National Security News

The Daily Signal provides reports on national and homeland security issues, including military readiness, intelligence operations, border protection, and global conflicts. Featuring news, analysis, and commentary, this section explores how security policy decisions affect America’s national defense and freedom.
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  • opinion

    These 2 Solar Companies Want Special Treatment. Here’s Why That Would Harm Green Technologies.
    In recent weeks, two U.S. manufacturers of solar energy components—Suniva and SolarWorld—have petitioned the U.S. International Trade Commission to impose tariffs on the imports of various products used in the production of solar panels. Such an initiative has been rightly condemned by the solar industry itself. Such a tariff would benefit Suniva and SolarWorld for…
    Charles Busch | Katie Tubb
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  • opinion

    Mattis Is Punting the Military Buildup to 2019
    Secretary of Defense James Mattis has news for Congress and for the nation: The military buildup will have to wait until next year. Mattis delivered that message in a back-to-back series of appearances before Congress, one of them taking place in a rare prime-time hearing on Monday night. During both testimonies—which were delivered before the…
    Frederico Bartels
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  • news

    EPA Cleared in Agency-Caused Environmental Disaster, Despite Official’s Admissions
    A government watchdog reported Monday that the Environmental Protection Agency committed no wrongdoing in an environmental disaster, but the auditors ignored crucial inconsistencies in officials’ stories. The EPA breached Colorado’s Gold King Mine on Aug. 5, 2015, resulting in an estimated 3 million gallons of toxic pollution being dumped into a river that provides drinking water…
    Ethan Barton
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  • news

    VA Secretary Says This Bureaucratic Fix Could Help Prevent Veteran Suicides
    The Department of Veterans Affairs and Defense Department soon will have the same medical data, ending a turf battle between the agencies to achieve what Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said will be “seamless” information sharing on veterans’ health. Shulkin said having an electronic health record, or EHR, that follows a veteran from the time he…
    Fred Lucas
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  • news

    A Short History of Special Counsels and Presidents
    James Comey managed to play a role in appointment of the two most recent special counsels to investigate possible wrongdoing in a presidential administration. And both cases featured leaks to the press. Comey, ousted as FBI director by President Donald Trump, admitted last week in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee that he leaked a…
    Fred Lucas
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  • opinion

    With Army Stretched Too Thin, Military Buildup Should Begin Right Now
    Testifying in front of the Senate Appropriations’ defense subcommittee last Wednesday, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Milley was characteristically blunt. When asked, he told the assembled senators that in his opinion, the Army does not have enough soldiers to accomplish the missions it has been assigned. Acknowledging that Secretary of Defense James Mattis is…
    Thomas Spoehr
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  • opinion

    Making the VA Accountable Again
    In 2014, the public learned from whistleblowers that government employees at the Department of Veterans Affairs hospital in Phoenix, Arizona, kept “secret waiting lists” to hide long waits for care at their facilities. Dozens of veterans died waiting for care as a result. Since that watershed, there has been a torrent of revelations about misconduct…
    Sen. Mike Lee
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  • opinion

    Let’s Help Military Families by Adopting a ‘GI Bill’ for Their Children
    President Donald Trump made helping the “forgotten man” a key theme of his presidency from the get-go. The challenge for Trump is how to aid the forgotten man by shrinking the programs and institutions that left him behind to begin with while moving toward policies that will help him thrive in the 21st century. One of…
    Jarrett Stepman
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  • news

    Meet the First Responders Who Encounter Death by Opioid Overdose
    COLEBROOK, N.H.—Sally Zankowski is who comes when it’s too late. She’s there to define, investigate—and make sense of—another sudden death owed to opioid overdose in New Hampshire’s poorest and most remote county. Zankowski, 55, is the medical examiner for Coos County, which has the highest combined death rate due to drugs, alcohol, or suicide in…
    Josh Siegel
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  • news

    6 Crimes Special Counsel Might Pursue in Trump-Russia Probe
    What ousted FBI Director James Comey tells Congress could set the tone for what his predecessor, now the special counsel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, looks into. “Comparisons to Watergate are way over the top,” Ron Hosko says. But, barring any new bombshells when Comey testifies Thursday before the Senate Intelligence Committee, legal…
    Fred Lucas
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  • news

