Domestic Politics Archive

A serious crisis played out during the past month over the future of France’s defense budget, pitting the pared-down and overstretched Defense Ministry against the cost-cutters of the Budget Ministry. Though the Defense Ministry has been spared for now, the fallout may leave lasting marks on the French military leadership’s morale, and on the country’s reputation as a European defense leader. In the first 18 months of Francois Hollande’s presidency, France underwent a full defense review. The financial crisis and geopolitical changes, it was believed, warranted a revision of the country’s 2008 Defense White Paper. Moreover, a new Military Program […]

The least visible leg of America’s nuclear deterrent, its fleet of stealthy ballistic missile submarines, is widely considered to be its most effective. It is also phenomenally expensive even by the standards of Pentagon acquisition programs. This is one reason that the Senate Armed Services Committee, in its recent markup of the fiscal year 2015 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), moved to establish a “National Sea-based Deterrence Fund” to ensure that the Navy replaces the current fleet of Ohio-class submarines “at the appropriate level of priority” assigned to it by the Navy leadership. This is an acknowledgment of the pressures […]

For years, security experts have warned of the threat from “homegrown terrorists” inspired by al-Qaida’s violent ideology. While American jihadists have not yet pulled off an attack on the scale of 9/11, they were responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings of 2013. Other Western nations have been similarly unfortunate: Homegrown terrorists engineered the Madrid train bombings of 2004 and the London Underground bombings of 2005. And it could get worse as dozens or even hundreds of trained, experienced, radicalized fighters return home from conflicts in the Islamic world. The Syrian insurgency is the biggest concern. An estimated 11,000 foreign fighters […]

The introduction of sedentary farming was a cornerstone in the establishment of human civilizations. However, farming in its essence is a major modification of the natural landscape. Establishment of farming requires leveling lands, damming rivers, eradicating wildlife and clear-cutting forests. Over time, human knowledge has expanded, and modification of nature for agricultural purposes has become more effective and efficient—the horse-drawn plow has been replaced with the tractor, and natural fertilizers with chemicals. Yet, there is growing realization that some of the human modification of natural systems might have been excessive, which has led to environmental awareness and legislation that aims […]

Yesterday, Salvador Sanchez Ceren of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) succeeded Mauricio Funes as president of El Salvador. While Funes has received overall high marks from the Salvadoran public, in particular in the area of education, he leaves a public security mess for the incoming Sanchez Ceren administration. Funes assumed the presidency in June 2009 amid growing public insecurity due to MS-13 and 18th Street gang violence, organized crime and drug trafficking. During his first year in office, Funes ordered 2,500 additional troops to the 1,500 already patrolling the country’s most violent neighborhoods and streets. The vast majority […]