Center for a New American Security

First, thanks to Troy for his continuing coverage of all things South-ish Asia. And don't miss the Stateside coverage of the recently leaked NIE draft. One bit from the NYT story that caught Charlie's eye:

The classified report finds that the breakdown in central authority in
Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant corruption within the government of
President Hamid Karzai and by an increase in violence by militants who have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks from havens in Pakistan....Beyond the
cross-border attacks launched by militants in neighboring Pakistan, the
intelligence report asserts that many of Afghanistan’s most vexing problems
are of the country’s own making, the officials said.

That struck this blogger as plausible...but she's no expert. What say you?

Second, Charlie got a request via email for some Saudi resources this week. Seems prudent to post the replies for the collective readership to review:

First from AM:

I am no expert on Saudi Arabia. But Thomas Hegghammer is the brightest young
scholar on jihadi movements in Saudi Arabia. Many of his articles can be learned
monograph on Saudi succession.

And from Carlos:

The chapter in Judith Miller's God has Ninety-Nine Names is good, and with
the rest of the book there might be a shot at other context.

I happen to think the opening stuff in The Age of Sacred Terror is pretty
good, though the context is a little wider than Saudi Arabia.

And there is Sandra Mackey, The Saudis: Inside the Desert Kingdom. Dated, but still good basics.

Finally Charlie apologizes for being largely MIA over the last couple weeks. She's been crushed with work and obsessed with the financial crisis / election (actually much more the former than the latter). The long term impact of the budget crunch, liquidity crisis, and likely erosion of American economic power has serious implications for our foreign and defense policies. She just hasn't figured them all out quite yet.

But if you think the American public is fickle and short-sighted in the best of times, you ain't seen nothing yet. It's going to be increasingly hard to justifying long-term occupations overseas...not to mention Army and Marine plus-ups (that budget money is going to go to big ticket hardware items like ships and planes, the kinds of things that create jobs in congressional districts).