Foreign Policy

On Aug. 2, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution urging the White House to stop an obscure U.N. agency from asserting greater control over the Internet. It is the "consistent and unequivocal policy of the United States," the lawmakers affirmed, "to promote a global Internet free from government control and preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet today."

The impact of drones in the counterterror campaign is hard to overstate:  terror groups, like many organizations, develop into global threats not because they can recruit suicide bombers but because they have leaders with vision, capability, commitment, and experience.  Tactical leaders might view a local government as their primary adversary; strategic leaders, from Osama bin Laden to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq to Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen, have broader horizons.

The escalating dependence on drone pilots, as Maj. Dave Blair agonized in the May-June issue of Air & Space Power Journal, is undercutting the ability to award combat medals. “On the current trajectory,” Blair wrote, “the only Air Medals will be the ones in history books.” In 2009, after all, the Air Force was already training more drone pilots than bomber and fighter pilots combined. Blair’s proposal to give drone pilots combat medals—despite the fact that the pilots sit safely thousands of miles away from the battlefield—is revealing.

As good American patriots celebrated the Fourth of July by blowing stuff up, international diplomats were gathering in New York for month-long treaty negotiations over a sector of the world economy that generates about $55 billion in exports each year: the arms trade. A strong and comprehensive treaty would benefit America’s national security—yet when it comes to regulating the global trade in weapons, America is shooting itself in the foot.