This commentary appeared in Foreign Policy on April 18, 2013.

When I heard about the Boston bombings, my heart sank — but I also felt some part of my mind slip into battle mode. From past episodes, such as the attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight on Christmas Day in 2009, I can picture the way that my former colleagues at the National Counterterrorism Center, the CIA, the FBI, and many more are now rushing into action, moving swiftly and skillfully to sift the intelligence wheat from the collection chaff, pushing their own emotions aside or using them to fuel their efforts.

Once upon a time, our first impulse would have been to blame al Qaeda. But soon after the attack, several respected experts suggested that the bombing smelled more like domestic terrorism, pointing to a venue of vast local significance, the timing, and the relatively low-tech pressure-cooker explosives. They may well be right — and the FBI's announcement Thursday that it is looking for two men seen in photos and video footage before the attack means that we could soon know far more. Even so, the out-of-the-gates lean toward ascribing the Boston bombings to domestic terrorists seems to have been based not just on the fragmentary evidence at hand, but also on the conviction that the attack just didn't resemble what we think of when we imagine an al Qaeda attack. That image is no longer accurate — it's based on what the group once was, not what's left of it today.

This commentary appeared in PacNet, CSIS on April 17, 2013.

Hard on the heels of a pair of annual joint military exercises and the signing of a new defense cooperation agreement designed to ensure seamless allied coordination and credible deterrence toward North Korea, President Barack Obama will welcome newly elected President Park Geun-hye of South Korea to Washington May 6-8. Against a backdrop of escalating threats from North Korea to attack the United States, South Korea, and Japan with nuclear weapons, the first meeting between the two leaders will provide an opportunity to ensure that operational-level coordination does not fall victim to strategic-level misalignment. It also offers a chance to make critical operational changes to strengthen the alliance. To help ensure that the meeting gives President Park a sufficiently high profile to carry out the policy agreements reached at this session, the White House should consider the meeting a state visit, extending the new South Korean president the maximum possible diplomatic protocol and press attention.

Getting the relationship off on the right foot is important, something the White House signaled in March by sending National Security Advisor Tom Donilon to Seoul to personally extend the invitation to President Park shortly after her inauguration. Given the risks to stability and economic prosperity in the region stemming from North Korea's provocations, the two leaders are likely to put defense affairs front and center, prioritizing high-level coordination to ensure that their countries maximize the prospects for maintaining the peace. The United States and South Korea share both common values and common interests, and they are dedicated to democracy, free trade, and the construction of a rules-based order in East Asia. To preserve and protect the peace and freedom that has seen Asia develop into a third engine of the global economy, the United States and South Korea should take steps to deepen their security cooperation in three areas: bilateral alliance management, defense force modernization, and improved regional diplomatic coordination.

Although there have been attempted terrorist attacks on American soil since the 9/11 attacks—such as the 2010 New York City car bombing attempt by Faisal Shahzad—the Boston Marathon bombings have once again brought to the fore the question of how we make decisions about investing in homeland security and counterterrorism versus other public safety needs.

In a study conducted by RAND immediately following the 9/11 attacks, we found that law-enforcement agencies who felt their jurisdiction was at a high risk of terrorist threats were proactive in investing in and building their counter-terrorism and response capabilities to prepare for such attacks if they should occur.

This commentary appeared on CNN on April 18, 2013.

A pair of deadly bomb blasts marked a violent and tragic finish to this year's Boston Marathon. But as shocking as the attack may have been, an act like this has been anticipated for some time. It was a surprise, because none of us awoke the morning of the Marathon anticipating the race would end this way. Yet a terrorist attack against a symbolic target or a heavily attended event was something for which authorities had long prepared.

Authorities have known for some time that a wide range of terrorist organizations, extremist groups and individuals — both foreign and domestic — seek to inflict harm on the United States. And this knowledge motivated federal, state and local agencies to devise protocols to enhance their response to mass casualty events. Although official after-action reports are still being compiled, it looks like Boston's first responders and hospitals delivered under difficult circumstances....

The remainder of this op-ed can be found at cnn.com.

