Columns And Op‑Eds

Facing the New Reality of Homegrown Terrorism

by David Shedd

“If you know the enemy and know yourself,” Sun Tzu once wrote, “you need not fear the results of a hundred battles.” When it comes to the War on Terrorism, unfortunately, we...

The New Frontier in Terror Fundraising: Bitcoin

by Yaya Fanusie

When I worked as a counterterrorism analyst for the CIA, I always looked out for signs of terrorist groups adapting their methods. Now, as someone outside of government who analyzes how nefarious...

The Budget Certainty Congress Denies the Pentagon

by Walter Pincus

“Superficial and emotional” was the way retired Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey described the current presidential campaign discussion of military affairs in an interview published in...

A Persistent and Resilient Adversary: Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula

by Brian Jenkins

The history of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is a tale of 1001 nights that catalogues every dimension of frustration in combatting terrorism: an impoverished failing state, a heavily armed...

Tom Clancy Duty and Honor: A Coming of Age Thriller Without the Geopolitical Intrigue

by Michael Sulick

Duty and Honor is the latest in the multi-volume series by Tom Clancy and his successors featuring Jack Ryan and his son Jack, Jr., who works in the “Campus,” a covert counterterrorism unit...

In Afghanistan, Special Operators Continue to Burn Both Ends of the Candle

by Philip Lohaus

Things aren’t going so well in Afghanistan these days. The Obama administration plans to reduce America’s presence there by only about half as much as it originally intended, from the current...

Is the Least Educated Employee Your Weakest Link?

by Robert Kandra

Given the growth of the cyber-threat matrix, many IT system users have found that conventional defenses—firewalls, anti-virus applications, blocking software, and malware detection regimes—are...

Trump's "New Approach" to the Mideast is Already Going On

by Walter Pincus

Listening to the U.S. presidential campaign, you would hardly know there is a real war going on in the Middle East, involving thousands of American men and women in the armed forces and intelligence...

Daniel Silva's The Black Widow: Eerily Reminiscent

by Michael Sulick

Daniel Silva’s The Black Widow is the most relevant to contemporary events and most chillingly prescient of all his celebrated novels. Gabriel Allon, the art restorer and spy hero of Silva’s...

Iran and Hezbollah Remain Hyperactive in Latin America

by Matthew Levitt

As the summer Olympics continue in Rio, Brazilian and international security forces are poised to stymie any terrorist plot that might threaten the games. According to Matt Levitt, former Treasury...