News Releases
-
Although China’s future is uncertain, “further integrating China into the global community offers the best hope of shaping China’s interests and conduct in accordance with international norms on security, trade and finance, and human rights, and encouraging collaboration to confront the challenges both countries face,” finds a Council-sponsored Independent Task Force, U.S.- China Relations: An Affirmative Agenda, A Responsible Course.
-
“For policymakers everywhere, Nigeria should be the central African question. No country’s fate is so decisive for the continent. No other country across a range of issues has the power so thoroughly to shape outcomes elsewhere in sub-Saharan Africa. If Nigeria works well, so might Africa. If the democratic experiment in Nigeria stalls, and development and governance stagnate, the rest of Africa suffers and loses hope,” concludes a new Council Special Report.
-
The Doha negotiations have stalled and the November elections in the United States showed that advocates of economic nationalism are growing in strength. Nevertheless, a new Council Special Report makes a case for the effectiveness of the World Trade Organization (WTO), particularly its dispute settlement system. “The dispute settlement system reflects a delicate balance between toughness and respect for sovereignty; rather than criticizing the result, U.S. policymakers and legislators should invest more energy in defending it,” says the report.
-
-
Diplomacy and International Institutions
“Washington’s reaction to [Evo] Morales’ election, policies, and rhetoric has been to ‘wait and see,’” says a new Council Special Report. “Yet after nearly nine months in office, the Morales administration’s policy agenda has taken shape and, unfortunately, has exacerbated political, ethnic, and racial schisms in Bolivian society.” -
“The United States should...make clear now to the Iraqi government that, as the results of the anticipated surge become apparent, the two sides will begin to negotiate a U.S. military disengagement from Iraq,” says a new Council Special Report. “The proposed military disengagement would not be linked to benchmarks that the Iraqi government is probably incapable of fulfilling....The U.S. drawdown should not be hostage to Iraqi performance.”
-
-
The consequences of a 9/11-scale terrorist attack or a major natural disaster can be minimized if “America makes building national resiliency from within as important a public policy imperative as confronting dangers from without,” says Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies Stephen E. Flynn in The Edge of Disaster: Rebuilding a Resilient Nation.
-
The new secretary-general of the United Nations should make genocide prevention a centerpiece of his reform agenda, concludes a new Council Special Report. "Ban Ki-moon should take the General Assembly’s endorsement of the responsibility to protect as a mandate and mission statement for the UN and build a reform program that is designed to implement it."
-
-
-
Foreign Affairs, published by the Council on Foreign Relations since 1922, has again been ranked #1 in influence by U.S. opinion leaders in a recent national study conducted by Erdos & Morgan, the premier business-to-business research firm. The findings place Foreign Affairs ahead of all media, both print and broadcast, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, and the Washington Post.
-
Conflict in the Horn of Africa is escalating rapidly as power struggles within Somalia are exacerbated by military support that both Ethiopia and Eritrea give to the opposing parties there. Ethiopia backs the weak interim government; Eritrea sponsors the Islamic militants fighting to overthrow it. Because the United States has accused Somalia of harboring al-Qaeda suspects, “the Ethiopian-Eritrean proxy conflict increases the opportunities for terrorist infiltration of the Horn and East Africa and for ignition of a larger regional conflict,” warns a new Council Special Report.
-
Diplomacy and International Institutions
“Chávez’s bark...is far worse than his bite,” says a new Council Special Report, which urges U.S. officials to “look beyond his blustery rhetoric…as long as Chávez does not take steps that fundamentally threaten essential U.S. interests in Latin America.” With polls showing Chávez strongly in the lead in the upcoming December 3 Venezuelan presidential election, the United States needs to prepare for another six-year term with the controversial leader. -
Reforms of the U.S. patent system have made it too easy to obtain and defend patents and more costly to challenge patent decisions, thereby limiting the competition of ideas, discouraging innovation, and ultimately reducing U.S. competitiveness, argues a new Council Special Report.
-
The new Mexican president, Felipe Calderón, who will formally take office December 1, inherits significant domestic policy challenges and a bumpy relationship with the United States. “How these problems are addressed during his six-year tenure will determine Mexico’s economic and political course well into the future,” says a new Council Special Report.
-
Replacing domestic currencies with an international one is the best way for developing countries to create a financially stable environment and integrate into the ever-globalizing world economy, argues international financial consultant Manuel Hinds in a new Council book.
-
America’s dependence on imported energy increases its strategic vulnerability and constrains its ability to pursue foreign policy and national security objectives, finds a Council-sponsored Independent Task Force. “The lack of sustained attention to energy issues is undercutting U.S. foreign policy and U.S. national security,” says the report.
-
Diplomacy and International Institutions
“Getting Iran wrong is the single thread that has linked American administrations of all political persuasions,” writes Council Senior Fellow Ray Takeyh in his book, Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic. -
“America’s early lead in the Information Revolution can easily be lost—it may be lost already—if it does not stay at the forefront of military developments,” warns Senior Fellow for National Security Studies Max Boot in his latest book, War Made New: Technology, Warfare, and the Course of History.
-
Trade accounts for nearly a quarter of U.S. gross domestic product. In recent decades, trade has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty around the world. Furthermore, trade policy inevitably affects national security, employment stability, environmental protection, labor standards, health issues, immigration, and monetary policy—all of which makes the recent implosion of the Doha trade talks all the more significant.
-
-
Joschka Fischer, former minister of foreign affairs and vice chancellor of Germany, will join the Council in the position of distinguished visiting diplomat on September 5. Fischer will write and speak on European and transatlantic issues, reflecting on his career, contemporary issues, and challenges ahead.
-
Gary Samore, former National Security Council staffer during the Clinton administration and long-time State Department official, will become the Council’s new director of studies at the beginning of October.