It wasn't just a storm, but a superstorm that ravaged America's Northeast last October. And recently, parched earth became charred earth as wildfires blazed anew in Colorado.

More superstorms and drier droughts are consistent with the expected impacts of climate change, so that such impacts may become more common over time. Difficult-to-predict, ever changing conditions may become our new normal.

The question is: How do we respond, in our homes and in our communities, to climate change challenges amid such uncertainty?

On the eve of Earth Day, we suggest the path to climate change preparedness should start at the intersection of resilience and robustness — that is, building resilient communities with the individuals and organizations within those communities making robust decisions, ones designed to work well over a wide range of ever-changing conditions.

Skyrocketing rates of obesity in the United States have received substantial attention in both the popular press and medical journals alike. Research has shown that obesity increases the risk—or worsens the prognosis—for a variety of diseases, including arthritis, cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. Obesity is also tremendously costly; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that obesity costs nearly $150 billion per year. That's roughly ten percent of what the United States spends on health care costs.

Clearly, the obesity epidemic is a serious public health concern. What's less clear, however, is how our surroundings fit into the equation.

This commentary appeared on edu-leaders.com on April 11, 2013.

Public and private providers must work together to beat lack of funds

Indian higher education is in a major crisis—or, in fact, many crises. Over the last decade, there has been a large expansion of private providers, who now take care of about 60 per cent of the total provision. This has unbalanced higher education, by making the profile of graduating students overly focussed on technical fields like management and engineering.

Also, the private institutions rely entirely on tuition fees. These institutions charge students about Rs 60-70,000 per annum, which amounts to an annual fee income of about Rs 7 crore (assuming that the institution has an average of about 1,000 students). About 60 per cent of this income goes in salaries, and after meeting other expenses, they save about 10-15 percent. That is about Rs 70 lakh a year, which is not enough to fund any significant improvement in teaching or research standards. This surplus is therefore reinvested in expansion with very limited teaching quality and no research focus at all. This results in a crisis for private providers: they are constantly struggling to expand to meet the expectations of students, but aren't able to meet them because they cannot afford to recruit good quality faculty which, in turn, comes in only where there is enough emphasis on high quality faculty development, covering both teaching and research.

This commentary appeared on Global Security.org on April 12, 2013.

The Pentagon reportedly has secret plans to secure Pakistan's nuclear weapons against terrorists, a jihadist coup, or civil war. It also has conducted war games to explore how it might try to secure North Korea's nuclear arsenal in case of a coup or collapse of the regime.

Either of these missions would be a daunting military task, requiring a large-scale military commitment. More dangerous, though, would be a mission to contain nuclear weapons in a case where an army divides against itself, creating a chaotic and unpredictable strategic landscape.

This commentary appeared in The Diplomat on April 12, 2013.

Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin's recent summit drew wide international attention. Are we witnessing the dawn of a new alliance?

On March 22nd, shortly after assuming the post of President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping headed off to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Observers were watching the two leaders closely, looking to divine whether or not they could overcome past divisions to achieve a new level of cooperation in bilateral ties. What came out of the two leaders' meeting and what does it augur for the future of Sino-Russian relations?

Three major areas appear to have been the focus: managing expectations about the relationship; expanding bilateral trade in energy and arms; and cooperation on international security affairs. Drawing on press reports from China and Russia we have attempted to determine how much progress was actually made on these issues at the summit.

In 1961, four French generals launched a coup against the government of President Charles de Gaulle and, through an unlikely series of events, conceivably might have ended up with a nuclear device.

In When Armies Divide, RAND's Brian Michael Jenkins uses this unusual chapter in history to discuss what can happen when nuclear states are threatened by revolts, coups, and civil wars.

In the 1961 case, the rebel French generals feared the de Gaulle government was secretly negotiating to allow Algeria, then a French colony, to become independent. They executed their plot at the same time France was preparing to conduct a nuclear weapons test in Algeria. Did Paris push up the date of the final test to prevent the rebels from getting their hands on nuclear material?

Jenkins also explores if something like this could happen today, for example in Pakistan, North Korea, or some future nuclear-armed state.