Pulitzer Prize-winning military writer Tom Ricks on the Pentagon, “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and the state of America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Haiti, the U.S., and the road to recovery. It’s going to be a long one. We’ll ask what the U.S. commitment should be.

The firm formerly known as Blackwater is front and center again in Iraq — and Afghanistan. We ask why US forces are still entwined with the contractor.

Our show today with military robotics expert P.W. Singer took a hard look at the implications of the U.S. military’s increasingly wide push to use cutting-edge technology to defend troops, survey areas, and kill enemies.

President Obama makes his first trip to Asia. We’ll look at his agenda, and the rising power of the East.

Mideast scholar and Obama adviser Vali Nasr says a new middle class is finally changing the Muslim world — and the U.S. needs to catch up.

World leaders on stage in New York and Pittsburgh. Terror arrests in Denver. New hope for an AIDS vaccine. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

President Obama addresses the United Nations — and Iran looms large. We’ll hear perspectives on the nuclear threat and Ahmadinejad from top Iran watchers around the world.

Vietnam War critic Daniel Ellsberg and Iraq War critic and Colin Powell’s right-hand man, Lawrence Wilkerson, say we need to take a long, hard look at Afghanistan.

We’ll talk with the founder of J Street, the upstart Jewish lobbying organization that wants to be the liberal answer to AIPAC.

In our first hour today, we reached out to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad and spoke with Ambassador Christopher Hill. He discussed everything from Prime Minister Maliki’s recent political “dating game” to the “elusive concept” of having firm political rules in Iraq.

He walked across Afghanistan. Now, on the eve of elections, we’ll talk with Rory Stewart about what’s at stake as the country goes to the polls.

Bill Clinton goes to North Korea, and two American journalists are freed. We’ll look at Clinton’s mission and what it means for the U.S., North Korea, and Obama’s foreign policy.

Iran, nuclear weapons, and the Middle East. Is it never going to happen? Or is the US ready to accept, and put up what Hillary Clinton calls a “defense umbrella”?

The president in Moscow and Rome. Street battles in China. Fireworks in Washington over health care and jobs. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

President Obama, in Russia, talking nukes and geopolitics. We’ll hear from former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and more.

We’ll look at the crisis in Iran and the big waves it’s creating, from the Middle East to the White House situation room.

In North Korea: nukes, a succession drama, and American journalists sentenced to 12 years of hard labor. We’ll look behind the curtain.

GM and bankruptcy. North Korea’s nukes. And Sotomayor for the Supreme Court. Our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

As Pakistan’s president comes to the White House, fears in Washington grow over Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal and the Taliban. We’ll look at the loose-nuke threat on the Af-Pak front.