreement with the government of Poland to sell the Eastern European ally American-manufactured surface-to-air missile systems. The agreement comes seven years after the Obama administration removed a group of missile launchers from near the…
The North Koreans appear to be preparing to test yet another missile, at any time, this one with a potential range that would put the entire United States—from Los Angeles to New York City—within reach. Last Sunday, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said on Meet the Press that the United States was…
Long-range ballistic missile capability has traditionally been a tough nut to crack, reserved for superpowers and the permanent members of the UN Security Council. Not only is the telemetry and rocket technology prohibitively difficult to master, but the process of building a nuclear weapon small…
Camp Shomera, on the Israel-Lebanon border
Just before the Republican presidential candidates went on stage Tuesday night for the fourth debate, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia will deploy "strike systems capable of penetrating any missile defenses." He was specifically talking about the U.S. defensive systems planned for Europe that…
Tulsi Gabbard, a congresswoman representing Hawaii's Second Congressional District, responds to President Obama's proposed budget by expressing concern over missile defense cuts. "It would also cut our missile defense budget, even as Hawai‘i and the rest of the country face direct and heightened…
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with Bill Kristol on the North Korea problem and the Obama Administration's missile defense policy failure. Hosted by Michael Graham.
House of Representatives lawmakers are set to debate an annual bill that authorizes military programs later this week, and a handful of Democrats have set their sights on killing provisions that would support efforts to build missile defenses by 2015 to protect America’s East Coast from future…
President Obama didn’t intend the world to hear him tell outgoing Russian president Dmitri Medvedev that he’d have “more flexibility” to accommodate the Kremlin’s concerns about missile defense and other issues after the election in November. But as his now infamous meeting with Medvedev in Seoul…
President Obama's explanation today of his private request yesterday, captured on an open microphone, of Russian president Dmitry Medvedev for some "space" and "flexibility" until after November's election, simply compounds the problem.
If one needed a reminder of why President Obama must be defeated in November, he provided it today in Seoul, where the end of his private conversation with Russian president Dmitri Medvedev was picked up by microphones as reporters were let into the room:
President Obama got caught in private conversation with a hot mic today in Seoul, South Korea, telling outgoing Russian president Dmitry Medvedev that Vladimir Putin should give him more "space" and that "[a]fter my election I have more flexibility."
When Barack Obama campaigned for president in 2008, he promised to “cut investments in unproven missile defense systems.” The word “unproven,” folks worried, could be used against every defense system that hasn’t intercepted a missile in combat. And, indeed, Obama did cut missile defense programs.
For those of us who have been arguing against cutting the U.S. defense budget and, indeed, arguing instead that it’s too low as is, we’re used to our critics saying that we never have met a defense expenditure we don’t like, that we have no ideas for how defense monies can be better utilized, or…