Center for a New American Security

Some Norwegian idiot journalist has embedded with the Taliban and shot this incredible footage of an attack on a U.S. or allied convoy. These guys sound and act a lot like a U.S. small unit, but replace all the quotes from "Anchorman" and "Talladega Nights" with "Allahu Akbar." Oh, and they have much better hair (12:18). In fact, the David Allan Coe-looking dude with the argyle socks is my new favorite Talib. (h/t Intern Steve) Update: Gah, you guys have lost it.

It will surprise very few people to know that Battleship and Risk sit on the communal tables outside our offices here at CNAS. Ganesh Sitaraman, hand pictured, pointed out to everyone this afternoon the way in which, as in real life, Afghanistan is a nightmare: unlike relatively secure areas like the Americas and Australia, Afghanistan's porous borders mean occupying players are subject to attack from FIVE sides. Occupying armies should consider themselves forewarned: Invading is easy; staying is hard.

I like both Anatol Lieven and Tom Ricks and always listen to them both on matters related to Afghanistan, even when I disagree with them. (I currently disagree, for example, with Tom's assessments of both Iraq and Afghanistan.) I first met Tom, actually, in a tent at Bagram in between missions during Operation Anaconda in March 2002, and we now work together at the Little Think Tank That Could.

Here's a fun project for the readership. This should keep you busy through the weekend. I was reading a book chapter by Stathis Kalyvas (.pdf) and came across his definition of civil war, which will be familiar to those of you who have read this book:

I saw this Wall Street Journal article on a Taliban sniper is the most-viewed article on WSJ.com. It's worth pointing out, then, that the myth of the great Afghan marksman is just that: a myth. Marine-turned-journalist C.J.

Drew Conway was promoted to the faculty of New York University (uh, by the New York Times, at least), for these neat charts he helped make using the Wikileaks data.

This blog post by longtime friend of the blog Christian Bleuer should be required reading for not just military officers who write on Afghanistan but also we civilian defense policy analysts who write on Afghanistan. And much of the constructive criticism Christian has for writing on Afghanistan could also be applied to other countries and regions.

Check out blog alumna Erin "Charlie" Simpson mixing it up with Brian Katulis, Jake Shapiro, and Sarah Holewinski (of CIVIC) at the New America Foundation. Shapiro's thesis is really interesting and important: reducing civilian casualties actually reduces U.S. troop casualties as well. So the supposed trade-off involved between strict ROE and risking U.S. casualties isn't a trade-off at all once you bother to look at the data.

I work as a defense policy analyst at a think tank. I get paid to do research and then give informed opinions about issues of interest to policy-makers. Those policy-makers can either accept my recommendations or, more often than not, reject them.

Ghaith Abdul Ahad breathes a breath of minty fresh air into the fetid Wikileaks debate. It was kind of obviously really; everyone was arguing about Pakistan's links to the Taliban, the Pakistanis denied it, the Pakistani media complained, the British PM slapped Pakistan around publicly in India, the Americans said it was OK, the Pakistanis were behaving much better now. The only people who didn't get a say in it all were the Taliban. Until Ghaith went and asked them.