--Yochi Dreazen, Wall Street Journal
AFGHANISTAN / PAKISTAN TRIBAL AREAS
Suicide Car Bombing Kills Two in NW Pakistan - Candace Rondeaux and Haq Nawaz Khan, Washington Post
At least two people were killed and nine injured in a suicide car bombing Tuesday at a stadium in the city of Peshawar amid growing signs of deteriorating security in northwestern Pakistan near the Afghan border.
The bomber detonated a car full of explosives moments after top provincial officials had passed through the gate of the stadium, where hundreds of people were gathered for the final ceremony of a three-day sports competition for Pakistani athletes, said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, a spokesman for the provincial government.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani condemned the violence, saying such attacks imperil stability in the region and threaten the country's increasingly fragile economy.
More at The Washington Post.
Taliban Documents Reveal Scale of Operations in Pakistan - Ben Farmer, Daily Telegraph
Taliban maps, manuals and propaganda have been discovered at training camps in Pakistan showing the sophistication of the insurgent's operations in the country's tribal areas.
The documents, discovered in a tunnel complex in the Bajaur tribal agency, contain precise, coded maps of the nearby territory pointing out weapons caches and rendezvous points in an area where hundreds have died in fighting in the past three months.
Pakistani commanders said the tunnels in a Taliban stronghold also contained guerrilla training manuals, jihadist propaganda, bomb-making instructions and students' notes, suggesting the insurgents used the battleground near the Afghan border to train fighters.
"They were training people here," said Colonel Javed Baluch in an interview with the Times. "This was one of their centres. There were students here taking notes on bomb-making and guerrilla warfare. They were well trained and well organised."
Britain and America have claimed terrorists including al-Qaeda operatives have found a safe haven in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), where they plan and train for attacks around the world.
More at The Daily Telegraph.
US Embarrassed as Taliban Steal Humvees - Bruce Loudon, The Australian
Taliban militants were driving around in captured US army Humvee armoured vehicles in Pakistan's tribal region close to the historic Khyber Pass last night after hijacking more than a dozen supply trucks travelling along the vital land route that supplies coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The capture of the Humvees - these days the symbol of US intervention in Iraq and elsewhere - is a serious embarrassment to US commanders of the coalition forces.
Pakistani reporters in the area said the militants unloaded the Humvees from shipping containers on the backs of the trucks and drove off in them, after decorating them with flags and banners of the banned umbrella organisation Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which is led by Baitullah Mehsud. Mehsud is closely allied to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leader Mullah Omar.
The reporters said the hijackings had taken place "in clear view of (Pakistani) paramilitary personnel" deployed at the nearby Jamrud Fort, who "did not take any action".
More at The Australian and The Washington Times.
IRAQ
Baghdad Bridge Reopens, Restitching a Divided Area - Stephen Farrell, New York Times
Shiites walking east and Sunnis walking west met at the midpoint of a newly reopened bridge on Tuesday, seeking to reclaim a landmark that had long symbolized the divide between Baghdad communities similar in name but polar opposites in sectarian makeup.
For three years Shiites from one, Kadhimiya, and Sunnis from the other, Adhamiya, had been unable to use the crossing, the Aimma Bridge of the Imams in northern Baghdad. It was closed after one of the worst disasters of the post-invasion era: in August 2005, rumors of a suicide bomber provoked a frenzied stampede in a procession of Shiite pilgrims. Nearly 1,000 people died; most were crushed, but many others drowned when they fell or jumped into the Tigris.
More at the New York Times, Los Angeles Times and Voice of America.
NATO
On NATO’s Table, Ukraine and a Test of Russian Ties - Thom Shanker, New York Times
When the presidents and prime ministers of every NATO nation met in Bucharest, Romania, in April, they agreed unanimously that Ukraine and Georgia, two former Soviet republics, would someday, without a doubt, enter the Western alliance.
But in the face of Russian resistance and even some recalcitrance within the alliance, the leaders could not agree to formally invite either Ukraine or Georgia to the ritual of requirements, reforms and deadlines. It was the diplomatic equivalent of proposing marriage without setting the wedding day. And it was a notable rejection of American policy, which had long sought to begin the formalities of the engagement, known in NATO parlance as a Membership Action Plan.
Instead, an ad hoc coalition of longtime NATO members - Germany, France, Italy and Spain - continued to block the desires of Washington and the newer members of Central and Eastern Europe to bring the two countries into the fold.
