Richard Fontaine - Tag Search

Andrew Exum and Richard Fontaine from the Center for a New American Security have a short policy paper out about instability in Yemen.

If you've been following the situation in Yemen, you won't learn anything new: Yemen faces serious economic and demographic pressures; the Huthi insurgency in the north distracts from a growing al-Qaeda presence; the U.S. has an interest in stabilizing the country. But if you're new to the conflict, Exum and Fontaine's paper makes good background.

For a less rational take on the Yemeni insurgency, we recommend this recent Small Wars Journal column, which argues that the Saudi-Iranian proxy war in Yemen benefits the United States.

David Kilcullen, the Australian counterinsurgency guru who advised Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq, gave an hour-long talk tonight at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). The talk was broadly about counterinsurgency in U.S. foreign policy, but Kilcullen spent a good deal of time on the big story of the day: Afghanistan.

Kilcullen told The Guardian last week that Obama should either go big or go home to avoid a "Suez-like" disaster in Afghanistan. He elaborated on those comments tonight, explaining why he felt the middle ground was so dangerous. And he argued -- perhaps inadvertently -- that the strategies reportedly being considered by the Obama administration move too slowly, and give the Taliban time to adapt.

I'm quoting Spencer Ackerman a lot today. He has a short item in the Washington Independent about Obama's Afghan strategy review, which will continue despite Karzai's "re-election."

Ackerman speculates that Obama was influenced by Richard Fontaine and John Nagl, who wrote a Los Angeles Times op-ed last month urging Obama to ignore what happens in Kabul and focus on provincial and local governance.

In other words, it doesn't matter if Karzai is corrupt, so long as Afghanistan has strong sub-national institutions.