Ever since its founding in 1948, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea has maintained an aggressive and bellicose international security posture. Today, fully two decades after the end of the Cold War, North Korea's external defense and security policies look arguably more extreme and anomalous than ever.

Oil production, made possible by the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, is unlocking vast supplies of energy from the North Dakota's Bakken formation and putting it on an economic trajectory that is unmatched elsewhere in the country.

Initial positive reviews of the U.S. plan to transfer power to an autonomous Iraqi government on June 30, 2004, have soured as demands for direct elections have escalated in recent weeks. Amid a series of surprising developments, including the prospect of Kurdish autonomy, questions have...

How can we reform the legal framework of the U.S. export control system?

The Palestinian Authority succeeded last Monday in becoming a member state in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

What's needed is the strong arm of the European Central Bank to remove catastrophic risk from the marketplace without risking the bank's core mission of fighting inflation.

Recognizing "statehood" does not mean U.N. membership, but it would nonetheless be a major Palestinian success. A resolution recognizing a Palestinian "state" could also declare its boundary to be the 1967 borders (in actuality, merely the 1949 armistice lines), with or without President Obama's caveat about "agreed upon swaps" of land.

Observers of politics have long known that the skills necessary to gain office are not necessarily the same as those needed to govern effectively.