All Categories - Tucson Committee on Foreign Relations

Arizona Public Media Interviews Two TCFR Speakers

3/9/2019

Ambassador Nicholas Burns addresses TCFR members at Skyline Country Club on Thursday, Feb. 21, 2019.

Following Ambassador Nicholas Burnsʼ excellent talk to TCFR on February 21, 2019, the ambassador was interviewed by Christopher Conover of Arizona Public Media. Mr. Conover later interviewed Steven Hall, retired member of the CIA Senior Intelligence Service, who opened the current TCFR season with his talk in September 2018. The two interviews recently ran on AZPMʼs public affairs radio program, “The Buzz.” The following link will take you to the program and also to the complete audio of Ambassador Burnsʼ talk to TCFR:

https://radio.azpm.org/p/radio-buzz/2019/3/7/147469-changing-us-foreign-relations/

Experiences and Reflections on Science and Diplomacy

2/20/2019

PRESS RELEASE - University of Arizona College of Engineering

John Boright, Executive Director of International Affairs of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine

John Boright will talk about contrasts, relationships and lessons learned in his various roles as a government official on nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear energy use, a United State Embassy and State Department science counselor, and at the National Academies building capacity and partnerships to meet major global challenges, especially in the least developed countries. His talk will cover perspectives on nuclear power in the context of climate change and nuclear risks, and cooperation to meet urgent human needs in the presence of issues of human rights and strong national policy disagreements.

In 1994-1995, Boright was Deputy to the Associate Director for National Security and International Affairs at the Office of Science and Technology Policy in the Executive Office of the President, after spending five years as Deputy Assistant Secretary for Science and Technology Affairs at the Department of State overseeing U.S. science and technology agreements with other countries, and international space policy and program matters. In 1987-1989 he was Director of the Division of International Programs at the National Science Foundation, where he developed international cooperative arrangements and U.S. access to science and engineering in other countries, particularly with Japan and countries in Asia and Eastern Europe. Before that he worked for 10 years at Department of State and has worked at the Goddard Space Flight Center, the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, and the U.S. Mission to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria. He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and received his BA and PhD in physics from Cornell University.

NATO At Seventy: An Alliance in Crisis

2/16/2019

PRESS RELEASE - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard Kennedy School

Cambridge, MA—As the 70th anniversary of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) approaches, the world’s oldest and most successful military alliance of democratic nations faces serious and complex challenges to its purpose, effectiveness, and unity in 2019.

Former U.S. Permanent Representatives to NATO Douglas Lute and Nicholas Burns highlight ten major challenges to NATO in a new report, NATO at Seventy: An Alliance in Crisis, and offer recommendations to bolster this critically important alliance.

Burns, who is Faculty Chair of The Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center, and Lute, a Senior Fellow with the Europe Project, will discuss the report during events at the Munich Security Conference on Friday, February 15.

“NATO is facing one of its most difficult crises in seven decades,” said Nicholas Burns. “While NATO has strategic challenges to meet, the single greatest threat is the absence of strong, principled American presidential leadership for the first time in its history.”

Douglas Lute said, “We hope that this report serves as food for thought within the Alliance, prompting attention to tough, strategic challenges and deep introspection among the allies. NATO should move revitalized and retooled into the decades ahead, and again demonstrate its ability to adapt.”

Based on extensive discussions with current European and North American leaders, former senior officials, academics, and journalists, Burns and Lute recommend that Congress pass legislation this year to protect NATO, such as requiring Congressional approval should President Trump attempt to alter U.S. treaty commitments to NATO allies or seek to take the U.S. out of the Alliance altogether. They also offer recommendations on how NATO should cope with low European defense spending, Russia’s continued aggression in Eastern Europe, anti-democratic governments within NATO, Afghanistan, China and more.

The authors recommend action in these areas:

Challenges from Within NATO

Reviving American Leadership of the Alliance
Restoring European Defense Strength
Upholding NATO’s Democratic Values
Streamlining NATO Decision-Making

Challenges from Beyond NATO’s Borders

Containing Putin’s Russia
Ending the Afghan War
Refocusing NATO Partnerships
Maintaining an Open Door to Future Members
Challenges on the Horizon
Winning the Technology Battle in the Digital Age
Competing with China

Read the full report here.

