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The Taliban in Afghanistan has launched a number of successful attacks in recent months, but some argue that the way to really calm the country is to reform the Afghan government from top to bottom. Also, the U.S. is considering how many more troops to send to Afghanistan, perhaps rotating some brigades from Iraq.

Mahmoudiya, a town south of Baghdad, was part of the area long known as the "Triangle of Death" because of the extraordinary number of Sunni insurgent attacks against coalition forces and Iraqi civilians it suffered – often half a dozen daily in 2006. Today, with violence down to only a few ineffective attacks in any given week, it has earned the moniker "Triangle of Love."

Despite being the son of a Hollywood publicist, Mike Mullen is no showman. But the next U.S. president will pay close attention to the U.S. Navy admiral from Los Angeles. As chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mullen is one of the few top national security officials who will stay in place when President George W. Bush leaves office in January and hands over two wars to his successor.

Robert D. Kaplan, CNAS Senior Fellow and national correspondent for The Atlantic, explains the strategic importance of stabilizing Afghanistan and what victory may look like. "In Afghanistan we are not simply trying to save a country, but to give a whole region a new kind of prosperity and stability, united rather than divided by energy needs, that would be implicitly pro-American."

“THE lion of the people will turn on you,” warned Mullah Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, a former Taliban foreign minister, as we sipped green tea at his home in Kabul a few weeks ago. He noted that while Americans had been shocked by a series of spectacular insurgent attacks over the summer, the United States-led coalition faced a far greater danger than the resurgent Taliban: growing despair among average Afghans that their government is fundamentally illegitimate.

September 9, 2000 -- In the spring of last year, Vice Adm. John "Black" Natham prepared a detailed briefing and 25 slides on what he considered a critical topic: the Navy's new Super Hornet fighter jet. But when he arrived at the appointed hour, Navy Secretary Richard Danzig refused to watch the presentation.

We looked down into Pakistan in August from the Afghan border outpost of Torkham, high in the legendary Khyber Pass. Invaders have carved violent paths across this border in both directions since the time of Alexander the Great. Today, an invasion by proxy from Pakistan continues that bloody tradition.

October 1, 2008- CNAS Senior Felllow Robert Kaplan discusses the reemerging threat posed by pirates off the coast of failed states, particularly Somalia. Kaplan explains: "Piracy is the maritime ripple effect of anarchy on land. Somalia is a failed state with a long coastline, so piracy flourishes nearby, as it does offshore from other weakly governed states like Indonesia and Nigeria."

Numerous commentators in policy community, media, and academia have recently expounded upon the US Army’s unusually public debate over the appropriate lessons to draw from the Iraq war to shape the institution for the future. Andrew Bacevich is the latest to lend his distinguished voice to the fray. While we greatly admire and respect Prof. Bacevich and his work, his essay in the October 2008 issue of The Atlantic presented a flawed analysis of this important issue that warrants a response.

September 30, 2008- The Army has announced plans to shift a mission at Fort Riley that trains advisers sent to Iraq and Afghanistan. The mission is being reassigned to Fort Polk, La., home of the Joint Readiness Training Center, where units go to prepare for combat operations. The Army will add 825 people to Fort Polk to train the advisers, who assist the Iraqi and Afghanistan forces.

October 1, 2008 - Senior CNAS Fellow John Nagl discusses United States strategy in Afghanistan, "The US military has 'an opportunity to fundamentally rethink our Afghanistan strategy.'"

WASHINGTON, Sept 25 (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy expects a delay in the delivery of the first shore-hugging Littoral Combat Ship being built by General Dynamics Corp (GD.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead said on Thursday. "That's what we're hearing from the contractor," Roughead told Reuters, when asked about a delay in the ship's delivery. Roughead, speaking after remarks to the Center for a New American Security, gave no further details.

A massive bailout for Wall Street will not lead to a "gutting" of the U.S. defense budget, but the U.S. military will come under increasing pressure to review big weapons programs and see if they are really needed, the Navy's top uniformed officer said on Thursday. Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead said there had not yet been much discussion within the Pentagon about the impact of the financial crisis, given the timing, and it would fall largely to the new administration to make deci

September 26, 2008 - CNAS fellow Nathaniel Fick is interviewed on President Karzai's popularity in Afghanistan, “The Bush administration has taken to having a Maliki-Musharraf-Karzai complex.” He was referring to Iraq’s Nouri al-Maliki and the deposed Pakistani dictator, Pervez Musharraf. “It’s slow to criticize its anointed allies,” Fick explained.

September 23, 2008- U.S. military officials are warning that intelligence now indicates that the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan plans to launch major operations this winter. “The Taliban and Al Qaeda use these local helpers, seasonal fighters, who they come in and hire,” said Singh, now a fellow at the Center For A New American Security, a Washington think tank. “This would suggest that they’ve thought through what can they give these guys to do over the winter. It won’t hurt if it comes

September 22, 2008- In the months before the American invasion of Iraq, among the few members of the foreign policy establishment to speak out forcefully about the dangers of going to war unilaterally against Saddam Hussein were Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to the first President Bush, and Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser to President Jimmy Carter.

September 23, 2008- Like many of you, I've spent the last week trying to wrap my mind around the woe on Wall Street, and how it will affect those of us on Main Street. I watched all the Sunday talk shows and read the press accounts, but I remain confused. Like a drooling idiot, I've watched my portfolio take a hit, and while I am not persuaded by my financial advisor's advice to do nothing, that's exactly what I'm doing. I fancy myself a decent national security analyst, but on this stuff I

September 22, 2008-Figures from the department indicate that only 1.2 percent of the military receives the bonus paid to those who can speak languages judged to be of critical importance for the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as for other areas of strategic concern. John Nagl, a retired lieutenant colonel who is co-author of the U.S. Army's new counterinsurgency field manual, said in an interview that the military had been moving too slowly, and he questioned its assertion that la

An editorial in today's New York Times promoted the concept game changing diplomacy, "What is needed is a game-changing diplomatic initiative. For that, Europe and the United States must agree quickly on a more persuasive set of punishments and incentives."

CNAS Senior Fellow, Colin Kahl, is interviewed on the change of command in Iraq on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Colin said, "[Gen. Odierno's] evolution as a general really kind of reflects the overall evolution of the U.S. Army in Iraq. He was a division commander in 2003 and 2004 for the 4th Infantry Division. And his troops kind of had a notorious reputation for being rather heavy-handed. And over time, I think that Ray Odierno learned from that experience. And as he retu