Blog Posts

"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."

From "The Conversation" - "The names of American-born Hoda Muthana and Brit Shamima Begum have appeared in countless headlines in the United States and Europe since these two female members of the Islamic State group were discovered in a large displaced persons camp weeks ago."

"Across the islands of the southern Philippines, the black flag of the Islamic State is flying over what the group considers its East Asia province. Men in the jungle, two oceans away from the arid birthplace of the Islamic State, are taking the terrorist brand name into new battles."

"Trump administration officials didn’t secure commitments from key European allies to send military forces to Syria, passing a target date set for Friday, but said they would continue building their case for allied involvement to prevent a resurgence of the Islamic State extremist group."

"By scuttling plans to help its leaders understand what went wrong, the service is turning a blind eye to insights of enduring relevance."

"As the caliphate in Syria crumbles, men who fought for ‘true jihad’ in Marawi tell of how the suffering of civilians made them flee."

"A week after U.S.-backed forces announced the start of their final assault on Islamic State territory in Syria, there is little the troops or the countries backing them can be sure of."

"Iraqi military officials, security experts and the U.S. government said that Iraq has failed to develop the extensive intelligence network that would offer the best chance of rooting out the militants."

"Despite the Islamic State group’s territorial losses, it is not surrendering and will morph into an insurgency marked by assassinations, improvised bomb attacks and ambushes, warned America’s top general in the Middle East to Congress on Thursday."

"The commander of U.S. forces in Africa has cast doubt on whether the Pentagon will complete plans to cut forces in Africa by 10 percent as the Department of Defense announced late last year."

"Nearly 11 days after peace negotiations between the United States and the Taliban began with high hopes, it has become clear that any resolution to the 18-year war could be frustratingly slow. One of the most prominent issues thwarting progress is a disagreement over a fundamental question: What is terrorism, and who is a terrorist?"

"U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces officials, eager to declare victory after laying siege to the northeastern Syrian village of Baghuz more than a week ago, expressed hope this latest exodus of both IS followers and those kidnapped or enslaved by the terror group would be the last."

"As Islamic State cadres mount a final stand in what remains of their proto-state, the group is already switching gears, returning to its insurgent roots by seeding sleeper cells across parts of Syria and Iraq it once controlled."

"The final report on the fatal Niger ambush, which will include who is being punished, awards, and a redacted investigation into the deaths of the four fallen U.S. soldiers, is tied up in the offices of the secretary of defense. That has at least one lawmaker frustrated."