Center for a New American Security

December 7, 2008 - CNAS Senior Fellow Robert Kaplan says this in a New York Times op-ed, "No longer will we view South Asia as a region distinct from the Middle East. Now there is only one long continuum stretching from the Mediterranean to the jungles of Burma, with every crisis from the Israeli-Palestinian dispute in the west to the Hindu-Muslim dispute in the east interlocked with the one next door."

December 1, 2008-- CNAS Senior Fellow Robert D. Kaplan offers insight into the Hindu-Muslim tensions festering within India..."Tolerable inter-communal relations are the sine qua non of Indian stability and ascendancy- India has more to lose from extremist Islam than arguably any other country in the world."

November 19, 2008 - While he was gearing up for the long trek through the high desert plains of southern Afghanistan, Capt. Sean Dynan made the rounds among his marines to make sure their sacks were pared to the bare minimum. How much heavy ammunition his infantry company would bring along on its journey was his call as well. If the soldiers brought too little, they could easily run out in the middle of their mission to rout entrenched Taliban forces. Too much and his marines were risking the injury that comes with carrying 120-plus-pound packs in 120-plus-degree heat.

November 17, 2008 - CNN's Fareed Zakaria interviewed CNAS senior fellow David Kilcullen on counter-insurgency and Afghanistan.

November 16, 2008 - The Wall Street Journal's Yochi Dreazen writes about CNAS, calling it a "media saavy" think tank with "middle-of-the-road policy views."

Bill Murphy, Jr. profiles the first West Point class that graduated and went directly on to serving as officers in the Iraq War.  Commentary is provided by Gen. Peter Chiarelli (vice chief of staff US Army), Lt. Col. John Nagl (Iraq War veteran & West Point Class '88), Capt. Jason Fritz (Iraq War veteran & West Point class of 2002).

“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.

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.

 

This year alone, pirates have attacked 61 ships in the region. They have held 14 oil tankers, cargo vessels, and other ships with a total of over 300 crew members, and have demanded ransoms of over $1 million per ship.

September 2008- Monsoon clouds crushed the dark, seaweed-green landscape of eastern Burma. Steep hillsides glistened with teak trees, coconut palms, black and ocher mud from the heavy rains, and tall, chaotic grasses. As night came, the buzz saw of cicadas and the pestering croaks of geckos rose through the downpour. Guided by an ethnic Karen rebel with a torchlight attached by bare copper wires to an ancient six-volt battery slung around his neck, I stumbled across three bamboo planks over a fast-moving stream from Thailand into Burma.