Defense & Security Archive

With instability rising in Afghanistan, U.S. power in the region approaching its apex and Pakistan appearing increasingly hostile, this World Politics Review special report examines the Afghanistan War through articles published in the past year. Below are links to each article in this special report, which subscribers can read in full. Subscribers can also download a .pdf version of this report. Not a subscriber? Purchase this report on Kindle or as a .pdf from Scribd. Or subscribe now. U.S. Strategy Obama’s Fragile Afghanistan Strategy By Nikolas Gvosdev January 14, 2011 Long-Term U.S. Presence in Afghanistan a Mistake By Thomas P.M. […]

The recent U.S. claims that Pakistan’s intelligence service have aided attacks against U.S. troops in Afghanistan; the discovery that Osama bin Laden had been living for years in a safe house in central Pakistan; the U.S. special forces operation to attack his Pakistani compound without notifying Pakistani authorities; the disputes over U.S. drone strikes on Pakistani territory: These and other controversies are surface manifestations of a deeper “trust deficit” between the United States and Pakistan. On Sept. 22, then-Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen made explosive comments about the nature of the relationship between Pakistan’s […]

In Tehran, the annual international pro-Palestine conference has gotten underway as the United Nations Security Council opened its discussions on Palestine’s bid for recognition.

Last month I spent a couple of hours on the phone being interviewed for the next iteration of the National Intelligence Council’s global futures project. This one imagines the world in 2030, and the interview was part of the organization’s early polling process of experts around the world. I’ve participated similarly in previous iterations, and I’ve always found the NIC’s questions fascinating for how they reveal the group’s primary fears about the future. That’s not to say I dislike the NIC’s global projections, because I do. They tend to lack the alarmist hype of most future scenarios generated by the […]