Afghanistan's Deadly Path to Peace

U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation, Zalmay Khalilzad is just beginning a multi-nation tour that will include peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar.  This comes as Taliban militants reject calls for a truce to coincide with Eid, which comes at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.  At ...

Four Big Takeaways from the Munich Security Conference

The Cipher Brief asked expert and retired four-star General David Petraeus for his big takeaways after attending last weekend's Munich Security Conference. First, the wedge between the U.S. Administration and Europe is a good bit bigger than last year, and Russia, Iran, and China are working to highlight and exploit the ...

The Long War Against Extremism in Afghanistan

Nearly two and a half years ago, General David Petraeus (US Army, Ret.) wrote an opinion piece published in The Washington Post, titled, ‘5 ‘big ideas’ to guide us in the Long War against Islamic extremism’. His fundamental point was that the U.S. had to get the ‘big ideas’ right ...