Intell
CIA Director P4 is meeting with Egyptian military and intelligence officials in Cairo to discuss U.S. support for the newly democratic Arab state and how to combat Islamic extremist groups from gaining a foothold in the country. – DEFCON Hill
Defense
As the U.S. Army and Marine Corps begin to plan for the long, uncertain transition away from wartime force rotations and rapid-equipping strategies, they’re casting a wary eye at the platform-hungry Air Force and Navy, which argue that their long-rage capabilities are what’s needed for the new emphasis on the Pacific – Defense News
Odierno wasn’t playing defense: He also announced that the Army was standing up a new partnership with the Special Operations Command and the Marine Corps, tentatively named the Office of Strategic Landpower. Odierno didn’t divulge details, but the initiative is almost certainly about arguing the strategic relevance as ground forces in a counter-offensive, albeit a belated one, against the budgetary momentum of Air Force and Navy-led AirSea Battle Office. – AOL Defense
Lt. Gen. Richard Mills (USMC) writes: With the initial response capability and decision room it provides, the naval force represents the leading edge, forward operating force called for in the nation’s power projection strategy. As a critical element in that strategy, the Marine Corps conducts operations to deter and combat adversaries or deny them the ability to exert their will on U.S. interests. However, further refinement of aggregated operations and littoral maneuver is required to exploit our at-sea advantage. – Foreign Policy
Mackenzie Eaglen writes: A common denominator in all these scenarios is that averting the fiscal cliff does not mean that things would automatically improve. The only silver bullet remains a comprehensive debt reduction deal. – USNWR’s World Report
The War
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) released data Wednesday that detailed the insider attacks against U.S. and NATO troops that have occurred from 2007 to 2012. – DEFCON Hill
Classified United States military units are operating in the region near Libya since the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, according to the director of operations for the Pentagon’s Joint Staff. – Washington Free Beacon
Instead of signaling eagerness to exit Afghanistan, Washington should be demonstrating that the United States is willing to stay for as long as necessary. Ironically, a firm display of that iron will all along, coupled with a global strategy to combat extremist Islamist ideology, might have made an early withdrawal easier. – Washington Post
Security officers from the C.I.A. played a pivotal role in combating militants who attacked the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11, deploying a rescue party from a secret base in the city, sending reinforcements from Tripoli, and organizing an armed Libyan military convoy to escort the surviving Americans to hastily chartered planes that whisked them out of the country, senior intelligence officials said Thursday. – New York Times
The Left had plenty to say about the moral and legal implications of torture, wiretapping and other tools that 43 employed to fight the war on terror. But 44’s equally controversial escalation of drone strikes against al-Qaida and Taliban militants in Pakistan has been almost completely absent from presidential politics this year. – National Journal
A Massachusetts man was sentenced Thursday to 17 years in prison in a plot to fly remote-controlled model planes packed with explosives into the Pentagon and U.S. Capitol. – Associated Press
There may be cases where the president must act immediately against an imminent threat to the country, perhaps from an unexpected place. But to institutionalize a secret process of conducting covert drone strikes against militants across the world is contrary to U.S. interests and ultimately unsustainable. – Washington Post
Foreign Armies East
Syrian forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have withdrawn from their last base near the northern town of Saraqeb, further weakening his ability to fight rebels in the country’s largest city Aleppo, a violence monitoring group said on Friday. – Reuters
Nuclear Weapons
Maj. Gen. William Chambers (USAF) writes: Today and tomorrow, the vigilance of our nuclear forces remains critical to ensuring the unforeseen challenges of the future are, like the Cuban Missile Crisis, resolved below the nuclear threshold. – AOL Defense
