Below, please find the latest articles to have appeared in print and electronic media about CSIS and its experts. For your reference, there is also a link to archived media coverage of CSIS.
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "Iran's pawns move."
Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, with an assist from Sen. Joe Lieberman, competed in freshly minted assurances of allegiance to Israel as it embarked on a weeklong 60th birthday party. Neoconservatives have hinted darkly that Mr. Obama, whose middle initial stands for Hussein, was born a Muslim and later grew up as a Christian. This, they say, makes him an apostate and puts him at risk of execution by an Islamist extremist. Read the article
May 14
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the United Press International, "Iran's pawns move."
WASHINGTON, May 13 (UPI) -- Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain, with an assist from Sen. Joe Lieberman, competed in freshly minted assurances of allegiance to Israel as it embarked on a weeklong 60th birthday party. Neocons have hinted darkly that Obama, whose middle name is Hussein, was born a Muslim who later grew up as a Christian -- which, they say, makes him an apostate and puts him at risk of execution by an Islamist extremist. Proof of Obama's extraterritorial allegiance? A Hamas official who said, in an interview, "We like Mr. Obama and we hope he will win the election." That was enough for McCain to suggest Obama was soft on terrorism.Read the commentary
May 5
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the United Press International, "From riches to rags."
Globalization was supposed to lift all boats, some faster than others. And the proliferation of democracies around the world would put the seal of good government on this peaceful process. But globalization has also spawned multiple uncertainties. Players improvise the rules as they go along. Hedge funds and derivatives have left government regulators in the dust. And the middle classes see their standard of living heading south. A plethora of books by geopolitical heavyweights is now ringing alarm bells. In "The Return of History and the End of Dreams," Robert Kagan says we are now back in a world of clashing national ambitions and interests, closer to the 19th century than to the 1990s.Read the article
May 2
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "Mirrors and misconceptions."
Every lie contains a truth and every truth contains a lie is a safe rule of thumb when Shakespeare's powers of observation are applied to the Middle East. With each shake of the kaleidoscope, the configuration of the key players becomes a wilderness of mirrors. Add to the mix a whispering campaign in which rumors and innuendo are spread to conceal ulterior motives, and sorting fact from fancy is frequently mission impossible. Good disinformation contains a kernel of truth spun with a tissue of lies.Read the commentary
April 30
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the United Press International, "Commentary: Wilderness of mirrors."
"Every lie contains a truth and every truth contains a lie" is a safe rule of thumb when Shakespeare's powers of observation are applied to the Middle East. With each shake of the kaleidoscope, the configuration of the key players becomes a wilderness of mirrors. Add to the mix a whispering campaign in which rumors and innuendo are spread to conceal ulterior motives, and sorting fact from fancy is frequently mission impossible. Good disinformation contains a kernel of truth spun with a tissue of lies. Even if you understand the game, there is still no Rosetta Stone that can decipher the Middle East's geopolitical hieroglyphics. Read the commentary
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the United Press International, "Not by bread alone."
WASHINGTON, April 21 (UPI) -- With the world consuming more food than it produces and global grain stocks at their lowest in 30 years, food prices are soaring from Indonesia to Indiana. Some experts called it the perfect storm and others a tsunami. More intense and more frequent weather disasters put an increasing number of people at risk of hunger. Food riots broke out in widely scattered parts of the world, even hounding the Haitian prime minister out of office. The global food crisis has a common denominator with the still unfolding subprime mortgage debacle whose losses the International Monetary Fund now estimates at $1.1 trillion: greed. Predatory lending coupled with criminal profiteering was behind the subprime mess. It is the largest loss of wealth in modern U.S. history. And greed also played a big part in the pell-mell rush to move land out of food production and into ethanol biofuels. Corn at $6 a bushel is up 30 percent in four months. Wheat prices jumped 130 percent in a year, and wheat stocks are at their lowest in 60 years. Globally, rice hit historical levels, partly driven by Australia's six years of drought.Read the commentary
April 17
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "Visionary vicissitudes."
