“So let us today drudge on about our inescapably impossible task of providing every week a first rough draft of history that will never be completed about a world we can never really understand.”
Philip Graham,
Former President & Publisher
The Washington Post
Command Center at the National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC) Breaking Defense By James Kitfield, December 2017 American troops have been fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan for so long that the public doesn’t even celebrate their victories…
C-SPAN: DECEMBER 22, 2016 James Kitfield on Twilight Warriors James Kitfield talked about his book Twilight Warriors, in which he explains how the U.S. national security apparatus has adapted to fight terrorism since the terrorist…
By James Kitfield Yahoo News, April 28, 2015 Not long ago, retired Marine Corps General John Allen was a pretty good argument for the wisdom of the old adage, “Be careful what you wish for.”…
The terrorist group has a bigger sanctuary, far more money, and is more indiscriminately murderous than Al Qaeda was on September 10, 2001. BY JAMES KITFIELD August 20, 2014 When a centrist Democrat, a Republican…
By JAMES KITFIELD, August 07, 2014 In this exclusive exit interview with Breaking Defense contributor James Kitfield, the outgoing chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, talks about metastasizing Islamic terrorism, his…
America’s national interests in the oil-rich Middle East endure. Washington should turn to a familiar playbook to ensure Iraq does not fall apart—and drag down the region with it. By James Kitfield and Max Angerholzer…
By JAMES KITFIELD, July 17, 2014 There’s an old trope in intelligence circles that defenders have to be right all the time, while the terrorists only need to get lucky once to execute a successful…
By James Kitfield To defeat al-Qaeda’s most dangerous offspring and stave off another civil war, Iraq’s government hopes to repeat the “Anbar Miracle.” Also known as the “Sunni Awakening,” that rebellion of the Sunni tribes against…
By James Kitfield In his new book Duty: Memoir of a Secretary at War, Robert Gates memorably impugns Joe Biden’s judgment as “wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four…
By James Kitfield Last September the terrorist group al-Shabab came out of the shadows in Somalia to launch a coordinated assault on an upscale shopping mall in Nairobi, killing 67 people and wounding many more…