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We hope you had a great Mothers Day! In news about mothers, First Lady Michelle Obama
took to the airwaves in her husbands stead on Saturday to rail against Islamist terrorist group
Boko Harams kidnapping of almost 300 girls in Nigeria. Mrs. Obamas previous forays into
foreign policy matters have included expressing wariness about the possibility of the president
using force in Syria because of the countrys use of chemical weapons...that killed almost 500
children.

Wishing everyone a good week,
Your AEI Foreign and Defense Policy Studies team


Tweet of the Week
Sadanand Dhume @dhume
Congrats @dennisrodman! Looking sharp in the billboards for T-Trounce English-speaking
classes plastered all over Varanasi.

In the News

Terrorism
A Boko Haram video emerged Monday that purportedly shows some of the kidnapped Nigerian girls in
Muslim headdresses and the terror group's leader declaring they have converted to Islam.

The recent kidnapping of hundreds of schoolgirls in Nigeria is a dramatic and potentially tragic example of
the fanaticism of Boko Haram and other Islamic militants operating along the seam between Saharan and
Sub-Saharan Africa. But how are these particular 300 girls different from the 10,000 children killed in Syria?
Fifty-nine children were killed in Aleppo last week alone. And what about the rape epidemic in Syria?
Danielle Pletka writes, The real problem here is that Islamist extremism is growing. Boko Haram and its
leader Aboubakar Shekau...are part of the epidemic of al Qaeda linked and related groups that are
sweeping Africa and the Middle East...while [the #BringBackOurGirls effort is] laudable, lets face reality: the
campaign is nothing more than an effort by unserious people to latch onto the terrible plight of a tiny
proportion of victims of terrorism in order to make themselves feel good about...you got it...themselves.

ICYMI: John Bolton writes for FoxNews.com, Simply put, the United States needs an effective
counterterrorism strategy in North Africa, and we do not have one. Despite having created a separate
African Command at the Pentagon, separating it from the European Command, inadequate attention has
been given to the North African terrorist threat.

Also check out Michael Rubin's Commentary Magazine piece on addressing, not denying, the religious
component to Boko Haram.

Last Friday, gunmen opened fire on the Yemeni defense ministers convoy while he, along with senior
security officials, toured through Shabwah Governorate. All survived the attack. The defense minister arrived
in Azzan to celebrate the Yemeni militarys victory over al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) militants
there. Yemens government continues to announce the militarys progress against AQAP in the south and
counterterrorism raids in Sanaa. But have we seen this before? Katherine Zimmerman writes that to
some degree we have: When Sanaa announces once more that it has driven AQAP from its stronghold,
the U.S. should not applaud. We should, instead, think about what we need to do differently to help the
Yemenis hold and expand the ground theyve taken.

President Obama claims he was only repeating what the intelligence community told him when his
administration asserted that the attack in Benghazi began with a spontaneous protest inspired by an Internet
video. Marc Thiessen pens: If thats the case, there is a simple way to prove it: Give the new congressional
select committee investigating Benghazi his daily intelligence briefings that show exactly what he was told.
Read more here.

American Internationalism Project
GOP Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, suggested Sunday that the
Obama administration is taking a light, Twitter-style approach to foreign policy instead of a more substantial
one that might have flagged the Nigerian Islamist group Boko Haram long before members abducted
hundreds of girls.

There is no escaping the impression that the Obama administration has weakened Americas standing on
the world stage. Considering the commitments Obama made to restoring the nations stature against a
backdrop of escalating crises across Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, fewer and fewer
Americans now judge the presidents foreign policy a success. But are the latest debacles doing lasting
damage to US credibility? Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) argues in the affirmative and brings fresh ideas to
the table for renewed American leadership. Please join us on Wednesday for a conversation with Senator
Cornyn as we discuss foreign policy challenges and the role of Congress.


Defense and Acquisition
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel is "not pleased" with House lawmakers who this week attempted to undo
much of the Pentagon's efforts to tighten its own budgetary belt by restoring funding that the Pentagon had
proposed to cut from programs ranging from the U-2 spy plane to the military's supermarket system.

Regardless of political persuasion, few who ever visited or tried to use HealthCare.gov would argue that the
Obamacare website was anything other than a colossal acquisition failure. The site wasnt openly bid and
was limited to companies prequalified to do IT business for the feds. But the HealthCare.gov fiasco is only
the visible tip of the iceberg that is federal government procurement, and notwithstanding the titanic disaster
of that experience, neither Congress nor the administration is trying to fix it. William Greenwalt's latest
WIRED magazine piece examines the standard for federal information technology procurement and argues
that we need to build a new acquisition system from scratch. Read more here.

