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George Will is going to call for a ground troop pullout from Afghanistan. Is he right?
Archive for the ‘Defense and national security’ Category
August 31st, 2009
Category: Defense and national security, Foreign Policy, Terrorism and its control, The permanent campaign
June 6th, 2009
Pakistan diverted American counter-terrorism assistance to buy weapons to use against India. The Bush Administration knew about it, and did nothing. And that might have been the right course.
May 30th, 2009
Category: Defense and national security
Buried in this story is a paragraph that made me blink:
The CIA recently reported that a small fraction of its overall workforce — about 13 percent — is fluent in a second language. Among officers of the agency’s National Clandestine Service, to which most foreign-deployed officers are assigned, the figure is about 30 percent.
Wait…this is [...]
April 27th, 2009
Category: Defense and national security, Torture
I think Amy Zegart goes beyond the evidence about the current value of the CIA, even though I would not favor abolishing it per se. I would favor making it prove the value of its functions in the context of national security resource allocation, and let certain functions wither away if they cannot be demonstrated to be valuable. I would also create multiple competing centers within the intelligence community, opening up the system to innovation.
April 26th, 2009
Category: Defense and national security
It was only a matter of time before the torture debate turned on the CIA. Matthew Yglesias has done it, suggesting that we “consider” abolishing the agency. This would be a great idea if it weren’t completely wrong.
April 23rd, 2009
Category: Defense and national security
Bureaucratic efficiency is not always a good thing. The National Security Advisor’s push to align regional dividing lines throughout the national security agencies is probably a mistake. Jim Jones should take pointers from McGeorge Bundy’s time as National Security Advisor.
April 17th, 2009
Instead of complaining about the release of the torture memos, the CIA ought to work on being a decent intelligence service.
April 9th, 2009
Category: Defense and national security
On defense policy, it’s time for Brent Scowcroft to slap down the nutcases.