The first nine months of 2011 saw approximately 444 jihadi insurgent and terrorist attacks and jihadrelated violent incidents in Russia driven by the Caucasus Emirate network mujahedin.

There is nothing new about Iran’s threat to close the Gulf, but it does need to be put in context. Iran is reshaping its military forces to steadily increase the threat to Gulf shipping and shipping in the Gulf of Oman, It also is gradually increasing its ability to...

Decentralization is widely lauded as a key component of good governance and development. It is also broadly recognized as a process fraught with complexity and potential failure. This background paper offers a review of 33 scholarly papers, articles, and books on...

The traditional weaknesses in service delivery within Pakistan’s provincial and district governments have arisen from the complex interplay of several factors. Resource mobilization for essential services has always been a challenge for provincial governments, which...

It is tempting to focus solely on the evolving political crisis and power struggle between Prime Minister Maliki and his opponents, but this is only part of the crisis in Iraq.

Over the next several years, foreign assistance is going to come under increasing pressure. Hard questions from taxpayers and elected officials are going to put a premium on innovation, effectiveness and resources leveraged/catalyzed. At the same time, this period of...

We thought it would be appropriate to celebrate this festive holiday season with a review of the past 12 months of the European debt crisis. Europe has been constantly in the headlines this year, but very little of it has been good news. As the year draws to a close, we...

The United States has recently launched a wave of an “Obama offensive.” From Honolulu to Bali, and from Australia to the Philippines, the United States has reiterated its high-profile leadership role, while vowing to hold China to the “rule of law” and a...

This conference report chronicles the progress of the CSIS–University of Southern California joint project on Korean unification. Now in its second year, the project’s primary purpose is to frame a discussion on the long-term tasks involved in the eventual...

On March 11, 2011, at 2:46 p.m., a 9.0-magnitude earthquake struck off the east coast of Miyagi Prefecture and generated a tsunami that advanced more than three miles inland from the seashore. The tsunami damaged 500 miles of seashore on the east coast of Honshu, and as of...

Sometimes the closest relationships are the hardest to manage. Thailand is the United States’ longest-standing ally in Asia, yet relationships with this ally will be among the hardest to handle as U.S....

Sometimes the closest relationships are the hardest to manage. Thailand is the United States’ longest-standing ally in Asia, yet relationships with this ally will be among the hardest to handle as U.S. foreign-policy makers look ahead to 2012 and...