The U.S. and Global Security Review - Blog by Michael Novakhov

The presidential briefs of the ’60s are laughably bad, writes Aki Peritz .  (Washington Post illustration/ ) By Aki Peritz February 19 Aki Peritz is a former CIA counterterrorism analyst and coauthor of "Find, Fix, Finish: Inside the Counterterrorism Campaigns that Killed bin Laden and Devastated Al Qaeda." The supposed sorry state of U.S. intelligence, along with the need to fix it, remains an easy applause line on the campaign trail. “When I’m president, we are going to rebuild our intelligence capabilities, and they’re going to tell us where the terrorists are,” Marco Rubio said at a Republican presidential debate in late January. But are U.S. intelligence capabilities really that bad? While the budget for intelligence has been dropping for a number of years because of America’s quasi-drawdown from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the pernicious effects of sequestration, the funding allocated for the intelligence community remains far above what it was before 9/11.

On Friday, Russia had asked for any plans of a ground invasion into Syria to be scrapped, in a draft resolution to the U.N. council. While Turkey and Saudi Arabia have said they could commit ground forces earlier in February, both nations have  backtracked  on their remarks since then. Kerry: 'Provisional Agreement'... Sunday February 21 st , 2016  at  9:35 AM Google News 1 Share John Kerry Reaches Provisional Agreement With Russia's Lavrov on Syria Ceasefire International Business Times  -  ‎1 hour ago‎ Kerry lavrov (2) U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said he and his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov had reached a provisional ceasefire deal for Syria. Pictured: Lavrov (left) speaks with Kerry (right) during a meeting in Moscow, Russia, Dec. 15, 2015. John Kerry Reaches Provisional Agreement With Russia’s Lavrov on Syria Ceasefire Sunday February 21 st , 2016  at  9:31 AM International Business Time