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In March 2009, President Obama said that America's 'clear and focused goal' in the region was not simply to kill Osama bin Laden, but 'to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan and prevent their return to either country in the future.' But what is al-Qaeda? This is a question that has been asked in one form or another since 9/11. But in the aftermath of bin Laden's death, when the media has promoted facile assurances that the terror organization was killed along with its visible public face, it has taken on a new urgency. Some, like Bruce Hoffman, have argued that bin Laden's close circle continues to pose the main global threat, while 'decentralization' theorists like Marc Sageman state that the main threat no longer comes from a cohesive organization but from local, 'homegrown' groups. Adapted from the source document.

When former US ambassador to Pakistan, Wendy Chamberlin, said of the US, 'We are a player in the Pakistani political system', she was pointing out how challenging it is to achieve US policy goals under the kinds of volatile political conditions engulfing that country. In late 2007, the Bush administration was banking on the political future of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who had recently returned to Pakistan, and was still providing President Pervez Musharraf with the substantial aid and support it had been giving him since 9/11. And yet by early 2008, Benazir Bhutto was dead, assassinated as she rose from her car to greet crowds of supporters, and Pervez Musharraf was a political liability, since his party had suffered a resounding defeat in the February 2008 election. These events demonstrated that even the foreign policies of a country as powerful as the US can be scuttled by the flux and flow of local power politics. Adapted from the source document.

Ever since Canada emerged as a distinct and active international actor in the immediate post-World War II period there has been a certain schizophrenic character associated with the debates about the country's inherently proper role in the world. This has especially been the case in the context of Ottawa's relations with Washington, particularly on broad military strategic issues. Should Canada closely commit itself to collective western defence under US leadership or should it focus on broad multilateral collective security, eschewing close military and political alignment with America? These two opposing conceptions of what ought to be the Canadian way came to the fore in the early 1960s, when, after more than a decade of Cold War and amid the attempts by the Diefenbaker government to alter the approach of the previous Liberal governments, a debate emerged over the nature of Canadian foreign and defence policy. Adapted from the source document.

Governments, international organizations and businesses are increasingly concerned with the frequency and intensity of cyber-attacks directed at them. These attacks can be extremely serious and even devastating. An entire country could find itself paralyzed (as happened to Estonia in 2007), plans for military operations could be stolen during a conflict (the US Central Command suffered a theft of documents in 2008), or sabotage of industrial facilities could be remotely controlled using something as basic as a USB key (as was the case with the Stuxnet worm attack in 2010). In a high-tech world where lack of preparedness can have dramatic consequences, the West seems to be lagging behind countries like China or Russia. Both of these countries have grasped the acute dependency of Western countries on information technologies and the benefits they might reap from asymmetric attacks on networks. Adapted from the source document.

Ever since 1954, when a unanimous Supreme Court declared that education is "a right that must be made available to all on equal terms," Americans have been debating the meaning of educational equality, how it might be attained, and through what instrumentalities of government.Brownv.Board of Educationwas arguably the most important Supreme Court decision of the twentieth century, not only because it ended legal segregation in schools but also for incorporating the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as a tool to promote racial equality in other aspects of American life.Brownalso thrust the federal courts deeply into primary and secondary education and opened the door to further federal intervention in a sphere of government that historically belonged to the states and localities. Debates over federalism, separation of powers, policy alternatives, and the role of government in promoting educational and social equality remain very much alive today as the Obama administration puts forth its education agenda, states struggle with its demands, and Congress reconsiders the contours of No Child Left Behind (NCLB).