Commentary

Old friends of FPRI may recall that from 1994 to 2000 I wrote for the journal Orbis an editor’s column called “Night Thoughts of an I.R. Professor.”  Today those happy years seem to have been in some former lifetime...

Political intrigue has turned Mexico City into a rumor mill, a ring for below-the-belt punches, a trumpet for charges of ties to narco-traffickers, and a locale for clashes over the veracity of shadowy protected witnesses. This environment arises not...

In his first four months in office, Putin has done little about Russia’s social and economic problems but he has made it clear that he intends to rely on repression to deal with growing opposition. The most famous case...

The global financial crisis and its European aftermath have created, in effect, a major stress test for democracy in the ten post-communist countries of the European Union. The good news is that a majority of the “EU-10” nations have...

The latest White House Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime and the >Department of Defense Counternarcotics and Global Threats Strategy both clearly prioritize combating transnational criminal organizations as a cornerstone of a national security strategy that will...

At one time in the recent past, leaders in developing countries and in international organizations decried the “brain drain” that led the best and brightest in what we used to call the “third world” to emigrate to the West...

Today, the Muslim Brotherhood is the most important international political organization in the Arabic-speaking world. It is the dominant party in Egypt’s parliament, having obtained about 47 percent of the vote there, and in the Tunisian government, having received...

Overview Moscow’s relations with its eastern territories, especially the nine provinces of the Russian Far East (RFE), have significant security implications for Russia and for the Asia-Pacific community generally. With 36 percent of the national territory and 25,000 km...

“Be careful about what you wish for as you may get it.” The old adage is a cautionary note for those who have long sought a specific objective and then must face the ancillary “What next?” question. In this...

More than a year after the death of Osama Bin Laden, the debate over how big of a threat al-Qaeda poses to the United State continues. Official U.S. government statements regarding al-Qaeda’s relative strength often appear contradictory. Current Secretary...