There is widespread agreement among the public and in the foreign and defense communities that the United States should avoid “another Iraq” or “another Afghanistan”—that is, another large-scale, long-term, and high-cost stability operation

Global climate change has catapulted the Arctic into the center of geopolitics, as melting Arctic ice transforms the region from one of primarily scientific interest into a maelstrom of competing commercial, national security, and environmental concerns.

In September 2013, an attack carried out by the al Qaeda–affiliated terrorist group al-Shabaab on the Westgate shopping mall in Nairobi, Kenya, drew renewed attention to the extremist threat facing that country. At least four attackers left more than 65 people dead after a multiday rampage