Author name: Branden Loizides

Features, Online Edition

Moving Forward in Mexico

By Nina Catalano – News south of the U.S. border is not good these days. Mexican drug traffickers are supplementing their already gruesome violence with terrorist tactics, and Central America is increasingly faced with the destabilizing spillover effects of Mexico’s war: homicides increased 37% in El Salvador last year, while Guatemala continues to lurch through chaos.  U.S. officials, on the other hand, are touting the pending deployment of 1,200 National Guard troops to the border and the recently passed 2010 Supplemental Appropriations Act, which provides an extra $175 million in assistance for Mexico.  But is it enough? Two new reports […]

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The American Commitment in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s Efforts as Peace Broker

In the wake of Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s dismissal, questions linger about the trajectory of the American-led war in Afghanistan. While administration officials insist that McChrystal’s counterinsurgency strategy—formulated with the help of his successor, Gen. David Petraeus—will remain in place under the latter’s leadership, the incident underscored for many the fragility of the Afghan operation as it enters its ninth year.  Pakistani officials have recently stepped up their efforts to broker a peace accord between Hamid Karzai’s Afghan government and the network of Sirajuddin Haqqani.  The impetus for such negotiations is what some Pakistani officials see to be “increasing American uncertainty”

Features

Unlikely Routes: Stronger Militaries by Transforming Military Education

By Malik Ahmad Jalal and Agus Yudhoyono* – “I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us that the less we use our power, the greater it will be.” The words of U.S. philosopher-president Thomas Jefferson adorn the walls of Jefferson Memorial Library at West Point Military Academy.  They reflect the ethos that mastering warfare will not be sufficient to guarantee the pre-eminence of an army.  Rather, it is the wisdom acquired by mastering all forms of knowledge that enables a country to project power through non-military means, which will ultimately determine supremacy.  This article identifies the

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Supreme Court Upholds Federal Law Banning “Material Support” to Foreign Terrorist Groups

On Monday, June 21, the Supreme Court announced its ruling in Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project.  In a 6 to 3 decision, the Court held that the material-support statute, 18 U.S.C. § 2339B, is constitutional as applied to the forms of support the plaintiffs sought to provide to foreign terrorist organizations. The case was brought over ten years ago by several humanitarian groups concerned that their activities in relation to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) would lead to prosecution under the material-support statute.  Both the PKK and the LTTE have been designated

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