We are beginning to use words, phrases and assertions without any regard to their meaning. The predicate "Islamist extremism is the defining characteristic of the 21st century," ignores we are now in year 8 of this century — with 92 more years to go. No one can possibly know what will define our century over the next nine decades. What is now emerging in neurosciences at George Mason University or in the convergence of information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology and robotics at Arizona State University, is bound to have more of an impact on this century than Taliban's flat-Earth clerics in Pakistan and Afghanistan and al Qaeda's volunteers for suicide terrorism against modernity.Read the commentary
April 16
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the United Press International, "Puncturing Mideast myths."
WASHINGTON, April 16 (UPI) -- To paraphrase Winston Churchill on the Battle of Britain: Never in the field of Middle Eastern reporting was so much owed by so many to so few. In fact, to one man.Martin Sieff's "Politically Incorrect Guide to the Middle East" is a superb compendium that should be required reading for anyone reporting on what diplomats prefer to call the Near East. Whether Middle or Near, it's where political correctness can kill. And no one knows this better than Sieff, a brilliant journalist with an encyclopedic knowledge and understanding of world history. Puncturing myths is one of his strong suits.Read the commentary
April 14
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the United Press International, "92 years to go."
WASHINGTON, April 14 (UPI) -- We are beginning to use words, phrases and assertions without any regard to their meaning. The predicate "Islamist extremism is the defining characteristic of the 21st century" ignores we are now in year eight of this century -- with 92 more years to go. No one can possibly know what will define our century over the next nine decades.What is now emerging in neurosciences at George Mason University or in the convergence of information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology and robotics at Arizona State University is bound to have more of an impact on this century than the Taliban's flat-Earth clerics in Pakistan and Afghanistan and al-Qaida's volunteers for suicide terrorism against modernity. Next to the magnitude of coming scientific attractions, a Shariah-based, global-terror caliphate will hold little appeal for "volunteer" suicide bombers. An act of terrorism with weapons of mass destruction would only accelerate al-Qaida's demise.Read the commentary
April 9
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the United Press International, "Hey guys, let's be friends."
WASHINGTON, April 9 (UPI) -- The United States is now fighting two wars with a long-term price tag estimated by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office at $2.4 trillion, of which about $1.9 trillion would be spent on Iraq. Monthly costs are running at $12 billion a month. Pity President Bush's successor. He/she will be inheriting a mess on all fronts – national security, economy, defense, trade, health. Huge interest costs should also be factored in as combat is funded with borrowed money.The full impact of Bush's answer to a question put to him by a European author in a private Oval office meeting a year ago leaves no room for doubt. After an optimistic briefing on Iraq, the author asked the president, "What about your successor?" Bush replied, "Don't worry about him. We'll fix it so he'll be locked in."Read the commentary
April 3
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the United Press International, "Boom to bust."
WASHINGTON, April 3 (UPI) -- Borrowing $2 billion to $3 billion a day from other countries to maintain the world's highest standard of living, based on conspicuous consumption, in an age of growing world shortages, while fighting two wars whose costs will soon ring up a $1 trillion tab, is tantamount to living on borrowed time. Valium and Tylenol sales are up, and Viagra down, in the banking world. So far, the subprime tsunami has wiped out half a trillion dollars from the books of major financial institutions in the United States and Europe.At first, the Union Bank of Switzerland, one of the world's three most prestigious, figured it had lost $19 billion. That's when Singapore's pension fund kicked in $11 billion, figuring UBS was still a sound investment over the long haul. UBS then revised its loss estimate to $40 billion -- for one bank!Read the article
March 31
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "Afghan lament."
