Should Assad fall, the ensuing chaos and difficulty will be immense, and calls will rise for U.S. humanitarian intervention. Ambitious initiatives likely will fail, but compelling arguments can be made for going in small.
Asia’s four pillars of stability, bulwarks of a highly successful regional system crafted and fostered by America, are all crumbling. The region’s future will be shaped and defined by the struggle to replace those pillars.
Beijing has quietly strengthened its position economically and diplomatically in Central Asia, perhaps the most pivotal geographic zone on the planet. This development has powerful implications for America and the world.
Machiavelli’s political analyses on civic life in Italy’s fifteenth-century city-states offer a good starting point for those interested in determining the best way forward for today’s Iraq.
The price America pays in blood for its overseas initiatives rarely gets mentioned in political debates surrounding such policies, but it deserves more attention.
Some Westerners are puzzled that Iran’s foreign policy remains as bellicose today as it was in the time of Ayatollah Khomeini. But history shows that the regime’s foreign policy is designed to maintain its ideological identity.
Why has there been no World War III? A new tome probes the Cold War policy most relevant to this puzzle—Eisenhower’s doctrine of “massive retaliation” threatening a nuclear response against conventional threats.
