Sarah Sanders is wrong. Bin Laden was wary of satellite phones because he wasn’t an idiot, CNN.com
Sarah Sanders is wrong. Bin Laden was wary of satellite phones because he wasn’t an idiot
Peter Bergen
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
Updated 4:11 AM ET, Fri August 3, 2018
“Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.” ”
(CNN)As part of a systematic effort by the Trump administration to paint the press as “fake news” and “the enemy of the people,” Sarah Sanders trotted out a long-debunked canard about Osama bin Laden at Wednesday’s White House press briefing.
Sanders claimed that “the media routinely reports on classified information and government secrets that put lives in danger and risk valuable national security tools. One of the worst cases was the reporting on the US ability to listen to Osama bin Laden’s satellite phone in the late ’90s. Because of that reporting, he stopped using that phone, and the country lost valuable intelligence.”
Sanders was referring to an August 21, 1998, story in The Washington Times that purportedly tipped off bin Laden that the US government was listening to his satellite phone.
In blaming The Washington Times, Sanders was following in the footsteps of President George W. Bush and the 9/11 Commission. All of them were, and are, wrong.
In fact, bin Laden was careful about using his satellite phone, not because he was glued to his computer reading an obscure American newspaper in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan where there was no internet at the time, but because he wasn’t an idiot.
In early 1997, I visited Khalid al-Fawwaz, an associate of bin Laden’s in London, to arrange an interview with al Qaeda’s leader for CNN.
A year and half before The Washington Times article appeared, Fawwaz volunteered to me that bin Laden communicated by radio and generally avoided using satellite phones “because he was well aware that intelligence agencies could easily monitor satellite phone calls.” Conscious of the security problems of satellite phones, bin Laden would often give his phone to subordinates to make calls.
Al Qaeda’s leaders had also closely followed the April 1996 assassination of Dzhokhar Dudayev, the Chechen leader who was killed by a Russian missile that homed in on the signal of his satellite phone. Bin Laden didn’t need The Washington Times to tell him about the risks associated with talking on a satellite phone.
The fact that bin Laden went off the grid around the time of The Washington Times story is more than likely because the day before it appeared, bin Laden was on the receiving end of a barrage of US cruise missile strikes because al Qaeda had recently bombed two US embassies in Africa, killing more than 200 people.
Bin Laden eluded those strikes, but there’s nothing quite like surviving a barrage of US cruise missiles to get you off your electronic devices!
Counterterrorism in 2020: Future prospects and challenges, Univ of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Counterterrorism in 2020: Future prospects and challenges
WHEN:
Wednesday, October 03, 2018 4:00 pm to 5:30 pm
Location:
Weill Hall, Annenberg Auditorium (1120)
735 S. State Street
Ann Arbor, MI 48109 (
Free and open to the public. Reception to follow.
Join the conversation: #policytalks
This event will be live webstreamed. Check back here just before the event for viewing details.
About the discussion:
Towsley Policymaker in Residence Javed Ali will moderate a panel discussion with three leading counterterrorism experts–Peter Bergen, Barbara McQuade, and Chris Costa. Panel members will share perspectives on the current terrorist threat and how it may evolve by 2020; what potential policy changes and new tools, resources, and authorities may be necessary to combat these threats; whether counterterrorism has receded as a national security priority 17 years after 9/11; and, the importance of partnerships in the global fight against terrorism.
From the speakers’ bios:
Javed Ali is a Harry A. and Margaret D. Towsley Policymaker in Residence at the Ford School for the fall 2018 semester and a former Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the National Security Council (NSC). He has over twenty years of professional experience in national security and intelligence issues in Washington, D.C., and began his federal government career in 2002. During that time, Ali worked in the Defense Intelligence Agency, the Department of Homeland Security, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In addition to his role at the NSC, while at the FBI he also held senior positions while on joint duty assignments at the National Intelligence Council and the National Counterterrorism Center. Ali holds a BA in political science from the University of Michigan, a JD from the University of Detroit School of Law, and a MA in international relations from American University.
