President Obama has just signed the order to send 17,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. But Defense Secretary Robert Gates and other top Pentagon leaders have said in recent weeks that the United States needs to lower its expectations about how much can be achieved there in light of Afghanistan's history and the record of the Soviet intervention. What should be U.S. strategy to "win" in Afghanistan, and what in your view is a "win" there? Is there really any reason to believe that America's endeavor will prove an exception to the rule that Afghanistan is the "graveyard of empires?"
-- James Kitfield, NationalJournal.com
24 responses: Jim Phillips, Col. Joseph J. Collins, Michael F. Scheuer, Col. Joseph J. Collins, James Jay Carafano, Michael F. Scheuer, Dov S. Zakheim, Larry Korb, Michael F. Scheuer, Michael Vlahos, James Jay Carafano, Chris Seiple, Rachel Kleinfeld, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., Col. W. Patrick Lang, Dick Kohn, Richard Hart Sinnreich, Gordon Adams, Ron Marks, Bing West, Andrew Bacevich, Vincent Cannistraro, Col. Robert Killebrew, Robert Baer
In a speech in Munich and in an interview with the Washington Post, National Security Adviser James Jones outlined sweeping reforms to the National Security Council that would give it a voice in nearly everything the U.S. government does. Jones intends to create new directorates for cyber-security, energy, climate change, nation-building, and infrastructure, as well as taking on some yet-to-be determined functions of the Homeland Security Council. Many of these ideas arise from suggestions in 2008 from the Project on National Security Reform, whose participants included Jones, Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg, Defense Undersecretary Michele Flournoy, and Director of National Intelligence Adm. Dennis Blair.
Will the NSC's ambitious agenda and additional White House power improve the way Cabinet departments work together, or, absent further reforms, does it simply add another bureaucracy atop the bureaucracies? Do you think that action on the imbalance of resources between State and Defense, for example, becomes more likely because of a stronger NSC? How do you think the NSC should be reformed?
-- Corine Hegland, NationalJournal.com
11 responses: Dov S. Zakheim, James Jay Carafano, Daniel Serwer, Col. W. Patrick Lang, James Jay Carafano, Ron Marks, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, Chris Seiple, Ron Marks, Gordon Adams, Hillary Mann Leverett
"If countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us," President Obama said in an interview broadcast Jan. 27 on Al Arabiya television. Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad the next day urged the U.S. first to apologize for criminal actions taken towards Iran over the past 60 years. On Feb. 3, Iran announced that it launched its first satellite into orbit.
How should Obama proceed with his effort to engage Iran diplomatically? Should there be preconditions -- that is, steps Iran must take before talks begin? And if so, what kind? And does this effort have a realistic chance of thwarting Iran's nuclear ambitions? Or does the Bush administration's tack -- threats of military action combined with steadily stiffer economic sanctions -- offer the best way to keep Iran from obtaining nukes? Should the U.S. and the rest of the world simply accept that Iran is destined to become a nuclear weapons power and learn how to manage that -- as five former U.S. secretaries of State said last October?
-- Paul Starobin, NationalJournal.com
16 responses: Paul R. Pillar, Norman R. Augustine, Jim Phillips, Daniel Serwer, Daniel Byman, Daniel Gouré, James Jay Carafano, Larry Korb, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Kori Schake, Michael F. Scheuer, Ron Marks, Bing West, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Dov S. Zakheim, Hillary Mann Leverett
Retired Adm. Dennis Blair became the new Director of National Intelligence last week, and Leon Panetta will have his confirmation hearing for CIA chief Thursday. What are the most important changes that must be made to the way this country gathers, analyzes and uses intelligence to make sure we are not caught off guard by another 9/11-like attack or false alarm over weapons of mass destruction? Or, as Ron Marks put it on this blog a couple of weeks ago, how can the new Obama administration best "sharpen that faltering machinery" that was the 2004 intelligence reform bill?
-- Shane Harris, NationalJournal.com
21 responses: Larry C. Kindsvater, Ron Marks, Michael F. Scheuer, James Jay Carafano, Shane Harris, Robert Baer, Ron Marks, Richard Hart Sinnreich, Ron Marks, Michael F. Scheuer, Wayne White, Shane Harris, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Col. W. Patrick Lang, Loren Thompson, Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Texas, Brian Michael Jenkins, Amy Zegart, Gordon Adams, Ron Marks, Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo.
