Turkey To America: Step Up In Syria
By Ilan Berman, U.S. News & World Report, May 15, 2013

This week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrives in Washington for a much publicized state visit. The Turkish leader won't simply be making a courtesy call, however. His U.S. mission is largely aimed at achieving one purpose: goading the Obama administration into taking greater action on Syria.

Boston Bombing's Russian Roots
By Ilan Berman, The Washington Times, May 14, 2013

Ever since last month’s bombings at the Boston Marathon, speculation has abounded as to what led the perpetrators — suspected to be ethnic Chechens 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar — to carry out the most significant act of terrorism on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001. By all accounts, both were largely homegrown radicals who received inspiration, and perhaps even dangerous instruction, from jihadist elements in the United States and abroad. The roots of the Tsarnaevs’ militancy can be traced back at least in part to Russia’s own troubled “war on terrorism” — a struggle that Moscow, more than two decades after the Soviet collapse, is in real danger of losing.

Why China Lets North Korea Run Wild
By Peter Huessy, U.S. News & World Report, May 7, 2013

Although most observers tend to treat them as separate phenomena, there is an intimate connection between North Korea's recent nuclear and long-range missile tests and China's growing push to control the vast oil and gas resources in the South China Sea and the associated sea lanes through which trillions of dollars in commerce travel.

Of Syria, Israel, and the United States
By Lawrence J. Haas, The Commentator, May 7, 2013

Israel's military strikes in Syria leave the interested observer with admiration over Jerusalem's steadfastness, disgust over Washington's continued dithering, and worry over the long-term global implications.

To be sure, Syria is both a humanitarian horror and a geopolitical mess and, at this point, no one's got a clean, easy, fool-proof way to stop the slaughter and ensure that, after Bashar al-Assad falls, the nation won't become an even more dangerous safe haven for anti-Western terrorists.

Frontier Tension: Is China Provoking India at Disputed Border?
By Jeff M. Smith, Defense News, May 6, 2013

Amid all the media focus on China’s maritime territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines, the world nearly forgot that China still hosts the world’s largest outstanding land border dispute with the world’s largest democracy, India.

China Reform Monitor - No. 1033
May 15, 2013

China rounds up Uighurs after Xinjiang attack;
ROC-PRC services agreement this year

Russia Reform Monitor - No. 1831
May 13, 2013

The opposition movement a year later;
Former top political advisor “resigns”
 

China Reform Monitor - No. 1032
May 13, 2013

China buys 60 more planes from Airbus;
Violence flares in Xinjiang
 

China Reform Monitor - No. 1031
May 8, 2013

China to build 2nd aircraft carrier;
New gold rush in China
 

China Reform Monitor - No. 1030
May 6, 2013

Tajikistan cedes China 20 sq km;
India wants more cooperation on trans-border rivers