Oil and natural gas often drive world politics, for better and for worse. Such is the case today with natural gas in a little-watched nation, Azerbaijan. This former Soviet Republic is still in a transition to democracy – and what happens there matters very much to US interests, particularly when it comes to Russia. The United States must take a stronger role in addressing three key challenges in Azerbaijan: energy development, democracy, and peace.

There is no shortage of advice in the United States about how the Obama administration should approach Egypt. The familiar ring of policy prescriptions bouncing around the Beltway and beyond is either a testament to a lack of creativity or limited leverage or the return of some version of the political order that prevailed under Mubarak. Take, for example, Saturday’s lead editorial in the Washington Post called, “The U.S. Must Confront the Egyptian Military’s Push for Authoritarian Rule.”

Elections matter. And in the coming year Latin America will see no less than eight scheduled elections for president. From Honduras to Chile, the hemisphere faces a collective referendum on the ability of governments to recharge economic growth while meeting the increasing social demands of the people.

World attention today is keenly focused on nuclear proliferation in Iran, the future force presence in Afghanistan, and percolating problems between China and Japan involving islands in the East China Sea. And while officials in Washington deliberate how U.S. influence can affect these potentially destabilizing flash points, they're overlooking a country that could be a key contributor toward steadying the ship: India.

U.S. political leaders have long spoken of America’s democracy as pivotal to its role in the world, whether it was Woodrow Wilson declaring in 1917 that the U.S. must enter World War I to make the world “safe for democracy,” or George W. Bush saying, on his re-election in 2004, that “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry urged the Ukrainian government on Tuesday to “listen to the voices of its people” after President Viktor Yanukovych's decision to spurn an agreement with the European Union sparked days of massive protests. Kerry said Ukrainians had demonstrated “in unbelievable numbers” their support of the accord on closer ties with Europe, which Yanukovych rejected last week in favor of Russian incentives.

Just over two months ago, the Tamils went to the polls for Sri Lanka’s Northern Provincial Council elections with defiance, yet with a cautious sense of festivity. Military harassment of voters and party candidates had been thorough and brutally innovative throughout the campaigning; in addition to the typical battering of election monitors, cash-for-votes and widespread intimidation, government supporters had even printed a fake newspaper.

After 12 years, nearly $700 billion, and more than 2,000 dead U.S. soldiers, here's what the United States has to show for its efforts in Afghanistan: a government that's perceived to be as corrupt as North Korea, according to a new report from the anti-corruption group Transparency International. File it away under things U.S. officials would probably rather ignore.