"I don't care if it takes another 10 or 20 years, but we cannot allow Afghanistan to fail." So spoke Frank Carlucci, former defense secretary and national security adviser, at the Council on Foreign Relations. Failure, said Mr. Carlucci, would break the Atlantic Alliance (NATO), and turn the world stage over to the next two global heavy hitters — China and Russia. Most of the European members of NATO, while professing solidarity with the U.S. and NATO over Afghanistan, and conceding that it's a make-or-break issue for the trans-Atlantic alliance, are not prepared to stay more than another two years, maximum three. Supplying their, at best, weak troop commitments stationed in the quieter parts of Afghanistan (where there is little Taliban guerrilla activity) is more costly than anticipated. Countries like Belgium, Spain and Italy have limited airlift capacity and their military transport aircraft are stretched to the breaking point. European Union countries that are also members of NATO allowed their defenses to run down since 1989 when the Berlin Wall collapsed and money saved went into the gargantuan appetites of welfare states. Read the article
March 28
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "Multidimensional chess."
To understand the chasm between mainstream media and the blogosphere, Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" is a helpful guide. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, they are not. But they are frequently fact and factoid (an invented fact taken to be true because of its appearance in print). And many blogs have achieved the status of print since countless millions get their news online. The average age of a newspaper reader is 55. Onliners? Try 30.Read the commentary
March 28
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the United Press International, "Afghan lament."
"I don't care if it takes another 10 or 20 years, but we cannot allow Afghanistan to fail." So spoke Frank Carlucci, former U.S. defense secretary and national security adviser, at the Council on Foreign Relations. Failure, said Carlucci, would break the Atlantic Alliance and turn the world stage over to the next two global heavy hitters — China and Russia. Most of the European members of NATO, while professing solidarity with the United States and NATO over Afghanistan and conceding that it's a make-or-break issue for the trans-Atlantic alliance, are not prepared to stay more than another two years, maximum three. Supplying their, at best, weak troop commitments stationed in the quieter parts of Afghanistan (where there is little Taliban guerrilla activity) is more costly than anticipated. Countries like Belgium, Spain and Italy have limited airlift capacity, and their military transport aircraft are stretched to the breaking point. EU countries that are also members of NATO allowed their defenses to run down since 1989 when the Berlin Wall collapsed and money saved went into the gargantuan appetites of welfare states. Read the commentary
March 26
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in United Press International, "Of yarmulkes and epithets"
To understand the chasm between mainstream media and the blogosphere, Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" is a helpful guide. Tweedledum and Tweedledee, they are not. But they are frequently fact and factoid (an invented fact that is taken to be true because of its appearance in print). And many blogs have achieved the status of print by virtue of the fact that countless millions get their news online. The average age of a newspaper reader is 55. Onliners? Try 30. Sen. John McCain and his independent (formerly a Democrat) fellow traveler Sen. Joe Lieberman wound up their most recent Mideast foray in Israel where the Republican candidate for the presidency got a little help from the man widely tipped to be his choice for vice president in adjusting his yarmulke. For many Mideast bloggers, the yarmulke gesture was proof McCain would be even less inclined than President Bush to coax/cajole/pressure Israel into the kind of concessions that would make a Palestinian state possible.Read the article
March 19
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "Demonocracy, not democracy?"
Washington's Pakistan kibitzers will soon rue the day they squeezed President Pervez Musharraf to restore democracy. "Demonocracy" is what has now emerged, or an unholy alliance of long-time America-haters, including the MMA coalition of six politico-religious extremist parties that lost the Feb. 18 elections, plus a gaggle of former generals and admirals against Mr. Musharraf, and friends and admirers of Dr. A.Q. Khan, the man who ran a nuclear "Wal-Mart" for the benefit of America's enemies (North Korea and Iran). More ominous still is the acquiescence of Pakistan's two principal "moderate" leaders.Read the article
March 17
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "Fox Fallon's fall."
