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Escaping Egypt's Vicious Circle - Carnegie Endowment for Int'l Peace

One year after the Egyptian military bowed to the demands of the Tahrir Square crowds and forced President Mubarak from office, Egypt is still struggling to complete the first phas...

A Post-American World? Not Quite - Victor Davis Hanson, National Review

As far as the 21st century goes, compared to the alternatives, it is more likely that we are in a pre-American than a post-American age....

Why Does U.S. Pay to Protect Prosperous Allies? - Christopher Preble, Cato

This country's tax dollars can be better spent than on defending wealthy allies who are more than capable of protecting themselves....

U.S. Reasonableness on Iran Run Amok - Richard Cohen, Washington Post

Where is the evidence to suggest that the men who now run Iran will slap their foreheads, say zowie (in Farsi) and conclude that they were wrong to pursue a nuclear weapons program...

What Does Closure of Embassy in Syria Mean? - Elise Labott, CNN

One telltale sign a country is on the verge of collapse is when the U.S. embassy shutters its doors and gets out of Dodge. That threshold has now been crossed in Syria. After w...

U.S. Drones Target Rescuers, Funerals - Bureau of Investigative Journalism

The CIA’s drone campaign in Pakistan has killed dozens of civilians who had gone to help rescue victims or were attending funerals, an investigation by the Bureau ...

Decline of the West Can Be Stopped - Shlomo Ben-Ami, European Voice

Since the publication in 1918 of the first volume of Oswald Spengler's “The decline of the West”, prophecies about the inexorable doom of what he called the “Faus...

U.S. Comes Up Short in Afghanistan - Patrick Cockburn, The Independent

The United States' announcement that it plans to end the combat role of its troops in Afghanistan earlier than expected, and before the end of next year, is a crucial milestone in ...

New START One Year Later - Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

February 5 marks the one-year anniversary of the New Strategic Arms Reductions Treaty's (New START) entry into force. Signed by the United States and Russia in April 2010, New...

Obama Made the Right Call on Afghanistan - James Joyner, The Atlantic

Hastening America's exit will be painful, and undercuts years of U.S. efforts, but it's our least bad choice in this doomed war....

Aussies Now a Key Player in U.S. Defense - Matthew Fisher, Calgary Herald

Australia is walking a slippery diplomatic slope because its booming resource-based economy depends heavily on exports to China....

Iran Attack Could Fray U.S.-Israel Ties - Trudy Rubin, Philly Inquirer

A premature strike would jeopardize U.S. interests, while failing to achieve Israel's goal of destroying the Iranian program. The unintended consequences of such a strike could f...

The Great North American Divorce - Michael Taube, Washington Times

President Obama recently decided to reject TransCanada Corp.'s proposal to build the Keystone XL oil pipeline. While it may have warmed the cockles of the hearts of his Hollywood...

Why French Parents Are Superior - Pamela Druckerman, Wall St. Journal

While Americans fret over modern parenthood, the French are raising happy, well-behaved children without all the anxiety. Pamela Druckerman on the Gallic secrets for avoiding tantr...

Lax U.S. Gun Laws Enable Killing in Mexico - Washington Post

Law enforcement officials in both countries acknowledge that 70 to 80 percent of the traceable guns seized in Mexico can be tracked to the United States. Mr. Poire Romero, a top...

Who Reviews the U.S. 'Kill List'? - Doyle McManus, Los Angeles Times

There has been remarkably little public debate in the U.S. about drone strikes, which have killed at least 1,300 people in Pakistan alone since President Obama came to office....

Obama, Merkel, Putin at War With Reason - Doug Saunders, Globe & Mail

In a perfectly reasonable world, the entire economic future of Greece and Italy would not depend on provincial election outcomes in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein....

America Rushes for the Afghan Exit - The Economist

SPEAKING on February 1st shortly before a meeting of NATO ministers in Brussels, Leon Panetta, America’s defence secretary, dropped a bombshell. He said that he now hoped America...

What Will America Learn from Her Lost Wars? - Raoul Heinrichs, Pnyx

After a decade at war, the United States has almost had enough. The war in Iraq has ended, at least from an American perspective, and the war Afghanistan is lurching toward its con...

Like Reagan, Harper Is 'Starving the Beast' - Stephen Maher, Calgary H'ld

Unlike Reagan, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has never publicly discussed his 'starve the beast' plan, but it's pretty clear that that's what he's doing....

Obama's Turn on Nuclear Weapons - Joseph Cirincione, Foreign Affairs

Policy, meet budget. After having been separated for a decade, as the Pentagon operated essentially free from fiscal considerations, the two have been reunited in Washington's ne...

Expect China to Shape Next Bretton Woods Pact - Philip Coggan, Bloomberg

It seems unlikely that the next 10 years will see a yuan standard replacing a dollar standard. But might the present crisis conditions lead to some other sort of change? Might coun...

