PARIS ― The rise of emerging economies worldwide has generated much optimism, in terms not only of economic development, but also of global cooperation. But the shift to a multipolar world order has not bolstered multilateralism. In fact, the opposite is true: the logic of national sovereignty has staged a comeback, with major economies consistently undermining cooperation on issues ranging from security to trade to climate change.Consider the muddle in the United Nations Security Council over S

NEW YORK ― The recent guilty plea by Donald Sachtleben, a former FBI bomb technician charged with leaking classified information, after government investigators identified him by secretly obtaining the phone logs of some Associated Press reporters, represents the latest chapter in the ongoing drama over United States security officials’ behavior.A few days earlier, another chapter played out in a New York City television studio: spies and recipients of leaked information confronted each other on

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad succeeded his father, Hafez al-Assad. Together the al-Assad family reign stretches to 42 years. The Syrian political system is nominally a democratic republic. In the case of North Korea, its founder and head of the state, Kim Il-sung, has been succeeded by his son, and his son by his grandson over 62 years. But Syria and North Korea are neither the same kind of political system nor a traditional monarchy. A question arises: Why is this kind of power succession c

NEW YORK ― The last-minute agreement between Russia and the United States to put Syria’s chemical weapons under international control gives the West, which had run out of good options, a second chance to reach what always should have been its strategic goal: peace in Syria and an end to its people’s suffering.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov took advantage of Western leaders’ failure to formulate a clear central objective. Did they hope to end Syria’s civil war by forcing a military stalem

WASHINGTON ― A high-level defector has provided a disturbing new account of Syrian chemical weapons operations ― including an allegation that some of these weapons have been moved since Russia proposed an international monitoring scheme to destroy the toxic munitions. The revelations came in a lengthy telephone interview Sunday with Brig. Gen. Zaher al-Sakat, who was a chemical-weapons specialist for the Syrian army until he defected to the rebels in March. Sakat spoke by Skype from a city in Jo

SINGAPORE ― Are prospects for global stability and prosperity improving or deteriorating? With enlightenment and progress in some parts of the world accompanied by atavism and stagnation elsewhere, this is not an easy question. But we can gain greater purchase on it by considering three other questions.The first is whether the United States will regain its standing as a source of moral leadership. Despite its flaws, America did provide such leadership, beginning at the end of World War II. But t