Free Republic

What did the U.S. military offensive against Shiite militias in Sadr City in April 2008 and the Israeli offensive against Hamas in Gaza last December have in common? A lot, apparently, and both operations are being held up by their respective militaries as models for a new way of battling irregular fighters in urban strongholds. Central Command chief Gen. David Petraeus likes to put up a PowerPoint slide in public briefings detailing the forces, intelligence and surveillance assets involved in the Sadr city battles as representative of a new way of fighting. “This is the answer,” Petraeus said at a...

A number of experts think the U.S. should abandon its “top down” strategy of building an Afghan national army and should switch to arming and paying local tribes to fight the Taliban. Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, appearing Thursday at a Capitol Hill conference sponsored by RAND, said he closely examined former Soviet counterinsurgencies in Poland and the Ukraine. In both cases, the Soviets successfully levered small, locally recruited militia forces to successfully battle numerically superior anti-regime insurgents. He warned of the perils of trying to police xenophobic Tajiks, Uzbeks and Pahstuns with an Afghan national army. A better...

In preparing for possible future military interventions, the United States needs to shift substantial resources to the Department of State and U.S. Agency for International Development, and military-civilian efforts must be integrated from top to bottom, according to a new report issued today by a group of veteran government and private-sector leaders. The report also recommends delegating spending authority to the field level and requiring that civilians and military officers gain extensive cross-agency experience in one another's disciplines. The report was developed to provide a set of national security recommendations to the incoming presidential administration and new Congress. The effort...

News Release OFFICE OF MEDIA RELATIONS 703-413-1100 x5117 and 310-451-6913media@rand.org FOR RELEASE Tuesday June 10, 2008 Virginity Pledges May Help Postpone Intercourse Among Youth Making a virginity pledge may help some young people postpone the start of sexual activity, according to a new RAND Corporation study. Researchers found that adolescents who made pledges to remain virgins until they are married were less likely to be sexually active over the three-year study period than other youth who were similar to them, but who did not make a virginity pledge, according to the study published online by the Journal of Adolescent...

Keith Weissman and Steven Rosen Are PhDs and Middle East Experts Who Did Some Lobbying. They Thought They Were Doing What Washington Insiders Always Do. Thomas O’Donnell didn’t reveal his job when he phoned Keith Weissman in 2004 and got the policy analyst’s wife. He says he didn’t want to scare her. When Weissman returned the call and found out O’Donnell was an FBI agent, his first reaction was to attempt a joke: “What did I do?” “I’m sure you didn’t do anything,” O’Donnell told him. He wanted to meet that day, for five or ten minutes, and get Weissman’s...

"In terms of perception, we've already lost the war," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism analyst who heads the Washington office of RAND Corp., a think tank known for its problem-solving research..

WASHINGTON, Aug. 28 — The Saudi government has spent millions of dollars on well-connected lobbyists and national television advertisements since Sept. 11 in a drive to improve its image among Americans and is poised to spend more as the anniversary of the events approaches. Saudi officials said the publicity was intended to counter intensified anger or skepticism among Americans toward their country, which was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers and which has clashed publicly with the Bush administration over a possible attack against Iraq. A striking sign of the Saudis' eagerness to reach out to the United States...

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia, Aug. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- HRH Prince Saud Al-Faisal, Minister of Foreign Affairs, today emphasized the strength of U.S.-Saudi relations, and reiterated that the two countries have been friends and allies for over 60 years. Prince Saud described the bilateral relationship as "excellent in all fields." Prince Saud described as "pure fiction" the contents of a briefing given by Laurent Murawiec of the Rand Corporation to the U.S. Defense Policy Board on July 10, 2002, in which he described the Kingdom as an enemy of the United States. Prince Saud indicated that he received a telephone call from...

At a classified briefing last month , a top Pentagon advisory panel was told Saudi Arabia is an enemy to the United States and a backer of terrorism. "The Saudis are active at every level of the terror chain, from planners to financiers, from cadre to foot-soldier, from ideologist to cheerleader," stated the briefing prepared by Laurent Murawiec, a Rand Corporation analyst. The briefing was presented on July 10 to the Defense Policy Board, a group of prominent intellectuals and former senior officials that advises the Pentagon on defense policy, the report said, adding that it appeared to be linked...