Management

Analysis: Ambition and anguish drive John Kerry

He will likely pursue an activist agenda as secretary of State.

Management

Team of Mentors: Biden, Kerry, and Hagel Are Obama's Senate Mafia

The president's emerging second-term national-security team will likely include a longstanding cabal in place before Obama reached Washington.

Defense

Is Chuck Hagel a pacifist?

The former GOP senator, a possible Obama nominee to run the Pentagon, is haunted by Vietnam.

Defense

How the main candidates for Defense chief differ

Chuck Hagel and Michelle Flournoy, both haunted by the ghosts of Vietnam, represent a stark choice for Obama.

Management

Analysis: Obama gets a solution to his Susan Rice problem

Leading secretary of State candidate allows him to dump her without seeming to.

Defense

Benghazi may be the least of Susan Rice's problems

Rights activists say she's been dancing with African dictators since the '90s.

Defense

Obama’s quagmire: Syria and the Islamist arc

Hammered on leadership, the president struggles for a Middle East policy.

Oversight

Can Romney Really Lead?

Questions crop up about how the GOP candidate would run the government.

Management

Is 'smart regulation' not?

Obama says he’s revolutionizing government; Romney says the president just wants more government.

Defense

Mission accomplished -- at last?

Obama acknowledges the conflict in Afghanistan may never be completely over.

Defense

Analysis: One year after bin Laden's death, a new world

Even U.S. conservatives are battling over how to handle the 'post-al Qaeda era.'

Management

Biden: Most powerful VP ever?

Joltin’ Joe leads the Obama attack on Romney.

Management

Obama economic team goes on offense

Geithner and Sperling criticize Romney but differ on the extent of the president's economic plan.

Defense

Shootings likely to upend Afghanistan strategy

Tragedy steps up pressure to find a faster way out of the conflict.

Oversight

Gingrich would tap John Bolton for secretary of State

Senate Democrats filibustered Bolton in 2005, before he won a recess appointment as ambassador to the United Nations.

News

Analysis: Obama’s Economy -- or Not?

There's probably not much the president could have done about the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression -- except possibly lead better.

News

Government, S&P target credibility

Treasury in recent days has called the credit rater's downgrade fundamentally flawed, attacked its math, and has sought to discredit the agency by citing its poor performance during the credit bubble.

Defense

Analysis: Defining down war

Obama is already adept at going to war without saying so, but the team of Panetta and Petraeus is likely to turn this age-old deception into an art form.