All Policy Analysis by James Jeffrey

Two Washington Institute experts share their findings from recent visits to Russia, where they discussed a wide range of regional issues with current and former officials, leading analysts, and other citizens.

Michael Mandelbaum's Mission Failure: America and the World in the Post-Cold War Era is an impressive book. As a history of U.S. foreign policy in, as he terms it, its "fourth" or "post-cold war" era, from 1991 to 2014, it's a competent work. But as an analysis of the driving

Reflecting broad foreign policy themes dating to World War I, U.S. grand strategy in the Middle East since the Cold War has focused on establishing and managing a global security system to contain and deter outside threats. Given Eurasia's demographic and economic/technical strength, a dominant power or powers arising from

The prospect of warmer Iranian-Turkish ties is manageable so long as the United States maintains the intent and capability to promote regional security, and assuming Ankara continues to balance any such rapprochement with its ties to the West, Israel, and Arab states.

Of course it would be daunting to solve the conflicts the Islamic State feeds on, but that shouldn't be the mission in the first place.

While Washington and its coalition partners have begun to roll back some of the Islamic State's territorial gains, what more can be done to defeat the group and, until then, protect civilians?

If Washington continues to employ inadequate military pressure, Russia and its supposedly 'withdrawn' forces will have several paths to bolster their position in Syria while undermining U.S. credibility and influence.

From continuing the status quo to deploying limited ground brigades, the next administration will inherit a range of feasible options, but only some would serve U.S. interests, and all of them come with formidable postwar questions.

Read a summary or watch video of this energetic debate on how Washington should balance vitally important relationships with Turkey and the Syrian Kurds in the fight against the Islamic State.

By throwing up his hands in the face of challenges from Russia, Iran, and other actors, the president is yielding to the 'dangerous currents' he once warned could upend the international system.

The assertion that such an effort would require up to 30,000 U.S. troops, and that it could risk a direct confrontation with Russia, requires a much closer look.

UN Security Council Resolutions 2170, 2249, and 2254 offer ample grounds for establishing a zone to protect refugees and counter the Islamic State, but shaping the international diplomatic response would be paramount given the legal gray areas inherent in such action.

Understand the policy implications of humanitarian safe havens, safe zones, buffers, or no-fly zones in Syria with these assessments of the who, what, where, why, and how of the various options.

If Moscow can get away with boldly flouting U.S. interests in a key American security zone such as the Middle East, where might it interfere next, and at what cost to the international security system?