OXFORD – Many of the recent tributes for Margaret Thatcher following her death celebrated her as a “transformational” leader who brought abo…

CAMBRIDGE – Last month, China’s new president, Xi Jinping, chose Moscow for his first foreign visit. He and Russian President Vladimir Putin…

CAMBRIDGE – This month marks the tenth anniversary of the controversial American-led invasion of Iraq. What has that decision wrought over t…

NEW DELHI – The second anniversary of the “Arab Spring” in Egypt was marked by riots in Tahrir Square that made many observers fear that the…

CAMBRIDGE – What will the world look like two decades from now? Obviously, nobody knows, but some things are more likely than others. Compan…

CAMBRIDGE – The United States is a nation of immigrants. Except for a small number of Native Americans, everyone is originally from somewher…

TOKYO – Japan has been in the news lately, owing to its dispute with China over six square kilometers of barren islets in the East China Sea…

CAMBRIDGE – This month marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban missile crisis – those 13 days in October 1962 that were probably the closest…

CAMBRIDGE – Will war break out in the seas of East Asia? After Chinese and Japanese nationalists staged competing occupations of the barren …

ASPEN – Public-opinion polls in the United States indicate a close presidential election in November. While President Barack Obama outpolls …

CAMBRIDGE – When President Richard Nixon proclaimed in the early 1970’s that he wanted to secure national energy independence, the United St…

CAMBRIDGE – When should states intervene militarily to stop atrocities in other countries? The question is an old and well-traveled one. Ind…

CAMBRIDGE – While the presidential primary elections in the United States are not over, Mitt Romney is now almost certain to be the party’s …

CAMBRIDGE – Two years ago, a piece of faulty computer code infected Iran’s nuclear program and destroyed many of the centrifuges used to enr…

CAMBRIDGE – This year’s presidential campaign in the United States has been marked by calls from Barack Obama’s would-be Republican challeng…

MUNICH – Would the world be more peaceful if women were in charge? A challenging new book by the Harvard University psychologist Steven Pink…

CAMBRIDGE – A leadership transition is scheduled in two major autocracies in 2012. Neither is likely to be a surprise. Xi Jinping is set to …

CAMBRIDGE – Asia’s return to the center of world affairs is the great power shift of the twenty-first century. In 1750, Asia had roughly thr…

CAMBRIDGE – As Europe struggles to save the euro, the chorus of complaints about weak leadership in the world’s major economies grows louder…

CAMBRIDGE – The United States is going through difficult times. Its post-2008 recovery has slowed, and some observers fear that Europe’s fin…

CAMBRIDGE – Al Qaeda’s attack on the United States ten years ago was a profound shock to both American and international public opinion. Wha…

CAMBRIDGE – President George W. Bush was famous for proclaiming democracy promotion as a central focus of American foreign policy. He was no…

CAMBRIDGE – This month marks the 40th anniversary of Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to Beijing, which launched the process of mending a 20-ye…

CAMBRIDGE – At the Cold War’s end, some pundits proclaimed that “geo-economics” had replaced geopolitics. Economic power would become the ke…

OXFORD – When one state is preponderant in power resources, observers often refer to the situation as hegemonic. Today, many pundits argue t…