One of the great benefits of democracy is that politics impacts policy, even national security policy. Elections, confirmation battles, and legislative fights all affect the way the United States balances its competing priorities, interests and values as it conducts foreign and security affairs. National security professionals would therefore be wise to keep an eye on what candidates are saying about national security matters, how they are faring in the polls, and on which way the winds in Congress seem to be blowing the national security issues of the day.
Latest in Politics & National Security
If Joe Biden wins the November election, Americans will likely see a reversion to a more traditional approach to the presidency. What might that mean in the field of U.S. national security?
We’re using FOIA to find out if the intelligence community feels like it’s being pressured to reach certain conclusions—and, if so, how that’s impacting employee morale.
One year ago, the Trump administration announced that, for the first time in 23 years, the President would cease to suspend Title III of the Helms-Burton Act and would instead allow U.S. nationals to sue persons and companies that “traffic” in property expropriated by the Cuban government after the start of the Cuban Revolution. Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Obama had suspended Title III from 1996-2017, because they concluded that activation of the provision would produce a flood of complex lawsuits in U.S. courts and cause diplomatic friction with close allies.
Protecting whistleblowers and officials who speak truth to power is the responsibility of every member of Congress.
We’ve combed through the transcript from the eleventh debate to present the national security-related exchanges. These excerpts are organized both thematically and chronologically.
On Tuesday, CBS News and the South Carolina-based Congressional Black Caucus Institute co-hosted the tenth debate of the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, moderated by Norah O’Donnell and Gayle King. Margaret Brennan, Major Garrett, and Bill Whitaker also asked the candidates questions.
We’ve combed through the transcript from the debate to present the national security-related exchanges. These excerpts are organized both thematically and chronologically.
On Wednesday, NBC News and MSNBC hosted the ninth debate of the 2020 Democratic primary campaign, moderated by Lester Holt, Chuck Todd, Hallie Jackson, Vanessa Hauc and Jon Ralston. We’ve combed through the transcript from the debate to present the national security-related exchanges. These excerpts are organized both thematically and chronologically.
A complete transcript is available from NBC News here.
Trudeau campaigns for a U.N. Security Council seat, Canada responds to the coronavirus epidemic and other Canadian national security news.
Here are the excerpts most relevant to Lawfare readers, organized by topic, in the order in which they were mentioned.
The Trump administration’s high turnover in leadership is unprecedented and severely limits the role of the NSC.