Month: September 2018
The expansion is ending, not soaring
The New York Times this morning wonders why the “booming” economy isn’t redounding to benefit Republican politicians. Here’s a try at an answer: the economy is not booming:
It is in fact growing at about the same rate it has grown since 2010, when the deep recession induced by the 2008 financial crisis ended. Nor is there a dramatic change in unemployment, which likewise has been tending downwards, albeit at a gradually slowing rate since 2010:
source: tradingeconomics.com
The supposed change in America’s economic performance since President Trump came to office is a myth.
The only thing soaring at the moment is the national debt:
source: tradingeconomics.com
This is due to the Trump tax cut for the rich and a massive budget deal that increased the deficit, which had shrunk dramatically during President Obama’s two terms after ballooning during the 2008 recession:
source: tradingeconomics.com
The economy is not soaring. It is reaching its limits: unemployment can’t go much lower and inflation is rising:
The Administration’s draconian limits on immigration and its taxes on American production and consumption (also known as tariffs), as well as the ballooning budget deficit, are going to increase pressure on wages and prices, which the Fed will need to counter by increasing interest rates. Foreign tariff retaliation will also hurt U.S. production.
So if American voters are not paying much attention to the economy, it’s not because they are ignoring its stellar performance. It’s because they understand that the helmsman is reckless and the current performance is unsustainable. The stock market, which recovered well under Obama and accelerated a bit in Trump’s first year, swooned earlier this year and is now recovering, but only so far to about the same level as in January:
source: tradingeconomics.com
It is only a matter of time before the market sees what the public already does: that the limits to this long expansion are not far away.
This pessimistic macroeconomic outlook comes on top of a lot of other problems: Administration-induced increases in the cost of health insurance as well as reductions in coverage, forest fires and storms causing massive unprogrammed state expenditures and Federal relief, unproductive trade negotiations, and deregulation that threatens environmental and financial harm to consumers.
Hold on tight. The roller coaster is near its peak and readying for the downhill slide. The expansion is ending, not soaring.
PS: Nouriel Roubini and Brunello Rosa offer a more professional and global argument along the same lines at Project Syndicate today.
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Fantasy
Charles Kupchan, who is a professor at Georgetown and a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, writes in the New York Times:
Rather than causing a contagion of ethnic separation, normalization of relations between Serbia and Kosovo may well do the opposite. Serbia is the region’s dominant player. If it settles its impasse with Kosovo, it may well transition from being an aggrieved troublemaker to a satisfied stakeholder. Serbia’s help would be particularly welcome in discouraging Republika Srpska, the Serb-dominated region of Bosnia left behind by the war there in the 1990s, from seeking to break away. The positive effects of reconciliation between Serbia and Kosovo further justify a one-off sacrifice of pluralist principles.
This is fantasy. There is no reason to believe that an agreement on ethnic division in Kosovo would not immediately cause a rise in ethnic nationalist claims in both Macedonia and Bosnia. Containing those, in particular if their advocates resort to violence, would be difficult without a major commitment of European and possibly American forces. A land swap would also provide Vladimir Putin with the leverage he needs to push the US to accept the border changes he wants internationally recognized: the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as well as the annexation of Crimea.
Note that Charles uses the classic op/ed dodge: “may well.” I know of no evidence for the claim that Serbia will be content with a piece of Kosovo. Serb nationalists also claim half or more of Bosnia. Nothing about a land swap between Belgrade and Pristina would discourage Republika Srpska (RS) from seeking to break away. In fact, its president has made it eminently clear in public that any land swap will make him push hard and fast for independence. He won’t care that the proposition is not “consensual.” Serbia would not be able or willing to recognize an independent RS without wrecking its EU prospects, but RS President Dodik and Putin would be content with an unrecognized Russian satellite.
Charles describes the land swap idea as odious, but he has not demonstrated how adopting it will improve the situation. To the contrary, it is entirely predictable that the consequences will be negative. Certainly there is as great a likelihood that they “may well” be catastrophic as beneficial.
