The kind of support refugees receive to help them deal with the stresses of displacement can determine whether they will be a constructive or a divisive force.

Even as Berlin has taken a central role in the eurozone and Ukraine crises, Germans continue to debate whether their foreign policy should go beyond the imperatives of “geo-economic” power.

Unless Bulgaria and Romania manage to enact judicial reforms, fight corruption and organized crime, and protect human and minority rights, they will not be able to capitalize on the benefits of EU membership, and will continue to be regarded as second-class EU members.

Croatia has bought its ticket to Brussels, and Montenegro could be next, while Serbia, Bosnia, Macedonia, and Kosovo are stuck in a crowded, smoky waiting room.

Although the humanitarian rationale for the use of force has gained legitimacy, the consensus around this legitimacy … has remained both narrow and fragile.

China and Russia's stance on Syria is a result of their convergent conceptions of sovereignty and humanitarian intervention, their compatible assessments of the nature of the conflict and of Western motives, and the lessons they learned from the Libyan uprising.

The experience in Bosnia and Kosovo provides encouragement. … The largest postintervention lesson they offer is that the United States and its international partners can work effectively together once they are on the ground together.

In a setting where schoolchildren line the rooftops of Saddam's palaces and jamming devices interfere with guidance mechanisms, [precision weapons] may prove more seductive than productive. Indeed, they may prove largely unusable. As the president and his advisers draw up their war plans, they should maintain a healthy skepticism about the more sensational aspects of the promise of precision air power.

Today the fate of this new country [remains unclear], but history has shown that the Macedonians are tenacious and will go down fighting–as will the Albanians, if it comes to that. But does it need to?

The process of democratic consolidation in Serbia has begun in earnest. Equally important, the more virulent xenophobic and authoritarian aspects of Serbian political culture have waned considerably. … For the foreseeable future, the specious superpatriotism and discredited soft dictatorship of the Milosevic variety are likely to hold only marginal appeal.

The fall of the Milosevic regime has much meaning in itself, and a strong desire to imagine a better future can be sensed everywhere. But nothing is assured unless the new government is able to make this desire concrete.