"President Donald Trump says he ordered the airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani to 'stop a war' and not start one. NBC’s Hans Nichols reports for Weekend TODAY and the McCain Institute’s Nicholas Rasmussen joins for analysis..." Watch the full interview here: Full Interview
"Well, there will be a response, not just because they're saying it, but because he was part of the core of the regime, the right-hand man, in many respects, to the supreme leader. For the supreme leader not to react when there's a threat to the core of the regime would suggest, somehow, they're willing to live with things of that sort. "Having said that, Ali Khamenei is someone who was very much scared by the Iran/Iraq war, doesn't like direct [...]
Nick Rasmussen joins Geoff Bennett to discuss the aftermath of the strike against Soleimani: the threat to U.S. personnel in the region, the potential for escalation, and concern about the ability of this Administration to manage a crisis of this magnitude... Watch the full interview here: Full Interview
"Nick Rasmussen, former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and an NBC News contributor, said Iran's overseas capabilities can be viewed as three concentric circles. "In its immediate neighborhood, Iran could put together a response almost immediately, such as this week's assault on the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. In the broader Middle East, it might take Iran more time, but its proxies could still threaten U.S. personnel, business people or tourists, Rasmussen said. In the rest of the world, including Southeast [...]
"'We need to be at an increased security posture to protect against threats to our people in Baghdad and more broadly, we should consider risks beyond the immediate region given the penchant for proxies abroad,' said Lisa Monaco, homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to President Barack Obama..." Read the full article here: Full Article
"Elbridge Colby, former U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Development, recently spoke with The Asahi Shimbun about China’s military ambitions, particularly over Taiwan, and what he believes neighboring countries, including Japan, should do to prepare for such security threats..." Read the full transcript here: Full Transcript
“'The Chinese have started brazenly claiming that it is China, not the United States, that shares more values with Europe,' said Julianne Smith of the German Marshall Fund in Washington. “'Chinese scholars and officials also frequently remind European audiences that unlike the United States, China believes in climate change and multilateralism, a message that is especially powerful in a place like Germany,' she said..." Read the full article here: Full Article
"The past ten years have seen both transformation and inertia in global politics. In many countries, as heads of government have changed, authoritarian leadership has not. Nick Schifrin sits down with the Hudson Institute’s Rebeccah Heinrichs, the American Enterprise Institute’s Kori Schake and Michèle Flournoy of WestExec Advisors to discuss why the decade is concluding with a year of protest..." Read the full transcript here: Full Transcript
"Protests and upheaval are sweeping Iraq and Lebanon. The wrath of demonstrators in the streets is being directed against their own political classes and at Iran’s government. Citizens in Lebanon and Iraq are not only fed up with economic mismanagement, ineffective governance, and entrenched corruption of political elites at home, but they also directly link their dismal situation to Tehran’s corrupting influence and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’s exploitation of their countries to fund and arm militias unaccountable to their countries. [...]
"'Both the Russians and the Chinese have concluded that the way to leapfrog the US is with AI,' says Bob Work, a distinguished senior fellow at CNAS who served as deputy secretary of defense under Presidents Obama and Trump. Work says the US needs to convince the public and that it doesn’t intend to develop lethal autonomous weapons, only technology that would counter the work Russia and China are doing..." Read the full article here: Full Article