Pluralism is not an option to be thrown away lightly for unlikely benefits, especially in a world where ethnic nationalism is on the rise. Fortunately constitutional requirements in both Belgrade and Pristina will prevent ta land/people swap from passing muster. Kosovo’s parliament is mostly opposed. Serbia’s parliament may be more compliant, but the required constitutional amendment there would require approval in a referendum with more than 50% of registered voters participating.
The New York Times piece will revive an idea that was already withering on the vine. That’s where it should stay.
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Slaying the partition vampire
Serbian President Vucic’s speech in northern Kosovo on Sunday has attracted a lot of attention because of this nauseating line:
Miloševic was a great Serbian leader; his intentions were certainly the best ones…
That’s too bad, because this unfortunate passage obscures the main thrust of the speech, which is represented better in this passage:
Serbia fought honorably and bravely against NATO in ’99, protecting itself. And we lost. They were much stronger, richer, much bigger cowards and they could drop many bombs from the sky on our people. And we lost, just like we had lost 610 years earlier. We were left without significant territories; Serbs abandoned many of their thresholds not wanting to live under the Albanian authority.
When you lose a war, you pay a price for it. A high one; the highest. And we, Serbs, even today pretend as if nothing had happened. We pretend that it was not us, with our own stupidities and under the pressure of the western world, who participated in proving our own guilt also for the conflict in Kosovo and Metohija.
Absent from this speech is the President’s partition proposal that has mobilized so many electrons lately. On borders, Vucic suggests they will not be easily changed:
Because when they tell you how I want to change borders- they’re not telling the truth, because where are the borders today, where are they, does anybody know where they are? We think one thing, the Albanians, bigger in numbers and stronger in Kosovo, think differently. One part of the world thinks one thing, the other thinks other. Actually, I want to change your rights and I want us to do everything we can, to preserve everything we can in Kosovo and Metohija, because our situation is not the same like the situation thirty, fifty or sixty years ago. I want us to gain for you all those rights you are entitled to, and which are the part of what is called the civilized world.
Admittedly I am reading between the lines, but this sounds to me much more like abandonment of the partition proposal than advocacy of it. He is telling Serbs who live in Kosovo that he will advocate for their rights within Kosovo, not for them to leave it.
That message is also implicit here:
I’ve come to tell you what we will concretely do and what I brought to our people in Kosovo and Metohija. We came with a comprehensive investment plan for ten Serbian municipalities, all ten. All four north-Kosovo municipalities: Zvečan, Leposavić, Zubin Potok and Kosovska Mitrovica. But also for Novo Brdo, Gračanica, Ranilug, Parteš, Klokot, Štrpce…for each place where Serbs are majority, but also for all Serbs, where they live, and where they are in a huge minority.
And there is this:
And there are no mythical borders. I want ones within which live people who have rights belonging to them. I want the ones because of which no one will be humiliated, and certainly not Serbia.
And when I say that we want agreement, we want compromise, not a dictation. We want to hear everything, but we also want to be heard. Finally and first of all, I want you to live here and to make it yours.
Throughout the peroration, Vucic underlines that the future of the Serbs in Kosovo needs to be settled by negotiation, not arms, and that it will take time–it will not be settled soon.
All of this suggests to me that he has given up on partition, at least in its more dramatic form. Why? I suspect an ethnic map of southern Serbia tells much of the story (the map comes to me through Sinisa Vukovic):
Once Kosovo President Hashim Thaci suggested the majority Albanian municipalities of southern Serbia (in blue) would have to be ceded to Kosovo if Serbia wants the northern Serbian majority municipalities, the partition proposal looked a lot less appetizing. How would that get through Serbia’s parliament? The thin yellow line, which bisects both Albanian and Serb municipalities (the latter in red), is Belgrade’s north-south route to Greece and Thessaloniki, Serbia’s main outlet to the sea. You may not care about that, but the Serbian Army definitely does.
I don’t imagine the partition proposal is completely dead, as no one has yet pounded a wooden stake into its heart. No doubt someone will suggest ceding only the Albanian municipalities west of the road to Kosovo, while someone else may push the idea of only some of the northern municipalities (not including North Mitrovica, which was Albanian majority before the war) joining Serbia. But vampires can also be killed by sunlight. That I hope is what is happening in this case: open discussion of the implications of partition has certainly weakened the idea, if not killed it.