Peter Bergen is a journalist, documentary producer, Vice President for Global Studies and Fellows at New America, CNN national security analyst, professor of practice at Arizona State University, and the author or editor of seven books about national security and terrorism, three of which were New York Times bestsellers and four of which were named among the best non-fiction books of the year by The Washington Post. The books have been translated into twenty-one languages. Documentaries based on his books have been nominated for two Emmys and also won the Emmy for best documentary. Bergen is on the editorial board of Studies in Conflict & Terrorism, a leading scholarly journal in the field. He has held teaching positions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He has testified before U.S. Congressional committees seventeen times about national security issues. Bergen produced CNN Films’ Legion of Brothers, which premiered at Sundance in January 2017 and was released theatrically in May 2017. Bergen produced the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997. The interview, which aired on CNN, marked the first time that bin Laden declared war against the United States to a Western audience. He has a degree in Modern History from New College, Oxford.
Barbara L. McQuade, BA ’87, JD ’91, is a professor from practice. Her interests include criminal law, criminal procedure, national security, data privacy, and civil rights. From 2010 to 2017, Professor McQuade served as the U.S attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan. Appointed by President Barack Obama, she was the first woman to serve in her position. Professor McQuade also served as vice chair of the Attorney General’s Advisory Committee and co-chaired its Terrorism and National Security Subcommittee. As U.S. attorney, she oversaw cases involving public corruption, terrorism, corporate fraud, theft of trade secrets, civil rights, and health care fraud, among others. Before becoming U.S. attorney, Professor McQuade served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Detroit for 12 years, serving as deputy chief of the National Security Unit, where she handled cases involving terrorism financing, export violations, threats, and foreign agents. Professor McQuade began her career as a law clerk for U.S. District Judge Bernard A. Friedman in Detroit, and then practiced law at the firm of Butzel Long in Detroit. Professor McQuade previously taught at the University of Detroit Mercy School of Law. Professor McQuade has been recognized by the Detroit Free Press with the Neal Shine Award for Exemplary Regional Leadership, The Detroit News with the Michiganian of the Year Award, Crain’s Detroit Business as a Newsmaker of the Year and one of Detroit’s Most Influential Women, and the Detroit Branch NAACP and Arab American Civil Rights League with their Tribute to Justice Award.
Christopher P. Costa is the executive director of the International Spy Museum and a 34-year veteran of the Department of Defense. He served 25 years in counterintelligence, human intelligence and with special operations forces (SOF) in the United States Army, in Central America, Europe, and throughout the Middle East. He ran a wide range of intelligence and special operations in Panama, Bosnia, the first and second Iraq wars, and Afghanistan. Colonel Costa earned two Bronze stars for sensitive human intelligence work in Afghanistan. Assigned to the Naval Special Warfare Development Group, he served as the first civilian squadron Deputy Director. Costa was inducted into the United States Special Operation’s Commando Hall of Honor for lifetime service to US Special Operations. Most recently, he served as the Special Assistant to the President & Senior Director for Counterterrorism at the White House. As Museum executive director, he is committed to the International Spy Museum’s mission and values.
How long can his war Cabinet tolerate Trump’s farce? CNN.com
How long can his war Cabinet tolerate Trump’s farce?
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
“Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion articles on CNN.”
(CNN)How much longer can the foreign policy leaders in President Donald Trump’s Cabinet stick by this President?
The Helsinki, Finland, summit will surely go down as one of the worst-ever presidential performances on the international stage. Not since President John F. Kennedy was thoroughly intimidated when he met with the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, Austria, in 1961 has an American president been so completely and artfully outflanked by his Russian counterpart.
At a press conference in Helsinki standing next to Russian President Vladimir Putin, instead of endorsing the unanimous finding of US intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, Trump observed that Putin was “extremely strong and powerful in his denial.”
Well, that settles it then! We will always take the word of Putin, a former longtime KGB official whose actions around the world have run counter to American interests, against those of America’s key intelligence agencies.
For good measure, Trump dumped on his own country, “I think that the United States has been foolish. We’ve all been foolish. We’re all to blame.” Really? In fact, as special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation has painstakingly revealed, the ones to blame are a small coterie of officers in Russia’s military intelligence agency GRU, acting no doubt under the orders of Putin.
Surely Trump’s performance in Helsinki must have the members of his war Cabinet asking themselves: How can I continue serving in this administration? After all, these are serious public servants, much of whose lives have been bound up in countering first the Soviet threat and now the Russian threat.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis enlisted in the Marine Corps in the late 1960s when he was 18 and when the Cold War was at its height.
During his confirmation hearings to become defense secretary, Mattis described the Russians as the number one threat to the United States and opined that Putin was seeking to break up the NATO alliance.
In the Pentagon’s defense strategy released in January, Mattis again described Russia as a key threat.
