What Americans misunderstand about tribal cultures, and how it hurts U.S. foreign policy.

The President’s speech to the UN General Assembly last month contained the beginnings of a good idea for U.S. foreign policy. Now let’s see if he runs with it.

Boko Haram’s horrors are no more attributable to Islam than they are to the perpetrators’ identities as Nigerians or Africans. They instead have everything to do with what happens when societies don’t put the brakes on men—or menace.

As Congress continues to debate whether to support the President on Syria, numerous pundits have turned to the Powell Doctrine for guidance. The Powell Doctrine was a useful tool in its time, forcing its would-be adherents to meet a stringent set of conditions: Is a vital national security interest threatened? Do we have a clear […]

Late last week the White House issued a new policy on security sector assistance. According to the White House press release, the aims of security sector assistance are to: 1) Help partner nations build the sustainable capacity to address common security challenges 2) Promote partner support for U.S. interests 3) Promote universal values, and 4) […]

Historians traffic in characters and plots. They appreciate the extent to which timing, location and personality matter. Anthropologists, on the other hand, eschew the importance of contingency, inadvertence and timing, treating humans like predictable atoms, not willful Adams.

The assertion of U.S. sovereignty, coupled with a pledge to stop interfering in the affairs of others, will produce a more peaceable world.

Islamism is about religion after all, and our "freedom agenda" is backfiring.

Nearly five years into the War on Terron, the Bush Administration still lacks a serious understanding of our Islamist enemies. Here is such an understanding (first in a two-part series).