The president of the Center for a New American Security, John Nagl, has an op-ed in the New York Daily News arguing against despair for the Afghanistan war. “[I]t is possible over the next five years to build an Afghan government that can outperform the Taliban and an Afghan Army More…
Just to be clear: Defense Secretary Robert Gates is not talking about leaving the Pentagon. But when he ultimately does depart, possibly as soon as next year, a leading candidate to succeed him is his undersecretary for policy, Michele Flournoy. And judging by her speech Thursday at the annual conference More…
Next year’s defense bill pretty much demolishes the Obama administration’s jury-rigged plan to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay by exporting detainees to an Illinois prison. But that’s not all the joy it brings into the world: It also picks a fight with Defense Secretary Robert Gates by More…
The New York Times has a good overview of the tone of this week’s Washington visit by Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai: an end to nearly 18 months of very public pressure, doubts and the occasional insult, and the beginning of an embrace. Why?
“Two things are happening,” said Richard Fontaine,
Sure to give agita to the Israeli embassy in Washington: The Center for a New American Security publishes a 100-page multiple-case study of how the international community could midwife a Palestinian state from a security perspective.
It’s a long study, with seven authors, and I’ve barely made a crack More…
Josh Rogin has an explosive story about retired Lt. Gen. David Barno, a former Afghanistan-war commander and darling of the counterinsurgency community, coming under Pentagon inspector-general investigation for mismanaging a wing of the National Defense University under his care. Check it out.
In advance of this morning’s big Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Blackwater in Afghanistan, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) wrote a diary for the Seminal on Firedoglake pushing a bill to restrict private security companies from performing inherently-governmental security functions:
So says Capt. Matt Pottinger, one of the co-authors of Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn’s scathing assessment of intelligence operations in Afghanistan:
“This is primarily about improving intelligence within the Department of Defense,” he said via e-mail
“Our timing was independent of the tragic event in Khost Province,” he said,
This is the beginning of an assessment written by Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, the senior-most intelligence adviser to Gen. Stanley McChrystal, for the Center for a New American Security about intelligence and the Afghanistan war:
Eight years into the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. intelligence community is only marginally
Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy, one of the Obama administration’s most influential officials shaping Afghanistan-Pakistan policy, will give a talk on Monday at the American Enterprise Institute elaborating on President Obama’s speech and adjusted strategy. It’s hard not to read too much into this, but I’ll try More…
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