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Breaking Defense

Obama Is Missing in Action So Here’s A Libyan Transition Strategy

Libya has become the Obama administration’s Iraq. Enthusiasm for intervention without clarity of strategy after intervention is common to both the Bush and Obama administrations. What is different is that George W. Bush took ownership of the Iraq crisis; Barack Obama has not. In the Libyan case, the dynamics are occurring in the background of […]

Land Warfare
Breaking Defense

Marines, Army Stare Into Face Of Future War; Afghan Lessons Relevant?

QUANTICO, Va: Even though the administration’s strategic guidance swears off “large-scale, prolonged stability operations” while emphasizing air and naval forces, the lessons that ground troops learned in Afghanistan and Iraq will remain vitally relevant, both because we will still do stability operations in the future and because those skills apply to other kinds of conflicts […]

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Breaking Defense

US Military Confronts Nightmare Scenario Of Syrian Collapse

Call it Somalia on steroids. Call it Syria next week. Either way it’s a scenario the US military needs to prepare for: an intervention into a failing state where rival factions have looted a sophisticated arsenal, from tanks to shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles to weapons of mass destruction. There’s no political will in Washington to intervene […]

Breaking Defense

Libyan Lessons For Doomed Autocrats and U.S.

With news of Muammar Gaddhafi’s death, the U.S., NATO, and the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) deserve a moment to relish in the successes of the democratic movement in Libya. Yet it’s important to understand that despite this success, the story of Libyan democracy is in its infancy. Now begins the difficult part. Can the […]