back when we were both soviet military specialists and mary habeck was then known as the tank lady because of her phenomenal expertise on soviet armored doctrine on which she has done some terrific work, which is also unfortunately becoming relevant once again. just for those of you who are pursuing topics, especially young people in the audience, and you're asking yourselves, will anyone ever care about this? those of us who graduated in the 1990's and 1980's with degrees in soviet studies are discovering, yes, pretty much everything becomes important if you wait long enough. i wish we could have waited longer for that one, but that will be a topic for another iscussion. mary habeck has devoted her life for quite a number of years now to understanding al qaeda, to understanding the ideology, and understanding the group as it actually is. we are thrilled to have been able to publish a report, "getting it right: u.s. national security policy against al qaeda since 2011," and she has written a number of books, including an excellent primer, called "knowing the enemy," and she is working on o

i was a student of professor habeck. in 2012 campaign, president obama stated that leadership in pakistan, al qaeda leadership, was effectively decimated. this was in contrast to intelligence out of pakistan itself there was concerns in our intelligence community of a re-emergence that had gone away after going into the pakistan in 2001. and according to one of our top security experts, the group isn't diminished by drone attacks, which it what misterman is calling the whack-a-mole thing of that's actually adding to the antiamericannism that takes up space from the much needed discussion in pakistan on who the enemy of the state really is. >> i need you to get to a question really quick. >> it's basically, what are your thoughts on the nightmare scenario of al qaeda working with -- that has successfully carried out attacks in all four provinces, something other groups have not been able to do in pakistan, and the group which general john allen says does exist in afghanistan. how do you feel that might very well be someth