Last week, the Obama campaign released a video starring Bill Clinton, in which he extolled the president’s decision to authorize the raid that killed Osama bin Laden one year ago. In the video, Clinton hypothesized: “Suppose the Navy Seals had gone in there, and it hadn’t been bin Laden. Suppose they’d been captured or killed. The downside would have been horrible for [Obama].” According to the former president, Obama’s decision was “the harder and more honorable path.” Read more »

Background Briefing on the U.S. Military Realignment in Japan, April 26, 2012.

QUESTION: And then how this [US-Japan security agreement] fits into the emerging strategic view of this building that rotational, small forces are better than these colossal bases that have been historically our footprint? Read more »

Last week, while discussing U.S. military planning for the Korean Peninsula, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta warned, “No question we’re within an inch of war almost every day in that part of the world.” As a follow up, CNN’s Wolf Blitzer asked Secretary Panetta what other issues kept him up at night. He responded: “Well, obviously Iran, Syria, the whole issue of turmoil in the Middle East, the whole issue of cyber war, the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction, rising powers—all of those things are threats that the United States faces in today’s world.” (Yesterday, Panetta inflated the worrisome geography to include “transnational threats” like “turmoil across the Middle East and North Africa” and the “threat of natural disasters.”) Read more »

“The only valid national security reason for classifying information is that a hostile element whose goal is to damage the interests of the United States should not have use of the information.” Report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 1986 Read more »

• Greg Miller, “Broader Drone Tactics Sought,” Washington Post, April 19, 2012.

The CIA is seeking authority to expand its covert drone campaign in Yemen by launching strikes against terrorism suspects even when it does not know the identities of those who could be killed, U.S. officials said. Read more »

The U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) is a sprawling network of roughly 210,000 civilian and military employees across seventeen agencies as well as approximately 30,000 private contractors. With a budget of $75 billion between the national and military intelligence programs, the IC is authorized to carry out a range of activities and programs, including monitoring suspected nuclear weapons programs, killing suspected terrorists, and analyzing ongoing events for everyone from President Obama to soldiers deployed in Afghanistan. Read more »

• “Piracy and Private Security,” The Economist, April 14, 2012.

Private security teams patrol the decks of around 40% of large vessels in the “high-risk area” that stretches from the Persian Gulf to the Seychelles in the south and the Maldives in the east. When pirates attack, these armed guards respond with flares or warning shots. This usually scares off assailants (or sends them in search of easier prey). If it fails, they fire at an attacking boat’s engine, before finally turning their sights on the pirates. No ship carrying armed guards has so far been hijacked. Read more »

On February 15, General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the House Armed Services Committee: “I can’t impress upon you that in my personal military judgment, formed over thirty-eight years, we are living in the most dangerous time in my lifetime, right now.” Two weeks later, during a House Budget Committee hearing, when asked to expand upon his earlier statement, he replied: Read more »

A casual observer of world events might believe that interstate wars, civil wars, and terrorism, given the prominence of media coverage, are the primary causes of violent deaths. In fact, of the estimated 526,000 people killed by lethal violence in 2010, only 10.5 percent were direct conflict deaths—in other words, due to armed conflict, political violence, or terrorism. Victims of intentional homicide account for a staggering 75 percent of all violent deaths. Read more »

• Peter Cynkar, “Opinion Briefing: Mexico’s Drug War,” Gallup, April 4, 2012.

Mexicans personally feel less safe in their own neighborhoods in 2011 than they did at the onset of the drug war. While perceptions about safety have fluctuated, the 42% who said they feel safe walking alone at night in 2011 is down 15 percentage points from 57% in 2007. Read more »