Security

As North Korea issues increasingly over-the-top threats, officials in Washington have sought to reassure the public and U.S. allies. But the risk of nuclear war on the Korean Peninsula is far from remote--and the United States should adjust its military planning accordingly.

Vladimir Putin's unwavering support for the Assad regime in Syria is best explained by his dread of fracturing states and Sunni Islamism -- fears he confronted most directly while brutally suppressing Chechnya's attempted secession from Russia.

Thanks to problems of both conception and execution, the Iraq war ended up becoming the most egregious American foreign policy failure since Vietnam. Historians will long debate what the consequences might have been of different decisions at key turning points. We at Foreign Affairs were participating in these debates in real time; here are some highlights of our coverage of the war over the last decade.

After making steady progress on nuclear weapons in the first two years of his presidency, Obama stalled after Republicans waged a fierce battle against ratifying the New START treaty. Recent speeches -- and Obama's picks for secretary of state and secretary of defense -- indicate that he is ready to resume the fight.