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<title>Heritage RSS Feed</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/</link>
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<item>
<title>The China Connection: From Illegal Fishing to Narcotics Trafficking</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/report/the-china-connection-illegal-fishing-narcotics-trafficking</link>
<description>The Chinese distant water fishing fleet is comprised of thousands of trawlers working far from Chinese shores, often engaging in illegal fishing from the South Pacific to Western Africa. To smaller nations that are economically and nutritionally dependent on the oceans, this poaching poses an immediate threat, costing them an estimated $50 billion a year.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Ed Holt, “Counting the Massive Financial Costs of Illegal Fishing,” Global Issues, November 2, 2022, https://www.globalissues.org/news/2022/11/02/32314 (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
China’s distant water fishing fleet will likely be coming to American waters—if it has not already. To ward off this threat, the United States should better understand and confront the national security threats posed by the Chinese distant water fishing fleet.
<h3>China’s Thuggish Behavior at Sea</h3>
As fish stocks dwindle near China, distant fish stocks have become ever more lucrative, in recent years driving China’s fleet into distant waters. In the Pacific, vulnerable nations such as Papua New Guinea rely heavily on fishing to provide 44–75 percent of local economies’ income and a diminishing portion of their food.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Constance Wong, “Financial Tools for Small-Scale Fishers: Community Survey—Papua New Guinea,” World Wildlife Fund Pacific and Global Environment Facility, June 29, 2023, https://www.wtwco.com/-/media/wtw/insights/2023/06/financial-tools-for-small-scale-fishers-community-survey-papua-new-guinea-png-updated.pdf (accessed October 22, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF These unregulated distant water fishing fleets deplete local fish stocks, depriving island communities of a valuable resource.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Bruce Vaughn and Ben Dolven, “China’s Role in the Exploitation of Global Fisheries: Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, April 12, 2022, https://www.congress.gov/crs_external_products/R/PDF/R47065/R47065.1.pdf (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
&nbsp;
<img alt="IB5398 Map 1" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="1bf30523-34a1-4050-ad8c-8726e86a29a2" src="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/IB-china-distant-water-fishing-map-1.gif">
&nbsp;
Seasonal Chinese distant fishing fleets are notorious for poaching in Ecuadorean and Argentine waters at an industrial scale.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;The Angler, “Hundreds of Chinese Boats Suspected of Illegal Fishing,” March 11, 2025, https://coastalanglermag.com/hundreds-of-chinese-boats-suspected-of-illegal-fishing/ (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Its large factory ships are equipped with refrigeration and canning machines, functioning as offshore fishery bases. At sea, these vessels often operate beyond coastal states’ awareness and capacity to enforce their authority.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Sara Nix, “Keeping the Lights On: Uncovering the Networks Enabling the Distant Water Squid Fleet,” C4ADS, 2025, https://c4ads.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/06/KeepingTheLightsOn-C4ADS-Report.pdf (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF In the open oceans and occasionally in others’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs), the large number of fishing trawlers—numbering in the hundreds—can be daunting for small coastal states (and even the United States) to regulate.
China’s distant water fishing fleet has been detected using counterfeit tracking and registration data to evade limits on its fishing catches and avoid fees, similar to the illicit Russian oil trade.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Winward, “Updated: Illuminating Russia’s Shadow Fleet,” https://windward.ai/knowledge-base/illuminating-russias-shadow-fleet/ (accessed October 22, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF More pressing, however, is that as coastal states attempt to rein in illegal fishing in their EEZs, China could use its paramilitary maritime militia and coast guard to push back.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Ryan D. Martinson, Echelon Defense: The Role of Sea Power in Chinese Maritime Dispute Strategy (China Maritime Studies Institute, 2018), https://digital-commons.usnwc.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1014&amp;context=cmsi-red-books (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF This is now playing out over the contested South China Sea Scarborough Shoal and Whitsun Reef.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Office of Naval Intelligence, Foreign Governments’ Use of Their Distant Water Fishing Fleets as Extensions of Their Maritime Security Forces and Foreign Policies, June 2021, https://www.oni.navy.mil/Portals/12/reading_room/20210616_Congressional%20Report_Final%20-%20%2019AUG21.pdf (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF For many years Chinese fishing vessels have integrated maritime militia on trawlers operating with the Chinese Coast Guard to intimidate southeast Asian fishermen and maritime enforcement agencies using gray-zone tactics.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“Gray zone tactics—coercive actions that are shy of armed conflict but beyond normal diplomatic, economic, and other activities—are widely recognized as playing an increasingly important role in China’s efforts to advance its domestic, economic, foreign policy, and security objectives, particularly in the Indo-Pacific.” Bonny Lin et al., “A New Framework for Understanding and Countering China’s Gray Zone Tactics,” RAND, March 30, 2022, https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RBA594-1.html (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF If embedded in more distant fishing operations, the maritime militia could complicate even further the ability of smaller nations to stop poaching in their waters.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Grant Newsham, “China Uses Disguised Fishing Fleets to Control Indo-Pacific, Challenge US Dominance in the Region,” Center for Security Policy, April 19, 2023, https://centerforsecuritypolicy.org/china-uses-disguised-fishing-fleets-to-control-indo-pacific-challenge-us-dominance-in-the-region/ (accessed October 30, 2025.&lt;/p&gt;">REF Though not acknowledged—yet—the potential is high for poaching in U.S. waters given the proximity to American EEZs of these large and unregulated Chinese distant water fishing fleets.
The potential for industrial-scale poaching in American waters threatens local livelihoods, but Chinese fishing fleets are doing more than illegal fishing. China is the most active perpetrator of illegal fishing and its potential for crossing over into other illegal activities cannot be discounted, to include in U.S. waters.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General, Coast Guard Missed Opportunities to Interdict Foreign Fishing Vessels Suspected of Illegally Fishing in U.S. Waters, June 6, 2025, https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2025-06/OIG-25-25-Jun25.pdf (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Moreover, researchers at The Heritage Foundation have heard firsthand reports of Chinese fishing fleets smuggling items such as counterfeit cigarettes into Latin America.
&nbsp;
<img alt="IB5398 Figure 1" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="8278093d-a96f-402a-b16d-87e71cec2b5a" src="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/IB-china-distant-water-fishing-figure-1.gif">
&nbsp;
<h3>The Distant Water Fleet and the Drug Trade</h3>
It is likely that China’s distant water fishing fleet—which is already engaging in illegal fishing, trade in counterfeit cigarettes, and human trafficking—will graduate to even more lucrative fentanyl precursor chemicals or cocaine.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Ian Urbina, “The Crimes Behind the Seafood You Eat,” New Yorker, October 9, 2023, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/10/16/the-crimes-behind-the-seafood-you-eat (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Throughout the world, fishing vessels have engaged in the smuggling of drugs and precursor chemicals, an illicit trade worth about $80 billion a year or 15 percent of the total revenue of drugs worldwide.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Joshua Rapp Learn, “The Number of Small Fishing Vessels Smuggling Illegal Drugs Has Tripled,” Smithsonian Magazine, November 12, 2020, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/number-small-fishing-vessels-smuggling-illegal-drugs-has-tripled-180976157/ (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Given that the precursors for producing fentanyl come mainly from China, the participation of these fishing vessels in the drug trade may already be happening.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Press release, “U.S. Overdose Deaths Decrease in 2023, First Time Since 2018,” National Center for Health Statistics, May 15, 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/pressroom/releases/20240515.html (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
On addressing the narcotics threat, President Donald Trump has been clear: “To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned—we will blow you out of existence,” Trump said while addressing the U.N. on September 23, and that is exactly what he has been doing in Venezuela.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;The White House, “At UN, President Trump Champions Sovereignty, Rejects Globalism,” September 23, 2025, https://www.whitehouse.gov/articles/2025/09/at-un-president-trump-champions-sovereignty-rejects-globalism/ (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF On October 21, U.S. forces struck a drug boat for the first time in the Eastern Pacific.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Greg Norman and Stephen Sorace, “US Carries Out 8th Strike on Alleged Drug Vessel, This Time in Eastern Pacific, Hegseth Says,” Fox News, October 22, 2025, https://www.foxnews.com/world/us-strikes-8th-alleged-drug-vessel-eastern-pacific-hegseth-says (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
<h3>Illegal Activities in Latin America</h3>
China’s contributions to illicit trade has exacerbated drug cartels’ corrosive influence on Latin American governance. The Bang Group, a notorious Chinese criminal gang, has participated in human trafficking, narcotics smuggling, and the counterfeit cigarette trade. The money earned enables the corruption of officials and pliable banks to facilitate money laundering.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;International Coalition Against Illicit Economies, “The Growing Ecosystems of Criminality Across South America in a Threat Convergence World. In Focus: Chile and the Southern Cone,” January 25, 2025, https://icaie.com/2025/01/the-growing-ecosystems-of-criminality-across-south-america-in-a-threat-convergence-world-in-focus-chile-and-the-southern-cone/ (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The Bang Group is operating within South America, providing a ready partner for expanded illicit trades buoyed by Chinese distant water fishing fleets. Consider the lucrative trade in counterfeit cigarettes, with Panama and Colombia being major points of entry into the region.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Nathan Jaccard et al., “Illegal Chinese Cigarettes Flooding Latin America Flow Through Panama,” Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, June 22, 2021, https://www.occrp.org/en/project/china-tobacco-goes-global/illegal-chinese-cigarettes-flooding-latin-america-flow-through-panama (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
The China National Tobacco Corporation is the world’s largest producer and the largest illegal supplier, leveraging easy access through the free trade zone in Colón, Panama, to move illicit cargo into containers for transshipment.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Ibid., and U.S.Department of State, The Global Illicit Trade in Tobacco: A Threat to National Security, December 2015, https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/250513.pdf (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Should scrutiny grow on these operations, illicit cargo will have to move on less risky routes—potentially involving the distant water fishing fleet.
The cartels and China’s fishing fleet would not be able to turn a profit in their illicit trade without some official support or acquiescence. For its part, the Chinese Communist Party passively benefits from the chaos and erosion of society these narco-terrorist organizations sow in neighboring countries, resulting in more pliable governments and vulnerable political leaders.
The Chinese Communist Party’s support for cartels in Latin America manifests as lax money laundering enforcement and controls on fentanyl precursor chemical shipments. In 2024, the Department of Justice announced that the Sinaloa Cartel was found to be working with underground Chinese banks to launder drug trafficking profits.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Press release, “Federal Indictment Alleges Alliance Between Sinaloa Cartel and Money Launderers Linked to Chinese Underground Banking,” U.S. Department of Justice, June 18, 2024, https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/federal-indictment-alleges-alliance-between-sinaloa-cartel-and-money-launderers-linked (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF On September 3, 2025, the Justice Department announced that 300,000 kilograms of precursor chemicals from China were interdicted at the Port of Houston. These chemicals were destined for a Sinaloa Cartel lab in Mexico.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Press release, “U.S. Seizes 300,000 Kilos of Meth Precursor Chemicals Sent from China Destined for Mexico’s Sinaloa Drug Cartel,” U.S. Department of Justice, September 3, 2025, https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/us-seizes-300000-kilos-meth-precursor-chemicals-sent-china-destined-mexicos-sinaloa-drug (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
Moreover, Venezuela under President Nicolas Maduro has become a “narco state” where China has been significantly increasing ties since 2000. China’s investment in Venezuelan oil was initially meant to wean Venezuela’s petroleum industry away from its long-standing customer in the United States. Despite the surge in Venezuelan trade with China, since 2016 Venezuela has seen a 60 percent reduction in crude oil production, leading the Maduro regime to turn to other sources of income,<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;CEIC, “Venezuela Crude Oil: Production, 2002–2021 Data,” https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/venezuela/crude-oil-production (accessed October 22, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF such as illicitly mined gold and drug trafficking, which have implicated numerous Maduro regime members.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Chelsa Kenney, Director, International Affairs and Trade, Government Accountability Office, “Venezuela: Illicit Financial Flows and U.S. Efforts to Disrupt Them,” letter to the Hon. James E. Risch, Ranking Member, Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and the Hon. Michael T. McCaul, Chairman, House Foreign Affairs Committee, July 3, 2023, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-23-105668.pdf (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
Unsurprisingly, Venezuela joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative in 2018, and in exchange for oil in 2019, Venezuela received Chinese weapons for its navy.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Peter Suciu, “Why Chinese Weapons Are Flowing to Venezuela’s Navy,” National Interest, January 12, 2021, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/why-chinese-weapons-are-flowing-venezuelas-navy-176213 (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
<h3>Areas of Cooperation</h3>
The United States has limited maritime policing forces, so to effectively combat illegal fishing and drug trafficking at sea, information sharing among nations across the Pacific and Latin America is critical, and regional information fusion centers should play a part.
A Pacific information fusion center would bring together intelligence specialists, maritime enforcement agencies, and even local fishermen to report illicit activities.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Juan Colon et al., “Fusion Centers: Evolving Roles, Expanding Capabilities, Continuing Challenges,” International Institute for Analytics, March 2022, https://www.sas.com/content/dam/SAS/documents/marketing-whitepapers-ebooks/third-party-whitepapers/en/iia-fusion-centers-111762.pdf (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Malaysia’s chief of navy championed similar approaches with the release of the K3M application, enabling fishermen to report illegal activity with location data to maritime information centers by cell phone.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;International Collective in Support of Fishworkers, “Malaysia: Local Fishermen Urged to Register with K3M 2.0 Application,” 2018, https://icsf.net/newss/malaysia-local-fishermen-urged-to-register-with-k3m-2-0-application/ (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Such real-time collection of information can facilitate real-time responses.
Shiprider programs have also been used effectively, notably in the central and south Pacific. These patrols involve a participating nation sending a maritime enforcement official to a U.S. warship or cutter to execute enforcement measures from the U.S. vessel in the partner nation’s EEZ. More of these agreements are needed.REF Frameworks for such agreements, such as the Niue Treaty and Subsidiary Agreement, allow member nations to patrol other member nations’ EEZs and prosecute violators.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Australian Fisheries Management Authority, “Niue Treaty Subsidiary Agreement,” updated March 14, 2023, https://www.afma.gov.au/fisheries-management/international-fisheries-management/niue-treaty-subsidiary-agreement (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Moreover, during the COVID pandemic, some shiprider partner island nations deputized via FaceTime shiprider partner nations to enforce maritime rights in their waters. This deputization should be used more often given the limited number of island officials and limited platforms for conducting enforcement operations.
One area of concern is the Gulf of America, where 511 vessels were suspected in 2023–2024 of illegal fishing, of which the U.S. Coast Guard could interdict only 114.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Office of Inspector General, Coast Guard Missed Opportunities to Interdict Foreign Fishing Vessels Suspected of Illegally Fishing in U.S. Waters, June 6, 2025, https://www.oig.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/assets/2025-06/OIG-25-25-Jun25.pdf (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF “While more than 75 percent of the Coast Guard’s interdictions in 2023 were cued by intelligence, the unexpected unavailability of the Coast Guard’s aging major cutters and other assets used to detect all the cued drug events limited our ability to interdict more smuggling operations,” said Rear Admiral Jo-Ann F. Burdian during a House Committee meeting in 2023.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Congress.Gov, “Guardians of the Sea: Examining Coast Guard Efforts in Drug Enforcement, Illegal Migration, and IUU Fishing,” Congress.gov, November 14, 2023, https://www.congress.gov/event/118th-congress/house-event/LC72767/text (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Although Congress allocated $687 million to combat illegal fishing, fewer operations were conducted, with an average of $5.9 million spent on each encounter.REF To increase maritime domain awareness across and interdictions of poaching within American EEZs, the U.S. Coast Guard will need more cutters and aircraft.
Finally, unmanned vessels are also instrumental in surveying large areas of water.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Mallory Shelbourne, “U.S. Urging Pacific Allies to Step Up Surveillance at Sea, Says Official,” USNI News, December 5, 2023, https://news.usni.org/2023/12/05/u-s-urging-pacific-allies-to-step-up-surveillance-at-sea-says-official (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Not only would this provide intelligence, but it would help smaller nations in the Indo-Pacific respond to violations of their territory.
<h3>Recommendations</h3>
<ul>
<li>Assess and protect America’s fish stock. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard should assess the value and locations of U.S. fish stocks, including pelagic fish transit routes, to inform areas for maritime patrols. A 2016 study estimated that “U.S. fishermen could be losing $1 billion in revenue” each year due to illegal fishing.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;World Wildlife Fund, “An Analysis of the Impact of IUU Imports on U.S. Fishermen,” June 12, 2016, https://www.worldwildlife.org/documents/883/22rtuhqshk_iuu_report_package.pdf (accessed October 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The effects of illegal fishing on U.S. fishermen are significant, and better monitoring of key areas would help lessen this threat.</li>
<li>Study where and how the Chinese distant water fishing fleet operates. The CIA, FBI, Coast Guard, and Navy should form a task force to assess and report on the potential and current activity of illicit trade by the Chinese distant water fishing fleet. This would include U.S. waters and territory in addition to international waters of vital importance such as drug trafficking routes. A likely organization to base this task force and mission would be the Joint Interagency Task Force—West, which is based in Hawaii and responsible for coordinating such activities.</li>
<li>Increase congressional oversight. Congress should conduct a hearing and form an oversight committee to investigate illicit Chinese maritime activities within the EEZs of the United States and other friends and allies.</li>
<li>Prioritize maritime enforcement in American EEZs. The U.S. Coast Guard should be resourced appropriately and directed to prioritize maritime enforcement in all of America’s EEZs. This will require an expansion of the Coast Guard cutter fleet and associated shoreside installation to sustain needed patrols in distant waters, such as those around American Samoa. A revised force design plan—Program of Record—U.S. Coast Guard is needed to be made public that details the forces needed to patrol America’s waters.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
China will not act against its criminal Triads or immoral chemical manufacturers of fentanyl precursor chemicals, because it has nothing to lose by allowing them to continue operating. Yet China’s distant waters fishing fleets stand to complicate U.S. interdiction and degradation of Latin American narco cartels.
Soon the United States will have to act forcefully against the cartels’ smuggling operations in the Pacific, where the Chinese presence is already significant. Enhanced maritime domain awareness—enabled with regional fusion centers and bilateral enforcement agreements—is urgently needed. It would be the first step in deterring China’s Triads and its surrogates from expanding their illicit activities.
Carol Thomason is a member of the Young Leaders Program at The Heritage Foundation. Brent Sadler is a Senior Research Fellow for Naval Warfare and Advanced Technology in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation.
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<pubDate>Thu, 30 Oct 2025 15:16:16 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Carol Thomason, Brent Sadler</dc:creator>
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<item>
<title>How Venezuela Is Supporting Radical Left-Wing Groups in the U.S.</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/how-venezuela-supporting-radical-left-wing-groups-the-us</link>
<description><a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/tag/venezuela/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Venezuela</a>‘s regime is coming under increasing pressure from the Trump administration for using the cartels it controls to smuggle drugs into the United States. Last week, President Donald <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/15/us/politics/trump-covert-cia-action-venezuela.html?unlocked_article_code=1.tk8.vR3a.UfcI_ID8ilp9&amp;smid=url-share" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Trump said</a> he had authorized covert CIA actions inside the South American country, a significant escalation.
But Caracas’s transgressions extend to other areas. It has also long backed efforts to sow political division on U.S. streets. First, it supported Black Lives Matter and its founders. Now, it’s antifa.
Indeed, you can tell a lot about which domestic anti-U.S. groups are rising by the support they get from our enemies overseas, especially Venezuela, but also Iran, Cuba, and China. That Venezuela is diversifying into “anti-fascism” is yet another sign of how diminished BLM has become.
Before its precipitous downfall, BLM changed this country deeply, and for the worse. Its massive and costly riots led to a wave of deep societal changes that threatened to make race the deciding factor in everything from hiring, job promotion, contracts, and university admissions. Diversity, equity, and inclusion workshops became mandatory, and freedom of expression came under threat.
That tide is finally turning now as the people fought back against these draconian measures. But for a few years, the heads of all our main cultural institutions, from universities to media, to libraries, to even the Smithsonian, accepted the BLM canard that America was systemically racist and needed a top-to-bottom overhaul.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/foreign-communists-are-funding-and-training-violent-leftist-radicals-us">Foreign Communists Are Funding and Training Violent Leftist Radicals in U.S.</a>
Venezuela played more than a supportive role in this attempt. Last week, I spoke with a former senior Venezuelan official who was very close to the dead dictator Hugo Chavez and who has now defected. He told me he was in the room in late 2012 when Chavez gave Opal Tometi—who the following year helped to found BLM—suitcases stuffed with dollars.
“Chavez ordered his people to hand the suitcases to them, suitcases filled with dollars, at least $20 million,” the defector told me, adding that Tometi was accompanied by three other African American women and the actor Danny Glover, a huge supporter of the Marxist regimes in Venezuela and Cuba. “Chavez told them that the money was to project the Bolivarian revolutionary project on U.S. streets,” he said, using Chavez’s term for Venezuelan Marxism.
The defector, who is cooperating with and providing evidence to the U.S. government on other subjects, particularly the close connection between the Cartel de los Soles narco group and the Venezuelan state, spoke with great specificity. “I see them all very clearly. The meeting took place at the Miraflores presidential palace, in a huge suite called the Japanese suite, where private meetings are held.”
This isn’t hard to believe. It was Chavez himself who, after all, called in 2006 for the creation of a leftist network inside the U.S. that would act as a fifth column to thwart U.S. policy. That network came into being as the United States Social Forum. Launched in 2007, it quickly became an incubator for the founders of BLM to network.
Chavez made this call at the immense 2006 gathering in Caracas of the World Social Forum, a global meeting of Marxists that had been taking place annually in different Third World capitals for several years.
“I think that, finally, distinct movements are rising in the U.S., movements that each day has gained more power, more conscience, and more unity,” Chavez said as he urged Americans to take up the revolutionary cudgel. “Viva the people of the U.S.!” he shouted to a crowd of some 15,000, which included Cuba’s then-foreign minister, Ricardo Alarcon de Quesada.
“We count on you, compañeros!” Chavez said, using the Cuban Revolution’s term for comrade to address Americans. “Essential to this formula to save the world are the people of the U.S., the conscience of the U.S. people, the resurrection of the U.S. people. United with the people of the Caribbean, the people of Latin America, the people of Asia, Africa, and Europe. All of us must unite; join together in a victorious offensive against the empire.”
Within months of this speech, the inaugural meeting of the United States Social Forum was held in Atlanta in 2007. Alicia Garza, another one of the main three founders of BLM, was not just there but also on the organizing committee.
Garza, who was just 26 and had recently joined a sort of Marxist preparatory school called People Organized to Win Employment Rights, cut her teeth at that inaugural USSF.
“It was one of my first trips with POWER, and I was eager to prove myself by playing a role in helping to coordinate our delegation of about thirty members, along with the staff,” Garza wrote in her 2020 book The Purpose of Power. “I was becoming politicized in this organization.”
The USSF was, she wrote, “a major gathering of social justice activists” that taught her “a lot about how to build relationships with people with different backgrounds and agendas,” skills which, she added, helped her during the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 following the death of Michael Brown.
The organization that Patrisse Cullors, the third BLM founder, belonged to—the Labor and Community Strategy Center in Los Angeles, another Marxist prep—was also on <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299615009_The_United_States_Social_Forum_Perspectives_of_a_Movement" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">the planning committee</a> of the first USSF. It is therefore highly likely she was also in attendance in Atlanta. She attended a subsequent meeting in Detroit in 2010 and spoke there.
There is at least one mention in a <a href="https://www.proquest.com/openview/70cdcdbbe29aee271c88670ccb2ba302/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&amp;cbl=18750&amp;diss=y" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">2022 academic paper</a> that Tometi was also at the Atlanta gathering in 2007. But <a href="https://globalvoices.org/2011/02/11/senegalnigeria-women-from-niger-delta-at-the-world-social-forum/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">we know</a> she attended World Social Forum gatherings.
All this networking, at Chavez’s behest, happened years before BLM was founded in 2013 and helped create momentum for it. Garza pretty much revealed that the USSF was created at the request of America’s enemies overseas at a speech she gave in Oakland in 2010.
She said foreign Marxists had said at the WSF, “‘What are you doing? Take your foot off my neck, right? I need you to go home and talk to your comrades, and your compañeros, right? And talk about and figure out what you’re gonna do to take your foot off our neck’,” Garza can be seen saying in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAUlaQm4sDA" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">this video</a>. “That’s where the U.S. Social Forum came from.”
So the mayhem we had on our streets, and all the stress it brought, was carried out by people who networked and carried out street organizing to help Marxist dictators in Caracas, at the very least, and may have received outright financial backing from them. Revolutionary Venezuela continued its relationship after BLM’s founding by, for example, inviting representatives to gatherings of the Foro de Sao Paulo, the Hemispheric Marxist network Venezuela promoted.
And BLM, after its creation, was in return unstinting in its support for Venezuela’s illegal regime.
In 2015, Tometi brought Nicolas Maduro, who took over as president when Chavez died in 2012, <a href="https://albaciudad.org/2015/09/lideres-afroestadounidenses-reconocen-lucha-del-presidente-maduro-por-reivindicar-derechos-del-pueblo/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">to speak in Harlem</a> at an event that Glover also attended. Tometi was an election observer in Venezuela that same year, writing a manifesto on behalf of BLM supporting the Bolivarian revolution.
The BLM leaders frittered away all their money and any respectability they might have had, and are left now with rival groups bickering over who owns whatever money is left.
So maybe that explains why Maduro is now busy turning his attention to international anti-fascist events and antifa groups. They may lack the tight structure BLM once had and the political and societal clout, but antifa makes up for it with raw violence and actions to sow pure chaos.
At least five times in the past year, Maduro has hosted “anti-fascist” rallies, conferences, or festivals. It started in September 2024 with a <a href="https://leftreviewonline.com/english/ilps/venezuela-launches-an-world-congress-against-fascism-and-neo-fascism.html" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">World Congress against Fascism and Neo-Fascism</a>, which, in reality, became a gabfest to denounce U.S. policies.
That conference was followed two months later by Venezuela’s launch of the “World Antifascist Network.”
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/the-web-radical-groups-backing-ice-riots-hamas-and-iran">The Web of Radical Groups Backing ICE Riots, Hamas, and Iran</a>
Then, on January 9 to 11 this year, to coincide with Maduro’s inauguration after actually losing elections last year, Caracas hosted an <a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/international-anti-fascist-festival-concludes-in-venezuela" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">International Anti-Fascist Festival</a>, which organizers said had over 2,000 attendees from 125 countries.
At the most recent one, last January, the Party for Socialism and Liberation was an attendee from the U.S. The U.K. Revolutionary Communist Group, another antifa group, also sent Sam McGill to four of the Venezuelan anti-fascist events.
And Code Pink, another antifa adjacent group, which has to boot connections to the Chinese Communist Party, has <a href="https://www.codepink.org/venezueladelegation_releasehttps:/www.codepink.org/venezueladelegation_release" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">also sent members</a> to visit Caracas and <a href="https://www.codepink.org/annwright2" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Havana</a>.
The PSL is a Marxist-Leninist party that will turn out for any rally, demonstration, or riot, as long as it is anti-U.S. in nature.
The PSL has <a href="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2024-06/SR284_2.pdf" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">supported BLM in the past</a>. But with BLM falling into inactivity, PSL is more what the&nbsp;New York Post describes as an “Antifa satellite org.” The “Trantifa” leader of Armed Queers Salt Lake City, reportedly being investigated in the Charlie Kirk assassination, Ermiya Fanaeian, opened a PSL chapter in Utah. Fanaeian visited Cuba earlier this year to receive ideological training. The AQSLC has trained with the John Brown Gun Club, a straight-up antifa group.
Our enemies want to use us in a weakened state, whether because we’re hooked on narcotics or because of political mayhem in our streets. In October 2019, the head of Venezuela’s National Assembly, Diosdado Cabello, presented a battle plan for hemispheric destabilization, <a href="https://www.heritage.org/americas/commentary/marxist-hurricane-threatens-the-western-hemisphere" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">calling it a “Bolivarian hurricane.”</a> If we are serious about stopping political violence, it would be useful to look at the foreign connections.
</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2025 14:40:25 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Mike Gonzalez</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/how-venezuela-supporting-radical-left-wing-groups-the-us</guid>
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<title>Congress Should Adopt a California Rule To Remove Biased D.C. Superior Court Judges</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/congress-should-adopt-california-rule-remove-biased-dc-superior-court</link>
<description>Anyone paying attention to Washington’s criminal justice system knows that some judges on the D.C. Superior Court are now so anesthetized to persistent and chronic crime that they hand out notoriously lenient sentences to recidivist and violent defendants.
Don’t believe us?
According to the D.C. Sentencing Commission’s 2024 annual report, 88% of sentences that were outside the guidelines range were downward departures, meaning they were shorter than the recommendation. The 2023 annual report found that, by the end of 2023, only 38% of the more than 5,322 felony arrests in the District had led to findings of guilt.
The data is even more compelling—or frightening, depending on your point of view—with respect to sentencing gun-wielding criminals to prison.
From 2018 to 2022, only 1.7% of people arrested for carrying a pistol without a license in the District were sentenced to prison. While the percentage of prison sentences per arrest increased for 2023-2024, it remained a meager 3%, D.C. Sentencing Commission data shows.
In other words, you could carry an illegal gun in the nation’s capital with a 97% chance of avoiding a prison sentence—a relatively safe gamble for a career criminal.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/trump-has-constitutional-authority-battle-dc-crime">Trump Has Constitutional Authority To Battle D.C. Crime</a>
At the same time, crime exploded. Homicides in the District of Columbia, which averaged 134 per year during the 2010s, increased to an average of 222.5 from 2021 to 2024.
Despite the combination of high crime and low sentences, prosecutors in the nation’s capital currently have no tool to effectively challenge or remove overly lenient judges from presiding over criminal cases. In other words, prosecutors have no mechanism to address judges whose pattern of decisions in criminal cases consistently undermines public safety.
That’s where California comes into the picture.
Yes, you read that right: Heritage Foundation scholars are recommending a California rule. Read on.
Unlike most states, California allows prosecutors and defense attorneys to remove the trial judge assigned to a case without litigating whether the judge has a specific bias towards a particular party or case. The state’s Code of Civil Procedure §170.6 makes judge disqualification automatic: Once a party files a motion and submits an affidavit alleging bias, the presiding judge (the head judge) must immediately reassign the case to a different judge.
Here’s how it works: Line prosecutors or public defenders who want to “challenge” a judge ask permission from their supervisor to “paper” a judge whom they know, based on experience, has ruled against their office in what they believe is a biased manner. If the supervisor says yes, the judge is “papered” and no longer presides over that case.
If a particular judge is routinely “papered” in criminal cases, the presiding judge will eventually reassign that judge to hear cases exclusively from the civil docket.
Most other state-level systems require the party seeking a new judge to provide proof of bias or prejudice, but in California, such proof is not required.
This provides an effective tool that keeps judges honest and fair to both sides in criminal cases. At the same time, it averts potentially time-consuming (and potentially embarrassing) hearings about whether a judge is unfairly prejudiced—while still preserving public confidence in judicial impartiality.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/matthew-graves-abysmal-legacy-us-attorney-dc">Matthew Graves’ Abysmal Legacy As U.S. Attorney for D.C.</a>
By contrast, attorneys in the District (and in most other places) must file a formal motion stating “the facts and the reasons for the belief that bias or prejudice exists” by the judge against one of the parties. Thus, the prosecutor must allege specific prejudice, not just general dissatisfaction with the judge’s rulings in many similar cases over time.
This creates a high bar that effectively prevents prosecutors from seeking reassignment, even when a judge’s track record suggests tendentious leniency or bias against the government. The same holds for defense attorneys seeking to challenge judges they believe are biased against their clients.
Given the current sad state of affairs, it’s time for the District to implement this blue state policy to balance the scales of justice in the Superior Court.
The District should amend its rule and adopt a provision like California’s into its code of criminal procedure, allowing prosecutors and defense attorneys to challenge judges whom they believe are prejudiced against them.
