The Vandenberg Coalition brings you weekly roundups of news media pieces displaying honest candor in the foreign policy space.
Towards Achieving a Better Understanding of the Nation’s Defenses | America’s Incredible Shrinking Navy | Delusional in Davos | Debt Distress on the Road to “Belt and Road” | Bougainville: The U.S. Needs a Proactive Approach Toward the Potential New Country in the Pacific
How Civics Education Can Help Solve the Military Recruitment Crisis | What to Do About Coups | Iran’s Strategy of Proxy Encirclement | Ukraine’s Long-Term Path to Success: Jumpstarting a Self-Sufficient Defense Industrial Base with U.S. and E.U. Support | Six Ways for the U.S. to Put Democracy Back on the Global Agenda in 2024
Netanyahu’s ‘Saudi Bind’ Muddles Planning for ‘The Day After’ | The United States Needs to Play Hardball With Turkey | What to Make of Kim Jong Un’s Latest Threats of War | The Biden Doctrines | Can Republicans Find Consensus on Foreign Policy? | Improving U.S. Disaster Relief at Reduced Risk and Cost
The Peace Processors Return | U.S. Navy Helo Crews Kill Houthi Assault Boat Teams After Red Sea Attack | Avoiding America’s Suez Moment | The Impact of Ending Military Aid to Ukraine: Gradual Decline, Then Collapse | How the U.S. Can Push Back Against Authoritarianism in China and Beyond
The High Price of Losing Ukraine | The U.S. Defense Industrial Base | What’s Wrong With Biden’s Venezuela Policy | Pentagon To Launch ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’ To Reopen Red Sea Passage | America Needs a Bipartisan Shipbuilding Deal
Congressional Inaction on Defense Budget Weakens Deterrence in Asia | Why We Should be Wary of China’s Pledges of a Fentanyl ‘Crackdown’ | The U.S. Must Use Its Export Controls | The Case for Conservative Internationalism | What the U.S. Must Do to Restart Israel-Saudi Talks | The Shortest Path to Victory in Ukraine Goes Through Crimea
President Biden Must Face Reality: It’s Time to Act vs. Iran | Ukraine Aid’s Best-kept Secret: Most of the Money Stays in the U.S.A. | Stasis is Not Stalemate in the Ukraine War | The United States Must Defend Critical Infrastructure | Save the Military–Industrial Complex | China’s Economic Weakness and Challenge to the Bretton Woods System: How Should the US Respond? | China Enslaves People at Sea and We Don’t Have the Wherewithal to Stop It
The Importance of Rebuilding the ‘Arsenal of Democracy’ | Will America Lose its Next War? National Defense in a Dangerous Era | How the United Nations Became an Enabler for Terrorism | The Real Reason Iran Hates Israel | Putin’s Alignment In Middle East Should Signal To Israel It’s Time For A Change Of Allegiance | Central Asia Could Be the Graveyard of the Russia-China Alliance | Bolivia’s Descent into Deep Chaos and the Implications for the Region
The Vandenberg Coalition wishes you and your family a Thanksgiving filled
with love, family, and gratitude. Thank you for your continuing support, and
your dedication to the mission of a strong, proud, and principled United
States. This Thanksgiving, we are grateful for precisely these lights—the men and
women around the world, many who receive this very newsletter, who have
shown true moral courage.
