After visiting North Korea, Jared Cohen and Eric Schmidt write about the future of surveillance and digital police states.

After more than a decade of war and several years of a deep financial crisis, many Americans are asking whether the country should focus more of its attention—and more of its resources—at home. That said, the impulse to lead is still strong in both political parties and most polls show that Americans still feel both a moral and strategic imperative to remain fully engaged in the world.

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Linda Robinson discusses her recently released Council Special Report, The Future of U.S. Special Operations Forces, which calls for conceptual, institutional, and operational changes to reorient U.S. special operations forces to ensure that they are employed to best effect.

It is time for Washington to rebalance its dual-track policy toward Iran, strengthening the diplomatic track in order to seize the opportunity created by the pressure track. The United States should now dedicate as much energy and creativity to negotiating directly with Iran as it has to assembling a broad international coalition to pressure and isolate Iran. Only by taking such a rebalanced approach might the United States achieve its objectives with respect to Iran's nuclear program.

Moscow and Washington share a number of significant interests that require cooperation, despite heightened bilateral tensions over human rights issues, says former U.S ambassador Jack F. Matlock, Jr.

Immigration reform that includes a pathway to citizenship would have sweeping effects on the lives of the estimated eight million undocumented Hispanics living within the United States. But it would not have an acute, immediate effect on U.S. politics.

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In the final Bloomberg View excerpt of his forthcoming book The Power Surge, Michael Levi explores the future of hybrid and electric vehicles.

In light of the terrorist attack at the 2013 Boston Marathon, Max Boot writes, "Keep calm and carry on."

Calls for more popular participation are not essential to populism; rather, they are a symptom of perceived exclusion (which might well be a reality, especially in Latin America). But cries for political inclusion are different from demands for direct democracy. Where direct democracy is very much a part of normal politics – in Switzerland, for example – populist parties have been doing better, not worse, than elsewhere.

Michèle Flournoy discusses U.S. defense policy and strategy as well as broader international security challenges.

The House of Representatives Subcommittee on Communications and Technology passed the Internet Governance Bill on April 17, 2013, which reinforces the "policy of the United States to preserve and advance the successful multistakeholder model that governs the Internet." The bill will go on for a vote in the House.

Gayle Tzemach Lemmon reflects on the terrorist bombing at the Boston Marathon.

According to Michael Levi in this serial of The Power Surge, decreasing demand "is the only real path to confronting the climate consequences of abundant oil."

American policymakers have long been concerned about the eroding U.S. advantage in educating science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) students. With much of the assembly work for lucrative high-technology products having moved to Asia, future U.S. prosperity depends increasingly on innovating new products and techniques—innovation that requires training (or importing) a new generation of scientists and engineers.

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The Chinese Information Office of the State Council published this white paper on April 16, 2013. It discusses the security, social, and economic challenges China's forces faces domestically and internationally.

Elliott Abrams analyzes the implications of the forced resignation of the Palestinian Authority prime Minister, Salam Fayyad.

The deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon raise anew the vulnerability of U.S. civilian targets and homeland security policy dilemmas, as examined in this CFR Issue Guide.

Micah Zenko recommends that the Obama administration "implement the 9/11 Commission's unfulfilled recommendation and make the military responsible for America's drone campaigns."

In the first Bloomberg View excerpt of his forthcoming book The Power Surge, Michael Levi writes, "Oil markets are often as much about politics as economics, and predicting future political twists and turns should be done with care."

Icelandic president Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson discusses the international economic, environmental, and security implications of a changing Arctic region.