The Roman Emperor Commodus turned away from a fight against barbarians along the frontier to take up more rewarding domestic pursuits. It didn’t work out so well for the Emperor.

Unlike Machiavelli’s The Prince, Antoine Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince isn’t usually on reading lists for policymakers and international relations scholars. But it should be.

Russia may be difficult to deter at this point, with a highly motivated, overconfident and dismissive Putin believing that nothing can stand in his way.

For the Western political observer, Russia judged by common metrics always seems on the verge of being a spent force. As Joseph Conrad reminds us, Russia never seems to vanish from the map, and remains a font of imperialism and war.

Putin believes that the West is decadent, weak and divided. The West needs to prove him wrong.

You can’t consume an education; you can only earn it.

The United States must disprove the thesis of its decline, now being tested in three global hingepoints.

Failed states cause more than just humanitarian problems and terrorism; they’re potential flashpoints for great power wars as well.

Diplomacy cannot create the conditions for its own success.

Pre- and postmodern “barbarians” have much in common, with sobering implications for U.S. strategy and the War on Terror.