In The News

The Assimilated Terrorist: An Outsider No Longer

Jesse Washington May 14, 2010
As father, husband, financial analyst and US citizen, Faisal Shahzad surprised some profilers, amateur and professional, with his attempt to explode a car bomb in New York’s Times Square. With instant communication and complaints raging over the internet, “Globalization is competing fiercely with assimilation,” writes Jesse Washington for the Associated Press. “Blind to the faults of Islamic...

Black Hole on the Black Sea

Sharon Weinberger May 11, 2010
Stray nuclear weapons remain a grave concern for global security, and national leaders cannot afford to overlook any remote corner of the planet. South Ossetia, in northern Georgia, is a “jurisdictional black hole” with minimal border checkpoints, writes Sharon Weinberger for Foreign Policy. Separatist conflicts flare in the region, along with smuggling, corruption and plenty of fraudulent deals...

NPT Review Faces Challenges as Iran Knocks on Door

Leonard S. Spector May 3, 2010
Threatening to build, possess or use nuclear weapons does not do much to win friends or influence neighbors, as the old saying goes, particularly as more nations acquire the bomb. More than 180 nations convene at the UN this month, starting today, to continue regular five-yearly review and negotiations aimed at reducing these weapons. Progress is slow because decisions at the UN conference on the...

North Korea and Syria: A Warning in the Desert

Gregory L. Schulte April 28, 2010
Six-Party Talks began in 2003, with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US teaming up to convince North Korea to abandon its nuclear-weapons ambition. Talks continued on and off with isolated North Korea, as it inched forward with its own nuclear development and clandestine export of nuclear material. One example of North Korea’s nuclear proliferation emerged in 2007 when Israeli bombers...

Nuclear Security

Mohamed ElBaradei, Graham Allison, Ernesto Zedillo April 13, 2010
The biggest potential threat to civilization, these noted authors argue, is the possibility of terrorists acquiring a nuclear weapon and using it in a major urban center. Fortunately, this can be prevented by securing all the fissile material in the world. It is a steep task but one that is well within the capability of existing technology as Russia and the United States have demonstrated in...

Lady Gaga Versus Mideast Peace

Bret Stephens April 6, 2010
The conventional wisdom in recent weeks has been that Israeli settlements in Palestine inflame anti-American sentiments in the region and harm American interests. But this opinion article argues that a major source of grievance for Palestinians is global American culture, represented, in this instance, by hyper-sexualized people such as the performer Lady Gaga. Sayyid Qutb, a mid-twentieth...

Moscow Bombing: The Black Widows’ Global Roots

Richard Weitz March 31, 2010
The recent Moscow Metro bombings are symptoms not only of radical Islam as a global force, but also a consequence of Russia’s long-standing policies toward Muslims within its sphere of control, according to security expert Richard Weitz. Chechen rebels faced with fighting an imposing and well-equipped Russian army turned to guerilla warfare and then terror tactics to carry on their fight for...