History at any moment can be understood as a snapshot, telling us where we are; or as a moving picture, telling us not just where we are but where we have been and where we may be headed. It is a distinction with an enormous difference.

US President Donald Trump is spending nearly two weeks in Asia, visiting Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam, and the Philippines. Putting China at the center of the trip makes sense, because it is the most important in both strategic and economic terms.

It is too soon to know whether and how the challenge posed by North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs will be resolved. But it is not too early to consider what that challenge could mean for a part of the world that has in many ways defied history.

North Korea has produced a number of nuclear warheads and is developing ballistic missiles capable of delivering them around the world. Many governments are debating how to prevent or slow further advances in North Korea’s capacity and what should be done if such efforts fail.

More than four decades ago, US National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger declared 1973 to be “The Year of Europe.” His aim was to highlight the need to modernize the Atlantic relationship and, more specifically, the need for America’s European allies to do more with the US in the Middle East and

In a world of disarray, the Middle East stands apart. The post-World War I order is unraveling in much of the region. The people of Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Libya have paid an enormous price.

For nearly four centuries, since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ended the Thirty Years’ War in Europe, the concept of sovereignty — the right of countries to an independent existence and autonomy — has formed the core of the international order.

The fall of Aleppo to forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad is neither the end of the beginning nor the beginning of the end of Syria’s five-and-a-half-year-old civil war — a war that is also a proxy, regional and to some extent global conflict.