A clear-headed vision for the United States' role in the Middle East that highlights the changing nature of U.S. national interests and the challenges of grand strategizing at a time of profound chan…

Read an excerpt of Pathways to Freedom. Many developing countries have launched transitions from authoritarianism to democracy over the past twenty-five years. While some have succeeded in buildin…

A penetrating look at American wars over the last century.

The United States has had a more successful foreign policy than any other great power in history. Council Senior Fellow Walter Russell Mead argues that the United States is successful because its strategy is rooted in Americans' concrete interests, which value trade and commerce as much as military security.

In Power, Terror, Peace, and War, Mead—one of the most original writers on U.S. foreign policy—provides a fascinating and timely account of the Bush administration's foreign policy and its current gr…