President-elect Trump has promised to destroy Daesh. If Trump wants to avoid being the third Administration in succession to sink into the morass of the Middle East, it is essential to first ask what declaring victory would look like. Part of the West’s challenge is rooted in that Daesh is a brand inside a religion and… Keep reading →

This is the first of our monthly op-eds by Rep. Joe Wilson, chairman of the House Armed Services subcommittee on emerging threats and capabilities. Dear readers, if you’ve got unique and useful topics you think Rep. Wilson should address, please let us or his office know. Read on. The Editor.  Despite the Taliban clearly still… Keep reading →

Lost in this month’s headlines is the fact that the democratically elected leaders of three countries close to the United States and important for its security strategies — France, Mali, and Turkey — have declared (or in France’s case, extended) formal states of emergency. All three states cited good reasons for doing so: France and… Keep reading →

Former National Security Council cyber security director Richard Clarke says the military hasn’t done enough to secure today’s networked weapons systems against hacking and is likely to find out what they’ve missed the hard way once a conflict with a sophisticated adversary begins. “The nightmare scenario that I hear a lot of flag officers worrying about is,… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: Two US special operators assisted with this morning’s hostage rescue operation in Bamako, Mali, a US Africa Command spokesman confirmed. The operators were in Mali already as advisors and so could swiftly respond to support the local forces, Col. Mark Cheadle told me. The Americans advised their Malian counterparts, who conducted the rescue, and physically helped… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The cowards who killed at least 129 unarmed innocents in Paris this evening have provoked the French nation, perhaps beyond endurance. America’s Defense Secretary Ash Carter called the killings “an assault on our common human dignity.” French President Francois Hollande, who appeared grave and saddened as he first spoke of the attacks, later went to… Keep reading →

WASHINGTON: The allied air strikes against ISIL that brought together the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the UAE and Jordan “are a watershed moment” in the fight to solve terrorism, “the major security issue of our time,” one of the most rational defense lawmakers in Congress said today. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said the strikes offered… Keep reading →

Colorado Republican Doug Lamborn is a fervent advocate for US aid to Israel’s missile defense programs, especially the celebrated Iron Dome. In this op-ed, the House Armed Services Committee member argues that such technologies are just one part of a larger strategy for the survival of Israel: living with perennial threats by regularly cutting them back — often… Keep reading →

We remember.

[UPDATED 9:55 am with Facebook message allegedly from Harroun] WASHINGTON: Eric Harroun, an American Army veteran who reportedly joined al Nusra, an al Qaeda affiliate, may have been killed in Syria. [BREAKING: We’ve just received a Facebook message from Harroun — or at least someone claiming to be him and with access to his account… Keep reading →