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We run the risk of missing critical aspects of Russian policy if we assume that Moscow's continuing invasions of Ukraine are exclusively about Russo-Ukrainian issues. One of the founding fathers of Soviet studies, Adam Ulam, observed back in 1965 that empire was the biggest obstacle to reform in Russian history.

Albert Einstein is said to have defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. Today, U.S. policy toward Ukraine has become the embodiment of Einstein's admonition.

International attention is now riveted on the crisis in Ukraine, but another beleaguered U.S. ally is rapidly approaching a critical crossroads as well. As the U.S. military prepares to exit Afghanistan after more than a decade of war, real questions remain about the country’s future. Perhaps most urgent, and of greatest significance to the United States, is the capacity of Afghanistan’s forces to successfully fight the Taliban and al-Qaida.

With national elections in India taking place this month, the health of the U.S.-India relationship is under the spotlight, and the early prognosis is relatively grim. The sudden resignation of the U.S. Ambassador to India and a rocky start to relations with favored prime minister candidate Narendra Modi are symbolic of a broader malaise that has afflicted Indo-U.S. relations since 2008.

By all accounts, Vladimir Putin appears to be winning. Over the past month, Russia’s wily president has managed to orchestrate the asymmetric invasion of a neighboring state (Ukraine) and annex a new territory into the Russian Federation (Crimea).

U.S. scholars’ mounting boycotts of Israeli academic and cultural institutions are ironic indeed, for they contradict everything that higher education is supposed to stand for — they are wholly ignorant and profoundly narrow-minded.

“First as tragedy, second as farce.” It’s Karl Marx’s line about history repeating itself but, per the Jonathan Pollard trial balloon of recent days, the line could just as easily apply to America’s foreign policy.

Usually states resolve international crises by negotiations. In that context we must remember that by any standard Russia's invasion, occupation, and annexation of Crimea are premeditated acts of war and aggression. On March 30 Secretary of State Kerry met with Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov to discuss Ukraine's future. Unfortunately, these talks cannot represent a basis for resolving the crisis. We should remember that Secretary Kerry repeatedly warned Moscow that annexation of Crimea would close the door to negotiations. So we may ask what there is to talk about unless the invasion, occupation and annexation of Crimea are revoked and Ukraine fully participates in any negotiation.

The United Nations says the globe is heating up and that there are rising risks of catastrophe from continued carbon emissions. However the United States is riding the wave of a fossil-fuel boom that has made it the number one energy producer in the world. Reconciling these facts is a critical emerging foreign policy priority.

With all eyes on Ukraine, where Russia's neo-imperial efforts have raised the specter of a new Cold War between Moscow and the West, another alarming facet of the Kremlin's contemporary foreign policy has gone largely unnoticed; namely, its growing military presence in, and strategic designs on, the Western Hemisphere.

Are we on the cusp of a new Cold War? The events of the past month have put the final nail in the coffin of the ill-fated "reset" with Russia that preoccupied much of the Obama administration's foreign policy agenda during its first years in office. Relations between Moscow and Washington are now at their lowest ebb in more than two decades thanks to Russian President Vladimir Putin's neo-imperial efforts to subvert neighboring Ukraine. Washington and European capitals are still struggling to formulate a coherent response to the Kremlin's aggression, but it's already clear that the U.S. and Russia are drifting back into the old adversarial roles that defined the international system for much of the past century.

Vice President Biden was in Warsaw last week to reassure our eastern NATO allies that they have the support of a “steadfast ally.” But if Russia moved against Poland or the Baltic States, would the United States really go to war? Or would we do nothing and effectively destroy the NATO alliance?

Putting aside Russia's phony claims of "threats to ethnic Russians" and "Ukrainian fascists run amok," there are real reasons for its invasion of Ukraine. Understanding these is central to crafting the West's long-term response. And it must be a long-term response, because Crimea isn't the end of Russia's neo-imperial ambitions.

Missing Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 has acquainted the world with a long-forgotten corner of the Indian Ocean: the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (ANI). Known to few outside India, the island chain constitutes a valuable geopolitical asset for that country and is positioned to play a pivotal role in any maritime competition between India and China in the 21st century. In December 2012, I traveled to the ANI to conduct research for my new book, Cold Peace: China-India Rivalry in the 21st Century. Here’s what I found.

There's no question that the Kremlin's policy toward Ukraine is paying concrete dividends, at least in Russia.

On March 7, tens of thousands of people rallied in Moscow's Red Square to support the Kremlin's expanding control over Crimea and formally incorporating the peninsula into the Russian Federation. Russian officials have taken up the call. In her recent meeting with the chairman of Crimea's parliament, Federation Council Speaker Valentina Matviyenko pledged that "if the decision is made, then Crimea will become an absolutely equal subject of the Russian Federation."

Perhaps the most surprising thing about Russia's two-week-old invasion of Ukraine is that it surprised so many people.

On the eve of Moscow's incursion into the Crimean Peninsula, the U.S. intelligence community apparently concluded that Putin's military mobilization was nothing more than a bluff. So did CNN's esteemed foreign policy czar, Fareed Zakaria, who judged the possibility of a Russian invasion to be exceedingly unlikely, despite convincing signs to the contrary. In truth, however, the writing had been on the wall for quite some time.

Russia has shattered the presumption that we can take European security for granted. In the past two weeks, President Vladimir Putin has committed outright acts of war by invading Crimea and threatening to invade eastern Ukraine. It now appears that Russia will annex Crimea and perhaps go further unless confronted with a stronger resolve than visible so far from the United States and Europe.

The United States and the international community are rightly outraged by Russia’s aggressive actions in Ukraine. However, the Kremlin maintains that Russia has acted within the bounds of international law, and the case against Moscow is complicated when Russian president Vladimir Putin employs arguments that sound very much like Obama administration talking poin

What happens when you spend hundreds of millions of dollars to mold American public opinion about the Middle East, but no one pays attention? The region's premier media outlet is finding out the answer the hard wa

Since its start in 1987, the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival in Austin has become famous for its cutting-edge music and film performances, in addition to a focus on technology. But this year's festivities featured a little something extra: a virtual appearance by controversial National Security Agency whistle-blower Edward Snowden.

The U.S. focus on Ukraine has shifted attention away from this week’s remarkable set of exchanges, direct and indirect, between U.S. President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that speaks additional volumes about Obama’s take on prospects for Israeli-Palestinian peace.