Americas Air Force is quickly shrinking before the nations eyes. Optimistic aircraft-purchase quantities are
unlikely to materialize in the near-term, and the services upcoming bow wave of aircraft buys will come at
the worst possible time, in the early 2020s, when all other federal spending will squeeze defense budgets
further and faster. Mackenzie Eaglen writes for The National Interest, In light of the latest budget
proposal, Congress must step back and look at the collective impact of recent capacity and capability cuts
on purchases of aircraft in particular. They will find that not only is there virtually no slack left in Americas
current Air Force to meet global peacetime and war plan demands, the historically most innovative service is
now left to incrementally upgrade existing capabilities while abandoning transformational and leap-ahead
investments.

While policymakers have revisited military retirement reform several times over the past 60 years, the issue
has recently taken on increased urgency. At least three separate panels in the past decade have analyzed
the issue and advocated reform; most recently, the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act established an
independent Military Compensation and Retirement Modernization Commission to review all military
compensation and benefits. In his recent paper for AEI, Patrick Mackin resents recommendations for
changes to the military retirement system, including key features of the proposed system and issues related
to transition and implementation.

Ukraine and Russia
On Monday, Ukraines interim president, Oleksandr V. Turchynov, dismissed weekend referendums in the
countrys restive east, calling them a farce with no legal basis, as the European Union prepared to announce
a relatively modest tightening of sanctions against Moscow and its allies.

History is full of instances where a rising power, aggrieved and dissatisfied, acts aggressively to obtain new
borders or other international concessions. In Russia today we see a much more unusual case: This
increasingly menacing and ambitious geopolitical actor is a state in decline. Nicholas Eberstadt examines
Russias human capital and its striking economic underdevelopment and weakness, for The Wall Street
Journal. Eberstadt points out, For all Russia's oil and gas, the country's international sales of goods and
services last year only barely edged out Belgium's and were positively dwarfed by the Netherlands'.
Remember, there has never been an energy superpower anywhere, ever. In the modern era, the
ultimate source of national wealth and power is not natural resources: It is human resources. And
unfortunately for Russia, its human-resource situation is almost unrelievedly dismal with worse likely in
the years to come.

Moscows military takeover of Crimea, its continuing threat to Ukraine, and its disdainful response to token
Western sanctions all bode poorly for other now-independent former Soviet republics and for European
peace and security. Moreover, as Russia successfully dismembers and re-annexes portions of a
neighboring country on Northern Europes great plain, the lessons are clear: The forces of global stability,
led by the United States, are weakening, and prospects for the predators are rising. John Bolton writes that
while the Wests responses to Russias aggressiveness in Ukraine thus far have been weak and ineffectual,
there are many more-robust alternatives available, such as significantly expanding economic sanctions and
repositioning North Atlantic Treaty Organization military assets to Poland and the Baltic republics. Read
Boltons latest National Review article for more about a foreign policy equipped to deal with the Putin
regime.

Asia
On Monday, Indians voted on the last day of a mammoth election as challenger Narendra Modi sought a
personal mandate in the holy city of Varanasi, crowning his campaign to rule the country with a mix of pro-
business policies and Hindu nationalism.

With results of Indias national election just two days away, an AEI Google Hangout will answer a hotly
debated question: Can Narenda Modi, Indias front-runner for prime minister, revive the countrys moribund
economy? Against a backdrop of sharply slowed economic growth, massive corruption scandals, and loss of
investor confidence, it remains to be seen whether Modis Gujarat model symbolizing double-digit
economic growth, ease in doing business, and high-quality infrastructure can solve Indias problems. Like
Great Britains Margaret Thatcher, Modi is attempting to use economic messaging about decentralization,
small government, and development to restore Indias economic standing and to court foreign investment.
Three experts will discuss whether comparisons between Modi and Thatcher are sensible or overblown.
Moderator Sadanand Dhume will be participating live from India, where he is observing the elections.

In little over a year, close to 60 Chinese officials have died of unnatural causes, with most being suicides.
The strong suspicion is that this epidemic of mysterious deaths among Chinas elite is likely tied to the anti-
corruption campaign being led by Xi Jinping, Chinas president and party general secretary. Gary Schmitt
writes that understanding what all this means is one of the US governments most important strategic
intelligence tasks. He argues that As the noose tightens, US intelligence ought to make clear to those
Chinese within the government elite that there are safe havens in the West as long as they are willing to
cooperate.

AEI on Campus

As part of AEI's on-campus leadership program, AEI foreign and defense policy scholars are talking to
hundreds of students every semester. If you know any exceptional student leaders, connect them to
Scott.Fyall@aei.org, and we'll tell them more about AEI on Campus Executive Council positions.
Executive Council members travel to DC for leadership conferences, network with business leaders and
scholars, and host influential thinkers on campus. Learn more here! The priority application deadline for
2014-15 is June 8, 2014.

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