Not just alliance membership, but the tone of relations between Russia and the West will be on the table on Wednesday and Thursday when Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates joins NATO defense ministers in Estonia, a tiny republic adjoining Russia’s Baltic coast, to discuss how to bring Ukraine, at least, rapidly into the alliance.
More at The New York Times, Voice of America and American Forces Press Service.
SUDAN
Arms Race, Uneasy Peace in Sudan - Heba Aly, Christian Science Monitor
Although the Arab-dominated government of Sudan and the semiautonomous region of Southern Sudan have been at peace for three years, there are signs that both sides are stepping up the pace of a cold war-style arms race.
In September, pirates off the coast of Somalia hijacked a shipment of Russian tanks reportedly destined for Southern Sudan. A month later Sudanese authorities seized an Ethiopian cargo plane they say was carrying ammunition and light armament in Juba, the capital of South Sudan. Later in October, Sudan recalled its ambassadors from Kenya and Ethiopia because the two nations were allegedly shipping arms to the south.
After a 21-year civil war, both the north and the south Sudan are not only reluctant to disarm, but reports indicate that both sides are actively preparing for the possibility of a renewed outbreak of fighting. Decades of conflict have left many in the north and the south unable to fully trust one another, leaving many analysts wondering if the current peace will endure.
More at The Christian Science Monitor.
DR CONGO
UN Appeals for DR Congo Back-up - BBC News
The head of UN peacekeeping has asked the UN Security Council for more than 3,000 extra troops to protect civilians in the eastern DR Congo.
Alain Le Roy said current peacekeeper numbers were not enough to protect civilians from violence perpetrated by rebel groups and the Congolese army.
There are 9,000 UN peacekeepers in the region, out of 17,000 nationwide.
The latest crisis began in August when rebels advanced towards Goma, which is now ringed with refugee camps.
More at BBC News and here:
UN Security Council Weighs Troop Request for Congo - Voice of America
Congo's Troops Rape and Loot In Volatile East - Washington Post
UN Reports Mass Raping in East Congo - Toronto Star
UN Accuses DRC Army of Looting Spree, Rapes - Voice of America
From CFR: Eastern Congo on the Brink - Washington Post
Region Offers Peacekeepers for Escalating Congo Crisis - The Australian
PERU
In Peru, a Rebellion Reborn - Joshua Partlow, Washington Post
After years in relative obscurity, the Shining Path, one of Latin America's most notorious guerrilla groups, is fighting the Peruvian military with renewed vigor, feeding on the profits of the cocaine trade and trying to win support from the Andean villagers it once terrorized, according to residents and Peruvian officials.
The Shining Path's reemergence has stirred chilling memories of its blood-soaked forays of decades past. In October, Shining Path guerrillas killed more people -- 17 soldiers and five civilians -- than they have in any month since the 1990s. This rising death toll is largely attributed to a fresh offensive by the Peruvian military, launched under the same president who battled them in the 1980s, to try to destroy the remnants of the once almost forgotten communist rebel group.
More at The Washington Post.
NORTH - SOUTH KOREA
North Closes Border with South Korea - The Australian
North Korea will close its border with South Korea from next month, accusing Seoul of taking confrontation "beyond the danger level".
The communist state's military told its South Korean counterpart that a measure “to strictly restrict and cut off all the overland passages” would take effect from December 1.
A border closure would effectively shut down joint projects such as the Seoul-funded Kaesong industrial complex just north of the frontier.
Today's announcement follows months of icy relations, including threats by the communist state to expel South Koreans from Kaesong in protest at the spreading of cross-border propaganda leaflets by Seoul activists.
The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the border move was in response to Seoul's failure to honour agreements reached at inter-Korean summits in 2000 and 2007. It said the border restrictions were the “first step” in response.
More at The Australian.
US INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY
Top Two Officials In US Intelligence Expect to Lose Jobs - Walter Pincus and Karen DeYoung, Washington Post
The nation's top two intelligence officers expect to be replaced by President-elect Barack Obama early in his administration, according to senior intelligence officials.
A number of influential congressional Democrats oppose keeping Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and CIA Director Michael V. Hayden in their posts because both have publicly supported controversial Bush administration policies on interrogation and telephone surveillance. One Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee said there is a "consensus" view on the matter.
Other Democrats and many intelligence experts, however, give high marks to the current cadre of intelligence leaders, crediting them with restoring stability and professionalism to a community rocked by multiple scandals in recent years.
More at The Washington Post.
