With China's nuclear expansion, Russia's sabre-rattling, North Korea's new warheads, and America's future security commitments in serious doubt, Washington's allies ask: should we get our own?

Military exercises in Belarus at an unusual time of year seem designed in part to make Moscow's adversaries think twice

Since last May's brief yet dangerous military confrontation between two nuclear-armed powers, a tenuous calm has held. But should a new war erupt, the margin of error this time will be far slimmer.

This week's magazine story. How did America, Israel and others move from avoiding targeting countries' leaders to political assassination and cross-border detention becoming the new norms?

When it comes to killing politically prominent people, countries are often best placed to do so, as a long history of state assassinations attests. But is there any evidence that it is effective?

For decades, the United States adhered to international norms governing arrests and assassinations of political leaders beyond its borders. That script has now been ripped up.

Throughout history, kings have been killed, but this has been turbocharged by the US and Israel in recent years, with senior state officials no longer immune from targeting. What are the implications?

Sudan between peace and fragmentation

The balance of power between the army and the militia that controls Darfur may be shifting, but which way is not yet clear

There are fears that a divided country could yet splinter into a patchwork of overlapping fiefdoms led by warlords and terrorists, with neither a military nor diplomatic solution looking likely