Director Bruce Hoffman speaks to Dina Temple-Raston about the emerging use of social media by militant and terrorist groups. "I don't think anyone is going to be radicalized or mesmerized by this media to pick up a gun or throw a bomb," says Professor Hoffman. "But it does provide a very extraordinarily important first step. It certainly serves that purpose."

Georgetown's student newspaper highlights the return of Dr. Colin Kahl to the CPASS faculty following an extended public service leave during which he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East. "I'm turning back into an academic pumpkin after a three-year leave," quipped Dr. Kahl, whose performance in government earned him the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service.

Director of Studies Paul Pillar offers his take on the notion that the delay in learning of Kim Jong-Il's death constituted an intelligence failure. "The term 'intelligence failure' tends to get used, extremely broadly, to refer to anything that surprises us or, even more broadly, any sudden bit of news about an event overseas when that news does not come to us from our own governments," says Dr. Pillar. "There always will be much the West will not know about a country as closed and tightly controlled as North Korea, no matter how effectively Western security services are operating."