Al-Qaeda’s Persistent Sanctuary

With growing instability across the Arab world, it has become de rigueur to argue that the primary al-Qaeda threat now comes from the Persian Gulf or North Africa. While these regions certainly present a threat to Western security, al-Qaeda’s primary command and control structure remains situated in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border regions. Since the mid-1990s, al-Qaeda’s senior leadership has enjoyed a sanctuary in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Today, al-Qaeda continues to present a grave threat from this region by providing strategic guidance, overseeing or encouraging terrorist operations, managing a robust propaganda campaign, conducting training and collecting and distributing financial assistance. As demonstrated over the past year, key al-Qaeda operatives such as Ilyas Kashmiri have been involved in plots to conduct Mumbai-style attacks in Europe, target a newspaper in Copenhagen that published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad and bomb New York. The US, for example, has narrowly escaped several imminent attacks. Faisal Shahzad, who was trained in Pakistan, constructed several bombs, placed them in the back of his Nissan Pathfinder sports utility vehicle and drove into Times Square in New York City on a congested Saturday night in 2010. Only fortune intervened, since all three bombs malfunctioned. It may be tempting to focus predominantly on terrorist threats to the West from Libya, Yemen, Somalia, Egypt and other countries in the Arab world because of the widespread unrest and on-going violence, but this would be a dangerous mistake

A Better Deal Afghanistan Finish the Job

The article of record as published may be located at http://www.rand.org/pubs/periodicals/rand-review/issues/fall2008/deal03.htmlIt is time for the United States to finish what it started when it overthrew the Taliban in 2001. The United States and NATO must now proceed swiftly on multiple fronts simultaneously. The allies should increase their forces in Afghanistan, fortify Afghan security forces, support tribal groups, strengthen local governance, and work with neighboring Pakistan to eliminate the insurgent sanctuaries across the Afghan border

Modeling and Analysis of the Effects of PV System Integration into Existing Neighborhood Electrical Distribution Systems.

M.S. Thesis. University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa 2017

The Shimmering Cathedral: Extraordinary Spiritual Experiences and the Meaning We Make of Them

This project portfolio presents the formational work for a book about Extraordinary Spiritual Experiences (ESEs). The project seeks to create a spiritual cartography which helps guide clergy, professionals, interested persons, and experiencers as they navigate ESEs and the subsequent process of making meaning from such experiences, particularly in the context of Christian faith, but by no means limited to it. By way of a novel exploration of the structure of an ESE event and stories from scripture, it is hoped that pathways for creating a safe space to share ESEs in group settings will blossom. In the context of the local church, the value of sharing ESEs has shown to have the effect of creating curious, questioning, and thoughtful followers of Jesus. Making space to discuss ESEs, and having ways of talking about them, deepens our insight into the plethora of ESEs in scripture, and gives framework for talking about our own ESEs. The foundations for this work come from multiple directions and are heavily influenced by the rapidly accelerating research into psychedelics and their ability to manifest mystical experiences. This project brings together six completed chapters, plus outlines of uncompleted chapters, of a projected twenty-three chapter book on ESEs, entitled The Shimmering Cathedral: Extraordinary Spiritual Experiences and the Meaning We Make of Them

Horns of a Dilemma: A Little-Known CIA Operation in Poland

Describes a talk between author Seth Jones and Paul Pope about issues and events covered in Jones' book, "A Covert Action: Reagan, the CIA, and the Cold War Struggle in Poland"

Islam & Islamic Radicalization Workshop / March 27th 2009

Instructors: Nadav Morag, PhD, Seth G. Jones, PhD, and Paul J. SmithThis document includes a Course Outline / Schedule as well as Biographies of Instructors

Podcasts United - Episode 1: Economic Mobility

This podcast examines the decrease in social and economic mobility in the United States and the effect it has on both the rich and the poor. Mobility has been decreased by a number of factors including funding based on property taxes, a changed interpretation of cultural fit and an overestimation of economic mobility by the general public. This decrease in mobility is apparent in society today but is not being realized by the public. In order to illustrate why this decreasing mobility is such an issue, we are going to analyze the reasons why it is happening and how it effects everyone in their own way

Ab initio interpolated potential energy surface and classical reaction dynamics for HCO⁺+H, HOC⁺+H, and deuterated analogues

Classical simulations of the reactions between HCO⁺/COH⁺ and hydrogen atoms, as well as their deuterated variants, have been carried out on an ab initio interpolated potential energy surface. The surface is constructed at the quadratic configuration interaction with single and double excitation level of ab initio calculation. At low energies we observe reaction channels associated with the isomerization of the cation, hydrogen/deuterium exchange, and the combination of isomerization with exchange. The HCO⁺/DCO⁺ ions only undergo exchange, and deuteration is more facile than the release of deuterium. The COH⁺/COD⁺ ions undergo isomerization or isomerization combined with exchange, the latter being the dominant reaction channel. Deuteration is again more facile than the release of deuterium, in combination with isomerization. These results are consistent with experimental measurements and with hypotheses on the deuteration of molecules in the interstellar medium

Quantum Process Tomography of the Quantum Fourier Transform

The results of quantum process tomography on a three-qubit nuclear magnetic resonance quantum information processor are presented, and shown to be consistent with a detailed model of the system-plus-apparatus used for the experiments. The quantum operation studied was the quantum Fourier transform, which is important in several quantum algorithms and poses a rigorous test for the precision of our recently-developed strongly modulating control fields. The results were analyzed in an attempt to decompose the implementation errors into coherent (overall systematic), incoherent (microscopically deterministic), and decoherent (microscopically random) components. This analysis yielded a superoperator consisting of a unitary part that was strongly correlated with the theoretically expected unitary superoperator of the quantum Fourier transform, an overall attenuation consistent with decoherence, and a residual portion that was not completely positive - although complete positivity is required for any quantum operation. By comparison with the results of computer simulations, the lack of complete positivity was shown to be largely a consequence of the incoherent errors during the quantum process tomography procedure. These simulations further showed that coherent, incoherent, and decoherent errors can often be identified by their distinctive effects on the spectrum of the overall superoperator. The gate fidelity of the experimentally determined superoperator was 0.64, while the correlation coefficient between experimentally determined superoperator and the simulated superoperator was 0.79; most of the discrepancies with the simulations could be explained by the cummulative effect of small errors in the single qubit gates.Comment: 26 pages, 17 figures, four tables; in press, Journal of Chemical Physic