Blog Posts

"President Trump’s decision to pull U.S. troops out of Syria has triggered a scramble among international powers and local forces to figure out how to fill the potentially destabilizing vacuum the Americans will leave behind."

"U.S. peace envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad says that although talks with the Taliban have produced the framework for a peace deal there is still a 'long way to go' before a final agreement. When Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani laid out the red carpet in 2017 for controversial Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar — once known as 'the Butcher of Kabul' for his role in the bloody conflict for the control of the capital in the 1990s — many thought he was trying to isolate the central Taliban leadership by luring factions to break away and join the government. It didn't work."

"U.S. counter-terrorism missions will soon place more emphasis on a little-known Pentagon program designed to help “surrogate forces,” rather than traditional allied units that are dependent on U.S. training, advice and assistance."

"The possible use of U.S. military force to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro raises concerns about the possible costs in lives and unintended consequences that may come from committing American troops to fight and die in another foreign conflict."

"The war for the 'caliphate' is almost over. But it is not the end for hundreds of Isis fighters surrounded in eastern Syria, or the thousands who have already escaped."

"As the prospect of a negotiated end to the war in Afghanistan is closer than it has ever been, the peace process with the Taliban could be derailed by competing agendas. Longtime rivals Russia and the United States have backed separate negotiations with different stakeholders, muddling the complex process."

"The Pentagon is preparing to pull all U.S. forces out of Syria by the end of April, even though the Trump administration has yet to come up with a plan to protect its Kurdish partners from attack when they leave, current and former U.S. officials said."

"Fears that Washington is increasingly losing influence across the globe are starting to come to fruition in Africa, where a top military official says Russia is playing on perceived U.S. weaknesses to gain leverage and resources. The most alarming inroads have come in African countries where leaders are seeking to consolidate power, the commander of U.S. Africa Command, Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, told lawmakers Thursday, adding Russia seems to have its sights set on areas that could give them an edge over U.S. allies."

"While much of the conflicts across the Middle East tend toward low tech and low intensity, the fight in Syria is providing Marine commanders with a wealth of knowledge and experience for a future fight with near peer rivals like Russia and China."

"The U.S. military’s airstrike campaign in Somalia won’t be enough to defeat Islamic militants in the country, where indigenous forces need to 'step up' the fight, the commander for U.S. Africa Command said Thursday."

"IS once controlled 88,000 sq km (34,000 sq miles) of territory stretching from western Syria to eastern Iraq, imposed its brutal rule on almost eight million people, and generated billions of dollars in revenue from oil, extortion, robbery and kidnapping. Now, between 1,000 and 1,500 militants are believed to be left in a 50 sq km (20 sq mile) area in the Middle Euphrates River Valley, near Syria's border with Iraq."

This monograph focuses on an understudied, but yet a critically important and timely component of land warfare, related to the battlefield use of chemical weapons by contemporary threat forces.

"A new pro-government Venezuelan militia or 'colectivo' allegedly trained by Colombian rebels may have posted itself alongside security forces on the Venezuela-Colombia border."

Taliban representatives and an Afghan delegation led by former President Hamid Karzai have said that after two days of negotiations in Russia they aim to continue their "intra-Afghan" dialogue in Qatar "as soon as possible."

"The leftist ELN became Colombia’s largest guerrilla group after the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, disbanded following a peace agreement with the government in September 2016. As I write in my new book on the counter-insurgency efforts leading up to the peace deal, there were already clear signs that neutralizing the FARC would not end Colombia’s 52-year armed conflict."

"A stream of families and fighters, many of them hungry or injured, are surrendering on a rocky patch of desert in southeastern Syria."

"The Defense Department doesn’t want to lose its irregular warfare edge, honed through more than a decade of conflict across the Middle East, even as it directs its armed forces to refocus on state-level adversaries."

"Taliban and influential Afghan opposition leaders concluded a rare two-day “peace meeting” in Moscow on Wednesday, where they jointly declared that a complete withdrawal of U.S.-led foreign forces was key to a lasting peace in Afghanistan."

"America will not cede leadership of the fight against the Islamic State group, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday, as he tried to allay fears that President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw forces from Syria could imperil gains against the militants there and in neighboring Iraq."

"President Donald Trump expects coalition forces to announce as early as next week that they have reclaimed all of the territory once held by Islamic State group militants in Iraq and Syria, a major milestone in the ongoing fight there."

"A senior Green Beret officer has been removed from command of a high-profile combat adviser unit just before its scheduled deployment to Afghanistan, the Army has confirmed — and some veterans of recent counterterrorism missions are crying foul."

“'We need to move beyond our 20th century approach to messaging and start looking at influence as an integral aspect of modern irregular warfare,' Andrew Knaggs, the Pentagon’s deputy assistant secretary of defense for special operations and combating terrorism, said at a defense industry symposium Tuesday."

"The leader of the Taliban's peace negotiations with the US says the insurgents do not want to seize 'the whole country by [military] power'."

"The U.S.- led military coalition needs to keep military pressure on the Islamic State even after the American withdrawal from Syria. And the U.S. needs to be prepared to still provide $4 billion yearly to Kabul after a troop drawdown in Afghanistan, U.S. Central Command commander Army Gen. Joseph Votel told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday."

"President Donald Trump made the case for drawing down the number of American troops fighting overseas and boosting up those deployed along the southern U.S. border in his annual State of the Union address Tuesday night."