As of September, there were 15 vacancies on the Superior Court, and the court is expecting additional retirements next year. Once those are filled, the court will be more evenly split between lenient judges and Trump-appointed, law-and-order judges.
In that light, now is precisely the moment to adopt a peremptory challenge system that protects both sides from general bias—whether that be from soft-on-crime judges who reflexively favor defendants, or from overly hardline judges who might systematically favor the state.
By following in California’s footsteps, the District can ensure that both prosecutors and defense attorneys can secure impartial adjudication and preserve public confidence in the judicial system.
</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2025 14:23:24 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Charles Stimson, Patrick McDonald</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/congress-should-adopt-california-rule-remove-biased-dc-superior-court</guid>
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<title>The Threat of Chinese Investment in the Americas</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/china/commentary/the-threat-chinese-investment-the-americas</link>
<description>The Americas have long been strategically important to the United States. However, no president in decades has done enough to combat the rise in foreign manufacturing investment in the Southern Hemisphere and the Caribbean—that is, until the Trump administration.
This creeping threat that must be addressed by the administration (and, more specifically, Secretary of State Marco Rubio) using the bully pulpit before it becomes a cascading issue. The threat lies in foreign investment designed not to strengthen regional economies or raise living standards but rather to undercut Western business, exploit weak governance and quietly extend Beijing’s influence in our backyard.
Washington has begun to recognize this threat and the Trump administration has taken steps to counter Chinese overreach globally, but more must be done. America must insist on clear rules of the road for investment in our hemisphere.
One example of this concern is in Jamaica. American aluminum companies have long operated on the island. Through Jamalco, its joint venture with Clarendon Alumina Production Ltd., U.S.-based Century Aluminum has provided stable investment, jobs in Jamaica and vital alumina imports to the U.S. market. Similarly, Windalco, an alumina supplier in a different area of the island, supplies alumina for manufacturing and alumina trihydrate, used in critical U.S. water purification processes.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/china/commentary/america-doesnt-have-depend-china-build-chips-and-batteries">America Doesn’t Have To Depend on China To Build Chips and Batteries</a>
Century Aluminum’s acquisition of a 55% stake in Jamalco in April 2023 was designed to guarantee a reliable, high-quality source of alumina and alumina byproducts from a trusted, regional partner operating under a stable regulatory framework. As a result, Jamaica has emerged as a key supplier to American markets: In Q1 2025 alone, the U.S. imported 66,000 tons of alumina from Jamaica (a staggering 238% year-over-year increase), underscoring Jamaica’s growing importance to American consumer and industrial markets.
However, the integrity of these operations is under threat. A Chinese-owned toll road, the T3 Highway, was constructed with poor engineering and cheap Chinese labor. This shortcut project has disrupted Jamaica’s natural drainage system and dried up tributaries that once supported industrial water management and destabilized the land.
The result: flooding risks, potential environmental damage and a fragile infrastructure that could devastate Jamaica’s aluminum corridor, which supplies American consumers. The China Harbour Engineering Co. has admitted responsibility but failed to rectify the situation. Its poor or nonexistent drainage systems present a systemic problem that risks turning this into a geopolitical quagmire.
These risks aren’t hypothetical. Runoff from the Windalco plant could face heightened scrutiny because of environmental disruptions linked to the T3 Highway’s faulty design. Further mismanagement could trigger fierce regulatory backlashes that hamper legitimate operators such as Jamalco.
What’s at stake here is not just needless environmental damage but also the security of U.S. supply chains for critical materials. If alumina production falters, American manufacturers face shortages and consumers will see higher prices.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/china/commentary/how-america-can-beat-china-and-herald-new-golden-age">How America Can Beat China and Herald a New Golden Age</a>
The strategic stability of Jamalco and other exporters to the U.S. is jeopardized when Chinese partners in the same ecosystem flout regulatory standards. That inconsistency poses a real threat to U.S. downstream consumers, and it’s high time the Trump administration made it clear: America will defend its economic interests and ensure all foreign investors play by the same rules of transparency, or risk losing access to those markets.
Jamaica is not an isolated case. Across the Caribbean and Latin America, Chinese state-backed companies are buying up ports, roads, mines and energy assets. What often follows are cases of the use of poor-quality Chinese labor to the detriment of local jobs, cutting corners, ignoring environmental safeguards and leaving countries stuck with shoddy infrastructure.
When Chinese companies skirt rules that U.S. firms follow, they tilt the playing field. Western operators are held to high standards of transparency, labor and environmental responsibility. China, on the other hand, uses its economic muscle to bypass accountability.
If we allow shoddy, foreign-built infrastructure and unchecked investment to undermine legitimate American enterprise, we put not only local economies at risk but also U.S. jobs and consumers. The Americas should be a zone of partnership, prosperity and fair play, not a testing ground for Beijing’s ambitions.
President Trump already kicked Chinese actors involved in the Panama Canal to the curb. He must step up once again and make sure China knows America will protect its regional partners and its critical mineral interests.
</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2025 14:07:54 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Steven Bucci</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/china/commentary/the-threat-chinese-investment-the-americas</guid>
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<title>RFK Should Grill the Pill</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/rfk-should-grill-the-pill</link>
<description>No drug is as sacrosanct in today’s sexually “liberated” culture as oral contraceptives. But the proliferation of the birth control pill since the 1960s has fostered a number of grave consequences for our society: hook-up culture, delayed marriage, and the destruction of the nuclear family.
None of this would surprise Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood. In the early 20th century, she <a href="https://sanger.hosting.nyu.edu/documents/speech_morality_and_bc/">promoted</a> contraception as the mechanism for female emancipation. “Birth control is the first important step a woman must take toward the goal of her freedom,” she wrote. “It is the first step she must take to be man’s equal. It is the first step they must both take toward human emancipation.”
Feminist author Betty Friedan agreed, asserting that the pill gave women “the legal and constitutional right to decide whether or not or when to bear children,” and established the basis for true equality with men.
Because oral contraception has been touted as a cornerstone of women’s equality and freedom, its health repercussions are rarely called into question. Even HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who regularly wades into controversy by calling for investigations into <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/qffLMbzjui8">seed oils</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/21/dining/rfk-jr-food-dyes.html">food dyes</a>, remains relatively silent on oral contraceptives.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/treating-the-root-causes-infertility">Treating the Root Causes of Infertility</a>
This is to the detriment of women across the country. As <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGposaKNJKQ">Dr. Sarah Hill</a> demonstrates in her <a href="https://www.sarahehill.com/books/your-brain-on-birth-control/">book</a>, This Is Your Brain on Birth Control: How the Pill Changes Everything, birth control has had numerous repercussions on women, relationships, and society. She shows that women at the peak of their cycle feel <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WOi2Bwvp6hw&amp;t=4s">sexier</a>, more outgoing, and more confident with the natural increase in estrogen. And men <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0018506X12002796?via=ihub">find</a> them more attractive at that time, too.
As Hill points out, birth control pills do more than just prevent pregnancy: they affect a woman’s hormones more generally—hormones that affect everything from her brain to her fingertips and her overall emotional, mental, and physical health. Many of the women Hill interviewed described feeling emotionally blunted, or as if they were moving through life in a fog, while on the pill.
A woman’s menstrual cycle is often known as the <a href="https://www.nichd.nih.gov/about/org/od/directors_corner/prev_updates/menstrual-cycles">fifth vital sign</a>, and a disruption signals a concern to be addressed, not to be masked. Birth control is, in fact, “medicated menopause.” While it can be a difficult reality for many to face, studies show that women who no longer menstruate are not as attractive to men, which is why trying to find a mate in the latter years of life can be challenging. The drive to partner up and reproduce is diminished, making marriage less of a necessity and mere companionship more of the goal.
Studies comparing women who use contraception with those who do not reveal that the pill <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jcem/article/101/11/4046/2764940">lowers</a> <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0018506X24000710">libido</a>, can lead to mood swings or <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2552796">depression</a>, disrupts natural cycles, can cause infertility after discontinuation, interferes with the <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32050819/">endocrine</a> <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26918667/">system</a>, and can lead to <a href="https://www.womenshealthpractice.com/bloating-and-birth-control-pills/">bloating</a> and a <a href="https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2017/1215/ol1.html">gain of</a> nearly five pounds on average. Other studies have found that estrogen-containing pills raise the risk of <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29388678/">venous thromboembolism</a> and, to a smaller extent, <a href="https://bmjgroup.com/new-study-adds-to-evidence-of-stroke-and-heart-attack-risk-with-some-hormonal-contraceptives/">strokes and heart attacks</a>.
European countries have conducted many tests that demonstrate such effects. A nationwide <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/fullarticle/2552796">Danish</a> cohort study of over one million women found higher rates of first antidepressant use and first depression diagnosis among users of contraceptives than non-users. Another large <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29145752/">Danish study</a> found that women who were currently or recently on hormonal contraception were more likely to attempt suicide or die by suicide than women who had never used it.
A Finnish <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35193911/">study</a> produced similar results, as did a Swedish <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35029663/">one</a>. A <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10294242/">British database</a> shows that the first couple of years of being on the pill brought an increased risk of depression, and that women who began using the pill in their teens sometimes had a lasting higher risk.
Few, if any, comprehensive American studies have been conducted, even though about 15% of American women between 15-49 <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db539.htm">use</a> oral contraceptives.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/health-care-reform/commentary/red-states-now-lead-the-charge-toward-healthier-living">Red States Now Lead the Charge Toward Healthier Living</a>
Potential problems are not limited to those who ingest the hormones. Synthetic estrogen, an <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969721003387">endocrine-disrupting</a> compound used in oral contraceptives, makes its way from America’s toilets to the water supply. Wastewater treatments can reduce, but <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11554600/">never fully</a> remove, such psychoactive drugs from drinking water.
<a href="https://www.epa.gov/cwa-methods/cwa-analytical-methods-contaminants-emerging-concern">U.S. regulators and scientists treat</a> these as “contaminants of emerging concern.” The Environmental Protection Agency and the United States Geological Survey publish methods for measuring the prevalence of such hormones in wastewater and waters used for our drinking supply.
Male fish begin growing female genitals, and fish populations collapse in water containing the synthetic estrogen from birth control, <a href="https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0045653515002830">according</a> to <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.0609568104">some</a> studies. As RFK has <a href="https://www.washingtonblade.com/2023/06/19/rfk-jr-claims-chemicals-in-the-water-are-turning-boys-transgender/">mentioned</a>, boys are “swimming through a soup of toxic chemicals today, and many of those are endocrine disruptors.” Though some studies show that typical concentrations of synthetic estrogen in drinking water pose negligible risks to women, perhaps the cumulative exposure to endocrine disruptors affects the sexual development of young males.
RFK <a href="https://www.finance.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/responses_to_questions_for_the_record_to_robert_f_kennedy_jrpart2.pdf">promised</a> to “follow the law regarding access to birth control” during his confirmation process. That could include commissioning the National Institutes of Health to conduct “<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/restoring-gold-standard-science/">gold standard science</a>” on oral contraception, as he has sworn to do for other food additives and pharmaceuticals, studies that many European countries have already done.
While calling for restrictions on birth control pills would likely cause a frenzy among many, informed consent is a paramount health priority. Though the perceived benefits of birth control pills are loudly and publicly celebrated (women, you too can have sex like a man!), their costs need to be fully exposed if we are going to restore human health and flourishing among both sexes.
</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2025 11:51:07 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Scott Yenor, PhD, Jennifer Galardi</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/rfk-should-grill-the-pill</guid>
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<title>California’s “No Secret Police Act” Paints a Target on Federal Agents</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/californias-no-secret-police-act-paints-target-federal-agents</link>
<description>“ICE, unmask—what are you afraid of?” California Gov. Gavin Newsom asked before signing the “No Secret Police Act,” a reckless state law ordering federal immigration agents to remove face coverings during operations. But it’s Newsom who should be afraid, considering the shaky legal ground he’s on.
SB 627 bans federal and local law enforcement officers from wearing “ski masks and similar extreme masking” and imposes civil and criminal penalties on officers who violate the new law. Its real effect is to expose them to doxxing, harassment, and potentially violent reprisals on the job and at their homes.
<iframe allow="private-state-token-redemption;attribution-reporting" aria-label="Advertisement" data-google-container-id="5" data-load-complete="true" frameborder="0" height="1" id="google_ads_iframe_/21854935662,22598900304/arcamax/desktop/insticator/article_0" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" name="google_ads_iframe_/21854935662,22598900304/arcamax/desktop/insticator/article_0" sandbox="allow-forms allow-pointer-lock allow-popups allow-popups-to-escape-sandbox allow-same-origin allow-scripts allow-top-navigation-by-user-activation allow-presentation" scrolling="no" tabindex="0" title="3rd party ad content" width="2"></iframe>The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has already said it will not comply, and rightly so. California cannot regulate the federal government’s actions in enforcing federal immigration law, much less any other federal law.
The Constitution is explicit. Article VI’s Supremacy Clause declares the “laws of the United States” to be the “supreme Law of the Land.” California has no authority to strip federal officers of their lawful protections and is barred from prosecuting federal law enforcement agents who are enforcing federal law.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/the-new-high-tech-tool-trump-using-secure-our-border">The New High-Tech Tool Trump is Using to Secure our Border</a>
Newsom and the oblivious state legislators who sponsored this legislative mess might want to reread the seminal Supreme Court decision In re Neagle (1890), when the court rebuked California for trying to prosecute a U.S. marshal who defended Supreme Court Justice Stephen Field from an armed attacker who tried to assassinate Field.
Who was the attacker that Marshall David Neagle shot at a railway station in the San Joaquin Valley? It was David Terry, the former chief justice of California’s state supreme court. Known for his violent temper, Terry apparently had a grudge against Field over a court decision involving Terry’s wife. Sounds like an unbelievable plot created by Hollywood script writers, but it actually happened.
The court held then, as it holds now, that federal officers carrying out their federal duties are immune from state prosecution and state interference in the carrying out of those duties. But it seems like California hasn’t learned its lesson, doesn’t it?
By demanding that federal officers be unmasked, Newsom has painted a target on their backs. Just days after he signed the law, a radical gunman opened fire on an ICE field office in Dallas, killing two detainees and injuring another before taking his own life. Recovered bullets were inscribed with the words “ANTI-ICE.”
This was not an isolated episode. Attacks on ICE agents have surged over 1,000% this year. We have seen an armed attempt to storm a Texas ICE facility on Independence Day; a firebombing attempt in Portland, Oregon; a Border Patrol shooting in Texas that wounded two agents; and destructive riots in Los Angeles.
Yet Newsom mocked federal agents with his “What are you afraid of?” taunt. But what California has done is no joke. The message from Newsom and the Democrat-dominated legislature is clear: stop deporting illegal aliens, or face mob justice and violence.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/democrats-repeat-their-despicable-history-encouraging-defiance-federal">Democrats Repeat Their Despicable History of Encouraging Defiance of Federal Laws</a>
While Democrats claim to defend the rule of law, Newsom and his Democrat legislative colleagues are empowering violent extremists to resist and obstruct the law, and to attack federal agents who are doing their jobs.
Federal agents have the right and duty to protect themselves and their families. These dedicated public servants will not be stopped from deporting the thousands of illegal aliens, many of them criminals, released into California by the Biden administration with Newsom’s approval and support. Nor will they be demoralized by unconstitutional state edicts designed to leave them and their families exposed to violence.
If Democrats like Newsom and, for that matter, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, are truly serious about wanting to “lower the temperature,” they should end their defiance of federal law and the hidden threats, instead of embracing and instigating chaos, violence, and anarchy.
They couldn’t prosecute U.S. Marshall David Neagle in 1890 for protecting a Supreme Court justice. And they can’t prosecute federal agents today for protecting themselves and their families.
Reread the Neagle case, Gov. Newsom. What are you afraid of?
</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 29 Oct 2025 11:36:19 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Hans von Spakovsky</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/crime-and-justice/commentary/californias-no-secret-police-act-paints-target-federal-agents</guid>
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<title>Parents’ Survey: Online Filters and Blocking Software Still Only Work Sometimes</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/big-tech/report/parents-survey-online-filters-and-blocking-software-still-only-work-sometimes</link>
<description>Internet users are not always shielded from obscene content despite filters. Filtering and blocking software often fail to block obscene content, and it can over-filter information on medical treatment, drugs and alcohol, and relationships. Many children also use devices outside the home without protection.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Thirty-two percent of parents answered “yes” and 14 percent answered “unsure” to the question, “Does your child have access to devices outside of your home that do not use blocking or filtering software, such as the devices of family or friends? Please note that the Children’s Internet Protection Act requires schools and libraries to block or filter internet access to obscene or harmful content in order to receive federal E-rate funds.”&lt;/p&gt;">REF While filters are helpful, they do not eliminate the risk of exposure.
Parents who spend long hours online tend to have children who do the same. Many parents express confidence in filters, yet 48 percent admit that the tools block obscene content rarely or only some of the time.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Nine in 10 parents surveyed said they were very or somewhat confident that content blockers are effective at stopping their children from seeing unintended content; 42 percent of parents surveyed said the software works most of the time and 6 percent said it rarely works.&lt;/p&gt;">REF This finding reveals a discrepancy between what parents generally believe to be true about filters and the reality of their effectiveness. Additionally, half of parents believe the software always works, but half also admit that their children use unprotected devices, or they are unsure if they do. The data are clear: Parents need more solutions than filtering and blocking software.
<h3>Background</h3>
Filtering and blocking software are widely available tools—including free options and fee-based models—for parents to employ to shield their children from certain content like obscenity. Schools and libraries are required by federal law to use Internet filters to receive subsidies for telecommunications services.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Federal Communications Commission, “Consumer Guide: Children’s Internet Protection Act (CIPA),” last reviewed, December 30, 2019, https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/childrens_internet_protection_act_cipa.pdf (accessed April 28, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF However, four problems persist with filters and blocking software:
<ol>
<li>They often fail to shield children from obscene content;</li>
<li>They may unnecessarily prevent access to non-obscene content;</li>
<li>Children can often disable or circumvent the filter; and</li>
<li>Not every device a child has access to has the technology installed or enabled.</li>
</ol>
Despite technological advances in recent years—from faster internet speeds to artificial intelligence—online filters and blocking software fail to consistently capture obscene content. Before this year, the most recent published study on the effectiveness of content filtering and blocking software came from the United Kingdom in 2017.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Ronnie Cohen, “Internet Filters May Fail to Shield Kids From Disturbing Content,” Reuters, March 15, 2017, https://www.reuters.com/article/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/internet-filters-may-fail-to-shield-kids-from-disturbing-content-idUSKBN16M1Z2/ (accessed March 26, 2025), and Andrew K. Przybylski and Victoria Nash, “Internet Filtering Technology and Aversive Online Experiences in Adolescents,” The Journal of Pediatrics, May 2017, https://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(17)30173-7/fulltext (accessed March 26, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Since then, growing evidence has underscored the harms that children face online, particularly from pornography. Parents, advocates, experts, and lawmakers are calling for greater online safeguards to protect children. Supporters for additional safeguards often argue that filters are not sufficient, and opponents of additional protections say that parents should simply use filters consistently and personally oversee their children’s online activity. It was clear that newer data on filters and blocking software were needed.
The Heritage Foundation commissioned a study produced by J.L. Partners in January 2025 that sampled 1,001 parents of children between the ages of four and 18 who use content blockers.REF Fifty-six percent of the respondents were mothers and 44 percent were fathers; 64 percent of respondents were white, 10 percent Hispanic, and 20 percent black. The survey also asked what type of school the respondents’ children attended: 72 percent said public school, 8 percent public charter school, 7 percent private (non-religious) school, 6 percent private (religious) school, and 5 percent homeschool. Among the respondents’ children, 84 percent had no disability and 15 percent did. The survey’s margin of error is 3.4 percent. Children themselves were not surveyed. Parents answered for their children based on their perception and awareness. The survey does not reflect testing or technical analysis of various filtering and blocking software or methods. This Backgrounder analyzes survey findings and supplements them with external research findings to explain why high screen time matters and why protecting children from obscene content is critical.
<h3>Children and Pornography</h3>
Protecting children from obscenity is important because it robs them of their innocence, assaults their senses, and corrupts their morals. Additionally, children’s brains are developing and exposure to pornography influences arousal templates in the brain. This exposure establishes harmful, foundational sexual scripts for life and changes the neuroplasticity by remodeling the brain’s learning and reward pathways. Children with heavy exposure may learn to perceive exploitation, coercion, and sexual abuse as normal. This deception has significant consequences on their views of and behavior toward the opposite sex, the same sex, and their beliefs about what constitutes a healthy relationship.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Culture Reframed, “The Neuroscience of Pornography,” March 13, 2024, https://culturereframed.org/neuroscience-of-pornography/#:~:text=Because%20pornography%20exposure %20occurs%20at%20younger%20ages%2C%20it%20is%20influential,lifelong%20sexual%20tastes%20and%20preferences (accessed April 23, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The harms of exposure to pornography extend beyond sexuality, increasing the risks for anxiety, depression, low self-esteem, and poor body image, and the likelihood of emotional, social, and sexual problems in adult life. Chronic porn consumption can affect academic performance, hinder working memory, lead to poor decision-making, and increase addictive behaviors.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Culture Reframed, “Adolescents, Porn, and Mental Health: Understanding the Dangerous Effects of Porn on Developing Minds,” May 22, 2023, https://culturereframed.org/adolescents-porn-and-mental-health-understanding-the-dangerous-effects-of-porn-on-developing-minds/ (accessed April 23, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF It can also impede marriage and family formation later in life.
The problems caused by online pornography have led 25 states to pass legislation requiring pornography websites to verify that their users are 18 or older.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.&lt;/p&gt;">REF In June 2025, the Supreme Court upheld one of those laws (Texas’s HB 1181) in Free Speech Coalition v. Paxton. The Court determined that the law only incidentally burdened protected speech and that adults do not have a First Amendment right to avoid age verification. The Supreme Court provided legal certainty for current and future age verification laws, but culturally, many adults remain unconvinced and skeptical of age verification. (In a previous paper, this author made the case for age verification, so will not focus on that here.)<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Annie Chestnut Tutor, “Age Verification: What It Is, Why It’s Necessary, and How to Achieve It,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3895, March 6, 2025, https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/2025-03/BG3895.pdf.&lt;/p&gt;">REF This Backgrounder provides recent data on filtering and blocking software, contextualizes it, and explains why parents cannot rely on software alone to shield their children from online obscenity.
Shielding children from online pornography is increasingly difficult since 95 percent of children in the U.S. have access to a smartphone.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Pew Research Center, “Teens and Internet, Device Access Fact Sheet,” July 10, 2025, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/teens-and-internet-device-access-fact-sheet/ (accessed July 28, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The same percentage of kids also use social media, and pornographic content creators often promote their material on social media to drive traffic to their websites. Multiple websites provide step-by-step guides for creators explaining how to promote their erotic content on social media.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Michelle Faverio and Olivia Sidoti, “Teens, Social Media and Technology 2024,” Pew Research Center, December 12, 2024, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2024/12/12/teens-social-media-and-technology-2024/ (accessed July 28, 2025). A Google search for “OnlyFans creators promote their content on social media” produced more than a dozen pages with relevant results providing step-by-step guides and advantages for content creators, such as monetization and boosting subscriber numbers. (Search conducted July 28, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Increasingly, social media serves as a gateway to pornography websites. Filtering and blocking software must not only detect and block pornographic websites, as was the case in the early years of web browsing. They also need to detect and block pornographic content on websites and platforms that are not generally used for publishing or viewing pornography.
<h3>Internet Usage Among Survey Respondents</h3>
The survey revealed high numbers of daily online usage among parents and their children: 82 percent of parents spend between four and 12-plus hours online during the week, and 79 percent spend between four and 12-plus hours online during the weekend. Fifty-two percent of the children of surveyed parents spend between four and 12-plus hours online during the week and 61 percent spend that amount during the weekends. These numbers show a correlation between parents who have high rates of online usage and children who have high rates of online usage. The numbers for children are significant because external research indicates that children with heavy reliance on screens are at risk of impaired cognitive, linguistic, and social-emotional growth.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Sudheer K. Muppalla et al., “Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Child Development: An Updated Review and Strategies for Management,” NIH National Library of Medicine National Center for Biotechnology Information, July 18, 2023, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10353947/ (accessed July 28, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Findings by the U.S. Surgeon General reveal that adolescents who spend more than three hours a day on social media face twice the risk of poor mental health outcomes.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;News release, “Surgeon General Issues New Advisory About Effects Social Media Use Has on Youth Mental Health,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, May 23, 2023, https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2023/05/23/surgeon-general-issues-new-advisory-about-effects-social-media-use-has-youth-mental-health.html (accessed February 24, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<img alt="BG3940 Chart 1" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="7d985dcc-d52f-4b19-8eaf-fa58e7e5c514" src="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/BG-child-safety-software-charts-page1.gif">
&nbsp;
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<h3>&nbsp;</h3>
<h3>Content Filtering and Blocking Software Usage</h3>
The survey excluded parents who did not use filtering and blocking software, meaning that all 1,001 parents used filtering or blocking software. More than half (54 percent) of these parents use a built-in device software (such as Apple’s Screen Time Settings, Windows Firewall, and Google SafeSearch) to shield access to online pornography. Thirty-eight percent rely on in-browser filters (such as Safe Search for DuckDuckGo, Google SafeSearch, Internet Explorer Parental Controls, and Web Filter for Firefox); 22 percent pay for a third-party software (such as Covenant Eyes, Canopy, and FamiSafe); and 20 percent report using free third-party software (such as OpenDNS and Cloudflare). Built-in device software options were the most common for all age groups, but older parents are more likely to use in-browser filters and younger parents tend to use fee-based software.
&nbsp;
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&nbsp;
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&nbsp;
The most popular types of software used are FamiSafe, Canopy (fee-based software), Cloudflare (free third-party software), Apple’s Screen Time Settings (built-in device software), and Google SafeSearch (available on Google products and devices). Parents reported Google and Apple’s content filtering software to be the most effective. Parents spend between $0 and $70 per month for content blocking software with $12 per month as the average; 37 percent of parents spend $0 per month on their content blocking software.
Sixty-nine percent of parents said that the devices their children have access to (including the child’s personal device, the parents’ devices, and a family computer) have blocking or filtering software enabled. Teenagers, who are most likely to seek out pornography, were less likely to have software enabled on their devices with 63 percent of teens 13 years to 15 years old and 65 percent of teens 16 years to 18 years old reported by their parents to have it enabled.
&nbsp;
<img alt="BG3940 Chart 5" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="8ceeb61d-cdf2-4c56-8b63-a875173347ef" src="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/BG-child-safety-software-charts-page5.gif">
&nbsp;
The results of this survey support claims that children may unintentionally or intentionally access pornography even when filters are enabled. Eighteen percent of parents said that their children are able to turn off or circumvent the filtering or blocking software. Unsurprisingly, parents were more likely to say that their teenagers were able to do so than their younger children. Twenty-three percent of 16-to-18-year-olds, 21 percent of 13-to-15-year-olds, 15 percent of 10-to-12-year-olds, 13 percent of seven-to-nine-year-olds, and even 16 percent of four-to-six-year-olds were reported as able to circumvent software.
&nbsp;
<img alt="BG3940 Chart 6" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="3998b234-1c02-4e76-aae0-765d5e3763cf" src="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/BG-child-safety-software-charts-page6.gif">
&nbsp;
Despite these findings, parents are highly confident that content blockers are effective at stopping their children from seeing “things they do not want them to see.” Fifty percent are very confident, 43 percent are somewhat confident, and only 1 percent are somewhat unconfident. This illustrates the trust that parents place in filters and blocking technology to protect their children. The reality is that the technology does not consistently shield children.
<h3>Access to Porn with Filters and Differences Between Moms and Dads</h3>
Seventeen percent of parents said that their children have unintentionally accessed online pornography when filtering or blocking software was in place, and 11 percent were unsure. The numbers were similar for children in every age group: 18 percent of four-to-six-year-olds, 16 percent of seven-to-nine-year-olds, 18 percent of 10-to-12-year-olds, 17 percent of 13-to-15-year-olds, and 18 percent of 16-to-18-year-olds unintentionally accessed porn while protective software was in place. Fewer parents reported that their children intentionally accessed online pornography, with 15 percent of parents reporting “yes” and 8 percent “unsure.”
&nbsp;
<img alt="BG3940 Chart 7" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="5af66edd-4cf6-49dc-9f5a-3e93c75a6462" src="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/BG-child-safety-software-charts-page7.gif">
&nbsp;
Interestingly, parents reported similar numbers for themselves. One in five (18 percent) parents said they unintentionally accessed online pornography while the software was enabled, and one in six (16 percent) parents said they intentionally accessed online pornography while the software was enabled. Moms and dads answered similarly for previous questions but there was a wider gap here. For dads, the number jumped up to 24 percent, and for moms, it dropped to 14 percent for unintentional access to porn. Twenty-one percent of dads, compared to 12 percent of moms, said they had intentionally accessed porn while the software was enabled. The survey did not ask parents about access while the software was disabled.
&nbsp;
<img alt="BG3940 Chart 8" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="0cd5d9db-3853-4421-9929-82f62de11dea" src="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/BG-child-safety-software-charts-page8.gif">
&nbsp;
Fifty-one percent of parents said that the software works 100 percent of the time, 42 percent said it worked most of the time, 6 percent answered some of the time, and 1 percent answered never. Again, a wide gap emerged between men and women, with 45 percent of dads saying it works all of the time, compared to 55 percent of moms. The findings coincide with how moms and dads differed in their rates of unintentional and intentional access to pornography.
&nbsp;
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&nbsp;
<h3>Over-Filtering and Over-Blocking</h3>
The results of this survey support the claim that filters are over-inclusive. Parents were asked whether using filters negatively affected their own or their child’s online experience, such as an inability to conduct successful search queries for non-pornographic material. An astounding 41 percent of parents said most of the time or all of the time, and 20 percent sometimes. Only one in three parents said that a filter never impeded their child’s online search experience.
Parents reported at high rates that using filters negatively affects their or their children’s ability to conduct search queries for non-pornographic material. Sixty-one percent of parents said that it affected their searches, and the results were similar for moms and dads. Fifty-six percent said that filters over-block or over-filter search results for legitimate medical or treatment information, 53 percent said filters over-block or over-filter search results for healthy relationships, and 65 percent said filters over-block or over-filter search results for information on drugs and alcohol.
&nbsp;
<img alt="BG3940 Chart 10" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="96f35d19-2a64-406b-af2c-473f2d627b07" src="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/BG-child-safety-software-charts-page10.gif">
&nbsp;
Overly inclusive filters may stop some parents from using them. If filters interfere with their or their children’s regular user experience, such as providing poor search results or unnecessarily filtering websites or search results, parents may turn them off or disable them and forget to turn them back on, or they may choose not to use them at all. Additionally, many browser and built-in filters can be easily disabled by children. Over-inclusivity and the barrier it presents are likely the greatest deterrents to using or requiring filters.
<h3>Access to Devices without Filtering and Blocking Software Outside the Homes</h3>
One in three (32 percent) parents reported that their child had access to devices outside the home that do not use blocking or filtering software, and 14 percent of parents were unsure. Again, dads reported higher numbers, at 40 percent, than moms, at 26 percent. Their responses did not differ among those who answered unsure. Parents named school and friends’ homes as the main places where their children accessed devices without filtering and blocking software.
The Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000 requires schools and libraries to block or filter online access to obscene or harmful content on school and library Wi-Fi and devices as a condition of receiving E-Rate funds from the Federal Communications Commission, and parents were made aware of this in the survey question. The federal requirement does not include students’ personal devices with data plans. A friend’s home or school (where friends might bring personal devices) were the most common locations for such access. Less common responses included grandparents’ homes, homes of other relatives, and libraries.
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
Filtering and blocking software can shield children from obscene content, and it is worth enabling for children, but it does not work consistently. Children can disable or bypass it, and it is not present on every device they access, especially outside the home. Such software is a useful tool for parents, but they should not rely on it as the sole safeguard against their children accessing obscene content or other restricted content. In fact, parents should assume that their children will come across restricted content online even with filters in place and need to take additional measures to protect their children.
