How should the United States handle threats posed by countries like Yemen, Syria, and Nigeria? 

The cyber threat is part of a transnational game, with low barriers of entry, increasing sophistication, increasing cost, and no prospect that any state will be victorious.  The U.S. needs to manage the risk by focusing on those aspects of cyber insecurity that relate to commerce and critical infrastructure, leaving traditional forms of intelligence and military activities unregulated; and by allowing private companies and individuals to use strong encryption or open source software without built-in vulnerabilities. 

The U.S. war against ISIL risks helping the enemy in the long run by lessening locals’ incentives to develop their own military and state capabilities, and that it also helps with the enemy’s recruitment and PR. The more the U.S. does militarily, the less our friends and allies in the region do.

Russia’s aggressive actions in the Ukraine are intended to signal to the West that there are limits to what Russia will accept in what it sees as aggressive Western action against Russia, even if Russia’s intervention comes at the cost of a split Ukraine. Ukraine will likely remain a frozen conflict, with the real issue being “for how long, and what cost, Putin will seek to impose his vision of the new Russia on the neighboring states of the region”.