The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) has launched a new multimedia series—"InfoGuides"—to promote understanding of complex foreign policy issues.

Jonathan Tepperman examines six of the last major U.S. military operations—the Gulf War, Haiti, Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya, and "highlights a few basic principles that should give the Obama administration confidence to forge ahead on Syria today."

There is almost never a time when people do not worry about war between major powers. The history here is not a happy one. But there are good reasons to expect a better outcome in the 21st century—as long as both sides are alert and careful.

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The United States should cripple the Syrian government's ability to kill masses of its own people and openly intensify its support to opposition forces, says expert Frederic C. Hof.

On September 4, 2013, the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations debated the resolution: "Authorization for the Use of Military Force Against the Government of Syria to Respond to Use of Chemical Weapons."

Laurie Garrett explains what makes sarin gas dangerous to humans and reviews the chemical's deadly history in this op-ed for CNN Opinion. She then discusses the potential political implications of sarin's usage in Syria, concluding that "the Assad regime is playing with regional fire."

"Be skeptical of concepts that divorce war from its political nature, particularly those that promise fast, cheap victory through technology."

CFR Senior Fellow Max Boot and the Brookings Institution's Michael Doran argue that the United States should relearn the Cold War craft of political warfare to promote its interests in the Middle East.

If Operation Overlord failed, the entire Allied enterprise in World War II faced abject collapse. This new history of the events leading up to D-Day explains why, and what the preparations for success actually involved.

War makes for strange bedfellows, and among the oddest pairings that World War II produced was that between "Wild Bill" Donovan's Office of Strategic Services and the emigre German Jewish Marxists he hired to teach Washington about the Nazis.

This timeline examines the events that precipitated the U.S. war in Afghanistan as well as the history of the war.

There is no evidence that signature strikes will be reduced or ended based upon anything the Obama administration has recently stated.

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Syria has been mired in deadly strife since March 2011 and the outlook for resolving what is now a full blown civil war looks increasingly dire. The worst case outcome for Syria is one whereby the country fragments and becomes a failed state in which the Damascus government no longer controls its own territory. Under such a scenario, the glue holding the country together comes unstuck.

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According to Micah Zenko, "We are deluding ourselves if we believe that we need more time to "think through" U.S. military intervention options for Syria. We have an excellent understanding of what those options are, and a vast majority of officials, policymakers, and the American people do not believe they are worth the effort."

The United States has long struggled with how to manage Iran's nuclear ambitions. Any U.S. military option in Iran is likely to be dynamic, depending on its objectives.

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Actually, arming rebel groups has had a pretty good record of success. In fact, as I point out in my book, Invisible Armies: An Epic History of Guerrilla Warfare from Ancient Times to the Present, there is no more consistent determinant of the success or failure of any insurgency than the degree to which it receives outside support.

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Micah Zenko examines U.S. President Barack Obama's May 23, 2013 speech on drone strike and counterterrorism policies. "The enduring impact of Mr. Obama's speech will not be what he says, but whether the new policies are reflected in how drone strikes are conducted, and whether his administration will finally and faithfully engage with the public, more than a decade after the operations began," Zenko writes.

According to Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, "By the president's own reckoning, there does not seem to be an end of war up ahead, but rather a shrinking, a targeting and a restructuring of it."

Since North Korea conducted its latest nuclear test in February 2013, a spiral of heightened international pressure and increasingly threatening provocations by Pyongyang has ensued.

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The Administration has given the Syrian opposition more than six hundred and fifty million dollars in nonmilitary aid, but Obama has consistently opposed arming the rebels or intervening militarily on their behalf. The United States has taken a tenuous position: not deep enough to please the rebels or its allies in Europe, or to topple the regime, or to claim leadership in the war's aftermath—but also, perhaps most important, not so deep that it can't get out.