Editor’s Note: This is an edited version of an article from the ‘Oxford Analytica Daily Brief’. Oxford Analytica is a global analysis and advisory firm that draws on a worldwide network of experts to advise its clients on their strategy and performance.

Israeli Chief of Staff Benny Gantz reportedly said yesterday that he did not believe Iran would decide to build an atomic bomb. Officials in Tehran argue that Israel will not launch a military strike against Iranian nuclear facilities due to its fear of retaliation. While the Iranian regime tends to exaggerate its military capabilities, it has a number of options that, in a worst-case scenario, would broaden an Iranian-Israeli conflict into a global campaign against Israel, the United States and their allies.

Iran's response to any Israeli attack will depend heavily on whether Israel limits its strikes to a handful of nuclear sites or targets the Islamic Republic's centers of power. FULL POST

Editor's Note: The following is reprinted with the permission of the Council on Foreign Relations.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon condemned Sudanese air raids on South Sudan and called on the neighboring countries to engage in dialogue, amid an escalating conflict over the countries' shared oil-rich border area (al-Jazeera). However, Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir rejected negotiations with the South yesterday, saying "our talks with them were with guns and bullets." Meanwhile, on a visit to China, South Sudanese President Salva Kiir told Chinese President Hu Jintao that Sudan had declared war on South Sudan. China, an ally with significant interests in both Sudans, called on the two sides to exercise "calm and restraint" (Reuters). FULL POST

Editor’s Note: Gordon G. Chang is a columnist at Forbes.com. He is the author of The Coming Collapse of China and Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World. Follow him on Twitter.

By Gordon G. Chang - Special to CNN

On Friday, State Department spokesman Mark Toner announced that after North Korea’s failed but highly provocative long-range missile test, the U.S. would not provide “nutritional assistance” to the troubled state as contemplated by an agreement announced February 29. The operating assumption in Washington is that food aid helps the regime now headed by Kim Jong Un.

In some ways, that assumption is correct. Aid, after all, is fungible. Every dollar of food assistance means Kim’s government can devote one less buck to lowland agriculture and one more to improving the obvious defects of its long-range missiles.

There are many things that the Obama administration should be doing to stop North Korea’s missile program, but refusing to feed hungry and victimized people is not one of them. FULL POST

This is not a scientific poll.

Editor's Note: Robert E. Kelly is a Senior Analyst at Wikistrat and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science and Diplomacy at Pusan National University, South Korea. A longer version of this essay may be found at his website, Asian Security Blog.

By Robert E. Kelly - Special to CNN

For all the talk about how the US might ‘pivot’ to Asia, there is little Western discussion of how China might respond to its semi-encirclement. Here are five possibilities:

1. China might pull South Korea into its orbit

China’s regional problem is that no one really trusts it. Its allies are weak – North Korea and Myanmar. The best way to head-off encirclement is to break the ring with some decent allies. Nasty, dependent dictatorships are not enough. South Korea is a central link in any semi-containment ring around China, but one where China has a lot of leverage. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Michael O’Hanlon is coauthor with Martin Indyk and Kenneth Lieberthal of the new book, Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy. You can read more from him on the Global Public Square.

By Michael O'Hanlon – Special to CNN

Today I had the honor of interviewing General John Allen, Commander of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan at the Brookings Institution in Washington. We had a half hour of direct discussion before taking questions from the audience. The general was, as usual, impressive and inspiring. Of course, the mission he leads in Afghanistan remains challenging.

After a week of testimony and media appearances, much of what General Allen now believes about the current state and future trajectory of the Afghanistan effort had already surfaced. Today’s conversation focused largely on the campaign as it is unfolding in Afghanistan, in somewhat greater depth than many of his other recent appearances have permitted. It highlighted several key realities about the war effort.

A major theme of General Allen’s public discussions this month in Washington have focused on improvements in the Afghan security forces. Last week in Congressional testimony he called them “better than we thought.” Today he went a bit further - not breaking huge news, perhaps - but explaining a few key things: FULL POST

Editor's Note: Jennifer G. Cooke is director of the Africa Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

By Jennifer G. Cooke, CSIS

Disgruntled junior army officers have seized control of the presidential palace and state broadcasting apparatus in the West African country of Mali, declaring a coup d’état against the government of President Amadou Toumani Touré. Calling themselves the National Committee for the Return of Democracy and the Restoration of the State (CNRDR), the soldiers have denounced the government’s incompetence, most notably its failure to respond effectively to an ongoing insurrection led by Tuareg rebels in the country’s north. The coup leaders have announced the suspension of the constitution, the closure of the country’s borders, and the imposition of a nationwide curfew. President Touré has reportedly taken refuge in an army barracks in Bamako, protected by loyalist presidential guards.