Middle East commander Adm. William J. "Fox" Fallon's abrupt resignation over a controversial interview and profile in Esquire magazine was a carefully choreographed exit for the 63-year-old Navy aviator. The first Navy man appointed to head the Central Command, which stretches from the Middle East to South Asia, and includes Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, he is now one of three former CentCom commanders who oppose bombing Iran's nuclear facilities if the mullahs keep trucking their nuclear weapon ambitions. Read the commentary
March 17
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in UPI International "Demonocracy, not democracy."
Washington's Pakistan kibitzers will soon rue the day they squeezed President Pervez Musharraf to restore democracy. "Demonocracy" is what has now emerged, or an unholy alliance of longtime America-haters, including the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal coalition of six politico-religious extremist parties that lost the Feb. 18 elections, plus a gaggle of former generals and admirals against Musharraf, and friends and admirers of A.Q. Khan, the man who ran a nuclear Wal-Mart for the benefit of America's enemies (North Korea and Iran). More ominous still is the acquiescence of Pakistan's two principal "moderate" leaders. Read the commentary
March 14
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in UPI International, "Fox Fallon's fall."
WASHINGTON, March 14 (UPI) -- The abrupt resignation of Middle Eastern commander Adm. William J. "Fox" Fallon over a controversial interview and profile in Esquire magazine was a carefully choreographed exit for the 63-year-old Navy aviator. The first Navy man appointed to head the Central Command, which stretches from the Middle East to South Asia and includes Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, he is now one of three former Centcom commanders who are opposed to bombing Iran's nuclear facilities if the mullahs keep on trucking their nuclear weapon ambitions.Read the commentary
March 10
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "Portentous economic pile-up."
The bursting of the housing bubble, which punctured the credit bubble, was a criminal enterprise at the outset, pooh-poohed at first by those who should have known better, that has now triggered a global economic crisis. The U.S. prison population is at an all-time high with 2.3 million behind bars, but the subprime con men and con women are enjoying the fruits of their scams. Global estimates of laundered funds sheltered by individuals in offshore tax havens vary between $7 trillion and $12 trillion. Yet only three postage-stamp size countries — Andorra, Monaco and Liechtenstein — are still blacklisted as tax-dodging havens.Read the commentary
March 6
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in UPI International, "Klepto-capitalism."
WASHINGTON, March 6 (UPI) -- The bursting of the housing bubble, which punctured the credit bubble, was a criminal enterprise at the outset, pooh-poohed at first by those who should have known better, that has now triggered a global economic crisis. The U.S. prison population is at an all-time high with 2.3 million behind bars, but the subprime con men/women are enjoying the fruits of their scams.Global estimates of laundered funds sheltered by individuals in offshore tax havens vary between $7 trillion and $12 trillion. Yet only three postage-stamp size countries -- Andorra, Monaco and Liechtenstein -- are still blacklisted as tax-dodging havens.Read the commentary
March 4
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "ISI's new triumvirate."
Afghanistan, the main battleground in the war on terror, has been shortchanged by the Iraq war and its manpower and equipment priorities. Al Qaeda got trounced by U.S. forces in Iraq — but Iraq was never the problem. Under Saddam Hussein, al Qaeda was not welcome in Iraq. After the U.S. invasion, Iraq became a force multiplier for would-be unholy warriors from Middle Eastern countries — primarily Saudi Arabia — and Europe's Muslim ghettos.
February 29
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in UPI International, "ISI's new triumvirate."
WASHINGTON, Feb. 29 (UPI) -- Afghanistan, the main battleground in the war on terror, has been shortchanged by the Iraq war and its manpower and equipment priorities.Al-Qaida got trounced by U.S. forces in Iraq -- but Iraq was never the problem. Under Saddam Hussein, al-Qaida was not welcome in Iraq. After the U.S. invasion, Iraq became a force multiplier for would-be unholy warriors from Middle Eastern countries -- primarily Saudi Arabia -- and Europe's Muslim ghettos. Several hundred al-Qaida volunteers have been killed -- or gone home. But home base for al-Qaida and Taliban was and still is the weird-sounding acronym for Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area -- FATA -- some seven fiercely independent tribal "agencies" under nominal Pakistani sovereignty that form, along with Baluchistan (one of Pakistan's four provinces), the 1,400-mile border with Afghanistan.Read the commentary
February 22
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in Washington Times, "Favorable confusion."
