National Security

It is not unusual for filmmakers to try to inject authenticity into a movie’s first frames by flashing onscreen words such as “based on real events.” Yet the language chosen by the makers of Zero Dark Thirty to preface their film about events leading to the death of Osama bin Laden is distinctively journalistic: “Based on Firsthand Accounts of Actual Events.” As those words fade, “September 11, 2001” appears against a black screen and we hear genuine emergency calls made by victims of al-Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center.

Oh, boy.

Or maybe I should say: Oh, boys!

Because here we go again! As a female columnist at Foreign Policy, it is apparently my solemn duty to point out that President Obama has populated the top ranks of the national security and foreign policy establishment exclusively with fellas. Where are those binders full of women when you need them?

President Barack Obama has nominated his top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, to be the next director of the CIA.

If there is an emerging Obama doctrine to deal with the threat from al Qaeda and its allies, it is clearly a rejection of the use of conventional military forces and a growing reliance instead on the use of drones and U.S. Special Operations Forces -- and Brennan has been central to Obama's policy.

If media reports are true, Barack Obama will soon nominate Chuck Hagel to be secretary of defense. If so, it may prove the most consequential foreign-policy appointment of his presidency. Because the struggle over Hagel is a struggle over whether Obama can change the terms of foreign-policy debate.

Peter Bergen discusses how the new movie "Zero Dark Thirty" stacks up to the real account of how Osama bin Laden was captured and killed. Rebecca MacKinnon provides post-game analysis of the Internet governance summit in Dubai that wrapped up this week. Elizabeth Weingarten hosts.

"Zero Dark Thirty" is a likely shoo-in, deservedly, for Oscar nominations for best director (Kathryn Bigelow) and best screenplay (Mark Boal) and perhaps a slew of other categories.

Jessica Chastain, who plays Maya, a CIA analyst who in the film is the key player in finding Osama bin Laden, is reminiscent of Cate Blanchett in both looks and talent. The movie is beautifully filmed, and the propulsive score moves the action forward effectively.

In September 2012, the trailer for the film The Innocence of Muslims shot to infamy after spending the summer as a mercifully obscure video in one of YouTube’s more putrid backwaters.

Anne-Marie Slaughter made a splash this summer with an article in the Atlantic called "Why Women Still Can't Have it All," chronicling her decision to leave a prestigious State Department job to spend more time with her teenage sons. This week, Slaughter published a short follow-up article on the foreign-policy impact of workplace policies that lead women to "opt out" -- and the factors that make many successful women unwilling to discuss these issues openly.

Tara Maller explains why the next CIA director should be a woman and Jonathan Guyer joins from Cairo to discuss what's really going on in Egypt. Elizabeth Weingarten hosts.

Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, a possible nominee to be the next secretary of state, came to Capitol Hill Tuesday to perform a private mea culpa to key Republican senators for her erroneous initial public statements about the perpetrators of the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in September in which four Americans were killed.

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