The coup, if it is ultimately successful, will be a major setback to Mali’s political development and a blow to the country’s hard-won reputation as a strong West African democracy. The country has earned widespread praise for the consolidation of democratic institutions, economic reform, and free and fair elections over the last 20 years, this despite being one of the world’s poorest and least economically developed countries. FULL POST

Editor's Note: Dr. James M. Lindsay is a Senior Vice President at the Council on Foreign Relations and co-author of America Unbound: The Bush Revolution in Foreign Policy. Visit his blog here and follow him on Twitter.

By James M. Lindsay, CFR.org

The tragic news that a U.S. Army sergeant slaughtered sixteen Afghans this week has scrambled the debate over the U.S. presence in Afghanistan. Afghan president Hamid Karzai has demanded that the United States agree to pull back its troops to bases in Afghanistan by next year. Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich have discovered doubts about the wisdom of staying the course in Afghanistan.The public’s dissatisfaction with the war has hardened. A Gallup poll out this week found that 50 percent of Americans want Washington to speed up its withdrawal from Afghanistan; only 21 percent say stay the course.

The White House says it intends to stick by its plan to withdraw the bulk of U.S. troops by 2014. Gen. John Allen, who commands U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan opposes “any form of accelerated drawdown,” so much so that he apparently wants to slow down the pace of President Obama’s proposed withdrawal once the so-called surge troops depart the country next fall. You can still find plenty of independent military experts who think that General Allen has it exactly right. Their impassioned defense of current policy in the face of tragic news touches that chord in all of us that resonates with Winston Churchill’s immortal words from 1941: “Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in.” FULL POST

Editor's Note: Be sure to tune in to GPS this Sunday at 10am and 1pm ET.  Also, don't miss my special episode of GPS, "Global Lessons – The GPS Road Map for Saving Heath Care", which airs Sunday night at 8pm and 11pm ET/PT.  The special will run again Saturday, March 24th, at 8pm and 11pm ET/PT.

By Fareed Zakaria, CNN

When I was in college, in the early 1980s, I invited Ronald Reagan’s defense secretary, Caspar Weinberger, to give a speech on campus. At the time, U.S. colleges were hotbeds of opposition to the Reagan administration, especially to its defense policies. Sure enough, as Weinberger began to speak, a series of students stood up and began to heckle. One after another, they rose and chanted a single line, “Deterrence is a lie!”

I am reminded of that turbulent meeting as I listen to the debates over Iran’s nuclear ambitions because it highlights a strange role reversal in today’s foreign policy discourse. It used to be the left that refused to accept the idea of deterrence - searching instead for options such as a nuclear freeze. And it used to be those on the right who would patiently explain the practical virtues of deterrence.

The conservative thinker Charles Krauthammer wrote in the New Republic in 1984. "Deterrence, like old age, is intolerable, until one considers the alternative." FULL POST

Editor's Note: Dr. Harry Croft is a former Army doctor who has evaluated more than 7,000 veterans with PTSD.  He is medical director of the San Antonio Psychiatric Research Center, has been in private practice for 35 years and just released his new book, I Always Sit With My Back to The Wall (written with coauthor, Reverend Dr. Chrys Parker).

By Harry Croft - Special to CNN

The shocking news of an American soldier allegedly going on a shooting rampage and taking the lives of 16 Afghanistan civilians has captivated the world this week. The question everyone is trying to answer: What caused him to snap and commit such a heinous act?

Details are slowly emerging, but as a former Army doctor and someone who has evaluated more than 7,000 veterans with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), I believe a combination of factors pushed the unnamed soldier over the edge.

This soldier was more than likely suffering from PTSD and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), but these conditions alone would not have caused him to go on a killing spree. Even in the most severe cases I’ve seen in my 30 years of research and treating patients, I have never seen or heard of anyone with PTSD alone doing such a thing. Yes, PTSD typically brings on symptoms of anger, irritability, and even at times, rage.  It causes a person to feel distant and detached, easily startled or hyper-vigilant. The person might be unsociable and have trouble expressing his or her emotions. But killing 16 people is not a result of combat-related PTSD alone.    FULL POST