Blog Posts

"After 28 years of land wars in the Middle East, counterinsurgency doctrine is now for the bookshelves: lessons learned the hard way, and always available for use upon the next mistake or quagmire, but hopefully allowed to gather dust. No military service has suffered so much and learned so many lessons as the U.S. Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. But the object of strategy is to avoid its use in such a manner again."

"The Senate voted Wednesday to end U.S. support for the Saudi-led military campaign in Yemen, its latest rebuke of the Trump administration’s continued embrace of the Saudi regime despite growing frustration among lawmakers with its actions on the world stage."

"Islamic State group fighters launched suicide attacks Wednesday at US-backed Syrian forces in a desperate bid to defend their last scrap of territory after 3,000 of their fellow jihadists surrendered."

"The Hezbollah terrorist organization has begun an attempt to establish and entrench a covert force in the Syrian Golan Heights."

"As President George W. Bush pressed the case for war in Iraq in the summer of 2002, top State Department officials warned that an invasion to overthrow Saddam Hussein could spark internal Iraqi chaos, Middle East upheaval and threats to U.S. interests, according to formerly classified documents released this week."

"As the battle against the Islamic State (IS) group in eastern Syria enters its final stages, the BBC's Jewan Abdi says the mood amongst many of the jihadists' supporters who have left the area - including women and children - remains defiant."

The U.S. State Department is painting a grim picture of violations and abuses in countries that already have dismal records in its “Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2018.”

"The longest peace talks between the U.S. and the Taliban to end America’s 17-year war in Afghanistan concluded Tuesday night in Qatar, with both sides saying progress had been made."

"Hundreds of citizens in a key drug trafficking region of southern Colombia have been forced to flee their homes amid increased fighting between rival criminal groups, highlighting shifting criminal dynamics in the region in the absence of the former ex-FARC mafia boss, alias 'Guacho.'"

"The Pentagon on Tuesday unveiled details of the $750 billion national defense budget that the Trump administration has asked Congress to pass, calling it an example of how the military is shifting its emphasis from counterinsurgencies to competition with China and Russia."

"As the war is waning, Iran wants to keep a strong footing in Syria by urging Iranian construction companies to invest in the war-torn country."

"The longest round of peace talks between the United States and the Taliban has ended with "real strides" being made but without an agreement on troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, U.S. special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad said on March 12."

"Fires raged to the sound of gunfire and exploding artillery shells overnight in the Islamic State enclave of Baghuz in what U.S.-backed forces hope will be the last night for the terror group’s self-proclaimed caliphate."

"While President Donald Trump’s new budget Monday reflects White House funding priorities, it has little if any chance of becoming law, as Democrats who control the House strongly disagree with what they consider the bookkeeping gimmickry accompanying it."

"The Trump administration is proposing slashing the budget for the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development by almost 24 percent, with particularly steep cuts to humanitarian aid, refugee assistance and global health programs."

"Tehran wields influence in the Middle East through its use of non-state partners, despite renewed U.S. sanctions against Iran and a U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal. Iran’s economic woes have not contributed to declining activism in the region—at least not yet."

"The Russian military has commissioned more than 1,000 new aircraft and thousands of tanks in the past few years in a massive modernization effort amid tensions with the West, the nation’s defense minister said Monday."

Continue on for summaries and links to all the latest articles.

Continue on for a summary and a link to the full Brookings Institution report.

Continue on for links to two op-eds on the situation in Afghanistan from Divergent Options and The Interpreter.

"Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived in Baghdad on Monday, Iraqi state television said, making his first official visit to the nation that Tehran once fought a bloody war against and later backed in the battle with the Islamic State group."

"The American military has escalated a battle against the Shabab, an extremist group affiliated with Al Qaeda, in Somalia even as President Trump seeks to scale back operations against similar Islamist insurgencies elsewhere in the world, from Syria and Afghanistan to West Africa."

"Mullah Mohammad Omar, the founder of the Taliban, lived in hiding near a U.S. base in southern Afghanistan until his death, according to a new research-group report that contradicts long-held theories by U.S. officials about the notorious one-eyed leader."

Norvell B. DeAtkine ("Tex") at Lima Charlie - "The United States Army War College (USAWC) Iraq Report was presented to the American public as a compendium of lessons learned about the Iraq War, from the successes of Operation Iraqi Freedom, to the messy, bloody aftermath."

"We’ve spent the past year studying Russian IRA disinformation on Twitter with the goal of better understanding its strategy and tactics. Like KGB disinformation operations of the past, this campaign has two overt goals."