USA TODAY 9/23/13 By Michael Shank Focus on African security missing development needs. Last month, at the beginning of a trip to Somalia, my twitter feed started buzzing with breaking news about explosions in Mogadishu. A local rebel group, al-Shabab, claimed credit. Their tactic was fairly unsophisticated: break the Ramadan […]
USA TODAY 07/23/13 By Michael Shank and Kate Gould Congress should join the 70% of Americans who oppose arming Syrian rebels, an act that will come back to haunt us. The Senate and House Intelligence committees’ about-face decision this week to arm the rebels in Syria is dangerous and disconcerting. […]
USA TODAY 05/24/13 By Michael Shank Armed drones, at first blush, are a boon to America’s military toolkit, as President Obama reinforced in his counterterrorism speech on Thursday. Drones, in the short run at least, could mean fewer U.S. troops deployed and fewer American lives lost. Unsurprisingly, the appeal is […]
USA Today 07/14/2008 By Michael Shank That China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa nudged the richer G8 nations to “take the lead in achieving…greenhouse gas emissions reductions” is entirely appropriate, despite the fact that it flies in the face of American finger-pointing (“Bush lauds G-8 leaders for work on […]
USA Today 11/13/2007 By Michael Shank Michael Shank, Government Relations Adviser, Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution, George Mason University – Arlington, VA. Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., believes that Pakistan in 2007 is similar to how Iran was in the late 1970s. The senator is exhibiting an unfortunate lack of […]