President Obama held this press conference on March 1, 2013, on the deadline for the sequestration cuts to automatically begin.

A panel of experts discusses U.S. drone policy.

A panel of experts discusses U.S. drone policy.

World powers are now offering to ease sanctions on Iran if it agrees to halt its most sensitive nuclear activity. Expert Daryl Kimball urges a full diplomatic press to stop Iran from crossing the nuclear weapons line.

Speaker of the House John Boehner gave this statement at a press conference about the sequester, on February 28, 2013.

Secretary Kerry held this press conference on February 28, 2013, in Rome. He discussed the United States committing $60 million in humanitarian aid to Syria.

Will Kenya's elections produce a representative government or deepen its democratic decline? CFR's Joshua Kurlantzick offers a prescription for reversing the retreat of emerging states like Kenya.

A group of foreign ministers met with the leader of the Syrian National Coalition, Sheikh Moaz al Khatib, in Rome for the fourth Friends of the Syria conference on February 28, 2013. They released this final statement announcing "increased political and material support to the Syrian National Coalition."

Peter Orszag argues that reforming medical malpractice law to include "safe harbors" that protect doctors who follow evidence-based medical guidelines could bring down health-care costs without reducing the quality of care.

A preview of world events in the coming week from CFR.org: Kenya holds presidential and parliamentary elections; Italy tries to sort out its post-election stalemate; and the 60th anniversary of death of Stalin is marked.

The answer is simple: 9/11. The most costly terrorist attack ever was carried out from Afghanistan. The United States showed bipartisan determination to bring the perpetrators to justice and—the part that explains our continuing engagement in Afghanistan—to prevent its soil from ever being used again to stage terrorist attacks.

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Pope Benedict XVI's gave these remarks at his final General Audience on February 27, 2013, at St. Peter's Square.

The former Afghanistan and special forces commander talks frankly about his accomplishments, his mistakes, his lessons learned, and the future of the new American way of war he helped create.

The Obama administration's "pivot" to Asia made sense, because China was starting to doubt U.S. staying power. Now that Washington has sent Beijing a clear message it will be around for the long haul, however, the time has come for the two countries to deepen and institutionalize their relationship in order to secure Asia's lasting peace and prosperity.

Thanks to a once-obscure law passed in 1789, foreign victims of foreign human rights abusers can use U.S. courts to sue their abusers. But the Supreme Court may soon ban such suits. That would be a shame, since they offer victims some measure of solace and give substance to underenforced human rights laws. The law should be upheld, and other countries should follow the U.S. lead.

Despite media hoopla, cross-border crime -- illegal drugs sales, evasion of taxes, intellectual property theft, and money laundering -- is hardly a new phenomenon. For much of history, moreover, the United States was as much perpetrator as victim. Recognizing this awkward truth should help cool down overheated debates about today's transnational problems and how to respond to them.

Inequality is rising across the post-industrial capitalist world. The problem is not caused by politics and politics will never be able to eliminate it. But simply ignoring it could generate a populist backlash. Governments must accept that today as ever, inequality and insecurity are the inevitable results of market operations. Their challenge is to find ways of shielding citizens from capitalism's adverse consequences -- even as they preserve the dynamism that produces capitalism's vast economic and cultural benefits in the first place.

Even as Mexico continues to struggle with grave security threats, its steady rise is transforming the country's economy, society, and political system. Given the Mexico's bright future and the interests it shares with the United States in energy, manufacturing, and security, Washington needs to start seeing its southern neighbor as a partner instead of a problem.

Instead of continuing their endless battling, the United States and Pakistan should acknowledge that their interests simply do not converge enough to make them strong partners. Giving up the fiction of an alliance would free up Washington to explore new ways of achieving its goals in South Asia. And it would allow Islamabad to finally pursue its regional ambitions -- which would either succeed once and for all or, more likely, teach Pakistani officials the limitations of their country's power.

Benn Steil's Wall Street Journal op-ed explains the unique historical circumstances in which the Bretton Woods international monetary system emerged in 1944, and why calls for "a new Bretton Woods" today will go unsatisfied.