Informing U.S. engagement with the world

Violence continues to rage some two decades after the Mexican government launched a war against drug cartels.

A long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is underway, though not without tensions. An end to the conflict is still up in the air, with all the old obstacles remaining in Trump’s twenty-point roadmap to peace.

Beijing has tightened its grip on Hong Kong in recent years, dimming hopes that the financial center will ever become a full democracy.

The IRGC is one of the most powerful organizations in Iran, conceived as the principal defender of the 1979 revolution, and now a critical link to Islamist militant groups violently opposed to Israel and the United States.

The costs of hosting the Olympics have skyrocketed, while the economic benefits are far from clear. The 2024 Paris Olympics could be a test of whether reforms to the process have made hosting a better deal.

More than two years into the civil war in Sudan, about twelve million people have been forcibly displaced. Yet experts say the country’s devastating humanitarian crisis is still not getting the international attention it deserves.

The United States cannot out-mine and out-process China. Instead, it should leapfrog China’s dominance by scaling disruptive innovation, recovery, and recycling.

CFR Senior Fellow Robert D. Blackwill outlines the conceptual pillars of five grand strategy schools and analyzes arguments for and against those strategies advanced by their proponents and critics. He then proposes an alternative American grand strategy: resolute global leadership.

The world continues to grow more violent and disorderly. According to CFR’s annual conflict risk assessment, American foreign policy experts are acutely concerned about conflict-related threats to U.S. national security and international stability that are likely to emerge or intensify in 2026. In this report, surveyed experts rate global conflicts by their likelihood and potential harm to U.S. interests and, for the first time, identify opportunities for preventive action.

The primary U.S. response to China’s first-mover advantages in emerging auto technologies has been protection. A smarter strategy would seek to compete by supporting producers and collaborating with allies, while managing security risks.

Assumptions about how a potential conflict between the United States and China over Taiwan would unfold should urgently be revisited. Such a war, far from being insulated, would likely draw in additional powers, expand geographically, and escalate vertically.