The anti-regime protests now jolting Iran send the world two core messages — one dismal and sobering, the other an explosive cocktail of the deadly and the hopeful. Both core messages provide guidance for open-minded American and free world policy makers. It takes a narrow-minded Obama administration apologist to miss the dismal and sobering message: […]
Austin Bay
Posted inOp-Eds, sj-web
Trump lays out plan for future of U.S.
The national security strategy President Donald Trump outlined in a December 18 speech has drawn searing criticism from China. That’s a good indication Trump is on the right track. In his speech, the president declared that America will utilize all elements of national power (in appropriate combinations to defend its national interests.) The elements of […]
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Challenges ahead for American intelligence agencies
In October 2003, former Secretary of Defense and former CIA Director James Schlesinger observed that “major organizational change (in American intelligence agencies) is not the salvation. I would submit the real challenge lies in recruiting, fostering, training and motivating people with insight.” Insight. Sounds arcane, mysterious, rare, tough to describe to human resources directors much […]
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Threat of two big wars at once returns
A quick scan of existing and emerging threats to the U.S. and its vital interests ought to end any lingering debate. The Pentagon must prepare to fight two simultaneous wars in two widely separated geo-political theaters. Right now, I don’t think we can do it. During the Cold War, the U.S. prepared to fight globally, […]
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The Islamic State's bloody defeat In Mosul
On June 21, as Iraqi ground forces neared the center of Mosul’s Old City, Islamic State fighters detonated explosives and destroyed the al-Nuri Grand Mosque. For eight centuries, the building symbolized Mosul, which is why, in June 2014, ISIS senior commander Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi proclaimed the ISIS caliphate from a Grand Mosque balcony. Speaking freely […]
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Iranian threats may spur Saudi-Israeli alliance
The Iranian-sponsored November 4 ballistic missile attack on Saudi Arabia’s capital, Riyadh, continues to roil the Middle East — and it should. Recently I wrote that missile attack signaled an escalation in the simmering regional war between Sunni Muslim Saudi Arabia and Iran’s Shia Islamic revolutionary regime. Their proxy war in Yemen would become more […]
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The Saudi Arabia-Iran war escalates
On November 4, a U.S.-made Patriot missile intercepted an Iranian-manufactured Burkan H-2 short-range ballistic missile as its warhead plunged toward the international airport outside Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital. Though the missile was launched from Yemen, with good reason Saudi leaders called the attack an act of “aggression” by Iran. A human rights organization said the […]
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Crime props up North Korea's regime
The economic and political sanctions regimen the Trump Administration has placed on North Korea and its corporate enablers may help undermine one of the dictatorship’s most important industries: its global organized crime operation. Military and diplomatic analysts agree that criminal organizations influence several ongoing wars. But crime syndicate participation is rarely a decisive factor. However, […]
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Niger and the West African war on terror
In his October 23 Pentagon press conference describing the U.S. military presence in Niger, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Joseph Dunford demonstrated it is possible to address serious national security issues and finesse the current spate of domestic political hysterics. “This area (in west Africa) is inherently dangerous,” General Dunford said. “We’re […]
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Libyan factions start process of peace
The UN and western diplomats are trying to put Libya back together again. Previous diplomatic attempts to glue the broken state have failed — bloodily. The Libyan curse of regionalism is a major reason. World leaders underestimated the damage done to Libyan society by dictator Muammar Gaddafi. During his four decades in power, Gaddafi savaged […]