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What Congress Should Do About Obama's Drone Program
Tweet Share on Facebook February 12, 2013 CommentDaniel Gallington is the senior policy and program adviser at the George C. Marshall Institute in Arlington, Va. He served in senior national security policy positions in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, the Department of Justice, and as bipartisan general counsel for the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
Critics of targeting terrorists overseas with drones should read about "Operation Vengeance," the mission to kill Japanese Admiral Yamamoto in 1943. It started with President Roosevelt's order to "get Yamamoto," which was based on a decrypted message detailing Yamamoto's travel plans. In a legendary air combat operation, Yamamoto's airplane was intercepted and shot down by a group of long range P-38's, for a major psychological and strategic victory in the war against Japan.
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Why the Man who Shot bin Laden Doesn’t Have Healthcare
Tweet Share on Facebook February 11, 2013 CommentHeather Hurlburt is the executive director of the National Security Network in Washington, D.C. Heather previously served in the Clinton administration as speechwriter to the president, and as speechwriter and policy planning staff for Secretaries of State Madeleine Albright and Warren Christopher. Follow her on Twitter at @NatSecHeather.
This month's Esquire and today's Washington Post highlight a tragic personal story—the Navy SEAL who killed Osama bin Laden, known pseudonymously as "the Shooter," retired from the military 36 months short of the 20 year vesting time for benefits, and as a result lacks healthcare and worries about feeding his family.
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Why North Korea Is Testing Nuclear Weapons Now
Tweet Share on Facebook February 8, 2013 CommentAndrew Natsios is an executive professor at the George H.W. Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, and the author of Sudan, South Sudan and Darfur: What Everyone Needs to Know. Natsios served as administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and as President George W. Bush's special envoy to Sudan.
The first test of the Obama administration's second term foreign policy team is shaping up to be North Korea's upcoming nuclear explosion. Korean President Kim Jong Un last week declared martial law in anticipation of the country's third nuclear test that Un has reportedly ordered be conducted before the middle of February, which will coincidentally occur on his late father's (and former leader of North Korea) birthday. This week a bellicose and belligerent North Korean government put on its official website a bizarre and provocative video of the bombing of what appears to be New York City with the caption: "Somewhere in the United States, black clouds of smoke are billowing... It seems that the nest of wickedness is ablaze with the fire started by itself." The video includes the launch of a North Korean missile, implying that if the United States puts too much pressure on them the consequence will be a nuclear response. The Chinese foreign minister on Wednesday issued a stern public warning to North Korea against the test, and the Chinese Communist Party official party newspaper published an unprecedented editorial saying, "If North Korea insists on a third nuclear test despite attempts to dissuade it, it must pay a heavy price." North Korea is in no position to anger its only remaining patron and ally, and yet it may go ahead with the nuclear test anyway.
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In Africa, U.S. Businesses Are Losing Out to China
Tweet Share on Facebook February 8, 2013 CommentStephen Hayes is president and CEO of the Corporate Council on Africa.
I was recently asked by a news researcher to provide names of companies who have lost bids for African business to Chinese competition. The underlying concern is, why aren't American businesses doing better in Africa, and does the future of business in Africa, now the world's largest untapped market, belong to the Chinese, and if so, won't Africa necessarily gravitate politically towards a Chinese sphere of influence?
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United States Must Offer Internal Security Assistance to Egypt
Tweet Share on Facebook February 8, 2013 CommentPatrick Christy is a senior policy analyst at the Foreign Policy Initiative.
While recent news reports have focused on Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's high-profile visit to Egypt to attend a summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, more persistent attention needs to be paid to Egypt's internal security challenges—many of which directly impact the strategic interests of the United States and its regional partners.
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U.S. Drones, Iran Space Monkey Show Increase in Airborne Weaponry
Tweet Share on Facebook February 8, 2013 CommentNorth Korea's trippy space dream sequence ending in the destruction of New York City. Iran's launching of a monkey into outer space. And debate over the U.S. drone program that allows for the targeted killings of terrorists and American civilians suspected of colluding with them from far, far above. It was very much "eyes in the sky" this week when it came to global events.
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Are Special Operations Forces Safe From Sequestration?
Tweet Share on Facebook February 7, 2013 CommentMichael P. Noonan is the Director of the Program on National Security at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia, and a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Pentagon officials are increasingly doubtful that sequestration will be avoided. While all elements of Department of Defense will suffer cuts under that scenario, some will suffer smaller cuts than others. Two areas that people have discussed as being less susceptible to cuts are in the areas of cybersecurity and special operations forces. Leaving aside cybersecurity, however, is it safe to assume that special operations forces are safe from such cuts?
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Afghanistan's Challenges Show the Limits of U.S. Military Power
Tweet Share on Facebook February 7, 2013 CommentMalou Innocent is a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute.
Foreign policy elites on both sides of the aisle continually advocate America's leadership role for the sake of spreading democracy. In doing so, they inflate their foresight and ignore the uncomfortable fact that despite the best efforts, America's military and civilian establishments have faced enormous difficulty repairing fragile states emerging from civil conflict. Bipartisan conventional wisdom has created a system that fails to appreciate the limits of America's power, as demonstrated in Afghanistan.
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Mali and Fighting al Qaeda in the Post-bin Laden Era
Tweet Share on Facebook February 5, 2013 CommentAki Peritz is the senior policy advisor for national security at Third Way.
It's welcome news to hear French and Malian troops have almost fully liberated northern Mali from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, known as AQIM, and the other jihadists who turned much of the country into a neo-Taliban state. Let's take this opportunity to reflect on how to wage war against al Qaeda in the post-Osama bin Laden era.
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Iran Electoral Power Play Shows How Fragile Regime Actually Is
Tweet Share on Facebook February 5, 2013 CommentIlan Berman is vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, DC.
Iran's presidential election may still be some four months away, but the political machinations have already begun. Last week, Iran's Council of Guardians, the powerful governmental oversight body tasked with interpreting the country's constitution, passed a new law imposing additional curbs on the electoral process within the Islamic Republic—and adding a new layer of bureaucracy to its already-convoluted political process.