This was a similar conclusion to that of the national security strategy review overseen by now-departed national security adviser Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster that was released in December.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s first assignment as an Army officer was patrolling the border between West Germany and East Germany as the Cold War wound down.
At his confirmation hearing for secretary of state, Pompeo said, “Russia continues to act aggressively, enabled by years of soft policy toward that aggression.”
In May, Pompeo said the United States has a “great deal more work to do” to safeguard the November midterm elections from outside interference.
Dan Coats, who oversees the 17 American intelligence agencies, testified in March that Russia “is likely to continue to pursue even more aggressive [cyber] attacks, with the intent of degrading our Democratic values and weakening our alliances.”
After Trump’s bizarre press conference on Monday, Coats’ office released a statement pushing back on the President’s bromance with Putin, saying, “We have been clear in our assessments of Russian meddling in the 2016 election and their ongoing, pervasive efforts to undermine our democracy. …”
In the past Trump’s current national security adviser, John Bolton, has called Putin a “liar” and Russia’s election-meddling in 2016 an “act of war.” Bolton has moderated his tone on Russia of late, but clearly, he is naturally a skeptic of Putin and his works.
So, we are now in the bizarre place where the Trump administration seems to have two sets of policies about Russia. There is the policy of the administration, which has taken a fairly hard line on Russia, for instance, expelling 60 Russian diplomats in March after Russia’s attempt to assassinate a former Russian spy in the United Kingdom with a nerve agent.
Then there is the policy of the President, who continues to embrace Putin and to deny the assessments of his own intelligence agencies. How long is this really sustainable for the members of Trump’s war Cabinet? Or put another way, at what point should it no longer be tolerable?
Trump’s way: Treating allies like enemies and enemies like allies, CNN.com
Trump’s way: Treating allies like enemies and enemies like allies
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
“Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.” The opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author; view more opinion articles on CNN.
(CNN) British soldier Lance Corporal Jamie Webb, 24, died from the blast of a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan in March, 2013.
Canadian Master Corporal Byron Greff, 28, died in a suicide bombing in Kabul in 2011.
Those are just two of the names of the many hundreds of dead soldiers from NATO countries who have fought in Afghanistan to defend the United States.
It is the first and only war waged under NATO’s Article 5 collective defense obligation that an attack on one member country is an attack on all its members. That war was, of course, triggered by an attack on President Donald Trump’s hometown of New York on September 11, 2001.
The total number of dead soldiers in Afghanistan from the United Kingdom is 455, from Canada, it is 158, from France, 86 and from Germany, 54.
Yet Trump is constantly berating NATO allies for not paying enough for their own defense, as if their blood spilled on the battlefield is meaningless.
The contrast of NATO allies’ support for the United States in Afghanistan and the behavior of Russia is both striking and telling. In March, the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Nicholson, told the BBC that Russian weapons were being smuggled to the Taliban and that they “provide some degree of support to the Taliban.” (Russia has denied these allegations).
Yet Trump continues to treat Russian President Vladimir Putin like a peer, rather than a pariah who controls a gangster state that orders the assassinations of enemies in countries that are close American allies such as the United Kingdom. Just this week, a woman in England died from exposure to Novichok, a nerve agent, which is only produced by Russia.
Departing for his trip to the NATO summit and then on to the UK, Trump on Tuesday said, “I have NATO. I have the UK, which is in, somewhat, turmoil. And I have Putin. Frankly, Putin may be the easiest of them all. Who would think?” Who would have thunk, indeed.
Yup, it’s just so much easier to deal with Putin, who invades neighboring countries at the drop of a hat, attempts to swing American elections as a matter of routine, and has political opponents jailed and even killed.
At the same time that he is bromancing Putin, Trump is dumping on America’s closest allies. Last month he called Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “very dishonest” and “weak.”
]
On Wednesday at the opening of the NATO summit in Brussels, Trump made the absurd claim that “Germany is totally controlled by Russia.”
There was, of course, a time when that was true, when the Soviet Union lorded it over communist East Germany. It’s precisely because of the NATO alliance that stood up to the Soviet Union that, today, East and West Germany are a unified liberal democracy.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was raised in East Germany, jabbed back at Trump on Wednesday, saying, “I have witnessed this myself, that a part of Germany was controlled by the Soviet Union. And I am very happy that we are today unified in freedom as the Federal Republic of Germany.”
