House Testimony: The Paradoxes of Al Qaeda: Think Tank : The New Yorker
More broadly, with or without success in the pursuit of Al Qaeda’s leadership, the group’s self-isolation should provide a fundamental framework for U.S. counterterrorism policy, particularly in the communications sphere. That policy should be constructed to patiently reinforce Al Qaeda’s political isolation. (The [...]

I keep harping on our lack of strategic thinking in the United States.  I know many people consider this an academic exercise, as in (paraphrasing): “Ivory toward academic Bernard Finel keeps suggesting we consider ’strategy’ explicitly, but the reality is that we have a complex threat environment and receive plenty of guidance from senior leaders [...]

The pending US climate change legislation is widely considered to be in peril due to legislative infighting, particularly over the bill’s endorsement of cap and trade policy. On the eve of President Obama’s first State of the Union, The New York Times came out in support of the bill and called upon the President to [...]

Britain, Japan to help reintegrate Taliban foot soldiers – washingtonpost.com
Britain and Japan have agreed to head an international fund, expected to total up to $500 million over the next five years, as part of a broad plan to help lure Taliban fighters away from the insurgency with the promise of jobs, protection against retaliation, and [...]

U.S. Envoy’s Cables Show Deep Concerns on Afghan Strategy – NYTimes.com
The ambassador, who left the military last April to become Mr. Obama’s emissary, also complained about an inadequate civilian counterpart organization to the NATO military command in Afghanistan. Nearly three months later, he is still expressing concerns about too few civilian experts in Afghanistan.
He also [...]

ABC News recently ran a story on “Jesus Guns”. It was reported that the Michigan-based sightings manufacturer, Trijicon, prints references to New Testament chapters and verses next to the serial numbers on its scopes. Trijicon has a contract to provide up to 800,000 of these rifle scopes to the US military. According to ABC News, [...]

In audio message, bin Laden says he endorsed Dec. 25 airline bomb plot – washingtonpost.com
Osama bin Laden endorsed the failed attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner Christmas Day and threatened new attacks against the United States in an audio message released Sunday that appeared aimed at asserting that he maintains some direct command over [...]

Google, in an attempt to live up to their corporate credo “don’t be evil,” has taken a stand and reversed its controversial decision to censor results China’s Google search engine. In their announcement, Google’s Chief Legal Officer David Drummond stated that the cyber attacks on more than 20 companies were part of a coordinated attempt [...]

The Wall Street Journal reports on criticism of a statement in a 2007 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which warned of rapid “glacial retreat” in the Himalayas. According to one portion of the report now under question by the UN, it was predicted that the Himalayan glaciers are in danger of [...]

CongressDaily – Obama To Request $14.2B To Train, Equip Afghan Forces
President Obama is preparing to ask Congress for another $14.2 billion to grow, train and equip the Afghan National Security Forces for the remainder of this fiscal year and in FY11
This is roughly equivalent to Afghanistan’s GDP.  Think about that.  And is just addition train [...]