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In October 2015, Russia intervened directly in the conflict in Syria, seeking to prop up its beleaguered ally in Damascus and push back rebel groups that had plunged the country into civil war. The United States, which was backing several insurgent groups fighting Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime, was not impressed.

In the words of U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, two “handshakes” now define the increasingly intimate Indo-U.S. defense partnership. The “strategic handshake” was examined in detail in my last article for The Diplomat. We will now turn our attention to the “technological handshake,” shorthand for the growth in arms sales, technical cooperation, and defense co-production and co-development.

Ilyas El Omari is on the offensive. The bespectacled 49-year-old activist who heads Morocco's Party of Authenticity and Modernity (PAM) has spent years honing PAM's political message and worldview. Now, with the Kingdom heading into what is shaping up to be a decisive general election on October 7, Omari senses a political opening.

The revelation of recent days that, back in January, President Obama agreed that the United Nations should lift its sanctions against two Iranian state banks which financed Iran's ballistic missile development puts the lie to Washington's claims - stubbornly maintained for more than a year - that it was determined to rein in the Islamic Republic's expanding missile program.

How healthy is Russia, really? Over the past several years, the official narrative of Vladimir Putin's government has been clear and consistent: thanks to firm leadership, the demographic problems that once plagued Russia and the Soviet Union are now effectively a thing of the past.

The problem with high technology is that it can be difficult to understand, leading to what are often confused policy prescriptions. A perfect example is the proposed upcoming transition of the internet-naming function from U.S. to private control - an event that's scheduled to take place just a few days from now, on Sept. 30. While the transition itself isn't necessarily a bad idea, the Obama administration's current plan has definite flaws.

Three years ago this summer, Egyptians took to the streets en masse to vent their frustration at the government of then president Mohamed Morsi. The source of their discontent was the widespread economic stagnation and ideologically driven policies that came to punctuate Morsi's Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government. The result was nothing short of a counterrevolution, as Morsi was ousted by the country's powerful military in an almost-coup led by his then minister of defense, Gen. Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Last month, U.S. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter reflected on the remarkable progress he and his Indian counterpart, Manohar Parrikar, have overseen in bilateral defense ties over the last two years. With his gift for memorable analogies, Carter insisted the budding Indo-U.S. defense partnership was built atop two “important handshakes.” One was a “technological handshake,” a reference to the rapid growth in arms sales, co-development, and technology-sharing. A companion piece to follow this article will explore the technological handshake in greater detail, and the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

The nuclear threat from North Korea continues to grow, despite numerous strong statements of concern from the United States. But Pyongyang knows that talk is cheap. The more powerful message from American inaction is: keep building.

"We shall proceed with reform and opening up without hesitation," China's President Xi Jinping told his country's top leaders in August 2014 during a symposium marking the 100th anniversary of the birth of former leader Deng Xiaoping. At the time, this pledge appeared sincere. Since taking office in March 2013, Mr. Xi had consistently advocated a reform agenda intended to continue the economic restructuring and national revitalization that Deng had started in 1978. Now, two years later, and despite his consolidation of power, Mr. Xi's reforms are mired in a morass of bureaucratic hurdles and official foot dragging.

Greater cooperation with Russia in the struggle to defeat the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS) and other extremist elements in the Muslim World is now being urged by a number of prominent Americans. Russia and America both have a problem with Islamists, goes the argument, so we should work together to defeat the common enemy.

In Washington, conventional wisdom has long held that Iran's presence south of the U.S. border constitutes little more than an axis of annoyance. In this telling, Iran's activities in Central and South America - from numerous commercial and trade deals with various nations to the establishment of cultural centers throughout the region - are disorganized, opportunistic, and ultimately of little consequence.

Years from now, historians are sure to view the nuclear deal concluded last year between Iran and the P5+1 powers - the U.S., U.K., Russia, China, France and Germany - as the greatest foreign policy achievement of President Obama's second term. But it is far less clear that they will see the agreement as having advanced America's strategic interests.

On a hot rainy day in August 2013, a group of young Colombians were celebrating the completion of a playground project in the village of Villarrica, Tolima. The project was funded by a nonprofit, Fundación ECCO, which I founded to encourage youths in rural areas affected by violence to develop leadership skills and engage in the democratic process.

The United States was humiliated this week when the USS Nitze came under simulated attack by four Iranian missile and torpedo-equipped speedboats in international waters. Despite American warnings, radio calls, flares and foghorns, two of the boats came within a few hundred yards of the Nitze. Iran is harassing American naval warships in the Persian Gulf while Washington refuses to acknowledge Iranian threats for reasons that are both political and practical.

Does anyone remember Mahmoud Ahmadinejad? Until recently, the Islamic radical and former military officer who served as Iran's sixth president could be considered something of a political footnote.

President Barack Obama is considering making a "no first use" declaration regarding U.S. nuclear weapons. Under this framework, it would be the policy of the United States not to resort to using nuclear weapons in a potential crisis unless another country did first. This is widely seen as a legacy move in the final months of Obama's presidency, a way to cement his anti-nuclear reputation in history.