Josh Rogin examines how the Romney campaign has "doubled down" on treating Russia as a geopolitical foe. Some ideological habits are hard to break. In this case, the US-Moscow relationship is fraught enough to render the position wrongheaded but not completely insane. Jay on long-term democratization pressures in Russia. Noah Smith evaluates the nature of China's economic "landing." Jeff Colgan thinks highly of the SEC ruling that multinational...

Paul Pillar at The National Interest on Leslie Gelb on the Obama Doctrine (an article that CFR flogged with multiple emails, I might add). An interesting set of readings that really do merit comment here, in one way or another. Read an interview with Richard Burger about his book on "Sex in China"Apply to be the "first ever US youth observer at the United Nations" The Afghanistan Study Group would like people not to forget Afghanistan (via...

Heather Hurlburt parses the RNC foreign-policy platform: "Politico found what seems to be a close-to-final draft on the RNC's website. The national security section, titled "American Exceptionalism" is here. Below I have gone through and blogged some of the more mendacious and ridiculous content. But what's the short take: the Middle East, Israel and Iran sections are more reasonable than an observer of recent rhetoric from the Romney camp...