The Political Conundrum!

Both houses of France's Parliament authorized the government Monday to continue its military commitment in Afghanistan, and the prime minister pledged 100 extra troops following a deadly ambush there last month.

Both houses of France's Parliament authorized the government Monday to continue its military commitment in Afghanistan, and the prime minister pledged 100 extra troops following a deadly ambush there last month.

The Air Force discontinued its user profile on the social networking Web site MySpace.com after concerns that association with inappropriate content might damage the service's reputation.

The Russian Navy successfully test-fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile, officials said.

Virgil Richardson fondly remembered the .30-caliber M1 Garand rifle he carried during his time as a soldier during the Korean War. He even still had the weapon's serial number. Using that number, Jim Richardson went online and found the firearm at a Kentucky gun broker.

Funding for the National Guard has reached a record level amid the largest mobilization of America's citizen soldiers since WWII, Robert Gates said Monday. With the increased spending, nearly 80 percent of Army National Guard equipment will be fully modernized by the end of 2013, he said.

Activists prepared large protests to meet the arrival of the USS George Washington aircraft carrier, which is to dock just south of Tokyo on Thursday to become the first nuclear-powered carrier with its home port in Japan.

Almost all terrorist organizations seek to establish international support networks that allow them to operate in countries and regions outside their home bases. The FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) are no exception.

In this new NEFA Foundation report, using internal FARC documents and interviews with former FARC leaders and others in Colombia, I outline the unusual and unexpectedly broad network the guerrillas had established. This paper is the third I have done on the political and military demise of the FARC, which, despite recent setbacks, remains the hemisphere's oldest and largest insurgency.

As I have noted before, the FARC, a designated terrorist entity by the United States and the European Union, is largely a rural-based group, but in many ways is the prototype of terrorist groups we are likely to see as state sponsorship for such groups is cut back.

The size and sophistication of the FARC international network was one of the biggest surprises of FARC documents that have been captured. It had long been assumed that, while the group had some times, it was a relatively isolated entity. That, however, is not true.

The FARC (along with the Taliban) are pioneers in the use of massive drug financing for their political ends. At the same time, the FARC is developing a (so far) unique model of support networks that includes state sponsors (Venezuela and Nicaragua, most notably), non-state supporter networks, and a concerted effort to share tactics, technology and experiences with other terrorist groups (the ETA of Spain and the P-IRA of Ireland, in particular). My full blog is here.

In the span of week, there were two attacks against hard targets, the September 17 attack on the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, and Saturday’s strike on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates still face difficulties launching attacks in Western countries, due to the difficulty of transporting the necessary experienced operatives to the West in the face of diligent and capable Western security services.

But these attacks highlight growing capabilities within the greater Middle East, where security forces are not as skilled and the operatives move with greater ease. Both of these attacks were against targets with formidable security, and the success of the Marriott attack indicates the limits inherent in hardening targets and the potential for enormous quantities of explosive to overcome security measures. This tactic will become more widespread where terrorists possess the necessary logistical and technical capabilities.

Brute Force

The attack on the Embassy in Sanaa, Yemen was a sophisticated, multi-pronged strike that included two carbombs and gunmen (a State Department briefing describing the attack is here. Although the attack took ten lives, it did not penetrate the Embassy itself. There may be lessons learned from this semi-successful attack that can be incorporated into future strikes - but Embassy security will also adapt. However, the fortress-like status of American Embassies around the world exacts a high price on U.S. efforts to conduct effective public diplomacy. The Marriott is a hotel. While Embassies can adopt extensive security procedures at some cost to their effectiveness, hotels cannot pay that same price.

What the Yemen attack attempted to achieve by guile, the Islamabad attack managed by sheer brute force. Marriott security appeared to have worked.

Read the complete post here.

A Russian navy squadron set off for Venezuela today, an official said, in a deployment of Russian military power to the Western Hemisphere unprecedented since the Cold War.