Filtering and blocking software can present barriers to successful search queries for non-pornographic content and information. Parents with high screen time tend to model those habits for their kids, who are more likely to have similarly high screen time. Parents need help shielding their children from obscene content, and they require policy solutions that go beyond filtering and blocking software alone.
Annie Chestnut Tutor is Policy Analyst in the Center for Technology and the Human Person at The Heritage Foundation.
</description>
<pubDate>Tue, 28 Oct 2025 21:48:43 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Annie Chestnut Tutor</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/big-tech/report/parents-survey-online-filters-and-blocking-software-still-only-work-sometimes</guid>
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<title>The Rise of Bad Economics: Zohran Mamdani and New Socialism</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/economic-and-property-rights/event/the-rise-bad-economics-zohran-mamdani-and-new-socialism</link>
<description>Through government-operated grocery stores, increasing taxes, rising minimum wages, and buildings taken over for housing projects, a newer form of socialism is growing in the United States. Join members of Heritage's Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies as they describe the rise of socialistic redistributionist economics in America. 
 
John Peluso and Nicole Huyer will present their research on the flaws of this new socialism through the proposals of Zohran Mamdani. Then, from impacts on the job markets and rising prices of consumer goods to housing costs and small businesses, a panel of experts will dive deep into the tangible impacts these radical ideals have on American families. 
 
<a href="http://www9.heritage.org/Event-Email-Sign-up.html?_gl=1*1noddi6*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3NTk0Mjg1NDIuQ2p3S0NBand4ZmpHQmhBVUVpd0FLV1B3RHBPZVRsUjVtR296ejJCZFpsTGYtRkdvNkF4NVU4UmpEQW1uSUhPaVdJUWdOY1NTM0w1NDdob0NIaXNRQXZEX0J3RQ..*_gcl_au*MTA5NzQ5MDM2Ny4xNzYxMDc1NTQy*_ga*MTA1Njc2ODgwLjE3NTMyOTI2ODM.*_ga_W14BT6YQ87*czE3NjE1OTkyNzAkbzIzMSRnMSR0MTc2MTU5OTI3NyRqNTMkbDAkaDA.">Sign up to receive invitations to all public events.</a>
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</description>
<pubDate>Mon, 27 Oct 2025 16:31:16 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Heritage Foundation</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/economic-and-property-rights/event/the-rise-bad-economics-zohran-mamdani-and-new-socialism</guid>
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<title>The FY 2026 NDAA</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-fy-2026-ndaa</link>
<description><h3>Bottom Line</h3>
Both the Senate and House versions of the fiscal year (FY) 2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) advance President Donald Trump’s vision of a revitalized, war-ready military focused on warfighting and prepared to advance America’s national security interests. The House passed its version on September 10, 2025, and the Senate followed on October 9, passing its version by a vote of 77 to 20 after adopting a series of key amendments. With both chambers now aligned on core priorities, the conference process will determine how the final NDAA strengthens readiness, accelerates industrial revitalization, reforms Department of War acquisitions to cut red tape, rebuilds posture against China, advances cultural and merit-based reforms, and reinforces border security. Specifically, the bills contain measures to:
<ul>
<li>Revitalize U.S. military strength.&nbsp;With toplines of $882.6 billion and $914 billion, respectively, both the House and Senate versions of the FY 2026 NDAA reflect President Trump’s vision of a war-ready, reindustrialized military that is directed toward nuclear and airpower modernization, streamlined Pentagon acquisitions, and expanded munitions production to ensure that America can deter China and other global threats.</li>
<li>Reindustrialize the United States. The FY 2026 NDAA places a high priority on rebuilding the defense industrial base for modern great-power competition. Numerous provisions would streamline the defense acquisition process and cut red tape throughout the federal bureaucracy, support expanded use of commercial off-the-shelf systems and services, and ease the regulatory burden on American businesses that support the defense industrial base.</li>
<li>Prioritize strategic alliances and regional security. Thebill aligns defense spending with strategic priorities by fully funding the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, supporting Taiwan and the Australia–United Kingdom–United States (AUKUS) agreement, and reinforcing the U.S. presence in the Western Hemisphere through cybersecurity, intelligence monitoring, and deeper regional cooperation.</li>
<li>Fund naval shipbuilding. The bill funds naval shipbuilding at a decent level, but it is still not enough to reverse the decline in total numbers of battle force ships resulting from the failure to prioritize shipbuilding for decades.</li>
<li>Fund munitions procurement. The bill expands munitions procurement, but demand currently so far outstrips supply that any additional procurement funding for munitions would be welcome.</li>
<li>Strengthen cultural and ideological reforms. The bill bans spending on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and critical race theory (CRT), restores merit standards, and prohibits gender transition funding that is unrelated to readiness.</li>
<li class="BodyTextStyles-ListStyles-BulletsFACTSHEET" style="margin-bottom:3px" value="50">Secure the homeland. The bills fund border security and expand Department of War contracting authority against cartels.</li>
</ul>
<h3>State of Play</h3>
<ul>
<li>House. H.R. 3838 was passed on September 10, 2025, by a vote of 231 to 196.</li>
<li>Senate. S. 2296 was reported out of the Senate Armed Services Committee on July 15, 2025, by a vote of 26 to 1. The Senate passed S. 2296, as amended, by a vote of 77 to 20 vote. Ahead of passage, the Senate voted on 17 amendments. The Manager’s Package was adopted by voice vote.</li>
<li>A formal conference will follow in the coming months.</li>
</ul>
House and Senate negotiators enter conference in close lockstep on most priorities with few substantive divisions between the chambers. As a result, conferees will aim to preserve strong provisions on reform, munitions, Indo-Pacific posture, and border security against efforts by the minority to dilute or strip them. The real debate will hinge not on majority disagreements, but on whether the final package reflects President Trump’s war-ready vision or concessions forced by minority resistance.
<h3>Analysis</h3>
Reforms. Both President Trump and Secretary Pete Hegseth have made reforming the Pentagon a high priority. These reforms are intended to cut waste and bloat, increase efficiencies and spend taxpayer dollars wisely, and make it easier for American companies to do business with the Department of War. Both versions of the FY 2026 NDAA highlight the need to streamline procurement and reform the Pentagon and include numerous provisions to do so.
Conservatives argue that the NDAA should preserve reforms that prohibit taxpayer dollars from flowing into DEI bureaucracies or CRT training, restore merit-based standards, and broaden exam options for service academies while also striking provisions that expand elective health benefits unrelated to readiness or enshrine race-based preferences in defense research. Others caution that rapid procurement growth may outpace oversight, that broad contractor bans could disrupt allied supply networks, and that new authorities might duplicate existing ones or raise implementation challenges. The outcome will hinge on how Congress balances urgency in deterrence, peeling back woke-policy provisions from the past Administration, and restoring a focus on lethality to the Joint Force.
Indo-Pacific. The Indo-Pacific is prioritized with full funding for the Pacific Deterrence Initiative and significant efforts to support and enable such allies and partners as Japan, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Notably, the bills authorize $1 billion for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative. Conference negotiators will focus on Indo-Pacific posture—particularly counter-unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) and Taiwan funding levels—and this will reveal the Senate’s willingness to support a stronger, forward-leaning deterrence posture. Conferees may also aim to incorporate provisions that expand counter-UAS capacity, ban Chinese drones, and integrate unmanned systems with manned aviation. Supporters view these provisions as vital to deterrence; others question their cost and technical feasibility.
Western Hemisphere. The Senate version is especially supportive of security in the Western Hemisphere, establishing a pilot program to expand cybersecurity cooperation with the Panamanian government and the Panama Canal Authority, requiring an evaluation of Chinese and Russian intelligence capabilities in Cuba, and requiring a report on security cooperation between the United States and Guyana, which has been threatened repeatedly by Venezuela in recent years. Though not at the center of the main disputes, these items offer leverage in negotiations over foreign assistance carve-outs. Opponents argue that more funding ought to be made available for deterrence operations in the Indo-Pacific.
Border Security. Both versions support funding for border security. The House version fully funds President Trump’s request for border security funding; the Senate version authorizes additional funding on top of the President’s original request. Supporters of expanded War Department authority at the border argue that it enhances national security by including authority to provide contracting support for and strengthening of Mexico’s military capacity against cartels; critics argue that it could blur lines between military and law enforcement responsibilities.
Munitions. The munitions funding is impressive, especially combined with the munitions funding in the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act. The FY 2026 NDAA makes big investments in the precision-guided munitions needed by the Air Force, Navy, and Army to deter aggression in the Western Pacific. However, the stockpiles for these munitions are low, and the U.S. military would find them in short supply within weeks in a major conflict with China. Also, certain munitions like Patriot missiles have been expended at exceptionally high rates defending Ukraine and Israel in recent years. Conferees who want to make a serious strategic contribution to U.S. deterrence efforts should add additional funding for munitions wherever possible. Some will say that “industry can’t handle additional orders” and argue against increased procurement of munitions, but the only way to expand capacity is to expand orders, thereby sending a strong demand signal to industry that it should invest in the labor and infrastructure needed to build more munitions. Since munitions topline and industrial base capacity are expected to be a focal point in conference, this is where conferees must push hardest for additional investment. The final NDAA will likely include provisions that expand procurement, ban contractors with ties to adversaries, and reinforce counter-UAS and base defense authorities.
Human Trafficking Reauthorization. The Senate included a substitute amendment reauthorizing trafficking provisions that fails to address root issues, including the crisis of unaccompanied alien children (UACs), spends more money on programs that have failed to decrease trafficking, and expands services for the hired help such as maids and cooks that diplomats and international organization visa holders bring from overseas. Removing the provision would create the space to pursue effective reforms in regular order, including measures to prevent UAC border crossings as the Trump Administration currently searches for the 300,000 missing UACs from the Biden Administration. Supporters argue that the provision is necessary for continuity in existing programs.
Central Bank Digital Currency Prohibition. The House-passed NDAA includes the Anti-CBDC (Central Bank Digital Currency) Surveillance Act, which would prohibit the Federal Reserve from creating or implementing a digital currency. Establishing a CBDC would expand federal control of Americans’ financial lives through traceable, scalable tools that threaten privacy and freedom. In contrast, prohibiting CBDCs would safeguard the existing rights and privileges of financial independence that are currently enjoyed by every American.
Closing Summary. The FY 2026 NDAA contains numerous provisions that advance lethality, reform, deterrence, and border security, and all are likely to be preserved and incorporated into the final package. At the same time, the final NDAA will balance competing priorities on reform, deterrence, and border security, while resolving debates over trafficking and foreign assistance provisions.
Wilson Beaver is Senior Policy Advisor for Defense Budgeting and NATO Policy in the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation. Lora Ries is Director of the Border Security and Immigration Center at The Heritage Foundation. Chris Wingate is Government Relations Director at The Heritage Foundation.
<h3>Related Materials</h3>
<ul>
<li>Robert Greenway, Jim Fein, Richard Stern, Wilson Beaver, Madison Doan, Rachel Greszler, Jordan Embree, and Robert Peters, “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/strategy-revitalize-the-defense-industrial-base-the-21st-century">A Strategy to Revitalize the Defense Industrial Base for the 21st Century</a>,” Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 314, April 7, 2025.</li>
<li>Robert Greenway, Wilson Beaver, Robert Peters, Alexander Velez-Green, John Venable, Brent Sadler, and Jim Fein, “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/conservative-defense-budget-fiscal-year-2025">A Conservative Defense Budget for Fiscal Year 2025</a>,” Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 281, April 2, 2024.</li>
<li>Wilson Beaver, “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/shipbuilding-revitalization-requires-reforms-the-navy-shipbuilders-and-congress">Shipbuilding Revitalization Requires Reforms from the Navy, Shipbuilders, and Congress Alike</a>,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3899, March 19, 2025.</li>
<li>Wilson Beaver, Robert Peters, John Venable, and James DiPane. “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/prioritizing-procurement-over-research-and-development">Prioritizing Procurement Over Research and Development</a>,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3804, January 10, 2024.</li>
<li>Wilson Beaver, “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/were-all-living-one-less-submarine">We’re All Living…With One Less Submarine</a>,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, July 22, 2024.</li>
<li>Lora Ries, “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/congress-must-end-the-exploitation-unaccompanied-alien-children">Congress Must End the Exploitation of Unaccompanied Alien Children</a>,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, May 10, 2023.</li>
<li>Chris Wingate, “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/how-preserve-the-us-armys-lifeline">How to Preserve the U.S. Army’s Lifeline</a>,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, July 24, 2025.</li>
<li>Chris Wingate, “<a href="https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/the-chinese-drone-flying-your-neighborhood-could-be-national-security-threat">The Chinese Drone Flying in Your Neighborhood Could Be a National Security Threat</a>,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, September 16, 2025.</li>
</ul>
</description>
<pubDate>Fri, 24 Oct 2025 11:48:40 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Wilson Beaver, Lora Ries, Chris Wingate</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-fy-2026-ndaa</guid>
<enclosure url="" fileSize="" type="image/jpeg"/>
</item>
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<title>How the H-1B Visa Led to Importing Mass Cheap Labor</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/border-security/event/how-the-h-1b-visa-led-importing-mass-cheap-labor</link>
<description>More than 30 years ago, Congress created the H-1B visa to bring a limited number of skilled, specialty workers to fill a need in the U.S. economy. The visa was specifically intended to be non-immigrant, for a period of three years maximum. Over time, like many other immigration programs, the H-1B has expanded far beyond its original conception in both numbers and what occupations it covers. 
 
Today, American science and tech graduates can’t find jobs. Companies are laying off thousands of experienced American workers. Artificial Intelligence looms like a wrecking ball over white-collar work. All the while, employers and outsourcing “bodyshops” continue to petition for hundreds of thousands of foreign workers instead of training and hiring American workers. Join experts for a discussion of the current state of the H-1B visa and the reforms it will take to put American workers first.
 
<a href="http://www9.heritage.org/Event-Email-Sign-up.html?_gl=1*1ilfuyu*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3NTk0Mjg1NDIuQ2p3S0NBand4ZmpHQmhBVUVpd0FLV1B3RHBPZVRsUjVtR296ejJCZFpsTGYtRkdvNkF4NVU4UmpEQW1uSUhPaVdJUWdOY1NTM0w1NDdob0NIaXNRQXZEX0J3RQ..*_gcl_au*NDcyNDA2OTE3LjE3NTMyOTI2ODM.*_ga*MTA1Njc2ODgwLjE3NTMyOTI2ODM.*_ga_W14BT6YQ87*czE3NTk5NDc5MTgkbzE4MCRnMSR0MTc1OTk0ODQ3OCRqMzYkbDAkaDA.">Sign up to receive invitations to all public events.</a>
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</description>
<pubDate>Fri, 24 Oct 2025 10:15:11 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Heritage Foundation</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/border-security/event/how-the-h-1b-visa-led-importing-mass-cheap-labor</guid>
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<title>Treating the Root Causes of Infertility</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/treating-the-root-causes-infertility</link>
<description>President Trump’s long-awaited <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2025/10/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-announces-actions-to-lower-costs-and-expand-access-to-in-vitro-fertilization-ivf-and-high-quality-fertility-care/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">IVF report</a> offered a more dynamic answer to his campaign promise to expand access to IVF than many expected. There is something in there for everyone, in no small part thanks to the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement and the tireless work of many in the <a href="https://eppc.org/publication/treating-infertility-the-new-frontier-of-reproductive-medicine/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">holistic fertility care space</a>. The president’s plan combines lower medication costs with new employer coverage options, all designed to make it easier for Americans to have children.
In the White House announcement, there was an emphasis that children are a blessing, life is a gift, and the desire to become a mother or father is one of the most powerful forces in the world. Amid conversations about boosting fertility rates and family formation, the administration’s emphasis on infertility and the suffering it causes is a powerful statement. As expected, the report promotes the morally poisonous IVF process, but it also emphasizes the importance of addressing the root causes&nbsp;of infertility—a deeper point that could radically change the standard of fertility care in the United States.
First, the plan tackles the high cost of fertility medications by introducing a Most-Favored-Nation pricing model that ensures U.S. prices for fertility drugs match the lowest found in other developed countries. Through TrumpRx.gov, women will be able to purchase medications directly with steep discounts, potentially saving thousands of dollars per IVF cycle. These reduced medication costs don’t just benefit IVF doctors; restorative reproductive medicine doctors can take advantage of cheaper options, too.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/the-rise-consumer-eugenics">The Rise of Consumer Eugenics</a>
The report goes beyond drug pricing by addressing insurance coverage. There is no IVF mandate, which the administration first considered, nor will the federal government subsidize IVF procedures with taxpayer funding. Still, the government has a responsibility to ensure that its policies do not promote or endorse unethical practices, especially when dealing with the creation and treatment of human life.
Employers will now have the option&nbsp;to offer a standalone fertility benefit, as with dental or vision insurance, which can include the full spectrum of fertility care: from treatments addressing underlying causes to IVF itself. Employers ultimately decide what their fertility packages offer, not the federal government. By structuring the benefit this way, the Trump administration avoided the errors of the contraception mandate under President Obama, which violated religious liberty and conscience protections.
This is why the White House’s emphasis on root causes is so important. Senior officials explicitly highlighted endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), obesity, metabolic disorders, and other treatable conditions as key targets for intervention. By naming the driving causes of infertility and encouraging coverage beyond IVF, the administration signaled a broader vision for fertility care focused on restoring health and improving natural fertility before advanced procedures are needed.
<section>
Indeed, in a J.L. Partners&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/public-opinion/report/poll-americans-knowledge-and-opinions-about-vitro-fertilization-ivf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">survey</a> conducted on behalf of The Heritage Foundation earlier this year, 79% of respondents said they want personalized, precision medicine that identifies and treats the root causes of infertility, either prior to or alongside IVF. Similarly, 89% of respondents said it was important for couples struggling with infertility to tailor their treatment plans to their medical and reproductive health. Families are eager for solutions that heal underlying problems, not just treatments that work around them. This employer benefit plan does just that.
It’s hard to overstate the importance of looking beyond the IVF process to help infertile couples. IVF has been available in the United States for more than 50 years. It has led to the birth of many children, yet&nbsp;<a href="https://wng.org/opinions/babies-arent-disposable-at-any-stage-1676463383" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">success rates</a> hover around 25%–35% overall and under 10% for women 40 and older. Despite decades of research and investment, many couples endure four, five, or even six exhausting and expensive rounds before holding a baby in their arms.
The reason is straightforward. IVF works around the problem of infertility rather than repairing it. It does not correct the underlying conditions that prevented conception in the first place. It does not improve egg quality, repair damaged reproductive tissue, reverse hormonal imbalances, or restore natural fertility.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/want-babies-treat-infertilitys-root-causes">Want Babies? Treat Infertility’s Root Causes</a>
While every child born through IVF is a gift from God, Christians must think carefully about its wider consequences. Efforts to expand IVF, even when well-intentioned, inevitably increase the number of human embryos that are created, frozen, tested, and destroyed each year. Some&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/life/report/why-the-ivf-industry-must-be-regulated" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">estimates</a> show that only about 2.3% of embryos ever result in a live birth. Given that each human embryo is a distinct and complete person made in the image of God, this practice is far from pro-life.
This is why the White House’s emphasis on root causes is so important. This approach, often called restorative reproductive medicine (RRM), takes a different path than IVF. Instead of bypassing the reproductive system, it works to understand and correct what has gone wrong. RRM combines cycle tracking, targeted lab testing, lifestyle interventions, medical and hormonal therapies, and corrective surgeries to restore natural fertility.
RRM success rates are striking. Studies show that RRM can significantly increase natural conception rates, reduce miscarriages, and achieve healthier outcomes for mom and baby. In one <a href="https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6079215/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">study</a>, 32.1% of women who with multiple failed IVF cycles conceived naturally, and <a href="https://www.jabfm.org/content/jabfp/21/5/375.full.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">another found</a> cumulative live birth rates of 52.8% over two years. And, in a recently published <a href="https://rrmjournal.org/index.php/jrrm/article/view/9" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">report</a>, RRM had a 41% live birth rate. Overall, RRM achieves success rates comparable to or higher than single-cycle IVF while carrying lower risks of multiple pregnancies, low birth weight, and premature birth.
If America is serious about reversing its fertility crisis, that future begins with changing how we approach infertility itself. Policies that focus only on IVF will always be limited, but policies that heal the body and restore its natural design give couples something far greater: the chance to welcome life through innovative treatments that honor human dignity. That is the promise of RRM, and an opportunity we cannot afford to miss.
</section>
</description>
<pubDate>Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:37:38 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Emma Waters</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/life/commentary/treating-the-root-causes-infertility</guid>
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<title>Three 18th Century Revolutions: British, American, French—Three Pathways to Modernity</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/report/three-18th-century-revolutions-british-american-french-three-pathways-modernity</link>
<description>&nbsp;
<h3>Introduction</h3>
In the late 18th century, popular revolutions occurred in Britain, America, and France. They changed the nature of governance in the modern world, but while the latter two attract continual notice, the first has been almost entirely neglected. One reason for this neglect is that the revolution in Britain occurred as the revolution in the 13 colonies unfolded. The 18th century British revolution, however, is primarily the initiating cause of the American Revolution, which itself was inspiration for the French Revolution.
The British and American revolutions reflected the influence of and were inspired by a seminal work, The Spirit of the Laws, by Montesquieu; the revolution in France spurned the guidance of Montesquieu in favor of the “general will” theorizing of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The first two revolutions produced the rise of what some have called sober popular government;<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;See Martin Diamond, “The Revolution of Sober Expectations,” American Enterprise Institute Distinguished Lecture Series on the Bicentennial, October 24, 1973, https://aei.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/BicentenUSA02.pdf (accessed September 7, 2025); Irving Kristol, Martin Diamond, and G. Warren Nutter, The American Revolution: Three Views (New York: American Brands, 1975).&lt;/p&gt;">REF the latter produced the episodic rise of radical popular governments and intermittent authoritarianisms. The first two produced (albeit not without challenges) stable constitutional government; the latter produced more than a century of constitutional instability.
This essay assesses the principles and conditions under which the sober popular revolutions were successful. That assessment begins with the observation that the sober revolutions resulted from the embrace of Montesquieu’s principles by King George III and the lead organizer of the radical Whigs in England, as well as by the American Founders. The revolution in the United States took place in the aura of the revolution in England insofar as the parliamentary enactments and policies toward the colonies that triggered the American Revolution were directly related to the revision in constitutional practices initiated by George III in England.
The present argument draws upon newly released archives of George III’s early writings, which—contrary to popular belief—reveal a vision of liberal reform that he initiated upon ascending the throne and that ultimately led to a revolution in the British constitution. Such a revolution was not what George III intended. It resulted instead from the creative direction of Edmund Burke, working among the radical Whigs in collaboration with the organizing leadership of the unjustly neglected Charles Lennox, Duke of Richmond (great-great grandson of Charles I). Heretofore, scholarship has identified Burke’s elaboration of the modern political party as his main contribution in this era. In fact, however, his main contribution was his success in establishing the House of Commons as the controlling authority for an executive administration in the country, thereby cementing its status as a popular government.
The British revolution introduced a wholly popular government even as it preserved the monarchy in a legitimizing role. This parallels James Madison’s description of America’s government in Federalist No. 14 as a government “wholly popular” and in Federalist No. 39 as entirely “republican”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“[E]ven in modern Europe, to which we owe the great principle of representation, no example is seen of a government wholly popular, and founded, at the same time, wholly on that principle.” James Madison, Federalist No. 14, November 30, 1787, National Archives, Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0185 (accessed September 10, 2025). “It is ESSENTIAL to such a government that it be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion, or a favored class of it; otherwise a handful of tyrannical nobles, exercising their oppressions by a delegation of their powers, might aspire to the rank of republicans, and claim for their government the honorable title of republic. It is SUFFICIENT for such a government that the persons administering it be appointed, either directly or indirectly, by the people; and that they hold their appointments by either of the tenures just specified; otherwise every government in the United States, as well as every other popular government that has been or can be well organized or well executed, would be degraded from the republican character.” James Madison, Federalist No. 39, January 16, 1788, National Archives, Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/01-10-02-0234 (accessed September 10, 2025). Emphasis in original.&lt;/p&gt;">REF even as it preserved the monarchy in a legitimizing role. In Britain, that was a fundamental constitutional change that avoided destabilizing the constitution. The sobriety of the revolution lay in that fact. Similarly, beginning with George Washington’s military leadership that cultivated deference to popular civilian authority, the American Revolution also gave rise to sobriety. Only after the United States government had operated for a period of years, however, did that sobriety mature into the theory of the programmatic party that had developed in Britain in the prior decade.
The point of the modern political party (the programmatic party), in contrast to the ideological party that emerged from the French Revolution, was to legitimize dissent, a prerequisite of loyal opposition. The programmatic political party was bonded to policy commitments expressly made to the electorate and held accountable thereto within the context of constitutional union. Representatives were still understood to exercise their judgment in deliberations, and thus to be agents and not mere delegates, but were expected to retain deciding authority only insofar as they sustained the commitments they had made.
On such bases as these, the parties of the sober revolutions escaped the dynamic of governance by protest that has characterized the ideological parties of radical revolutions into the present era. To understand the difference, one must understand the lessons derived and applied from Montesquieu and elsewhere. Of these lessons, none is more important than the close study of Montesquieu by George III before his accession to the throne and by Charles Lennox, who even enjoyed a brief personal tutorial with the great philosopher. Of first importance, however, is George III, for if he had not launched his “measures not men” challenge to British constitutional practice, it is not likely that the Duke of Richmond’s “measures and men” response would have arisen.
The semi-quincentennial of the Declaration of Independence in the United States presents a fit occasion to consider what actually happened during the American Revolution. The Declaration, as is well known, identifies the tyranny of King George III as triggering the rebellion. These new disclosures of George’s writings cast severe doubt on that argument. The 250th commemoration in 2026 might well declare the Declaration to be “fake news” at least with respect to that central charge.
What follows accordingly elaborates the ideas of King George III, Edmund Burke, Montesquieu, and the Founders of the United States (George Washington above all). A retrospective on the American Revolution brings us face-to-face with George III of England and George Washington. In the former we find an uncharacteristic recognition of the greatness of the latter. This is a telling fact regarding the characters of both Georges and regarding the Revolution itself, in which we find these two great souls sparking—in different manners—the modern revolution.
<h3>George III: Tyrant or Liberal Reformer?</h3>
The notion that George III was a liberal reformer obviously runs counter to the received notion that he was a tyrant. As early as 1766, Americans were sermonizing about his tyranny,<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Jonathan Mayhew, “‘The Snare Broken,’ A Thanksgiving Discourse, PREACHED At the Desire of the West Church, Boston, N.E., Friday May 23, 1766, OCCASIONED BY THE REPEAL OF The Stamp-Act,” in Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730–1805, 2nd ed., ed. Ellis Sandoz (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998), Vol. I, p. 231, https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/816/0018.01_Bk.pdf (accessed September 30, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF and the Declaration of Independence attributes every tyrannical exaction of the government of the United Kingdom to George III. This account even became the trope of a “literary” spoof, “A Dialogue Between the Devil, and George III, Tyrant of Britain.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Anonymous, “A Dialogue Between the Devil, and George III, Tyrant of Britain,” Boston, 1782, in Political Sermons of the American Founding Era, 1730–1805, 2nd ed., ed. Ellis Sandoz (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1998), Vol. I, pp. 687–710, https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/816/0018.01_Bk.pdf (accessed September 8, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF A brief excerpt conveys its tenor:
<blockquote>Devil. George harken to my counsel. </blockquote>
<blockquote>George. Thy servant attends.</blockquote>
<blockquote>D. My trusty servants Bute and Mansfield have educated thee for my service, and taught thee the way wherein thou shouldst go, obey them and I will make thee a king indeed; make yourself absolute, or die in the attempt: a king dependent on the people, is no monarch; he is a mere puppy.</blockquote>
<blockquote>G. Your words I have a heart to obey; ’tis the bent of my soul, and the world shall soon know that I am a king in reality, and my people shall feel that my wrath is like the roaring of a lion.</blockquote>
<blockquote>D. I doubt not you will equal my ancient servants Nero, Caligula, Borgia, Charles, and others; but you must use great art lest a spirit of liberty should rise among the people and blast your great designs, as happened to my faithful servant Charles.</blockquote>
<blockquote>G. I will begin with my colonies; the idea of enslaving them to the power of parliament, and make them tributary to the old dominion, suits the pride and avarice of Britons: when this [is] done, the way will be open and easy to complete the work in Britain: with places pensions titles and bribes, I can soon make myself as absolute as any tyrant that ever slept.REF</blockquote>
The spoof captures (perhaps unwittingly) the reality that there was work afoot in Britain that was the focus of George III’s efforts and bore upon the colonies of North America only indirectly. Further, I maintain that George III launched an effort to reform constitutional practices in England, and that effort was itself the source of those vexations that led the colonists (as collateral victims) into rebellion.
The Problem That George Inherited. It has long been known that George III reigned as a “constitutional monarch,” but exactly what that means and why it may be said most significantly that he founded constitutional monarchy in the United Kingdom have seldom been noted. Before George III, and despite earlier political settlements dating from 1689 and the Acts of Union in 1707, the monarch (even though limited by the concession of parliamentary control of revenue) was not properly a constitutional monarch.
King George III ascended the throne in 1760 and in the ensuing decade churned through six Prime Ministers. He gained the crown as the country was at war with France—a war he terminated in the Paris Peace Treaty of 1763, resisting hawks who wanted to extend imperial conquest. George III had opened his reign determined to ease international stresses, but the new monarch instead had to dispatch a military expedition to quell rebellion in the American colonies while dealing with constitutional quarrels at home. He encountered correlative international stress (French and Spanish exploitation of the colonial war) and externalities from domestic constitutional struggles that adversely affected circumstances in the colonies.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;It is not immaterial to observe that from Marlborough’s victories at the opening of the 18th century to Nelson’s victory at Trafalgar early in the 19th century, England was persistently—if intermittently—at war with France (including the proxy war with the Scottish Pretender). Thus, the geopolitical context of the revolution weighs significantly on what occurred in North America.&lt;/p&gt;">REF
George was pulled into these conflicts much against his will. In contrast to his predecessors, domestic matters mattered most to him, and of these, none was more important than altering the practices of his grandfather, George II, and the administration of Robert Walpole.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Note that I speak of reforming “constitutional practices” and not of “reforming the constitution.” George III did not intend to “change” the constitution, nor was there such a thing independent of constitutional practices. We shall see that his prior musings on the British constitution convey effective understanding of this distinction.&lt;/p&gt;">REF George III understood that the constitutional practice of that prior era had been corrupted by place-seeking and rent-seeking, captured best in the constant and ever-increasing burden of the Civil List, the annual sum paid to the monarch to cover official expenses, which was adopted by act of Parliament in 1727. The parliamentary system, in George III’s view, had devolved into purchased votes to the exclusion of deliberation, and the executive function (the monarch acting through ministers) had made the monarch little more than a plaything of the ministers insofar as “King in Parliament” meant ministers purporting to act in the name of the King by making free use of that term.
After the Settlement of 1707, it was firmly established that royal revenues (independent of private revenues of the monarch) had to be supplied by Parliament. They were to that extent public monies. However, once these funds were supplied, their use was left to the monarch’s discretion. The ministers overseeing these transactions accordingly served to produce a parliamentary supply (i.e., to orchestrate parliamentary majorities for the purpose) and then to make recommendations to the monarch for dispensing these same funds. That they routinely did so by returning funds to cooperative parliamentarians and their supporters is hardly surprising. The Civil List grew geometrically from this practice. Nor was the practice without some public benefits to particular constituencies. However, the distribution of public revenues on the basis of favoritism in no way contributed to systematic and serious deliberation about the national interest.
