Shia

Air Warfare

Hard Lessons from America’s Longest Wars

This is one of two pieces by our contributor James Kitfield, who’s won more Gerald Ford Defense Reporting awards than anyone else (3), on the challenges and mistakes America has made in grappling with the complex threat of global terrorism. As James puts it in his summary sentence: U.S. counterterrorism forces continue to learn and adapt […]

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Threats

Will Daesh 3.0 Rise From Mosul’s Ashes?

They’re surrounded, targeted by constant bombardments and slowly strangled of supplies and reinforcements for months so fighters for Daesh (aka ISIS) might reasonably have abandoned Mosul and tried to slink off into the night. That’s what happened last June in the battle to recapture Fallujah, when Daesh fighters were relatively quickly routed, and hundreds were killed by U.S. […]

Congress

‘Our Greatest Challenge’: CJCS Gen. Dunford

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford came of age on the battlefields of America’s post-9/11 wars. As a colonel, he led the 5th Marine Regiment during the 2003 invasion of Iraq, earning his nickname of “Fighting Joe” Dunford. Later, he commanded all U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan as commander of the […]

Threats

The Axis of Chaos: U.S., Saudi Arabia, & Iran

  When Air Force One touches down at King Khalid International Airport on Wednesday, President Obama will enter a Middle East figuratively as well as literally on fire. In the current revolutionary period, the region is beset by multiple cross-cutting wars, the ongoing disintegration of at least four states (Syria, Iraq, Libya and Yemen), and the ascendance […]

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Congress

A Calibrated Response To ISIL

The ISIL-induced crisis in the Middle East is a major one with regional implications. With several years of dynamic change in the region, and the failure to create a stable Iraq during the period after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, ISIL has functioned like a match thrown into a gas can. What  should we do? We […]