Trump’s berating of allies and embrace of enemies might make sense if there were some kind of grand strategic plan behind it, but it’s hard to discern one. Trump has slapped tariffs on European imports such as steel and aluminum, and the Europeans are increasing their own retaliatory tariffs on American products such as motorcycles and orange juice.
Is a trade war with the EU really a smart idea? Hardly, since the EU is the world’s largest trading bloc, considerably larger than the United States or China.
And is attacking America’s NATO allies smart? If anyone can supply a meaningful rationale for this, I’d like to hear it.
Finally, is embracing Putin smart? That question kinda answers itself.
Future Security Forum ASU/New America DC
Proxy warfare conference, Global SOF, New America, ASU, New America DC
Special Operations Policy Forum 2018
Washington, D.C. / November 13, 2018
Special Operations Policy Forum 2018
Register for the Forum
New America, the Center on the Future of War and the McCain Institute of Arizona State University (ASU), the Global SOF Foundation, and the Daniel Morgan Graduate School of National Security are pleased to extend to you an invitation to attend the Special Operations Policy Forum, to be held at New America’s offices in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, November 13, 2018 beginning at 11:45AM. Our focus in 2018 is on “U.S. Policy for Proxy Warfare.”
The purpose of the invitation-only forum is to convene senior U.S. government leaders, leading academics, and national security policy professionals on how to confront the unconventional threats facing Special Operations Forces and how the U.S. military and U.S. government should respond to these threats. These questions extend beyond the purely hard-power and kinetic contexts and into the use of soft-power and the provision of SOF in support of foreign nations’ forces. Sessions this year include:
The Use of Proxy Forces in Modern Warfare
Introduction: Colonel Dennis Wille, U.S. Army Fellow at New America
Moderator: Peter Bergen, Vice President for Global Studies & Fellows at New America, Professor of Practice at Arizona State University and Chairman of the Board of the Global Special Operations Foundation
Nicholas Rasmussen, Senior Director of the McCain Institute’s Counterterrorism Program and former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC)
Vasile Toader, Deputy Chief of Defence Staff for Operations and Training, Romanian Ministry of National Defense
Kelly Magsamen, Vice President for National Security and International Policy at Center for American Progress and former Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Asian and Pacific Security Affairs
Artificial Intelligence in the Gray Space
Moderator: Peter Singer, Senior Fellow at New America
Erik Grant, Technical Director for the Mission Support and Modernization (MSM), Intelligence, Information, and Services, Raytheon
Wendy Anderson, General Manager of Defense and International and National Security at SparkCognition
Kara Frederick, Research Associate for the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for New American Security (CNAS)
Iran’s Proxy Warfare Strategy
Introduction: Daniel Rothenberg, Co-Director, Center on the Future of War and Professor of Practice, School of Politics and Global Studies, Arizona State University
Moderator: Lieutenant General Ben Freakley, Professor of Practice of Leadership for Arizona State University and former Commanding General, U.S. Army Accessions Command
Norman Roule, former National Intelligence Manager for Iran, Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Karim Sadjadpour, Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Candace Rondeaux, Professor of Practice in the School of Politics and Global Studies at Arizona State University and a Senior Fellow with the Center on the Future of War
New America, ASU, the Global SOF Foundation, and the Daniel Morgan Graduate School are privileged to work together on this project and see this as a first step in advancing U.S. SOF policy for the future. For more information, please visit our website.
Sponsored by:
Raytheon (1)
Special Operations Policy Forum 2018
Tuesday, November 13, 2018
11:45 AM – 5:00 PM EST
740 15th Street NW, Suite 900
Washington, DC 20005
Follow the conversation online using #SOFPolicy and following @GlobalSOF and @NewAmericaISP.
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July Fourth terror plot has a back-to-the-future feel, CNN.com
July Fourth terror plot has a back-to-the-future feel
Peter Bergen
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
Updated 5:31 PM ET, Mon July 2, 2018
Peter Bergen is a CNN national security analyst, a vice president at New America, a professor of practice at Arizona State University and the author of “United States of Jihad: Who Are America’s Homegrown Terrorists and How Do We Stop Them?”
(CNN)The July Fourth terror plot in Cleveland has a back-to-the future feel because the suspect, Demetrius Pitts, “expressed interest in joining al Qaeda,” and wanted to carry out an operation on behalf of the terror organization, according to the FBI complaint about the case that was made public Monday.