A Differing Perspective on Kim Jong Un's Objectives

1/22/2018

By Elliott Weiss

National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster speaks with an aide on the tarmac at Osan Air Base, South Korea, on November 7 2017. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)

In November, Dr Patrick McEachern spoke about what North Korea’s goal is in developing nuclear weapons capable of reaching the mainland United States. He suggested that Kim Jong Un’s objectives were to protect his country against an American attack, nuclear or otherwise, and to preserve his regime. Kim, he suggested, was determined not to suffer the same fate as Saddam and Quadaffi, two other dictators who had been deposed after agreeing to abandon their nuclear weapon programs.

A recent article in The Atlantic outlines the thinking of H.R. McMaster, President Trump’s National Security Advisor, on troublesome issues posed by North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. Gen. McMaster thinks it is likely that Kim’s principal goal is to have the capability to threaten the United States with a nuclear attack if it seeks to block an attack by the North’s conventional forces against South Korea. This view is encapsulated in the question “Would the United States Government risk Seattle to save Seoul?”

Gen. McMaster’s thesis varies from the hypotheses discussed by Dr. McEachern. I thought that members of TCFR, especially those who attended Dr. McEachern’s talk, would find it interesting to consider this contrasting point of view. You can find it discussed at some length here.

Elliott Weiss, a retired attorney and professor of law, is a director of TCFR and the chair of the board’s Nominating Committee.

Are We Kidding?

1/19/2018

By Thomas J. Volgy

(Photo source: Business Insider, captured January 16, 2018)

With the possible exception of the early years of American atomic capabilities (from the mid-1940s through the mid-1950s), we became not only the most sophisticated nuclear power in the history of the world, but also the one country I was completely convinced would never respond with nuclear weapons against non-nuclear threats. There was some flirtation with a first-strike policy, especially during the days of Ronald Reagan’s “evil empire” moment, but even such horrible flirtations were imagined only in the context of substantial nuclear threats by a comparable nuclear power (the Soviet Union).

So, today I was astonished to learn from the pages of the New York Times ("Pentagon suggests countering devastating cyberattacks with nuclear arms", January 16, 2017) that the Pentagon has formally recommended to the White House the use of nuclear weapons in response to a range of threats that are not nuclear threats to the United States. These would include “large” scale cyberattacks.

This is not the first time the Pentagon has proposed use of nuclear weapons under “extreme circumstances”; it did so as well under the Obama Administration. But what has changed here is a broadening of what is considered extreme, to include cyberattacks as well.

I can understand the concern. A well-coordinated cyberattack on U.S. infrastructure would cause havoc with our economy, with society in general, and perhaps have a dramatic impact on the Pentagon’s command and control operations. It would be “huge”.

But does it warrant the first-strike use of nuclear weapons? Is it possible that we would plan to use nuclear weapons against countries that don’t have nuclear capabilities? Is it possible that a military that consumes over $600 billion annually does not have in its arsenal responses that would not require the first-use of nuclear weapons? The strategy envisions the manufacture and deployment of a new generation of “small, low-yield” nuclear weapons to be used in these “extreme” circumstances.

What for? We really don’t have enough punching power in our incredibly large, technologically impressive arsenal and so we are willing to seriously entertain nuclear usage in this type of confrontation?

Apart from the expense (approximately $2 trillion to upgrade our nuclear arsenal) and the horror of nuclear use, there is awful lot here that requires further examination and questioning. Historically, the heavy investment in nuclear capabilities was primarily justified in terms of deterrence against the Soviet Union. As long as the Kremlin understood that any nuclear first strike attempt on their part would guarantee a retaliation that would destroy the Soviet Union completely, the policy assured that Moscow’s leadership would commit suicide by starting this type of war, and therefore would not do so.

And at some level, deterrence worked. In fact, it worked so well that no nation with nuclear capabilities (apart from our bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II) has ever used its nuclear weapons against another, even when its opponent had no capacity to retaliate with nuclear weapons. It is a threshold that no nation wanted to cross.

Now, what has changed? Possibly this is another deterrence strategy, warning cyberbullies that they face the threat of nuclear weapons should they engage in a serious cyberattack on the United States. Unfortunately, history has taught us that deterrence attempts on the part of a nuclear power against a nation without nuclear weapons does not work.

