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- Paying for the Troop Escalation in
Afghanistan, Lawrence Korb, Sean Duggan, Laura Conley and Jacob Stokes
- Digging In: Recent Developments on
Conflict Minerals, David Sullivan and Noel Atama
- When Do We Go to War With Yemen?,
Lawrence Korb
- Can Progressives and Religious
Conservatives Join Forces on Nuclear Disarmament?, Susan Thistlethwaite
- A Codependent Relationship, Sabina Dewan
- Overall Strategy Is Needed, Lawrence
Korb, Sean Duggan and Laura Conley
- Continuity in Karzai Cabinet Picks, Brian
Katulis
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Lawrence Korb, Sean Duggan, Laura
Conley and Jacob Stokes, "Paying for the Troop Escalation in
Afghanistan," Center for American Progress,
December 22, 2009
Rather than allow the supplemental and additional costs of the
escalation for FY2011 to add to the large and growing national deficit,
the Obama administration should look to the base defense budget for
programs and weapons platforms that can be eliminated or scaled back
without jeopardizing our national defense strategy or capabilities. Our
allies in Great Britain have adopted such a policy. In order to pay for
the cost of sending an additional 500 troops and supporting equipment
to the front lines in Afghanistan, the British government is currently
“reprioritizing” existing Ministry of Defense spending,
including
domestic cuts in civilian staff, and a commitment to improve
procurement.
Click here to
read the full report.
David Sullivan and
Noel Atama, "Digging In: Recent Developments on Conflict Minerals,"
Enough Project, January 5, 2010
Congo’s mineral wealth continues to
play a central role in the
country’s conflict dynamics. Despite the upsurge in
displacement and
atrocities during 2009, multinational companies continue to purchase
minerals from the war zone, providing crucial fuel for the violence.
Both the opportunities for Congo to escape from its catastrophic crisis
cycle and the threats that could plunge it into renewed all-out war are
directly connected to the fate of the mineral sector and the manner in
which natural resources are utilized during the coming months.
Click here to
read the full report.
Lawrence Korb, "When
Do We Go to War With Yemen?," National Journal, January 5, 2010
The best policy for the United States is
to aid Yemeni counterterrorism
forces, primarily by supplying intelligence and logistic support, as we
did on December 17 and December 24 in attacking al-Qaeda and helping
train Yemeni forces, while working with our allies to develop an
integrated and comprehensive approach to deal with the causes of
instability. Sending in U.S. forces or pushing aside the Yemeni
government in combating Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula would be
counterproductive and undermine Yemen’s central government even
more.
Click here to
read the full article.
Susan Thistlewhaite,
"Can Progressives and Religious Conservatives Join Forces on Nuclear
Disarmament?," Center for American Progress, December 23, 2009
In March 2009, President Barack Obama called for the eventual
elimination of all nuclear weapons. Many Americans, whether they were
conservatives, centrists, or liberals, understood Obama to be staking
out a progressive position on nuclear disarmament. But Tyler
Wigg-Stevenson, born-again Christian evangelical and founder of the Two
Futures Project,
would disagree. Wigg-Stevenson understands total nuclear disarmament to
be a confessional issue—that is, a movement that has evangelical
faith
commitment at the center—for him as an evangelical Christian and
a
conservative. He is not the first conservative to advocate for a world
free of nuclear weapons. After all, President Ronald Reagan said more
than once, “We seek the total elimination of nuclear weapons from
the
face of the earth.”
Click here to
read the full interview.
Sabina Dewan, "A Codependent Relationship," Center for
American Progress, December 22, 2009
The United States and China are tethered
together by a complicated
economic relationship—one that today’s troubled economic
time is
testing to the limit. The two economies are deeply intertwined through
linked currency exchange rates, trade, and capital flows, yet neither
country is wholly content with codependencies that are clearly
unsustainable in their current forms.
Click here to
read the full article.
Lawrence Korb, Sean
Duggan, and Laura Conley, "Overall Strategy is Needed," Washington Times, December 17, 2009
Mr. Obama faces many pressing national
security decisions, the most
urgent of which are likely to stem from our growing involvement in
Afghanistan. But it would be a mistake to move forward on that and
several other critical challenges without an overarching National
Security Strategy to guide
our actions. The interconnected nature and severity of the challenges
we face demand that the administration offer a comprehensive, cost
effective vision for how to achieve sustainable, lasting national
security - not a set of piecemeal and reactionary approaches to
emerging crises.
Click here to
read the full article.
Reuters -
Brian Katulis analyzes President Karzai's new cabinet nominees:
"There's a great deal of continuity and that may have been pushed by
people from outside, including the donors ... whether it is security
force assistance or development of the key
sectors like agriculture or health, a lot of that is coordinated
through the ministries."
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