Evaluating the US Military Pivot to Africa

by Nick Turse It’s rare to hear one top military commander publicly badmouth another, call attention to his faults, or simply point out his shortcomings. Despite a seemingly endless supply of debacles from strategic setbacks to quagmire conflicts since 9/11,… Continue Reading

Pentagon: We Come to Facilitate

by David Isenberg The latest version of U.S. national security orthodoxy was on display this week at the Omni Shoreham hotel in Washington, D.C., where Defense One, a division of Atlantic Media’s Government Executive Media Group, held its third annual… Continue Reading

The National Effort at Self-Exoneration on Torture

by Paul R. Pillar The nation’s current attempt at catharsis through a gargantuan report prepared by the Democratic staff of a Senate committee exhibits some familiar patterns. Most of them involve treating a government agency as if it were Dorian Gray’s… Continue Reading

ISIS and the Politics of Surprise

by Paul Pillar The recent burst of recriminations about what the U.S. intelligence community did or did not tell the president of the United States in advance about the rise of the extremist group sometimes called ISIS, and about associated… Continue Reading

My Long, Long-Delayed Response to ProPublica

by Jim Lobe As readers of this blog know, I’ve had a series of exchanges with editors at ProPublica regarding my critique of an article published July 11 and entitled “The Terror Threat and Iran’s Inroads in Latin America” by their award-winning… Continue Reading