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Friday, July 9th, 2010 at 2:23pm

Mattis is a Great Pick to be CENTCOM Commander

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Foreign Policy, Iraq

U.S. Marine Corps General James N. Mattis, who currently serves as the commander of U.S. Joint Forces Command, has been selected to lead U.S. Central Command.  This is an outstanding pick by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.  Mattis is an exemplary general officer and a true strategic thinker.  Not surprisingly, the mainstream media is beating up on Mattis for some comments he’s made in the past about warfare.  His remarks were candid and, unfortunately, have been taken out of context.  One misleading headline reads:  “James Mattis: ‘It’s fun to shoot some people.’”  Here’s the context for the quote:    

You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years, because they didn’t wear a veil.  You know guys like that ain’t…

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Monday, July 5th, 2010 at 10:18am

Steele’s Failed Critique Highlights Division Among Conservatives on War Strategy

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Culture, American Politics, Current Events

In 2006, I was really pulling for Michael Steele in his battle to win a U.S. Senate seat in Maryland. Unfortunately, Ben Cardin won and Steele wound up running the Republican National Committee. Steele’s odd remarks about the war in Afghanistan have led to a growing number of calls for his resignation among prominent conservatives. The war in Afghanistan was definitely not a war of President Barack Obama’s choosing, as Steele suggested in his remarks at a Connecticut fundraiser. This factual inaccuracy made the rest of Steele’s comments seem off-the-wall, but it appears as though he was trying to challenge the president’s strategy for prosecuting the war. He just failed miserably:

Well if he’s such a…

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Saturday, February 20th, 2010 at 7:02pm

Karzai’s Ingratitude

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Foreign Policy

From the AP:

President Hamid Karzai urged NATO to do more to protect civilians during combat operations to secure Marjah, a southern Taliban stronghold and scene of the biggest allied ground assault of the eight-year war.

NATO forces have repeatedly said they want to prevent civilian casualties but acknowledged that it is not always possible. On Saturday, the alliance said its troops killed another civilian in the Marjah area, bringing the civilian death toll from the operation to at least 16.

Addressing the opening session of the Afghan parliament in Kabul, Karzai held up a picture of an 8-year-old girl who lost 12 relatives in a NATO rocket attack during the second day of the Marjah assault, which began Feb. 13.

This type of ingratitude from…

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Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010 at 8:28am

How the Obama administration’s lack of credibility is weakening U.S. national security

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Foreign Policy, Iran, Terrorism

Since January 20, 2009, American credibility has taken a back seat to the Obama administration’s quest for international popularity.  During his trips to the Middle East and Asia last year, President Obama seemed more interested in bolstering his approval ratings abroad than advancing American interests.  Last week it was reported that the Obama administration downgraded the priority placed on intelligence collection for China in an effort to increase cooperation with Beijing.  This move was made despite the fact that Chinese cyberattacks against the U.S. are on the rise and the leadership in Beijing remains reticent about its massive military modernization program.

Unfortunately, U.S. national security is more dependent on the credibility of American power—and the words and policies of its…

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Thursday, November 5th, 2009 at 11:28am

The Best and the Brightest v2.0

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Foreign Policy
[caption id="" align="alignleft" width="247" caption="President John F. Kennedy and National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, 1962"][/caption]

David Halberstam’s 1972 book, The Best and the Brightest, chronicles the origins of the Vietnam War in the Kennedy administration and the conduct and escalation of the war during the Johnson administration.  More specifically, it examines how Camelot’s “best and the brightest” got U.S. policy in Southeast Asia so wrong.  After all, how could so many smart and capable individuals make such poor foreign policy decisions? 

Haunted by the specter of the Bay of Pigs fiasco and the perception that the Democrat’s were responsible for “losing China” to the communists in 1949, the Kennedy administration drew a line against communism in…

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Monday, October 26th, 2009 at 10:23am

Obama Hits Links for 24th Time, Still No Decision on Afghanistan

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Foreign Policy, Media

Hopefully President Obama also budgeted some of his time on Sunday to thinking about Afghanistan.  President Obama went golfing for the 24th time since taking office yesterday.  Former President George W. Bush was in office almost three years before reaching the same milestone.  Maybe a little less golf and a little more decision-making is in order for the Commander in Chief.  What’s the big story for the media?  President Obama went golfing with his Domestic Policy Advisor, Melody Barnes.  Glad to see the media has their priorities straight.

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Saturday, October 24th, 2009 at 3:20pm

Ian Bremmer on Afghanistan, China’s Recovery

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Foreign Policy, Economy

Some interesting points from Ian Bremmer, President of the Eurasia Group, on U.S. foreign policy and the global economy. A couple of key takeaways from the interview:

1. Bremmer thinks that Obama will indeed support some type of troop surge in Afghanistan. However, he notes that while a “consesus” approach might work in Washington it won’t work in Afghanistan.

2. China’s economic recovery has been impressive, recently posting third quarter GDP growth of 8.9%.

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Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 3:35pm

“Dithering” from the Commander in Chief

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Foreign Policy

Not only is the The White House dithering in its war-time decision-making, as former Vice President Dick Cheney noted the other evening, but it’s also being downright disingenuous about Afghanistan.  General Stanley McCrystal delivered his recommendation to the White House at the end of August.  He was frank in his assessment of the situation in Afghanistan:  Without additional troops, the U.S. will be unable to achieve its mission objectives in Afghanistan.  A satisfactory outcome in Afghanistan will be out of reach for Washington.   

Clearly, it is important for decision-makers to understand fully each potential course of action.  However, you can do strategy reviews until you’re blue in the face but at some point you need to make a…

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Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 9:35pm

Half-Measures in Afghanistan

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan

Stephen Biddle has an outstanding piece in The New Republic today where he cautions against adopting a middle-of-the-road approach to Afghanistan.  Biddle explains: 

None of the usual middle-way proposals are thus likely to be effective as alternatives to reinforcement. Many are potentially important components of an integrated, properly resourced COIN strategy. But to pull pieces out of this integrated context and undertake them as substitutes for major troop deployments is to deny them essential preconditions they need to function. The pieces of orthodox COIN strategy interact: security enables development and governance, development and governance enhance security, governance facilitates counterterrorism, counterterrorism improves security, security enables negotiation and reconciliation. Each is a valuable complement to the others; none is…

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Wednesday, March 25th, 2009 at 10:05pm

Overseas Contingency Operation

Posted by Tom Skypek in Afghanistan, American Foreign Policy, Iraq, Terrorism

Overseas Contingency Operation–that’s the Obama administration’s new name for the conflict formerly known as the Global War on Terror (GWOT).  Perhaps GWOT wasn’t the best descriptor for the global conflict against Islamic Extremism, but it seemed to capture the key elements (such as the scope of the conflict and adversary).  If anything, it lacked specificity in that it did not identify the adversary as clearly as it could have.  From FOXNews.com:  

The Obama administration has ordered an end to use of the phrase “Global War on Terror,” a label adopted by the Bush administration shortly after the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Washington Post reported on Tuesday.

In a memo sent this week from the Defense Department’s office of security…

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