Publications

  In the aftermath of Western sanctions on Ukraine, many analysts have predicted that Russia will reorient its economy away from the West, with which it has profitably traded energy in exchange for investment and consumer goods, toward the...

Slovenia’s celebrity Marxist theoretician Slavoj Zizek gained a new and unexpected endorsement on Saturday. A leading expert on interpreting philosophers from Marx to Lacan to Hegel, Zizek is not a newcomer to Russian politics. He has written on the...

Since 9/11, Washington has considered al Qaeda the greatest threat to the United States, one that must be eliminated regardless of cost or time. After Washington killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, it made Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s new...

As Russian forces consolidate their gains in Ukraine over the flat protests of Western leaders, the specter of Russian revanchism is keeping much of Eastern Europe on edge. But lumbering tanks and legions of insta-separatists aren’t the only concern. Ukraine isn’t...

Pressures mounted on the United Nations Security Council yesterday to lift its international embargo on arms to the Libyan government. In an interview with journalist Valerio Robecco, Libyan UN ambassador Ibrahim Dabbashi said, “A time limit should be set...

he Middle East - a region as complex and fraught with challenges as ever - continues to hold U.S. policymakers in its thrall. Though they may want to pivot elsewhere, the Middle East keeps pulling them back because the...

The Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986 mandated that the president issue a national security strategy (NSS) report. According to the legislation, the purpose of this document is to provide the president with the means to communicate...

George W. Bush left office with his activist foreign policy in disrepute. Fast-forward six years: President Barack Obama has pursued, in some respects, the opposite approach, and yet he has reached an even lower foreign-policy approval rating — around...

This weekend’s Sunday-morning talk shows remained focused on Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress and its possible effect on the ongoing talks with Iran on its nuclear program. In the meantime, a seemingly innocuous but related event Sunday morning was lightly...

In his recent book Nuclear Iran (Harvard University Press, 2014), Jeremy Bernstein notes that centrifuge plants are simpler to conceal than nuclear reactors. Under the terms of a nuclear deal between Iran and the EU3+3 (Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia, and the United States) that have been...