Outside the Beltway

Meet Flame. A cyber threat that makes Stuxnet seem like child’s play.

China’s economic engine may be sputtering.

Is President Obama’s announcement on same-sex marriage helping to create a change in opinion on the issue among African-Americans?

The private office is quickly becoming a relic, despite the loss of morale and productivity that comes from open floorplans.

Since Mexico’s President Felipe Calderón began an all-out assault on drug cartels in 2006, more than 50,000 people have lost their lives across the country in a nearly-continuous string of shootouts, bombings, and ever-bloodier murders.

In office less than a day, Francois Hollande has already been forced to admit he can’t withdraw French forces from Afghanistan by the end of the year.

My first piece for the Christian Science Monitor, co-authored with my Atlantic Council collegue Barry Pavel, has been posted.

A blog post lampooning black studies dissertations got a writer fired, setting off a controversy over the limits of free speech.

Iran’s path to a nuclear bomb isn’t as easy as most think, Jacques Hymans argues in the current Foreign Policy.

The blind Chinese activist who daring escape from house arrest set off a diplomatic brouhaha that grabbed the world’s attention is about to get his wish to come to America.

What seemed like a diplomatic success has begun to unravel very quickly.

Osama bin Laden’s death provides Barack Obama with an important political shield during the upcoming campaign.

Is the world ready for a post-Kim North Korea?

The economic tea leaves don’t look disastrous, but they don’t look all that great either.

My latest for The National Interest,Insurmountable Obstacles in Afghanistan, has been posted.

Lt Gen Benny Gantz says Iran “is going step by step to the place where it will be able to decide whether to manufacture a nuclear bomb. It hasn’t yet decided to go the extra mile.”