Faction or Consensus? It was in this context that George III came to view the constitutional practices of the prior era as governing by factions rather than governing for the common good.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;George approached the leading political questions of his day—which involved the location of sovereignty, including anxiety about persisting loyalties to the Scottish Pretender who had been defeated in 1645; the reform of Parliament; patronage under the Civil List Act of 1727; East India governance; and the role of political parties—with a reform agenda.&lt;/p&gt;">REF At the outset of his reign, he called explicitly for “measures not men” as the basis of public deliberations in Parliament (and especially in the House of Commons). He did this specifically to create a distinction between governing by faction and governing by national consensus. He believed—and this is the crux of this entire account—that it was necessary to abolish the role of political parties, which he regarded as synonymous with faction, in legislative deliberations.
Readers of America’s Founding history will find that George III was not unlike many American statesmen in this respect, most notably George Washington himself. This initiative to abolish the role of political parties in legislative deliberations formed the dynamic germ from which both the challenges that ultimately reshaped British constitutional practices and the challenges that sparked the American Revolution arose.
<h3>George III’s Reform Vision</h3>
Against this backdrop, we can see unfold the influence of George III’s administration both on constitutional monarchy and on the looming revolution in British North America. To understand these developments, however, we must turn to George’s early writings, just recently made public.REF These extensive archives offer a new perspective on the role George III played in the liberal reform efforts underway in 18th century Britain.&nbsp;It turns out that Geroge Hanover, then Prince of Wales, was no intellectual slouch and had broad visions of constitutional reform.
Paraphrase of Spirit of the Laws. My task, therefore, is to establish the premise for a reconsideration of George III. The single and most dramatic foundation for this premise is found in the lengthy manuscript contained in the Georgian Archives, which reveals the 17-year-old Prince of Wales patiently and intelligently working through the still fairly new magnum opus of Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de la Brede et de Montesquieu, De L’Esprit des Lois (Spirit of the Laws).
My new translation of and commentary on Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws appeared in 2024.REF I prepared the work believing that it was only the third English translation of this seminal work in 275 years. Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that it is actually the fourth. What is arguably the first, loose-but-thorough translation is that of young George Hanover, Prince of Wales, soon to be King George III of England and the United Kingdom. That thunderbolt sent me scurrying to rethink not only George III, but also the American Revolution, for even a cursory reading of George’s vigorous and extensive rendering reveals a mind-set of liberal reform.
In more than 400 manuscript pages, George produced a long-form paraphrase of Montesquieu’s work that is essentially an English translation. The most conspicuous aspect of this paraphrase is George’s nearly perfect mastery of the argument progressively developed by Montesquieu over the course of lengthy and almost aphoristic entries comprised of “infinite” detail (as Montesquieu described it). George got to the bottom line of a projection of republicanism founded on virtue, equality, liberty, and justice. He gleaned from it a commitment to representation as the principle of government constructed in the interests of the common good, and he fully embraced its project of liberal reform, which he described as “utopian,” hidden “under the mask of monarchy.” In doing so, George insightfully connected passages in Book V, Chapter 19 (“a nation in which a republic is disguised under the form of monarchy”) and Book XI, Chapter 6 (“It is not my business to examine whether the English actually enjoy this liberty, or not. Sufficient it is for my purpose to observe, that it is established by their laws; and I inquire no farther”).<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;The Spirit of Laws, Translated from the French of M. de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, trans. Thomas Nugent (London: Printed for J. Nourse and P. Vaillant, 1773), Vol. 1, pp. 99 and 237, https://ia601007.us.archive.org/22/items/bim_eighteenth-century_the-spirit-of-laws-tran_montesquieu-charles-de-_1773_1/bim_eighteenth-century_the-spirit-of-laws-tran_montesquieu-charles-de-_1773_1.pdf (accessed September 8, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF That is particularly notable, inasmuch as Montesquieu eschewed such a description of his own work, which can fairly be described as anti-utopian.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;See “The Spirit of Montesquieu,” in Allen, ed. and trans., Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws: A Critical Edition, ch. 7, “The Verdict of History,” especially p. 850. See also ibid., Part II, “The Mind Behind the Laws,” Chapter 1, pp. 751–753, and the whole of Chapter 7, “The Verdict of History,” pp. 845–862.&lt;/p&gt;">REF
George identified several principles from The Spirit of the Laws that lay at the heart of modern politics:
<ul>
<li>Rejection of the divine right of kings,</li>
<li>Recognition of the natural basis of society in the family,</li>
<li>Recognition that the people are the ultimate sovereign in society,</li>
<li>Determination that government is primarily representative,</li>
<li>Acceptance of the rule of law as the fundamental basis of the political architecture of a decent society,</li>
<li>Recognition of the centrality of the liberty of the citizen and its connection with the political liberty of constitutionalism, and</li>
<li>Rejection of slavery as unjust.</li>
</ul>
George’s vision flowed from the realization that while society was natural (and not an artifact of contractual agreement among wandering savages), its political coherence required an explicit architectural vision of constitutional unity that could serve to sustain its peace and prosperity. That vision is very near the vision that animated the eventual Constitution of the United States.
Montesquieu, George III, and the Politics of Liberal Reform. George was not alone in reading Montesquieu attentively. The Duke of Richmond paid special attention to the commendation of a balanced constitution as well as its foundation in popular consent. The impact of Spirit of the Laws can also be seen in the 1795 trial of John Thelwall and others for treason, which took place in an atmosphere shrouded by reaction to the French Revolution. Thelwall was acquitted at the Old Bailey and subsequently published a “vindication” in which he cited several passages from Spirit of the Laws that emphasized democratic rights.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;The Natural and Constitutional Right of Britons to Annual Parliaments, Universal Suffrage, and the Freedom of Popular Association: Being a Vindication of the Motives and Political Conduct of John Thelwall, and of the London Corresponding Society, in General (London: Printed for the Author, 1795), https://dn720507.ca.archive.org/0/items/bim_eighteenth-century_the-natural-and-constitu_thelwall-john_1795/bim_eighteenth-century_the-natural-and-constitu_thelwall-john_1795.pdf (accessed September 8, 2025); The Making of Modern Law: Trials, 1600–1926, https://www.gale.com/c/making-of-modern-law-trials-1600-1926 (accessed September 8, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF No other source was cited with equal frequency in Thelwall’s text, and of the two citations from Sir William Blackstone’s legal commentary, one is actually an unattributed borrowing from Montesquieu (“every man thought to have a free soul ought to be self-governing”).<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Blackstone contextualized this as “English man,” but it is noteworthy that the passage appears in the chapter on the English constitution (Book XI, Chapter 6) in Spirit of the Laws.&lt;/p&gt;">REF
From such examples one may discern that “liberal” thought was the prevailing influence of Montesquieu. It is not to be understood, however, that this “liberal” thought is the “philosophy of liberalism” attributed to Thomas Hobbes.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;William B. Allen, “Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism: A Commentary on The Spirit of the Laws,” Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 13, No. 2 (April 1975), pp. 256–259.&lt;/p&gt;">REF As I observed in 1975:
<blockquote>A return to Montesquieu…should rekindle fundamental consideration of our regime…. [T]he defect of right [Hobbes’s] liberalism…is the notion that man’s selfish desires could furnish the complete basis for his attachment to a regime and obviate the necessity for reasoned reflection on the nature of that regime…. The return to Montesquieu is an attempt to deal with th[at] crisis by reconsidering the charm, the dignity of the original vision: that emancipation from intolerance, religious and racial, imparted by easy commerce in goods and beliefs…. A return to fundamentals makes it possible to provide that kind of defense liberal democracy requires if it is to resist successfully the impulse to abandon all rule as merely arbitrary and hence illegitimate…. [A]s Montesquieu maintains, the impulse to abandon all rule is at once the impulse to establish tyrannical rule.REF</blockquote>
In the context of British politics, the liberal reform effort of the late 18th century invoked constitutional fundamentals as a direct consequence of the politics of the time. The concern here is to identify the role of George III in that politics. It is in his extensive paraphrase of Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws that we discover the fund of liberal ideas with which George III capitalized his vision of the princely function.
Other Writings and Studies. George’s intentions for liberal reform appear not only in his paraphrase of Montesquieu, but also in many other early studies of historical, philosophical, constitutional, and moral texts. The range of subject matter in his readings and writings that prepared him for the task he assumed as prince included:
<ul>
<li>The Civil War to Charles II,</li>
<li>The Civil Government of Rome,</li>
<li>The history of Parliaments up to the reign of Henry IV,</li>
<li>The feudal system and government in Scotland,</li>
<li>The State of the Civil Power in Westminister,</li>
<li>Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England,</li>
<li>America and future colonial policy,</li>
<li>Reform of the management of the East India Company,</li>
<li>Great Britain’s relationships with Europe,</li>
<li>Trade and manufacture in England,</li>
<li>Britain’s Commercial Interest,</li>
<li>“Political Arithmetick,”</li>
<li>Charles Rollin’s manière d’enseigner et d’étudier [Way of Teaching and Studying],</li>
<li>A draft plan for “Lectures on Modern History,”</li>
<li>The “Original and Nature of Government,”</li>
<li>The legislative and the executive, and</li>
<li>Classical antiquity.REF</li>
</ul>
In his “Essay on Government,” for example, George noted that:
<blockquote>The Contract betwixt the governors, &amp; Governed, the power of the Magistrate &amp; obedience of the People; the measure of Power belonging to the great Lordship of the Realm, &amp; the lesser Lordships have all their Foundation in the two following observations.</blockquote>
<blockquote>I. As&nbsp;the&nbsp;Conquerors&nbsp;were&nbsp;sole&nbsp;Masters of the Country, nobody could have possession of any piece of land, without the owner’s consent, &amp; under the terms he pleased to fix, hence arose a territorial jurisdiction, &amp; a right to control the actions of those who were not of the community, as well as of those who were.</blockquote>
<blockquote>II. As&nbsp;the victorious&nbsp;Nations&nbsp;were voluntary Societies, the Majority had the right to regulate the actions of individuals, while they continu’d members of the society.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;RI36139, Essay and draft essay on government, Omohundro Institute, RA GEO/ADD/32/914-917, RA GEO/ADD/32/929- 936, RA GEO/ADD/32/957-995, George III Essays, History/Constitution.&lt;/p&gt;">REF</blockquote>
On this basis, young George embraced a “social contract” view, elaborated as a contract “between Prince &amp; people, superior &amp; vassal &amp; individuals with regard to the whole community.”
<blockquote>The Peers of what denomination soever held originally of the Publick as well as of the King &amp; ow’d homage &amp; fealty to the community, as the German Princes do at this day to the Empire not to the Emperor….</blockquote>
<blockquote>In this free [condition], the German Nations continu’d, till the Civil Law long buried was reviv’d &amp; the mistaken Princes made the Lex Regia, the ground for assuming despotism, &amp; for that reason introduc’d that Law into their kingdoms. It prevails but too much over all Europe, but has been here [Britain] unsuccessfully attempted, &amp; therefore this Government, comes the nearest to the Old Saxon idea of Liberty.REF</blockquote>
This summation follows not only Montesquieu, but other historians, and it demonstrates that young George was saturated by what ultimately came to be called “Whig history” as reflected in Thomas Jefferson’s Summary View,<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Thomas Jefferson, “A Summary View of the Rights of British America Set Forth in Some Resolutions Intended for the Inspection of the Present Delegates of the People of Virginia Now in Convention,” 1774, https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/rbc/rbc0001/2003/2003jeff16823/2003jeff16823.pdf (accessed September 10, 2025)&lt;/p&gt;">REF Alexander Hamilton’s Federalist No. 17,<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 17, December 5, 1787, National Archives, Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Hamilton/01-04-02-0171 (accessed September 10, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF and other writings of the Founding era. George III attained this understanding by virtue of an education that he effectively described in his brief “Plan of Education for a Prince:”
<blockquote>[I]t is best to begin with the rules of Logick, by which he will learn to connect his ideas; then he should examine the most celebrated modern Phylosophers, Bacon, Boyle, Newton, Locke’s Human Understanding, Then enter upon the Science of Government by studying the Laws of Nature and of nations, the municipal Laws of the Country the Institutes of Civil Law and the Spirit of the Laws by M. de Montesquieu, History in the point of view of the interests of the different Nations and the Characters of Mankind, and by comparing those of the Dead with the Living, acquire a knowledge of those he has to act with.</blockquote>
<blockquote>The History of the Antient Republics elevate his mind by shewing him virtue, the Modern States, though viciously and weakly instituted, are full of useful lessons. From the History of England he will learn the rights of King and People, and how they have gradually come to their present perfection, and this will form his opinion of the Nation, see that…an enthusiastic love of Liberty is the predominant passion, a great fund of integrity, a natural inclination to religion and in general to those qualities that are respectable but the excellence with which the Government is composed naturaly inclines it to changes and to jealousies.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“Transcription of GEO/ADD/32/1732, ‘The Plan of Education for a Prince taken from Mr. Thomas Eloge of the late Dauphin,’ [1766–1805],” https://georgianpapers.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/The-Plan-of-Education.pdf (accessed September 8, 2025). Spelling and Punctuation as in original.&lt;/p&gt;">REF</blockquote>
While George III in this meditation on the essay by M. Thomas<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;M. Thomas, Eloge de Louis Dauphin de France [Praise of Louis Dauphin of France] Paris: Regnard, 1766), https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5625078h.texteImage (accessed September 10, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF was faithful to his source, he also introduced meaningful emendations, the most significant of which was the introduction of Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws as an authoritative source. Thomas did not mention Montesquieu, save indirectly when he quoted from the preface of Montesquieu’s work without attribution. Additionally, Thomas did not mention Francis Bacon, Robert Boyle, and Isaac Newton, having specifically cited only Blaise Pascal, Nicolas Malebranche, and John Locke on “the development of the human mind.” George III accordingly amplified the plan of education in a direction that underscores Enlightenment advances in science and political philosophy. Moreover, he conveyed indirectly Thomas’s assurance that “[the prince’s] more developed mind inclines him to pursue the great ideas of human equality.” George not only read the essay, but modified it compatibly with Thomas’s expectation, which itself reflected Montesquieu’s invocation of virtue, liberty, and justice as the path of development for natural society.
In addition to the background of general ideas, we find developed in George III’s curriculum a fund of historical and jurisprudential reasoning, all of which points to an understanding of British constitutionalism. For example, he tackled the concept of despotism separately from his paraphrase of Montesquieu:
<blockquote>People are either governed by Laws &amp; established Constitutions or Arbitrary Will; in the first case our dominion is not so absolute, nor does the subject lye under such a necessity to please, besides a Regal Government demands in the Prince a thoro knowledge of the People; this cannot be acquired without a great labour &amp; study, but that is the bane of pleasure &amp; revolts the natural idleness that attends us; absolute power removes this difficulty, dispenses from all application &amp; fatiguing action, &amp; reduces Men to a servile compliance to our will; in this government as Aristotle observes, there can exist but one freeman, all the rest are slaves.REF</blockquote>
The essay continues to contrast despotism with “moderate monarchy” and “the freest Republic,” in which diverse interests prevail as a result of separate interests deriving from inequality of persons, different views, ambition, etc. Such dynamics create opportunity for faction to divide citizens and manipulate the “Nobility &amp; people.” This invites political schemers—“the worst of fathers, citizens, &amp; subjects”—to build princely authority on arbitrary power. Kings must repulse their counsels and seek their own true interest in “submitting their own will to the Laws, rather than the Laws to their Will.”
<blockquote>[T]his is not only the method to reign in Peace &amp; [] Prosperity, but to transmit the scepter to their posterity, which becomes otherwise a very precarious measure; few Princes however have ever seen or will see this in its proper light; the false lustre of sovereign power, idleness, &amp; pleasure, that skreens from their eyes the many perils that cirround them, will continually carry it over every other consideration, &amp; the History of all times informs us that all governments sooner or later came to Despotism.REF</blockquote>
George III, in other words, was ambitious to avoid the fate of kings and states, and the principal focus of that ambition was the defeat of faction.
Views of Party and Faction. Why did George III identify faction with political party? Besides the immediate experience of government under his grandfather, George III had before him the inspiration of Bolingbroke’s The Idea of a Patriot King, which contained a significant addendum on “The State of Parties.” That analysis of British party politics from the accession of George I into the reign of George II developed in particular the competition between Whigs and Tories in the context of the struggles around Scottish Succession. Bolingbroke treated each party as honestly endeavoring to achieve what it saw as being in the national interest. Of the Whigs, however, he proceeded eventually to observe that:
<blockquote>[They] acted like a national party, who thought that their religion and liberty could be secured by no other expedient, and therefore adhered to this settlement of the crown with distinguished zeal. But this national party degenerated soon into faction; that is, the national interest became soon a secondary and subservient motive, and the cause of the succession was supported more for the sake of the party or faction, than for the sake of the nation; and with views that went more directly to the establishment of their own administration, than to a solid settlement of the present royal family….<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“Letter III. Of the State of Parties at the Accession of King George I,” in Henry St. John, Lord Viscount Bolingbroke, Letters on the Spirit of Patriotism on the Idea of a Patriot King: and on the State of Parties at the Accession of King George the First (London: Printed for A. Millar, 1752), pp. 272–273, https://ia601603.us.archive.org/1/items/lettersonspirito00boli/lettersonspirito00boli.pdf (accessed September 8, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF</blockquote>
Bolingbroke’s essay was published in 1738 before the fall of Robert Walpole and the final defeat of the Stuart Pretender. George III, who was born in 1738, doubtless read the account of political parties in the earlier era in light of the experiences of which he was well aware by the time he read Bolingbroke.
Besides formulating views of political parties, George III received at the hands of Bolingbroke the idea of a “patriot king” who receives reverence not in his person, but in his office. “The spring from which this legal reverence, for so I may call it, arises, is national, not personal…. [M]ajesty is not an inherent, but a reflected light.”REF George added to inherited perspectives or attitudes the specific inspiration to be, as Bolingbroke put it, a “king…in the true meaning of the word, a patriot, [who] can govern Britain with ease, security, honor, dignity….” “To attain these great and noble ends,” however, “the patriot must be real, and not in shew alone…. To constitute a patriot, whether king or subject, there must be something more substantial than a desire of fame…. Patriotism must be founded in great principles, and supported by great virtues….”REF
A careful reading of his own numerous writings reveals that George became demonstrably high-minded. His extensive education clearly reveals the mindset of a liberal reformer—and nowhere is George III’s understanding conveyed so thoroughly as it is in his extensive paraphrase of Montesquieu’s Spirit of the Laws. In this light, George’s motto “measures not men” proves to be no empty slogan. His aim was to make the Parliament not merely a voting body, but a deliberative body, thereby elevating principle above faction, and to reorient British government toward the common good rather than aristocratic scheming.
<h3>The Politics of Revolution in Britain</h3>
The fly in the ointment of George III’s reform of British constitutional practices lay in the reaction of the political parties. None was more significant than that of the Rockingham Whigs, which grew out of the short-lived Rockingham ministry of Charles Watson-Wentworth, Second Marquis of Rockingham. Preeminent among the Rockingham Whigs were the Duke of Richmond and Edmund Burke.
Against this background, therefore, it is important to observe how the growing conflicts were eventually resolved, all while carrying on the military effort to quell rebellion in the North American colonies. At first, opposition in Britain took up the cause of reconciliation with the colonies, although the major figures in this opposition never embraced American independence outright. At the same time, the opposition forces ultimately provided the rationale for resolution of the conflicts in play by introducing a previously unheard-of defense of political opposition as integral to the conduct of governance in a free society.
Political Opposition, Ministerial Instability. To understand the conflict, one must examine the leading particulars of the period between 1760 and 1780–1783. After a brief period, George III began his reign by seeking an “outsider” to carry out his plan to reform—not to revolutionize—constitutional practices. In 1762, he chose his erstwhile tutor John Stuart, Third Earl of Bute, to replace Walpole heir Thomas Pelham-Holles, Duke of Newcastle. Bute, however, was ostracized by the dominant Whigs, who interacted with him on the same terms that had previously prevailed, expecting acknowledgment of their privileges and positions as the price of cooperation. The old guard so isolated Bute (who served for scarcely three years) that George III was forced into what became the revolving door of ministries that were entering into the on-again, off-again policies that would induce revolution in the American colonies.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Burke “was of [the] opinion that our general rights over that country would have been preserved by this timely concession. When, instead of this, a Boston port bill, a Massachuset’s charter bill, a Fishery bill, an Intercourse bill, I know not many hostile bills rushed out like so many tempests from all points of the compass, and were accompanied first with great fleets and armies of English, and followed afterwards with great bodies of foreign troops, he thought that their cause grew daily better, because daily more defensive; and that ours, because daily more offensive, grew daily worse.” In An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, In Consequence of Some Late Discussions in Parliament, Relative to the Reflections on the French Revolution, 3rd ed. (London: Printed for J. Dodsley, Pall-Mall, 1791), pp. 38–39, https://dn790001.ca.archive.org/0/items/appealfromnewtoo00burkiala/appealfromnewtoo00burkiala.pdf (accessed September 8, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF In the ensuing decade, as noted previously, the King churned through six prime ministers, sometimes seeking to engage confidential figures who would support his initiatives and sometimes settling on figures that he knew were opposed to them.
By the time the Rockingham ministry arose, George actually was working with a party that was dedicated to defeating his initial attempt to deploy a nonpartisan ministry (or council) positioned between the official ministry of parliamentarians and the monarch. The King’s opponents called this nonpartisan body of counsellors the “double cabinet” or “interior cabinet.” In short, the political universe was acutely aware of tensions at the center of constitutional practice—tensions that would determine whether future public deliberations would be in the national interest or the interests of parties.
The Rockingham Whigs. Rockingham resigned from his first term in 1766 and returned as Prime Minister in 1782 following the strategic surrender of British arms at Yorktown, only to die shortly thereafter. In the interim, however, he had developed a full-fledged program of political reform (to which he personally gave only half-hearted support) through the agency of Whig stalwarts Edmund Burke and the Duke of Richmond, who was also the patron of Thomas Paine.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;During this period, following the strategic surrender of British arms at Yorktown, the partisan contest in Britain had taken a decisive turn. During the development of the liberal Whigs, Whigs in general had devolved into separate parts (those still attached to pre-George III practices and those stridently advocating for reform). Of the two, however, the reform Whigs did not enlist under the King’s banner, opting instead to make the King the target, thereby avoiding making explicit the role of the peers or aristocracy. As a result, the argument for Whig governing became an explicit argument for party governing in direct challenge to the familiar identification of party with faction. See Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III, 2nd ed. (London: MacMillan Press, 1957).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The Rockingham opposition centered on such known figures as (among others) Richmond, Burke, and William Pitt the Younger. In some ways, they constituted a motley assembly with Paine and John Wilkes, both of whom conveyed strong anti-aristocratic and anti-monarchical sentiments, combined with Richmond, an inveterate aristocrat, and Burke, who explicitly rejected anti-monarchism. At the same time, Richmond resolutely defended universal suffrage for the House of Commons, but Burke did not view universal manhood suffrage as essential to the principle of popular government. In their persistent writings and speeches, however, they defended the open expression of opposition as key to free government.
It is fair to say that Burke and Richmond were the authoritative voices of the opposition. Their surrogates, such as Paine, were reflections of their patrons. In fact, it is fair to say that Paine wrote not in his voice, but with an aristocratic tongue as long as he was in service to the opposition and did not assume his own voice until he arrived in America.
Rockingham had a close relationship with the Duke of Richmond, who initiated a campaign of public but anonymous criticism and denunciation of Crown and Ministry (“King’s friends”). The yeoman’s work for the radical Whigs, however, was performed by Edmund Burke and became dramatically evident in his 1770 publication of Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Edmund Burke, “Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents,” 1770, in Select Works of Edmund Burke, Vol. 1, ed. Francis Canavan (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1999), Vol. 1, pp. 69–156, https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/796/0005.01_Bk.pdf (accessed September 8, 2025). Cited hereafter as Select Works.&lt;/p&gt;">REF
<h3>Edmund Burke and the Politics of Liberal Reform</h3>
Burke’s pamphlet emerged as the first and most dramatic contribution to resolution of the constitutional crisis. Burke made it very clear that he understood precisely the characterization of liberal reform set forth by George III: That is the predicate, the context, of everything else that followed. Burke’s ideas reveal the reason why George III’s attempt to sideline political parties (as factions) failed even though the eventual result reached the King’s goal. Burke’s formulations integrated political opposition as a permanent feature of free society, thus making efforts to eliminate divergent opinion unnecessary. To that extent, Burke was the anti-Bolingbroke. Burke’s characterization of the political party was fundamental and innovative. Ultimately, however, his appeal to “popular sovereignty” in the House of Commons would solidify sober, popular government and prove to be even more critical in leading Britain out of its constitutional crisis.
Party vs. Faction. In his text, Burke introduced a distinction between the political party and the faction that may be described as the difference between the “programmatic party” (the party that by prior agreement arrives at policy commitments) and the “party of interest” (the opportunistic party). On this basis, Burke proposed that “measures not men” be replaced by another formulation: “men committed to measures.”REF
Burke thereby outlined the architecture of the political party that ever since then has shaped the course of popular politics. “Party,” as he defined it, “is a body of men united for promoting by their joint endeavours the national interest, upon some particular principle in which they are all agreed.” He continued:
<blockquote>Without a proscription of others, they are bound to give to their own party the preference in all things; and by no means, for private considerations, to accept any offers of power in which the whole body is not included; nor to suffer themselves to be led, or to be controuled, or to be over-balanced, in office or in council, by those who contradict the very fundamental principles on which their party is formed, and even those upon which every fair connexion must stand. Such a generous contention for power, on such manly and honourable maxims, will easily be distinguished from the mean and interested [factious] struggle for place and emolument.REF</blockquote>
Popular Sovereignty in the House of Commons. Far more than a defensive screed for the opposition, Burke’s pamphlet set forth the theoretical and political case for broader representation, specifically in the House of Commons.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;It is vital to recall that, beginning with Hobbes and continuing through Locke to Blackstone (though there were earlier theories of sovereignty), the concept of sovereignty as decisive with respect to the Constitution was firmly established and proved to be corollary to the events that sparked the American Revolution. In addition to his “Present Discontents,” Burke’s contributions on the “Middlesex Elections” (the theory of representation), the “Powers of Juries,” the “Bill for Shortening the Duration of Parliaments,” and “Reform of Representation in the House of Commons” all critically establish the architecture for a new understanding of the role of the representative legislature, which is primarily the House of Commons exclusive of the House of Lords.&lt;/p&gt;">REF Moreover, he implied in that essay and went on subsequently to emphasize that he was calling for the preeminence of the House of Commons in constituting the executive administration of the state. In short, although the inherited constitution centered executive authority in the monarch, the revision effected by the revolution in this era was to displace the monarch’s executive authority by subjecting it to prior selection of the House of Commons. The move extended so far as even to empower the House of Commons to name peers—theretofore a royal prerogative.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;This is inverse to the practice in the United States of executive nomination and legislative confirmation and even less politically significant because of the very low likelihood of a monarch’s disconfirming.&lt;/p&gt;">REF
At the heart of the changes Burke sought in company with his coadjutors, especially Richmond, and for which he did the heavy lifting for the liberal Whig coalition was the tacit but dramatic argument that the source of and authority for the constitution was the people, despite the absence of any express popular act of constitutional approval. “I am no friend to aristocracy, in the sense at least in which that word is usually understood.” Accordingly, Burke hammered the point: The nation would be served best by “a Ministry, which thinks itself accountable to the House of Commons, when the House of Commons thinks itself accountable to its constituents.”REF
Accordingly, Burke described his political opponents as undermining “compliance with the will of the people” and even treating the very idea as “that monstrous evil of governing in concurrence with the opinion of the people.”REF It therefore followed that:
<blockquote>[W]e are now no longer quarreling about the character, or about the conduct of men, or the tenour of measures; but we are grown out of humour with the English Constitution itself; this is become the object of the animosity of Englishmen…. It is to this humour, and it is to the measures growing out of it, that I set myself (I hope not alone) in the most determined opposition.REF</blockquote>
Burke sought to retrieve a Whig party that was consistent with this vision and that believed Parliament’s “first duty” was “to refuse to support Government, until Power was in the hands of persons who were acceptable to the people, or while factions predominated in the Court in which the nation had no confidence.”REF In other words, Burke treated George III’s reaction to the Whig oligarchy as mistaking an ephemeral deviation for prevailing constitutional practice.
“Court Party” as Faction. Most interestingly, however, Burke targeted counselors to the King and “the private inclinations of a Court” for ruling “against the general sense of the people.”
<blockquote>[T]his Faction, whilst it pursues a scheme for undermining all the foundations of our freedom, weakens (for the present at least) all the powers of executory Government, rendering us abroad contemptible, and at home distracted…. [N]othing but a firm combination of public men against this body, and that, too supported by the heavy concurrence of the people at large, can possibly get the better of it. The people will see the necessity of restoring public men to an attention to the public opinion and restoring the Constitution to its original principles. Above all, they will endeavour to keep the House of Commons from assuming a character which does not belong to it. They will endeavour to keep that House, for its existence for its powers, and its privileges, as independent of every other, and as dependent upon themselves as possible. This servitude is to an House of Commons (like obedience to the Divine law), “perfect freedom.”REF</blockquote>
Burke characterized the “Court Party” as a faction that sought to sideline the ministry with “responsibility” while maintaining “power” in its own hands. Although the existence of an “inner cabinet” may have been more myth (or fear) than reality, Burke nevertheless considered the reforms of George III and the several ministries he engaged to be insincere covers for, and, in fact, continuations of the Whigocracy’s practices. “[T]heir maxims have a plausible air; and, on a cursory view, appear equal to first principles.… Of this stamp is the cant of Not men but measures….”REF As Burke explained:
<blockquote>[O]thers [besides the monarch]…thought they now beheld an opportunity…of drawing to themselves, by the aggrandisement of a Court Faction, a degree of power which they could never hope to derive from natural influence or from honourable service; and which it was impossible they could hold with the least security, whilst the system of Administration rested upon its former bottom. In order to facilitate the execution of their design, it was necessary to make many alterations in political arrangement, and a signal change in the opinions, habits, and connexions of the greatest part of those who at that time acted in publick.REF</blockquote>
Accordingly, “[t]his marvellous abhorrence which the Court had suddenly taken to all influence, was not only circulated in conversation through the kingdom, but pompously announced to the publick….”REF “Party was to be totally done away, with all its evil works,” and it was now “time to unlock the sealed fountain of Royal bounty, which had been infamously monopolized and huckstered, and to let it flow at large upon the whole people.”REF The reform of “measures not men,” in other words, concealed place-seeking and revenue-seeking. To reach this conclusion, Burke had to abstract from much that George III did and said (such as voluntarily relinquishing upon his accession the royal claim on public revenue and his manifest willingness to recruit Commoners into the ministry). It is true, of course, that he inherited Newcastle, the successor to Walpole, which produced at best hesitance to undertake reform.
Fundamental Alignment with George III. The foregoing summation reflects the heart of Burke’s ideas. The defense of popular government requires the supremacy of the House of Commons in the constitutional architecture to ensure executive ministry can be properly established only upon nomination by the Commons. The argument takes direct aim at the monarch’s discretion and constitutes the beginning of the development that produced the modern monarchy.
However, Burke’s argument contradicts George III’s views only obliquely. The King defended the proposition that the people constitute the true foundation of the constitution, but he also believed that representation of the national interest, and hence the sentiments of the people, required administration by men of integrity who would diligently search out the public’s opinion and needs. What Burke contributes is the notion that these representatives must be chosen by the people on the basis of their express commitment to articulated public policies.
Burke also knew that his conception departed from what prevailed in the “golden era” when “Parliament was indeed the great object of all those politicks, the end at which they aimed as well as the instrument by which they were to operate.”REF Those Whigs “believed that the only proper method of rising into power was through hard essays of practiced friendship and experimented fidelity” and “that no men could act with effect, who did not act in concert; that no men could act in concert, who did not act with confidence; that no men could act with confidence, who were not bound together by common opinions, common affections, and common interests.”REF
Those “hard essays,” however, were consistent with George III’s understanding and did not involve any express commitments to constituencies. Burke’s plan was to systematize friendship and fidelity through the specific discipline of the political party, which would bind constituents by “[c]ommon opinions, common affections, and common interests.” In other words, the majority-rule procedure in the House of Commons avoids the problem of faction because only the party that attains a majority determines and executes the policy.
