President Obama’s initiative to eliminate nuclear weapons culminated in the 2010 Nuclear Security Summit, uniting 47 nations to commit to securing and reducing vulnerable nuclear materials worldwide.

Despite Japan’s eagerness and budget, U.S. law and security concerns kept the F-22 out of Tokyo’s reach – a clear example of political and technical hurdles trumping alliance dynamics.

History shows that emotional issues like abductions are best resolved through hard bargaining and incentives, not just rhetoric or sanctions.

In “The Death of U.S. Strategy in Iraq,” Robert Dujarric contends that by mid-2008 the United States had drifted from any coherent grand strategy, relying instead on reactive troop deployments and short-term security fixes rather than integrating military, political, and economic lines of effort.