Free elections in Pakistan Monday were to be the first step in bringing a dysfunctional nuclear power back to democratic stability. The preliminary first step was a deal with the pro-al Qaeda Taliban chief in the tribal areas. Pakistani's new army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani, and the "emir" of Tehrik-e-Taliban-Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, agreed to a cease-fire, as well as the withdrawal of the Pakistani army from South Waziristan, one of the seven tribal agencies along the Afghan border (known as FATA, or Federally Administered Tribal Areas).Read the commentary
February 20
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in UPI International, "Pakistan: Favorable confusion."
WASHINGTON, Feb. 20 (UPI) -- Free elections in Pakistan Feb. 18 were to be the first step in bringing a dysfunctional nuclear power back to democratic stability. The preliminary first step was a deal with the pro-al-Qaida Taliban chief in the tribal areas. The new Pakistani army chief of staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kiyani, and the "amir" of Tehrik-e-Taliban-Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud, agreed to a cease-fire, as well as the withdrawal of the Pakistani army from South Waziristan, one of the seven tribal agencies along the Afghan border (known as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas).Read the commentary
February 16
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in Washington Times, "Europe: The weak that was."
Only one member of the German Bundestag out of 614 parliamentarians is in favor of putting the 2,900 German troops in Afghanistan in harm's way, or at least willing to say so publicly. Hans-Ulrich Klose, a Social Democrat, vice chairman of the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee, says a total of six think the way he does but won't say so publicly. That leaves 608 representatives of the German people opposed to German soldiers deserting their Salvation Army mode of operations and joining U.S., British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers now doing all the fighting against Taliban guerrillas. Read the commentary
February 13
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in UPI International, "Testosterone Slump."
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- Only one member of the German Bundestag out of 614 parliamentarians is in favor of putting the 2,900 German troops in Afghanistan in harm's way, or at least willing to say so publicly. Hans-Ulrich Klose, a Social Democrat who serves as the vice chair of the Bundestag's Foreign Affairs Committee, says there are a total of six who think the way he does but won't say so publicly. That leaves 608 representatives of the German people who are opposed to German soldiers deserting their Salvation Army mode of operations and joining U.S., British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers now doing all the fighting against Taliban guerrillas.Read the commentary
Thomas Sanderson, deputy director of the CSIS Trans-National Threats Program, had a commentary published with the Economist Debate Series, "Freedom and Its Digital Discontents."
One modern version of that cold-war timepiece is the American Civil Liberties Union’s “surveillance society clock”, which conveys the degree to which the US is trading privacy for security in the post-9/11 world. In his blog “Six ticks till midnight”, a computer scientist, Jeff Jonas, an information-age privacy expert, warns that inevitable and irresistible technologies are leading us (willingly) into a surveillance society. Where will you be when the clock strikes twelve? If security-enabling technologies proceed unchecked by serious debate, good policy and oversight, the likely answer could be “nowhere secret”.Read the commentary
February 1
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in Washington Times, "Talibanization and nukes."
One wing of the Taliban movement wants to give its top priority to demoralizing and evicting the U.S. and its NATO allies from Afghanistan. The other, led by Baitullah Mehsud, who is said to have ordered Benazir Bhutto's assassination, wants to focus on the Talibanization of Pakistan. Mullah Mohammad Omar, the one-eyed Taliban leader whose movement was deposed and who has been in hiding since the U.S.-led invasion a month after September 11, 2001, resurfaced — long enough to fire Mehsud. Mehsud, a Pakistani Talib warlord, let be known that while he remained loyal to Mullah Omar, he also remained "the Amir of Tehrik-Taliban Pakistan" and it wasn't much longer before both sides denied his expulsion.Read the article
January 30
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in UPI International, "Talibanization and nukes."
