Expert Bio

Linda Robinson is senior fellow for women and foreign policy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) where she writes about women's political and economic leadership, the relationship between gender equality and democracy, technology-facilitated violence, and current international affairs. She was previously a senior international researcher and director of the Center for Middle East Public Policy at the RAND Corporation. She has also been a fellow at the Wilson Center, the Merrill Center at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, and the Nieman Foundation at Harvard. A former foreign correspondent for U.S. News & World Report and senior editor at Foreign Affairs, Ms. Robinson provides frequent commentary on international affairs and U.S. foreign policy. Her books include Masters of Chaos, a New York Times bestseller; Tell Me How This Ends, a Foreign Affairs bestseller and a New York Times Notable Book of 2008; One Hundred Victories, about Afghanistan; and Intervention or Neglect, about Central America. She received the Gerald R. Ford Prize for Reporting on National Defense and the Maria Moors Cabot Prize for reporting on Latin America. She served as Chair of the U.S. Army War College Board of Visitors and in other government advisory positions and has testified before Congress on multiple topics including special operations, the Iraq war, and the Middle East. She is writing a book about the current cohort of women political leaders.  

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Top Stories on CFR

Global Governance

The rise of middle powers in recent decades has offered a counterweight to the strain created by the United States, China, and Russia in international affairs. But although middle powers challenge great power leadership within multilateral institutions, they also create stability within those institutions and have a vested interested in maintaining it. 

United States

The world faces unresolved conflicts, growing climate crises, attacks on aid workers, two famines, and diminishing political will—along with significant aid cuts. Altogether, 2025 has earned a grim new superlative: the worst humanitarian year on record.

U.S. Foreign Policy Program

As 2025 comes to a close, here are the ten most notable world events of the year.