Such fanfare went beyond the service of prosecuting a single crime. More likely, the charges being leveled at Iran came in the service of “public diplomacy,” an attempt to establish a broad narrative that serves a policy decision. Pushing the narrative of the Iranian “boogeyman” is not unusual in U.S. policy circles.

Due to failures of civilian institutions, many soldiers have become de facto nation-builders, anthropologists, and public diplomats. They were not, in many cases, trained for these missions. But they were the only option—albeit an expensive and inefficient one.

Leaving Iraq will ease the US of the burdensome image of invader and occupier of a Muslim country, which of course has strengthened al-Qaeda and like-minded groups from the Maghreb to Indonesia.

Army 1st Lt. Michael O’Neill was deployed to Afghanistan when his family asked what they could send him to help the Afghan children.Little did O’Neill realize at the time that his request for children’s books would be instrumental in launching an innovative literacy initiative...

Two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia's failure to cultivate power on the global stage using trade and diplomacy is forcing it back into its costly Cold War addiction to missiles and guns.

Rather than seeking to change the Afghan uniformed services into clones of the Germans, the Poles or the Australians, it would be both cheaper and more effective to have such training carried out by a nearby military that shares several cultural and historical links with the people of Afghanistan.

America and Britain invaded Afghanistan 10 years ago, for reasons which were understandable, to wage a short war that was unavoidable...What we have learned is that we hugely overestimated the capacity of our military, diplomatic and intelligence establishments to change other societies.