On New Year’s Eve, President Obama signed into law the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act, which contains budgetary and executive provisions for what the administration calls, “the defense of the United States and its interests abroad.”

While troop withdrawal is part of a legacy of questionable decisions made in Iraq, it also presents an opportunity for America to improve existing relations with the Iraqi people and their politicians.

The United States must assist Mexican officials in purging government corruption, reforming the legal system, and providing the training and intelligence resources required to combat violent drug cartels.

The U.S.’s adoption of a support role in Libya is appropriate. Its role as supporter rather than leader will help prevent the perception of this intervention as another American crusade.

More than two years after President Obama signed an executive order to close the prison facility, Guantánamo Bay is still operational, with the Obama Administration making the correct decision and reversing its once forceful decision to terminate military tribunals.

Pakistan has undergone decades of tumult and is now on a trajectory toward disaster following the assassinations of two high-ranking reformers. Given Pakistan’s status as a nuclear power and a NATO ally, the U.S. must step up its efforts to maintain stability in the country.

The United States possesses the most powerful military on the planet. Unfortunately, the United States’ increasingly inability to develop and acquire military hardware on-time and within budget is threatening this fact.

Going into the future, the US must pursue aggressive trade liberalization policies which would open foreign markets to US clean energy technology exports and ensure that other nations will also implement free trade principles for such technologies.

Yemen faces a range of internal problems that hamper its own ability to fight Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula. The US Government must focus its efforts on uniting the Yemenis and augmenting its cooperation with Yemeni military and intelligence agencies.

An interview with Mark Rudd, a former leader of the Weather Underground movement in the 1960s and 1970s.