Free Republic

A report in Vanity Fair details actions by some members of the U.S. State Department to block efforts to investigate the origins of the coronavirus because the inquiry could open “a can of worms.” An internal memo sent to department heads by Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, warned “not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19.” The “can of worms” in question was the extensive funding by the U.S. government into the Wuhan Virology Lab’s “gain-of-function” virus research. It’s unclear whether DiNanno was concerned that an...

china's unannounced test of a hypersonic glide vehicle in August signals that the Chinese regime is about to violate the Outer Space Treaty. The United States should now withdraw from that global agreement so that it can develop a similar weapon. Unfortunately, Washington is not even trying to catch up to its geopolitical arch-foe. This month, the Financial Times revealed that China launched such a vehicle into "low-orbit space." The glide vehicle "circled the globe" and then cruised down toward a target, missing it by "about two-dozen miles." Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Zhao Lijian on October 18 contradicted the FT...

Geneva: The US is following an egocentric foreign policy that is leading to global arms control agreements being devalued, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday. It is vital "to stop the degradation of international arms control", Lavrov told the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva, urging Washington to resume talks on halting nuclear proliferation and banning weapons in space.

Donald Trump says the U.S. plans to withdraw from the 1987 INF nuclear arms-control treaty that everyone agrees Russia has been violating for a decade. Yet somehow this is said to be reckless behavior by—Donald Trump? Welcome to the high church of arms control in which treaties are sacrosanct no matter the violation. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty bans ground-fired ballistic and cruise missiles with a range between 500 and 5,500 kilometers and is an artifact of the late Cold War. Ronald Reagan and NATO deployed mid-range missiles in Europe in the early 1980s to counter Soviet deployments. After years...

The Obama Administration’s endorsement of a Swiss global oversight scheme for government defense and security contractors is a warning for not only the shooting industry, but for civil arms rights and democratic national sovereignty. Geneva --(Ammoland.com)- On August 16th 2013, the Obama Administration signaled tentative plans to support a new scheme to legally bind government contractors into complying with international humanitarian law, human rights law, arms control and disarmament law, as well as other requirements of the United Nations (UN) Security Council.[1] The scheme applies to private military and security services contractors (and their subcontractors) doing business with the United...

Perhaps the strongest argument against a new agreement with Russia is the virtual certainty that Russia will violate it. It is now clear that the Russians are in violation of major arms control treaties and that the current Administration is ignoring these violations. The current proposal will create major nuclear disparity in Russia's favor and leave the U.S. vulnerable to Russian air and missile defense. The Administration reportedly intends to circumvent congressional approval -- a clear indication of how bad they expect the outcome to be. When Obama, in June 2013, announced his agenda for the next round of nuclear...

As you and I prepared to celebrate America's Independence from Britain and the totalitarian rule of King George III, the U.N. began a month-long "Diplomatic Conference" to draft the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), which the U.S. has said it will sign. The Conservative component of Congress is suspicious, as well they should be. Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS), via letter, reminded Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that any treaty must be ratified by two-thirds of the U.S. Senate. Congressman Mike Kelly (R-PA) and 130 others in the U.S. House have sent a letter to Obama, and Secretary...

In his speech on defense and foreign policy at South Carolina’s Citadel Military Academy on October 7, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney said: “I will begin reversing the Obama-era missile defense cuts and prioritize the full deployment of a multilayered national ballistic-missile defense system.” If conservatives hold him to this promise, it will be a significant step towards fulfilling the goal of making nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete” that Ronald Reagan laid out in his famous March 1983 “Star Wars” speech. The key word that Romney pronounced, which heartened missile-defense advocates and almost certainly disturbs the opponents of such defensive...

First, the Arms Export Control Act, 22 USC §2778.. It authorizes the President to define defense articles and regulate their export. In so doing, he must consider the possibility that export could "support international terrorism, increase the possibility of outbreak or escalation of conflict..." Those defense articles may not be exported without a permit, issued by the Secretary of State ( Department of State guidelines here), "except that no license shall be required for exports or imports made by or for an agency of the United States Government (A) for official use by a department or agency of the United...

<p>WASHINGTON - The U.S. Navy forced a North Korean ship on its way to Myanmar to return home after a standoff two weeks ago, The New York Times reported Sunday. The Times said the U.S. suspected the North Korean cargo vessel, the M/V Light, was carrying missile technology to Myanmar.</p>

Much reporting and commentary casts the Senate debate over ratification of the New START nuclear-weapons treaty as driven by partisanship. But New START skeptics are driven by something else: the idea that arms-control treaties should serve our security interests now and in the longer term. New START does neither. That is why the Senate should consider the full record of the negotiations before voting to approve a treaty that will: 1. encumber our freedom to deploy ballistic-missile defenses, 2. squander the negotiating leverage needed to bring Russian shorter-range missiles under control, and 3. reduce verification standards in this and probably...