    How a Family Doctor Works With Police to Combat a Rural County’s Opioid Epidemic
    COLEBROOK, N.H.—Bruce Latham, a lanky, self-employed doctor, occupies a unique position in the depths of rural New Hampshire’s opioid drug addiction crisis. As part of his practice in Colebrook, a town of 2,300 in Coos County, Latham responds to pain by prescribing opioid painkillers. He says he empathizes with patients’ propensity to become addicted to…
    Josh Siegel
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  • news

    This Doctor Prescribed More Addictive Opioids Than Anyone Else in the State. Now He Tries to Overcome the Drug Crisis.
    COLEBROOK, N.H.—Inside a dimly lit room at the largest health care provider in New Hampshire’s least populated county, a circle of drug addicts talk about how to recover. In this private setting a reporter agrees not to publish the addicts’ names, but most people in and around Colebrook, a decaying town of 2,300, know who…
    Josh Siegel
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  • news

    In New Hampshire’s Poorest County, One Opioid Addict Helps Another Choose Life Over Death
    BETHLEHEM, N.H.—They came to be addicted to drugs in different ways, but ended up in the same place. Steven Blaisdell, 26, a stocky, shy son of a mailman, was first prescribed pain medicine—the opioid OxyContin—as a teenager after he flipped over his four-wheeler and broke his left femur in half. Over the past 14 years,…
    Josh Siegel
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  • opinion

    US Missile Defense Technology Has Reached a New High. Why the US Must Keep Expanding Its Edge.
    North Korean threats to strike the U.S. have hit a new obstacle. On Tuesday, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency conducted a successful test of the ground-based midcourse defense system. The test presents a seminal point in the development of the system because for the first time ever, it managed to shoot down an intercontinental-range ballistic missile…
    Michaela Dodge
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  • news

    Judicial Watch Sues State Department, USAID for Documents on Funding to Soros’ Foreign Campaigns
    Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit against the Department of State and the U.S. Agency for International Development for records on funding awarded to George Soros’ Open Society Foundation-Albania, the conservative nonprofit watchdog announced Wednesday. The suit was filed May 26 after both government agencies failed to respond to Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act requests. The…
    Ethan Barton
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  • news

    Wasserman Schultz Admits Hill IT Security Violations, Blames House Administrators for Not Stopping Her
    Florida Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose office equipment U.S. Capitol Police seized in a criminal investigation into congressional network security violations, admitted she violated official information security policy and blamed the House’s chief administrative officer for not stopping her. In a May 17 appropriations hearing on Congress’ administrative budget, Wasserman Shultz said she had…
    Luke Rosiak
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  • news

    VA Chief Says Senate Must Act So He Can Fire ‘Terrible Managers’
    Department of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said Wednesday the civil service appeals process prevents the agency from firing “terrible managers,” and that the Senate must act to reduce the impact of the Merit Systems Protection Board and excessive government employee union-backed due process requirements. “Just last week we were forced to take back an…
    Luke Rosiak
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  • opinion

    Successful US Missile Defense Test Shows How Essential This Program Is
    The United States Missile Defense Agency has accomplished a historic feat. On Tuesday, the agency successfully intercepted an intercontinental ballistic missile in an important test utilizing its ground-based midcourse defense system. The ICBM—mocked up to resemble a missile capable of carrying a nuclear payload similar to the ones that North Korea is feverishly pursuing—was launched…
    Scott Erickson
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  • opinion

    Solving the Physician Shortage Crisis
    With the health care debate currently dominating headlines, many Americans may be unaware of a more subtle issue that is affecting the U.S. health care system. That issue is an increasing shortage of medical professionals. An analysis by the Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that by 2030, America will likely experience a shortage of…
    Kevin Dayaratna | Sarina Singh
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  • opinion

    I Grew Up in Chavez’s Socialist Venezuela. Here’s What I Think About the Current Crisis.
    Venezuela’s air is thick with tear gas and its streets are stained with the blood of its youth. The South American nation has been reduced to a battlefield as government forces brutally pummel protestors. For the past 50 days, Venezuelans throughout the country have taken to the streets in anti-government uprisings. With approval ratings in…
    Ricardo Pita
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