No one can put the nuclear genie back into the bottle. But until now, the world has done a pretty good job in not letting it out all the way. That could soon change. It is not a legacy I am willing to leave to my children.

Before we go much further down this road, we should rethink where we are going. A first-use doctrine of this sort invites fear and mimicking on the part of those nations who can also build such weapons and could soon deploy them.

That would make for a far more dangerous world than the Pentagon’s assessment of how troubled the world actually seems at the moment.

Tom Volgy is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona and the former Executive Director of the International Studies Association.

Is China Really Stronger than the U.S.?

11/11/2017

By Thomas J Volgy

(Presidents Trump and Xi inspecting troops in Beijing, November 9, 2017. Photo courtesy of New York Times)

As a close observer of international relations, it is difficult to read what the U.S. President just said in China. According to news accounts he indicated that China had left America “so far behind”, blamed previous U.S. administrations for our trade imbalance, seems to have suggested that the U.S. needs China more than China needs the U.S., and thus created the impression of an imbalance in power relations favoring the Chinese, praised President Xi for consolidating his power as an autocrat, and called Xi “a very special man” (New York Times, November 9, 2017).

According to the New York Times, the warm embrace was not reciprocated by President Xi, and to many Chinese the U.S. President appeared to come as a supplicant, rather than representing the most powerful country in the world.

Does any of this matter? Most U.S. Presidents (if not all) make sure that they project American power, not because they feel good doing so (which they probably do), or because it plays well with domestic audiences (which it does), but because such projection carries with it substantial “soft power”: it confers on the U.S. a very special status of being the strongest of major powers, and grants us additional influence over the course of global affairs. Doing the opposite, which appears to be the case with Trump’s China visit, simply underscores the claims of Chinese and Russian foreign policy makers that American global leadership and American global power have come and gone.

And that’s not true. I have not met a single person with good knowledge of China, either in North America or in Europe, who wanted to move there to live because it was a better country in which to live. In what way has China left us “so far behind”?

With over a billion people, its economy is still smaller than ours. More important, Chinese per capita income is a shade below $6,900 a year, compared to that of the U.S. ($17,200), making us two and half times richer than China.
Our economy and economic well-being is far less dependent than the Chinese on those global markets that no one country can control. One measure of this is trade/GDP; the higher the percentage the less autonomy a country enjoys from the vagaries of global economic fluctuations. By this measure some 28 percent of our economy is dependent on international trade while for the Chinese it hovers over and under 40 percent, making China far more vulnerable to global fluctuations than the U.S.
The global currency is the dollar, it has been for many decades, and continues to be so, giving us a very strong advantage over both China and other nations. Chinese efforts at making the yuan (RMB) competitive have not been successful. No wonder that the Chinese have invested heavily in the U.S. economy, and now they are dependent in no small measure on our economy doing well.
We spend more on research and development, and especially per capita than any other country.
Depending on the source, U.S. workers range anywhere from being the most productive to the fifth most productive in the world. Chinese workers, on average, generate only 19 percent of the amount of GDP an American worker does (Bloomberg, May 11, 2017).
Over a million foreign students studied in U.S. universities last year (despite issues about immigration and visas). That is more than twice the number of foreign students in Chinese universities, and the largest number of foreign students for any country in the world. There are nearly as many Chinese students in American universities than all the world's foreign students in Chinese universities.
Our military is by far the strongest, not only compared to any other country today, but probably in the history of the world. In terms of global power comparisons, we have a highly sophisticated worldwide reach; the Chinese are still working on a deep water navy and their naval capabilities are limited to reaching places offshore near their own borders in Asia.
The U.S. has approximately 6,800 nuclear warheads; the Chinese have roughly 270, or fewer than France.
Most damaging: ongoing border disputes with other countries lead to increased conflict, instability, and suspicion. We have no such significant conflicts with our neighbors. The Chinese has been unable to resolve theirs and in fact have exacerbated these conflicts (and increased resistance to Chinese leadership in the region as a consequence) in the South China Sea.

Have the Chinese left us behind? Facts suggest the very opposite. It is dangerous for an American president to say that they have. Saying it increases the prospects that leaders of other states will begin to believe it, and diminish our abilities to pursue our foreign policy objectives. Perhaps even more important, Chinese leaders may begin to believe it as well.

It may become the ultimate foreign policy irony of this Administration that on the way to trying to "make us great again," our global "influence" will substantially diminish as a result of the actions and words coming from this White House.

