It would be easy to label the Democratic Republic of the Congo an irredeemable mess. For almost two decades, the country has been roiled by a series of wars involving neighboring countries and dozens of Congolese militias.

To stop Syria's meltdown and contain its mushrooming threats, the United States should launch a partial military intervention aimed at pushing all sides to the negotiating table.

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.

The Afghanistan and Iraq wars taught the United States painful lessons about the need to limit harm to civilians and compensate victims for their suffering.

In the next decade, China will continue to rise, not fade. Its leaders will consolidate the one-party model and, in the process, challenge the West's smug certainty about political development and the inevitable march toward electoral democracy.

Li is far too confident in the benefits of Chinese authoritarianism. So far, what has held China back is not any lack of demand for democracy, but a lack of supply.

The Arab uprisings of 2011, once a great source of hope for democracy enthusiasts, have given way to sectarian clashes and political instability.

It's easy to be pessimistic about the Arab Spring, given the post-revolutionary turmoil the Middle East is now experiencing.

The September 11 killing of the U.S. ambassador to Libya, Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans during an attack by an angry mob on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi has concentrated the world's attention on the problems of post-Qaddafi Libya.

The mood in Erbil, Sulaymaniyah, and Dohuk -- the three largest cities in Iraqi Kurdistan -- is newly buoyant these days, and with good reason.

Every aspiring beauty-pageant queen knows what to say when asked what she wants most: "World peace." World peace is at least nominally what we all want most. But evidently, we are not very good at making it.

Stephen Hadley and John Podesta accurately describe Washington's policy dilemmas and preferred outcomes in Afghanistan ("The Right Way Out of Afghanistan," July/August 2012).

As the United States prepares to exit Afghanistan, it is focusing too much on security, overlooking the political elements of the transition, write two former senior U.S. officials.

Despite the fall of the Qaddafi regime in Libya, humanitarian intervention still has plenty of critics.

Intervening militarily to save lives abroad often sounds good on paper, but the record has not been promising.

Steven Radelet's accessible new book argues that much of the credit for Africa's recent economic boom goes to its increasingly open political systems.

Before complaining about China's refusal to buy into the liberal world order, argues Amitai Etzioni, the West should stop moving the goalposts by developing new norms of intervention, such as "the responsibility to protect."

No state with serious oil wealth has ever transformed into a democracy.

European leaders feel they have a right and duty to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Two trends represent Korea today: South Korea's extraordinary economic boom and North Korea's stagnation and provocation.