Elizabeth C. Economy We are entering the season of presidential primary politics, and many of the candidates—or at least their advisors—might benefit from a fresh look at the current crop of foreign policy books. China should be at or near the top of every candidate’s bedside reading list. With …

Novorossian militia claim that Kiev troops are planning large-scale provocations for May 8 and 9. Donetsk People’s Republic spokesman Eduard Basurin expressed this point on Wednesday, citing human intelligence indicating the Ukrainian Army command plans large-scale provocations, including shelling of populated localities with heavy artillery. According to the …

By Stephen Lendman Global Research Last Friday, National Security Council senior Asian affairs director Evan Medeiros said John Kerry and Defense Secretary Ashton Carter would meet their Japanese counterparts in New York on Monday. They’d “announce some historic changes to the way US-Japan alliance operates” ahead of Prime …

HUSSEIN IBISH, NOW LEBANON King Salman’s dramatic shake-up of the Saudi cabinet ensures that his branch of the royal family controls the Kingdom into the foreseeable future. But the move is risky as there is now no one to share the blame if things go badly. Those political …

ARMIN ROSEN Business Insider Iraq and Syria is no longer exist as coherent, unitary states. By now, followers of events in the Middle East have grown used to maps that show how ISIS, Al Qaeda, the Free Syrian Army, the Assad regime, the Baghdad government, the Kurdistan Regional …

JACK MURPHY, SOFREP There are a lot of puzzled expressions on people’s faces when it comes to the subject of the late Osama Bin Laden and why the White House has not authorized the release of any pictures of the body. Photographs and video were released of Saddam …

  BILL GERTZ, THE WASHINGTON FREE BEACON Shamil Zhumatov/ReutersRussian Tu-95 bombers fly during a joint Kazakh-Russian military exercise at Otar military range, some 150km (93 miles) west of Almaty, October 3, 2008. Two Russian nuclear-capable bombers intruded into the U.S. air defense zone near Alaska last week in …

PAMELA ENGEL Business Insider The head of the Islamic State is still incapacitated from a spinal injury, and the new leader of the terrorist group is intent on “fighting back” against Europe, according to a new report by Martin Chulov in The Guardian. Kareem Shaheen at The Guardian …

By: Mary Habeck In my first post on the quarrel between al-Qaeda and ISIS (the Islamic State of Iraq and Sham), I laid out the depth of the problem facing al-Qaeda. In this post, I’ll take a brief look back at the origins and root causes of the …