Two recent books, one about violent Islamist networks and the other about the white power movement, find that they have some traits in common. The seeds for each were sown by US military interventions from Vietnam to Iraq, and they have both proved adept at adapting media formats for propaganda purposes.

Peruvians are bitterly divided over how—or even whether—the terrible violence that engulfed the country in the 1980s and '90s should be remembered.

Far from being senseless acts perpetrated by barbarous savages, ISIS's heritage destruction has been carefully staged and sends clear and deliberate messages.

Bangladesh has neither the military nor the diplomatic power to force a solution on Myanmar.

Governments in Southeast Asia have adopted policies that are fueling militancy by restricting freedoms and fostering authoritarianism.

[W]hile the March election map shows how divided the country still is in many respects, the peaceful turnover is a chance to build a greater sense of national solidarity around democratic institutions.

The deep roots of extremist violence make military responses in most cases ineffective.

[T]he effort to try to distinguish between good and bad Muslim ideologies may be much less important than the need to support functional political institutions.

[W]idespread acceptance of the purported ties between Islamic schools and militancy in Pakistan relies on a number of empirically flawed assumptions and assertions….

A more pluralistic, less structured security system [will incorporate] a decline in America's power [and] a rapid increase in China's relative power, but without an accompanying willingness or ability to take on global responsibilities.…

India showed restraint when Pakistan-based terrorists attacked Mumbai in November 2008. Next time, the Indian public will demand a military response.

More than three years into the global war on terrorism, the United States has no clear policy. It lacks, in turn, a sharp and well-formed strategy … to direct its efforts through the coming phases of what will likely prove a long struggle.

A struggle looms within Xinjiang's Uighur population between a no-holds-barred, more violent resistance to Beijing and a more assimilationist, peaceful approach that hopes to win greater political autonomy and economic rights. Unfortunately, too often both Beijing's and Western nations' policies toward Xinjiang only strengthen the hard-liners.

A growing awareness of India's economic and strategic potential has led to serious revaluation in the United States of the India relationship.

It would be unwise to bet against the Saudi monarchy, based on its track record of staying in power. But the odds are getting shorter.

The largely unilateral, dubiously rationalized, and defiantly prosecuted occupation of Iraq has distracted from the need to develop international consensus and capacity for nation building and other benevolent interventions. What the world needs now … is possibly a new multilateral organization or two specialized in peacekeeping and state-building operations.

There is no inherent reason why the Arab world cannot join the global democratic trend. Yet there are very real … reasons why the democratization of Arab societies will prove unusually slow, difficult, and conflictive.

How goes this war? Both Al Qaeda and the United States can claim some degree of success. In general, Al Qaeda has suffered operationally, but its broader support remains strong. The United States has greatly improved its ability to target Al Qaeda, but gaps remain.

What if the next generation of Al Qaeda has neither a central leadership nor a territorial base? If a terrorist organization could find a model for operating without its own Afghanistan, it would pose a different and perhaps more difficult set of challenges for counterterrorist forces.

Although policy makers worry about the use of weapons of mass destruction against the United States, we should recognize that terrorist organizations have shown a remarkable tendency to fall back on well-tested conventional methods of attack. … Deterrence, when measured against prevention, still maintains enough credibility to prevent rogue states from sharing nuclear weapons with terrorists.