Follow us on social

Virginia House passes Defend the Guard 99-0

Virginia House passes Defend the Guard 99-0

Measure would keep National Guard from fighting in undeclared federal wars

Reporting | QiOSK

The Virginia House of Delegates passed a bill on Tuesday that bars the deployment of Virginia’s National Guard into active combat in a conflict that Congress has not explicitly authorized.

“I understand that war is sometimes necessary, but I expect Congress to display an ounce of the courage they expect out of the men and women they send overseas to fight those wars by fulfilling their constitutional obligation to declare war,” Del. Nicholas Freitas (R-62), a veteran and a primary sponsor of the bill, told RS.

The Virginia Senate will vote on the measure before sending it to Governor Youngkin’s desk for consideration. Del. Freitas said he didn’t know whether the bill would pass in the Senate but that he and other supporters have “put it on the best possible footing with strong bipartisan, even unanimous support.”

"Today is an incredible victory for both National Guardsmen and our Constitution,” said retired Sgt. Dan McKnight, chairman of Bring Our Troops Home, a “group of veterans and civilians on a mission to end the Forever Wars & restore the U.S. Constitution.” “H.B. 2193 does not interfere with Title 32 deployments or overseas training missions. Its only requirement is that before the Virginia National Guard goes into combat, Congress has to do its job and vote. I'm incredibly proud to see my organization's bill receive such overwhelming support in the Old Dominion.”

There is a national push for similar legislation, commonly referred to as the Defend the Guard Act, to be passed by other state houses across the country. Hunter DeRensis, Communications Director at Bring Our Troops Home, told RS that “the bill will be introduced in 27 states this year.”

Kentucky State Rep. T.J. Roberts (R-66) introduced a version in January this year, which is now in committee. The Arizona State Senate will likely pass it for a third time in 2025, as the State House voted it down twice prior. A Defend the Guard bill passed the New Hampshire State House in 2024, but the State Senate decided to “quiet kill” the legislation by not voting on it at all. The State House introduced a new bill for the 2025 session. The Republican Party of Maine encoded Defend the Guard language into its state platform, and a bipartisan group of state representatives there introduced a new bill for the 2025 session.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth endorsed Defend the Guard legislation when it was presented in New Hampshire last year. “To me, it makes a lot of sense. I spent most of my career as a National Guardsman, deployed multiple times with the National Guard to foreign wars,” said Hegseth in 2024. “We got used to the idea that state National Guard are part of expeditionary forces, which is not traditionally the use of a National Guard.”

He continued: “This is New Hampshire saying we don’t trust how the federal government is going to use our troops, so we’re willing to commit them when the American people, through their elected branch in Congress, commits those troops to a foreign war, then you can. I love this idea.”

“An American-first foreign policy is about understanding that issues within our own borders should be prioritized,” said Del. Freitas. “In so far as foreign military operations are necessary, there should be clear and compelling reasons and adherence to the constitution.”


Top Photo: Pennsylvania National Guard Soldiers bound for Africa mission, Dec. 2023. (photo by Pennsylvania National Guard )
Pennsylvania National Guard Soldiers bound for Africa mission, Dec. 2023. (photo by Pennsylvania National Guard )
Reporting | QiOSK
Ukraine war
Top image credit: HC FOTOSTUDIO via shutterstock.com

Should a Russia-Ukraine peace leave territorial control for later?

Europe

Since the beginning of President Donald Trump’s second term, there have been ongoing diplomatic efforts to broker a peace settlement in the three-year-long war between Russia and Ukraine. So far, however, negotiations have failed to bridge the stark divide between the two sides.

Two of the key contentious issues have been post-war security guarantees for Ukraine and the political status of Ukrainian territory claimed or annexed by Russia. Specifically, regarding territorial sovereignty, Ukraine and Russia have rejected the United States' proposal to “freeze” the war along the current line of conflict as a de facto new border. Ukraine has refused to renounce its claims of sovereignty over territories occupied by Russia (including Crimea, which was annexed in 2014). Russia, in turn, has demanded Ukraine’s recognition of Russia’s territorial claim over the entirety of the four Ukrainian regions, which Russia annexed in 2022.

keep readingShow less
Submarine based cruise missiles
Top photo credit: An official USN rendering of an Ohio-class submarine VLS system firing Tomahawk missiles (Wikipedia/US Navy)

Navy pushing billions for sea-based nukes that nobody seems to want

Military Industrial Complex

Sea-launched, nuclear-armed cruise missiles, or SLCM-Ns, were considered unnecessary for U.S. national security for years. But now, the Navy’s pushing to bring SLCM-Ns back — even if doing so costs taxpayers billions.

Indeed, U.S. Navy Vice Admiral Johnny Wolfe told House Armed Services Committee members on May 7 that the Navy was fast tracking the development of the Sea-Launched Cruise Missile - Nuclear, known as the SLCM-N, along with the Trident II D5 Strategic Weapons System and hypersonic missiles.

keep readingShow less
lockheed martin
Top photo credit: The Lockheed Martin Corporation on display during the Seoul International Aerospace and Defense Exhibition(ADEX) 2023 at the Seoul Air Base on October 18, 2023 in Seongnam, south of Seoul. (Photo by Chris Jung/NurPhoto)

Bipartisan bill seeks to put arms sales lobbyists on ice for 3-years

Military Industrial Complex

President Donald Trump announced some $200 billion in potential arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Qatar a week ago — this is huge potential business for major U.S. defense contractors like RTX, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and General Atomics, all of which deploy armies of lobbyists in Washington each year to influence such contracts.

A new bipartisan bill dropping this week will impose some of the strictest bans to date to make sure former government officials aren’t lobbying on behalf of those big companies or foreign countries to get their share of this massive federal pie. In fact, the legislation will make it a crime to do so.

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.