THE LONG WAR
Battle in Bush Administration Over Interrogation Techniques - Julian E. Barnes, Los Angeles Times
As the clock runs down on the Bush administration, moderates within the government are mounting what may be one last drive to roll back many of the harsh detention and interrogation policies pushed through by Vice President Dick Cheney.
The effort, led by officials at the State Department, represents the latest battle in a war between hard-liners and moderates that has raged though most of the Bush administration.
In the early years of George W. Bush's presidency, Cheney and his allies won most of the internal contests over the Guantanamo Bay prison, the CIA's interrogation program, domestic spying, military commissions and other contentious issues.
But internal critics -- including the State Department's legal advisor, John B. Bellinger III -- fought against those efforts. Buoyed by congressional action and court rulings, the moderates in recent years have helped break down administration resistance to international agreements and standards. The latest push underscores how deeply unpopular the most hawkish White House stances have proved to be even within the administration itself.
More at The Los Angeles Times.
NEWS & OPINION NOTES
Afghanistan / Pakistan Tribal Areas
Report: Obama Mulls Wider Afghan Plan - Voice of America
Militants in Pakistan Attack Convoy Bound for Afghanistan - Associated Press
US Aid Worker Killed in Pakistan - The Times
American Shot Dead in Peshawar - Reuters
2 Dead as Blast Rocks Government Office in Kandahar - Globe and Mail
Suicide Bomber Hits Afghan Gov't Office, Killing 6 - Associated Press
Conference on Central Asian Security Held - United Press International
Afghan Police Complete Course on Drugs - United Press International
How to Rescue The War in Afghanistan - CNN opinion
Iraq / OIF
Iraqi Town Defies Al Qaeda - Christian Science Monitor
Study: Baghdad Needs Institutional Support - United Press International
Iraqi Shi'ite Mosque Rises Again - Washington Times
Officials Denounce 'Cowardly' Terrorist Attacks in Iraq - AFPS
AMSI View US Vote as Defeat for Bush - United Press International
Kurdistan Is a Model for Iraq - Wall Street Journal opinion
Iran
Turkish Leader Volunteers to Be US-Iran Mediator - New York Times
Kurdish Group Suspends Iranian Attacks - United Press International
Iran 'Test-fires' New Missile - Daily Telegraph
Iran Test Fires New Medium-range Missile - Agence France-Presse
The Long War
Analysis: Pick Will Show Obama DHS Vision - United Press International
Obama and Gitmo - Washington Times editorial
Islam
Islamic World Remains Divided Over Violence Against Women - Voice of America
United States
Obama Aides Play Down Tensions With Bush - Voice of America
Russia vs. Obama - Washington Times editorial
Moscow's Next Move - Washington Times opinion
Australia
5 Held in Terrorist Plot in ’05 Are Now on Trial in Australia - New York Times
Africa
Sudan's Bashir Announces Immediate Darfur Ceasefire - Reuters
Zimbabwe Food Rations Cut - Daily Telegraph
UN Cuts Food Rations in Zimbabwe - BBC News
Zimbabwe Police Crack Down on Anti-government Protesters - Toronto Star
Burundi Opposition Leader Jailed - BBC News
Filipinos Held by Somali Pirates - BBC News
Americas
Peru: Looking for the Shining Path - Washington Post
Seal the Deal on Colombian Trade Pact - Los Angeles Times editorial
Asia Pacific
Former President of Taiwan Is Detained in a Corruption Inquiry - New York Times
Former Taiwan President Detained in Graft Case - Voice of America
Prison Terms for Activists in Burma - New York Times
Burma Sentences Activists to 65 Years in Prison - Voice of America
Burma: Pro-democracy Activists Draw Harsh Sentences - Los Angeles Times
Malaysia to Allow Thaksin Shinawatra Entry - The Times
South Korean Spies Doubt Second Kim Jong-il Stroke - Reuters
Europe
Analysis: The Changing Role of EU Military - United Press International
NATO Leaders to Discuss Ukrainian Security - United Press International
Realism About Russia - The Times editorial
Postwar Bosnia's Surprising Export: Peacekeepers - Associated Press
Police Prime Target as IRA Dissidents Step Up Attacks - The Australian
French Police Arrest 10 in Rail Sabotage Incidents - Wall Street Journal
Middle East
Secular Jew Defeats Ultra-Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem’s Mayoral Race - NY Times
Secular Businessman is Jerusalem's New Mayor - The Times
Jerusalem Voters Elect a Secular Mayor - Los Angeles Times
Sea of Galilee Drying Up - Washington Times
Saudi Arabia Seeks UN Platform to Promote Pluralism Abroad - New York Times
South Asia
India Police Say They Hold 9 From Hindu Terrorist Cell - New York Times
India Marxists 'Guilty of Murder' - BBC News
India Test-fires Nuclear-capable Missile - Associated Press
UN Urges Nepal Leaders to Cooperate - United Press International
BOOKS
Why Vietnam Matters: An Eyewitness Account of Lessons Not Learned - Rufus Phillips
Phillips details how the legendary Edward G. Lansdale helped the South Vietnamese gain and consolidate their independence between 1954 and 1956, and how this later changed to a reliance on American conventional warfare with its highly destructive firepower. He reasons that our failure to understand the Communists, our South Vietnamese allies, or even ourselves took us down the wrong road. In summing up US errors in Vietnam, Phillips draws parallels with the American experience in Iraq and Afghanistan and suggests changes in the US approach. Known for his intellectual integrity and firsthand, long-term knowledge of what went on in Vietnam, the author offers lessons for today in this trenchant account.
