[caption id="attachment_12920" align="alignleft" width="150" caption=" "][/caption] By Dr. Richard Weitz 01/20/2012 There is widespread international support for reintegrating lower-level Taliban foot soldiers who may have joined the insurgency for money or other non-ideological reasons. Inducing many of these “accidental guerrillas” to leave the insurgency is a reasonable goal since neither…
By Dr. Richard Weitz 01/16/2011 - Limited international backing contributed to the failure of the past Afghan-led reintegration and reconciliation initiatives. Until recently, these processes encountered strong opposition in many Western countries. Meanwhile, reconciliation confronted the issue of previous Taliban misrule and the organization’s ties to the al-Qaeda perpetrators of…
01/15/2012 by Richard Weitz Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner’s failure to secure Chinese government support for imposing sanctions on Iran should come as no surprise. The Chinese government has long resisted sanctions that are not approved by the UNSC, which gives Beijing the right to veto them. And within the UNSC…
01/15/2011 - by Richard Weitz Editor's Note: In the first of four parts, Richard Weitz looks at the prospects and challenges for an Afghan peace process in 2012 and the reality of the 2014 target goal of withdrawal. If it is not real now, what will 2014 magic bring that…
01/08/2012 by Robbin Laird As the country prepares for the Presidential and Congressional elections, the world will move on oblivious to the logic of the debate inside the Beltway and the country. The national debt has become a more important focus than national security. In fact, for many the two have…
01/15/2012 by Richard Weitz Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's recent five-day, four-country Latin American tour, his fifth to the region as president, has been designed to bolster his reelection chances by showing his supposed global clout, achieve economic gains through bilateral deals, and circumvent international sanctions, which are becoming increasingly severe.…
01/13/2012 by Robbin Laird The USN-USMC team is building forces for the future : as the largest amphibious exercise since the 1990s will take place starting this month in Norfolk, Va, it will include not only US forces but French, Dutch and British forces as well. The USN-USMC team is…
01/12/2012 by Robbin Laird Combining Aegis with the new Joint Strike Fighter will enhance coverage and lead to a global honeycomb of defensive capabilities…. Aegis capabilities are essential for power projection against missiles and other threats, especially in light of the current instability and uncertainty emanating from areas such as…