Tom Volgy is a Professor of Political Science at the University of Arizona and the former Executive Director of the International Studies Association.

International Law and the Missile Strike in Syria

4/22/2017

By Robert Thompson

On April 6, 2017, 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles launched from U.S. Navy warships struck an air base in Syria. The attack was in retaliation for the horrifying use of chemical weapons, presumably ordered by the Assad regime, against Syrian civilians. Much discussion followed concerning President Trumpʼs authority to launch the strike without Congressional approval, but less attention has been paid to the legitimacy of the missile strike under international law.

Sovereignty is a fundamental principle of international law. States have broad freedom to act as they choose within their own borders and in dealing with their own people, whether or not others like what they do.

The freedom of sovereign states is not absolute, however. There is a balance between the rights of state sovereignty and the stateʼs obligations under customary and treaty- based international law. Of particular relevance to this discussion, the Geneva Protocol of 1925 established the illegality of use of chemical weapons in warfare, and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention prohibited production, storage, and transfer of such weapons, as well as their use. Syria is a party to both treaties.

So how is the conflict between state sovereignty and responsibility for the gassing of Syrian men, women, and children to be resolved?

Justifications for the unilateral strike initially offered by the Administration included a strained claim of self-defense (the need to keep chemical weapons out of the hands of terrorists). But Syria has neither attacked nor directly threatened other states. The legal case must rest on a different foundation.

In 2005 the United Nations World Summit adopted the principle of Responsibility to Protect (often referred to as R2P). Under this principle a state has a responsibility to protect its own people from mass killings and other egregious violations of human rights. If the state fails to satisfy that responsibility, intervention by other states can be justified. But under R2P the use of force against an offending state is a last resort (after more pacific efforts). Military action is permitted only in cases of genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity, and then only with UN Security Council authorization. Obtaining Security Council authorization for the U.S. missile strike would not have been a practical possibility with Russia and China having veto power in that body. In 2011 the Security Council did authorize (with Russia and China abstaining) military intervention in Libya to prevent atrocities by the Qaddafi regime, but authoritarian regimes consistently resist diminution of sovereignty, and, of course, Russia has a direct interest in supporting the Assad regime.

So R2P cannot be the legal basis of the missile strike in Syria. But that is not the end of the story.

Humanitarian intervention is a concept much older and less institutionalized than the formality of R2P. Under customary international law humanitarian intervention simply involves military force used or threatened against a sovereign state and motivated by humanitarian objectives. Ideally military action justified as humanitarian intervention would be multilateral, as was NATO bombing in the Kosovo conflict in 1999, but that has not always been the case. Because of the conceptual elasticity of humanitarian intervention, and because it challenges the fundamental principle of sovereignty, humanitarian intervention has always been controversial, but it is a recognized part of the framework of international law.

The unconscionable acts perpetrated against the Syrian people for years by the Assad government, culminating in this most recent outrage of chemical attacks, manifestly justify the missile strike of April 6. The legal case based on humanitarian intervention is sound, if not universally embraced. It is virtually impossible to contest the moral case.

Robert Thompson is a retired lawyer and international business executive. He currently is president of the Tucson Committee on Foreign Relations.

The Future of International Agreements in the Trump Administration

2/9/2017

By Robert Thompson

On February 1, 2017, the American Society of International Law offered the first in a series of free, nonpartisan, online briefings on “International Law and the Trump Administration.” The initial briefing examined “The Future of International Agreements” and was moderated by Michael Goldhaber, a journalist specializing in international legal matters. The expert commentators were Catherine Amirfar and John Bellinger, both former State Department lawyers (he in the George W. Bush administration and she in the Obama administration) and both currently practicing international law with major law firms. The hour-long program was geared to an audience of policy makers, journalists, and the general public.

Donald Trump has expressed negative views of international law, international institutions, treaties, and other international agreements. A draft Executive Order leaked after Mr. Trump became president would direct a review of all multilateral treaties to determine from which of them the Administration might choose to withdraw. Mr. Ballinger noted it is customary for a new administration to order a review of pending treaties in order to prioritize among them, but a review of all treaties both pending and in force would encompass hundreds of instruments and suggests a skepticism both commentators regarded as troubling. The specific benefits of treaties are many, the commentators observed, and the values of free and open societies are spread across the globe through treaties and other international agreements.

