On December 11, 2016, the Islamic State recaptured the historic Syria city of Palmyra. The offensive occurred during the final phase of Syrian-Russian offensive to drive the remaining anti-government rebels from Aleppo. This post addresses issues not captured in the wake of the Islamic State offensive in Palmyra. The Resurrection…
During the primary and the general election, candidate Donald Trump repeatedly made statements that indicated that he supported a stringent immigration policy which could possibly be used to deal with the threat posed by lone wolf attacks on the homeland. A question begs, is a strong immigration policy a substitute…
The author previously addressed The Evolution of Trump’s Plans to Defeat ISIS. Most notably, during the primary, and on multiple occasions throughout the general election, Donald Trump incessantly offered different iterations on how he intended to defeat ISIS. Now that he is president-elect, this post addresses some of the issues…
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow with the Foundation of the Defense of Democracies, remarked, “One of the biggest counterterrorism concerns for the United States and its allies since the attacks of September 11, 2001, has been managing the dangers posed by ungoverned spaces.”[1] Unfortunately, the U.S. counterterrorism strategies have yet…
President Obama’s Controversial Legacy as Counterterrorism-in-Chief is the subject of this post. There are a host of questions that are addressed herein. For example, what were some of the critical counterterrorism objectives that were introduced and subsequently implemented by the president? Then a second significant question is addressed: what ultimately…
The emergence of the Islamic State represented a major challenge for the Barack Obama administration. Having incessantly stated that Al Qaeda had been decimated, President Obama overlooked, and in eyes of many in the U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism communities, refused to come to grips with the threat posed by the…