Oil

Too Big to Fail

But are Nigeria's elections already too fraught to succeed?

BY MAGGIE FICK | APRIL 4, 2011

Libya Is Too Big to Fail

International intervention is the right move -- and not just for humanitarian reasons.

BY JASON PACK | MARCH 18, 2011

There Will Be No Uprising in Saudi Arabia

Contrary to what you might have heard, the kingdom is hardly ripe for revolution.

BY NAWAF OBAID | MARCH 10, 2011

How Not to Intervene in Libya

Pundits and politicians are promoting all kinds of dangerous ideas for taking down Qaddafi. Here are five rules Obama should consider before plunging in blindly.

BY DIRK VANDEWALLE | MARCH 10, 2011

America Over a Barrel

$100-a-barrel oil is back. And unless Americans make the difficult but necessary adjustments they've put off for years, things could get a whole lot worse.

BY EDWARD C. CHOW | MARCH 8, 2011

Saudi Arabia's Musk Revolution

The king has returned, bearing gifts. But government mismanagement and squabbling within the House of Saud may mean that the kingdom is in for a rocky transition period.

BY SIMON HENDERSON | MARCH 1, 2011

The Ripple Effect

From Algeria to Iran and the countries in between, a look at how revolution fever is spreading across the Middle East.

FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Frenemies Forever

How Washington stopped worrying and learned to love Saudi Arabia, again.

BY STEVE LEVINE | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

Electric Company

Gen. Wesley Clark and Roger Kemp argue that a new superbattery isn't enough to make the electric car viable.

JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2011

The Stories to Watch in 2011

For every totally out-of-the-blue crisis that seizes the international agenda, there are some that everyone should have seen coming. Here are five foreign-policy stories to watch in 2011.

BY CAMERON ABADI | DECEMBER 30, 2010

Thank God It's Over

Before we say say goodbye to 2010, a look back at the year's achievements and disasters, natural and otherwise.

DECEMBER 27, 2010

Long Shots

Why throwing money at today's clean-energy technologies could keep us from discovering tomorrow's.

BY VINOD KHOSLA | DECEMBER 10, 2010

Death by a Thousand Cuts

See all those security lines? Just because al Qaeda's recent attacks haven't succeeded doesn't mean the terrorist group's overall strategy is failing.

BY DAVEED GARTENSTEIN-ROSS | NOVEMBER 23, 2010

Robert Kaplan's New Global Geography

In Monsoon, our latter-day Kipling makes the case that America can't rule the whole world alone.

BY BLAKE HOUNSHELL | OCTOBER 27, 2010

How to Ruin OPEC's Birthday

The Middle Eastern oil cartel celebrates its 50th anniversary this week. Here's how to keep it from running our lives for another half-century.

BY GAL LUFT | SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

Think Again: Offshore Drilling

President Obama told residents of the gulf states this weekend that he feels their pain. But the best way to help the gulf would be to let his ill-advised drilling moratorium expire early.

BY ERIC R.A.N. SMITH | AUGUST 30, 2010

The YIMBYS

Five places saying "yes, in my backyard" to the nasty stuff that no one else wants.

BY SYLVIE STEIN | SEPT. / OCT. 2010

The Ministry of Oil Defense

It's not polite to say so, but if Americans understood just how many trillions their military was really spending on protecting oil, they wouldn't stand for it.

BY PETER MAASS | AUGUST 5, 2010

Whatever It Takes

Why I won't back down on climate change.

BY JOHN KERRY | JULY 1, 2010

Abdullah's No Reformer

Those who predicted the Saudi monarch would bring real change to the kingdom had it wrong. His real goal has been to tighten his family's grip on power.

BY TOBY C. JONES | JUNE 28, 2010

I Don't Want to Hold Your Hand

How Saudi Arabia and the United States have grown apart.

BY SIMON HENDERSON | JUNE 28, 2010

The BP Oil Spill Winners

Beach crews aren't the only people cleaning up after the Deepwater disaster.

BY CHARLES HOMANS | JUNE 25, 2010

The Oliver Stone Show

South of the Border is no portrait of Hugo Chávez or the Latin American left; it's about how one U.S. director views the world.

BY ELIZABETH DICKINSON | JUNE 24, 2010

Who Else Is to Blame?

From security short falls to lack of government accountibility, Mo Ibrahim, Paul Wolfowitz, Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin, Bruce Babbitt, and Raymond C. Offenheiser explain those contributing factors that cripple societies and inevitably keep failed states failing.

JULY/AUGUST 2010

Why Bad Guys Matter

They put the failed in failed states.

BY PAUL COLLIER | JULY/AUGUST 2010

The Known Unknowns

When U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld referred to the "known unknowns" that remained in Iraq in 2002, he was mocked endlessly -- and those mysterious black holes ended up confounding his administration's project there. Rumsfeld's not the only one to encounter this epistemological puzzle: Known unknowns are everywhere, waiting to trip us up. Here are a few of the most enigmatic.

BY JOSHUA E. KEATING | JULY/AUGUST 2010

From Land Mines to Copper Mines

Will Afghanistan's mineral wealth rescue the country from decades of instability and poverty? It just might -- and here's how.

BY MICHAEL L. ROSS | JUNE 15, 2010

Gasbags

Politicians, oilmen, and green-energy boosters love to invoke the idea of energy security. None of them know what they're talking about.

BY MICHAEL LEVI | JUNE 15, 2010

Has the BP Bashing Gone Too Far?

Brits of all political stripes are getting fed up with Barack Obama's harsh rhetoric on the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

BY ALISTAIR BURNETT | JUNE 10, 2010

Stoned

Oliver Stone's new movie about Latin America makes the case for Hugo Chávez. Good luck with that.

BY CHRISTIAN CARYL | JUNE 9, 2010