Al Qaeda was founded three decades ago in Pakistan in August 1988 and, of course, carried out the 9/11 attacks nearly 17 years ago.
Pitts’ case underlines how the potential threats to the United States by individuals motivated by the ideology of al Qaeda, as well as its spinoff organization, ISIS, continue to come overwhelmingly from American citizens, rather than from the immigrants covered by the Trump travel ban that was upheld last week by the US Supreme Court.
Yet even that threat has, at least for the moment, receded from its height three years ago when ISIS incited dozens of Americans to join or attempt to join the organization or to carry out terrorist operations on its behalf.
With the recent collapse of the ISIS geographical “caliphate” that once was the size of the United Kingdom in the heart of the Middle East, the shine seems to be off the ISIS “brand.”
In 2015, when ISIS was at the height of its power, 80 individuals in the United States were charged with some kind of jihadist terrorist crime, almost all of them inspired by ISIS, according to data collected by New America, a research institution.
By contrast, so far in 2018 only five individuals have been charged with a terrorism crime. including Pitts, according to the New America data.
With ISIS largely out of business, we may see alleged terrorists such as Pitts turning back to al Qaeda as a source of inspiration. Al Qaeda has affiliates in North Africa, Syria and Yemen, all of which continue to have varying degrees of strength.
Like the vast majority of terrorism suspects since 9/11, Pitts, age 48, is a US citizen who allegedly radicalized in the United States. Of the 422 terrorism cases tracked by New America since 9/11, 85% involved US citizens or permanent residents.
The Pitts case is a reminder that the jihadist terrorist threat is almost entirely “homegrown.” While the Supreme Court, traditionally deferential to the executive power of the president when it comes to national security, has upheld the “travel ban” from a number of Muslim-majority countries, the ban is a solution in search of a problem that doesn’t exist, because jihadist terrorism impacting the United States is largely caused by terrorists long resident in the country.
Pitt’s case also underlines the importance to the FBI of undercover agents and informants. According to the FBI complaint, Pitts came to the attention of the agency in 2015 because of threatening comments he had made on Facebook. An undercover agent was put on the case. Pitts made a number of threats to the agent about carrying out a terrorist attack in Cleveland this July Fourth.
According to New America data, just under half of the more than 400 post-9/11 jihadist terrorism cases used informants or undercover FBI agents.
In the FBI affidavit in Pitts’ case, he comes across as a wannabe spouting off his mouth to the informant about his plans to wreak mayhem in Cleveland during the upcoming July Fourth holiday, but the FBI clearly felt it had enough to arrest Pitts before he might become a danger to others.
Seven years after Obama’s ‘worst mistake,’ Libya killing is rampant, CNN.com
Seven years after Obama’s ‘worst mistake,’ Libya killing is rampant
By Peter Bergen and Alyssa Sims
“Peter Bergen is a CNN national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is writing a book for Penguin Random House about the national security decision-making of the Trump administration. Alyssa Sims is a policy analyst with the International Security Program at New America. The opinions expressed in this commentary are their own.”
(CNN)Years after then President Barack Obama made what he has described as his worst mistake by not adequately planning for the fall of Moammar Gadhafi in 2011, Libya remains in chaos. In the past seven years, four nations have conducted air strikes in Libya and hundreds of civilians have died in those strikes.
As the protests of the Arab Spring swept through Libya, Gadhafi mounted a war of attrition against his own people describing those who were protesting his rule as “rats.”
The Obama administration helped steer a UN resolution to take military action to protect Libyan civilians, which resulted in a US-led NATO intervention in Libya. Gadhafi was eventually killed by rebels.
However, the lack of planning for the “day after” the regime’s collapse helped set the stage for a civil war. Today that civil war grinds on. Taking advantage of the chaos in Libya, ISIS and al Qaeda have also taken root in the country.
A feature of the continuing conflict in Libya is the use of airstrikes by a number of foreign countries and local groups, spurred by the rise in militant organizations in the country as well as the ongoing civil war.
Since the NATO intervention officially ended on Oct. 31, 2011, there have been 2,158 reported airstrikes in Libya documented by the research organizations Airwars and New America in a new study released Wednesday. (This piece is partially adapted from that report.)
Four countries — Egypt, France, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and the United States — as well as three local Libyan groups, including the Libyan government, known as the GNA, and a rival group led by Field Marshal Khalifa Haftar, carried out those air strikes.