In Burke’s new architecture, the modern political party emerges as the anchor of constitutional politics. We find, therefore, that the practical politics of the era and the underlying political theory converge in an inventive atmosphere that fundamentally alters the British constitution while incidentally sparking American constitutionalism. Burke understood that he advanced changes in constitutional practice while clinging to a somewhat redefined constitutional heritage as distinct from those “material alterations [that] have been insensibly brought about in the policy and character of governments and nations….”REF
<h3>Resolution</h3>
Burke’s purpose seems to have been to create a pristine Whig tradition on the grounds of which the labors of the liberal/radical Whigs of his day could be justified as consistent with constitutional tradition. That is, Burke’s “traditionalism” is a work of art:
<blockquote>The lines of morality are not like the ideal lines of mathematicks. They are broad and deep as well as long. They admit of exceptions; they demand modifications. These exceptions and modifications are not made by the process of logick, but by the rules of prudence. Prudence is not only the first in rank of the virtues political and moral, but she is the director, the regulator, the standard of them all.REF</blockquote>
On these grounds, Burke and other radical Whigs, including the Duke of Richmond, would eventually make their peace with monarchy and even with George III. Richmond himself, along with several of his colleagues, formally acknowledged loyalty to the King—not on demand but quite voluntarily. Several of Richmond’s relatives and colleagues, and even Richmond, had served on the Privy Council.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Privy Council 1765: The Duke of Grafton (1735–1811); The Marquess of Rockingham (1730–1782); Thomas Pelham (1728–1805); The Duke of Richmond (1735–1806). Privy Council 1782: Edmund Burke (1729–1797). Privy Council 1806: The Hon. Charles James Fox (1749–1806).&lt;/p&gt;">REF That is not to say that there was something amiss. Indeed, the elaboration of a “constitutional monarchy” may be said to require construction of such a foundation independent of the foundation on which an original creation might be based. Burke captured this in poignant language: “It is in the nature of things, that they who are in the centre of a circle should appear directly opposed to those who view them from any part of the circumference.”REF
George III, by all appearances, did not much like Burke. The King had found a stabilizing force in Lord North as Prime Minister (who served from 1770–1782), but that served in time only to pave the way for his coming to terms with the opposition. George’s primary goal was to reconcile with the reform effort in Britain, and he eventually came to terms with the Burke campaign when he turned to William Pitt the Younger to lead the ministry with a coterie of liberal Whigs following the end of the Revolutionary War in 1783. Pitt’s ascension to the prime ministry ended the succession of ill-fated interims, and although split between Pitt and Fox, Whigs flowered.
Edmund Burke as the original propagandist of the liberal/radical Whigs accordingly accounts for those political developments that produced the American Revolution and subsequently secured Britain against the infections flowing from the French Revolution. At the same time, he did George III the favor of consummating the reform for which George III had sighed if not altogether foreseen. Or did he? George III once reportedly said that “there was no man in his dominions by whom he had been so much offended, and no man to whom he was so much indebted as the Duke of Richmond.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Rt. Hon. Lord John Russell, ed., Memorials and Correspondence of Charles James Fox, Vol. I (Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1853), Vol. I, p. 351, https://ia801507.us.archive.org/23/items/memorialscorresp01foxc/memorialscorresp01foxc.pdf (accessed September 8, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Perhaps, then, George III understood more than he let on. It is certainly true that no man in the kingdom raised the paean of popular sovereignty and the rights of man more prominently than the Duke of Richmond did, and perhaps no man in Britain drew back from the political river’s edge more dramatically than the Duke of Richmond did.
Success of the British Revolution and Implications for the Colonies. The Enlightenment principles that George III embraced refashioned the extended British Union to very good effect, altering politics fundamentally by making the Prime Minister no longer an instrument to represent the monarch’s commands to Parliament but, instead, an instrument to represent Parliament to the King. The fundamental liberal reform was to refashion politics with command subject to and not united with authority. On that basis, the Union grew in strength and stability, as was well illustrated in the long-subsisting inclusion of Canada in the Union (full independence not being accomplished until beyond the middle of the 20th century).
But that reality poses the question of what happened with respect to the 13 colonies of British North America. Why were they not incorporated into the British Union with equal success? The frequent response that the geography was too imposing is dispelled by the story of Canada. It seems, rather, that factors revolving around the transient destabilizing constitutional transition in England had more to do with the failure to retain the colonies than it did with any “tyranny” of George III. In the nature of things, once such liberal reforms begin, the devil is in their implementation. Errors do occur. Such errors, however, do not necessarily mean that the intended objective or principle was erroneous. Considering that George III was otherwise successful in transitioning the kingdom, it would be erroneous to repudiate his liberal vision simply because of particular errors that affected America. In fact, it may even be true that the loss of America was not too high a price to pay for the achievement of constitutional unity in England.
<h3>America and the Unintended Consequences of British Reform</h3>
To make the matter plain, the debates over taxation, judicial administration, and virtual representation were secondary, not primary, causes of the American Revolution. What sparked the Revolution was the effort to clarify the role of Parliament—especially, again, the House of Commons, which was subject in principle to popular election—in Britain, an effort that resulted in attempts to demonstrate the power of Parliament both at home and abroad.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;This dynamic did not uniquely affect the 13 American colonies, as Jack Greene has demonstrated with regard to the West Indian colonies, particularly Jamaica. See Jack P. Greene. “The Jamaica Privilege Controversy, 1764–66: An Episode in the Process of Constitutional Definition in the Early Modern British Empire,” Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, Vol. 22, No. 1 (1994), pp. 16–53, and Jack P. Greene, “‘Of Liberty and of the Colonies’: A Case Study of Constitutional Conflict in the Mid-Eighteenth-Century British American Empire,” in Liberty and American Experience in the Eighteenth Century, ed. David Womersley (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2006), pp. 21–102, https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/1727/1363_LFeBk.pdf (accessed September 8, 2025). See also Jack P. Greene and Craig B. Yirush, eds., Exploring the Bounds of Liberty: Political Writings of Colonial British America from the Glorious Revolution to the American Revolution, Latin trans. Kathleen Alvis (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2018), Vol. II, https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/2785/Greene_1670-02_Bk.pdf (accessed September 8, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
Before then, and setting the stage for revolution, Parliament passed the liberal Quebec Act, which was followed at the beginning of the Grenville Ministry by the Stamp Act. When the Quebec Act was adopted, the American colonists misperceived it as hostile to their interests while correctly perceiving in the Stamp Act a direct challenge in its tacit exertion of Parliament’s sovereignty. Therefore, when the Rockingham Whigs emerged in control in 1765 and repealed the Stamp Act (with the King’s consent), repeal was accompanied by passage of the Declaratory Act, which asserted sovereignty over the colonies in principle if not in fact, and therefore failed to promote reconciliation. The Americans did not find this reassuring, and for good reason. The Rockingham Whigs retained power for less than a year, and the series of new revenue proposals, police enforcements, and a coldness to petitions for redress (which mirrored a process that would arise with full force in Britain itself not long thereafter) fueled the momentum toward resistance and independence.
George III earnestly wished to subdue the colonies, but he did not see that as more important than coming to terms with the reform effort in Britain. Moreover, the fact that the King had been drawn into international wars much against his will because of this rebellion concentrated his attention on putting Britain’s house in order so that it could marshal resources adequate to the national interest, such as defending control of the seas. What was happening in America was simply not his highest priority. He had his hands full in attempting to shape administration along new lines in which forcing ministers and members to formulate policy was all important. Thus, inconstant and sometimes impetuous policymaking, beginning with the proclamation to prohibit westward expansion beyond the Appalachians despite the pledged compensation to colonials who fought in the Seven Years War, impeded any effort to approach the colonies with the architectural vision in play in England.
The Americans were mainly unaware of the larger reality in Britain, even though such emissaries as Benjamin Franklin and John Adams were on the ground at times. Franklin, who was even introduced to Paine and the coterie around Richmond, nevertheless seemed not to perceive fully how far the organized opposition to the Crown would affect the disposition of American petitions. In fact, the successive ministries deliberating on such questions as Stamp Act repeal, Townshend duties, and the Declaratory Act were focused as much on who was to decide as they were on what should be decided. The challenge to the old process of “purchasing” representation in the House of Commons had made the creation of a stable policymaking environment more difficult. The Americans were, to coin a phrase, yanked around.
George III became the focal point of colonial frustration. Unaware of the constitutional dynamics transpiring in Britain, the colonists interpreted Parliament’s actions as tyranny and placed the blame squarely on King George. By the time American independence was recognized in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, it had long been a fait accompli. A practical consequence of the successful struggle to establish the supremacy of the House of Commons in Britain was to make it all the more unlikely that any form of constitutional relationship between Britain and its American dependencies could ever be achieved. Beyond the specious argument against virtual representation, there was simply no basis for integration of the Americans into the nascent party processes in Britain. Although Burke never advocated independence, his argument in his famous speech on reconciliation with the colonies was still part and parcel of the ground for urging reconciliation: Britain needed to put its own house in order.
<h3>America’s Parallel Sober Reform</h3>
Moreover, although the Americans seem to have been unaware of the constitutional dynamics transpiring in Britain, there were clear signs that America was headed quite independently in the same direction. Two salient facts demonstrate this point.
First, developments in the colonies began to point toward the eventuality of independence before the era of George III’s reforms. Sam Adams was radicalized before the rise of struggles between the colonies and Parliament. His radicalization began with that of his father, Samuel Adams, Sr., who was notably injured in the “land bank” fiasco of the 1740s and thereafter, the lingering effects of which dogged Adams, Jr., throughout his life. As Sam Adams began the protests and organizing that morphed into mid-1760s rebellion, he was already defending opposition ground, not with abstract arguments about taxation or even parliamentary authority, but with the passionate appeal to liberty that had characterized Cato’s Letters under the reign of George II and Robert Walpole in the 1740s. The strident defense of liberty and the entrenched resentment of oligarchical practices tilled the soil in which the seeds of revolution would sprout.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;See, especially, John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, Cato’s Letters or Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious and Other Important Subjects, ed. Ronald Hamowy (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 1995), Vol. 1 (November 5, 1720, to June 17, 1721); Vol. 2 (June 24, 1721, to March 3, 1722); Vol. 3 (March 10, 1722, to December 1, 1722); and Vol. 4 (December 8, 1722, to December 7, 1723), https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/trenchard-catos-letters-4-vols-in-2-lf-ed (accessed September 9, 2025); Joseph Priestley, “Of Religious Liberty, And Toleration in General,” in An Essay on the First Principles of Government, and on the Nature of Political, Civil, and Religious Liberty, 2nd ed. (London: Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1771), pp. 110 and 116, https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/1767/0893_Bk.pdf (accessed September 9, 2025): “THE most important question concerning the extent of civil government is, whether the civil magistrate ought to extend his authority to matters of religion; and the only method of deciding this important question, as it appears to me, is to have recourse at once to first principles, and the ultimate rule concerning every thing that respects a society; viz. whether such interference of the civil magistrate appear to be for the public good…. ¶ Not that I think religion will ever be a matter of indifference in civil society: that is impossible, if the word be understood in its greatest latitude, and by religion we mean that principle whereby men are influenced by the dread of evil, or the hope of reward from any unknown and invisible causes, whether the good or evil be expected to take place in this world or another; comprehending enthusiasm, superstition, and every species of false religion, as well as the true.”&lt;/p&gt;">REF
How, then, do we account for the practices that led the colonies to declare their independence? We can find no better source than Sam’s cousin, John Adams. Sam was a “founder of revolution,” but John was also a founder of the Constitution. He provided strong evidence that this would be so during the run-up to the Declaration of Independence. A proclamation for the General Court of Massachusetts that he drafted in January 1776, for example, declared unequivocally that:
<blockquote>As the Happiness of the People is the sole End of Government, So the Consent of the People is the only Foundation of it, in Reason, Morality, and the natural Fitness of things: and therefore every Act of Government, every Exercise of Sovereignty, against, or without, the Consent of the People, is Injustice, Usurpation, and Tyranny…. But this power resides always in the Body of the People, and it never was, or can be delegated, to one Man, or a few, the great Creator having never given to Men a right to vest others with Authority over them, unlimited either in Duration or Degree.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“IV. A Proclamation by the General Court, 19 January 1776,”&nbsp;National Archives, Founders Online,&nbsp;https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/06-03-02-0195-0005 (accessed September 8, 2025).&nbsp;Emphasis added.&lt;/p&gt;">REF</blockquote>
Three things are specified. First, there is the end: “the Happiness of the People.” Then there is the foundation, explicitly stated as such: “Consent of the People.” Finally, we have the means. Adams invokes the acquisition of knowledge and of virtue, the development of habits, manners, religion, and integrity, which is to say that only people acting in a certain way and under certain constraints can express that informed consent. The connection between the foundation and the means is made entirely explicit.
Putting it differently, consent of the people stands upon the bulwark of information, of knowledge, of understanding and is informed by religion, morality, manners—good habits. A moral foundation is essential not only to the expression, but also to the achievement of the ends of the Revolution. In this recognition, we connect with George Washington’s Farewell Address, in which he said that “[o]f all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;George Washington, “Farewell Address,” September 19, 1796, National Archives, Founders Online, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-20-02-0440-0002 (accessed September 12, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
Second, consider George Washington’s tacit recognition of developments transpiring in Britain when he engaged in an extended correspondence debate with General Sir Thomas Gage over Washington’s superior claim to legitimate authority as having its source in “the people” as opposed to Gage’s commission from the King. Without the experience of party dynamics in Britain, Washington landed precisely upon the point that would drive constitutional reform in Britain as the launching pad for independence in America. In that sense, the Declaration of Independence was the recognition of an existing reality rather than the creation of a new reality. Only much later would America develop the party dynamics to complement the heritage of English liberty, yet America and Britain were headed in precisely the same direction.
What, then, of the Declaration of Independence? If the British constitutional reform was not “traditionalist,” how likely is it that American constitutionalism was traditionalist—and, in particular, British traditionalist? The answer: not at all. While there was appeal to certain traditions, it was not to the tradition of British liberty. A brief review of the thinking in the Declaration will make that plain.
Twelve score and 10 years ago and still counting, a new world emerged in North America, an infant state crying, “We want to be free.” The new United States was born fraught with perils and freighted with sins but determined to stand on the ground of equal rights to life, liberty, and happiness for all humankind. Its birth pangs were not muffled in a private closet, but shouted out for all the world to hear—a candid world that would judge the fitness of the claim to freedom. The framers of the Declaration of Independence did not react negatively to tyranny, gambling on the possibility of a future free of oppression. Instead, they acted with confident assurance of a providential destiny—as George Washington phrased it—which they were obliged to strive to fulfill.
Against every evidence to the contrary and thousands of years of history discounting the possibility, they insisted on their—and all men’s—capacity for self-government, on account of which a government under the laws of God and Nature must arise with the consent of the governed. It was such trust in humankind as was demonstrated at Shiloh when “a new nation was born in a day.” From the first secure settlements in North America up to the era of the Founding, the shapers of this nation had been inspired by the example of Shiloh, the original “Shining City on a Hill.” They believed that they could undertake the mission assigned by God to the people of Israel in North America since the era of broken covenant (the prophetic era of the Old Testament) had been succeeded by the renewed covenant (the era of the New Testament).
They did not claim to be a “new” chosen people. They claimed, rather, to be ready to embrace the grace offered to humankind and put forth such efforts as would prove men at length capable of measuring up to the task. That is the light in which we can best understand the Declaration of Independence. It was a public acknowledgement of the responsibility that belongs to the being that had received that portion of the divine power which is moral power—the power to judge aright regarding obligations to men and God.
As noted, John Adams made this foundation evident in his anticipation of the Declaration of Independence in the proclamation of the General Court in Massachusetts. The three things laid out there—the end, the foundation in consent, and the means (the acquisition of knowledge, virtue, habits, manners, religion, and integrity)—all affirm that the people alone can express the informed consent that gives rise to government and supports the pursuit of happiness. And the connection between the foundation and the means is made entirely explicit. In its final clause, the proclamation invoked the assistance of the ministers of the Gospel, who, “hav[ing] during the late Relaxation of the Powers of civil Government, exerted themselves for our Safety, it is hereby recommended to them, still to continue their virtuous Labours for the good of the People, inculcating by their Public Ministry and private Example, the Necessity of Religion, Morality, and good order.” Put differently, consent of the people stands upon informed consent. What informs consent are religion, morality, manners, and good habits. Accordingly, a moral foundation is essential not only to the expression, but to the achievement of the ends of the Revolution. This observation connects with George Washington’s “Farewell Address,” where he said that “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, Religion and morality are indispensable supports.”
The idea of self-direction or self-government accordingly constitutes the nub of this political philosophy, and it is illuminated by the otherwise perplexing enumeration of the natural rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” What is perplexing in the enumeration is precisely the appearance that the three identified rights correspond to three distinct functions. 
Now, whether “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” constitutes a series of distinct functions or two functions (life and liberty) with a dependent apposition (pursuit of happiness) connected to the second is the heart of the matter. John Adams had already anticipated this inquiry upon introducing “pursuit of happiness” in the Proclamation of the General Court and subsequently in his Thoughts On Government prior to the emergence of the Declaration of Independence. He argued that “pursuit of happiness” is the function of liberty performed toward moral excellence. Liberty, a function of self-direction that admits the necessity of options or choices, is nonetheless not indifferent to the choices made. While the function—or endowment of soul—is susceptible to diverse performance, Adams nonetheless maintains that, within the variance, there is rightful and wrongful performance. The human person is paradoxically required to lean one way or the other—to act with liberty—but does so well only in one direction.
What produces the paradox is human fallibility tied to the requirement for the individual to conduct him or herself by his or her own lights. While it may appear that liberty is the openness to error (choose how one will, one must choose), it is instead the case that one functions (conducts himself rather than being compelled by necessity) truly at liberty only when he or she chooses well—that is, pursues happiness. British thinker Thomas Hobbes introduced Enlightenment thought when he sought to convert the biblical “seek peace” from the other-regarding to the self-regarding, seeking to displace recourse to moral reasoning. Hobbes sought to replace the “I must” with the “I will,” which could readily be made congruent with civil authority.
In the context of the Declaration, religion, and the Enlightenment, this means that the Declaration is formed of moral alloys, with firmness and stability provided by “the laws of nature and of nature’s God,” and flexibility and adaptability (what we may be tempted to call realism) supplied by Enlightenment ideas of utility. In that relationship, Enlightenment ideas serve without shaping the political experience under the Declaration. For the substantial reality of that experience confirms a truth seldom recognized, which is that what may be (but is seldom) said of human beings in the best of circumstances is precisely what is so casually said of human beings in the worst of circumstances—namely, men will be men.
In that light, their recognition of the right to create a government that could “effect their safety and happiness” meant nothing less than the assertion that they—and their posterity—could exercise that right with the attention to justice that their “future security” requires.
As founders—originators—of this commitment, the framers bore a special burden, for they set sail in uncharted waters on faith. As heirs to their accomplishment, we bear a different burden, not the burden of worshipping—or even celebrating—the past (really no burden at all), but rather the burden of being no less ready to stand on the firm ground of the Declaration of Independence, affirming that all men are created equal and are entitled to rights and liberties entailed by God and nature. The burden of our age is to be no less ready to cry “We want to be free” even in these, the adolescent years of our national existence. The accomplishment of framers who hazarded all to create must compel us, the heirs, no less to hazard all to preserve.
While we cannot refound or resanctify the blessed birth of this nation, it does fall to us not to stain that birth by abandoning—aborting—its cry for freedom, a freedom of value to us only in proportion as we recognize its value for all of humankind. Let this period of semi-quincentennial reflection fill our throats with praise for liberty, with praise for the Declaration of Independence.
<h3>Revisiting George III</h3>
Despite the colonists’ flawed views of George III and fragmented knowledge of Britain’s constitutional tumult, they achieved their own form of sober popular government inspired by the same basic principles of prudent radicalism that animated the revolution in Britain. The irony, of course, is that the liberal reforms that George III initiated in Britain became the very source of the grievances that led the colonists to rebel and forge their own path toward independence. In the process, the King became a symbol of tyranny—and this reputation seems to persist nearly 250 years after America declared its independence. Given the recent disclosures about George III, it is time to correct the record.
Two Georges. This retrospective on the American Revolution brings us face-to-face with George III of England and George Washington—and the former’s uncharacteristic admiration of the latter. We find a fellowship in greatness that is no less betokened by George III’s full embrace of Enlightenment-era liberal reform. When that account is joined with George III’s recognition of George Washington, we acquire a new foundation for understanding the American Revolution—a foundation that substantially refashions the traditional account of the revolt against tyranny.
We might reconsider George III’s assessment, as recounted by Benjamin West, that George Washington’s voluntary resignation of command in 1783 and the presidency in 1796 “placed him in a light the most distinguished of any man living.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Benjamin West to Rufus King, May 3, 1797, in The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, ed. Charles R. King (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896), Vol. III, 1799–1801, p. 545, https://dn790001.ca.archive.org/0/items/rufuskinglife03kingrich/rufuskinglife03kingrich.pdf (accessed September 9, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF This comment no longer appears as the perhaps rueful cry of a defeated spirit. In fact, it suggests profound understanding, which in turn illuminates George III’s endeavors as prince. As I have previously observed, Washington’s actions were consistent with the advice of Niccolo Machiavelli in his Discourses:
<blockquote>The gravamen of Machiavelli’s advice was that a general whose great virtue had acquired for his prince or country new domain or secure liberty should anticipate suspicion. In this case he can act only in one of two ways, to resign the great powers he has acquired or to use those powers to establish himself in supreme office. Resigning would operate not only to defend against suspicion but also to build reputation.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;See “George Washington: President,” in W. B. Allen, George Washington: America’s First Progressive (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), p. 72 (quoting Nicolo Machiavelli, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Livy, Book 1, Chapter 30).&lt;/p&gt;">REF</blockquote>
We have no evidence that Washington actually read this Machiavellian advice, but we do have evidence that George III did. He cites the Discourses in a manuscript essay only recently made public. Moreover, he read Machiavelli’s Prince sensitively enough to come to employ the term “prince” as a function rather than a title, recognition of an officium in keeping with the emphasis in Cicero’s classic work.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;See Cicero, De Officiis, trans Andrew P. Peabody (Boston: Little, Brown, 1887), https://oll-resources.s3.us-east-2.amazonaws.com/oll3/store/titles/542/0265_Bk.pdf (accessed September 9, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
On this basis, I now fairly believe that George III’s characterization of Washington was not a grudging submission to reality. Rather, it was very likely great-souled recognition of greatness in an adversary—much in the manner of Winston Churchill’s expressed admiration for Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s tactics in the deserts of North Africa. In other words, it took greatness in George III to recognize and acknowledge greatness in George Washington.
Rehabilitation by John Quincy Adams. It is, however, not altogether an innovation to question the charge of tyranny against George III. This subject was anticipated (albeit on different grounds) by the American Founder who lived longest and had the most intimate knowledge of British politics—John Quincy Adams.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;See David Zanotti and W. B. Allen, An Oration: John Quincy Adams’ Christian America, American Policy Roundtable, forthcoming, which demonstrates that John Quincy Adams must be considered a Founder in terms of his presence and roles throughout the Revolution and beyond.&lt;/p&gt;">REF
In 1837, Adams delivered a Fourth of July oration expressly declaring that King George was not a tyrant. Adams did not have the documentary evidence that has led the present author to make that observation. He had, rather, a moral and political objective to which the claim was instrumental. Adams decided that he needed to turn the attention of the citizens of 1837 away from reaction to oppressions suffered at the hands of Britain and toward the aspiration—the providential dispensation—to form a novus ordo seclorum (a new order of the ages). We learn as much by comparing his Fourth of July oration of 1837 with that of 1821. The 1837 address contained the remarkable observation that:
<blockquote>[T]he separation of the one People from the other was a solitary fact in their common history; a mere incident in the progress of human events, not more deserving of special and annual commemoration by one of the separated parts, than by the other. Still less were the causes of the separation subjects for joyous retrospection by either of the parties. — The causes were acts of misgovernment committed by the King and Parliament of Great Britain. In the exasperation of the moment they were alleged to be acts of personal tyranny and oppression by the King. George the Third was held individually responsible for them all. The real and most culpable oppressor, the British Parliament, was not even named, in the bill of pains and penalties brought against the monarch. — They were described only as “others” combined with him; and, after a recapitulation of all the grievances with which the Colonies had been afflicted by oppressive usurped British Legislation, the dreary catalogue was closed by the sentence of unqualified condemnation, that a prince, whose character was thus marked by every act which might define a tyrant, was unworthy to be the ruler of a free people.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;John Quincy Adams, “Speech on Independence Day,” July 4, 1837, Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, Teaching American History, https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/speech-on-independence-day-2/ (accessed September 9, 2025). Emphasis added.&lt;/p&gt;">REF</blockquote>
In his 1821 address, Adams counseled Americans to let bygones be bygones while memorializing unworthy and tyrannical acts of oppression. He did indict Parliament as the chief culprit, but he did not exculpate George III.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;See John Quincy Adams, “An Address…Celebrating the Declaration of Independence,” July 4, 1821, Ashbrook Center at Ashland University, Teaching American History, https://teachingamericanhistory.org/document/speech-on-independence-day/ (accessed September 12, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF However, in 1837, we read the full rehabilitation of George III:
<blockquote>The King, thus denounced by a portion of his subjects, casting off their allegiance to his crown, has long since gone to his reward. His reign was long, and disastrous to his people, and his life presents a melancholy picture of the wretchedness of all human grandeur; but we may now, with the candour of impartial history, acknowledge that he was not a tyrant. His personal character was endowed with many estimable qualities. His intentions were good; his disposition benevolent; his integrity unsullied; his domestic virtues exemplary; his religious impressions strong and conscientious; his private morals pure; his spirit munificent, in the promotion of the arts, literature and sciences; and his most fervent wishes devoted to the welfare of his people.REF</blockquote>
Adams was wrong to see George III’s six-decade reign as disastrous because through it, George III both accomplished the development of constitutional monarchy and managed to preserve the nation through an almost constant succession of wars, none of which he initiated if we properly see the onset of the American struggle not as a resort to war but as a police action. What John Quincy Adams accomplished by the complete rehabilitation of George III was nothing less than to establish that the American Revolution rested fully on the foundation of its own providential mission.
<h3>France and the Ideological Party</h3>
As we have seen, Burke’s case for the programmatic political party is strictly connected with the defense of popular government, albeit not direct democracy. By the end of the 18th century, it set the terms for resolution of the constitutional crisis in Britain and at the same time provided the blueprint for modernity. Not only did the Americans implicitly follow in that trajectory—that is, development of the political party by Jefferson and Madison—but, more importantly, the distinction served to steer the war on faction away from parties per se.
As noted previously, Burke’s formulation integrated political opposition as a permanent feature of free society, thus making efforts to eliminate divergent opinion unnecessary. To that extent, Burke liberated George III’s reform instinct from what could have become a fatal cul-de-sac. The French Revolution, which arose subsequently to Burke’s formulation, introduced the ideological party—especially during the Reign of Terror—that deliberately rejected the possibility of opposition and thereby introduced the prospect of totalitarianism. The ideological party does not commit to specific measures; it commits to power to adopt any measures that fit its “vision.”
In the United States, Jefferson originally saluted the flag of French radicalism, but he drew back when its horrors became too plain to deny. He, with Madison, built a party tradition that eschewed the French path. The impulses of modern liberalism coursed through the social capillaries of all three societies. However, the concrete measures associated with prudent or sober radicalism—universal suffrage, economic reforms (mainly cutting off “civil list” grifting), equal representation, et al.—all advanced new political agendas while judiciously retrieving traditions to institutionalize them. The selective retrieval of traditions was perhaps the great gift that Burke provided for the United Kingdom. However, although the United States had a built-in foundation—the Declaration of Independence—Burke’s architecture also gave birth by the mid to late 20th century to the American form of prudent radicalism: political conservatism. In that vein, the cutting off of grifting upon public revenues must be distinguished from cutting off the heads of grifters. The one is prudent radicalism; the other is heedless radicalism.
Burke was eventually cast out of the Whig party by followers of Charles James Fox and others on account of his published views on the French Revolution. In his 1791 Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, Burke distinguished the revolution to which he contributed (but which he would not call by that name) from the “pretended” revolution in France (which he called by the name of anarchy).<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“[In] the case of a revolution in government, this, I think may be safely affirmed, that a sore and pressing evil is to be removed, and that a good, great in its amount, and unequivocal in its nature, must be probable almost to certainty, before the inestimable price of our own morals, and the well-being of a number of our fellow-citizens, is paid for a revolution.” Burke, An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs, p. 20.&lt;/p&gt;">REF Eventually, however, even Fox drew back and made his peace with constitutional monarchy, in the process becoming the first person in Britain to introduce a measure to abolish slavery.
While the French Revolution began, like its British and American counterparts, with grievances against unaccountable power, it devolved into a program of anarchy and ideological purification. The rejection of Montesquieu in favor of Rousseau’s “general will” led to more than a century of constitutional instability and intermittent authoritarianisms that persisted until the fall of the Vichy regime under Philippe Petain following World War II.
<h3>Conclusion: Three Pathways to Modernity</h3>
On the whole, we may say of the 18th century’s three revolutions that, to varying degrees, they have arrived in the early 21st century at a terminus of prudent radicalism. Such a conclusion is warranted on the premise that popular government, historically speaking, is a radical departure. Nevertheless, they stand differently situated in relation to popular government. In Britain and the United States, government is founded on a formal preference for the popular legislative body; in France, it is founded on a formal preference for a single executive. All three governments depart from France’s original heedless radicalism, but the British and American reflect more fully Burke’s prudent or sober radicalism. It is therefore appropriate to observe that the modern expression of the three pathways confirm the liberalism-cum-conservatism that emerged once Burke was cast out by his former allies for insufficient deference to French ideologies.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;It is important to observe as well that it was Burke’s strident impeachment prosecution of Warren Hastings, the Governor General of India, in the name of just dealings and natural rights that primarily secured his early 19th century American reputation as the most prominent liberal in Britain.&lt;/p&gt;">REF By his own account, the eventually Tory Burke was the same as the liberal Whig Burke.
In the end, we must acknowledge that the modern pathways all affirm the maxim that salus populi suprema lex est (the welfare of the people is the supreme law). In their respective chants—“all men are created equal,” “liberté, égalité, fraternité,” “God save the King”—all three stand on a central premise with every other point on the spectrum an extreme opposite.
William B. Allen is Professor Emeritus of Political Philosophy in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University. He served as Dean and Professor, James Madison College, Michigan State University (1993–1998).
<h3>Appendix I</h3>
<h3>Transcripts of the Georgian Papers Archives at the Omohundro Institute (Name, Title of Document, RA Reference, Collection, Series)</h3>
RI35621, “The Civil War to Charles II,” RA GEO/ADD/32/195-205, George III Essays, History/Histories of England, Scotland, and Great Britain.
RI35624, “James II,” RA GEO/ADD/32/206-252, George III Essays, History/Histories of England, Scotland, and Great Britain.
RI35630, 1,Notes on the History of Great Britain from the Time of the Gauls to the Romans, GEO/ADD/32/262, George III Essays, History/Histories of England, Scotland, and Great Britain.
RI35631, “Notes on Hume’s History of England,” GEO/ADD/32/263-266, George III Essays, History/Histories of England, Scotland, and Great Britain.
RI35625, Transcripts of Letters from James II to “the French Ministry,” GEO/ADD/32/253-253a, George III Essays, History/Histories of England, Scotland, and Great Britain.
RI36437, “The Life of Pomponius Atticus,” GEO/ADD/32/2210, George III Essays, History/Ancient History.
RI36434, “The Civil Government of Rome,” GEO/ADD/32/2058, George III Essays, History/Ancient History.
