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What we see is that while Mubarak is gone, the military regime in which he served has dramatically increased its power. This isn’t incompatible with democratic reform. Organizing elections, political parties and candidates is not something that can be done quickly. If the military is sincere in its intentions, it will have to do these things. The problem is that if the military is insincere it will do exactly the same things. Six months is a long time, passions can subside and promises can be forgotten.

Power rests with the regime, not with the crowds. In our view, the crowds never had nearly as much power as many have claimed.

In a genuine revolution, the police and military cannot contain the crowds. In Egypt, the military chose not to confront the demonstrators, not because the military itself was split, but because it agreed with the demonstrators’ core demand: getting rid of Mubarak. And since the military was the essence of the Egyptian regime, it is odd to consider this a revolution.

four leaders—two military, two civilian—sit around a table at the White House or the Pentagon

The current continuing resolution that Congress is using to fund the entire government until March 27 has already affected U.S. forces.

The U.S. military, and particularly the Navy, is the most powerful force projection instrument in the world. When the sequester takes effect, it will immediately reduce military spending by 8 percent, with more than $500 billion in cuts to defense spending over 10 years divided equally among the military branches.

Security, in the Israeli sense, is thus often characterized in terms of survival. And for Israel to survive, it needs just the right blend of geopolitical circumstance, complex diplomatic arrangements and military preparedness to respond to potential threats nearby. Over the past 33 years, a sense of complacency settled over Israel and gave rise to various theories that it could finally overcome its dependency on outside powers. But a familiar sense of unease crept back into the Israeli psyche before any of those arguments could take root. A survey of the Israeli periphery in Egypt, Syria and Jordan explains why.

To Israel's southwest lies the Sinai Desert. This land is economically useless; only hardened Bedouins who sparsely populate the desert expanse consider the terrain suitable for living. This makes the Sinai an ideal buffer.

Heightened activity of the world’s most powerful navy along China’s maritime periphery struck a nerve, since China has fallen victim to several invasions from powerful foreign navies over the past two centuries. Beijing, for its part, staged several military exercises in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea, and protested loudly against Washington’s “Cold War mentality” in pursuing a strategy of containment against China. Washington frequently pointed out that if Beijing had not severed military communications, the two sides would have a better understanding of each other’s activities and intentions.

Heightened activity of the world’s most powerful navy along China’s maritime periphery struck a nerve, since China has fallen victim to several invasions from powerful foreign navies over the past two centuries. Beijing, for its part, staged several military exercises in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea, and protested loudly against Washington’s “Cold War mentality” in pursuing a strategy of containment against China. Washington frequently pointed out that if Beijing had not severed military communications, the two sides would have a better understanding of each other’s activities and intentions.

Heightened activity of the world’s most powerful navy along China’s maritime periphery struck a nerve, since China has fallen victim to several invasions from powerful foreign navies over the past two centuries. Beijing, for its part, staged several military exercises in the South China Sea, East China Sea and Yellow Sea, and protested loudly against Washington’s “Cold War mentality” in pursuing a strategy of containment against China. Washington frequently pointed out that if Beijing had not severed military communications, the two sides would have a better understanding of each other’s activities and intentions.

In searching for the meaning behind every gesture, diplomats start to regard every action merely as a gesture.

The threat of war is useful only when the threat is real and significant. This threat, however, was intended to be insignificant.

There was a profoundly radical idea embedded in this line of thought. Wars between nations or dynastic powers had been a constant condition in Europe, and the rest of the world had been no less violent. Every century had had systemic wars in which the entire international system (increasingly dominated by Europe since the 16th century) had participated. In the 20th century, there were the two World Wars, in the 19th century the Napoleonic Wars, in the 18th century the Seven Years' War, and in the 17th century the Thirty Years' War.

Generational shifts take time to play out and often begin with a period of denial as the forces of the international system struggle to preserve the old order. In 2013, that state of denial will persist in many areas. But we are more than four years into this cyclical transformation, and change is becoming more palpable and much harder to deny with every passing month.

