Near East South Asia

Near East South Asia

Center for Strategic Studies

LTC David W. Alley, USA

LTC David W. Alley is the Middle East Staff Officer on the faculty of the Near East South Asia Center. He is a U.S. Army Foreign Area Officer (FAO) and a U.S. Army Aviation AH-64 Attack Helicopter pilot.

Prior to joining the NESA Center, he worked on FAO-related issues at the Pentagon and at the U.S. Armyís Human Resources Command.

LTC Alley has spent extensive periods of time as an Army FAO in North Africa and the Middle East. He conducted his in-country training in the Office of Defense Cooperation in Morocco in 1999-2000. He later served as the Acting Defense Attache in Sana'a, Yemen, from 2004-2005.

LTC Alley served at a Political-Military Advisor to LTG David Rodriguez, the Commander of Task Force Freedom in Mosul, Iraq. He also served as the Political-Military Advisor to BG H.R. McMaster, Commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, during combat operations in the city of Tel Affar (Talafar).

From 2006 to 2008, LTC Alley served in Beirut, Lebanon. As a member of the Defense Attache office, he participated in the Non-Combatant Evacuation (NEO) from Lebanon in the summer of 2006. From 2007 to 2008, he served as the Defense Attache at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. This period saw many events unfold in Lebanon including the Nahr Al Barid crisis when the Lebanese Army fought against the al-Qaeda affiliated group Fatah al-Islam, the Hizbullah take over of west Beirut in May 2008, and the first ever Joint Military Commission between the Lebanese Army and the U.S. Department of Defense.

LTC Alley's tactical assignments as an Army Aviator were in the Republic of Korea, the XVIII Airborne Corps, Fort Bragg, NC and the 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, KY.

    Education
  • U.S. Army Command and General Staff College
  • M.A., Arab Studies, Georgetown University
  • B.S., Mathematical Economics and French Literature, United States Military Academy
    Areas of Interest
  • National Security and Defense Policy
  • Lebanon
  • Yemen
  • Iraq

David W. Alley, Military Fellow

 

David Alley

" It is the unconquerable soul of man, and not the nature of the weapons he uses, that ensures victory. "

~ George S. Patton

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    Suggested Readings
  • Kaplan, R. (2002). Counterinsurgency Warfare: Theory and Practice. (PSI Classics of the Counterinsurgency Era). New York: Random House
  • Salibi, K. S. (1988). A House Of Many Mansions: The History Of Lebanon Reconsidered. London: I.B. Tauris
  • Dresch, P. (2000). A History of Modern Yemen. Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press.