EXCERPT

Russia’s best killers learned their skills fighting Moscow.

Autocrats and counterfeit democrats have perfected the art of rigging polls to stay in power — without breaking any laws.

Netanyahu came close to ordering airstrikes in 2010 — but was thwarted by his own security chiefs.

Endless elections, unqualified leaders, uninformed voters, and short-term thinking are impeding economic growth.

As state-backed companies' debts mount, China faces an inevitable slowdown.

Solar power is the world’s most promising clean energy solution, but governments must abandon outdated policies for it to succeed.

The Marshall Plan recognized the limits of U.S. power in Europe. To be successful, so must diplomacy with Moscow today.

A decade of targeted assassinations has pushed the boundaries of Israel's laws and military ethics — and harmed its image across the globe.

The alleged use of a “sound weapon” against U.S. Embassy officials in Cuba harks back to a Cold War medical mystery.

The Pentagon's secret plan to crowdsource intelligence from Afghan civilians turned out to be brilliant — too brilliant.

In India's contentious politics, it's impossible to avoid the smell of cash.

The Soviet leader is remembered as the man who killed a superpower. But Gorbachev’s gambit on reforms could have worked -- if only he wasn't betrayed by the Communist Party.

How palace intrigues in the Kremlin, the death of Qaddafi, and war in Ukraine ushered in a new era of mistrust between Russia and the United States under Obama.

How an obscure academic and a marginalized philosopher captured the minds of the Kremlin and helped forge the new Russian nationalism.

Tunisia is supposed to be the success story of the Arab Spring — so why are so many of its young men flocking to the Islamic State?

It’s time to stop championing the "lonely heroes" of innovation like Apple, Google, and Amazon and rally around the ingenuity of the world’s waning industrial communities.

Hitler’s Romanian ally led an utterly barbaric regime — that while often protecting Jews inside Romania’s borders, murdered them indiscriminately just outside those borders.

The story of an ambitious Rwandan journalist who challenged Paul Kagame’s leadership.

How an experimental unit transformed the intelligence community.

How expatriates ran a covert campaign to funnel millions of dollars worth of aid into one of Syria’s worst-hit towns -- right under Assad’s nose.