War is the ultimate human calamity. Despite the fevered hopes and utopian promises of its advocates, loosing the dogs of war almost always results in abundant death and destruction, and sometimes unimaginable slaughter, devastation, and horror. America’s last four wars, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen, should serve as sufficient proof of this fact.

Religious intolerance is a global constant. The defeat of the Islamic State is good news, but persecutors were active before ISIS arose and persecutors will remain active despite the group’s collapse. In many nations freedom of conscience is seen as an existential threat.

Mile by mile and person by person, North Korea is the most destabilizing nation on earth. The small, poor and isolated country is building nuclear weapons and intercontinental missiles. Americans who once felt invulnerable are worrying about the possibility of nuclear war.

Some in Congress want to ban travel to the North. But a free society should protect the liberty to travel and explore. This right shouldn’t be limited without compelling justification.

Turkey’s president secured near dictatorial powers in a recent constitutional referendum.

What Chinese believe today really matters.

The attempted coup in Turkey is a reminder that even democracies are vulnerable.

Just when should the majority — and what kind of a majority — rule?

History weighs heavily on East Asia. Relations among Russia, China, India, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Philippines and other states are heavily influenced by past wars, conquests and colonialism. To Washington’s enduring frustration, its two most important democratic allies, Japan and the Republic of Korea, have been at odds for decades, their relationship poisoned by Tokyo’s half century of rule over the once united Korean kingdom.