Triad Weed: How Chinese Marijuana Grows Took Over Rural Maine | Placating Xi Won’t Change China’s Behavior | Irregular Warfare: Undermining the CCP’s Dangerous and Illegal Activities in the Indo-Pacific | The Fragility of Civilization | Here’s What China’s Foray Into The Middle East Could Mean For Taiwan
Why Do Young Americans Support Hamas? Look at TikTok. | AI Is a National-Security Danger | Why the Philippines is Exiting the Belt and Road | In Israel vs. Hamas, China Backs Iran vs. America | Only the U.S. Can Restore World Order | The Fourteen Facts about US Aid to Ukraine | Iran’s Ever-Expanding Ring of Fire
The U.S. Needs A Special Envoy for Arab-Israeli Normalization | Zero Tolerance for Terrorism & Its Supporters | Blood Money: Stopping the Cash That Underwrites Terror | A Reagan Doctrine for Today | A Pacific Budget Supplemental to Prevent the Next War | The Sinking Submarine Industrial Base | How America Can Beat China In A War
A World Without American Deterrence | The Biden Administration Should Stop Funding America’s Enemies | Has Iran Compromised The Biden Administration? | Why the U.S. Must Break China’s Emerging “String of Pearls” in the Arabian Gulf | The Land That Geopolitics Forgot | Why Sending Ukraine ATACMs Will Help It Win in the Long Term
SPECIAL EDITION: Israel Under Attack | The Hamas Attack Changes Everything | Israel War: Hamas Should No Longer Have a Safe Haven—Anywhere | Hamas Terrorists’ 21st-Century Pogrom | What Comes Next in Gaza | The Yom Kippur War’s Lessons for Ukraine—and Biden | Iran and Its Network of Nineteen Terrorist Organizations on Israel’s Borders
Vandenberg Open Letter to Conservatives in Congress | Ukraine’s War of Drones Runs into an Obstacle: China | Iran Hostage Deal Has Nuclear Implications | Taiwan’s Big Stakes in Washington’s Budget Battles | Weakness is Lethal: Why Putin Invaded Ukraine and How the War Must End | The U.S. Government Should Stockpile More Critical Minerals
New Series: Countering CCP Regional Influence
How China Uses Shipping for Surveillance and Control | The West Has a Massive Chinese Spy Problem | Avoid a Sequester and Fully Fund a Preeminent Military | With Russia Distracted in Ukraine, U.S. Reaches Out to Central Asia | U.S. and Israeli Policy Aligned Regarding Saudi Arabia | Strategic Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific: U.S. and Indian Perspectives | Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict: What to Know About Nagorno-Karabakh
Rethinking Geopolitics: Geography as an Aid to Statecraft | The U.S. Must Help Curb Cartel Violence in Mexico | Why the U.S.-Mexico Relationship Could Get Even Worse | Iranian Drone Proliferation is Scaling Up and Turning More Lethal | A Renewed Axis: Growing Military Cooperation Between North Korea and Russia
Perseverance and Adaptation: Ukraine’s Counteroffensive at Three Months | By Skimping on the Budget for Competition with China, Washington Makes War More Likely | Rob Malley’s Legacy of Failure: Undermining American Interests in the Middle East | The China-India Border | Japan Fisheries Become China’s Newest Geopolitical Target
Iran Will Continue Taking Hostages if the Money Keeps Flowing | Biden’s Asia Diplomacy is Incomplete | Attacking Foreign Corruption Blunts China’s Malign Economic Influence | Winning the Influence War Against China | America’s Military-Industrial Base Needs a Revival | A Compound Problem: Dialing in U.S. Semiconductor Strategy
Ever Since the Afghanistan Withdrawal, Biden’s Foreign Policy Has Been One Big Mess | Iran-Russia Collaboration Makes a Mess of Biden’s Foreign Policy | The Aftermath of Biden’s Dishonorable Afghanistan Exit is Still Unfolding | You Go to War with the Industrial Base You Have, Not the Industrial Base You Want | In Tanzania, Beijing is Running a Training School for Authoritarianism | Why Taiwan’s Defense is in the American National Interest
The Disastrous Implications of the $6 Billion Iran Hostage Deal | Closing Washington’s China Gap with Middle East Partners | NATO’s Northern Flank Has Too Many Weak Spots | Since the Pelosi Visit, China Has Created a New Normal in the Taiwan Strait | India Embraces America’s Vision for Outer Space
Americans Are Not Embracing Isolationism | How the Ukraine Counteroffensive Can Still Succeed | If Ukraine Is Any Barometer of Expenditure Rates in Modern War, America is Gonna Lose Taiwan | Suit Against Tech Giant Shines Light on U.S. Complicity in Chinese Torture | The Wagner Group in Africa Serves Putin’s Global Ambitions
Washington Must React Realistically to the Coup in Niger | Niger’s Coup is a West African Disaster in the Making | America’s Military Trails Russia and China in Race for the Melting Arctic | Italy Intends to Leave China’s Belt and Road Initiative | What We Learned from the Korean War
America’s Reactive Foreign Policy | We Should Not Be Cavalier About Declining Public Confidence in the Military | The Long Shadow of Oppenheimer’s Trinity Test | Why You Should Care About the Afghanistan War Commission | Washington Lays Mines in Black Sea to Block Ukrainian Ports
The Myth of Neutrality | Iran’s Shadow War | How America Can Escape China’s Rare Earth Pincer | How One U.S. Government Agency is Helping China Win the Tech Race | Understanding the Implications of No Black Sea Grain Deal
Beyond the Water’s Edge is our weekly bulletin, containing policy analysis, vigorous debate and exchange, and key announcements. Sign up here to join a growing network of leaders committed to a foreign policy that protects and preserves American security, prosperity, and freedom.