Stewart Patrick contends that assumptions about the threats posed by failing states--or "weak links"--are based on anecdotal arguments and challenges the conventional wisdom through systematic empirical analysis.

Kara C. McDonald and Stewart M. Patrick offer recommendations for U.S. leadership in United Nations Security Council reform and expansion.

A preview of world events in the coming week from CFR.org: World powers convene in Geneva for a crisis meeting on Syria; Mexico holds presidential elections; and the U.S. House and Senate go into recess.

A preview of world events in the coming week from CFR.org: The UN Security Council debates the mission in Syria; the deadline approaches for the U.S. Congress to pass a stalled highway bill; and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime launches the 2012 World Drug Report.

CFR's Senior Fellow and Director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program Stewart Patrick and CFR.org Editor Robert McMahon preview major world events in the week ahead.

CFR's Director of Studies James Lindsay and Director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program Stewart Patrick preview major world events in the week ahead.

In this week's podcast: The famine in the horn of Africa continues to unfold; Rebel gains in Libya may accelerate talk of an end to the conflict; and the UN Security Council debates its peacekeeping operations.

A preview of world events in the coming week from CFR.org: the debt-ceiling standoff continues in Washington; U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visits Indonesia, Hong Kong, and China; Peru's President-elect Ollanta Humala is sworn in; and the UN Security Council debates Sudan and Libya.

State Department Policy Planning staff member Stewart Patrick gave these remarks at the Lewis and Clark College forty-second Annual International Affairs Symposium, The Suffering of Strangers: Global Humanitarian Intervention in a Turbulent World, April 5-7, 2004.

In testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations Subcommittee on International Development, Foreign Assistance, and International Environmental Protection, Stewart M. Patrick discusses policy options for international disaster assistance.

Despite its booming economy, Mexico continues to struggle with alarmingly high levels of violence linked to drugs and organized crime. This video primer examines the crisis and explores policy options for Mexico and the United States.

As world leaders prepare for the Group of Twenty nations summit June 18-20 in Los Cabos, Mexico, CFR's Stewart M. Patrick talks with Enrique Berruga of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations about the upcoming meeting and the G20's future.

With drug legalization increasingly debated by world leaders, CFR's Stewart Patrick and Phil Williams of the University of Pittsburgh discuss the explosion of transnational crime in a globalized world.

After emerging from the 2008 financial crisis relatively unscathed, Brazil's inevitable entrance into the club of major global powers is increasingly accepted. CFR's Stewart M. Patrick and Carlos Simonsen Leal of the Brazilian Getulio Vargas Foundation discuss Brazil's perspective on global finance and international security.

As U.S. and European leaders prepare for the NATO summit in May, CFR's Stewart M. Patrick and Chatham House Director Robin Niblett discuss why the alliance will remain important for Europe and the United States after NATO withdraws from Afghanistan.

In the wake of the debate over electing a non-American president of the World Bank, CFR's Stewart Patrick and Thierry de Montbrial of the French Institute for International Relations discuss the challenges of reforming global institutions to include emerging powers.

The winner of the 2012 presidential election will continue to rely on the UN as a foreign policy tool to serve U.S. interests, but navigating the U.S.-UN relationship will be one of the president's biggest foreign policy challenges, says CFR's Stewart M. Patrick.

A second tier of middle-income powers is emerging beyond the BRICS alliance of Brazil, India, China, Russia and South Africa. CFR's Stewart M. Patrick discusses how these countries complicate traditional conceptions of East vs. West and developed vs. developing nations.

The UN Human Rights Council is emerging as an increasingly relevant player in the Syrian crisis. CFR's Stewart M. Patrick highlights five things to know about the revived global human rights forum.

As Mexico prepares to welcome the first meeting of G20 foreign ministers this weekend, CFR's Stewart M. Patrick highlights five things to know about the world's steering body for global financial cooperation.

The Russian and Chinese veto of a UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to violence in Syria calls into question the viability of the Responsibility to Protect doctrine and poses a dilemma for the Obama administration, says CFR's Stewart Patrick.

CFR's Stewart Patrick outlines the debate over UN Security Council reform and discusses the obstacles going forward.

This video is part of a special Council on Foreign Relations series that explores how 9/11 changed international relations and U.S. foreign policy. In this video, Stewart M. Patrick, senior fellow and director of the International Institutions and Global Governance Program at the Council on Foreign Relations, identifies the successes and lasting challenges in the international community's response to global terrorism since the attacks of September 11, 2001. "The world has made a lot of progress," says Patrick, "but it still has quite a bit of a ways to go to achieve real consensus and real solidarity in this fight."