I do hope people will not waste any more time and political energy on it. Serbia has a legitimate concern with the welfare and security of Serbs in Kosovo, just as Kosovo has a legitimate concern with the welfare of Albanians in Serbia. No democratic country can ignore its co-ethnics across a border, but none should want to move the border or the people. It is time to discuss how best to protect both Serbs in Kosovo and Albanians in Serbia, allow them a reasonable and symmetrical degree of self-governance, and enable them to prosper. That can and should be done without new ethnic entities and vetoes.
If those requirements can be met, both countries will want to ensure stability through the mutual recognition required for current EU members to ratify any new accessions. Then the vampire really will be dead, and coincidentally the border will for most purposes disappear.
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Awry
President Trump’s first tweet of September 11 was this:
“We have found nothing to show collusion between President Trump & Russia, absolutely zero, but every day we get more documentation showing collusion between the FBI & DOJ, the Hillary campaign, foreign spies & Russians, incredible.”
@SaraCarterDC@LouDobbs
An hour later he tried to mend the mistake, retweeting a picture of himself signing a “Patriot Day” declaration with this profound insight about the occasion:
Then there was this from his arrival at Shanksville, Pennsylvania, for a 9/11 ceremony there:
The President cares not a hoot about 9/11 and its meaning for Americans.
That meaning has become grossly distorted in the 17 years since the Al Qaeda attacks. President Bush got it at least partly right in the immediate aftermath: Americans needed to unify and respond to the attacks but not go to war against Islam. He chose instead to attack the Taliban in Afghanistan, seeking to punish the Al Qaeda leadership holed up there.
But things then went awry. Osama bin Ladin and most of the Al Qaeda leadership escaped the American invasion. Bush turned his attention to Iraq, which had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. Al Qaeda scattered to Yemen, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere, even as more extreme competitors, including the Islamic State, emerged there and elsewhere. The US has tried to kill as many of these extremists as possible, but there are now demonstrably more of them in more countries than in 2001. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have cost about 7000 American lives and several trillion dollars, but failed to reduce the numbers, the appeal, and the ferocity of Islamist extremism.
President Trump is determined to make things worse. He has barred immigration, including refugees (by definition people escaping a well-founded fear of persecution), from some Islamic countries. He has loosened restraints on the use of drones, raising the number of civilians killed, especially in Yemen. He is squeezing Palestinians mercilessly, denying them vital humanitarian assistance as well as political representation. He supports autocrats in the Muslim world and ignores human rights. He denounces Muslim extremists but not white Christian ones, who have killed many more Americans in terrorist acts since 9/11 than Muslims have. He even managed to hold an Iftar dinner to break the Ramadan fast with no American Muslims, only friendly Muslim diplomats. In both symbols and substance, this Administration is anti-Muslim.
No good can come of continuing in this direction. We need new ways forward that do not mistakenly declare war on a means, “terror,” rather than an enemy, which should be violent extremism. We need to recognize that Americans are not on most days in most places at risk. We need to stop doing things that multiply the numbers of extremists and the places where they find safe haven. We need to ensure that Muslims see the United States as friendly to their religion, even if hostile to extremism conducted in its name.
This president won’t be able or willing to change course. The only question is how much worse he will make things before a leadership change saves us from the tragic direction in which we are heading: towards still more extremists in more countries determined to attack America. 9/11 should not be an occasion for vaunting empty patriotism, but for assessing our situation soberly and looking for more effective means to ensure our national security.
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Peace Picks September 10 -16
1. The War on Something-ism: 17 Years and Counting | Monday, September 10, 2018 | 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm | Hudson Institute | 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Suite 400 Washington, DC 20004 | Register Here
The devastating toll of the September 11, 2001 attacks galvanized the global community to fight Islamic extremism and defeat al-Qaeda. What began in Afghanistan, continues in Iraq and Syria, in Yemen and the Horn of Africa, in Europe. 17 years on, the engagement dubbed “the never-ending war” continues, as religious extremism takes new forms and continues to destabilize the Middle East and North Africa, and continues in Southwest Asia.
