The United States faces major challenges in dealing with Iran, the threat of terrorism, and the tide of political instability in the Arabian Peninsula. The presence of some of the world’s largest reserves of oil and natural gas, vital shipping lanes, and Shia populations throughout the region have made the peninsula the focal point of US and Iranian strategic competition. Moreover, large youth populations, high unemployment rates, and political systems with highly centralized power bases h...

After more than a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies are set to transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces in 2014. This transition poses many challenges, and much will depend on the future of Afghan politics, governance, corruption, development, security, and economics. How the United States manages the transition is vital for any hopes of creating a secure Afghanistan, as well as preventing the reemergence of the Taliban and other terrorist group...

This report analyzes four key aspects of US and Iranian strategic competition--sanctions, energy, arms control, and regime change. Its primary focus is on the ways in which the sanctions applied to Iran have changed US and Iranian competition since the fall of 2011. This escalation has been spurred by the creation of a series of far stronger US unilateral sanctions and the European Union’s imposition of equally strong sanctions, both of which affect Iran’s ability to export, its financial ...

The United States faces major challenges in dealing with Iran, the threat of terrorism, and the tide of political instability in the Arabian Peninsula. The presence of some of the world’s largest reserves of oil and natural gas, vital shipping lanes, and Shia populations throughout the region have made the peninsula the focal point of US and Iranian strategic competition. Moreover, large youth populations, high unemployment rates, and political systems with highly centralized power bases h...

After more than a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies are set to transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces in 2014. This transition poses many challenges, and much will depend on the future of Afghan politics, governance, corruption, development, security, and economics. How the United States manages the transition is vital for any hopes of creating a secure Afghanistan, as well as preventing the reemergence of the Taliban and other terrorist group...

After more than a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, the United States and its allies are set to transfer security responsibilities to Afghan forces in 2014. This transition poses many challenges, and much will depend on the future of Afghan politics, governance, corruption, development, security, and economics. How the United States manages the transition is vital for any hopes of creating a secure Afghanistan, as well as preventing the reemergence of the Taliban and other terrorist group...

The Evolving Military Balance in the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia describes the strategy, force deployments, and the military balance in potential current and future scenarios involving the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Republic of Korea, People’s Republic of China, Japan, and the United States. The analysis in these volumes shows how tensions between the Koreas—and the potential involvement of the China, Japan, Russia, and the United States—create a nearly open-ended spect...

**WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE • In a thrilling dramatic narrative, the award-winning reporter traces how the strain of militant Islam behind ISIS first arose in a remote Jordanian prison and spread with the unwitting aid of two American presidents.“Gripping. . . . For readers interested in the roots of the Islamic State and the evil genius of its godfather, there is no better book to begin with than Black Flags.” —Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times**Dra...

Of all the countries in the world that are vital to the strategic and economic interests of the United States, Saudi Arabia is the least understood by the American people. Saudi Arabias unique place in Islam makes it indispensable to a constructive relationship between the non-Muslim West and the Muslim world. For all its wealth, the country faces daunting challenges that it lacks the tools to meet: a restless and young population, a new generation of educated women demanding opportunities in...

In War Crimes Kenyan journalist Rasna Warah exposes how foreign governments and humanitarian agencies conspired to keep Somalia in a permanent state of under-development and conflict and how Somali politicians, warlords, clan-based fiefdoms and terrorists benefited from the ensuing chaos and anarchy. The book is about the many war crimes that have taken place in Somalia in the name of peace, development, religion and reconciliation. It reveals who gained from the spoils of war and who paid...

The leading journalist on Pakistan lays out America's options with Pakistan and Afghanistan in the post-Bin Laden years.What are the possibilities-and hazards-facing America as it withdraws from Afghanistan and as it reviews its long engagement in Pakistan? Where is the Taliban now in both these countries? What does the immediate future hold and what are America's choices as President Obama considers our complicated history and faces reelection?These are so...

The lawyer and New York Times–bestselling author of The Case for Israel discusses the pros and cons of the Iran nuclear agreement.An Iranian nuclear arsenal could make the world more dangerous. That is why decisions regarding Iran's nuclear program are among the most important of our time. Here, Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz argues that the negotiations that led to this bad deal were deeply flawed. Evaluating the pros and cons of ...