Nussaibah Younis, “Why Maliki Must Go,” New York Times, May 2, 2013.

Given the two-year-old Syrian civil war escalating next door, a sectarian crisis and political collapse in Iraq would be a disaster at the worst possible time. It would blur the boundaries between the two conflicts, bring additional misery to Iraq and pose enormous challenges for Iraq’s neighbors and the United States. Read more »

David C. Gompert, “Sea Power and American Interests in the Western Pacific,” Rand Corportation, to be published June 3, 2013,  pp. 160-162.

If we are indeed in for a change in the basic premise of sea power, the main reason would be that globalization is making cooperative maritime security more attractive and even compelling. But why would globalization favor cooperation over confrontation at sea? This is a legitimate question: After all, economic interdependence did not prevent naval rivalry or, for that matter, world war a century ago. More to the point at hand, why would the common economic interests of China and the United States, including secure trade, foster maritime cooperation when such an approach was not pursued by Great Britain and Germany, also major trading partners when they became rival sea powers? The answer is complex but worth examining. Read more »

CFR’s Senior Fellow for Japan studies, Sheila A. Smith, published a new CFR Contingency Planning Memo (CPM), “A Sino-Japanese Clash in the East China Sea.”  In it, she argues that the United States should encourage peaceful dispute resolution to the avoid further escalation in tension between China and Japan over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands.  Below, CPA staff write a guest post about this aspect of the CPM. Read more »

Government Accountability Office, “U.S. Assistance to Yemen: Actions Needed to Improve Oversight of Emergency Food Aid and Assess Security Assistance,” March 20, 2013.

Two DOD programs account for the vast majority of U.S. security assistance to Yemen; however, DOD has yet to evaluate their effectiveness in building Yemeni counterterrorism capacity. As noted earlier, of the $497 million in total security assistance allocated to Yemen between fiscal years 2007 and 2012, DOD allocated over 70 percent ($361 million) to its Section 1206 and 1207(n) programs…. Read more »

James Kitfield, “Outsourcing the Fight Against Terrorism,” National Journal, March 7, 2013.

In Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. officers honed the tactics they teach here (Baker did several combat tours in Iraq), Americans led the fight against terrorists and insurgents. But in Washington, policymakers are now focused on shaving budgets and bringing home troops. And, Baker says, “there are not a lot of governments who want a big U.S. military footprint in their countries.” So Pentagon strategists need a cheaper way to fight militant Islamists—many of them operating, unmolested, in Africa—who would unseat our allies or attack our homeland. Read more »

An article today in the New York Times offered a new piece of evidence in the CIA’s nine-year drone strikes campaign in Pakistan. Declan Walsh reported that anonymous officials—“two senior U.S. officials” and a “third official”—claimed that airstrikes on February 6 and 8, reported by Pakistani and international media as drone strikes, were not actually conducted by the United States. According to one of the sources: “They were not ours. We haven’t had any kinetic activity since January.” An official is also quoted as assigning responsibility to the “Pakistani military…the Taliban fighting among themselves. Or it could have been simply bad reporting.” Read more »

On Tuesday, my colleague Dan Markey published a new CFR Policy Innovation Memorandum (PIM), “Support Process Over Personalities in Pakistan.” In it, he argues that the United States should avoid playing favorites as Pakistani leadership transitions unfold over the course of 2013. As part of his broader argument, he suggests that the U.S. government should refrain from drone strikes during the campaign season prior to parliamentary elections. I’ve asked him to write a guest post about this aspect of the PIM. Read more »

Steven Erlanger, “An Unexpected Mission for France’s Defense Minister,” New York Times, February 19, 2013. Read more »

Last night, President Obama’s State of the Union address included the following passage:

“Today, the organization that attacked us on 9/11 is a shadow of its former self. Different al-Qaeda affiliates and extremist groups have emerged – from the Arabian Peninsula to Africa. The threat these groups pose is evolving. But to meet this threat, we don’t need to send tens of thousands of our sons and daughters abroad, or occupy other nations. Instead, we will need to help countries like Yemen, Libya, and Somalia provide for their own security, and help allies who take the fight to terrorists, as we have in Mali. And, where necessary, through a range of capabilities, we will continue to take direct action against those terrorists who pose the gravest threat to Americans.” Read more »

Dianne Feinstein, Opening Remarks at the Senate Intelligence Committee Confirmation Hearing for John Brennan, February 7, 2013. Read more »