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.… Keep reading →

EUCOM HEADQUARTERS, STUTTGART: in a series of lightning meetings held throughout the day, Defense Secretary Ash Carter and 11 allies tried to hash out the next steps needed for dealing Daesh “a lasting defeat” in Iraq and Syria. Carter started the day with a short address to representatives of the now-11 partners — the 11th nation, Norway, just… Keep reading →

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… Keep reading →

President Obama was recently depicted on the cover of The Economist as the new George W. Bush, forced to head back to Iraq. One can correctly argue that the President and his national security team have spent more time distancing themselves from Bush’s administration than looking hard into the future and shaping the strategic space within which… Keep reading →

PENTAGON: The services’ draft budgets delivered to the Office of Secretary of Defense early this month are probably being shredded in light of the campaign in Iraq and Syria against the terrorist group known as ISIL. “If you’re asking me, are we going to have budget problems, the answer is yes,” the president’s top military advisor told reporters this… Keep reading →