A WASHINGTON POST EXCLUSIVE…

President Obama recently announced that an additional 250 Special Operations forces will be sent to Syria to stem the spread of the Islamic State. It won’t work. By now, “too little, too late” has become the moniker of the administration’s Middle East policy. To be fair, the policy of Obama’s predecessor wasn’t effective either. What is needed is a new piece on the chessboard: an American Foreign Legion.

MILITARY/FOREIGN POLICY ANALYST: Dr. Sean McFate, is an Associate Professor at the National Defense University, a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. His newest novel, SHADOW WAR: A TOM LOCKE NOVEL is available now.

ISIS LEADER URGES ATTACKS IN EUROPE AND USA…

“As a former paratrooper in the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and a former military contractor, I have seen that there is no substitute for boots on the ground. You cannot control territory from the air, and ground forces are needed to root out the Islamic State where it lives and festers. The United States has traditionally had four options. The first is isolationism: Do nothing. This means ceding the battle to the terrorists and watching them grow from a distance until they reach our shores. Few would want this.

The second strategy is to send in Special Operations forces, as Obama is doing. While such forces are an incredible fighting machine, their main mission will be to build indigenous forces on the ground. We are terrible at this. The United States spent billions on the Iraqi and Afghan security forces, but what did taxpayers get? In 2014, Iraqi soldiers threw down their weapons, peeled off their uniforms and ran away at the sight of an inferior enemy in Mosul. The Afghan military and police are mostly ghosts collecting salaries. The Pentagon and the CIA created Syrian militias to fight the Islamic State, only to have those militias join another terrorist group or even fight each other. Conducting a strategy like this over and over and expecting a different result is the definition of insanity.

The third option is Iraq War III. We could mount another “surge” of U.S. troops, as we did in 2007 to turn the tide of the war we launched in 2003, in hopes of winning hearts and minds. But the surge and the counterinsurgency strategy failed. Once U.S. troops leave, terrorists take over again, as the Islamic State has proved. Few Americans would like us to get sucked into another long war in the Middle East.”

READ MORE: washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-need-an-american-foreign-legion/2016/05/19/9a04d24e-176e-11e6-9e16-2e5a123aac62_story.html

PLUG BOOK: amazon.com/Shadow-War-Tom-Locke-Novel/dp/0062403702/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1464239470&sr=8-1&keywords=SHADOW+WAR

ABOUT BOOK: From a paratrooper turned private military contractor comes a blistering-hot debut in the tradition of Brad Thor, Daniel Silva, and Tom Clancy about an elite American mercenary on a secret mission to rescue a businessman’s family in Eastern Europe

Tom Locke is an elite warrior working for Apollo Outcomes, one of the world’s most successful private contracting firms. Pulled out of a mission in Libya, he is tapped for an unusual and risky assignment: a top secret black op in Ukraine. He has one week to rescue an oligarch’s family and to pull off a spectacular assault that could have long-lasting repercussions for this imperiled Eastern European nation and the world.

What Locke doesn’t know is that the operation comes with a dangerous complication. Brad Winters, Locke’s ambitious and enigmatic boss, is engaged in a secretive, high-stakes geopolitical chess game with influential power brokers in capitals around the world. One misstep could cost him—and Locke—everything. And that misstep may already have been committed by Locke’s former love, war correspondent Alie MacFarlane, who impulsively makes a move that risks both their lives.

Locke has methodically planned the mission and handpicked a team of trusted operatives to pull it off—and to save his ass if things go south. He is an intelligent, iconoclastic soldier who specializes in achieving the impossible, but all his brilliant preparation can’t prevent the backstabbing and recklessness that is getting in his way. Locke must move quickly to stay ahead of a looming betrayal that could lead to catastrophe . . . and tip the balance of power toward Putin’s Russia.

With fascinating characters, nonstop action, and unparalleled authenticity, Sean McFate and Bret Witter’s thrilling debut will captivate readers and reveal the terrifying power plays and treachery that determine the fate of the modern world.

BIO: McFate served as a paratrooper in the US Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and then worked for a major private military corporation, where he ran operations similar to those in this book. He is the author of The Modern Mercenary: Private Armies and What They Mean for World Order, and holds a BA from Brown University, a MA from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a PhD in international relations from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). He lives with his wife in Washington, DC.

WEBSITE: seanmcfate.com

TWITTER: @seanmcfate

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