Who is This?

Fred Kaplan is a journalist and contributor to Slate magazine. His "War Stories" column covers international relations and US foreign policy, with a particular focus on criticism of the Bush Administration, and major related geopolitical issues.

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To win in Afghanistan, our military must cooperate with local militias.

Though it doesn't claim as much, Dexter Filkins' article in Sunday's New York Times, headlined "Afghan Militias Battle Taliban with Aid of U.S.," may offer a clue to where President Barack Obama's strategic review of the war is going. Or let's put it ...

From FRED KAPLAN, Slate,  23 Nov 2009

Related Topics: Taliban,  Barack Obama,  Dexter Filkins,  New York Times Company,  Al-Qaeda

What do they talk about in all those Afghanistan strategy sessions?

Why has he taken so long, and what did he and his advisers discuss in all those meetings that each went on for hours? Obama hinted at some of the answers in an interview this week with ABC News' Jake Tapper. Tapper asked the president why he didn't ...

From FRED KAPLAN, Slate,  12 Nov 2009

Related Topics: Barack Obama,  Al-Qaeda,  Taliban,  Stanley A. McChrystal,  Council on Foreign Relations

Obama's Real Afghanistan Decision

A U.S. soldier in AfghanistanEight months and eight national-security meetings after announcing a new strategy for the war in Afghanistan and sending the first wave of additional troops, President Barack Obama stands on the verge of deciding whether ...

From FRED KAPLAN, SLATE, Real Clear Politics,  12 Nov 2009

Related Topics: Barack Obama,  Stanley A. McChrystal

Why was Berlin the key to the Cold War?

The Berlin Wall came down 20 years ago, but few of the news stories marking the anniversary have explained the event's full significance. The Cold War had been raging for a quarter-century before the wall went up on Aug. 13, 1961. How could its ...

From FRED KAPLAN, Slate,  6 Nov 2009

Related Topics: NATO

The worst thing about President Karzai's brother's CIA gig.

The New York Times' lead story today—that the CIA has been making regular payments to Ahmed Wali Karzai, the Afghan president's brother who is widely suspected of involvement in the drug trade—is even worse news than it sounds. Under certain ...

From FRED KAPLAN, Slate,  28 Oct 2009

Related Topics: Central Intelligence Agency,  Barack Obama,  Taliban,  Hamid Karzai,  New York Times Company

How the Pentagon sowed confusion with an incomplete recruitment report.

On Oct. 16, I wrote a column about the fishy numbers in a recent Pentagon report on military recruitment. The report claimed that recruitment was up, but the numbers seemed to indicate the opposite. What was going on? This is the story of how I got ...

From FRED KAPLAN, Slate,  22 Oct 2009

Related Topics: The Pentagon

The Army says it exceeded its 2009 recruiting goals. But the numbers are very fishy.

The Pentagon boasted this week that the U.S. armed forces have exceeded their recruitment goals for this year. Some officials attributed the success to high unemployment in the civilian job market, others to a spurt in civic-mindedness. Whatever the ...

From FRED KAPLAN, Slate,  16 Oct 2009

Related Topics: The Pentagon,  Robert Gates,  Caspar Weinberger,  Boston Globe,  Ronald Reagan

Obama can solve the Afghanistan mess without sending more troops or leaving the country entirely.

One thing is clear about President Barack Obama's M.O. on policy, domestic and foreign: He likes taking the middle course. The conventional wisdom on U.S. policy toward Afghanistan is that there is no middle course—that Obama must get all-in or all-out. ...

From FRED KAPLAN, Slate,  13 Oct 2009

Related Topics: Barack Obama,  Taliban,  NATO,  Stanley A. McChrystal,  Hamid Karzai

Should Gen. McChrystal stop speaking publicly about Afghan war strategy?

Gen. Stanley McChrystal, U.S. commander in Afghanistan, set off the rumbles of a political storm last week by saying publicly, during a speech in London, that a more limited strategy than the one he's proposing would lead to failure in the war against ...

From FRED KAPLAN, Slate,  6 Oct 2009

Related Topics: Barack Obama,  Taliban,  Stanley A. McChrystal,  George W. Bush,  Donald Rumsfeld

Is the Iran nuke talks breakthrough genuine, or is Tehran stringing us along?

The Oct. 1 talks in Geneva about Iran's nuclear program were certainly groundbreaking. The mere fact that Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, made specific commitments—instead of railing on about peace and justice, Iran's usual MO in these ...

From FRED KAPLAN, Slate,  2 Oct 2009

Related Topics: Saeed Jalili,  William Burns (politician),  U N Security Council,  Barack Obama,  International Atomic Energy Agency

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