One wing of the Taliban movement wants to give its top priority to demoralizing and evicting the United States and its NATO allies from Afghanistan. The other, led by Baitullah Mehsud, the man who allegedly ordered the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, wants to focus on the Talibanization of Pakistan. Mullah Mohammad Omar, the one-eyed Taliban leader whose movement was deposed and who has been in hiding since the U.S.-led invasion a month after Sept. 11, 2001, resurfaced -- long enough to fire Mehsud.Read the commentary
January 28
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "Subprime stakes and globaloney."
Sex sells. So does baloney and now globaloney, which is complete falsehood told with bravado. The world is flat for some, flat broke for many more. America's predatory lenders, subprime mortgage brokers, various and sundry con artists, combined forces to blind America's monetary sentinels, rip off the world, and give America's democratic capitalism a bad name.Read the commentary
January 25
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in UPI International, "Globaloney predators."
WASHINGTON, Jan. 25 (UPI) -- Sex sells. So does baloney and now globaloney, which is complete falsehood told with bravado. The world is flat for some, flat broke for many more. America's predatory lenders, subprime mortgage brokers, various and sundry con artists, combined forces to blind America's monetary sentinels, rip off the world and give America's democratic capitalism a bad name.Read article
January 22
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "Mission unaccomplished."
President Bush's Air Force One was still airborne on its way back from a six-country, eight-day tour of Middle Eastern capitals when agreements and understandings began to unravel. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah was noncommittal on pumping more crude oil. With oil at $100 per barrel, all OPEC countries are already siphoning off at full capacity and the desert kingdom's now small extra capacity would be a drop in the global bucket. The six Gulf states, known as Gulf Cooperation Council, have already accumulated a cool $1 trillion nest egg — half of which is already assigned to SWF (Sovereign Wealth Funds) for investment abroad. Mr. Bush's quid for the king's quo was $20 billion worth of high-tech military goodies over the next 10 years (still not authorized by Congress nor accepted by the king who is also shopping in Britain, France and Russia). Read the article
January 18
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in UPI International, "Mission Unaccomplished."
WASHINGTON, Jan. 18 (UPI) -- President Bush's Air Force One was still airborne on its way back from a six-country, eight-day tour of Middle Eastern capitals when agreements and understandings began to unravel.Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah was noncommittal on pumping more crude oil. With oil near $100 per barrel, all OPEC countries are already siphoning off at full capacity and the desert kingdom's now small extra capacity would be a drop in the global bucket. The six Gulf states, known as the Gulf Cooperation Council, have already accumulated a cool $1 trillion nest egg -- half of which is already assigned to sovereign wealth funds for investment abroad.Read the article
January 16
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in UPI International, "Commentary: 2008 Futurology"
Some 14 million U.S. government documents a year are classified confidential, secret and top secret for more than 29 million that are declassified — at a total cost of $9 billion, up $3.5 billion since the al-Qaida attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. For the past two years, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell has been trying to make security clearances uniform and interchangeable among the 16 intelligence agencies he overseas. But he's still waiting for congressional action. If he transfers a senior employee from the National Security Agency to the CIA, the security clearance has to start all over again — and takes up to nine months. A standardized system would save $3 billion.Read the article
January 14
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary in the Washington Times, "Pakistan's Terror Inc."