It turns out the Russians got a great deal on the new Strategic Arms Reduc tion Treaty, which President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed in Prague last month. At our expense, of course. The bad news is late in leaking out because seemingly no one outside the government -- and likely few, if any, inside Congress -- got a look at the arms-control pact before the two leaders inked it. But the treaty's problems should be front and center as early as next week, when the Senate starts hearings on it. (Like any US treaty, the new START...

Military Advantage: Our defense secretary proposes doing what no other foreign adversary has done: sink the U.S. Navy. We don't need those billion-dollar destroyers, he says. Meanwhile, the Chinese navy rushes to fill the vacuum. Once Britannia ruled the waves, later to be replaced by America and its Navy. From the Battle of Midway to President Reagan's 600-ship fleet that helped win the Cold War, naval supremacy has been critical to the protection and survival of our nation. Which is why we find the recent remarks of Defense Secretary Robert Gates to the Navy League at the Sea-Air-Space expo so...

Defense: The administration proudly reveals a state secret to our enemies before a U.N. conference on nuclear nonproliferation. It wants to lead by example on disarmament, but Iran and North Korea aren't following. Not since the 1928 Kellogg-Briand Pact that sought to outlaw war as an instrument of national policy has there been such a stunning display of dangerous naivete. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton disclosed U.S. nuclear secrets to the U.N. conference while proudly proclaiming it showed America is sending "a clear, unmistakable signal" that this nation is committed to nuclear disarmament. Kellogg-Briand laid the groundwork for Munich in...

On April 8, in Prague, the United States and Russia signed what they call the “New START” bilateral arms-control agreement, important specifics of which, in hallmark Obama-administration fashion (see health care), were still being negotiated. Nonetheless, the president and his acolytes are calling for the treaty’s swift ratification. The Senate would better protect our country’s future by actually deliberating before rushing over the precipice. A vital constitutional imperative, the Senate’s role in making binding treaty commitments, is at stake. While some consider it passé to insist that legislators read and understand what they vote upon, senators should insist on their...

Arms Deal: President Obama signs away U.S. nuclear security and gives the Russians a veto over whether we can defend ourselves. Our nuclear umbrella is in tatters as another piece of paper proclaims peace in our time. Completing a process of disarmament and appeasement that manifested itself in the dismantling and defunding of U.S. military power that began with his inauguration, President Obama signed a new strategic arms limitation treaty with a grinning and very happy Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Thursday in the Czech capital. How fitting this document was signed in Prague, which isn't far from Munich where...

National Security: Aiming at a world where nuclear weapons are obsolete, the administration's nuclear posture review leaves a world without American nuclear weapons and the backbone to use them. After his stunning bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, Japanese Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto lamented that all that had been accomplished was to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve. Under policies announced by the Obama administration, a devastating chemical or biological attack on this country might merely awaken our very own Hamlet and fill him with a terrible sense of angst. We have said before that rather...

SINGAPORE: A major pact within tantalizing reach, President Barack Obama aims to nudge forward an arms-control deal in talks with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev. The 21-member Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum brought Obama to Singapore, but he is focusing on individual meetings Sunday with Medvedev and with Indonesia's Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, president of the world's largest Muslim nation and Obama's home as a boy. The US-Russia meeting takes place as the nations seek a successor to a Cold War-era agreement. Obama planned another milestone: joining a larger meeting that includes the leader of military-ruled Myanmar. Obama is sure to face criticism...

Obama promised to neuter America before the election in one of his campaign ads to supporters: That was one promise he decided to keep. As promised, Barack Obama will go ahead with his plan to weaken America's stand in the world. The Guardian reported today that Obama is pushing a radical plan to eliminate not hundreds but thousands of the nation's strategic warheads, via Free Republic. Barack Obama has demanded the Pentagon conduct a radical review of US nuclear weapons doctrine to prepare the way for deep cuts in the country's arsenal, the Guardian can reveal. Obama has rejected the...

The signing ceremony in Moscow was a grand affair. For Barack Obama, foreign policy neophyte and "reset" man, the arms reduction agreement had a Kissingerian air. A fine feather in his cap. And our president likes his plumage. Unfortunately for the United States, the country Obama represents, the prospective treaty is useless at best, detrimental at worst. Useless because the level of offensive nuclear weaponry, the subject of the U.S.-Russia "Joint Understanding," is an irrelevance. We could today terminate all such negotiations, invite the Russians to build as many warheads as they want, and profitably watch them spend themselves into...