This event is the first in a series of four campaign-season seminars on the critical issues of U.S. foreign and defense policy.

The Obama administration's worldview is still emerging, but its policies toward Russia and China are already revealing.

Throughout his career, Robert Kagan has been a severe critic of foreign policy realists who emphasize the "balance of power" at the expense of morality, ideology, and principle. Yet, in this book Kagan's emphasis is mostly on power, not morality or democracy.

Kim Jong Il and his cronies want nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them.

Americans are generally skeptical of or indifferent to the European Union. They shouldn't be. The United States has an important interest in the direction the E.U. takes in coming years.

Putin's decision on Monday to end the system of direct popular election of Russia's governors, and to have the Russian parliament elected on the basis of slates chosen by national party leaders he mostly controls, is an unambiguous step toward tyranny in Russia. It cannot be justified as part of the war on terrorism. Putin has had these plans ready for months. He is cynically using the horrific terrorist attack in Beslan as his excuse.

The great trans-Atlantic debate over the Iraq war was rooted in profound disagreement over "world order."