The World Ignores Hillary Clinton as The Obama Administration Slashes US Defenses

The Daily Caller

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton appears at least to be trying to restore American prestige abroad. Talking tough in Asia last week, she stared across the DMZ and told the North Koreans to back off. In Vietnam she asserted that the United States still had a “national interest” in the region. She intimated that America would not allow China to bully ASEAN nations into giving up their rights in the South China Sea or restrict our freedom of navigation through one of the world’s busiest oceans. It is striking that Clinton, the most liberal Secretary of State since Cyrus Vance, is the most hawkish member of the administration’s national security team.

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The Obama Administration's Cuts to The U.S. Navy Imperil Critical Missions

The Daily Caller

The United States Navy is drastically shrinking due to the serious cuts the Obama administration is making to the shipbuilding budget. As set forth in the Navy’s Quadrennial Defense Review, the service requires a minimum of 313 ships to accomplish its many missions. Today, however, the Navy is operating just 286 warships. Given President Obama’s plans to further cut the defense budget, the number of ships in the Navy is certain to continue to decline below even the current number with very negative consequences for the United States; one area that is significantly impacted is America’s amphibious assault capacity.

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America Must Immediately Reverse the Downsizing of its Navy as China Grows on the High Seas

The Huffington Post

The United States Navy is of critical importance to the defense of this country and to maintaining freedom of the seas internationally. Freedom of navigation, as ensured by the Navy, is critical to America's ability to project power by moving men and equipment over 70 percent of the earth's surface and to maintaining world trade and commerce. The Navy's missions in this regard have expanded significantly in recent years. Simultaneously, the Navy faces a strategic challenge from China in the Pacific. Yet the number of ships in the fleet continues to fall. If this trend is not reversed quickly, American security and influence in the world will be diminished for many years to come.

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Don't Forget Afghanistan's Justice System

CBS News

President Obama has reaffirmed our commitment to winning in Afghanistan and American and British Marines are on the offensive in Marjah. Winning in Afghanistan requires that we, our coalition allies and Afghan forces, defeat the Taliban insurgency, end the rampant narcotics trade, and overcome pervasive corruption among Afghan officials. A key to success in dealing with all three areas is rebuilding the Afghan justice sector.

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Don't Give Guantanamo to Castro

Newsmax

Last month, I traveled to the U.S. naval base at Guantánamo Bay (GTMO) to see the Joint Task Force’s detention facilities and to receive a briefing on detainee issues from the JTF commander. I am the second person in my family to have visited GTMO. My father deployed to the base as a young Marine Corps officer during the Cuban Missile Crisis. GTMO is the oldest American base overseas and the only U.S. base in a communist country. It is strategically located on the southeast corner of Cuba near the entrance of the Windward Passage, the straight that separates Cuba from Hispaniola. GTMO is a mere 400 miles south of Miami. Through two world wars and the Cold War, GTMO has been a key to American control of sea lanes in the Caribbean that lead to the Panama Canal. In addition to its current role in the war on terror, the base allowed the United States to deal effectively with both the Cuban and Haitian refugee crises in the 1990s. GTMO continues to provide key support to the Coast Guard’s drug interdiction efforts in the region as it regularly hosts and supplies Coast Guard cutters and air crews during their patrols.

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