"American diplomatic muscle should be brought to bear on our allies to work with Russia and Iran," writes Ed Husain about U.S. strategy in Syria.

Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Robert M. Danin, a former senior State Department and National Security Council official with more than twenty years of Middle East experience, discussed progress during peace talks between Israel and Palestine on a media conference call.

"Bringing down Morsi has consequences far beyond Egypt," writes Ed Husain.

The Balkans region in southern Europe has been unsettled since the dismantling of Ottoman dominance there in the late nineteenth century. During the twentieth century, ethnic and sectarian tensions not infrequently brought war to the region, most recently during the 1990s amid the breakup of Yugoslavia. The United States played a significant role in bringing peace to Bosnia in 1995 and to Kosovo in 1999, but the region faces continued instability.

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"Behind the scenes diplomacy could encourage positive responses from concerned regional parties, Arab and Israeli, that would give them all something to talk about," writes Robert Danin.

Secretary of State John Kerry and Vice President Joe Biden met with a delegation of the Arab League on April 29, 2013. The group discussed the conflict between Israel and Palestine and the Arab Peace Initiative.

Secretary of State John Kerry held this press conference after his trip to Israel on April 9, 2013. He discussed his meetings with Minister Netanyahu, President Abbas, Prime Minister Fayyad, and President Peres and speculation on the Arab Peace Initiative.

While there was some early discussion on where to base the command (continental United States, Africa, or Germany), its current location in Germany has the existing infrastructure, transportation links, housing, schools, and health facilities to support its personnel, employees, and family members. Any future rebasing discussions will need to take into account a cost-benefit analysis—and in a time of fiscal uncertainty, the cost might be prohibitive.

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A broad-sweeping look at international efforts to prevent armed conflict. This is part of the Global Governance Monitor, an interactive feature tracking multilateral approaches to several global challenges.

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.

Steven A. Cook says Gaza's radiating instability proves once again that Palestine is at the center of the region's problems.

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.

CFR's James M. Lindsay discusses the signing of the Oslo Accords on September 13, 1993, including the secret negotiations that produced the agreement, what its terms stipulated, and how it failed to produce lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

ASEAN has failed to ease tensions over the South China Sea this summer, but China and its neighbors still have options for restoring calm, writes CFR's Joshua Kurlantzick.

UN Security Council Resolution 2052 regarding extension of the mandate of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) monitoring the Israel-Syria ceasefire until December 31, 2012 was adopted by the UN Security Council on June 27, 2012.

UN Security Council Resolution 788 regarding Liberia was adopted on November 19, 1992.

Kofi Annan, Joint Special Envoy for the United Nations and the League of Arab States, drew up this six-point peace plan for Syria. It was submitted to the UN in March 2012 and on March 27 the Syrian government accepted the proposal. The ceasefire came in to effect on April 12, 2012 but as reported by the UN and other bodies, has not been honored.

The Interpol Action Plan for International Peacekeeping was adopted on November 11, 2010 in Doha, Qatar.

This UN Secretary-General's Report on "Implementation of the Recommendations Contained in the Report of the Secretary-General on the Causes of Conflict and the Promotion of Durable Peace and Sustainable Development in Africa" was released on July 20, 2010.