1. Confronting Complex Operations

    To get a sense of what "complex operations" are, one need look no further than the kind of wars the U.S. fights when it intervenes overseas today. Unlike the total wars of the past, in which the U.S. military battled the national army of an enemy state, today's struggles for security, stabilization, peace-building, reconstruction, and development in the most fragile states around the world are engaged by several different departments of the U.


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  2. Advent of the Contested Global Commons

    Ironically, the cyber-attack that shut down the Web sites of the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Trade Commission struck on Independence Day. Because as unsophisticated as the attacks were, they made it clear that the U.S. is as intertwined with its enemies as it is with its allies, in a newly emerging, little-understood, and rapidly evolving 21st-century terrain.


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  3. WHO Loses Count of Swine Flu Cases

    During swine flu’s first months, the World Health Organization broke down the numbers of new cases by country to show where the virus was spreading. Then, in July, the WHO quietly announced that it was abandoning its count. While this may seem alarming, counting cases has long been counterintuitive. The problem with an exploding epidemic—Britain’s chief medical officer says 100,000 people caught the swine flu in a week—is that the resources it takes to count it grow just as fast. “You can’t devote . . . resources to just surveillance,” says Marc Lipsitch, a Harvard professor of epidemiology. So what can authorities do? Track trends—specifically, how the virus is mutating (U.S. officials recently spotted young swine-flu patients having seizures). By last Friday, the pandemic had spread to nearly every country. From now on, understanding swine flu no longer means asking how many. But instead, what kind?


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  4. Shirking Somalia to Save It

    Why foreign troops should leave.

    Somalia has become synonymous with the term “failed state.” Even now, after nearly two decades of civil war and a dismaying string of failed foreign interventions, the end of the country’s long humanitarian catastrophe seems no closer. Recently, Western security experts have begun to warn that the capital city, Mogadishu, could be overrun by Al-Shabab, an armed Islamic extremist group the U.


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  5. Gates Going Out On a Limb

    Last week, while I was busy writing about two fascinating scenarios for the future of U.S. influence, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was delivering the latest in a long line of brilliant speeches, this time in Chicago. In it, he nailed down exactly the kinds of concrete changes that must happen in order to retool the institutions of American foreign policy for the radical challenges of the next two decades.


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  6. D'Angelo is Alive and (Not So) Well and Living in Richmond

    How does it feel? Parsing the rumors about the return of onetime R&B sensation D’Angelo, it feels anguished. And sad. And even a little pathetic. You most likely remember D’Angelo, whose real name is Michael Eugene Archer, from the video that made him famous. It was for “Untitled (How Does it Feel),” from his 2000 Grammy-winning release, Voodoo, and there is really only one thing to remember: D’Angelo naked, ripped to the core, the camera lingering on his torso.


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  7. Looking Long-Term

    Measuring American influence from week to week seems enough of a challenge, as a glance at recent global developments illustrates. The electoral upheaval in Iran, for instance, will almost certainly give the U.S. the upper hand in any upcoming nuclear negotiations. Unless, of course, it doesn't. Likewise, China's distancing itself from North Korea will strengthen the U.


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  8. Energy Dependence

    What the rest of the world can teach the US about nuclear power.

    Wait, how do you build a nuclear-power plant? As the United States zeroes in on green energy, this is exactly the question new nuclear firms are scrambling to answer. It's a wonder, considering the U.S. invented nuclear power more than a half-century ago. But it died here in its adolescence as cost overruns marred the industry and opposition grew from anti-Cold War activists and local pols glad for the power but skittish about a meltdown in their backyard.


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  9. ‘Indispensable And Imperfect’

    U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice changes America's diplomatic approach.

    Since the United States invaded Iraq in 2003 without U.N. support, the country's engagement with the world body has wavered between grudging participation and downright hostility. When he assumed office, President Obama signaled an immediate change in tone by appointing Susan Rice, a national-security expert who worked on terrorism and Africa during the Clinton administration, as the American U.


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  10. Are We There Already?

    Techhie toys for surviving long car rides.

    A family trip in even the fastest, most comfortable sedan can still feel like an exercise in conflict resolution. Every parent knows that the best way to guarantee a peaceful journey is to fully wire the kids. Fortunately, there is some flashy new technology that makes the task easier.


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