Category: Blogs

Panetta: Security of NATO networks, ‘not sufficient to defend against the cyber threat’

By Leon Panetta, Department of Defense

From Leon Panetta, Department of Defense:  [O]ne of the key security challenges that I’ve focused on during my tenure as director of the CIA and now as secretary of defense is the threat from cyber-intrusions and cyber-attacks.  

Panetta: ‘Will NATO retreat from its responsibilities?’

By Leon Panetta, Department of Defense

From Leon Panetta, Department of Defense:  Since 1949, NATO has been an unprecedented force for global security and prosperity, developing into the most effective and capable and enduring multilateral security alliance the world has ever seen.  

Chinese paper urges PLA Navy to build overseas military bases

By China Defense Mashup

Are Drones Really Working?

By Danya Greenfield

President Obama’s nomination of John Brennan, who currently serves as the White House Senior Advisor for Counterterrorism, should occasion a debate regarding how the United States can best confront, respond to, or mitigate our most pressing security challenges, including the current counterterrorism strategy. In particular, John Brennan’s nomination as CIA director should spur re-evaluation of […]

Guiding the US Army War College in an Age of Austerity

By Sarwar Kashmeri

Budget cutbacks, war weariness, a world of stateless actors, against whom conventional warfare seems to achieve little. These are the strategic realities faced by the new commandant of the US Army War College. MG Tony Cucolo III discusses his challenges with Sarwar Kashmeri, senior fellow, Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security and adjunct professor, Norwich […]

Panetta: NATO Needs to Join U.S. Rebalance to Asia-Pacific

By Marcus Wiesgerber, DefenseNews

From Marcus Wiesgerber, DefenseNews:  U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta called on NATO to become a more flexible fighting force that can tackle a broad range of conflicts and urged European allies to join the Pentagon’s shift to the Asia-Pacific region.

Middle class German couple ‘spied for Russia for 20 years’

By Matthew Day, Telegraph

From Matthew Day, Telegraph:  Prosecutors alleged the husband and wife, identified only by their aliases Andreas and Heidrun Anschlag, spied on Nato and the European Union in a career that lasted more than two decades

The Mubarak Retrial: A Principled Quest for Justice

By Basil El Dabh

As with most things in Egypt, just when it looks like something is over, it isn’t. Last week, Egypt’s Court of Cassation ruled that ousted President Hosni Mubarak, his Interior Minister Habib al-Adly, and six of their aides would be retried.  The initial sentence, handed down last June, sentenced the defendants to 25-year life sentences […]

Needed: A Brain-Based Approach to Strategy

By Harlan Ullman

Suppose you are in great health, exceedingly fit and athletically gifted. During a routine medical checkup, you receive some very bad news. You have developed a degenerative condition. Without a lengthy and painful course of treatment, in five years time or less, you will be hardly able to walk, let alone run or play any […]