The RAND Blog

The four men arrested in Southern California this week for plotting to join al Qaeda or the Taliban in Afghanistan to wage violent jihad on U.S. forces there appear typical of America's home-grown wannabe terrorists inspired by al Qaeda's ideology.

The apparent leader of the group is 34, a naturalized U.S. citizen who served in the Air Force. Two others are American converts to Islam in their early twenties. They pulled along a fourth pal, 21 years old, to join them. Most homegrown jihadists are U.S. citizens, median age 27. About 20 percent are Islam converts.

This commentary appeared on Project Syndicate on November 19, 2012.

Xi Jinping, China's newly anointed president, made his first visit to the United States in May 1980. He was a 27-year-old junior officer accompanying Geng Biao, then a vice premier and China's leading military official. Geng had been my host the previous January, when I was the first US defense secretary to visit China, acting as an interlocutor for President Jimmy Carter's administration.

Americans had little reason to notice Xi back then, but his superiors clearly saw his potential. In the ensuing 32 years, Xi's stature rose, along with China's economic and military strength. His cohort's ascent to the summit of power marks the retirement of the last generation of leaders designated by Deng Xiaoping (though they retain influence).

This commentary appeared in Christian Science Monitor on November 19, 2012.

A long-simmering ethnic conflict in Myanmar (Burma) recently broke into American newspapers: At least 89 people have been killed and more than 35,000 displaced in what is being described (not entirely accurately) as Buddhist-Muslim violence. With President Obama as the first US head of state to visit this country, there are four points to bear in mind about this detour from Myanmar's road to a more open society:

1. Myanmar's reforms haven't yet taken root

President Thein Sein deserves a great deal of credit for starting to bring the nation of Myanmar (Burma) out of its self-imposed half-century of isolation. A former top general and prime minister for the military junta that has ruled the country since 1962, Mr. Thein Sein is trying to preserve much of the old order rather than overthrow it. He is often referred to as "Burma's Gorbachev"—and it is quite possible that (like the last Soviet leader) he will usher in changes that will eventually take on a life of their own.

This video was recorded at RAND's Politics Aside event on November 15, 2012.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt says there's a fight going on to save personal privacy on the web, and the General Petraeus scandal illustrates just some of the issues we face. Schmidt talks with Reuters West Coast Bureau Chief Jonathan Weber at the RAND Corporation's Politics Aside event on Thursday, November 15.

Adm. Dennis C. Blair (right), former Director of National Intelligence, tried to make the case for breaking up the CIA during his tenure but didn't get very far, he said during the opening session of the RAND Corporation's Politics Aside event Thursday evening.

"I think I made it one step down the road to first base," Blair said, drawing laughter from Sir Harold Evans (left), editor at large of Thomson Reuters, and the audience. Blair said the idea—which he still advocates—would be to split the CIA into separate clandestine human intelligence collection (HUMINT), analytical, and paramilitary components. He said the agency has been tilting inappropriately toward the latter approach.

Blair downplayed the prospects for Asia going to war over "island rocks," and said he was skeptical of reports that the FBI and CIA were at odds over the Petraeus affair.

Amb. James Dobbins (right), director of the RAND Corporation's International Security and Defense Policy Center, said he is skeptical of some of the foreign policy predictions made by President Obama and Gov. Romney during the presidential campaign.

"Personally, I think we're not going to attack Iran, and we will become involved in Syria," Dobbins told Reuters.com editor James Ledbetter (left) during the opening session of the RAND Corporation's Politics Aside event Thursday evening. That's not what the candidates said in their last debate, he said, but "events are moving in that direction."

Eric Schmidt (right), executive chairman of Google, told the opening session of the RAND Corporation's Politics Aside event Thursday evening that he is "terribly worried" about the prospect of "balkanizing" the internet.

In discussion with Jonathan Weber (left), West Coast bureau chief for Reuters, Schmidt decried Iran's attempts to cut the country off from the internet. "They're essentially bombing themselves into the stone age technologically," Schmidt said.

But he said such efforts will ultimately prove fruitless. Phone-to-phone communications may soon become a means of creating a different sort of internet, working around attempted internet shutdowns.

This commentary appeared on U.S. News & World Report on November 15, 2012.

Even as cultural property faces immediate peril today in conflict zones like Syria and Mali, there is anecdotal evidence that some nations are awakening to the diplomatic and foreign policy benefits that can flow from the repatriation of cultural patrimony.

While on a different scale from World War II, historic structures, religious monuments, and other priceless antiquities continue to suffer collateral damage and exploitation in armed conflict. Antiquities have been stolen, smuggled and sold in what is a reported multibillion dollar underground market. They have become the illicit prizes of private collectors and the subject of legal claims against museums.

After being out of office for 12 years, Mexico's once perpetually dominant Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) will again take over the presidency next month. A question increasingly framed as a matter of national security north of the border is whether the new administration in Mexico City will continue the previous government's war on organized crime.

Despite the global economic crisis, Mexico's president-elect, Enrique Peña Nieto, will inherit an enviable economic situation. Currently Latin America's leading recipient of foreign direct investment, Mexico's economy is growing faster than Brazil's and could pass it to become Latin America's largest economy. With labor costs now comparable to those in China, U.S. firms increasingly see Mexico as a preferred location for production, although security concerns cause some hesitation.

Beau Kilmer, codirector of the RAND Drug Policy Research Center, discusses the 24/7 Sobriety Project, which requires those arrested for or convicted of alcohol-related offenses to take twice-a-day breathalyzer tests or wear a continuous monitoring bracelet. Those who fail or skip their tests are immediately subject to modest sanctions—typically a day or two in jail.