A (Fighting) Season to Remember in Afghanistan: First off, an article by Jason Lyall at The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage Blog on the end of a stunningly costly fighting season in Afghanistan. The losses incurred this year by the Afghan National Security Forces are higher than American fatalities from 2001 until now. Additionally, the Taliban is attacking with large numbers of insurgents in areas of the country that they would not typically operate in. Although Afghanistan has had limited coverage in the press, the war there continues on.
How About Some Unconventional Warfare? Thoughts on Countering ISIS: At War on the Rocks, Clint Watts has a thought provoking article on potential strategies that could be exploited to limit ISIS’s strength. Most interestingly, he argues that we should infiltrate ISIS, as their counterintelligence and vetting process is virtually non-existent.
Pentagon, State Blame Afghans for Resurgent Poppy Fields: Siobhan O’Grady at Foreign Policy has a report on the release of a report on Afghanistan poppy production. US counter narcotics efforts have been unable to end the growth of Afghan poppy, and poppy production actually reached a record high last year. The new President Ashraf Ghani may focus on the issue, but poppy production will likely continue to be problematic for Afghanistan going forward.
AQAP Claims Credit for Series of Attacks in Yemen: From The Long War Journal’s Oren Adaki, a post on the recent violence between AQAP and the Houthi insurgency group. There have been at least 16 claimed attacks by AQAP in the span of just 4 days this past week. Although underreported, the conflict in Yemen between the Houthis, the Yemeni government, and AQAP has been one of the more fascinating subplots this summer.
More Small Wars: From the most recent edition of Foreign Affairs, Max Boot argues that although America wishes it could be done with the complicated insurgencies of the past decade, it is likely that we will continue to fight them. We should therefore be prepared for such operations, and Boot outlines some recommendations that are necessary to build our capabilities. If we do not plan for the small wars, we will continue to be surprised by them when we inevitably find ourselves fighting one.
Criminals Turn to Metal Theft as Mexico Underworld Fragments: Next, David Gagne at InSight Crime with a report on subsections of Mexican drug cartels stealing electrical tower parts. Because of the continues splitting and fragmenting of the cartels, small cells of narco-traffickers are looking for new methods to make money. The cartels keep diversifying their income beyond drugs, which should be highly concerning for Mexican officials.
The World’s Wealthiest Terrorists: Finally, Russell Berman at The Atlantic with a great piece on ISIS’s funding flows and how the US Treasury is combatting them. Although ISIS makes huge sums of money from oil, kidnapping, and flat-out theft, they also have to pay out equally huge sums to govern their wide swath of territory across Syria and Iraq. Because their funding does not come from backers abroad, it is difficult to target their finances, but they are much less secretive with their operations than al-Qaeda.
Thanks for reading, and enjoy the weekend.
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