United States and Canada

Obama Announces 2014 NATO Summit on Afghanistan (Video)

By Roberta Rampton, Reuters

From Roberta Rampton, Reuters: NATO countries will hold a summit next year to discuss troop withdrawals from Afghanistan, U.S. President Barack Obama said on Friday after a meeting with NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen.

Obama to Discuss Afghanistan and Transatlantic Burden Sharing with NATO Secretary General on Friday

By White House

The Battle of the Atlantic

By Julian Lindley-French

Winston Churchill said “The only thing that ever frightened me during the war was the U-boat peril”. Last Friday in Moscow’s Victory Park I had the honor of an escorted visit to the Hall of Memory and Sorrow in which 2650 ‘teardrops’ commemorate the 26.5 million Russian war dead. It was a truly moving experience. Here in Oslo […]

Confidential Report: US Weapons System Designs Compromised by Chinese Cyberspies

By Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post

From Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post:  Designs for many of the nation’s most sensitive advanced weapons systems have been compromised by Chinese hackers, according to a report prepared for the Pentagon and to officials from government and the defense industry.

New Rules Will Allow Military Commanders to Counterattack Foreign Cyber Threats

By Zachary Fryer-Biggs, Defense News

From Zachary Fryer-Biggs, Defense News:  After three years of grueling internal debate, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs is poised to approve new rules empowering commanders to counter direct cyberattacks with offensive efforts of their own — without White House approval.

Obama Nominates New Ambassador to NATO and Assistant Secretary of State for Europe

By White House

From White House:  Presidential Nominations Sent to the Senate

Win Wars Not Battles

By Harlan Ullman

If there is one strategic weakness or Achilles’ heel in U.S. geostrategic thinking, it is a fixation with winning battles and not winning wars. The North Vietnamese famously crowed, “America won every battle and lost the war.” In Afghanistan and Iraq four decades later, the same critique applied. America and the coalition won virtually every […]

Iran’s Escalating Cyber Campaign Edging US Closer to Retaliation

By Siobhan Gorman and Danny Yadron, Wall Street Journal

From Siobhan Gorman and Danny Yadron, Wall Street Journal:  Iranian-backed hackers have escalated a campaign of cyberassaults against U.S. corporations by launching infiltration and surveillance missions against the computer networks running energy companies

Those Muscular Poles

By Wall Street Journal

Germany’s Botched Drone Policy

By Judy Dempsey, Strategic Europe

From Judy Dempsey, Strategic Europe: [A] botched and expensive project to produce a drone system for the Bundeswehr could be [Defense Minister Thomas] de Maizière’s undoing.