Amid the gazillion blogs, tweets, Facebookies and LinkedIn aficionados, it has become even harder to find reasoned and convincing arguments for what kind of military drawdown would do least harm to the United States' global posture. Even learned think tanks are tweeting.

J. Peter Pham, director of the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, authored an article in the new issue of the French foreign affairs magazine Alternatives Internationales on India’s burgeoning relations with African states.

J. Peter Pham, director of the Atlantic Council’s Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, spoke on “The U.S. and China in Africa: Advancing the Diplomatic Agenda” at a United States-China-Africa conference hosted by the Virginia Military Institute’s Center for Leadership and Ethics in Lexington, Virginia.

On Friday, President Barack Obama announced the deployment of about 100 US military personnel to central Africa to assist the armed forces of regional states in putting an end to the decades long rampage of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA).  

With their attention largely focused in recent months on the unprecedented challenges faced by some of the pillars of the transatlantic community—NATO during and after the intervention in Libya, the European Union as it struggles to contain the sovereign debt crisis, and the United States where partisan wrangling over the budget deficits again threatens to shut down the federal government, to name just three—policymakers and analysts in America and Europe might be forgiven for failing to notice that theirs were not the only institutions going through a rough patch.

On September 21, the Michael S. Ansari Africa Center, in partnership with the Constituency for Africa (CFA), hosted a panel discussion on US foreign policy towards Africa, featuring five former US assistant secretaries of state for African Affairs as part of CFA's 2011 Ronald H. Brown African Affairs Series, which brings together a range of stakeholders inside and outside government in conjunction with the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference.

From Aomar Ouali and Paul Schemm, the AP:  The European Union's counterterrorism coordinator warned Thursday that al-Qaida's North African offshoot is extending its footprint around Africa and said local governments need more help fighting it.

From Steve Saideman, the Duck of Minerva:  France is the best-est ally ever!  Lots of people linking to this article.  Yes, the Libyan adventure certainly raises France's profile as an active contributor, assertive military and the rest.