Ms. Amirfar described the three legal categories of international agreements and the standards for each coming into effect under U.S. law. Treaties require approval by a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Congressional-Executive Agreements are approved by a majority of the House and Senate. Sole Executive Agreements can be entered into (and withdrawn from) by the president, pursuant to Constitutional or statutory executive authority and without concurrent Congressional involvement. Boundaries between the types of international agreements are largely guided by tradition but can be subject to debate.

There is little legal precedent concerning the president’s unilateral power to withdraw from treaties and international agreements. In the past the Supreme Court (in Goldwater v. Carter, 444 US 996 (1979)) has found such treaty withdrawal to be a non-justiciable political issue not ripe for judicial review.

The panel explored the prospects for several international agreements, principles, and institutions that drew specific attention in the recent campaign: NAFTA, the Paris climate change agreement, the Iran nuclear deal, the World Trade Organization, the principle of sovereign immunity, the International Criminal Court, and U.N. Human Rights conventions. Each situation is different, and the difficulty of withdrawing from or modifying the U.S. position on each varies. For example, the Paris agreement is so minimally binding and aspirational that it has not been submitted to the Senate, so the president could essentially ignore it if he chooses. On the other hand, NAFTA (a Congressional-Executive Agreement) contains specific procedures for withdrawal on six months notice (it is not clear whether the president could act unilaterally to withdraw). But the economies of the parties to NAFTA are so intertwined that the practicality of withdrawal is questionable.

Both commentators expressed hope that once the full Cabinet is in place and a more normal process of consultation and inter-agency dialogue begins to take place the international system that has dramatically raised global standards of living will remain intact.

A video recording of the February 1 discussion can be viewed at www.asil.org/100days. The second briefing in the series, on “The United Nations and Its Specialized Agencies,” will take place on February 23, 2017, at 9:30 a.m. (MST).

Robert Thompson is a retired lawyer and business executive. He currently is president of the Tucson Committee on Foreign Relations.

Today, February 7, 1968

2/7/2017

By Don Shepperd

It was 49 years ago today, but I remember it like yesterday, February 7,1968. I was a 27 year-old fighter pilot on a mission over North Vietnam. I was part of a small unit that flew two-seat F-100 jet fighter aircraft as Forward Air Controllers (FACs) over the North. Our mission was to search for heavily-camouflaged targets, Surface to Air Missile (SAM) sites, truck parks, ammunition and POL storage, convoys, etc. When we found a target, we called in bomb-laden fighters and marked the targets by firing smoke rockets. It was a dangerous mission requiring us to fly at low level constantly exposed to anti-aircraft fire and in the SAM vulnerability envelopes. Our losses were high, 28% of the pilots shot down, some twice, several POWs and KIAs, some still missing.

On this day we took off from Phu Cat Airbase before dawn, headed north and when contacting the controlling agency, were asked to fly over the Lang Vei Special Forces Camp west of Khe Sanh. Lang Vei was supposed to provide security on the western approach to Khe Sanh in northern South Vietnam. Khe Sanh was under siege by two-three division-sized forces of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) belying the fact that "there is light at the end of the tunnel." This was a little more than a week after the launch of the TET Offensive across Vietnam and every major city was under attack as well as most U.S. bases and outposts. The country was burning. Radio contact had been lost with Lang Vei.

After checking to assure no B-52 strikes were scheduled, we descended to very low level and reported, "It looks like a tornado has struck. The perimeter is breached everywhere, nothing moving, many dead bodies, and TANKS IN THE WIRE!" No one believed us when we gave our intelligence report on the radio and after landing. "There ain't no NVA tanks in South Vietnam," was the reaction - so, we showed our handheld 35mm Nikon photos - "Oh" was the reply - I am still reminded of how good were the NVA at camouflage - we were really good at locating camouflaged targets, but two-three division-sized targets and nothing stirred, no dust, no movement, no nothing, "all quiet on the western front." Khe Sanh was an amazing battle, one of many in the tragedy that was Vietnam.

As I look back from my retired vantage after almost 40 years in uniform, some things become obvious: in war what seems like a good idea at the time almost never is. Time after time, our nation seems to wander into conflicts which when viewed from a historical standpoint appear simply stupid, or at the very least, avoidable.

