Security

President Obama’s new national security strategy appropriately defines the limits of military power. But with the President’s request to Congress to authorize a new war on terror, over $5 billion in supplemental funds appropriated for the military fight against ISIL, and over $10 bi...

There was a whiff of something rotten in my kitchen on Saturday – and it wasn’t the cooking. No, it was emanating from the press conference I was watching live on my smartphone, in which Nigeria’s election commissioner announced that polling, scheduled for February 14, was to be po...

I have had the privilege of living and working in West Africa for the past 15 years. In 2007, I spent several months in northern Nigeria, interviewing grain traders in cross-border markets. These markets were some of my favorite places in West Africa—bustling, chaotic, open-air markets th...

Last Friday (hmmm…), the State Department announced that Secretary Kerry will travel to sub-Saharan Africa April 29-May 5, his first visit to the sub-continent as Secretary of State. First stop is Addis Ababa to meet with the African Union and the Ethiopian government “to discuss effort...

When middle class households opt out en masse of public schools —  as in India and Brazil and the inner cities of USA— it’s bad news for the children of the poor majority.  That’s now a familiar and important argument for radical new thinking about school syste...

During his first overseas trip as the United States’ top diplomat, and in advance of this week’s Friends of Syria meeting in Rome, Secretary of State John Kerry spoke forcefully in response to concerns from the Syrian Opposition Coalition that the United States is not providing sufficient support to...