Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates bemoaned the "oversized egos and undersized backbones" of America's political leaders, wishing more of them would emulate Brent Scowcroft's "steadfast integrity, common decency, and moral and political courage" to deal with enormous global challenges.

From Jackson Diehl, the Washington Post:  One of the most remarkable aspects of Bob Woodward's new book, "Obama's Wars," is its portrait of a White House that has all but resigned itself to failure in Afghanistan.

From Reuters Africa: An al Qaeda cell leader who may have been training suicide bombers was among two insurgents killed in an air strike in northern Afghanistan at the weekend, NATO-led forces said on Monday.

From David Ignatius, the Washington Post:  "These safe havens are a big question mark in terms of our success rate," Gen. Jim Jones, the national security adviser, said in an interview Tuesday at the White House.

Atlantic Council senior advisor Harlan Ullman published "National security in the 21st century" in the Outside View column, part of UPI's Emerging Threats analysis section.  Ullman writes about the new security challenges facing National Security Advisor James Jones and how much the world has changed since predecessors Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Last Sunday Barack Obama's national security adviser, retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones, made the television morning talk show rounds. Perhaps the most provocative question fired at him was why he was playing a far less visible – and critics would add even an invisible – role than his more famous predecessors such as Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski.

National Security Advisor Jim Jones declared in a speech to the Atlantic Council that the recent testing of a nuclear device and firing of Taepodong missiles by North Korea "are not an imminent threat" to the United States or the regions because "they have a long way to go" in perfecting the technology to weaponize their nukes.