The courage of our young men, and now women, to do dangerous things is never in short supply. What we seem to lack is leadership that absorbs lessons learned from mistakes made. Despite being the most powerful nation on earth with the world's most capable military, I look at our track record in wars during my lifetime: We won one (WWII), lost one (Vietnam), and tied four (Korea, where we still are 67 years later; Desert Storm; Afghanistan and Iraq - being gracious to call the last three ties). That kind of record gets an NFL coach fired.

When I travel to Washington D.C. and visit the Vietnam Wall with the names of 58,000+ young Americans including many classmates, squadron mates and friends, including my best friend, I can do little more than shake my head. I can only hope the whispers of my friends reach the Hill at night.

There are things worth fighting for, but we must understand what they are before we do. We owe it to our nation and our children.

Don Shepperd TCFR, Tucson

The above story is contained on page 215 in my book, "Bury us Upside Down - The Misty Pilots and the Secret Battle for the Ho Chi Minh Trail" - the book was bought by Random House who saw fit to submit it for consideration for a Pulitzer (considered, not nominated). The book was on the Air Force Chief of Staff's recommended reading list for several years and has become a Vietnam air war classic. It is available on Amazon.com and here is a short podcast I put together on the book from my Tucson home:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrMELi2uFk4&t=81s

Book Review

11/30/2016

Twilight Warriors: The Soldiers, Spies, & Special Agents Who Are Revolutionizing the American Way of War
BY JAMES KITFIELD, Basic Books, 2016, 405 pp.

Reviewed by Robert Thompson.

“It takes a network to defeat a network.” That observation, frequently expressed by General Stanley McChrystal as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command, led to creation of an integrated network of soldiers, spies, and special agents to combat a highly networked enemy proficient in the use of technology. In his new book, Twilight Warriors, James Kitfield tells a compelling story of how they did it, what they accomplished, and what it means for the future of the global fight against terrorism.

A military trained in doctrines of maneuver warfare adapted to a new kind of enemy by developing innovative and collaborative counterterrorism measures. Special Operations Forces, conventional forces, and precision air assets worked together more seamlessly than ever before. The military was joined in the fight by intelligence and law enforcement agencies — CIA, FBI, NSA, DEA — as equal partners. Turf-conscious organizations with diverse cultures learned to cooperate. Intelligence gathering and analysis that once was an important adjunct to military operations became the primary mission of a new warfighting machine. Centralized command and decentralized execution made it fast-moving and responsive.

This densely networked counterterrorism force, developed within the Joint Special Operations Command, was part of the broader counterinsurgency strategy championed by General David Petraeus in Iraq, first as 101st Airborne Division commander and later as commander of Multi-National Force-Iraq. It was replicated in Afghanistan in 2009 when General McChrystal assumed command of all U.S. and coalition forces there. The unprecedented collaboration among military, intelligence, and law enforcement in Iraq and Afghanistan progressed rapidly and effectively on the battlefield. That it did not result in final, decisive victory was due to, according to Kitfield, corrupt governments in Baghdad and Kabul and political decisions taken in Washington. Yet Kitfield holds out hope for its continued viability as American involvement in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts winds down and terrorist activity elsewhere intensifies.

Author James Kitfield has reported and written on defense, national security, and foreign policy for more than 20 years.* Twilight Warriors is a journalistʼs reportage, based largely on interviews the author conducted and his earlier published articles. Far from being a dry treatise on military strategy and tactics, it is full of anecdotes and insights into the character of the large cast of military personnel and civilians who drove the network. Aspects of the story have been told elsewhere, sometimes in greater detail, but Iʼve found nothing that describes as clearly and comprehensively the new warfare that evolved from the 21st Century conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Warfare has never been a static enterprise. It adapts and evolves as technology and threats change. James Kitfield has drawn a lucid picture of a new American way of war, conceived in a long twilight struggle against foes in dark shadows.
_____________
* James Kitfield is the only three-time winner of the Gerald R. Ford Award for Distinguished Reporting on National Defense. He was the featured speaker at a Tucson Committee on Foreign Relations event in September 2016, addressing the topic “ISIS Update: Importing and Exporting Radical Islamic Terrorism.”
Robert Thompson is a retired lawyer and international business executive. He currently is president of the Tucson Committee on Foreign Relations.