From Dimitri Trenin, the International Herald Tribune:  The Russian government is openly conservative; it abhors revolutions.

From Karen DeYoung, the Washington Post:  With war fatigue growing and an election looming, the Obama administration has bumpily embarked on its endgame in Afghanistan.

From Ivo H. Daalder and James G. Stavridis, U.S. Mission to NATO:  NATO's operation in Libya has rightly been hailed as a model intervention.

From Colin Clark, AOLDefense:  The deputy assistant secretary general [James Appathurai] also highlighted a little known change in policy that was driven by Australia and New Zealand. In return for joining NATO operations in Afghanistan, both countries were granted a seat the council's table

From Anne-Marie Slaughter, the Atlantic:  A full-fledged civil war in Syria could quickly become a proxy war between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and/or at least some NATO countries on one side against Iran, Russia, Hizbollah, and possibly Iraq and Hamas on the other.

From Mark Urban, the BBC:  At a meeting near the end of March, we have been told, authorisation was given to take certain steps to develop the [Libyan opposition's National Transition Council] NTC's embryonic ground forces.

From Jim Hoagland, the Washington Post:  It is the Arab Earthquake. Not “spring,” not “wave of reform,” not even “awakening” can describe the systemic upheaval that has engulfed Syria, where other Arab nations actively press for the overthrow of the regime headed by Bashar al-Assad. Let us call an earthquake an earthquake.

From Richard Norton-Taylor and Nick Hopkins, the Guardian:  The British government's most senior defence and security policy advisers are finally facing up to a fundamental shift in the world's military and economic balance.