by Jeffry R. Halverson The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) has released a short monograph, De-Legitimizing al-Qaeda: A Jihad-Realist Approach, by sociologist Paul Kamolnick, a professor at Eastern Tennessee State University. Kamolnick criticizes current US efforts to counter al-Qaeda’s messaging and recruitment strategies as ineffective, and proposes an alternative two-fold solution to marginalize and defeat al-Qaeda. [...]

by Chris Lundry Indonesian extremists continue to portray Ambonese Christians as engaged in separatist rebellion against Indonesia, and a crusade against Muslims. This isn’t true, but raises the question: where on earth did they get this idea? The adage that if a lie gets repeated enough times it becomes true is, apparently, applicable in Indonesia’s [...]

by Chris Lundry (with R. Bennett Furlow) It did not take long for the images of the US Marines urinating on corpses of Taliban fighters to go viral. A moment of lapsed judgment will circulate as long as anyone is interested in seeing it, certainly long after short attention spans move on to other things [...]

by Scott W. Ruston* In December, COMOPS was invited to participate in a question and answer forum with General Stéphane Abrial, NATO Supreme Allied Commander Transformation, hosted by Atlantic-Community.org. Atlantic-Community is a leading European online think tank focused on transatlantic relations. The Q&A reveals that General Abrial has an integrative, forward-looking conceptualization of the role [...]

by Cameron Bean and Bennett Furlow On Friday, October 22, Wikileaks released almost 400,000 documents on the Iraq War.  At first Pentagon spokesperson Geoff Morrell seemed to downplay the release, claiming the documents were “essentially snapshots of events” and do not “tell the whole story.” But chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Michael Mullen [...]

by Scott W. Ruston Recent headlines revealed that video feeds from the Predator, the US unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used for surveillance and targeting in both Iraq and Afghanistan, have been intercepted by insurgents in Iraq.  Early follow up analysis focuses on whether the intercept of Predator video feeds qualifies as a “hack” or whether [...]

by Mark Woodward and Mariani Yahya* Thai-Buddhist colonialism? That is a strange concept, but it is reality as far as the Malay-Muslims of the “Deep South” of Thailand are concerned. Edward Said noted that the representation of political- and military-subject people as less than fully human is among the basic elements of the culture and [...]

by Chris Lundry In the aftermath of the 17 July bombings at the Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta, some interesting developments have emerged in Indonesia’s anti-terrorism efforts. The incident has shattered the illusion that Indonesia was safe from the threat of terrorism following four years without a major terrorist incident.  It also led to some puzzling [...]

by Steven R. Corman Yesterday that the DoD Office of Inspector General released a report with the unparsimonious title “Organizational Structure and Managers’ Internal Control Program for the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) and American Forces Information Service” (H/T WaPo). It’s main conclusion has to do with the “Managers’ Internal Control Program established at [...]

by Steven R. Corman The Advanced Research and Assessment Group of the Defense Academy of the United Kingdom has just released a new primer on Strategic Communication.  The executive summary says: This paper attempts to address a perceived gap in UK defence thinking which currently has little documentation, on the emerging and cross governmental art [...]