The Trump Administration has expressed optimism that victory will be achieved once the remaining Islamic State (ISIS) strongholds are eliminated. However, the intelligence community already sees signs of new extremist groups cropping up in Iraq, ISIS emerging in Afghanistan, extremist strongholds in Syria. Pulling the U.S. out too early and declaring victory without a strategy to win will enable old extremist groups to re-establish their hold on the region and allow new groups to compete for territory.
Thomas Joscelyn, Speaker – Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Bill Roggio, Speaker – Senior Fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
Michael Pregent, Speaker – Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Michael Doran, Speaker – Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Catherine Herrridge, Moderator – Chief Intelligence Correspondent, Fox News
2. Countering Disinformation: Interdisciplinary Lessons for Policymakers | Monday, September 10, 2018 | 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm | Center for Strategic and International Studies | 1616 Rhode Island Avenue, NW Washington, DC 20036 | Register Here
With the growth of social media, disinformation has become an increasingly potent political tool. State and non-state actors from various countries, among them Russia and China, have become adept at manufacturing and spreading disinformation or using covert campaigns to influence public perception and political outcomes in democratic countries around the world. Responding to this threat requires policy makers to integrate insights from different countries and from academic fields that are too often siloed, including communications, computer science, and social psychology.
Speakers:
Joshua Eisenman – Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, The University of Texas at Austin
Jakub Janda – Director, European Values Think Tank (Prague)
Saiph Savage – Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Director, Human Computer Interaction Laboratory, West Virginia University
Tabea Wilke – Founder and CEO, Botswatch
Jeffrey Mankoff – Deputy Director and Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program, CSIS
The event will be webcast live from this page.
3. Weapons of Mass Destruction and Cooperative Threat Reduction: Looking Ahead | Tuesday, September 11, 2018 | 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm | Hudson Institute | 1201 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Suite 400 Washington, DC 20004 | Register Here
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, preventing weapons of mass destruction (WMD) from falling into the hands of a state or non-state adversary has been a critical priority for the U.S.
A report of a workshop conducted by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control examines how the U.S. government is managing the threat posed by WMDs through its Cooperative Threat Reduction (CTR) programs. As argued in “Cooperative Threat Reduction Programs for the Next Ten Years and Beyond,” the cooperative dimension of CTR programs has allowed the U.S. to collaborate with other governments, nongovernmental agencies, and the private sector to reduce WMD threats outside of the United States. However, as the report co-chairs assert, more can and should be done. By tailoring engagement and enhancing the impact of the CTR programs through for example, more government-industry collaborations and better cooperation with multilateral organizations, cooperative threat reduction can continue to improve the long-term security of the U.S. and its allies.
On September 11, Hudson will convene a panel with the co-chairs of the new report to discuss their assessments of Cooperative Threat Reduction programs. Copies of the report will be available.
David R. Franz, Speaker – Board Member, Integrated Nano-Technologies
Elizabeth Turpen, Speaker – President, Octant Associates and Non-Resident Adjunct, Institute for Defense Analyses
Richard Weitz, Moderator – Senior Fellow and Director, Center for Political-Military Analysis, Hudson Institute
4. Beyond DPRK, History and Prospect of U.S. R.O.K. Nuclear Cooperation | Tuesday, September 11, 2018 | 4:30 pm – 6:00 pm | Johns Hopkins SAIS | Rome Auditorium, 1619 Massachusetts Avenue NW
Eunjung Lim is an Assistant Professor at College of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University. Before joining Ritsumeikan’s faculty, she taught at Johns Hopkins SAIS (2013-2017). Her areas of specialization are South Korean and Japanese political economy, comparative and global governance, and energy security policies of East Asian countries. More specifically, Dr. Lim has been working on nuclear issues of East Asian countries.
She has been a researcher and visiting fellow at several institutes, including the Center for Contemporary Korean Studies at the University of Tokyo, the Institute of Japanese Studies at Seoul National University, the Institute of Japan Studies at Kookmin University, and Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. She earned a BA from the University of Tokyo, an MIA from Columbia University and a PhD from SAIS, Johns Hopkins University. She is fluent in Korean, Japanese and English.
