Editors’ note: What follows is the fifth part of an exchange on Russian-Western relations following from David Kramer and Lilia Shevtsova’s monthly column at The American Interest Online (see especially their February 21 essay, “Here We Go Again: Falling for the Russia Trap”). On March 12, Thomas Graham responded with his essay, “In Defense of a Strategic […]

Editors’ note: What follows is the fourth part of an exchange on Russian-Western relations following from David Kramer and Lilia Shevtsova’s monthly column at The American Interest Online (see especially their February 21 essay, “Here We Go Again: Falling for the Russia Trap”). On March 12, Thomas Graham responded with his essay, “In Defense of […]

Editors’ note: What follows is the third part of an exchange on Russian-Western relations that began with David Kramer and Lilia Shevtsova’s February 21 essay, “Here We Go Again: Falling for the Russia Trap.” On March 12, Thomas Graham responded with his essay, “In Defense of a Strategic Approach to Russia.” Further contributions to this […]

The jury is still out on Georgia’s democracy. Despite its impressive parliamentary elections last October, in which Bidzina Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition surged into power, it’s not altogether clear whether the turbulent Caucasian republic has cleared a major hurdle on the democratic road or is in the process once again of exchanging one strongman for […]

April marks the tenth anniversary of the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by the United States and its partners. At this juncture, it is reasonable for Americans—and Iraqis and others—to ask whether the past decade of U.S. involvement in Iraq was worth it. Did the large human and financial costs produce an outcome that justifies the […]

As the U.S. military prepares to enter a period of reduced budgets, the services have endeavored to explain their strategic value to the nation. The Navy has positioned itself as the defender of the global commons and, more broadly, as a “global force for good”; the Army, as a globally dispersed boots-on-the-ground “force for tomorrow”, […]

The new Netanyahu government reflects the confluence of two revolutions, one religious the other social, that is embodied by the unexpected rise to power of two political novices, Yair Lapid and Nafali Bennet. Both campaigned on a program that called for relief of a middle class suffering from a lack of affordable housing, stagnant wages, […]

One of the primary foreign policy dilemmas facing the second Obama Administration is whether to make a concerted push for Israeli-Palestinian peace, possibly including presentation of a U.S. peace plan, the ultimate form of American involvement, or conversely, to maintain the standoff approach that followed the failed attempts of its first year in office. President […]

During the past several months, David Kramer, president of Freedom House, and Lilia Shevtsova, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Moscow Center, have written a series of sharp criticisms of the Obama administration’s Russia policy and outside experts who advocate a strategic approach toward Russia, as opposed to their preferred normative one. Their latest missive […]

As I finished writing the article “In the Army Now” (for the September/October 2010 issue of American Interest), I was literally en route to a year-long assignment in Afghanistan as part of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force. The mission I joined was a daunting one to execute: a vigorous counterinsurgency strategy in a theater that […]