Some Mexican politicians are not happy with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s comments yesterday comparing Mexico’s drug cartel problem to an insurgency and arguing for actions similar to those Colombia used to fight its drug trade.
The Obama administration announced this afternoon that Sharon Burke, a vice president of the Center for a New American Security, is headed to the Pentagon as its next director of Operational Energy Plans and Programs. Fitting: Burke pioneered CNAS’s focus on the role of natural resources in global security More…
One of the joys of Internet journalism is that when a piece is too long to incorporate every intelligent perspective from smart analysts, you can just peel some off and put it on the blog. So here are a few reactions I couldn’t fit into my wrap More…
Truly the Center for a New American Security is a revolutionary power, not a status-quo power. First the counterinsurgency-heavy think tank is greeted as liberators within the Gates Pentagon and the State Department. Now, via Small Wars Journal, CNAS wants your TV as well. Army special-forces More…
Most reporters I know are on tenterhooks today to see what happens in the first round of presidential elections in Iran. The Guardian is reporting a large turnout already, which favors Mir Hussein Moussavi, the candidate of the reformists who’ve been wild in the streets like they were on More…
I’m still at the Center for a New American Security conference, listening to the North Korea panel, but apropros of this morning’s discussions about Afghanistan and Pakistan: the House today passed Rep. Howard Berman’s (D-Calif.) Pakistan providing $1.5 billion of annual non-military aid.
The bill, however, continues to authorize military More…
Here’s Sharon Burke, vice president of Center for a New American Security, who just got effusive praise from former Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), and who’s presenting a panel on those old atavistic security questions about natural resources. The idea of climate change, for instance, as a national security issue has More…
In February, I did some reporting about how it was far from clear whether the Obama administration embraced the proposition that public diplomacy is a national security mission. Some observers wondered whether Judith McHale — now confirmed as the undersecretary of state for public diplomacy, who came from the More…
Nate Fick — whom Center for a New American Security chairman Richard Danzig announced this morning as the next CNAS CEO; he’s barely in his 30s — and Andrew “Abu Muqawama” Exum are talking about their new paper on Afghanistan and Pakistan. I blogged about that paper More…
“Success equals leadership plus strategy plus resources” said retired Lt. Gen. David Barno about Afghanistan. Although he doesn’t say it himself, he had the first element, as the former U.S. commander there from 2003 to 2005, but never the other two. He thinks that the confirmation of Gen. Stanley McChrystal More…
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