Baghdad at Sunrise: A Brigade Commander's War in Iraq - Peter Mansoor
This is a unique contribution to the burgeoning literature on the Iraq war, analyzing the day-to-day performance of a US brigade in Baghdad during 2004-2005. Mansoor uses a broad spectrum of sources to address the military, political and cultural aspects of an operation undertaken with almost no relevant preparation, which tested officers and men to their limits and generated mistakes and misjudgments on a daily basis. The critique is balanced, perceptive and merciless - and Mansoor was the brigade commander. Military history is replete with command memoirs. Most are more or less self-exculpatory. Even the honest ones rarely achieve this level of analysis. The effect is like watching a surgeon perform an operation on himself. Mansoor has been simultaneously a soldier and a scholar, able to synergize directly his military and academic experiences.
The Strongest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq - Bing West
From a universally respected combat journalist, a gripping history based on five years of front-line reporting about how the war was turned around - and the choice now facing America. We interpret reality through the clouded prism of our own experience, so it is unsurprising that Bing West sees Iraq through the lens of Vietnam. He served as a Marine officer there, and he thinks politicians and the media caused the American public to turn against a war that could have been won. Now a correspondent for the Atlantic, West has made 15 reporting trips to Iraq over the last six years and is almost as personally invested in the current conflict as he was in Vietnam; this book, his third on Iraq, is his attempt to ensure that the "endgame" in Iraq turns out better than in his last war.
Tell Me How This Ends: General David Petraeus and the Search for a Way Out of Iraq - Linda Robinson
After a series of disastrous missteps in its conduct of the war, the White House in 2006 appointed General David Petraeus as the Commanding General of the coalition forces. Tell Me How This Ends is an inside account of his attempt to turn around a failing war. Linda Robinson conducted extensive interviews with Petraeus and his subordinate commanders and spent weeks with key US and Iraqi divisions. The result is the only book that ties together military operations in Iraq and the internecine political drama that is at the heart of the civil war. Replete with dramatic battles, behind-doors confrontations, and astute analysis, the book tells the full story of the Iraq War’s endgame, and lays out the options that will be facing the next president.
The War Within: A Secret White House History 2006-2008 - Bob Woodward
Woodward interviewed key players, obtained dozens of never-before-published documents, and had nearly three hours of exclusive interviews with President Bush. The result is a stunning, firsthand history of the years from mid-2006, when the White House realizes the Iraq strategy is not working, through the decision to surge another 30,000 US troops in 2007, and into mid-2008, when the war becomes a fault line in the presidential election. As violence in Iraq reaches unnerving levels in 2006, a second front in the war rages at the highest levels of the Bush administration. In his fourth book on President George W. Bush, Bob Woodward takes readers deep inside the tensions, secret debates, unofficial backchannels, distrust and determination within the White House, the Pentagon, the State Department, the intelligence agencies and the US military headquarters in Iraq. With unparalleled intimacy and detail, this gripping account of a president at war describes a period of distress and uncertainty within the US government from 2006 through mid-2008. The White House launches a secret strategy review that excludes the military. General George Casey, the commander in Iraq, believes that President Bush does not understand the war and eventually concludes he has lost the president's confidence. The Joint Chiefs of Staff also conduct a secret strategy review that goes nowhere. On the verge of revolt, they worry that the military will be blamed for a failure in Iraq.