5. Russia and Arctic Governance: Cooperation in Conflict | Wednesday, September 12, 2018 | 12:30 pm – 1:30 pm | Stimson Center | 1211 Connecticut Avenue, NW, 8th Floor, Washington DC, 20036 | Register Here
Finland, the country currently chairing the Arctic Council, proposed a high-level Arctic summit during a recent bilateral meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin. While discussion of the summit and a broader suite of Arctic and environmental issues proceeded smoothly, Russian concerns and protests over a large upcoming NATO alliance exercise in Norway, in which Finland will participate, were also raised. All of the Arctic states, including Russia, have long sought to primarily present the circumpolar region as one of peace – and potential wealth. While the question of whether there will be more cooperation or more conflict in the Arctic is a popular and easy one to pose, the more productive question is how cooperation against the backdrop of other, more global tensions has long characterized and continues to shape Arctic governance development. So, how does Russia – the largest Arctic state – engage in the process of pursuing cooperative outcomes and a regional peace conducive to economic gains? How do such cooperative efforts play out against a backdrop of security rivalry between Russia and most of the Arctic states? How robust are circumpolar cooperative venues to worsened relationships between Russia and its partners? Are the solutions produced by the Arctic states so far dimensioned to the challenges facing the region? The Stimson Center discussion will seek to address these key questions as part of a seminar based on Elana Wilson Rowe’s recently published book Arctic Governance: Power in Cross-Border Cooperation (Manchester University Press in the UK/Oxford University Press in the USA).
ELANA WILSON ROWE, Research Professor, the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs
Elana Wilson Rowe holds a PhD in Geography/Polar Studies from the University of Cambridge (2006). Her areas of expertise include international relations in the Arctic, science and expert knowledge in global governance, climate politics and Russian foreign and northern policy. She is the author of Russian Climate Politics: When Science Meets Policy (Palgrave, 2009) and Arctic Governance: Power in cross-border cooperation (Manchester University Press, 2018).
YUN SUN, Co-Director, East Asia Program, Stimson Center
Yun Sun is Co-Director of the East Asia Program and Director of the China Program at the Stimson Center. Sun’s expertise is in Chinese foreign policy, U.S.-China relations and China’s relations with neighboring countries and authoritarian regimes. From 2011 to early 2014, she was a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution, jointly appointed by the Foreign Policy Program and the Global Development Program, where she focused on Chinese national security decision-making processes and China-Africa relations. From 2008 to 2011, Sun was the China Analyst for the International Crisis Group based in Beijing, specializing on China’s foreign policy towards conflict countries and the developing world.
MARLENE LARUELLE, Research Professor, Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, George Washington University
Marlene Laruelle is a Research Professor at the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies (IERES), at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. She is the Director of the Central Asia Program at IERES and co-director of PONARS (Program on New Approaches to Research and Security in Eurasia). She received her PhD from the National Institute of Oriental Languages and Cultures. She has authored Russia’s Strategies in the Arctic and the Future of the Far North (M.E. Sharpe, 2013), and edited New Mobilities and Social Changes in Russia’s Arctic Regions (Routledge, 2016).
6. Election Interference: Emerging Norms of Digital Statecraft | Wednesday, September 12, 2018 | 4:00 pm | the Atlantic Council | 1030 15th Street Northwest, 12th Floor | Register Here
The reemergence of great power politics in a digitalized global security environment has led to new tools of statecraft wielded by nation-states in advancing their foreign policy objectives. During this event, we will engage cybersecurity professionals, journalists and key stakeholders to discuss the development of norms around election influence and interference and lessons learned from the international community’s brief history with these new tools of statecraft. What toolsets will governments wield in the future as they attempt to control media narratives, target dissidents, and influence other states? And how will the toolsets and norms we currently see in play shape the future of state use of technology?
This panel will look into the future of digital statecraft as technology progresses at an unprecedented rate and nation-states consider ways to wield these persuasive and cunning new tools to potent effect. With recent reports of foreign influence and interference in elections around the world calling public trust in institutions into question, it has become imperative that governments work together to establish norms around nation-state behavior across digital borders and have an informed dialogue about future toolsets for political influence. A reception will follow the event.