RI36101, Essays on Classical Antiquity, GEO/ADD/32/680-705, George III Essays, History/Ancient History.
RI36102, Of Laws Relative to Government in General, RA GEO/ADD/32/706-912, RA GEO/ADD/32/1071-1077, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI36178, Notes on «&nbsp;De l’esprit des loix,&nbsp;» RA GEO/ADD/32/1044-1047, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI36175, Draft Essays on Despotism, RA GEO/ADD/32/1048-1063, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI36034, Essay on the history of Parliaments up to the reign of Henry VII, RA GEO/ADD/32/272, RA GEO/ADD/32/1034-1036, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI36142, Fair copy of essay on the legislative and the executive, GEO/ADD/32/1022, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI36139, Essay and draft essay on government, RA GEO/ADD/32/914-917, RA GEO/ADD/32/929- 936, RA GEO/ADD/32/957-995, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI36664, Draft essay on government, RA GEO/ADD/32/1025-1033, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI36663, Essay on government, RA GEO/ADD/32/918-928, RA GEO/ADD/32/937-956, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI35569, A State of the Civil Power in Westminster, RA GEO/ADD/32/1, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI36176, Essay on the feudal system and government in Scotland, RA GEO/ADD/32/1078-1086, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI36181, Notes on “An Essay upon the Original and Nature of Government,” RA GEO/ADD/32/1039, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI36185, “A Short Abridgment of Mr Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England,” GEO/ADD/32/996-1021, GEO/ADD/32/1042, GEO/ADD/32/1685, GEO/ADD/32/1687-1691, George III Essays, History/Constitution.
RI36419, Essay on America and future colonial policy, RA GEO/ADD/32/2010-2011, George III Essays, History/Political Economy.
RI36346, Essay proposing reform of the management of the East India Company, RA GEO/ADD/32/1698-1699, George III Essays, History/Political Economy.
RI35628, Essay on Great Britain’s relationships with Europe, RA GEO/ADD/32/257-258, George III Essays, History/Political Economy.
RI35629, Notes on trade and manufacture in England, RA GEO/ADD/32/259-260, George III Essays, History/Political Economy.
RI36567, Notes on “Britain’s Commercial Interest,” RA GEO/ADD/32/261, RA GEO/ADD/32/2045-2047, George III Essays, History/Political Economy.
RI36416, Mixt Observations on Political Arithmetick, RA GEO/ADD/32/1961-1963, George III Essays, Miscellaneous/Education.
RI36348, Notes on Reading Rollin’s manière d’enseigner et d’étudier les Belles Lettres, RA GEO/ADD/32/1729, George III Essays, Miscellaneous/Education.
RI36138, Draft plan for “Lectures on Modern History,” RA GEO/ADD/32/913, George III Essays, Miscellaneous/Education.
RI36364, The Plan of Education for a Prince taken from Mr. Thomas, “Eloge of the late Dauphin,” RA GEO/ADD/32/1732, George III Essays, Miscellaneous/Education.
RI36350, Some short notes concerning the Education of a Prince, RA GEO/ADD/32/1731, George III Essays, Miscellaneous/Education.
RI36365, Sketch of the Education I mean to give unto my sons, RA GEO/ADD/32/1733, George III Essays, Miscellaneous/Education.
<h3>Appendix II</h3>
<h3>Bibliography</h3>
Peter D. G. Thomas, George III: King and Politicians 1760–1770 (Manchester and New York: Manchester University Press, 2002).
Stanley Edward Ayling, George the Third (London: Collins, 1972).
Andrew Roberts, The Last King of America: The Misunderstood Reign of George III (London: Penguin Random House, 2021).
Lewis Namier, The Structure of Politics at the Accession of George III, 2nd ed. (London: MacMillan Press, 1957).
Peter Cane and H. Kumarasingham, eds., The Cambridge Constitutional History of The United Kingdom, new ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), Vols. I and II.
M. Thomas, Eloge de Louis Dauphin de France (Paris: Regnard, 1766).
Lawrence M. Lande, The 3rd Duke of Richmond: A Study in Early Canadian History (Montreal: Hassell Street Press, 1956).
Earl A. Reitan, Politics, Finance and the People: Economical Reform in England in the Age of the American Revolution, 1770–92 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
Earl A. Reitan, “The Civil List in Eighteenth-Century British Politics: Parliamentary Supremacy Versus the Independence of the Crown,” The Historical Journal, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1966), pp.&nbsp;318–337.
Stephen Taylor, “Robert Walpole, First Earl of Orford,” in Biographical Dictionary of British Prime Ministers, ed. Robert Eccleshall and Graham Walker (London: Routledge, 1998).
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<pubDate>Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:12:16 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>William Allen, Ph.D.</dc:creator>
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<title>Defense Priorities for the U.S.–South Korean Alliance</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/report/defense-priorities-the-us-south-korean-alliance</link>
<description>The new Administration in Washington has reshaped the strategic discourse on national security matters. Across the U.S. alliance network, allies of the United States are wondering which changes in posture and budgets will follow, and how they ought to be planning accordingly. The Republic of Korea (ROK) may well need to re-evaluate some of its traditional thinking on defense in response to shifting international conditions. Luckily, and unlike some other American allies, it is well prepared to do so, as it maintains the healthiest defense industrial base of any American ally, a large and capable military, and a 2.8 percent defense budget that has been consistently higher than most U.S. allies.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Christian Davies, “South Korea Raises Military Spending by Most in More than 15 Years,” Financial Times, October 8, 2025, https://www.ft.com/content/dda45f72-e091-41c5-8622-4aff16ee44af (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
<h3>The Threat</h3>
South Korea lives in a dangerous place. It borders a nuclear-armed Stalinist monarchy in the form of North Korea that regularly engages in nuclear coercion and shares the region with an expansionist China. Both states present existential threats to South Korea.
North Korea became a nuclear power in 2006 and has since expanded both its nuclear arsenal (to around 90 weapons today) and its ability to deliver those weapons to targets in the region and to the American homeland.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Stella Kim and Jennifer Jett, “North Korea Close to Having ICBM that Can Hit the U.S with a Nuclear Weapon, South Korean Leader Says,” NBC News, September 26, 2025, https://www.nbcnews.com/world/north-korea/north-korea-close-icbm-hit-us-nuclear-weapon-kim-jong-un-unga-rcna233835 (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF While North Korea has a very large military that includes millions of soldiers, the equipment they use are relics of the 1960s and 1970s.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Kyle Mizokami, “Useless: North Korea Has Thousands of Old and Outdated Tanks,” The National Interest, January 28, 2020, https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/useless-north-korea-has-thousands-old-and-outdated-tanks-117836 (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF North Korea poses a conventional threat to South Korea, able to carry out strategic and even existential attacks due to its nuclear arsenal and the presence of long-range artillery that can reach Seoul and thereby inflict tens of thousands or more casualties on the South Korean population. Its conventional military, however, is qualitatively inferior to that of the South Korean military by a substantial margin.
China is a very credible—and still growing—conventional and nuclear threat to South Korea. China has the largest navy in the world, the largest concentration of cruise and ballistic missiles and fifth-generation aircraft, and is the fastest-growing nuclear power on the planet.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Prahlad Kumar Singh, “China’s Growing Nuclear Buildup and the Global Nuclear Outlook,” The Diplomat, June 25, 2025, https://thediplomat.com/2025/06/chinas-growing-nuclear-buildup-and-the-global-nuclear-outlook/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF While China has not yet engaged in direct military coercion against South Korea, it is increasingly comfortable doing that very thing against its neighbors in the Philippines and Taiwan.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Jim Gomez and Joeal Calupitan, “China Is Pushing the Philippines ‘to the Wall’ with Aggression in the South China Sea, Manilla Says,” AP, January 14, 2025 https://apnews.com/article/south-china-sea-philippines-scarborough-shoal-0a5d18be6859c42895919f05d075c29d (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF For that reason, South Korea must be prepared to deter and, if necessary, defeat Chinese aggression against itself.
<h3>The Republic of Korea—a Trusted, Responsible Ally</h3>
The U.S.–ROK alliance is one of America’s oldest, dating back to when U.S. and South Korean forces fought alongside each other against North Korean and Chinese forces during the Korean War. Throughout the Cold War and to this day, the ROK has maintained and advanced a capable military on the Korean Peninsula to deter renewed aggression from the Democratic Republic of North Korea (DPRK). Indeed, today South Korea has one of the most highly competitive economies in the world and notably has transformed itself from a security consumer to America’s capable and reliable security partner. It is able to play a pivotal role in East Asian security issues well beyond the Korean Peninsula. This unique alliance has been strengthened through close cooperation across the Pacific while overcoming challenges and adapting to ever-changing geopolitical, economic, and security environments.
The ROK Defense Budget and Strategy. The Republic of Korea’s defense budget for 2025 has been set at more than 60 trillion won ($45.5 billion), a 3.6 percent increase from fiscal year 2024.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Seo Ji-Eun, “South Korea’s Defense Budget to Surpass 60 Trillion Won as Regional Tensions Increase,” Korea JoongAng Daily, August 27, 2024, https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2024-08-27/national/defense/South-Koreas-defense-budget-to-surpass-60-trillion-won-as-regional-tensions-increase/2121544 (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF This increase takes place only five years after the ROK crossed the 50 trillion won mark in 2020.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Jung Da-Min, “Seoul to Budget over 50 Trillion Won for Defense to Counter Growing Security Threats,” The Korea Times, August 29, 2019, https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/defense/20190829/seoul-to-budget-over-50-trillion-won-for-defense-to-counter-growing-security-threats (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The ROK’s Ministry of National Defense announced its 2024–2028 midterm defense plan, noting specific increases in allocation toward operational expenses for military forces and capability improvements as the most prominent. Operational expenses for military forces saw a 4.2 percent rise to 43.5 trillion won ($30.4 billion) while defense capability improvements will increase by 2.4 percent to 18.1 trillion won ($12.6 billion).REF The ROK is planning to increase its overall defense expenditure to a total of roughly 346.7 trillion won over the next five years.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Leilani Chavez, “South Korea to Increase Defense Spending over Five Years,” Defense News, December 13, 2023, https://www.defensenews.com/global/asia-pacific/2023/12/13/south-korea-to-increase-defense-spending-over-five-years/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
South Korea, through these expenditure efforts, is placing an emphasis on enhancing its three-pillared approach. The first pillar of this approach is the Kill Chain pre-emptive strike system with 3.03 trillion won allocated to its expansion.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Lee Minji, “S. Korea Aims to Bolster Three-Axis Deterrence System with Defense Budget Hike,” Yonhap News Agency, September 3, 2025, https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20250902007200315 (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF This capability focuses on South Korea fielding cruise missiles, long-range artillery, and ballistic missiles that would enable South Korea to strike North Korea’s nuclear and missile facilities upon clear indicators of their intended use.
The second pillar, the Korean Air and Missile Defense System, seeks to upgrade South Korea’s ability to intercept and defend itself against North Korean air and missile threats.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Jack Kim, “South Korea Completes Missile Interceptor to Counter Any Threat from North,” Reuters, November 29, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/south-korea-completes-missile-interceptor-counter-any-threat-north-2024-11-29/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF To that end, the South Korean military is seeing a 1.1 trillion won ($768 million) allocation for the KF-21 Boramae air superiority fighter capable of firing air-to-air missiles along with a 71.2 trillion won ($49.8 billion) allocation for mass production of the laser air defense system capable of shooting down massed air, missile, and drone salvos launched by North Korea. Both systems would provide critical capabilities in defending South Korea from North Korean attack.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Chen Chuanren, “South Korea to Field Hanwha’s Laser Air-Defense Weapon this Year,” Aviation Week, July 11, 2024, https://aviationweek.com/defense/missile-defense-weapons/south-korea-field-hanwhas-laser-air-defense-weapon-year (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
Third, while there is not a specific allocation increase noted, South Korea is expanding the Korea Massive Punishment and Retaliation (KMPR) program. This program aims to deter future aggression by the Kim regime by holding at risk and, if necessary, destroying North Korea’s military and political command-and-control structure. By ensuring the ability to target DPRK leadership and key hideouts in the event of a first attack from the North, the KMPR aims to prevent initiation and escalation of future conflict and, if necessary, degrade North Korea’s ability to prosecute a conflict.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Doyeong Jung, “South Korea’s Revitalized ‘Three-Axis’ System,” Council on Foreign Relations, January 4, 2023, https://www.cfr.org/blog/south-koreas-revitalized-three-axis-system (accessed September 17, 2025), and Davies, “South Korea Raises Military Spending by Most in More than 15 Years.”&lt;/p&gt;">REF
The South Korean Military. The South Korean military ranks fifth among the world’s militaries for strength, sustaining an estimated 3,820,000 personnel in both the active duty forces and the reserves.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Ellie Cook, “How North and South Korean Militaries Compare,” Newsweek, January 23, 2024, https://www.newsweek.com/north-korea-south-korea-military-forces-spending-1862683 (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF It produces one of the world’s best battle tanks, the K2, as well as a very capable howitzer, the K-9, both of which form the backbone of the South Korean ground forces.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“Foreign Troops Train with K9 Howitzer, K2 Tank in Korea,” The Korea Times, November 22, 2024, https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/southkorea/defense/20241122/foreign-troops-train-with-k9-howitzer-k2-tank-in-korea (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF In addition to the sizeable manpower of the South Korean military, major defense programs, such as the Korean Fighter Experimental (KF-X) Project (an indigenously produced fifth-generation fighter platform) and an indigenously produced air and missile defense system, show that Korea not only fields a highly capable military and innovative defense industrial base, but seeks to become a major player in foreign military sales.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Tatiana Kanunnikova, “South Korea’s Defense Export Growth: A Success Story,” Asia Times, July 22, 2024, https://asiatimes.com/2024/07/south-koreas-defense-export-growth-a-success-story/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF In addition, Korea’s military is increasingly operating with American and Japanese militaries to create a regional missile defense architecture, as evidenced by the 2023 Camp David Summit, in which the leaders of the United States, South Korea, and Japan agreed to share missile defense data—including telemetry data—on adversarial missile launches.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Embassy of the United States in Korea, “The Spirit of Camp David: Joint Statement of Japan, the Republic of Korea, and the United States,” August 19, 2023.&lt;/p&gt;">REF
Basing. Camp Humphreys in Pyeongtaek is the largest U.S. Army Garrison abroad, costing around $11 billion to build up over the past decade, 90 percent of which was paid for by the ROK.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Joseph Hincks, “Inside Camp Humphreys, South Korea: America’s Largest Overseas Military Base,” Time, July 11, 2018, https://time.com/5324575/us-camp-humphreys-south-korea-largest-military-base/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Adding in other large military installments, like Osan and Kunsan Air Bases, the United States has a very robust and modern military basing footprint on the Asian mainland. In addition, the U.S. military spends around 41 percent of the total maintenance cost of all bases combined, with South Korea shouldering the remaining 59 percent.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;U.S. Government Accounting Office, “Burden Sharing: Benefits and Costs Associated with the U.S. Military Presence in Japan and South Korea,” Report to Congressional Committees, March 2021, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-425.pdf (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
In comparison, for the U.S. Ramstein Air Base in Germany, the allocation of German funds only accounts for about 18 percent of the total maintenance budget.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Rachel Hoff, “Burden-Sharing with Allies: Examining the Budgetary Realities,” American Action Forum, November 1, 2016, https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/burden-sharing-allies-examining-budgetary-realities/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF This reality is also true of most other European basing as the U.S. pays significantly more than the host nations on average.
Although the U.S. net burden for overseas bases is greater in Europe than it is in South Korea, the U.S. and South Korea have a formal cost-sharing agreement (special measures agreement) that has been in place since 1991.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;United States Forces Korea, “Special Measures Agreement,” February 2, 2014, https://www.usfk.mil/Media/Newsroom/News/Article/600787/special-measures-agreement/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF While South Korea contributed around 90 percent of the cost of Camp Humphreys’ construction, the total cost breakdown of base maintenance is around 50 percent. In Europe, host nations do not have an equivalent bilateral cost-sharing agreement, meaning that the U.S. pays more for maintenance in Europe than in South Korea. In addition, the U.S. has far more bases in Europe than it does in South Korea, contributing to the imbalance of funding that is present between the two host regions.
American planners are looking across the globe and trying to recalibrate U.S. strategy, budget, and force posture to meet the challenges of the present day. In terms of force posture, there is the possibility that the composition of U.S. forces in South Korea may change, although U.S. forces will certainly remain in South Korea in some form. South Korean policymakers and politicians can alleviate some of the potential for political disruption by engaging with any potential force posture shift in a positive way, acknowledging the need for a new look at where the U.S. places military assets and what sorts of military capabilities it places there.
<h3>South Korea in the Indo–Pacific</h3>
As noted, Seoul can no longer see its security interests and relationship with America purely in terms of the Korean Peninsula—instead, it needs to view its interests in terms of the broader Indo–Pacific, including consideration of the disruptive role China is playing in the regional order. Like America, Japan, the Philippines, Australia, Vietnam, India, and others, Korea has an interest in China not dominating the Indo–Pacific. A free and open Indo–Pacific with respect for sovereignty is in South Korea’s national interest.
The ROK should emphasize a position of strategic flexibility toward its adversary neighbors in North Korea and in China. With the military equipment needed for this flexible strategy and through cooperation with the United States, the ability to deter China credibly can also be applied to North Korea. To deter China credibly, South Korea needs a robust navy and air defense capability that would undoubtedly be applicable to deterring North Korea as well. Continued cooperation between South Korea and the United States could allow a movement of additional U.S. air wings into theater to deter both North Korea and China for the mutual benefit of both the United States and South Korea.
During the Cold War, the United States maintained a limited number of non-strategic nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula, as a means to not only deter aggression by communist forces in North Korea and China, but also to demonstrate the U.S. commitment to defend key allies in the Indo–Pacific.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Office of the Assistant to the Secretary of Defense, “History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons (U) July 1945 Through September 1977,” February 1978, https://nautilus.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/306.pdf (accessed October 20, 2025), and Robert Peters, “The Case for Redeploying Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons to South Korea,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3923, August 18, 2025, https://www.heritage.org/defense/report/the-case-redeploying-non-strategic-nuclear-weapons-south-korea.&lt;/p&gt;">REF After the Cold War, the United States removed non-strategic nuclear weapons from the region. However, rising tensions in the area have prompted increasing interest in South Korea to develop its own nuclear weapons program. It is vital that the United States remain committed to defending South Korea from nuclear attack. Returning non-strategic nuclear weapons to the Peninsula would not only enhance South Korean security but could be the only means to disincentivize South Korea to develop its own nuclear program.
Additionally, by putting American nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula, integrated coordination between U.S. and Korean air forces would further the focus strategy and reprioritization of the Indo–Pacific. Through this placement of weapons, a nuclear-sharing agreement similar to the kind that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enforces would be a key pillar contributing to Korea’s strategy of flexibility. In this sense, South Korean pilots flying South Korean aircraft could employ American nuclear weapons in times of acute crisis in coordination with the United States, just as is done among key NATO Allies.REF The ability of allies to employ deterrence capabilities, particularly American deterrence capabilities, is of benefit to both the United States and South Korea by deterring North Korea with a credible ability to impose costs on our adversaries. Through bilateral combined missions and increased tactical presence, the potential number of American troops could decrease—but may well not represent a decrease in combat capability, particularly if such a force reduction is offset by increases in American nuclear weapons and American tactical aircraft deployed into the theater.
<h3>North Korea</h3>
Recognizing the joint threat posed by North Korea and China does not diminish the distinct and serious challenge that North Korea presents on its own. As outlined in South Korea’s 2023 National Security Strategy (NSS), North Korea’s advancement of its nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) signals growing security challenges.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Republic of Korea Office of National Security, “The Yoon Suk Yeol Administration’s National Security Strategy: Global Pivotal State for Freedom, Peace, and Prosperity,” June 2023, https://fr.mofa.go.kr/eng/brd/m_25772/down.do?brd_id=100638&amp;seq=16&amp;data_tp=A&amp;file_seq=1 (accessed September 17, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF As its capacity to deploy and potentially employ low-yield non-strategic nuclear weapons and intercontinental-range strategic nuclear weapons grows, and as its rhetoric indicates an increased willingness to conduct pre-emptive or coercive nuclear strikes, the ROK must be prepared to defend and respond.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Yang Ji-Ho, “Kim Jong-Un Threatens South Korea, Seoul Urges Dialogue,” The Chosun Daily, October 5, 2025, https://www.chosun.com/english/national-en/2025/10/05/BK6C2M5OHNCXZGPTIGKN6LN7LY/(accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Continued aggression through violation of the Inter-Korean Military Agreement, artillery fire within key buffer zones, and drone interference demonstrates North Korea’s desire for instability and unwillingness to cooperate for peace on the Peninsula.
Despite all this, North Korea remains a threat that the ROK is nevertheless well-positioned to deter. As the 2023 NSS recognizes, defense cooperation, particularly in terms of trilateral security cooperation in the Indo–Pacific and bilateral cooperation with the United States, will be crucial to this effort. Following several trilateral meetings between Japan, South Korea, and the U.S. at the 2022 NATO summit and further trilateral summits, all three nations have committed to jointly strengthening security initiatives, alongside more specifically sharing missile warning information, stabilizing supply chains, and developing critical and emerging technologies.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;U.S. Embassy &amp; Consulate in the Republic of Korea, “Joint Statement from the Trilateral Meeting of the United States of America, Japan, and the Republic of Korea in New York City,” September 22, 2025, https://kr.usembassy.gov/092425-joint-statement-from-the-trilateral-meeting-of-the-united-states-of-america-japan-and-the-republic-of-korea-in-new-york-city/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
Maintaining these connections and expanding collaboration will be vital components of ensuring the stability of the Indo–Pacific, as it remains an area of strategic significance to all involved. As key allies, the United States values the security of both South Korea and Japan and recognizes the shared commitment to a free and open Indo–Pacific and the valuable role that each country plays in providing access for U.S. military forces to support stability in the region.REF Both nations are committed to deterring and, if necessary, defeating both North Korean and Chinese aggression.
More specifically, the ROK–U.S. alliance has been a key force for ensuring the peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula. The alliance can build on this relationship as well as the shared foundational values to promote freedom and prosperity in the Peninsula and the wider region. Through initiatives to collaborate on key security challenges, the alliance has furthered progress in traditional defense technology and shared critical intelligence and provided key innovations in emerging technologies, such as those within the space and cyber domains.
As Pyongyang escalates its threats and successful deterrence becomes even more critical, it is time for meaningful discussions between Washington and Seoul over reintroducing U.S. tactical nuclear weapons to the Peninsula.
<h3>Defense Industrial Cooperation</h3>
Korea has the healthiest defense industrial base of any American ally. In the past several years, the South Korean defense industrial base has grown rapidly—expanding its role in the global arms market, advancing its innovative sector, and ensuring the capability to efficiently and cost-effectively mass produce vital defense equipment.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Wooyeal Paik, “South Korea’s Emergence as a Defense Industrial Powerhouse,” Institut Français des Relations Internationales, 2024, https://www.ifri.org/sites/default/files/migrated_files/documents/atoms/files/ifri_paik_south_korea_defense_2024.pdf (accessed September 24, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The ROK paired explosive internal development with increased defense cooperation across continents—ensuring its role as an emerging leader in the global defense industry.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Hunter Slingbaum and Kaitlyn King, “Will South Korea’s Defense Industry Boom Change U.S.–ROK Military Relations?” Stimson, August 19, 2024, https://www.stimson.org/2024/will-south-koreas-defense-industry-boom-change-u-s-rok-military-relations/ (accessed September 24, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
As South Korea strengthens its defense industrial base, it has made itself an even more vital ally to the United States—and expanded its influence well beyond the Korean Peninsula. There is a massive opportunity for South Korea to work as a force for good in the region using its defense production. By taking advantage of allied defense production with South Korea in key areas, such as munitions and shipbuilding—for which South Korea has a massive capacity in terms of production and technological advancement—the United States can benefit greatly. The United States can reach maintenance and production targets faster and more efficiently while leveraging the interplay between economic security and national security, especially in a broader cooperative frame of strategic burden sharing and alliance modernization.
Two prominent Korean shipbuilders, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and Hanwha Ocean, have both proposed a range of specific cooperation initiatives, expressing a clear commitment to support the revitalization of U.S. shipbuilding. Hanwha Ocean acquired the Philadelphia Shipyard in December 2024 (renaming it Philly Shipyard), seeking big new contracts with the U.S. government and investing in major infrastructure improvements and labor expansion at the shipyard.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Wilson Beaver and Dominic Seibold, “Philly Shipyard’s Transformation: How Hanwha’s Investment Is Driving U.S. Navy Readiness,” Heritage Foundation Commentary, October 31, 2024, https://www.heritage.org/defense/commentary/philly-shipyards-transformation-how-hanwhas-investment-driving-us-navy-readiness.&lt;/p&gt;">REF HD Hyundai Heavy Industries signed a memorandum of understanding in April 2025 with U.S. shipbuilder Huntington Ingalls for the advancement of shipbuilding productivity and advanced cooperation in the United States.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Lee Seong-Eun, “Korea–U.S. Shipbuilding Alliance Gains Speed,” IT.Chosun, May 19, 2025, https://it.chosun.com/news/articleView.html?idxno=2023092141077 (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
According to the 2023 fleet plan, the U.S. Navy is short one aircraft carrier, 19 attack submarines, two cruise destroyers, and 47 frigates.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“Navy Force Structure and Shipbuilding Plans: Background and Issues for Congress,” Congressional Research Service, September 24, 2024, https://sgp.fas.org/crs/weapons/RL32665.pdf (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF With a potential war with China on the horizon, the United States cannot afford to be operating beyond the limited scope the Navy currently provides. The 293 warships, that stretch across all theaters, will not suffice for a potential conflict with the ever-expanding Chinese navy, which now outnumbers the U.S. fleet.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;NVR Online, “Fleet Size,” September 15, 2025, chart, https://www.nvr.navy.mil/nvr/getpage.htm?pagetype=fleetsize (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
The Wall Street Journal reported that South Korea builds Aegis Destroyers for $600 million in 18 months, while the U.S. builds them in 28 months for $1.6 billion.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Timothy Martin, “At the World’s Largest Shipyard, U.S. Courts an Ally to Face Up to China,” The Wall Street Journal, September 23, 2024, https://www.wsj.com/world/asia/us-south-korea-shipyard-china-30aa2b11?msockid=1f9cf18c71f564a7251ae46970f265cb (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF There are differences in design, and American shipbuilders are quick to point out that the cost difference stems in large part from far stricter design requirements imposed on them by the U.S. Navy. For political reasons, it is also hard to imagine warships being built outside the United States, and it may not be in the interest of the United States to do so. There is, however, potential for building auxiliary ships outside the United States, given how far the demand for these ships outstrips current supply. As the U.S. works to increase domestic shipbuilding capacity—an imperative—looking to South Korea for auxiliary ships is a logical step to strengthen the U.S. Navy and the Department of War’s overall warfighting capabilities.
Another cost-effective and time-saving effort would be the expansion of maintenance, repair, and overhaul (MRO) operations in the Indo–Pacific. Shipyards like Subic Bay in the Philippines or various shipyards in South Korea would provide the U.S. Navy with in-theater MRO options that would eliminate the delays caused by transferring ships back to the United States for MRO and would speed up efforts at shipyards in the United States by reducing the backlog of ships waiting for MRO. Rear Admiral Neil Koprowski stated that “Korea’s ability to conduct large-scale maintenance on U.S. Navy ships in the Indo–Pacific theater underscores the strong strategic partnership between Korea and the United States…. [M]aintenance in theater reduces downtime and costs while increasing readiness.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“Hanwha Ocean Completes First MRO Service of U.S. Navy Supply Ship,” iMarine, March 15, 2025, https://www.imarinenews.com/20596.html (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
In 2024, the United States and Japan announced a major new coproduction agreement under which Japan will co-produce Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and Patriot PAC-3 missiles.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;News release, “Joint Statement of the Security Consultative Committee (“2+2”),” U.S. Department of Defense, July 28, 2024, https://www.war.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3852169/joint-statement-of-the-security-consultative-committee-22/ (accessed October 20, 2025), and Unshin Lee Harpley, “Japan to Start Making AMRAAMs and Export PAC-3 Missiles,” Air &amp; Space Forces Magazine, July 29, 2024, https://www.airandspaceforces.com/japan-steps-up-missile-production-in-deal-with-u-s/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF There is considerable political support for co-production of precision-guided munitions in the United States given the widely recognized shortages of these munitions that would be so critical in an Indo–Pacific contingency. South Korean policymakers may well want to consider proposing a similar deal for co-production of precision-guided munitions.
Prioritizing and pursuing a bilateral strategic defense development and production partnership makes more sense than ever. Defense cooperation prioritization can strengthen America’s alliances and partnerships with like-minded and willing partners like South Korea that have very capable military and industrial sectors. To that end, ensuring a Reciprocal Defense Procurement (RDP) Agreement<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Acquisition Regulations System, “Negotiation of a Reciprocal Defense Procurement Agreement with the Republic of Korea,” Federal Register, Vol. 89, No. 37 (February 23, 2024), pp. 13699–13700, https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2024/02/23/2024-03705/negotiation-of-a-reciprocal-defense-procurement-agreement-with-the-republic-of-korea (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF with South Korea should be prioritized. RDP Agreements, also known as the U.S. Department of War’s trade agreements, aim to reduce defense trade barriers and enhance rationalization, standardization, interoperability, and interchangeability among military forces.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Reciprocal Defense Procurement (RDP) agreements, which are not subject to congressional approval, are trade agreements for direct government procurement negotiated by the Department of War with foreign counterparts. The U.S. has 28 RDP agreements with the following countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czechia, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, and the United Kingdom.&lt;/p&gt;">REF
There are other areas for improvement in U.S.–Korean defense industrial base cooperation. Currently, the South Korean economy is heavily integrated with that of China. In 2024, South Korea imported almost twice as much from China ($140 billion) than it did from the United States ($72.5 billion),<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Trading Economics, “South Korea Imports by Country,” https://tradingeconomics.com/south-korea/imports-by-country (accessed October 8, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF and exported more to China ($133 billion) than it did to the United States ($129 billion).REF Because the South Korean economy is more integrated with the Chinese market than the U.S. market, there is a risk that shared technology could find its way into the China’s possession. Likewise, there is risk that Beijing could cut South Korea off from components used in defense equipment. The threat is not theoretical, as China has been known to use economic coercion when it dislikes a state’s behavior. In early 2025, China threatened South Korea with sanctions if it provided equipment to U.S. defense firms that include Chinese rare earths.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“China Asks Korea Not to Supply Products Using Rare Earths to US Defence Firms, Paper Reports,” Reuters, April 22, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-asks-korea-not-export-products-using-rare-earths-us-defense-firms-paper-2025-04-22/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The pressure could be even greater if China more broadly cut off exports, imports, or both from South Korea, potentially crippling supply chains and threatening the financial viability of Korean firms.
Some of these risks, such as critical minerals, are shared with the United States and may present an opportunity to increase defense industrial base cooperation through mutual development of alternative sources.
South Korea has already started some efforts to reduce risk. For decades, China has dominated the market for Tungsten, a key element vital to the production of semiconductors and defense equipment, including all non-U.S. armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot (AFPSDS) tank ammunition and precision-guided munitions.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Tungsten Metal Group, “Defense Applications of Tungsten Metal,” https://www.tungstenmetalsgroup.com/blog-blog/defense-applications-of-tungsten-metal (accessed October 8, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF South Korea is now opening a new mine to produce tungsten and mitigate this dependence.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Ko Dong-hwan “Almonty in Full Swing Ahead of Tungsten Pipeline Launch,” The Korea Times, September 29, 2025, https://www.koreatimes.co.kr/business/companies/20250929/almonty-in-full-swing-ahead-of-tungsten-pipeline-launch (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF These sorts of efforts are welcome and the U.S. should applaud them and support their expansion.
