Since 2007, after a widely contested presidential election precipitated a descent in violence that killed over one thousand people, Kenya has taken steps to rebuild its political system through a power-sharing agreement and a new constitution. However, as tensions among rival ethnic groups rise ahead of the next elections, to be held in March 2013, continued stability in Kenya—already threatened by sporadic outbreaks of violence—remains uncertain. In a new Contingency Planning Memorandum “Electoral Violence in Kenya,” Joel Barkan warns that the March elections (with a potential run-off in April) are “arguably the most important and complex since the country’s return to multiparty politics two decades ago.” Events on the ground are further complicated by ongoing proceedings of the International Criminal Court, which has indicted one of the leading presidential candidates, Uhuru Kenyatta, for his role in perpetuating ethnic conflict in the aftermath of the 2007 elections. Read more »

Several news agencies are reporting that John Brennan, White House homeland security advisor and deputy national security advisor for counterterrorism, will be nominated to be the director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Since David Petraeus resigned from the position on November 9, it has been rumored that the position is Brennan’s for the taking. Several people in the administration believed he would defer the move to Langley, since it would effectively be a demotion from his current position, which allows him to meet with President Obama constantly as—according to Obama administration officials—”a priest whose blessing has become indispensable to Obama.” Moreover, Brennan would at times call CIA officers directly from the White House, without clearance from Petraeus; a practice one suspects he will not appreciate if he occupies the director’s seventh floor office. Read more »

Craig Whitlock, “Drone Crashes Mount at Civilian Airports,” Washington Post, November 30, 2012. Read more »

This past Sunday, Scott Shane of the New York Times reported that the U.S. presidential election spurred the Obama administration to develop and formalize a set of explicit rules to govern the U.S. targeted killings program. Each time that Obama administration officials leak information about a new process (how to make kill lists) or phrase (Disposition Matrix) that supports U.S. targeted killings, Americans are once again reminded of the Long Third War, which has resulted in the deaths of over three thousand individuals outside of battlefield settings. It is remarkable how certain pundits are still shocked by the scope and depth of targeted killings that the United States has carried out for over a decade—albeit most vigorously in the past four years under the guidance of John Brennan and authorized by President Obama. Read more »

Nicholas Schmidle, “After Pakistan,” The New Yorker, November 26, 2012.

And then there were the drones. A couple of weeks ago, on his first day at Columbia, Munter admonished a class of fourteen law students not to blog his comments—“These are very sensitive things”—before dishing about the CIA’s classified drone program. He distinguished three types of drone attacks: high-value targets (“Article Fifty-one of the UN charter gives us the right to go after these people…I don’t have a problem with that”); imminent threats, mostly to troops in Afghanistan (“Those, too, are fairly uncontroversial, at least inside our government”); and signature strikes, firing a missile at guys who “look like they’re up to no good” (“targeting based on behavior, rather than identity”). This became a source of contention between Munter and the CIA: “When you kill people and you don’t know who they are, what are you leaving yourself open to?” Read more »

Tonight’s presidential debate in Denver is supposed to focus on domestic issues, so prepare yourself for lots of talk about the power of job creators, Romneycare versus Obamacare, and fiscal cliffs. Nevertheless, given that foreign policy issues have been at the heart of Mitt Romney’s recent attacks on President Obama, it is likely that international affairs will creep into the discussion. Read more »

Today is the fourteenth anniversary of the best chance the United States had to kill Osama bin Laden before he led al-Qaeda to plan and carry out the terrorist attacks of 9/11. In addition to failing to elimate bin Laden, or any senior al-Qaeda leaders, the botched cruise missile attack of August 20, 1998, played a prominent role in accelerating efforts to arm unmanned drones. What began as highly specialized, covert tool to locate and kill one individual has developed into today’s default counterterrorism tactic. Read more »

Department of Defense News Briefing with General Norton Schwartz, July 24, 2012.

Q:  I just had a question about [remotely piloted aircraft].  There was statements recently that in the next year or so the military estimates that there will be more unmanned pilots than pilots in the air.  Is that possible? Read more »

Rebecca Hamilton, “Special Report: The Wonks Who Sold Washington on South Sudan,” Reuters, July 11, 2012.

They called themselves the Council and gave each other clannish nicknames: the Emperor, the Deputy Emperor, the Spear Carrier. The unlikely fellowship included an Ethiopian refugee to America, an English-lit professor and a former Carter administration official who once sported a ponytail. Read more »