Ms. Laura Galante, speaker – Senior Fellow, Cyber Statecraft Initiative, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council;
Founder, Galante Strategies
Mr. Sean Kanuck, speaker – Director, Cyber, Space and Future Conflict, International Institute for Strategic Studies
Ms. Michele Markoff, speaker – Deputy Coordinator for Cyber Issues, State Department
Ms. Klara Jordan, moderator – Director, Cyber Statecraft Initiative, Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security, Atlantic Council
7. Battling Global Extremism: What Next? | Thursday, September 13, 2018 | 8:30 am | Council on Foreign Relations
Nearly twenty years after 9/11, extremist ideologies have survived global counterterrorism efforts. What have we learned from the response, and what new approaches are needed? Tony Blair, Farah Pandith, and Frances Townsend discuss challenges in the global response to extremism to date and the evolution in approach necessary to overcome terrorist threats.
Tony Blair, speaker – Executive Chairman of the Institute for Global Change; Former Prime Minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Farah Pandith, speaker – Adjunct Senior Fellow, Council on Foreign Relations; Senior Fellow, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University
Frances Fragos Townsend, speaker – Executive Vice President, MacAndrews & Forbes, Inc.; Former Homeland Security Advisor, White House
Tom Gjelten, presider – Religion and Belief Correspondent, National Public Radio
8. With Us and Against Us: Counterterrorism Strategy Post-9/11 | Thursday, September 13, 2018 | 5:30 pm – 7:00 pm | American University SIS | Abramson Family Founders Room, 4400 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC 20016 | Register Here
In the wake of the September 11 attacks, President George W. Bush drew a line in the sand, saying, “Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.” Join the School of International Service at American University as we discuss Dr. Stephen Tankel’s new book, With Us and Against Us: How America’s Partners Help and Hinder the War on Terror,and the future of counterterrorism operations in a post-9/11 world more widely in a conversation moderated by Dr. Audrey Kurth Cronin.
Participants:
Bruce Hoffman is a Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W Davis Senior Visiting Fellow for Counterterrorism and Homeland Security at the Council on Foreign Relations. Dr. Hoffman previously held the Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation and was also Director of RAND’s Washington, D.C. Office. From 2001 to 2004, he served as RAND’s Vice President for External Affairs and in 2004 he also was Acting Director of RAND’s Center for Middle East Public Policy. Dr. Hoffman was appointed by the U.S. Congress in 2013 to serve as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization, which concluded its work in March 2015.
Audrey Kurth Cronin is Professor of International Security at the School of International Service, and American University’s Founding Director of the Center for Security, Innovation and New Technology. She was previously founding Director of both the International Security Program and the Center for Security Policy Studies at George Mason University. Dr. Cronin has held a vareity of positions in government, including time as a Specialist in Terrorism at the Congressional Research Service, advising Members of Congress in the aftermath of 9/11. She has also served in the Executive branch, including in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy; the Office of the Secretary of the Navy; and the American Embassy in Moscow. Dr. Cronin is the author of a forthcoming book on terrorism and new technologies, to be published by Oxford University Press in early 2019.
Matt Olsen is an Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security and former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center. Appointed by the President to serve as the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, Olsen led the government’s efforts to integrate and analyze terrorism information and coordinate counterterrorism operations from 2011 to 2104. Prior to joining NCTC, Olsen was the General Counsel for the National Security Agency, serving as NSA’s chief legal officer and focusing on surveillance law and cyber operations.
Stephen Tankel is an Associate Professor at the School of International Service and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security. In his recent book, With Us and Against Us: How America’s Partners Help and Hinder the War on Terror, Dr. Tankel analyzes the factors that shape counterterrorism cooperation, examining the ways partner nations aid international efforts, as well as the ways they encumber and impede effective action. His recent work considers the changing nature of counterterrorism, exploring how counterterrorism efforts after 9/11 critically differ both from those that existed beforehand and from traditional alliances.
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No swap is a good swap
Here is the long interview I did this week with Jeta Xharra, Director of the Balkans Investigative Reporting Network in Kosovo:
The transcript is available as well.
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