Best of the Moment
foreign-policy-defence
central-south-america
Robert Kaplan | Atlantic | April 2010
Big think-piece. Enemy in Afghanistan is not just the Taliban, it is history, geography, economics. Can the US army change the fundamentals of a country? And at what cost to itself?
Michael Crowley | New Republic | 9 March 2010
Profile of brutal Afghan warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, radical Islamist who fought the Red Army with US support, then led the anti-US insurgency after 2001. US needs him as a friend again
Michael Rühle | IP Global | March 2010
Step-by-step guide for going nuclear. You need a civilian nuclear programme to cover enrichment, a space programme to cover missile acquisition. North Korea and Russia will help
Philip Gourevitch | News Desk | 2 March 2010
France arrests ex-first lady of Rwanda on genocide charges, after sheltering her since 1994. France now accepting it was wrong on genocide, restoring relations with Kagame government
Kenneth Anderson | SSRN | 28 February 2010
Targeted killing by unmanned aerial vehicle is good anti-terrorist policy, legitimate self-defense. Obama is right to step up programme, needs to assert its legality more aggressively (PDF)
Robert Baer | WSJ | 27 February 2010
Ex-CIA agent concludes that high-level assassinations are pretty much finished as a political tool. Thanks to CCTV you just can't get away with it any more, as Israel has found in Dubai
Piers Brendon | NYT | 24 February 2010
British historian considers whether America doomed to imperial decline, like Rome and Britain. Not necessarily: America stronger than either. But it does need to husband resources
Tom Ricks | CNAS | 24 February 2010
Iraq relatively stable for past year. Not clear if this will last, or if factions merely keeping powder dry until Americans gone. Extending US presence beyond 2011 would be helpful (PDF)
Chris Wilson | Slate | 22 February 2010
Five-part series on how US used social-networking theory to uncover true power structure in Iraq and thus track down Saddam Hussein after fall of Baghdad. Long, but never a dull moment
Alma Guillermoprieto | News Desk | 24 February 2010
War between Colombia and Venezuela a long shot, but confrontational rivalry between Uribe and Chavez could get out of hand. So far, they're just swearing at each other. It's a guy thing