A newly competent Ukrainian military suggests that a competent Ukrainian state will emerge when the dust settles. But funding by oligarchs may bode ill for its ongoing struggles with corruption.

WRM writes in the World Post that while today isn’t quite 1914, the world is more deeply unsettled, and exhibits more parallels to that fateful year, than one would like.

Vaccines are now so expensive that doctors have stopped offering them to children, even while federal laws require children must be vaccinated before attending school. Corruption and rent-seeking pervade the story of how we got here.

Iran suffered its first acknowledged military casualty of the war in the Fertile Crescent. As the Administration continues to ponder its options, events are accelerating.

The United States cannot pursue a strategic foreign policy if each new crisis prompts it to rebalance to one flashpoint or another. It needs to identify a set of stable priorities, which is difficult if not impossible when one is in permanent crisis-management mode.

The for-profit Corinthian Colleges is calling it quits following accusations that it misled students. It’s nice to see a school with an unsavory reputation bite the dust, but our higher ed problems extend to non-profit institutions as well.

By stoking nationalist passions Putin hopes to consolidate his, and Russia’s, power. But it’s also unleashing a lot of prejudices, including anti-Semitism.

The regional struggles in Asia are just getting started, and there are no easy or obvious off-ramps. U.S. policymakers focusing on the meltdown in the Middle East should not lose sight of this other ticking time-bomb.

The findings of Freedom House’s Nations in Transit report point to Russia’s role as model and enabler for Eurasia’s autocracies.

Who lost Iraq? The longest-serving American official in Iraq paints a detailed and nuanced, but ultimately damning picture of how bad U.S. policy helped the country unravel.