We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam - Harold Moore and Joe Galloway
In their stunning follow-up to the classic bestseller We Were Soldiers Once... and Young, Lt. Gen. Hal Moore and Joe Galloway return to Vietnam and reflect on how the war changed them, their men, their enemies, and both countries - often with surprising results. It would be a monumental task for Moore and Galloway to top their classic 1992 memoir. But they come close in this sterling sequel, which tells the backstory of two of the Vietnam War's bloodiest battles (in which Moore participated as a lieutenant colonel), their first book and a 1993 ABC-TV documentary that brought them back to the battlefield. Moore's strong first-person voice reviews the basics of the November 1965 battles, part of the 34-day Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Among other things, Moore and Galloway (who covered the battle for UPI) offer portraits of two former enemy commanders, generals Nguyen Huu An and Chu Huy Man, whom the authors met - and bonded with - nearly three decades after the battle. This book proves again that Moore is an exceptionally thoughtful, compassionate and courageous leader (he was one of a handful of army officers who studied the history of the Vietnam wars before he arrived) and a strong voice for reconciliation and for honoring the men with whom he served.
In a Time of War: The Proud and Perilous Journey of West Point' Class of 2002 - Bill Murphy
The West Point cadets Murphy follows through their baptism by fire are an admirable sample of young American men and women: intelligent, ambitious and intensely patriotic. Most come from career military families and hold conservative opinions. Murphy describes their four years at West Point with respect even when discussing their love lives and marriages. All yearn for battle, and most get their wish. The book's best passages describe the confusion of moving to Iraq or Afghanistan and fighting insurgents, for which they lack both training and equipment. All feel something is not right but concentrate on the job at hand; some inevitably die or are grievously wounded.
Iraq and the Evolution of American Strategy - Steven Metz
Today the US military is more nimble, mobile, and focused on rapid responses against smaller powers than ever before. One could argue that the Gulf War and the postwar standoff with Saddam Hussein hastened needed military transformation and strategic reassessments in the post–Cold War era. But the preoccupation with Iraq also mired the United States in the Middle East and led to a bloody occupation. What will American strategy look like after US troops leave Iraq? Metz concludes that the United States has a long-standing, continuing problem “developing sound assumptions when the opponent operates within a different psychological and cultural framework.” He sees a pattern of misjudgments about Saddam and Iraq based on Western cultural and historical bias and a pervasive faith in the superiority of America’s worldview and institutions. This myopia contributed to America being caught off guard by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990, then underestimating his longevity, and finally miscalculating the likelihood of a stable and democratic Iraq after he was toppled. With lessons for all readers concerned about America’s role in the world, Dr. Metz’s important new work will especially appeal to scholars and students of strategy and international security studies, as well as to military professionals and DOD civilians. With a foreword by Colin S. Gray.
EVENTS OF INTEREST
6-7 December - Boyd Conference 2008 (Conference). Charlottetown, Prince Edward, Canada. There is an opportunity to hold a short, intense seminar on the applicability of Boyd’s ideas, particularly operating inside the OODA loop and grand strategy (sustaining our own morale and attracting the uncommitted), on the weekend of December 6-7 at the University of Prince Edward Island, Charlottetown, PEI. Canada. The theme would be applying these ideas to conflict in the post-Iraq era, and more specifically to the types of diffused, networked, “open source” armed conflicts that some have called “fifth generation warfare.” We are also interested in exploring solutions, such as the role of “resilient communities” (RC), for countering them. As Oil and food prices have climbed and the mortgage crisis has grown, the need to think more about Resilient Communities has become more urgent. We may have to re-invent our world! We envision this as a working seminar to help shape the policy agenda in the first year of the new administration.
13 January - The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948: Past, Present, and Future (Symposium). Washington, D.C. Mark your calendar for January 13, 2009. That is the confirmed date for “The Smith-Mundt Act of 1948: Past, Present, and Future”, a symposium to discuss the legislation on which America’s arsenal of persuasion is anchored. The one-day event will be hosted in Washington, D.C., with the location and co-sponsor all but confirmed. The format is four 90 minute panels and will emphasize Q&A, discourse, and debate and not presentations or monologues. The four panels will focus on past, present, future, what to do, respectively. Panelists will be drawn from practitioners (State and Defense Departments), academics, Congress, and the media. The event is free and open to the public but registration will be required (see below). This is a first of its kind in-depth discussion into the legislation that continues to set the parameters of our global engagement. Enacted at the beginning of the First War of Ideas, it is long past time to discuss it ten or more years into the Second War of Ideas, a struggle that goes beyond terrorism and insurgency and into economic and financial power.
