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A Center for Preventive Action (CPA) Report
With reports emerging regarding the ailing health of Kim Jong-Il, the questions of who will lead North Korea and how, if at all, the regime will change its policies in the future remains uncertain. In this timely report, Paul B. Stares and Joel S. Wit maintain that the United States needs to prepare itself for either managed, contested, or failed succession among North Korea's executive leadership in order to achieve its long-term goal of facilitating regional dialogue in the Six-Party talks.
A CPA Report
The coalition that led the Orange Revolution, which sprouted a new season of democratic reforms for Ukraine, has reached political paralysis regarding NATO membership and energy security. Former ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer argues that it is in the U.S. interest to restore high-level dialogue between Ukranian political leaders to foster strong relations with its West European and Russian neighbors.
This winter's pricing dispute between Russia and Ukraine reminded Europe that its increased dependence on Russian oil and gas fuels East-West political animosities. Jeffrey Mankoff argues that, because of the recent decline in energy prices, Europe is in a unique position to articulate a more coherent European energy strategy to insulate against future disagreements.
A CPA Report
Despite relatively free and fair democratic elections in 2006 and an increase in foreign investment, the remnants of the eastern civil war present challenges in the DRC for realizing security and development. In this sobering analysis, Anthony W. Gambino contends that, despite domestic turmoil, the DRC matters to the United States for humanitarian, political, and economic reasons.
In an increasingly globalizing world, many influential thinkers and policymakers have argued that the world is flat or that power is soft. In this provocative book modeled on Machiavelli's The Prince, Leslie H. Gelb challenges contemporary convention and rethinks American power, holding that America's geopolitical stability must be grounded in the principle of mutual indispensability, or the belief that America can adroitly galvanize a coalition of nations to solve the world's most pressing problems.
As the global recession deepens, the phantom of protectionism has reemerged from the unlikely union of liberal trade and extreme monetary nationalism. In this timely book, Benn Steil and Manuel Hinds argue that if we do not see a revival of the political and economic thinking that defined earlier great periods of globalization, the global trade regime will be subject to periodic crises.
In this thoughtfully researched book, Jeffrey Mankoff shows that Vladimir Putin's aggressive, expansionist foreign policy is rooted in the long-term rising price of oil and the check on U.S. power resulting from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mankoff suggests that there is little reason to expect that Russia, in attempting to assert its place as a global hegemon, will quickly cease its quest for power in Dmitry Medvedev's administration.
The escalating challenges of sectarian conflict in Iraq, Iran's pursuit of nuclear capabilities, domestic policital instability in Lebanon, and a dormant Israeli-Palestinian peace process present challenges for America's ongoing war against terror and efforts to rebrand its image in the Middle East. According to this joint study from CFR and the Saban Center at Brookings, the old policy frameworks of democratization, regime change, and containment should be rejected in favor of a new framework that reflects the dynamic circumstances of the region.
In this CFR Working Paper, Daniel B. Prieto suggests that in order to overcome its deep-seated ideological and partisan disagreements regarding the war on terror, the United States must reexamine the scope and limits of its war against al-Qaeda, treating national security and the protection of individual liberties as equal objectives.
For clear reasons of political influence, national security, global stability, and humanitarian concern, the United States has to learn how to navigate the new economic landscape and not reduce foreign assistance spending. In this report, Laurie A. Garrett makes recommendations for the future of foreign aid under a new presidential administration and Congress.
Never before has a nation as poor as China provided so much financing to a country as rich as the United States. In this CGS Working Paper, Brad W. Setser and Arpana Pandey estimate the true scale of China's U.S. portfolio and examine how the pace of growth and composition of China's portfolio have evolved over time.
This Center for Universal Education (CUE) Working Paper finds that to make significant steps toward achieving quality universal education for the world's poorest children, a new Global Education Fund must employ serious reforms. Author Gene B. Sperling recommends a major rebranding and relaunching moment by heads of state that mobilizes a greater global commitment to redrafting the Education for All–Fast Track Initiative, the architectural framework for global education.
Falling oil prices imply that some Gulf countries may need to draw on their depleted funds to cover their import bills. In this CGS Working Paper, Brad W. Setser and Rachel Ziemba examine the impact of the fall in global equities on the Gulf's large funds and explore how various oil price scenarios could shape those funds' future growth.
In this CPA Working Paper, Monty G. Marshall examines the risk factors that have been identified through systematic inquiry and research. He advocates that existing frameworks for political risk assessment should inform and temper U.S. expectations for policy response rather than trigger costly and risky conflict prevention, intervention, and resolution measures.
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