Since 2014, Libya has increasingly become an arena for warfare by multiple states. The GNA is supported by the United States, which also carries out strikes against ISIS and al-Qaeda.
Egypt and the UAE are carrying out their own strikes either in support of Field Marshal Haftar or against Islamist militias.
France is also striking Islamist militant targets in Libya.
According to news reports and accounts on social media, at least 242 civilians were killed in these strikes, taking the lowest estimate, and as many as 395 killed, by the highest estimate, according to the Airwars/New America study.
No nation or local group has admitted responsibility for any of these civilian deaths.
The Airwars/New America study is the first overall accounting of these civilian deaths.
Officials from Egypt, France, and the United Arab Emirates and the three local Libyan groups didn’t respond when asked for comment about their air strikes.
According to the Airwars/New America study, the US has conducted at least 524 strikes on militant targets in Libya since the NATO intervention, primarily against ISIS in the city of Sirte during 2016, which according to Libyan reports, resulted in between 10 to 20 civilian fatalities.
Asked for comment on the allegations of civilian deaths, US Major Karl Wiest said that AFRICOM, which is in charge of US military operations in Libya, conducted “post-strike assessments” of all American military actions in the region and has investigated two allegations of civilian casualties in Libya, and found both to be not credible.
Of the four countries conducting air strikes in Libya, the United States is the most transparent about its operations, reporting publicly, for instance, on the 495 air and drone strikes it conducted against ISIS in Sirte.
The airstrikes by the four nations and the competing Libyan factions are intensifying the conflict in an already fragile country.
Egypt has defended its airstrikes in Libya using a self-defense argument that these strikes are aimed at terrorist groups that threaten their security; this is the same kind of argument the United States has made since 9/11 to defend its covert drone program aimed at suspected terrorists in the tribal areas of Pakistan along its border with Afghanistan and its counterterrorism operations in Somalia and Yemen.
The fact that four foreign countries are conducting airstrikes in Libya underscores the chaos and instability in the country, while battles between the two main competing Libyan factions have contributed to the conflict that prompted Obama to describe the post-Gadhafi conflict in Libya as his worst mistake.
Solving the conflict will not be easy. The US-led campaign against ISIS in Libya greatly reduced, but did not end the presence of the terrorist army there, so keeping up the pressure on both ISIS and al Qaeda in Libya is important for US national security interests.
Key to bringing peace to Libya is to end the civil war between the central government and the forces of Field Marshal Haftar, a civil war that is amplified by states such as Egypt and the UAE that are waging proxy warfare to support Haftar. Western countries should put additional effort into supporting an ongoing UN-led peace effort and urge Haftar to lay down his arms.
The Beltway and the Ivory Tower: Bridging the Gap, New America DC
The Beltway and the Ivory Tower: Bridging the Gap
Event
The gap between policy and academic research has bedeviled national security policy for years. What are the roots of this challenge and how can it be addressed? What kind of research do foreign policymakers want? How should we evaluate policy relevance and can it be ranked? Can blogs help bridge the gap? These questions are critical not only for policymakers but for the academic fields of research as well.
To discuss these issues, New America is pleased to welcome Dr. Paul Avey, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Virginia Tech; Dr. Michael Desch, a professor and Director of the International Security Center at the University of Notre Dame; Dr. Peter Campbell, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Baylor University; and Dr. Susan Peterson, Professor of Government at The College of William and Mary. The panel members are part of the Carnegie Corporation of New York’s Bridging the Gap project.
Join the conversation online using #BridgingtheGap and following @NewAmericaISP.
Panelists:
Paul Avey
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Virginia Tech
Peter Campbell
Assistant Professor of Political Science, Baylor University
Michael Desch, @mcdesch
Professor and Director, International Security Center at the University of Notre Dame
Susan Peterson
Professor and Director, Institute for the Theory and Practice of International Relations at William and Mary
Moderator:
Peter Bergen, @peterbergencnn
Vice President, New America
“Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances.” New America DC
The Washington Daybook
June 21, 2018
New America holds a book discussion on “Why Terrorist Groups Form International Alliances.”
SECTION: BOOK DISCUSSION; ||STATE/SECURITY/BOOK|| Foreign Affairs
LENGTH: 65 words
TIME: 2 p.m.
PARTICIPANTS: author Tricia Bacon, assistant professor at American University; and Peter Bergen, vice president of New America
LOCATION: New America, 740 15th Street NW, Suite 900, Washington, D.C.
