Outside the Beltway

ProPublica has retracted an explosive but erroneous report about the nominee to be the next CIA Director.

By all accounts, Gina Haspel is exceedingly well qualified to be the next C.I.A. Director, but she has a troubling past that the Senate will need to at least force her to answer questions about.

A month that was highlighted by the capture of the ISIS capital city of Raqqa ends with an apparent lone wolf ISIS-inspired attack in New York City

The capital of the purported caliphate declared by ISIS has apparently fallen, but that doesn’t mean the end of ISIS. In fact, it may make the group more dangerous.

Iraqi military forces begin to crack down against Iraqi Kurds after last month’s independence referendum.

America’s longest war seems likely to soon turn into America’s never-ending war.

The London subway was hit by a bomb during the morning rush hour. Authorities are treating it as a terrorist attack.

President Trump’s Afghanistan policy sounds awfully familiar, and it’s likely to lead to the same results.

Based on initial reports, Trump’s Afghanistan policy looks a lot like what we’ve seen for the past sixteen years.

At least thirteen dead in an apparent terrorist attack in Spain.

James Comey’s testimony today wasn’t the end of the Russia investigation. Indeed, we are only at the beginning of the beginning, and it’s likely to get worse for the President before it gets better.

Based on his just released opening testimony, tomorrow’s testimony by Former F.B.I. Director James Comey is likely to be explosive.

Another night of terror in the United Kingdom.

America’s longest war is still going on, and President Trump’s advisers want him to continue his predecessor’s policies of continuing to re-expand American forces in a war that has seemingly no end.

Despite American air strikes, ISIS is expanding its power amid the chaos in Libya.

An apparent terror attack outside Parliament in London.

Trump appears to undervaluing existing bureaucracies listening more to hacks and ideologues.

A new Pentagon proposal would place more discretion in the hands of field commanders, removing the need for Presidential approval.

Three of the top four national security positions in Donald Trump’s Cabinet will be filled by retired Generals. This isn’t necessarily a good thing.

President Obama will leave office as the first two term President who presided over eight years of war. It didn’t start with him and it won’t end with him.

American forces will continue to stay in Afghanistan well after Barack Obama leaves office thanks to a new policy announced today.

A respected scholar has an interesting suggestion for fighting the Forever War.

The U.S. is poised to send troops to the front lines of yet another war we have no reason to be involved in.

American forces will be deployed to a combat area in southern Afghanistan, reversing current policy and calling the President’s promised withdrawal date into even further doubt.

Get ready for an expansion of the war against ISIS into Libya, because it’s probably not far away.

The attack in San Bernardino has seemingly left the Administration’s anti-terror strategy in disarray, so the President is addressing the nation tonight to say, well, something I guess.

With little actual debate and despite Paul Ryan’s promise of a return to ‘regular order,’ the House has passed a hastily drafted bill in response to the largely fear-based response to Syrian refugees in the wake of the Paris attacks.

French officials have confirmed that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the man believed to be the plotter of last Friday’s attacks in Paris, was killed in a police raid early Wednesday morning. This doesn’t mean authorities in France or elsewhere in Europe are any less concerned about future attacks, though.

Even the people hired to advice Ben Carson on foreign policy seem to recognize that he is clueless on the subject, and has no apparent desire to educate himself.

The initial responses of the Republican candidates for President to the attacks in Paris are about what you’d expect, but it’s far too early to tell what impact the events of the weekend will have on the race for President here in the United States.

France’s President blames ISIS, vows response, as death toll from Paris terror attacks stands at at least 127.

Reports of at least up to sixty dead, a hostage situation, and attacks at multiple locations in Paris.

The investigation continues, but the consensus seems to be growing that Metrojet 9268 was taken out by a bomb.

The plan to withdraw nearly all American forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2016 is being put on hold.

President Obama is reportedly considering a plan that would keep up to 5,000 American troops in Afghanistan past the withdrawal date he had already set.

My latest for War on The Rocks, “The Inter-Service Wars Are Looking Like Calvinball,” has posted.

The Administration announced changes to the way the government handles hostage situations, but it really doesn’t amount to much.

The American people don’t believe that liberty should be sacrificed in the name of security, but their leaders largely don’t care.

Many provisions of the Patriot Act lapsed at midnight, but apparently the world hasn’t ended.

Some unusually blunt, but true, language from the U.S. Secretary Of Defense.

The Senate went home last night without passing a bill to renew the PATRIOT Act, which expires at the end of the month.

U.S forces in Afghanistan have been involved in missions that go far beyond the counterterror mission the Obama Administration said they would be limited to.

An attack on al Qaeda outposts in January resulted in the death of two hostages, but also resulted in the death of two high value al Qaeda targets.

Explaining my ambivalence around the latest escalation in our intervention.