In the United States, the political crisis over the federal budget and the struggle to grow the economy and reduce unemployment has dominated the president's and the country's attention.

The Israeli elections turned on domestic issues, ranging from whether the ultra-Orthodox would be required to serve in Israel Defense Forces, as other citizens are, to a growing controversy over economic inequality in Israel. 

What is interesting is at this point, while Israelis continue to express concern about foreign policy, they are most passionate on divisive internal social issues. Similarly, although there continues to be a war in Afghanistan, the American public is heavily focused on economic issues. Under these circumstances the interesting question is not what Obama and Netanyahu will talk about but whether what they discuss will matter much. 

An era ended when the Soviet Union collapsed on Dec. 31, 1991. The confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union defined the Cold War period. The collapse of Europe framed that confrontation.

The first was U.S. power. The second was the rise of China as the center of global industrial growth based on low wages. The third was the re-emergence of Europe as a massive, integrated economic power.

When the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, signaling communism's defeat in Europe, security experts talked about a shift in diplomatic and military energies to the Pacific. But Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 led to a decadelong preoccupation with the Middle East, with the U.S. Army leading a land war against Iraq in 1991 and the Navy and Air Force operating no-fly zones for years thereafter. Then came 9/11, and the Bush administration's initiation of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq as a response. Finally, the ending of both those conflicts is in sight, and the United States, rather than return to quasi-isolationism as it has done with deleterious effect after other ground wars in its history, is attempting to pivot its focus to the geographical heart of the global economy: the Indian and Pacific oceans.

The Indian Ocean is the world's energy interstate, across which passes crude oil and natural gas from the Arabian Peninsula and Iranian Plateau to the burgeoning, middle-class urban sprawls of East Asia.

Unlike their CSF counterparts, the demonstrators demanding Mubarak’s exit from the political scene largely welcomed the soldiers. Despite Mubarak’s refusal to step down Jan. 28, the public’s positive perception of the military, seen as the only real gateway to a post-Mubarak Egypt, remained.

There is more to these demonstrations than meets the eye.

In other words, the military — and only the military — will be the one to prioritize the state’s agenda, which is likely to differ greatly from the order of priorities outlined by the opposition. The military council then vaguely expresses its “commitment” to the provisions of its previous statements (to meet the demands of the people) and then orders Egyptian citizens to return to work (and thus clear the streets).

the council is “committing the Egyptian Arab Republic to all regional and international obligations and treaties.” The military is specifically reassuring Israel and the United States that the 1978 peace accord will remain intact.

The military is being strategically vague in its promises to the people, yet direct in clearly articulating its demands to the people. The opposition’s reaction is thus critical to watch in the days ahead. If political forces begin to criticize the military for backtracking on promises and attempt to continue street demonstrations until their demands are met, they will not be met with the same tolerance the military exhibited while Muabrak was clinging onto power.

The statistics regarding just how much the United States had to go it alone in Libya -- pushed by the British and French -- despite the diplomatic fig leaf of "leading from behind," are devastating for the alliance.

More than 80 percent of the gasoline used in the intervention came from the U.S. military. Almost all the individual operation orders had an American address. Of dozens of countries taking part, only eight air forces were allowed by their defense ministries to drop any bombs. Many flew sorties apparently only for the symbolism of it. While most airstrikes were carried out by non-U.S. aircraft, the United States ran the logistical end of the war.

"Europe is dead militarily," a U.S. general told me.

The first thing that leaps to mind is the manner in which World War II began for the three great powers: the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom.

There was little doubt among American leaders that war with Japan was coming. The general public had forebodings, but not with the clarity of its leaders.

I offer three reasons that I believe, taken together, provide an answer: (a) The demographics of the American military (b) Historical inexperience of war and the world, and (c) The impetus from corporate capitalism.

The composition of most militaries today, including the U.S., suggests that this is indeed the case. The economic and political elites tend not to serve in the military, but very much dictate its priorities. They increasingly have no skin in the game, and a diminishing sense of its human cost.