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A new trove of documents that were among those seized in the 2011 raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, were presented recently during the trial of Abid Naseer at the Brooklyn federal district court.

By many measures, over the past year, the Islamic State (also called ISIS) has been surprisingly effective on the battlefield, having amassed a significant amount of territory in Syria and Iraq.

When the anti-austerity party Syriza came to power in Greece in January 2015, Cornel Ban and I wrote in a Foreign Affairs article that, at some point, Europe was bound to face an Alexis Tsipras, the party’s leader and Greek prime minister, “because there’s only so long you can ask people to vote for impoverishment today based on promises of a better tomorrow that never arrives.”

On the night of July 30 last year, Amiram Ben-Oliel, the 21-year-old son of a rabbi, waited for a friend in a cave in the heart of the West Bank. They had planned to rendezvous there, between Ramallah and Nablus, before heading to the Palestinian villages of Duma and Majdal Beni Fadal, where they would commit murder. When Ben-Oliel’s friend didn’t show up, he continued alone, setting out on foot for Duma.

In recent years, Germany has emerged as Europe’s preeminent power not only because of the strength of its economy but also because of the extraordinary stability of its political system. Chancellor Angela Merkel is the embodiment of this stability: for most of the past decade, she has been able to govern as a centrist, unconstrained by the right-wing populist groups that have become a major force in all of Germany’s neighbors.

In the last days of April, Russian television aired a 150-minute documentary about Vladimir Putin’s decade and a half as the leader of Russia.

Last October, when the American destroyer USS Lassen sailed by Subi Reef, an artificial island built by China in the South China Sea, a number of Chinese merchant ships and fishing boats maneuvered around it, apparently having anticipated its approach. The Lassen was on a freedom of navigation operation, meant to demonstrate the United States’ commitment to maintaining open access to the area, much of which China claims as its own.

Since 9/11, Washington has considered al Qaeda the greatest threat to the United States, one that must be eliminated regardless of cost or time. After Washington killed Osama bin Laden in 2011, it made Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s new leader, its next number one target. But the instability in the Middle East following the Arab revolutions and the meteoric rise of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) require that Washington rethink its policy toward al Qaeda, particularly its targeting of Zawahiri.

The applause began as Björn Höcke, a 43-year-old Alternative for Germany (AfD) politician from the German state of Thuringia, took the stage at the Event Tagungs Center in Magdeburg, a city of 230,000 people in eastern Germany, last Sunday. “What an extraordinary day!” he said. “Today, we have fought like lions, my friends. Today, we begin a new chapter in the history of the Federal Republic of Germany, and of German history itself!”

The protests in Macedonia are only the beginning.

The “Pyongyang Playbook” goes as follows: Offer a fake overture of peace; raise the stakes for your foes with a provocation; act unstable and threaten to escalate even further; and finally, call for talks and act reasonable.

Nuh, a sleepy, sepia-toned town is a two-hour drive from New Delhi and borders the new-age city of Gurgaon, which sports swanky skyscrapers, luxury residential townships, and gargantuan malls.

Credit and debt are more than just rational material exchanges within a market economy. They are socially constructed and center on matters of hard moral judgments about character, equity, and “good conscience.”

In the past 18 months, a series of attacks on secular bloggers, public intellectuals, Hindu and Buddhist priests, and a few foreigners has shaken Bangladesh. The Islamic State (ISIS) has claimed responsibility for much of the bloodshed. The group’s formal claim aside, it is not entirely clear whether it masterminded the attacks. What is clear, however, is that the government of Sheikh Hasina Wajed has continued to deny that the terrorist group has a presence in her country at all.

After years of leadership by octogenarians, the Gulf Arab states are getting younger rulers. On February 10, the ruler of Dubai announced a new Emirati cabinet that includes eight new ministers with an average age of 38. The youngest appointee, appropriately heading the Ministry of Youth Affairs, is just 22.

Populism is gaining ground. Around the world, economic hardship and growing unease with globalization, immigration, and the established elite have propelled such movements into power, leading to a groundswell of public support for parties and leaders viewed as capable of holding the forces of cultural and social change at bay. In Europe, populist parties dominate parliaments in Greece, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Slovakia, and Switzerland.

The wave of horrific attacks in Paris, Beirut, and Sinai have defined an important part of the international agenda for the next year. Western societies must face fundamental questions: Is it possible to be open and safe? When does pluralism become separation, separation beget alienation, and alienation turn into violence? And, above all, what is the best way to respond to the current tragedies and lower the chances of future ones?

Both South Korea and Japan have recently hinted at their renewed interest in acquiring nuclear weapons. In February, after North Korea conducted a nuclear test, an article in South Korea’s daily newspaper reported that “there have been voices calling for South Korea to develop a nuclear weapon of its own.” Then in April, Japanese Prime Minster Shinzo Abe stated that the Japanese constitution does not preclude the country from possessing and using nuclear weapons, in spite of Japan’s deeply ingrained cultural aversion.

Of all the illusions surrounding U.S.–Russian relations, none is more dangerous than the notion that Russia can be a partner in the war on terrorism. Yet U.S. President-elect Donald Trump appears to be willing to make a massive bet on Russia’s good intentions. In a recent interview with Time, Trump said that working with Russia to fight the Islamic State (ISIS) can help the United States save both lives and money. “Why not get along with Russia?” he asked. “They’re effective and smart.”

In January 1980, U.S. President Jimmy Carter announced that the United States would protect “the free movement of Middle East oil”—with military force, if necessary. For decades, this commitment has stirred remarkably little controversy. But the world has changed dramatically since Carter’s declaration. Is Persian Gulf oil still worth defending with American military might?