Center for a New American Security

James Miller, Senior Vice President and Director of Studies at the Center for a New American Security, and S. Enders Wimbush, Director of the Center for Future Security Strategies at the Hudson Institute, were interviewed on C-SPAN's Washington Journal on challenges President-elect Obama will face.  Two main issues discussed were defense policy, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, and veterans affairs.

September 11, 2008- The New York Times reported Thursday that President Bush authorized U.S. forces to conduct raids against Taliban and al-Qaida strongholds inside Pakistan's border region without the approval of Islamabad. Regional and security experts assess the reports.
 
MARGARET WARNER: For months, the U.S. military and the Bush administration have grown increasingly frustrated with the safe haven afforded Taliban and al-Qaida guerrillas in Pakistan. Now that haven may be a little less safe.

As China and India vie for power and influence, Burma has become a strategic battleground. Four Americans with deep ties to this fractured, resource-rich country illuminate its current troubles, and what the U.S. should do to shape its future.

August 14, 2008- Lost in the news cycles of presidential politics, the Olympic Games and the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is a brewing crisis in South Asia. The United States' strategic posture toward South Asia has largely focused on terrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan and on nuclear proliferation. This approach has largely ignored the historical conflict over Jammu and Kashmir, which has sparked two major hot wars in the last 60 years.

"You would think that the Bush administration would be coaching the Karzai government not to antagonize Pakistan unnecessarily by cozying up to India."

Is the U.S. so caustic that its beef can virtually unravel a foreign ally's government? Over the past month South Korea has experienced tremendous political unrest as President Lee Myung-bak attempts to justify his decision to lift a ban on U.S. beef imports as part of a major free trade agreement (FTA) between Seoul and Washington.

STRATEGIC preoccupation with Iraq and Afghanistan has undermined US influence and credibility in the Asia-Pacific region. Nowhere is this more apparent than in South-east Asia, where America's presence is woefully inadequate.

With Mr Barack Obama  now the Democratic Party's presumptive presidential nominee, America's Asia policy under a new administration will start to take shape.

SINGAPORE - The U.S. will continue to honor its commitments and responsibilities in the Asia-Pacific region "no matter which political party occupies the White House next year," U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates told delegation members at the 7th International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Summit: The Shangri-La Dialogue, held here from May 30 to June 1.

ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT (AP) — Defense Secretary Robert Gates will use a weeklong Asia trip to reinforce the United States' commitment to the region, amid rocky relations with China, struggles with North Korea, and unease among the smaller allied nations.

Even as the United States sends humanitarian aid to cyclone-devastated Myanmar and the earthquake victims in China, Asian nations worry that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made it difficult for the Pentagon to give the Pacific region the attention it requires.

American presidents are meant to have big ideas about the world: a "new frontier", an "alliance for progress", a "war on terror". Unfortunately for the Democratic party the big idea that most animates their two would-be presidents - Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton - seems to be mutually assured destruction.