American Strategy Program

Archives: American Strategy Program Articles and Op-Eds

Lessons From the Whole Quran Episode

  • By
  • Brian Fishman,
  • New America Foundation
September 15, 2010 |

The statement from Asaib Ahl al-Haqq, a Shiite militant group in Iraq with ties to Iran, was typical of militant Islamist responses to the would-be Quran-burning in Florida: "The enemy should know that we are serious about this matter and that, God willing, we are capable of setting the Iraqi land on which they stand on fire; turning it to a volcano that never calms and a fire that never dies, regardless of the sacrifice."

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Rethinking U.S. War in Afghanistan

  • By
  • Steven Clemons,
  • New America Foundation
September 8, 2010 |

Though President Barack Obama last week gave his “Combat Operations in Iraq Are Over” speech from the Oval Office, in the hope that anxious Americans would feel that nationally unnerving, messy foreign military entanglements are being reduced, his focus should have been Afghanistan – where the hemorrhage of U.S. interests and resources is only worsening.

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Why Bin Laden Still Matters

  • By
  • Peter Bergen,
  • New America Foundation
September 4, 2010 |

In late January, Osama bin Laden released an audiotape praising the Nigerian who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009. “The message delivered to you through the plane of the heroic warrior Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was a confirmation of the previous messages sent by the heroes of [September] 11th,” he said.

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Mission Accomplished in Iraq?

  • By
  • Peter Bergen,
  • New America Foundation
September 1, 2010 |

On May 1, 2003, aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, President George W. Bush announced "major combat operations" in Iraq had ended. The defeat of Saddam Hussein, he told the American people, was "a crucial advance in the campaign against terror."

For the umpteenth time, Bush bracketed Saddam and the 9/11 attack. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11th, 2001, and still goes on."

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Room for Debate: A Stimulus-Led Way Out

  • By
  • Sherle R. Schwenninger,
  • New America Foundation
August 26, 2010 |

By all indications, housing is heading for a double dip. The dramatic fall in new home and existing home sales in July along with the increase in the inventory of unsold houses will almost certainly be followed by a new decline in housing prices in a few months' time.

A double dip in housing will add yet another drag to an already weakening economy, further eroding consumer confidence and precipitating a new round of bank failures. In this sense, housing is a leading indicator -- of another recession.

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Beyond City Limits

  • By
  • Parag Khanna,
  • New America Foundation
August 19, 2010 |

The 21st century will not be dominated by America or China, Brazil or India, but by the city. In an age that appears increasingly unmanageable, cities rather than states are becoming the islands of governance on which the future world order will be built. This new world is not -- and will not be -- one global village, so much as a network of different ones.

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New START now

  • By
  • William D. Hartung,
  • New America Foundation
August 16, 2010 |

If twisted logic were an Olympic sport, James Carafano would be a gold medalist.

In his most recent piece he seems to take issue with my opposition to the idea of developing a massive, costly, and destabilizing missile defense system aimed at thwarting Russia’s nuclear deterrent.  He then goes on to say that if I believe that, I should be opposed to the New START treaty, which puts no limits on missile defense development.

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Central Asia's New Silk Roads

  • By
  • Parag Khanna,
  • New America Foundation
August 12, 2010 |

The fate of the massive deposits of lithium recently discovered in Afghanistan is destined to be no different from that of landlocked Central Asia’s other natural resources: tapped by the West, and eventually controlled by the East.

Siberian timber, Mongolian iron ore, Kazakh oil, Turkmen natural gas and Afghan copper are already channeled directly to China through a newly built East-bound network that is fueling the rapid development of the world’s largest population.

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Keeping Promises

  • By
  • Peter Bergen,
  • New America Foundation
August 12, 2010 |

One truism of counterinsurgency is that securing and winning over the population are the keys to success. So, what do the people of Afghanistan want? In December, ABC and the BBC conducted nationwide polling and discovered that one-third of Afghans said that poverty and unemployment were the biggest challenges confronting them.

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Sports Without Diplomacy: The United States, Cuba, and Baseball

  • By
  • Tom Garofalo,
  • New America Foundation
August 5, 2010 |

That President Richard Nixon made his signature breakthrough to China with the help of "ping pong diplomacy" is one of the verities of U.S. diplomatic history. Since that achievement over forty years ago, those who would like to see an end to the long conflict between Cuba and the United States have often looked to baseball, both nations’ shared national pastime, as a bridge for mutual understanding. While baseball has done its part to bring both countries together on various occasions over the years, the diplomatic impasse remains.

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