National Security Studies Program

Archives: National Security Studies Program Articles and Op-Eds

Thought Cloud

  • By
  • Rosa Brooks,
  • New America Foundation
August 2, 2012 |

One of the biggest misunderstandings about the civilian-military gap is that it is cultural -- the national security version of the red state-blue state divide.

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Kill or Capture

  • By
  • Steve Coll,
  • New America Foundation
August 2, 2012 |

On September 30, 2011, in a northern province of Yemen, Anwar al-Awlaki, an American citizen and a senior figure in Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, finished his breakfast and walked with several companions to vehicles parked nearby. Before he could drive away, a missile fired from a drone operated by the Central Intelligence Agency struck the group and killed Awlaki, as well as a second American citizen, of Pakistani origin, whom the drone operators did not realize was present.

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Generals Are from Mars, Their Bosses Are from Venus

  • By
  • Rosa Brooks,
  • New America Foundation
July 25, 2012 |

Most Americans know roughly as much about the U.S. military as they know about the surface of the moon. It's not that we don't like the military -- we love it! We just don't have a clue who's in it, what it does, what it costs us, or what it costs those who join it. And as a nation, we don't particularly care, either.

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What's Working in Pakistan

  • By
  • Peter Bergen,
  • New America Foundation
July 23, 2012 |

Pakistan can't get no respect.
 
In 2007, Newsweek published an influential cover story proclaiming it "the most dangerous country in the world."
 
The bill of particulars for this indictment typically includes the inarguable facts that the Taliban is headquartered in Pakistan, as is what remains of al-Qaeda, as well as an alphabet soup of other jihadist terrorist groups.
 
And in 2011, it became embarrassingly clear that Pakistan had harbored Osama bin Laden for almost a decade, even if unwittingly, in a city not far from the capital, Islamabad.

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Partners or Adversaries?

  • By
  • Shamila Chaudhary,
  • New America Foundation
July 22, 2012 |

Each time the routes closed, I recall US policymakers waiting with bated breath for them to open again. In those days the dependency on Pakistan for the transport of Nato supplies, especially fuel, was much higher than it stands today.

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Civilian Casualties Plummet in Drone Strikes

  • By
  • Peter Bergen,
  • Jennifer Rowland,
  • New America Foundation
July 13, 2012 |
Last week, a U.S. drone attack killed 19 suspected Taliban militants at a compound in North Waziristan on the Afghan border, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.
 
Dawn, a leading English-language Pakistani newspaper, later reported that the drone actually launched two separate strikes, the second of which occurred "when tribesmen were still carrying out rescue work," and killed an additional three people.
 
It was unclear whether the three were civilians or militants.
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Elected Pakistani Officials Could be Exempted from Contempt of Court Charges

  • By
  • Jennifer Rowland,
  • New America Foundation
July 11, 2012 |

Exceptions to the rules

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Drones Decimating Taliban in Pakistan

  • By
  • Peter Bergen,
  • Jennifer Rowland,
  • New America Foundation
July 3, 2012 |
On Sunday a missile launched from a U.S. drone struck a house in Pakistan's remote tribal agency of North Waziristan, killing eight suspected militants, most of whom were loyal to the Pakistani Taliban commander, Hafiz Gul Bahadur.
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Time to Declare Victory: al Qaeda is Defeated

  • By
  • Peter Bergen,
  • New America Foundation
June 28, 2012 |

To end World War II, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin demanded an unconditional surrender from the Nazis.  But there will be no such surrender from al Qaeda. The group is not a state that is capable of entering into such an agreement, even if it wanted to do so, which seems highly unlikely.

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Nation of Immigrants

  • By
  • Steve Coll,
  • New America Foundation
June 25, 2012 |

On August 31, 1962, a sixty-three-year-old Cuban citizen named Pedro Víctor García boarded a Pan American Airways flight to Miami without a valid visa. After he landed, immigration police detained him. They could have deported Victor back to Havana immediately, but, for reasons that are unclear, they allowed him to stay, and to plead his case. Eventually, he became a legal resident of the United States.

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