For the most complete, most substantive analysis of what’s going on in Campaign 2012, keep listening to AEI’s Political Corner.

Conditions in Yemen have changed with the onset of the Arab Spring. Political unrest has created openings for the country’s established opposition movements – including al Qaeda – to maneuver for power. Whether the Arab Spring has brought real regime change in Yemen is unclear. While the international community awaits a fully functional government in the capital of Sana’a, al Qaeda may continue to expand its safe haven in the south.

Though no longer a Cold War rival, Russia continues to pose immense challenges for the United States. The Kremlin’s perception of Russia as an “independent pole in a multi-polar world” often results in Russian policies that place the country at odds with the West. Russia’s current political elites are determined to prevent—and in some cases roll back—color revolutions in the former Soviet Union. They fear that successful democratization on Russia’s periphery will rouse similar demands at home. Regardless, the Kremlin’s ineffective authoritarian governance has stimulated a wave of large-scale protests in recent months that likely mark the beginning of Russia’s transition away from the Vladimir Putin era.

What does the rapid rise of the tea party movement mean for civic life?

The precipitous chill in U.S.-Japan relations after the Democratic Party of Japan came to power in 2009 and mishandled security relations should offer a sobering warning to Korean and American officials. As close as Tokyo and Washington have traditionally been, heated domestic rhetoric and policy miscues quickly damaged the relationship, which is still recovering.

If the Bush administration decides to buy generic drugs it should ensure that those drugs are bioequivalent to branded drugs, and not something different.

The element of danger that night at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies belied the image of think tanks as places where long-winded academics offer narrow arguments in airless rooms. Foreign policy sometimes is born in these discussions, and as a result, the world comes to listen.