Blog Posts

Beyond Convergence: World Without Order (National Defense University Book)

"The Taliban - who, when they controlled the government, banned television and jailed people for photography - rely on their front-line fighters to record the moment and share it."

As delivered by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Washington, D.C., Oct. 28, 2016.

The megacities of the future (population >10M) will be more densely populated and socially and politically complex than anything we know today. (H/T The Intercept)

Today, the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction released an audit of USAID's Measuring Impacts of Stabilization Initiatives program.

Pathetic traitors tell their “story”.

"As Iraqi forces move to retake the city from ISIS, analysts warn the Shiite ruling elite is not doing enough to include a disenfranchised Sunni minority, whose anger helped feed the growth of ISIS."

"The Pentagon has secretly expanded its global network of drone bases to North Africa, deploying unmanned aircraft and U.S. military personnel to a facility in Tunisia."

“Jihadist group courts al-Shabaab members in Somalia with promises of an easier life; lower taxes, fewer political diatribes.”

"When the US fights its wars in the Middle East, it has a habit of recruiting local forces as proxies and then jettisoning them when the going gets tough or regional politics intervene."

Continue on for links to the October 2016 issue of the CTC Sentinel.

"The 21st-century U.N. doctrine called Responsibility To Protect (R2P), set up by the world body's member states to prevent mass killings, has only had limited success."

Russia’s apparent success in exploiting fissures within the Alliance is the greatest threat the United States and its NATO allies face from Moscow.

Fugitive Afghan Taliban leaders are being increasingly pressured to relocate from Pakistan along with their families and businesses for refusing to join peace talks with Kabul.

Dr. David Kilcullen interview (audio) on National Public Radio.

“When everybody else decided it was a good idea to forestall a public debate about enormously important and complicated policy questions, the press decided to go along and let it happen.”

"The current revision of Joint Publication 5-0, Joint Operation Planning, provides an opportunity to fix the flawed description of the center of gravity concept."

IS leaders accept they will lose control of the city of Mosul but are planning to defend their last major urban stronghold in Iraq tenaciously, U.S. and Kurdish officials say.

Dunford and other military leaders have called countering violent extremism a "generational problem," one they privately concede the U.S. may never resolve.

“The Islamic State group is expected to fall back from its outer perimeter defenses in Mosul and wage what could be brutal urban combat inside the city.”

While Saudi Arabia and other US allies, or individuals close to their governments, have long been suspected of financing extremist groups in the region, this accusation is more specific.

“Four days ago, the U.S. Defense Secretary was predicting a ‘lasting defeat’ of ISIS. Now, a top general is warning that the terror group is preparing for a guerrilla war.”

“The Obama administration's willingness to appease Tehran is costing us in Yemen.”

Zipline International is using drones to deliver vaccines, medicine and blood to some of the most hard-to-reach populations in Rwanda.