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• Introduction
• The challenge : protecting the population
• Local dynamics and community policing
• An analysis of community policing
• Organizing local defense forces
• Mitigating risks.

Security in Afghanistan has historically required a combination of top-down efforts from the central government and bottom-up efforts from local communities. Since 2001, U.S. and broader international efforts have focused on establishing security solely from the top down through Afghan national security forces and other central government institutions. But local security forces are a critical complement to these efforts, especially in rural areas of the country. The Afghan government and NATO forces need to move quickly to establish a more-effective bottom-up strategy to complement top-down efforts by better leveraging local communities. The Afghan government can work with existing community structures that oppose insurgents to establish village-level policing entities, such as arbakai and chalweshtai, with support from NATO. Effectively leveraging local communities should significantly improve counterinsurgency prospects and can facilitate mobilization of the population against insurgents. This analysis documents lessons about the viability of establishing local security in Afghanistan and addresses concerns about the wisdom of such policies.

• American defense strategy and grand strategy
• Army and Marine Corps force structure
• Air Force and Navy Force structure
• Modernization
• Nuclear weapons, missile defense, and intelligence
• Military compensation and Pentagon reforms
• Conclusion-and the implications of prolonged sequestration or the equivalent
• Appendix.

President Barack Obama survived a tenuous economy and a toxic political environment to win re-election in 2012, but the bitter partisan divide in Washington survived as well. So did the country's huge fiscal deficit. in this, the latest in a long line of Brookings Institution analyses of the defense budget, Michael O'Hanlon considers how best to balance national security and fiscal responsibility during a period of prolonged economic stress and political acrimony - even as the world remains unsettled, from Afghanistan to Iran to Syria to the western Pacific region. O'Hanlon explains why the large defense cuts that would result from prolonged sequestration or from deficit-reduction projects such as the Bowles-Simpson plan are too deep. But the bulk of his book represents an effort to look for greater savings than the Obama administration's 2012 proposals would allow.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• Political and security conditions of U.S. withdrawal
• Future U.S. security responsibilities in Iraq.

A critical question surrounding the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq is Iraq's internal security and stability. Although the U.S. withdrawal plan is designed with care to avoid weakening Iraq's security, the end of U.S. occupation may alter the strategies of the main Iraqi political actors, each of which has enough armed power to be able to shatter Iraq's domestic peace. In view of the potential for insecurity in Iraq, the United States cannot afford to take a passive or reactive stance. To anticipate dangers and act purposefully, U.S. policy-makers need a dynamic analytic framework with which to examine the shifting motivations and capabilities of the actors that affect Iraq's security. This monograph offers such a framework.