Heritage Foundation Leadership for America

Conflict in Gaza: Another Case for Directed Energy Defenses

The new Administration has opportunity to introduce a "game changer" in the current Middle East conflict by helping speed the fielding of prototype directed-energy defenses that can devalue the threat of terrorist missile and artillery arsenals.

Bangladesh Election: Major Milestone for Democracy in South Asia

Bangladeshis went to the polls on December 29 in record numbers and elected the secular Awami League party headed by former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Wajed. Yet, successful elections are only the first step in achieving a functional democratic process.

Time to End "Zeroing" in Trade Dumping Calculations

America's refusal to eliminate its practice of "zeroing" in anti-dumping investigations erodes U.S. credibility in multilateral trade negotiations. With the new year should come a new commitment to cleaning up U.S. dumping practices.

The Future of the WTO Doha Round

On December 12, the director-general of the World Trade Organization, Pascal Lamy, announced that he would not convene a ministerial meeting in December to conclude the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations. The announcement comes after efforts to build consensus for a comprehensive agreement were held hostage to a handful of controversial trade issues, as well as changing political leadership in key WTO countries. While a trade deal would immediately bolster confidence in the world economy, any further agreements are contingent upon whether, in 2009, WTO members have the political will to conclude the Doha Round.

America Should Support the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership

In March 2009, the U.S., Australia, and Peru will sit down with member countries of the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (P-4) to negotiate the potential expansion of the P-4 trade agreement. America depends on international trade—trade that can be made freer with the new Administration's support of negotiations under the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership.

Bale up the bailouts

So much for checks and balances. It looks as if the Bush administration intends to spend billions of dollars bailing out the American automotive industry. That announcement came immediately after Congress - the branch of government that is constitutionally required to deal with spending measures - declined to intervene.

Liberty Forum better than U.N. Rights Council

Sixty years ago this month, the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which some have dubbed a Magna Carta for mankind. Coming on the heels of World War II, the Declaration was supposed to show the world that the United Nations would not tolerate the terrible abuses of human rights committed by the Nazis and Axis powers.

Nonprofits Don't Need A Bailout; Americans Give In Bad Times, Too

Move aside, Motown. Make way, WaMu. There's a new mendicant bellying up to the bailout bar: America's charities.

Economic Elixir: A Coded Approach

Back in the 1990s President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair crafted what they called a “third way” of governing. Supposedly this approach would be neither liberal nor conservative, but would split the difference.

Security oversight seen running amok

So why does Congress allow this? Because changing the oversight situation to fit with the commission's recommendation would rankle the many committee chairmen - members who might (gasp!) see the authority and prestige of their fiefdoms diminished. And that's unacceptable, even if it leaves the nation less safe.

• A Political Idea That Won't Go Away: Implications of Moral Law for America's Founding and Future
• Vital Triangle: The Shifting Dynamics of the Saudi-U.S.-Sino Relationship
• Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Legacy: Developing a Vision for Civil Rights in the Twenty-First Century

• American Power after the Berlin Wall
  Read | Listen | Watch
• Heritage Event: Public Diplomacy: Reinvigorating America's Strategic Communications Policy
  Read | Listen | Watch
• Knowing the Enemy: Faith, Reason and the War Against Jihadism
  Read | Listen | Watch
• Shoot Down
  
• The Value of Transatlantic Partnership in the 21st Century
  Read | Listen | Watch
• Liberty's Best Hope: American Leadership for the 21st Century
  Read | Listen | Watch
• AFRICOM: Progress, Challenges and Prospects
  Read | Listen | Watch
• Next Steps in Iraq and Afghanistan for Winning the Long War
  Read | Listen | Watch
• The Confrontation: Winning the War Against Future Jihad
  Read | Listen | Watch
• The Russian Military: Modernization and the Future
  Read | Listen | Watch