The American military is stretched pretty thin these days. We're in two wars; we have lots of global commitments. On any given day, one third of our troops are actually involved in an operation, one third are getting ready to go and one third have just come back. Busy.

The Department of State's Inspector General recently released an inspection report on the Bureau of African Affairs. The report highlights resource shortcomings, policy failures and is a damning indictment of the past few years' leadership in the bureau. It is also a testimony to the dedication and competence of the foreign and civil service officials within the bureau. (Full disclosure, I served in the bureau for several years as a Foreign Service Officer.)

The inspectors cited "an undercurrent of dissatisfaction" and "uneven quality of leadership" leftover from the previous regime but noted that the team that took over on January 21 enjoyed "almost universal respect." "Morale," the inspectors noted, "is on the upswing."  That's good because there remain huge problems for the new team and the staff to overcome.

A few weeks ago, I visited the headquarters of U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) in Stuttgart, Germany as part of a research project on the imbalance between America's military and civilian expeditionary capabilities. While I was there I met with military and civilian leaders of the United States' newest and most controversial regional combatant command. What I learned was encouraging, but not satisfying.

In the midst of the Obama administration's policy review on Afghanistan a new word was born: Afpak, meaning Afghanistan and Pakistan. Strategists want to encourage the executors of strategy and policy to think of Afghanistan and Pakistan as a unified theater of operations. The border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan demands a unified approach if NATO and the U.S. are to defeat the Taliban.  So, Afpak it is.  

President Obama has named retired Air Force General Scott Gration to be his envoy to Sudan. Amid the furor created by the International Criminal Court's issuance of an arrest warrant for President Omar al Bashir and the subsequent Sudanese government expulsion of Non-Governmental Organizations that provide support to the two and one half million internally displaced persons in Darfur, this is welcome news. 

Am Nabak is a fine place for camels. It is rocky and dry, and getting drier. The water table can't support the current population of a few camels and around 17,000 refugees from the war in Darfur, so water is brought in overland by truck. The camp is situated scant 25 kilometers from the Darfur border.  This is too close to the war zone by United Nations standards; it was only supposed to be a transit camp through which refugees passed on their way to more permanent and secure camps. But the refugees have settled in at Am Nabak and, despite the urging of the UN Refugee Agency, prefer to remain close to the border. 

Nicholas Kristof's recent blog post took the United Nations to task for cancelling a security detail for him and his traveling partner, actor and activist George Clooney, on their recent trip to eastern Chad. Actually, Kristof said that his complaint with the UN is not the lack of security but rather the sudden reversal of position by high-level UN officials.  Kristof claims UN leadership worried that Clooney might condemn the actions of Sudanese president Omar al Bashir as genocide, thereby worsening already tense relations between Khartoum and New York.  A note: Mr. Clooney was travelling as a private citizen (albeit a very high profile private citizen), not in his role as a UN Goodwill Ambassador.