In a sweeping ruling, the Supreme Court declared that police cannot search suspects’ cellphones without warrants just because they were found during an arrest. The decision sets a vital marker for privacy protection in the digital age.

During the recent conference on democracy promotion put together by The American Interest and Freedom House, Walter Russell Mead sat down with Robert Kagan to discuss grand strategy in the age of Obama. Below is a lightly edited transcript of their conversation.

Thailand’s military government is more repressive and enduring than the U.S. expected. But instead of sanctioning the country to “show our support for democracy,” we should pursue a more nuanced and realistic policy.

In a recent SWAT raid a flashbang blew a hole in the chest of a two-year-old boy. These deployments often find neither weapons nor drugs, but the damage they do is incalculable.

Japan wants to lift the WWII-era limits on its military size, and the Philippines is all in favor. Meanwhile, China updated its official map to include the disputed islands in the South China Sea.

Despite an economic slowdown, Beijing is importing record amounts of crude. It’s aiming to expand its strategic oil reserves in the face of international instability.

Soon, German industry may no longer be exempt from paying green surcharges on electricity bills. Berlin’s green ambitions have saddled its consumers with some of the highest electricity prices in Europe.

Elliot Abrams, Michael Mandelbaum, and Paula Dobriansky spoke on a panel entitled “Do the Internal Affairs of Other Nations Matter to Us?” as part of a recent conference on “Re-thinking Democracy Promotion Amid Rising Authoritarianism.” The conference was jointly sponsored by The American Interest, Freedom House, and Johns Hopkins-SAIS.

While it would be wrong to think that the conflict in the Middle East is only about religion, it would be even more wrong to downplay just how much of the conflict actually is just about religion.

Peter Beinart predicts liberal Democrats will eventually see that President Obama deserves much of the blame for the Iraq mess unfolding before us. If so, Obama’s legacy really could end up being more Carteresque than anything else.