"Don't say they didn't warn us," writes Gayle Tzemach-Lemmon on the continuing crisis in Syria.

Elliott Abrams examines the Obama presidency.

Sheila A. Smith argues that despite some regional concerns about Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's geopolitical ambitions, his diplomatic vision to date looks more like a return to Japan's much vaunted economic diplomacy.

While in Islamabad, Secretary of State John Kerry announced that the U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogue would be resumed in order to foster "deeper, broader and more comprehensive partnership." These fine words will need a lot of hard work to back them up. It would help if President Obama's administration also came to the table with a big new idea to re-energize its difficult relationship with Islamabad. An ambitious and forward-looking way to frame Washington's agenda with Islamabad would be to consider it within the context of Pakistan's role in the broader U.S. "rebalancing" to Asia.

A divergence of opinions between males and females is an "enduring characteristic of polls on the use of military force, regardless of the weapons system employed, military mission undertaken, whether the intervening force is unilateral or multilateral, and the strategic objective proposed," says Micah Zenko. Citing polls from the early 1990s to today, he investigates why this persistent difference in opinion exists and what it may mean for U.S. foreign policy.

Yanzhong Huang explains that "In Asia, the capacity of NGOs to contribute to public health, both within individual countries and at the regional level, has steadily expanded."

Thomas Bollyky describes the crisis emerging over access to treatment for diabetes, cancers, and other non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Bollyky argues that this crisis could transform the global response to NCDs as the last treatment access crisis transformed the international approach to HIV/AIDS.

Max Boot explains what Prince Alexander Bariatinsky's success against Chechen rebels in the nineteenth century can teach us about counterinsurgency today.

Sheila A. Smith and Research Associate Charles T. McClean argue that U.S. interests are affected by all three of Japan's territorial disputes with its neighbors. While the United States cannot resolve these disputes, it can and should do all that it can to promote peaceful dispute resolution and a lessening of military tensions.

Without a more transparent international research and information-sharing system, Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) could spread far beyond the bounds of the region for which it is named, write Laurie Garrett and Maxine Builder.

"Left unchecked, rising ethnic hatred and increasing attacks could push the country into a terrible period of ethnic cleansing," writes Joshua Kurlantzick about the continuing ethnic violence against Muslims in Myanmar.

Stewart Patrick reviews new books America and the Rogue States, by Thomas H. Henriksen and Outlier States: American Strategies to Change, Contain, or Engage Regimes, by Robert S. Litwak.

"While the United States may want to shed its Afghanistan obligations -- including its commitment to supporting the Afghan economy -- those who care about Afghanistan's security, and America's, will want to make certain the green shoots get tended," writes Gayle Tzemach-Lemmon

When does a cyber-attack (or threat of cyber-attack) give rise to a right of self-defense – including armed self-defense – and when should it? This essay examines these questions through three lenses: (1) a legal perspective, to examine the range of reasonable interpretations of self-defense rights as applied to cyber-attacks, and the relative merits of interpretations within that range; (2) a strategic perspective, to link a purported right of armed self-defense to long-term policy interests including security and stability; and (3) a political perspective, to consider the situational context in which government decision-makers will face these issues and predictive judgments about the reactions to cyber-crises of influential actors in the international system.

Steven Cook highlights the increasing support and increasing challenges facing his position in Turkey.

John Campbell examines escalating violence in Nigeria.

Jerome A. Cohen says the Communist Party's sustained efforts since June 4 to influence China's courts for its own ends may be easing, but judicial independence is still a long way off.

"It is troubling that someone who lectured on constitutional law for a dozen years…would misidentify the president's primary pledge and obligation," Micah Zenko writes. In this article, Zenko highlights the discrepancies between constitutional obligations of the U.S. presidency and what President Obama and former President Bush have identified as primary obligations.

Yes, the United States is pivoting to Asia, one of the reasons for the tête-à-tête last week between Barack Obama and Xi Jinping. But behind the scenes, President Obama has actually been reorienting U.S. diplomacy toward Europe.

With Ayatollah Khamenei set to replace Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a "fawning admirer" of his choosing, Ahmadinejad may be missed for his ability to challenge the Islamic Republic's ruling religious hierarchy.