Publications

The swiftness with which the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, now the Islamic State) assaulted and overran northern Iraq brings a new level of concern to policymakers. The offensive blew a hole in Washington’s desire to...

Explosive Radiological Dispersal Devices and the Distribution of Dangerous Radiological Material Worldwide   “Everybody is exposed to radiation. A little bit more or a little bit less is of no consequence.” -Dixie Lee Ray, Chair US Atomic Energy Commission...

Freedom of the Seas is one of the central principles of American foreign policy. It is the right of all peoples to travel unmolested in international waters in both war and peace. In what should be a parallel concept,...

Amid the chaos of the conquest of a large part of Iraq by the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS, the Caliphate, or the Islamic State), there has been a great deal of attention...

CAN POROSHENKO BEAT THE ODDS? On May 25, 2014, Petro Poroshenko was elected president of Ukraine with 54.7 percent of the vote. President Vladimir Putin said he would respect the election results, despite having previously stated that he would...

“Reputation of power is power, because it draweth with it the adherence of those that need protection,” writes Thomas Hobbes, in Leviathan. Does American “credibility” in foreign policy matter? Many commentators answer in the negative.  For instance, Peter Beinart,...

In These Pages In the lead article of our summer issue of Orbis, Kori Schake of the Hoover Institute, a former high-level staffer at both the Pentagon and State Department during the George W. Bush administration, takes the executive...

Home-Grown Terrorism – Russia’s Ticking Bomb. Published in: ISN Zurich. July 8, 2014.  By: Maia Otarashvili and Aleksandr Fisher ...

Sunil S. Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2013), 353 pp. Gary J. Bass, The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide (New York:...

Abstract This article examines the Obama Doctrine’s main tenets, assesses its operation— focusing on the geopolitically crucial regions of Europe, East Asia, and the Middle East–and then offers concluding observations about the trajectory and consequences of this doctrine. Read...