<h3>South Korean Foreign Military Sales</h3>
South Korea has the strongest defense industrial base of any American ally, which makes South Korea a viable source of military equipment for U.S. allies that cannot afford to buy U.S. equipment, need certain equipment faster than U.S. industry can provide it, or lack robust shipbuilding capabilities. America builds incredible military systems, but these systems are often prohibitively expensive, and some American allies cannot afford them. South Korea offers high-performing and more cost-effective options that are a more practical choice in some cases and are rarely in direct competition with American companies.
South Korea’s contract with Poland for K2 Black Panther tanks is representative. In 2022, Poland announced a contract with Hyundai Rotem for 180 K2 Black Panther tanks, with deliveries started in 2022 and ending in 2025.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Defense Industry Europe, “Poland to Order Additional 180 K2 Main Battle Tanks, Says Defense Minister,” Defense Industry Europe, June 20, 2024, https://defence-industry.eu/poland-to-order-additional-180-k2-main-battle-tanks-says-defence-minister/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Hyundai Rotem also agreed to build a factory in Poland to produce more tanks. In 2022, Poland announced an order for 250 M1A2 SEP v3 Abrams tanks, with deliveries targeted for completion in 2026.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“How Quickly Poland Received the First 28 of 250 Newest Abrams Tanks in Exchange for Those Delivered to Ukraine,” Defense Express, January 19, 2025, https://en.defence-ua.com/analysis/how_quickly_poland_received_the_first_28_of_250_newest_abrams_tanks_in_exchange_for_those_delivered_to_ukraine-13252.html (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The demand for defense articles currently far outstrips supply and the United States has need of allies able to build and export. South Korea’s status as a major non-NATO ally makes these sorts of deals with NATO members significantly easier to implement than they would be otherwise.
Further examples of South Korean arms exports aiding U.S. security interests include HD Hyundai and Hanwha Ocean’s agreement to join forces to bid for the construction of Canadian diesel submarines, a $49 billion contract for platforms that the U.S. does not build.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Hyung-Kyu Kim and Hyun-Il Lee, “HD Hyundai, Hanwha Ocean to Jointly Bid for High Stakes Warship Deals,” The Korea Economic Daily, February 26, 2025, https://www.kedglobal.com/shipping-shipbuilding/newsView/ked202502260002 (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF HD Hyundai is also set to lead projects in Thailand’s frigate procurement, Malaysia’s littoral mission ship program, and Ecuador’s naval modernization initiative. Saudi Arabia recently purchased $3.5 billion worth of Cheongung II KM-SAM, a mid-range, medium altitude interception system, the first foreign nation to operate this system.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Joyce Lee, Josh Smith, and Andrew Heavens, “Saudis Agree $3.2 Bln Deal to Buy South Korean Missile Defence System–Ministry,” Reuters, February 6, 2024, https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/saudis-agree-32-bln-deal-buy-south-korean-missile-defence-system-ministry-2024-02-06/ (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
Recent arms transfer deals have catapulted the nation into the position of the world’s tenth-largest arms exporter between 2020 and 2024.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Mathew George et al., “Trends in International Arms Transfers, 2024,” SIPRI Fact Sheet, March 2025, https://www.sipri.org/sites/default/files/2025-03/fs_2503_at_2024_0.pdf (accessed October 20, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Many other nations have turned to the ROK as a means for arms provisions. South Korea is the second-largest arms provider for six of the 40 largest importers, including Indonesia, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Thailand, and the United Kingdom, and is the top supplier to the Philippines.
South Korea has proven to be a sustainable partner for Foreign Military Sales and would present a vital opportunity for regional stability through its healthy defense industrial base. The United States wants a free and open Indo–Pacific composed of states capable of defending their sovereign interests. South Korean arms exports to Southeast Asia in particular help to further this goal.
<h3>Policy Recommendations for South Korea</h3>
To strengthen its defense alliance with the United States, South Korean policymakers should:
<ul>
<li>Envision South Korean interests regionally. The size of the South Korean economy and strength of the South Korean military and defense industrial base have made Seoul a regional player that can pursue its interests well beyond its immediate neighborhood. South Korean policy planners need to think of their role in terms of the broader Indo–Pacific, not exclusively or even primarily in terms of the Korean Peninsula. </li>
<li>Pursue shipbuilding and co-production agreements with the U.S. The United States is looking for partners to expand its shipbuilding and munitions production, and South Korea is well suited, perhaps more so than any other American ally, to contribute to and benefit from these agreements. </li>
<li>Embrace an era of change. There is considerable angst in allied capitals about changes in U.S. strategy and force posture and what this means for their own security. U.S. conservative policymakers look at the strategy, budget, and force posture of the U.S. military and see a force designed to deter the Soviet Union or to fight the War on Terror that is not ready for the new era of great power competition centered on deterring China from aggression in the Indo–Pacific. Changes to strategy, budget, and force posture are necessary and there will be an important if potentially slightly different role to play for South Korea, whose planners are reconsidering their strategic environment and changed circumstances just as much as planners in Washington. </li>
</ul>
<h3>Conclusion </h3>
The U.S.–South Korean alliance is vital to U.S. national security, both in the Indo–Pacific and globally, as it remains a key player in ensuring effective deterrence of North Korea and China and provides opportunities to bolster the U.S. defense industrial base through shipbuilding and co-production opportunities. It is in the clear interest of both Washington and Seoul to bolster the pivotal partnership in pragmatic ways, particularly through greater strategic clarity and cooperative commercial initiatives that will enhance the resilience and practicality of the alliance. As the threat in the Indo–Pacific grows increasingly more credible and imminent, South Korea remains a key ally, and both American and South Korean planners will need to take into account the national security concerns of the other.
Robert Peters is Senior Research Fellow for Strategic Deterrence in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation. Wilson Beaver is Senior Policy Advisor for Defense Budgeting and NATO Policy in the Allison Center. Jim Fein is Research Associate for National Security and Defense Industrial Base in the Allison Center. Anthony B. Kim is Jay Kingham Research Fellow in International Economic Affairs, Editor of the Index of Economic Freedom, and Manager of Global Engagement in the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation.
</description>
<pubDate>Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:05:53 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Robert Peters, Wilson Beaver, Jim Fein, Anthony Kim</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/report/defense-priorities-the-us-south-korean-alliance</guid>
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<title>Let’s Teach What We’re Voting For</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/lets-teach-what-were-voting</link>
<description>As the nation’s Semiquincentennial approaches in 2026—a quarter-millennium since the Declaration of Independence proclaimed self-evident truths that were anything but to much of humanity—Alabama confronts an uncomfortable reality. The state that once sent Hugo Black to the Supreme Court and produced towering figures in America’s constitutional drama now languishes in civic educational mediocrity, trailing states we should regard as intellectual inferiors.
Consider the catalogue of shame. Fourteen states now mandate civics education as a condition of collegiate graduation: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Missouri, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Wyoming. This roster reads like a conservative coalition’s dream caucus.
Yet Alabama, ever eager to proclaim its conservative bona fides, absents itself from this sensible company. The irony is plain: a state that reliably votes for limited government and constitutional fidelity evidently considers instruction in the Constitution itself an optional amenity.
A&nbsp;<a href="https://jamesgmartin.center/2025/10/50-state-comparison-civics-education/" target="_blank">recent report</a>&nbsp;from the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal illuminates this pedagogical dereliction with dispiriting insight. American universities have transformed civic education from a cornerstone into an afterthought. Students satisfy “history requirements” through courses on increasingly specialized topics—often worthy subjects, but perhaps insufficient substitutes for systematic engagement with the Constitution, the Federalist Papers, and the Republic’s formative documents. The result is legions of graduates with college degrees but lacking elementary knowledge of the governmental apparatus that secures their liberties.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/revive-civics-education-americas-250th">Revive Civics Education for America’s 250th</a>
The University of Alabama is not recognized as one of the flagships with exemplary teacher preparation programs in civics. It requires prospective teachers to study either antebellum or postbellum American history, but not both. This bifurcated approach produces educators who may comprehend either the Constitution’s creation or its Civil War trial, but not the essential continuity between founding principles and their subsequent vindication. One wonders whether medical schools might similarly permit future surgeons to study either anatomy or physiology, but not both, on grounds of curricular efficiency.
Meanwhile, institutions from the University of Arkansas to the University of Wyoming—20 universities in total—demonstrate that comprehensive civic preparation for future teachers remains achievable. These programs require sustained engagement with American political development, ensuring that tomorrow’s educators possess the knowledge they must transmit. After all, as the ancients understood, one cannot give what one does not have.
The remedies, fortunately, need not await revolutionary upheaval or lavish appropriations. The Martin Center proposes several eminently sensible reforms.
First, mandate genuine civic education for teacher candidates. Teachers cannot impart knowledge they lack. Education colleges must require all future teachers to complete coursework addressing fundamental documents and pivotal moments in American history. This represents not ideological indoctrination but simple competence, the baseline expectation that those entrusted with forming young minds should themselves comprehend government architecture.
Second, establish a mandatory three-credit course on American institutions within general education requirements.&nbsp;<a href="https://jamesgmartin.center/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/REACH-Act.pdf" target="_blank">The REACH Act</a>&nbsp;provides a serviceable model: a systematic study of the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and selected Federalist Papers. This modest requirement—one course among dozens—scarcely constitutes an onerous burden. Yet it would ensure that every graduate, regardless of major, encounters the documents that comprise America’s civic scripture.
Third, implement a College Civics Literacy assessment as a graduation prerequisite. If universities require demonstrated proficiency in writing and mathematics—skills necessary for personal success—surely they can require basic knowledge of the system that makes personal success possible. Such assessments need not be punitive; they should illuminate gaps requiring remediation.
Fourth, revitalize freshman orientation with substantive First Amendment education. Current orientations typically feature administrative minutiae and sensitivity training. Why not begin students’ collegiate careers by exploring the amendment that makes the university itself possible? Understanding free speech, religious liberty, press freedom, and petition rights would serve students better than most orientation programming.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/education/report/restoring-civics-education-all-50-states">Restoring Civics Education in All 50 States</a>
Fifth, observe Constitution Day with seriousness rather than perfunctory gestures. September 17 commemorates the document’s 1787 signing. Annual events marking this occasion could foster genuine engagement with founding principles rather than the usual campus fare of therapeutic programming and grievance ventilation.
Finally, conduct regular surveys assessing students’ civic knowledge. Measurement enables improvement. Periodic assessment would reveal whether institutional efforts succeed or require recalibration—and might embarrass universities into action when results prove humiliating.
These recommendations share a common virtue: They cost little and demand much. They require not money but the will to assert that civic literacy matters, that republics require informed citizens, and that universities bear responsibility for producing such citizens rather than merely credentialed careerists.
Alabama requires high-school students to pass a civics examination before graduation—a commendable policy. Yet this requirement becomes hollow if universities subsequently permit civic knowledge to atrophy through neglect. Failure to extend civic requirements to higher education is a peculiar abdication, suggesting that civic understanding matters for 18-year-olds but becomes dispensable for 22-year-olds.
As 2026 approaches, Alabama can remedy this deficit before the nation’s 250th anniversary. The question is whether our state’s political and academic leadership will seize it, or whether Alabama will continue trailing its conservative counterparts in an area where leadership should prove effortless. The answer will reveal much about whether Alabama’s professed reverence for constitutional principles extends beyond soaring rhetoric to actual education.
</description>
<pubDate>Thu, 23 Oct 2025 11:54:44 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Allen Mendenhall, PhD</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/education/commentary/lets-teach-what-were-voting</guid>
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<title>Obama Has a New Campaign To Influence Foreign Elections</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/commentary/obama-has-new-campaign-influence-foreign-elections</link>
<description>Former President Barack Obama thinks nothing of trying to interfere in the internal politics of democratic U.S. allies in Europe, and in the process, thwarting his country’s own current foreign policy, as determined by his elected successor, President Donald Trump. All in the name of democracy, of course.
And he can do all this because he has built a very well-endowed foundation into which billionaires pour funds and which he uses to train future leaders to transform the world along Obama’s vision—pretty much the way he promised to transform the United States, and some say he sadly did.
The 44th president justifies all this because he describes his opponents as “authoritarian”—something he may really believe—and he poses himself as the redeemer. The savior role is one Obama played with gusto on the world’s largest stage for eight years, so we shouldn’t be surprised.
Still, stepping back and considering the cheek—he would call it “audacity”—takes one’s breath away.
Two U.S. allies Obama is currently picking on are Hungary and Poland, which have pro-American populations with living memories of America’s unstinting support during the hard decades of Soviet despotism. More importantly—or worse yet, when it comes to Obama—these nations by and large eschew race and sexual theories, climate alarmism, mass immigration, and anti-Israeli fanaticism.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/report/next-steps-us-polish-strategic-cooperation">Next Steps in U.S.–Polish Strategic Cooperation</a>
Hungary has been led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban since 2010, and Poland just elected Karol Nawrocki as president. Both are conservative figures who support the U.S. government.
The platform Obama uses is his Obama Foundation, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization that has <a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/l7h59hfnlxjx/2AUZ974g9uIpPLOjCGeoHV/25ec0fec8778b93deeb42fb2976ba8c2/ISSUED_2024_Obama_Foundation_Financial_Statements.pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">assets</a> of nearly $1 billion, and in 2024 raised nearly $200 million. It’s like USAID never went away.
Since its creation in 2018, the foundation has run several programs, including the Obama Foundation Scholars, which handpicks around 30 possible leaders from around the world every year and puts them through some sort of Obama bootcamp for an academic year.
Then it unleashes them back into their countries for a lifetime of service to the Obama cause.
The <a href="https://www.obama.org/programs/scholars/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">training</a> includes classes at Columbia University and workshops in Chicago “to build community, participate in skill-building workshops, and engage with local organizations advancing place-based change.” The scholars work on leadership skills, are indoctrinated by the foundation, develop “action plans,” and learn to network with alumni and other Obamaworld luminaries.
They also get an executive coach and are trained in strategic communications and fundraising, “to aid Scholars in their action plan development.”
In 2022, the foundation received a <a href="https://assets.ctfassets.net/l7h59hfnlxjx/5zvwWkw4H1zkTf2lrpbFBC/785891b6b5fe06de469656d151e84afb/2022_Obama_Foundation_Financial_Statements__ISSUED_..pdf" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">strong bump</a> in revenue from $159,322,544 to $308,860,345. The primary reason for this sudden increase in funding was a generous gift of $100 million from Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky to fund a new scholarship program.
The Voyage Scholarship created a <a href="https://apnews.com/article/education-philanthropy-barack-obama-6f1404943f6ebcb7bff708db417c400e" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">two-year leadership program</a>. It allows college students to receive up to $50,000 in financial aid for college, a $10,000 travel stipend, and $2,000 every year for 10 years (after college) to travel around the world.
In 2021, Jeff Bezos <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelsandler/2021/11/22/jeff-bezos-donates-100-million-to-obama-foundation" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">donated</a> around $100 million. This donation was intended to build the foundation’s new complex in Chicago.
This is how you build a global cadre. And Obama isn’t shy about putting his special corps to work, as seen in a <a href="https://www.obama.org/stories/president-obama-explores-ways-to-combat-the-rise-of-authoritarianism-with-eastern-european-alumni/" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">highly produced video</a> the foundation just put out.
In it, we see him meeting in London with three members of the Obama Foundation’s alumni network—Sandor Lederer and Stefania Kapronczay from Hungary, and Zuzanna Rudzinska-Bluszcz, who was deputy justice minister in Poland from December 2023 to August 2025—for a chat on how to do neighborhood organizing, just on a global level. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/10/11/politics/obama-democracy-warnings-trump" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">CNN says</a> the meeting was last month.
The reason he picked those countries? They’re “on the leading edge of confronting autocracy,” he tells us. “I’ve become increasingly concerned about the rising wave of authoritarianism sweeping the globe.”
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/report/czech-elections-confirm-conservative-comeback-europe-why-andrej-babiss">Czech Elections Confirm a Conservative Comeback in Europe: Why Andrej Babiš’s Victory Matters for America and the Heart of Europe</a>
He greets his guests, saying, “All three of you have been fighting the good fight and rising up in the face of significant challenges to try to strengthen democracy. You’re setting an example for all of us in the United States, here in the U.K.”
Kapronczay, a “human rights defender” in Hungary, avers that “authoritarians came to power” because “democracy was not working.” Electorates, you see, vote in leaders like Trump, Nawrocki, and Orban, because “people are really, in general, disappointed in democracy.”
Obama kind of agrees. The liberal, democratic market-based order that dominated the West after World War II ran aground because the governments, whether center right or center left, were losing touch with people and weren’t delivering on some of the basic hopes and dreams of people.” That’s actually true, but then comes Obama’s spin—“that obviously then opens the door for right-wing populism, anti-government sentiment, anger, grievances.”
The responses he heard must have pleased the old community organizer from Chicago: Hungarians and Poles on the Left need to start working the grassroots at the local level, where they can “nurture a new generation of decision-makers,” according to Lederer.
Kapronczay agrees: “Democracy is very much about this local level,” about “these micro-skills of cooperation, of reaching across the divide. … this is where we should really focus our attention. Participatory programs. Participatory budgets.”
Obama asked what more his foundation could do. But Orban is locked in a tight fight with a new opposition leader for elections in April. What are the chances this U.S. ally will not appreciate interference at this level from a former president?
</description>
<pubDate>Thu, 23 Oct 2025 11:36:59 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Mike Gonzalez</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/global-politics/commentary/obama-has-new-campaign-influence-foreign-elections</guid>
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<title>A New American Statecraft for Winning the New Cold War</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/china/event/new-american-statecraft-winning-the-new-cold-war</link>
<description>For too long, American leaders have been reactive and ineffective in the New Cold War with China. Regaining the advantage and safeguarding peace requires a new conceptualization of statecraft, and there is not much time to get this right. Success requires using what we have on-hand to deter China, while setting conditions for a sustained competition. A maritime strategy of naval statecraft would leverage America’s advantages and act on our adversaries’ weaknesses.
 
Join us as Heritage’s Brent Sadler and Jeff Smith discuss the necessity and strategy of naval statecraft to strengthen the homeland to economic coercion, modernize and reorganize institutions to successfully compete with China, and win the positional fight with China over markets and military posture. 
 
<a href="http://www9.heritage.org/Event-Email-Sign-up.html?_gl=1*1ilfuyu*_gcl_aw*R0NMLjE3NTk0Mjg1NDIuQ2p3S0NBand4ZmpHQmhBVUVpd0FLV1B3RHBPZVRsUjVtR296ejJCZFpsTGYtRkdvNkF4NVU4UmpEQW1uSUhPaVdJUWdOY1NTM0w1NDdob0NIaXNRQXZEX0J3RQ..*_gcl_au*NDcyNDA2OTE3LjE3NTMyOTI2ODM.*_ga*MTA1Njc2ODgwLjE3NTMyOTI2ODM.*_ga_W14BT6YQ87*czE3NTk5NDc5MTgkbzE4MCRnMSR0MTc1OTk0ODQ3OCRqMzYkbDAkaDA.">Sign up to receive invitations to all public events.</a>
<a href="https://www.heritage.org/events/terms-and-conditions-of-attendance">Terms and Conditions of Attendance</a>
</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 22 Oct 2025 13:16:54 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Heritage Foundation</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/china/event/new-american-statecraft-winning-the-new-cold-war</guid>
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<title>The New High-Tech Tool Trump is Using to Secure our Border</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/the-new-high-tech-tool-trump-using-secure-our-border</link>
<description>Back when&nbsp;President Joe Biden&nbsp;was presiding over essentially open U.S. borders, I&nbsp;argued&nbsp;that, contrary to leftist wishes, border walls actually do work. They are not intended to stop everyone coming through, by any means, but to stop illegal people, goods and drugs getting through easily.
Now the&nbsp;Department of&nbsp;Homeland Security&nbsp;is using “smart walls” that combine&nbsp;high-tech with good old-fashioned tall, strong barriers to prevent illegal entry. The idea is not new, even if the technology is.
The ancient Romans&nbsp;had an early version of&nbsp;smart walls. At&nbsp;Hadrian’s Wall in what is now northern England, the Roman Empire established a wall to mark their northern frontier, punctuated by forts. Vindolanda&nbsp;is the best preserved large fort, with the layout still visible in stone foundations and a wealth of archeological finds to&nbsp;help us guess what every building was.
Starting in the 1970s, archeologists found remarkably well-preserved personal items, due to the ideal conditions of the surrounding soil. There were not just durable coins, metal, glass and stone, but even leather shoes and clothes, as well as a trove of letters written&nbsp;on&nbsp;thin wood that departing troops&nbsp;had failed to burn. We know a lot about&nbsp;how they lived and worked, communicated, and ran their army.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/trumps-h-1b-visa-reform-plan-needs-put-americans-first">Trump’s H-1B Visa Reform Plan Needs To Put Americans First</a>
A “dumb wall” would be just putting up a barrier and&nbsp;hoping no&nbsp;one could get over, under or around it. The Romans didn’t rely&nbsp;on&nbsp;that. First, though their wall was easy to cross, it created a visible frontier that any northern tribes would be aware of and thus know they were crossing without permission into Roman territory. The occasional&nbsp;head&nbsp;on&nbsp;a spike, evidence of which was found at Vindolanda, was a primitive warning to the illiterate tribes to the north that maybe proceeding further was a bad idea. That’s what today we’d call psychological operations, or “psy-ops.”
Second, like the&nbsp;U.S. southern border&nbsp;barrier system, the Roman wall in northern Britain also&nbsp;had early models of signals intelligence to better direct resources to areas under threat. Vindolanda was manned by a cohort, about 500 men or a tenth of a legion. The men went&nbsp;on&nbsp;regular foot and&nbsp;horseback patrol. They were ready to move to wherever a threat presented, warned either by&nbsp;horse-borne messengers or by signal fires lit at&nbsp;high points along the frontier. They received regular correspondence from the other forts, and occasionally from Rome itself, to keep them informed.
Two thousand years later, the modern U.S. Border Patrol&nbsp;has more men than the Romans did in Britain, but they are still few compared to the land they cover. The Border Patrol is getting some much-needed new manpower and resources, after&nbsp;years of neglect under Biden&nbsp;and former Secretary of&nbsp;Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, who diverted staff off the line to processing and releasing illegal aliens into the country.
But even with the significant boost they are getting in the&nbsp;One Big Beautiful Bill Act, they will still be thinly spread along 1,800 miles of southern border and nearly 5,000 in the north. That’s why, like Roman signal fires and messengers,&nbsp;high-tech cameras, sensors, drones and lights&nbsp;on&nbsp;the wall or around the border area can all&nbsp;help detect illegal crossings early, so that the Patrol can send vehicles and officers quickly to intercept them.
Under Biden, illegal aliens were so confident of being released that they gladly surrendered to any American in uniform. Millions were released over Biden’s four years. Under President&nbsp;Donald Trump,&nbsp;however, things&nbsp;have completely changed.&nbsp;Encounters&nbsp;of illegal aliens at the border between ports of entry are about a tenth of what they were in the peak Biden months.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/who-kilmar-abrego-garcia-and-why-does-he-matter">Who Is Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and Why Does He Matter?</a>
And unlike the Biden years, almost none are being released into the interior to await years of the&nbsp;immigration process. Instead, as the law requires, they are mostly being detained throughout any applicable immigration process until the U.S.&nbsp;has determined whether they&nbsp;have a right to remain. This fact alone&nbsp;has discouraged many from even attempting to come illegally.
DHS&nbsp;recently announced the award of $4.5 billion in contracts for 230 miles of various types of barriers along the&nbsp;border with Mexico. This includes 80 miles of the barriers in the middle of the Rio Grande along the Texas border, which may include the effective spinning orange buoys that the state installed in the face of Biden administration opposition as part of Operation Lone Star in 2023.
The&nbsp;DHS&nbsp;“smart wall” means not just 30-foot steel bollard walls, but better roads for Border Patrol vehicles to respond to incursions, as well as lights, cameras and sensors.&nbsp;Smart Walls&nbsp;will be built or enhanced in El Paso and Del Rio in Texas, San Diego and El Centro in California, and in Tucson and Yuma, Arizona—site of the Morelos Gap, where I saw&nbsp;hundreds of illegals cross in&nbsp;one night in 2023.
The Roman Empire knew that walls worked. If well-manned and supported, they could create a stable frontier with limited access according to rules they set. In Trump’s second term, the United States is implementing the same, proven tactics to limit illegal entry to the United States, thus reducing drug smuggling,&nbsp;human trafficking and other crime.
</description>
<pubDate>Wed, 22 Oct 2025 11:48:33 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Simon Hankinson</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/border-security/commentary/the-new-high-tech-tool-trump-using-secure-our-border</guid>
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<title>Climate Alarmism and the American Family</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/marriage-and-family/report/climate-alarmism-and-the-american-family</link>
<description>&nbsp;
<h3>Executive Summary</h3>
Climate alarmism is reaching new levels of urgency. Activists and political leaders say that governments have fewer than 10 years to save the planet, which they claim will become unlivable within our lifetimes because of increased emissions of dangerous pollution including greenhouse gases. Former President Joe Biden has argued that young voters are in despair and that their “whole generation is damned” because of climate change. As a result, it should be no surprise that some people might choose not to bring a child into a world that they see as rapidly eroding.
That despair does not remain abstract. It seeps into household decisions as marriage is postponed and children are deferred, and missing births in the early years are only partly made up later. A smaller rising generation means fewer future workers and caregivers and more pressure on already stretched safety nets. The humane response is to welcome children, remove policy barriers that make family life needlessly expensive, and tell the truth about the long-run environmental progress that has made people safer.
It is true that 2024 was the warmest year on record, but the premise that the world is becoming more dangerous for people is not supported by the data. The longer-run story for people is greater safety from climate-related hazards because development, early warning, and infrastructure dramatically reduce vulnerability. According to the International Disaster Database, climate-related deaths across the globe are on a steady downward trend and have fallen by more than 90 percent over the past century. In the U.S., strong tornadoes have fallen ~50% since the 1950s, and (when adjusted for how much has been built) normalized tornado damage has decreased. Wildfire severity on federal lands shows no clear long-term upward trend in the century-scale record; recent spikes are dominated by (sometimes intentional) human ignition and exposure patterns, not by a new climate regime.
Meanwhile, U.S. fertility hit a new low in 2024 and remains subdued in 2025. Many cite cost of living, housing, work–family trade-offs, partnership, and climate concerns as reasons not to have children or more children. A better course is pro-family, pro-innovation policy: Keep cleaning the environment through technology while lowering barriers to marriage and child-rearing. The environment is cleaner and safer for people than it was in the past, resources are more abundant, and feeding the world has never been easier. Much work remains, especially extending freedom and prosperity to underdeveloped regions, but terrifying young people with apocalyptic visions is inhumane and, on the facts, wrong.
U.S. air quality trends have been improving for decades; the globe continues to become greener; and, despite a quadrupling of the global population since 1928, deaths caused by natural disasters and extreme weather have gone down by more than 90 percent over the past hundred years. Those who are considering not having children because of perceived uneasiness about the state of the environment should evaluate the evidence on environmental quality and the human effects of climate alarmism. The anti-human environmentalist movement is incorrect, but alarmism may nevertheless be contributing to climate anxiety among young people.
Humanity’s progress is not at odds with a clean and safe environment. In the case of global development, including population growth and environmental stewardship, we can have our cake and eat it too.
<h3>Introduction</h3>
Today’s would-be parents may be wrestling with a peculiar moral dilemma. The more concerned they are about the environment, the more skeptical they are about the prospect of having children. Former President Joe Biden has argued that young voters are in despair and that their “whole generation is damned” by climate change.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“President Biden on Mobilizing Youth, Climate Change &amp; Human Rights,” The Daily Show, YouTube, March 13 2023, https://youtu.be/nnPuCJqRn4U?si=gsz9c-NGBMLj7se0 (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF In the words of former Vice President Kamala Harris, this is what young people call climate anxiety: “the fear of the future and the unknown of whether it makes sense for you to even think about having children.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Fox News, “Kamala Harris Claims ‘Climate Anxiety’ Causing Young Americans Not to Buy Homes,” YouTube, September 23, 2023, https://youtu.be/XRWcVZQHUqE?si=S4wcujq5QDPm1eNI (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
It is understandable that some might believe that the lives of future children are going to be very difficult because of catastrophic and irreversible environmental problems. However, as shown below, such a scientific consensus does not exist. Scientific data tell a very different story: Long-term environmental trends are overwhelmingly positive and have been for decades. Further, these positive trends will likely continue for the foreseeable future.
The fear that population growth must outrun a finite planet began with Thomas Robert Malthus, who warned in his 1798 treatise An Essay on the Principle of Population that humanity would reproduce beyond the means to sustain itself.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Thomas Malthus, “An Essay on the Principle of Population,” Project Gutenberg e-book, most recently updated December 27, 2020, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/4239/pg4239-images.html (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF That outlook became the intellectual heart of modern overpopulation claims and treats population growth as pressure on a fixed endowment of resources. It neglects the mechanisms by which societies enlarge the effective resource base and reduce risk: the creation and diffusion of knowledge, capital formation, price-mediated substitution, trade, innovation, and institutional reform. Where these forces operate, productivity rises and environmental quality improves with income.
Critical theory associated with the Frankfurt School supplied a moral rationale for scarcity claims.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Robin Celikates and Jeffrey Flynn, “Critical Theory (Frankfurt School),” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, first published December 12, 2023, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/critical-theory/ (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF In this literature, industrial production and mass consumption are treated less as sources of material and social progress than they are as forms of domination of people and of nature. This outlook tends toward prescriptions of restraint even though historical experience in market democracies shows sustained gains in health, longevity, and environmental quality as incomes rise and policy targets genuine externalities.
The Club of Rome’s The Limits to Growth, published in 1972, gave this presumption a technocratic form.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III, The Limits to Growth: A Report for the Club of Rome’s Project on the Predicament of Mankind (New York: Universe Books, 1972), https://collections.dartmouth.edu/xcdas-derivative/meadows/pdf/meadows_ltg-001.pdf?disposition=inline (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Using the World3 systems model, the authors generated scenarios of collapse from resource depletion and pollution unless policy curtailed population and output growth. The model largely held constant the mechanisms that change outcomes in real economies, including innovation, price-mediated substitution, institutional adaptation, and trade. In the decades that followed, the dramatic timelines did not materialize. Food availability increased, many commodity prices receded after spikes, and advanced economies improved air and water quality as they grew.
Biologist Paul Ehrlich popularized the same outlook for a mass audience. His book The Population Bomb, originally published in 1968, suggested that population growth will lead to certain starvation and death.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Charles C. Mann, “The Book That Incited a Worldwide Fear of Overpopulation,” Smithsonian, January 2018, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/book-incited-worldwide-fear-overpopulation-180967499/ (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF This view is “neo-Malthusian”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;“Neo-Malthusian.” Oxford Reference, https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110810105455393 (accessed October 15, 2025). Modern movements such as the Birthstrikers, anti-natalists, and Voluntary Human Extinction Movement fit well with this term.&lt;/p&gt;">REF because it continues the flawed and brutally pessimistic thinking of Malthus. Ehrlich displayed the neo-Malthusian view in the opening passage from the prologue to The Population Bomb:
<blockquote>The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate, although many lives could be saved through dramatic programs to “stretch” the carrying capacity of the earth by increasing food production and providing for more equitable distribution of whatever food is available. But these programs will only provide a stay of execution unless they are accompanied by determined and successful efforts at population control….<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Paul R. Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (Revised) (New York: Ballantine Books, February 1971), p. xi, https://pinguet.free.fr/ehrlich68.pdf (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF</blockquote>
Fortunately, the record is clear: Economic development tends to improve the environment over time because humans apply creativity and ingenuity to overcome the very problems the pessimists think will doom us. These problems include resource and food scarcity, poor air quality, “overpopulation,” and global climate change. As a Heritage Foundation Special Report emphasizes, “[h]uman advancement has always been tied to humanity’s harnessing of energy. From the harnessing of fire and inventing the plow to harnessing steam power and breaking the atom, human societies have advanced based on using the most affordable and reliable energy sources.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Kevin Dayaratna, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Miles Pollard, and Richard Stern, “Powering Human Advancement: Why the World Needs Affordable and Reliable Energy,” Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 277, December 14, 2023, p. 1, https://www.heritage.org/energy/report/powering-human-advancement-why-the-world-needs-affordable-and-reliable-energy.&lt;/p&gt;">REF
<h3>Measures of Environmental Quality Continue to Improve Steadily</h3>
Data indicate that the environment has become healthier over time, particularly in regions that have developed economically, such as America. It is important to keep in mind that these data were observed during a period that also saw a massive increase in the human population and economic production. The observations below highlight the flaws of neo-Malthusianism’s central premise that increased standards of living and population growth are mutually exclusive or incompatible with environmental improvement. Contrary to the view that the environment is deteriorating, economic progress and environmental improvement can work in harmony.
