Douglas Dillon Fellow Micah Zenko analyzes the potentially serious consequences, both at home and abroad, of a lightly overseen drone program and makes recommendations for improving its governance.
In this globalized world, countries will need to cooperate on policies that extend across borders to address issues that affect them all, including conflict prevention and peacemaking. The authors of this report assess the strengths and weaknesses of international institutions and provide a set of practical recommendations for how the United States can strengthen the global architecture for preventive action by partnering with those organizations.
Last August, the Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney performed what has become a quadrennial rite of passage in American presidential politics: he delivered a speech to the annual convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
In this globalized world, countries will need to cooperate on policies that extend across borders to address issues that affect them all, including conflict prevention and peacemaking. The authors of this report assess the strengths and weaknesses of international institutions and provide a set of practical recommendations for how the United States can strengthen the global architecture for preventive action by partnering with those organizations.
What comes after the New START treaty? A follow-on treaty should limit the U.S. and Russia to 1,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons, says this CFR report.
The United States can ill afford the burden of additional foreign policy challenges, making it imperative that the U.S. government find ways to identify, delay, and avert international crises that could harm U.S. interests or even lead to military engagement. In this report, the authors provide an actionable road map for how the U.S. government should revamp its existing U.S. prevention architecture to make it more effective in dealing with potential crises abroad.
UN peacekeeping is a crucial U.S. partner in maintaining stability, but the Obama administration must take a more vigorous role in promoting it or risk losing support in Congress, write CFR's Micah Zenko and Rebecca Friedman.
As NATO prepares for this weekend's summit, the U.S. should consider removing its nuclear weapons from Europe, as its tactical nuclear umbrella over NATO is no longer vital to European security. Russia also should limit its nuclear arsenal, says CFR's Micah Zenko.
As the debate over intervention or arming the opposition grows amid continuing violence in Syria, four CFR experts offer their recommendations on how Washington should respond to the crisis.
Which policies have worked and which ones need work ten years after the worst terrorist attacks in U.S. history? CFR experts examine ten issues that have preoccupied U.S. planners.
The White House's proposed budget for FY2012 tries to balance spending cuts with investment to boost competitiveness. CFR experts examine how well it handles deficit reduction, defense, foreign aid, and spurring innovation.
The Seoul summit advances global efforts on securing nuclear materials in dozens of countries, but the challenge will be to sustain the focus on the universal elimination of weapons-usable material, writes CFR's Micah Zenko.
Drones have become a cost-effective default tactic for dealing with potential terrorist threats since 9/11, but this policy could lead to drone strikes by other countries as well as pushback from targeted states, says CFR's Micah Zenko.
President Obama's decision to make Leon Panetta head of the Pentagon and Gen. David Petraeus head of the CIA shows the growing influence of the intelligence agency and its integration with the military, says CFR's Micah Zenko.
President Obama's Nuclear Posture Review properly shifts the source of threats facing the United States to non-state actors and sets the stage for upcoming nonproliferation talks, writes CFR's Micah Zenko.
The eurozone and Saudi Arabia are elevated threats in 2012 under CFR's new Preventive Priorities Survey, while Afghanistan and Sudan are reduced. CFR's Micah Zenko discusses.
Russia's parliament ratified the New START treaty, but Russian domestic issues like terrorism, as well as U.S. and Russian presidential elections in 2012, make it unlikely that any further accords will be negotiated for a while, says CFR's Micah Zenko.
Despite recent successes, unmanned drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan remain a controversial tactic. CFR's Micah Zenko says the Obama administration must shed new details on the "worst kept covert secret in the history of U.S. foreign policy."
CFR Fellow Micah Zenko says U.S. air strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas are ineffective as a counterinsurgency tool. He recommends that Washington create oversight mechanisms for its covert operations in the tribal areas and develop a comprehensive national strategy toward Pakistan.
According to Micah Zenko, "We are deluding ourselves if we believe that we need more time to "think through" U.S. military intervention options for Syria. We have an excellent understanding of what those options are, and a vast majority of officials, policymakers, and the American people do not believe they are worth the effort."
In response President Obama's recent speech about drones Micah Zenko writes, "What matters now is whether the Obama administration will actually tell Congress and the American public how it is conducting targeted killings."
Micah Zenko examines U.S. President Barack Obama's May 23, 2013 speech on drone strike and counterterrorism policies. "The enduring impact of Mr. Obama's speech will not be what he says, but whether the new policies are reflected in how drone strikes are conducted, and whether his administration will finally and faithfully engage with the public, more than a decade after the operations began," Zenko writes.
On NBC Nightly News, Micah Zenko says that more civilians and non-combatants have likely been killed by U.S. drone strikes than the Obama administration has claimed.
On the Charlie Rose show, a panel of experts discussed President Obama's May 23, 2013 speech on drone strike and counterterrorism policies, including Micah Zenko of the Council on Foreign Relations; David Kilcullen, former advisor to Gen. Petraeus; David Ignatius of the Washington Post; Karen Greenberg of Fordham Law School;and Philip Mudd, former Deputy Director of the CIA and the FBI.
On The Takeaway with John Hockenberry, Micah Zenko, Douglas Dillon Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and author of a recent comprehensive report on drone strike policies, describes the diplomatic problems that arise from targeted killing.