Most terrorist trails lead back to Pakistan, Britain's MI5 (internal intelligence service) concluded a year ago. An average of some 400,000 Pakistani Brits a year fly back to the old country for vacation or to visit their relatives. From the airports in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, where they land, side trips to the madrassas — Koranic schools — where they were originally radicalized, or to a terrorist training camp in the tribal areas that straddle the Pakistani-Afghan border, go undetected. There is no way to keep track of thousands of passengers arriving from the United Kingdom every day. Nor can MI5 cope with up to 1,000 a day returning to their U.K. homes from trips to Pakistan.Read the commentary
January 11
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior adviser, published a commentary with United Press International, "Commentary: Pakistan's Terror Inc."
Most terrorist trails lead back to Pakistan, Britain's MI5 (internal intelligence service) concluded a year ago. An average of some 400,000 Pakistani Brits a year fly back to the old country for vacation or to visit their relatives. From the airports in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, where they land, side trips to the madrasas -- Koranic schools -- where they were originally radicalized, or to a terrorist training camp in the tribal areas that straddle the Pakistani-Afghan border, go undetected. There is no way to keep track of thousands of passengers arriving from the United Kingdom every day. Nor can MI5 cope with up to 1,000 a day returning to their U.K. homes from trips to Pakistan. Since Sept. 11, 2001, German intelligence services were happy to report to their Western colleagues they had no such problem with Germany's 2.8 million-strong Turkish minority. Most of them are second- and third-generation German-speaking Turks long established and integrated in German life. This week a high-ranking German internal security delegation met with the heads of several U.S. intelligence agencies to explain how their comfortable assumptions had to be re-examined. German intelligence services have uncovered a direct al-Qaida link from Germany via Turkey to Pakistan -- for young radicalized German Turks. Read More
January 11
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior advisor, published a commentary on quoting the CSIS Commission on Smart Power in the Washington Times, "A Smart Power Bridge?"
The bipartisan conclave in Oklahoma this week was designed as a bridge between moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats who seek to use "smart power" to build a new world order. Smart power is the skillful conjugation of soft (diplomacy) and hard power (military intervention), which kept the world at peace for half the 20th century (Korea and Vietnam were bumps on the road). Smart power, bipartisan luminaries — e.g., former Sens. Sam Nunn, Chuck Robb, Gary Hart, Bob Graham and David Boren (the convener) for the Democrats, and William S. Cohen, Bill Brock, John C. Danforth, and Chuck Hagel, the only sitting senator, for the Republicans — agreed on a formula for national salvation.Read the article
January 9
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a CSIS senior adviser, published a commentary with United Press International featuring the CSIS Commission on Smart Power, "Bipartisan Manifesto."
The bipartisan conclave in Oklahoma this week was designed as a bridge between moderate Republicans and moderate Democrats who seek to use "smart power" to build a new world order. Smart power is the skillful conjugation of soft (diplomacy) and hard (military intervention) power, which kept the world at peace for half of the 20th century. (Wars in Korea and Vietnam were bumps in the road.) Smart power, bipartisan luminaries — e.g., former Sens. Sam Nunn, Chuck Robb, Gary Hart, Bob Graham and David Boren (the convener) for the Democrats, and William S. Cohen, Bill Brock, John C. Danforth and Chuck Hagel, the only sitting senator, for the Republicans — agreed on a formula for national salvation. The recipe, a coalition government of national unity, has been tried in other Western democracies with varying degrees of success. In Washington, this would translate into a Cabinet of experts drawn from both parties who would reach across party lines on the most critical areas facing the nation over the next 10 years. National security, the Iraq War-drained military, healthcare, education, the environment and infrastructure are at the top of the list.Read the commentary
Arnaud De Borchgrave, a CSIS Senior Adviser, had a commentary published by United Press International, "Absurdistan?"
WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 (UPI) -- There is a fresh and sordid postscript to Benazir Bhutto's assassination. Tainted by her husband Asif Ali Zardari's penchant for graft and corruption, Bhutto was twice fired as Prime Minister (1990 and 1996). Her closest friends now say she did not appoint Zardari to succeed her as party leader in case of death. The political testament Zardari read on television was his recent creation, not hers.Read the commentary
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