Theory can tie together the different categories of good news that follow. As an initial matter, it is incorrect to view humans as useless resource consumers. People are not simply mouths to feed or “carbon emitters.” As Marian Tupy notes, “every new human being comes to the world not only with an empty stomach, but also a pair of hands, and, more importantly, a brain capable of intelligent thought and new knowledge creation.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Marian L. Tupy, “The World’s Population Reaches 8 Billion People. Resources Have Grown More Abundant,” Cato Institute, HumanProgress Blog Post, November 15, 2022, https://www.humanprogress.org/worlds-population-reaches-8-billion-people-resources-have-grown-more-abundant/ (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The post–World War II population explosion has made it possible to test the neo-Malthusian hypothesis against its rival school of thought: the idea, which some have termed “Cornucopian,” that human beings can create a superabundant future. With the world population passing the 8 billion mark, it is clear that the neo-Malthusian hypothesis is incorrect and the Cornucopians have the winning theory.
Air Quality. The data on air quality over the past several decades show that America has successfully reduced the concentration of all six “criteria pollutants”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;The Environmental Protection Agency “regulates six pollutants as ‘criteria’ air pollutants. It regulates them using human health-based and environmentally based criteria.” See U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Air Pollutants,” February 16, 2024, https://www.cdc.gov/air-quality/pollutants/index.html (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF in the ambient air. These pollutants are carbon monoxide, ground-level ozone, lead, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter, and sulfur dioxide.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;See U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Criteria Air Pollutants,” last updated August 25, 2025, https://www.epa.gov/criteria-air-pollutants (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) observations show ozone concentrations steadily declining and the number of Air Quality Index (AQI) “unhealthy” days dropping across major U.S. cities.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;S. Stanley Young and Warren Kindzierski, “Climate Change, Ozone, and Asthma: Is There a Connection?” Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 303, December 4, 2024, pp. 3–5, https://www.heritage.org/climate/report/climate-change-ozone-and-asthma-there-connection.&lt;/p&gt;">REF Reviews of the epidemiology also flag uncertainty around broad claims that ambient PM2.5 or ozone drive large mortality effects across populations.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;S. Stanley Young and Warren B. Kindzierski, “Air Quality and Public Health: Is There a Link?” Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 304, December 5, 2024, passim, https://www.heritage.org/climate/report/air-quality-and-public-health-there-link.&lt;/p&gt;">REF Families deserve accurate risk context: Air has become cleaner, and health links are more nuanced than headlines suggest.
Consistent with these observations, ambient concentrations have fallen markedly across pollutants. Per the EPA, national averages have declined as follows: fine particulate matter (PM2.5, annual) by ~37 percent since 2000; ozone (eight-hour) by ~18 percent since 1990; sulfur dioxide (one-hour) by ~92 percent since 1990; nitrogen dioxide (annual) by ~62 percent since 1990; carbon monoxide (eight-hour) by ~79 percent since 1990; and lead (three-month average) by ~87 percent since 2010.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Our Nation’s Air: Trends Through 2023, 2024, https://gispub.epa.gov/air/trendsreport/2024/ (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF These sustained reductions reflect technology improvements, cleaner fuels, and performance standards.
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Climate Livability. It is true that 2024 was the warmest year on record (~1.47°C above the 1850–1900 baseline),<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;News release, “Temperatures Rising: NASA Confirms 2024 Warmest Year on Record,” National Aeronautics and Space Administration, January 10, 2025, https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/temperatures-rising-nasa-confirms-2024-warmest-year-on-record/ (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF but the premise that the world is becoming more dangerous for people is not supported by the data. The longer-run story for people is greater safety from climate-related hazards because development, early warning, and infrastructure dramatically reduce vulnerability.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Global Change Data Lab, Our World in Data, “Global Natural Disaster Death Rates,” last updated April 11, 2024, https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20250909-093708/grapher/natural-disaster-death-rates.html (accessed October 18, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF According to the International Disaster Database, climate-related deaths across the globe are on a steady downward trend and have fallen by more than 90 percent over the past century.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Michael Shellenberger, “Why Disasters Have Declined,” Forbes, updated January 11, 2022, https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelshellenberger/2022/01/10/why-disasters-have-declined/?sh=5094fcfd1897 (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF In the U.S., strong tornadoes have fallen ~50% since the 1950s, and (when adjusted for how much has been built) normalized tornado damage has decreased.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Joe D’Aleo and Roy W. Spencer, “Twisters and Trends: An Analysis of U.S. Tornado Activity and Climate Change,” Heritage Foundation Backgrounder No. 3846, revised and updated, August 28, 2024, pp. 9–11, https://www.heritage.org/environment/report/twisters-and-trends-analysis-us-tornado-activity-and-climate-change.&lt;/p&gt;">REF Wildfire severity on federal lands shows no clear long-term upward trend in the century-scale record; recent spikes are dominated by (sometimes intentional) human ignition and exposure patterns, not by a new climate regime.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Susan J. Crockford, “Defying Predictions: How Increased CO2 and Innovation Are Mitigating Effects of Drought on U.S. Crops and Forest Productivity,” Heritage Foundation Special Report No. 299, November 7, 2024, pp. 8–12, https://www.heritage.org/climate/report/defying-predictions-how-increased-co2-and-innovation-are-mitigating-effects-drought.&lt;/p&gt;">REF
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This immense climate progress—the result of human productivity and economic progress—is even more impressive when considering today’s larger population. Measured per million people, climate-related deaths fell from 255.3 in 1920 to 1.9 in 2020, a decline of 99.25 percent.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;See Gale L. Pooley, “The Collapse of Climate-Related Deaths,” Cato Institute, HumanProgress Blog Post, September 3, 2021, https://www.humanprogress.org/the-collapse-of-climate-related-deaths-2/ (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The climate’s effect on human survivability is improving along with economic expansion and population growth.
Data on climate livability challenge the dominant narrative that the climate is becoming increasingly dangerous and suggest an alternative policy response. Rather than constraining economic development in an effort to maintain pre-industrial temperatures, a pro-human approach would be to promote economic growth as a way to further the enhancement of climate livability.
Resource Availability. Some say that humans are burning through a finite pool of resources that they are bound to exhaust, but one simple question upends that worldview: Are there more resources now than there were 100 or 200 years ago? The answer is clearly “yes,” and if there are more resources now, there must be more resources than meet the eye. The world has learned two things:
<ul>
<li>America can create new resources. Although the raw materials on Planet Earth are finite, our ability to turn those raw materials into valuable resources is limited only by our ability to innovate.</li>
<li>America can optimize existing resources. As people use more of them, Americans can economically substitute for the most efficient resource and shift away from scarce resources.</li>
</ul>
Regarding the creation of new resources, think about whether one of the most valuable traded commodities in the world today—crude oil—was really a resource before people knew what to do with it. Although more unrefined crude oil existed on Earth 200 years ago, it was not readily available as a usable source of energy to power machinery or sustain the modern economy.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Liquid fuels were scarce and expensive before the advent of petroleum-based fuels. See PBS News, “The ‘Whale Oil Myth,’” August 20, 2008, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/this-post-is-hopelessly-long-w (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Resources are not finite, because the essence of a resource is the application of new technical know-how to existing raw materials. In that sense, the planet’s resources are constrained not by physical scarcity but by the boundaries of human ingenuity.
The brief history of natural gas from shale rock illustrates the link between technological change and the economic definition of a resource. Hydrocarbon molecules, such as methane (CH₄), exist within rock formations located more than a mile beneath the Earth’s surface, yet their classification as a resource depends on whether they can be accessed and converted into useful energy. Earlier this century, these molecules were not considered a resource because their extraction was technologically infeasible. With the advent of directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing, these formations became economically viable, enabling the energy contained in shale gas to power households and industries. In America, the production of shale gas continues its ascent from near-zero to almost 80 percent<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): How Much Shale Gas Is Produced in the United States?” last updated September 19, 2024, preliminary data, https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=907 (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF of our total production of dry natural gas.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “Natural Gas: U.S. Shale Proved Reserves (Billion Cubic Feet),” https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/res_epg0_r5301_nus_bcfa.htm (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
Today, conventional fuels—oil, coal, and natural gas—are the lifeblood of the global economy. Without them, there would be no modern shipping, transportation, electricity, or the thousands of different products in which they are a key ingredient. But hydrocarbons are more than a physical component of nearly every modern product; they are also instrumental in each product’s supply chain and logistical history. Everything anyone purchases was once on a cargo vessel, airplane, train, truck, or all of them at different stages in its journey to the buyer.
We have not exhausted energy resources. People keep producing and using more resources (and new kinds, including renewables) all the time.
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To the neo-Malthusian environmentalist, none of this observable good news or optimism about the future is even possible. Data reveal that the predictions of neo-Malthusianism do not hold. This is welcome news.
<h3>Climate Is Better, but Attitudes About Climate Are Worse</h3>
Dr. Matthew Wielicki, a geological sciences professor at the University of Alabama, told Fox News, “I’ve had multiple students come to me and tell me they no longer plan on having a family because they don’t think raising children in this world would be a smart idea because the planet is going to end.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Fox News, “University of Alabama Professor Says Slamming School’s DEI, Climate Push Has Been ‘Career Suicide,’” YouTube, January 25, 2023, https://youtu.be/ycKniK0awpM?si=G9nzwv4L8vPVH9EZ (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
A 2021 survey by the Pew Research Center supports the observation that younger adults are harder hit by climate anxiety. In Pew’s poll, 71 percent of people 18–29 years old answered that they were “very/somewhat concerned that global climate change will harm them personally at some point in their lifetime.” For respondents who were 65 or older, the share who were “very/somewhat concerned” was 52 percent.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;James Bell, Jacob Poushter, Moira Fagan, and Christine Huang, In Response to Climate Change, Citizens in Advanced Economies Are Willing to Alter How They Live and Work, Pew Research Center, September 2021, p. 5, https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/09/PG_2021.09.14_Climate_FINAL.pdf (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF This polling indicates that, although concern over the climate is widespread, it is more acute in younger people.
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The Pew polling also showed that American women were more concerned than American men by a 12-point margin. For women, 66 percent responded that they were “very/somewhat concerned that global climate change will harm them personally at some point in their lifetime,” compared to 54 percent of men.REF
Gallup also conducts polls on attitudes about the environment. According to Gallup, as of March 2025, 54 percent of respondents believed protection of the environment should come before economic growth, compared to 38 percent in favor of the inverse.REF The question itself ought to demonstrate the scale to which the fundamental point of this paper is misunderstood. Respondents were asked, “With which one of these statements do you most agree” and given two choices: “protection of the environment should be given priority, even at the risk of curbing economic growth (or) economic growth should be given priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent.”REF
The trouble with this question is that it places economic growth and protection of the environment at odds with each other when, in truth, they are complements. Furthermore, 62 percent of respondents answered “getting worse” to the question: “Right now, do you think the quality of the environment in the country as a whole is getting better or getting worse?”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Rachael Yi and Megan Brenan, “More Americans Think U.S. Doing Too Little on Environment,” Gallup, Social &amp; Policy Issues, April 17, 2025, https://news.gallup.com/poll/659390/americans-think-doing-little-environment.aspx (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF As shown below, over the 25 years of this poll, “getting worse” always received a higher response than “getting better.”
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Although pessimism about the environment is well established, a new type of negativity is emerging: one that is focused on global climate change. A comment in the journal Nature Climate Change highlights the effects of the climate anxiety phenomenon:
<blockquote>Media messaging of a looming climate crisis can fuel climate anxiety. For example, due in particular to traditional and social media reframing, the aspirational 1.5 °C global warming threshold—a goal that physical, socioeconomic and infrastructure constraints have now rendered unlikely—is transmuting from a driver of change to an instigator of anxiety.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Jeremy Fyke and Andrew Weaver, “Reducing Personal Climate Risk to Reduce Personal Climate Anxiety,”&nbsp;Nature Climate Change,&nbsp;Vol. 13, No. 3 (March 2023), pp. 209–210, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-023-01617-4 (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF</blockquote>
This type of climate crisis messaging may trigger people’s primal survival instincts.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Austin Perlmutter, “How Negative News Distorts Our Thinking,” Psychology Today, September 19 2019, www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-modern-brain/201909/how-negative-news-distorts-our-thinking (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Those who truly believe the planet is dying are living in a perpetual state of fear and anxiety as their perceived impending downfall approaches. The problem of existential climate concerns and their effect on mental health grew large enough to warrant a study by the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The researchers concluded that “[f]or some individuals, the negative emotions caused by abstract awareness and acknowledgement of the ongoing climate change, even in those who are well insulated from any directly observable effects, can be intense enough to contribute to mental illness.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Abdullah Mohammed Hassan Ramadan and Ahmed G. Ataallah, “Are Climate Change and Mental Health Correlated?” General Psychiatry, Vol. 34, No. 6 (December 2021), https://gpsych.bmj.com/content/34/6/e100648 (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
This should not be taken lightly. The NIH has established that the current climate narrative is damaging people’s mental health—even the mental health of some who do not observe or experience any actual negative climate effects. This should give pause to those who are actively participating in the current climate discussion so that they can reassess (1) the facts that form the basis of the objective reality in which we live and (2) the significant impact that the doomsday climate narrative is having on the minds of people around the world. A bleak worldview does not encourage growth, development, and work but rather promotes despondency, helplessness, complacency, dependence, and dread. In the most extreme and tragic cases, mental illness exacerbated by climate anxiety has even led to suicide.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Max Stephens, “Teenager Took His Own Life After ‘Losing Hope over Climate Change,’” The Telegraph, April 14, 2023, www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/14/theo-khelfoune-ferreras-walthamstow-death-climate-change/ (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF
<h3>Are Negative Views on the Environment Reducing Birth Rates?</h3>
Climate alarmism, exacerbated by politicians and environmental advocates, has clearly resulted in serious cultural impacts, but is it also to blame for reduced birth rates? America currently ranks 145th globally in terms of births per person.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, “Country Comparisons—Birth Rate,” The CIA World Factbook, 2024 estimates, www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/field/birth-rate/country-comparison (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF and U.S. fertility hit a new low in 2024 and remains subdued in 2025.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Mike Stobbe, “The U.S. Fertility Rate Reached a New Low in 2024, CDC Data Shows,” Associated Press, July 24. 2025. https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/the-u-s-fertility-rate-reached-a-new-low-in-2024-cdc-data-shows (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF According to data published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, annual birth rates in the U.S. have fallen steadily from 24.1 per 1,000 population in 1950 to 11.4 per 1,000 population in 2019.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Table, “Crude Birth Rates, Fertility Rates, and Birth Rates, by Age, Race, and Hispanic Origin of Mother: United States, Selected Years 1950–2019,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, Health, United States Data Finder, 2020–2021, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/hus/data-finder.htm (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Additionally, the fertility rate per woman in the U.S. has plummeted well below replacement levels of 2.1. The CDC reports that the total fertility rate fell from 2.08 in 1990 to about 1.62 in 2023 with the general fertility rate down 23 percent over the same period.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Anne K. Driscoll and Brady E. Hamilton, “Effects of Age-Specific Fertility Trends on Overall Fertility Trends: United States, 1990–2023,” U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics, National Vital Statistics System, National Vital Statistics Reports, Vol. 74, No. 3 (March 6, 2025), pp. 2 and 3, https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr74/nvsr74-3.pdf (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF The big shift is timing: Women under 30 years of age went from nearly seven in 10 births (69.8 percent) in 1990 to fewer than half (48.6 percent) in 2023, while a majority of U.S. births are now to women 30 or more years old.REF The CDC’s analysis makes clear that some delayed births are made up later, but some are never realized, which is why overall fertility remains well below replacement.
Correlation does not mean causation. Birth rates seem to be negatively correlated with such circumstances as advanced economic development and education.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Frank Gotmark and Malte Andersson, “Human Fertility in Relation to Education, Economy, Religion, Contraception, and Family Planning Programs,” BMC Public Health, Vol. 20, No. 1 (February 22, 2020), article no. 265, https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-020-8331-7 (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF However, emerging anecdotal evidence suggests that reduced birth rates could be partially explained by growing concerns over the environment generally and climate change specifically. If concerns over the state of the environment are contributing to reduced birth rates, it is worth correcting the record and establishing a factually sound basis for family decisions.
Many cite cost of living, housing, work–family trade-offs, partnership, and climate concerns as reasons not to have children or more children.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Rachel Minkin, Juliana Menasce Horowitz, and Carolina Aaragão, The Experiences of U.S. Adults Who Don’t Have Children, Pew Research Center, July 2024, pp. 13–18, https://www.pewresearch.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/07/PST_2024.7.26_adults-without-children_REPORT.pdf (accessed October 18, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Nationally representative data confirm that environmental concerns now register for a meaningful share of would-be parents. Among U.S. adults under 50 who say they are unlikely ever to have children, about one in four (26 percent) cite concerns about the environment, including climate change, as a major reason.REF
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<img alt="BG3938 Chart 6" data-entity-type="file" data-entity-uuid="e7f8bb40-adde-4eb6-9e81-bea41a7c12af" src="https://www.heritage.org/sites/default/files/inline-images/BG-climate-alarmism-american-family-charts-page6.gif">
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In an NIH study focusing on Polish residents, the authors confirmed the presence of “ecological anti-natalism,” which they say “focuses on the irreversible harm that people cause to the environment and…leads to postulates such as: reducing the number of people would slow down the changes, and bringing new lives into the world, which is endangered by environmental catastrophe, is highly immoral.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Filip Franciszek Karuga et al., “The Causes and Role of Antinatalism in Poland in the Context of Climate Change, Obstetric Care, and Mental Health,” International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Vol. 19, No. 20 (October 20, 2022), article no. 13575, https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9602747/pdf/ijerph-19-13575.pdf (accessed October 15 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF In other words, instead of developing climate solutions that achieve the complementary aims of human well-being and good environmental stewardship, the above view discusses the opposite, woefully attempting to misguide people into thinking that their well-being today and having children tomorrow are immoral.
As climate alarmism has become more mainstream, the world has seen the rise of movements of an increasingly pessimistic, nihilistic, destructive, and fundamentally anti-human nature, such as the Birthstrikers,<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Elle Hunt, “Birthstrikers: Meet the Women Who Refuse to Have Children Until Climate Change Ends,” The Guardian, March 12, 2019, www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/mar/12/birthstrikers-meet-the-women-who-refuse-to-have-children-until-climate-change-ends (accessed October 15 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF anti-natalists,<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Amy Fleming, “Would You Give up Having Children to Save the Planet? Meet the Couples Who Have,” The Guardian, June 20, 2018, www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jun/20/give-up-having-children-couples-save-planet-climate-crisis (accessed October 15 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF and Voluntary Human Extinction Movement.REF Members of these groups believe that the Earth is on the verge of climate collapse because of human impacts and that humanity has about 10 years (if that many) either to reverse our perceived damage to the climate or to fall victim to irreversible global climate devastation.
With such a grim view of the future—which is not only incorrect in assigning immorality, but immoral itself—and because of the extremely limited timetable these advocates have set for themselves, some of their proposed solutions to “save the planet” are horrific and would end human life as we know it.
<h3>Will the Environment Always Become Safer and Cleaner?</h3>
Contrary to the views held by neo-Malthusians, Birthstrikers, and anti-natalists, the evidence shows that human advancement and growth are not antithetical to maintaining a healthy and vibrant environment.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Alex Berezow, “The Environment: Getting Better All the Time,” American Council on Science and Health, July 23, 2019, www.acsh.org/news/2019/07/23/environment-getting-better-all-time-14176#:~:text=Contrary%20to%20what%20you%20see%20reported%20in%20the,7%25.%20And%20France%20is%20far%20from%20being%20alone (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Rather, as a nation’s living standards improve and individuals become wealthier in terms of the real goods and services that are available to them, they begin to care more about being good stewards of the land they inhabit. The environment will continue to become safer and cleaner as long as people have a pro-human vision for the future (i.e., a future in which population growth and economic expansion are embraced).
When people are living in abject poverty, their sole purpose is the struggle for basic survival. To see fellow humans living in such dire circumstances naturally makes the observer wonder why such suffering exists. On the one hand (the negative), such an image is discouraging and begs the question of whether it is “worth” inserting another life into such circumstances. On the other hand (the positive), the observer recognizes the same dreadful state, but instead of being complacent and assuming that nothing can be done, he strives upward to find a way to alleviate the suffering and improve the material condition of his fellow man. An advocate of depopulation will likely hold that such people should be phased out over time and that a smaller population composed implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) of the “right” people can live better than a larger population can. In contrast, the pro-human advocate believes in the more fulfilling task of not only raising the destitute out of absolute poverty, but also giving them the opportunity to truly flourish and have children of their own.
When people no longer worry about how to get their next meal, they reach a position where they can begin thinking medium to long term. In other words, when people’s basic survival needs are met, their attention can be shifted elsewhere, including toward environmental protection. Thus, through economic development, modernization, and the improvement of living standards, more people can start to make long-term plans. For example, instead of worrying about finding enough wood to heat their home, parents can think about building a future for their children that includes higher education and cleaner air.
Readers may wonder what justifies such optimism: Again, it is supported by the data. A well-known case of optimism winning the day is the famous bet between Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich on whether resource prices would increase or decrease over the course of the following decade.<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Vincent Geloso, “Julian Simon and Paul Ehrlich’s Second Bet,” American Institute for Economic Research, The Daily Economy, March 11, 2021, www.aier.org/article/julian-simon-and-paul-ehrlichs-second-bet/ (accessed October 15, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF When prices fell, much to Ehrlich’s chagrin, the case for human innovation and problem-solving won and earned much credibility. The bet was a microcosm of the broader evidence for Simon’s thesis: Human ingenuity expands effective resources and advances economic progress even on a planet with finite raw materials.
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
Concerns about the supposedly worsening environment are no reason not to have children. The world is not on the brink of climate collapse, the environment is getting cleaner, and people have every reason and incentive to have all the children they want to have. People should not let misguided pessimism about the state of the environment keep them from raising a family and enjoying the profoundly rewarding personal experiences and positive economic effects that this experience yields. The evidence demonstrates that the hopelessness of climate alarmism is misplaced, and children will do more to help the environment and solve climate problems than they will to exacerbate them.
What depopulators either do not understand or refuse to accept is that quality of life and environmental protection are complementary: We can have our cake and eat it too. Population growth and improvements in living standards support environmental protection because individuals who can anticipate the long-term future for themselves and their families are more likely to act sustainably. When enduring absolute poverty, people focus only on the fight for their immediate survival. However, when an economy reaches a level where people’s basic needs (ample food, clothing, shelter, and plentiful energy) are met, the need to address the present diminishes, allowing space for families to look toward a future that includes a clean, enjoyable, and sustainable environment.
Many have found that there is nothing more fulfilling than raising children. To borrow from Nietzsche, a person’s children are the driving “why” that allows them to survive any “how.”<span class="annotation__highlight" data-annotation="&lt;p&gt;Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer, trans. Richard Polt (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1997), https://www.faculty.umb.edu/gary_zabel/Phil_100/Nietzsche_files/Friedrich-Nietzsche-Twilight-of-the-Idols-or-How-to-Philosophize-With-the-Hammer-Translated-by-Richard-Polt.pdf (accessed October 16, 2025).&lt;/p&gt;">REF Data presented in this paper show that climate fears are tragically overblown and that a growth mindset combined with more people brings us more prosperity and a better, safer, and cleaner environment.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth is Director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment and the Herbert and Joyce Morgan Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. This report includes contributions from Alexander Gage, Travis Fisher, and Krishna Mehta.
</description>
<pubDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2025 16:00:59 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Diana Furchtgott-Roth</dc:creator>
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<title>The Legacy of Charlie Kirk, a True Freedom Fighter</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/the-legacy-charlie-kirk-true-freedom-fighter</link>
<description>For many Americans, the assassination of Charlie Kirk proved to be a shocking wake-up call. Taking place just a day before the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, it was a tragic reminder of the fact that evil never lurks far below the surface, and that freedom often exacts a tremendous price when one confronts those who seek to destroy it.
Charlie Kirk was in many respects a true 21st-century freedom fighter. His inspiring life was taken at just 31, when many of his contemporaries are still embarking upon their careers.
He founded Turning Point USA in 2012, an organization that campaigns at universities and high schools for conservative ideas and principles. Today it has over 2,000 student groups across the country.
Turning Point advocates for “limited government, free markets and freedom.” It is a powerful, grassroots-driven voice standing up to woke, left-wing ideology in America’s educational institutions, and provides a valuable platform for free expression in an environment where conservatives often face hostility and intimidation.
As a former graduate student at Yale, I know how important it is to have organizations like this to stand up for conservatives who reject the liberal ideology that permeates such institutions. Turning Point USA did not exist when I was studying for my Ivy League Ph.D., but I’m grateful that today’s students can join movements like this and not be isolated on university campuses.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/why-we-hung-banner">Why We Hung That Banner</a>
Conservatives who openly display their beliefs are a minority at most of America’s universities. Yet Charlie gave them a voice. I predict that his organization will produce many future American leaders, including senators, congressmen, Cabinet members and even presidents.
Charlie was determined to save America and reverse the decline of the world’s superpower. This is why he backed President Trump, and played a key role in galvanizing support among young Americans for Mr. Trump’s bid to return to the White House. In fact, he was one of the individuals who did the most to bring about Mr. Trump’s historic win in last year’s presidential election.
His message, like that of Mr. Trump, was that America’s best days lay ahead, and that there could be a better, more prosperous and glorious future ahead for the American people.
Charlie’s message to younger Americans was that they should feel proud of their country, reject the poisonous ideology of wokeism and identity politics, and embrace a future based upon individual liberty, hard work, robust patriotism, and the belief that everyone should be judged by their character, not their skin color.
Listening to his speeches, I was struck by his relentlessly positive tone, as well as his willingness to engage his political opponents in open debate and discussion. While many on the Left seek to shut down debate, Charlie championed it.
While firmly adhering to his conservative beliefs and deeply held Christian faith, he was always willing to talk to those he disagreed with in a respectful and polite and always well-informed fashion, and to challenge them to examine their own ideology and to listen to different views.
There is much to be said for this approach in a deeply divided society today. All too often, political discussion is highly confrontational. Free speech is frequently shut down, especially in institutions of higher learning, where open debate is needed most.
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/tribute-charlie-kirk-1993-2025">A Tribute to Charlie Kirk (1993–2025)</a>
I don’t believe that Charlie ever met my former boss Margaret Thatcher, but he admired both Thatcher and Ronald Reagan, and I am certain that she would have approved his conviction politics, and the tremendous optimism of his message. The Iron Lady always believed in hope and aspiration, which is why she ousted the miserable socialist Labor government in 1979, and went on to win two more general elections.
She held the view that the U.S. was the beacon of the free world, and that restoring American greatness, as Reagan did in the 1980s, was vital for the future of the West. Kirk was a leading part of a young generation of patriotic Americans who are committed to making America great once again. Lady Thatcher on her numerous visits to Washington, some of which I hosted myself, always made a point of telling young American conservatives that their mission was to save America and the free world.
We’re fortunate to have a president right now who is prepared to do what it takes to restore American greatness, defend this nation’s borders, and rebuild its self-confidence and pride after the debacle of the Biden years.
Charlie Kirk is gone, but his spirit of optimism lives on. Americans can honor his legacy with an even stronger commitment to the defense of free speech, a renewed determination to defend freedom in the face of evil, and a vow to champion American exceptionalism.
</description>
<pubDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2025 13:16:04 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Nile Gardiner, PhD</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/conservatism/commentary/the-legacy-charlie-kirk-true-freedom-fighter</guid>
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<title>Trump Stops Biden’s Euro-Style Solution to Flight Delays and Paves Way To Lower Fares</title>
<link>https://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/commentary/trump-stops-bidens-euro-style-solution-flight-delays-and-paves-way</link>
<description>The Biden administration spent four years placing a record level of new regulatory impediments on the nation’s airlines. An analysis by the Office of Management and Budget estimates that Biden’s Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, nearly tripled the number of transportation-related rules and regulations.
There's no evidence that all this added red tape made airline travel safer or reduced flight delays.
Biden should have learned from the airline deregulations of the late 1970s, which liberated airlines from government controls on pricing and flight routes. A famous study by Robert Crandall of the Brookings Institution found that those reforms ushered in the modern era of air travel with much lower prices and hundreds of billions of dollars of savings for consumers over the past four decades.
Buttigieg, by contrast, blundered on nearly every major issue he faced. He bungled the proposed JetBlue merger with Spirit Airlines, a disastrous decision which landed Spirit Airlines in bankruptcy and left JetBlue struggling. This has led to less competition, not more.&nbsp;
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/transportation/commentary/airfare-savings-grounded-biden-administration">Airfare Savings Grounded by Biden Administration</a>
Buttigieg also tried to restrict popular award miles programs that save money on airfares and reward passengers with flight upgrades. He’s imposed new penalties on airlines for flight delays—even when it wasn’t the fault of the airline.
The Biden-Buttigieg philosophy was that airlines were ripping off passengers and gobbling up profits. The truth is the opposite: airline fares have remained reasonably low compared to the rapid inflation in food, energy and housing costs.&nbsp;
The average inflation-adjusted airfare is down nearly 20% from pre-pandemic 2019—when airfares were already the lowest on record. In fact, airfares are one of the only major categories of consumer spending that has fallen on an inflation-adjusted basis. That’s not the sign of an industry price-gouging consumers.
Here's a financial reality about this industry that few of the politicians and regulators seem to understand: Airlines have huge fixed costs and operate on small margins—which, even in the best years for airlines, lag the average profit margin in other industries.
If United, American and Delta relied solely on ticket revenues, the airlines would either go bankrupt, restrict flights, or have to start charging much higher fares.
Thankfully, the Trump administration under Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is charting a different course. The Department of Transportation has announced it will not implement the Biden-era proposal requiring airlines to pay European-style compensation for delays and cancellations and is canceling attempts to restrict airline credit card reward points.&nbsp;
&gt;&gt;&gt;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.heritage.org/transportation/commentary/donald-trump-has-just-saved-new-york-its-leaders-worst-instincts">Donald Trump Has Just Saved New York From Its Leaders’ Worst Instincts</a>
One unresolved issue is what to do about flight delays and cancellations.
As a frequent flyer myself, I hate flight delays—which are more common than ever. What should be done? Reasonable compensation to passengers—except in cases where the flight delays are beyond the airline's control—should be standard policy. Some airlines offer better compensation than others.&nbsp;
Rather than impose government mandates, let the market work. Airlines should announce what their delay policy is. All, but one, of the U.S. airlines already provide complimentary hotel accommodations when flights are delayed overnight. Modest FAA fines or payments to customers should be required for long flight delays or cancellations when the airline itself is to blame.&nbsp;
The 1970s deregulation of the skies was a success that virtually all economists and passenger groups applaud. Trump's transportation agenda under Secretary Sean Duffy is: Airline Deregulation, The Sequel. The results will be better service and lower costs for tens of millions of American passengers and a more profitable and stable future for our vital airline industry.
</description>
<pubDate>Tue, 21 Oct 2025 11:50:52 -0400</pubDate>
<dc:creator>Stephen Moore</dc:creator>
<guid isPermaLink="true">https://www.heritage.org/government-regulation/commentary/trump-stops-bidens-euro-style-solution-flight-delays-and-paves-way</guid>
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