Contributing to the Center for New American Security's Flashpoints: Security in the East and South China Seas, Michael Auslin writes on increasing tensions in the East China Sea and offers policy considerations.

Barack Obama’s presidency has had profoundly negative consequences for our national security. From debilitating cuts in defense budgets, to gutting national missile defense efforts, to his unwillingness to acknowledge a continuing war against terrorism, to his inability to stem the nuclear proliferation threats posed by North Korea and Iran....the picture is bleak.

China's military build-up is driven by domestic factors, the desire for national prestige, and the insecurity of the Chinese Communist Party.

The news that al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula nearly blew up a US aircraft last week is a reminder of its continuing strength.

Saddam Hussein's appeal, insofar as he ever had any, was as a strong central power, willing to subjugate Iraq's intractable minorities (and its important Shiite majority) into more pliant Iraqi citizens. Early in his rule he had even seemed willing to grant a degree of Kurdish autonomy--an...

Al Qaeda has benefited from the collapse of the Yemeni state. Islamist militants have demonstrated the capacity to take and hold territory from state control. These territorial gains increase al Qaeda’s operating space in Yemen.

The American withdrawal, which comes after the administration's failure to secure a new agreement that would have allowed troops to remain in Iraq, won't be good for ordinary Iraqis nor for the region. But it will unquestionably benefit Iran.