Recent Publications

SSI Live 106 – Dr. Chris Mason on the Study of Internal Conflict
January 10, 2024 — Clear, Hold, [and don’t] Build? The Study of Internal Conflict – Although strategic competition has placed China and Russia at the center of American security policy, internal conflicts in places like Iraq, Kosovo, Syria, and Yemen continue to demand the attention of policymakers. SSI’s Dr. Chris Mason has examined these and dozens of others through his multi-year Study of Internal Conflict... MORE

SSI Live 84 – Can the West get Counterinsurgency Right?
September 8, 2021 — The fall of Afghanistan raises serious questions about whether the United States and the West more broadly are able to successfully implement what military practitioners call Foreign Internal Defense, or supporting a friendly foreign government under attack from an internal insurgency. What explains success or failure in these cases? SSI Live host... MORE

SSI Live 83 – Explaining Afghanistan’s Downfall
September 7, 2021 — How did Afghanistan fall to the Taliban after 20 years of effort by the United States and its allies? SSI Live host Dr. John R. Deni invited his SSI colleagues Dr. Chris Mason to address the end of America’s longest war and to help shed light on the key reasons for why Afghanistan fell. Dr. Mason drew on his long experience working in and studying... MORE

SSI Live 74 – The Trump Administration’s New Afghanistan Strategy
August 25, 2017 — On 21 August, President Trump announced a new strategy toward the conflict in Afghanistan, America’s longest war. What’s new about the strategy? Does a renewed focus on Pakistan, and the role it plays in Afghanistan, have any chance of succeeding? And how will the new approach toward the war affect broader U.S. objectives with regard to... MORE