From Mike Coffman, Office of Congressman Mike Coffman:  The place to begin is by making fundamental changes in the way we have based forces in Europe since the end of World War II.

From Nicholas Kulish and Alan Cowell, the New  York Times:  As tensions mount between Western nations and Syria, the German authorities said on Thursday they had ordered the expulsion of four Syrian diplomats after arresting two men accused separately of spying on opponents of President Bashar al-Assad.

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

From George F. Will, the Washington Post:  The U.S. defense budget is about 43 percent of the world’s total military spending — more than the combined defense spending of the next 17 nations, many of which are U.S. allies.

From Lisa Balde and Phil Rogers, NBC Chicago:  The activist group that helped initiate Occupy Wall Street is rallying troops for a "big bang in Chicago" ahead of the G8/NATO summits this May.

From Abigail Fielding-Smith, the Financial Times:  The conflict between supporters and opponents of the regime of Mr Assad is being fought just as urgently in the cybersphere as on the streets of Homs, and goes far beyond trading insults.

From Oxford Analytica, CNN: Every generation of Western politicians has dreaded the possibility of NATO's demise.

From Missy Ryan and Warren Strobel, Reuters:  The United States is seeking to accelerate fragile talks with the Taliban so it can announce serious peace negotiations at a NATO summit in May, officials say, in what would be a welcome bright spot in Western efforts to end the war in <