Commentary / World Aug 2, 2015
The West may miss the Taliban's Mullah Omar
The death of Taliban leader Mullah Omar last week may lead to the rise of more radical forces in Afghanistan.
Commentary / World Aug 22, 2014
Was U.S. ransom policy a factor in Foley's death?
Hostage-taking by extremist groups is now so pervasive that at least one major aid organization has stopped sending U.S. workers to areas where they might be abducted. Instead, they are sending citizens from European countries — with governments that will pay ransoms.
Commentary / World Jun 17, 2014
Hostages' families face impossible choices
An American journalist who was kidnapped by the same Afghan Taliban faction that held Bowe Bergdahl for five years argues that the real solution to ending kidnappings for ransom is to reduce the world's pockets of ungoverned spaces.
World / Politics | FOCUS Apr 21, 2014
How U.S. worsened its Putin problem
In September 2001, as the U.S. reeled from the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Vladimir Putin supported Washington's imminent invasion of Afghanistan in ways that would have been inconceivable during the Cold War. He agreed that U.S. planes carrying humanitarian ...
World / Politics Feb 28, 2014
U.S. strategy on Russia under fire
Days after his ally Viktor Yanukovych was ousted as Ukraine's leader, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a 150,000-troop Russian military exercise on Ukraine's border. The fall of Yanukovych — and Putin's potential response to it — has reignited a debate in Washington on how ...