The UN's New, Big, Scary Report - Washington Times

The United Nations is raising the alarm that unless the world's governments take drastic action to impose strict development controls, humanity is in grave peril. So what else is...

What U.S. Could Learn from Italy's Mario Monti - Nathan Gardels, CSM

Italy may find Prime Minister Mario Monti's dose of discipline hard to swallow, but his depoliticized democracy is the only form of government that can move Italy forward. Monti'...

Americans Reject Torture for Terrorists - Angus Reid

People in the United States hold differing views on various foreign policy principles, but only a third are ready to justify the torture of terrorism suspects, a new Angus Reid Pub...

Mr. Romney, It's a Post-American World - Fareed Zakaria, Washington Post

Mr. Romney, you may not want to hear this, but it is a post-American world. Deal with it....

Mr. President, Our Wars Are Not Over - Lawrence Kaplan, The New Republic

“In America, and in Iraq,” Vice President Joe Biden assured an audience in Baghdad last December, “the tide of war is receding.” For its callowness, this ob...

History Shows Talking to Iran Won't Work - Reza Kahlili, CS Monitor

President Obama, in his State of the Union Address, said he will not allow Iran to obtain nuclear weapons and that all options to prevent that are on the table. More importantl...

Is Burma Turning on China? - John Lee, The National Interest

Last October, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a speech to the New York Economic Club. She spoke on the need for the United States to improve its statecraft by using econom...

Wishful Thinking About Taliban Talks - Michael Boyle, The Guardian

Whenever a policy position becomes conventional wisdom in Washington, there are usually good reasons to be suspicious of it. Such is certainly the case with the growing bipartisan...

Why America Needs Amphibious Skills - J. Randy Forbes, The Diplomat

“Amphibious warfare.” To most Americans, the term conjures up images from HBO’s The Pacific, where U.S. Marines assault the beaches of Pacific islands o...

Obama Ill-Informed on Bahrain - Morgan Roach, The Foundry

Last Friday, Bahrainis held a peaceful, though spirited, rally in front of the United Nations headquarters in Manama to protest what they consider to be misguided foreign efforts t...

Worldwide Threat Assessment (pdf) - U.S. Intelligence

An assessment of the threats facing the United States....

The Truth: Of Course America Is in Decline - Rosa Brooks, Los Angeles Times

Any honest diplomat will tell you that American power and global influence is waning, and if we shy away from acknowledging that fact, we'll only speed up the process....

Showdown at Security Council over Syria - Casey Coombs, RealClearWorld

Last time the UN Security Council (UNSC) demanded the attention of major capitals, world media and Arab Spring watchers on the scale witnessed Tuesday was nearly 11 months ago, whe...

Oman: America's Quiet Go-Between on Iran - Judith Miller, Fox News

Oman's ruler, Sultan Qaboos bin Said, a longtime, discreet intermediary with Iran, says that Iran is seriously seeking a way out of American-led sanctions over its nuclear program...

Blaming China Is No Solution for U.S. - John Copper, The National Interest

Politicians are getting ready for the fall election and looking for issues. They are also seeking scapegoats to blame for America’s suffering and malaise. Unemployment, accordin...

How Obama Became Vulnerable on Iran - Trita Parsi, Salon

The Republican primary debates have revealed what was long suspected: The foreign policy issue that will dominate the general elections will be Iran. This is not surprising. Iran ...

Why Wars U.S. Wages Often Go Wrong - Jim Powell, Forbes

Image by AFP/Getty Images via @daylife Drums are beating for a pre-emptive war to take out such nuclear facilities as Iran might have. But considerable caution is in or...

Obama Paying Lip Service on Syria Sanctions - Ilan Berman, Daily Beast

When the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad was engulfed by the “Arab Spring” last March, many waxed optimistic that regime change in Syria wouldn’t be long in coming. But ten ...

Obama Policy Increases Risk in Korea - Michael Mazza, The American

The Obama administration’s newly released strategic guidance for the Defense Department emphasizes the importance of defending U.S. interests in the Asia-Pacific. It’s ironic...

Repeating Old Afghan Mistakes - Brahma Chellaney, Project Syndicate

With the stage set for secret talks in Qatar between the United States and the Taliban, US President Barack Obama’s strategy for a phased exit from war-ravaged Afghanistan is n...

Does the U.S. Favor Defense Cuts? - World Public Opinion

Explore World Opinion Comprehensive analyses that integrate polls from a wide variety of sources on numerous international issues. Includes analyses of world opinion and US ...

The U.S.'s Cowardly Drone War - George Monbiot, The Guardian

As technology allows machines to make their own decisions, warfare will be become bloodier – and less accountable....

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