A great deal of ink has been spilled over the last month about the proximate causes of the fighting in the Caucasus. Abkhaz, Georgians, Ossetians and Russians have all presented conflicting accounts of who fired first—with timelines that stretch back to the 18th century. Meanwhile, the debate in the West has centered over whether the efforts to enlarge NATO to Russia’s … [Read More]

How did it come to pass that the “conservative” position on foreign policy involves proclaiming the virtue of revolutionary upheaval around the world, worrying that the survival at freedom at home depends on the active spread of American-style democracy abroad, and arguing that the standard for determining whether a country is friendly to the United States is not what it does … [Read More]

The fifth anniversary of the beginning of the Iraq War was marked by a deluge of retrospective commentary, much of it focused on the past: how we got into this conflict and how it has been conducted. Fine, it is always appropriate to assess lessons learned. But why and how we got into Iraq and what choices could have been … [Read More]

  In the aftermath of Kosovo’s unilateral declaration of independence on Feb. 17, Moscow and Washington are trading accusations as to which country has acted more irresponsibly.   Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns complained that Moscow had been given the opportunity to help facilitate the separation of Kosovo from Serbia in a stable, orderly fashion: “So we gave … [Read More]