From Josef Joffe, Wall Street Journal:  Twice in the 20th century, Germany tried to grab hegemony by bayonet and blitzkrieg, almost destroying itself and Europe in the process.

Hariri Center Director Michele Dunne and Senior Fellow Amy Hawthorne reflect on US policy toward the Middle East and North Africa in the two years since President Barack Obama promised to make it a top priority to support democracy and human rights in the region.

Leaders in the Middle East and North Africa appear to be increasingly sensitive to criticism by their citizens and more inclined to pursue legal action against critics. Numerous cases have been brought against critics who employ social media, but traditional media is also under pressure.

From Richard Gowan, World Politics Review :  Britain, traditionally obsessive about the Atlantic alliance, has responded to the messages coming from the U.S. by deepening defense cooperation with France.

From Philip Hammond, E-Ring:  The further east you go, the more of the concern remains that we should be prepared for a -- maybe not full-blown state-on-state conflict -- but we need to be prepared to protect the borders of NATO

From Xenia Dormandy, New York Times:  What are the security challenges NATO members face today and in the coming decades, and do we have sufficient commonalities to harness the interests, will and capacity to address them through NATO?

Michele Dunne, director of the Hariri Middle East Center, joins Washington correspondent Pierre Ghanem for a discussion at the International Monetary Fund on the economic reforms needed to meet the challenges emerging out of complex political and social transformations in the Arab countries in transition.

From Chuck Hagel, Department of Defense :  The United States is emerging from more than a decade of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, but the threat of violent extremism persists and continues to emanate from weak states and ungoverned spaces in the Middle East and North Africa.