Independent Task Force Program

The Council on Foreign Relations sponsors Independent Task Forces to assess issues of critical importance to U.S. foreign policy. Diverse in backgrounds and perspectives, Task Force members work to reach meaningful consensus across partisan lines on matters of policy. Since the program’s inception in 1995, Task Forces have become a trademark of the Council. For more information, please contact [email protected]
  • Taiwan

    Although a conflict in the Taiwan Strait has thus far been avoided, deterrence has dangerously eroded. To maintain peace, the United States must restore balance to a situation that has been allowed to tilt far too much in China’s favor.
  • Cybersecurity

    The early advantages the United States held in cyberspace have largely disappeared as the internet has become more fragmented, less free, and more dangerous. The United States needs a new foreign policy for cyberspace to secure its economic and security interests. 
  • China

    The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy undertaking and the world’s largest infrastructure program, poses a significant challenge to U.S. economic, political, climate change, security, and global health interests.
  • COVID-19

    COVID-19 has confirmed the U.S. and global vulnerabilities that were repeatedly identified in high-level reports, commissions, and intelligence assessments on pandemic threats for nearly two decades …
  • Technology and Innovation

    The United States has led the world in innovation, research, and technology development since World War II, but that leadership is now at risk. Addressing the challenge from China and other rising sc…
  • Labor and Employment

    The world is in the midst of a transformation in the nature of work, as smart machines, artificial intelligence, new technologies, and global competition remake how people do their jobs and pursue th…
  • Arctic

    Overview “The United States, through Alaska, is a significant Arctic nation with strategic, economic, and scientific interests,” asserts a new Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored (CFR) Independ…
  • North Korea

    A new Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Independent Task Force report, A Sharper Choice on North Korea: Engaging China for a Stable Northeast Asia, finds that the United States’ policy of “strategic…