FREDERIC WEHREY, RICHARD SOKOLSKY For over three decades, the question of who controls the Persian Gulf has formed the basis for America’s massive military buildup in the region. At the heart of the region’s security dilemma is a clash of visions: Iran seeks the departure of U.S. forces …

JAMES F. COLLINS The hostilities in eastern Ukraine between government forces and Russian-backed separatists present the most serious challenge to Euro-Atlantic security and stability since the end of the Cold War. This worst military conflict since the Yugoslav Wars of the mid-1990s has undermined core elements of the …

The downing of a Russian plane by Turkey is jeopardizing the strong business and political relationship built by Ankara and Moscow. The two countries’ clash over Syria suggests that relations will get worse before they get better. The shooting down by Turkey of a Russian warplane on November …

ISIS and other groups have appropriated an inherently nonpolitical ideology to suit their political ambitions. In the wake of the bombing of the Russian plane in Sinai and the attacks in Paris, the self-proclaimed Islamic State (also known as ISIS) seems bent on confrontation with the West. The …

On November 23, Gilles Kepel, Fabrice Balanche, and Olivier Decottignies addressed a Policy Forum at The Washington Institute. Kepel is a professor at the Institute of Political Studies, Paris (Sciences Po), and coauthor of the forthcoming book “Terror in France: The Origin of the French Jihad,” to be …

Despite facing a series of military setbacks throughout Iraq and Syria, ISIS is consolidating its control over a key city in Libya less than 400 miles away from the Italian island of Sicily. Over the past year, ISIS has been deepening its presence in Sirte, a city along Libya’s northwestern Mediterranean …

Bryan Bender It is Syrian Quagmire 2.0. And in the view of American officials, it is anything but an upgrade. Four years into Syria’s civil war and more than a year into a U.S.-led bombing campaign against the Islamic State terrorist group, the U.S. military now faces a …

By Bin White The general election is still almost a year away. But much about the economic picture that will frame the 2016 presidential race will come into focus in the next two weeks as the Federal Reserve prepares to raise interest rates for the first time in …

NATO foreign ministers invited tiny Montenegro on Wednesday to join their military alliance in its first expansion since 2009, defying Russian warnings that enlargement of the US-led bloc further into the Balkans would be a provocation. In a scripted session at NATO’s headquarters in Brussels, Montenegro’s foreign minister, …