COMMENT: To increase military budgets as a justification to stir the pot in this region which needs to be demilitarised is questionable.

Russian's plan is "the best opportunity the Syrian people have had over the past five years for lasting peace and stability".

As the Syrian conflict approaches its fifth anniversary, not far across the border in Jordan an altogether more hopeful milestone is being celebrated.

A cessation is the most basic good-faith requirement as a first step towards discussions about what peace may look like, writes Alexander Gillespie.

A $3 million World War I memorial in Auckland Domain may not proceed after concerns the five shortlisted designs do not meet the original vision.

Charles "Chook" Fergusson narrowly escaped death when his plane was shot down. Then he found himself in a Japanese prisoner of war camp.

There is a danger that this conflict will draw us ever deeper into a quagmire, writes Gehan Gunasekar. There is a danger of escalation should the current proxy conflict spill into conflict between the great powers involved themselves.

The US deployed a B-52 bomber on a low-level flight over its ally Sth Korea yesterday, in a show of force after North Korea's nuclear test last week.

In the event of a nuclear war, the Pentagon in 1956 penned a report that listed 1200 cities that were prioritised for various levels of destruction.

The elite troops being sent in to help dismantle Isis are men who have been waging a secret - or not so secret - war for 14 years.

In the years since the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011, Alaa Aljaleel has become his hometown's unofficial feline caretaker.

Western countries face the prospect of being dragged further into the war in Syria as it prepares to support a new "ground army" from Muslim nations.

New Zealanders first got to know journalist Rachel Smalley from her lively work in television and radio.

Simply by raising the idea of commemorating the wars annually, at least one New Zealander - me - studied up on what the wars were about, Heather writes.

A mother and an Auckland community will gather today to salute their fallen soldier.

Special Ops task force will expand US troops' direct involvement in battling Isis commanders.

Twelve years ago, George W Bush gave his "Mission Accomplished" speech from the flight deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier, confident that the Saddam Hussein regime had been....

Before the Syrian conflict, the country suffered a severe drought. Resulting crop failures sent over 1.5 million people into urban centres that contributed to the destabilisation of the country and devastating civil war.

COMMENT: Russia's President has been taught a lesson with the shooting of a warplane over Turkish air space.

The downing of a Russian SU24 fighter jet by Turkish authorities was inevitable. Russia has flouted the territorial border of Turkey time and again in the past few months so it is no surprise that this has happened.

The immense human toll is a far more immediate and obvious concern.

Muslim communities have to be more forthright in their commitment to Western values and less indulgent of those in their midst who preach and practice hatred, writes Paul Thomas.

The Paris attacks and the largely stalemated war in Iraq and Syria have prompted heavy criticism of Barack Obama's handling of the fight against Isis.

France launched fresh air strikes against Syria yesterday, as a defiant Paris reopened for business.

There is a dissonance between the reality of modern war and the high ideals by which war is justified, writes Chris Barfoot. These ideals form a deadly combination.

A field of 100 wooden crosses will be unveiled to mark the anniversary of the end of World War I.

The father of a Northland man's World War I diaries could be the last returned to veterans' descendants by the British archive.

A Royal Navy sub was sent on a Cold War mission to spy on its own side to prove that crews could safely carry out surveillance of the Russian fleet.

It is less about retaking territory and mostly about sapping the will of Isis fighters by pummelling them into the sand again and again, writes Ron Mark.

The greatest honour we can pay the dead is to learn from the past and to never commit ourselves to such barbarity again, writes Anton Oliver