These first few weeks since the election have been enormously heartening. The Obama administration’s cabinet is beginning to take shape with nominees of high quality—well trained, pragmatic, with enormous experience, and good judgment. This signal that a sensible economic policy strategy will be put in place in the coming months is reassuring, given the extraordinarily […]

In the January-February 2008 issue, I warned, in “Averting the Third Kosovo War”, that the Bush Administration should not recognize the independence of Kosovo until it first negotiated a deal to guarantee the autonomy of the ethnic Serbs who predominate in the province’s north. In the absence of such a deal, the article noted, independence […]

Obama’s election last Tuesday marks an enormous opportunity for the United States to redefine itself, both with respect to its economic and social model, and in how it relates to the outside world. It is in this capacity for periodic reinvention that America’s greatness lies. The chief task of the president-elect is not merely to […]

The 2008 U.S. presidential campaign has attracted wider and more intense interest worldwide than any in history. We asked observers from around the planet to report on what it all seems to mean.

What would it be like?

Dispatches from a Police Transition Team in Ramadi.

We need to target aid more strategically in Iraq to avoid past mistakes.

Poker is not just a game; it’s the quintessence of our national spirit.

The surprising history of America’s gastronomical icon.

Tales of terrorism, past and present.