CFR President Richard N. Haass discusses his new book, Foreign Policy Begins at Home.

Peter Orszag argues that giving health-care providers a fixed payment for each Medicare beneficiary could provide a path forward between competing views of health care reform offered by Republicans and Democrats.

CFR President Richard N. Haass discusses his new book, Foreign Policy Begins at Home.

Richard N. Haass discusses his new book, Foreign Policy Begins at Home, in which he puts forward a new foreign policy doctrine of Restoration, where the United States limits its engagement in wars of choice and humanitarian interventions abroad, and focuses on restoring the foundations of its power at home.

Shannon O'Neil debunks five myths about Mexico.

Micah Zenko weighs the options on a United States intervention in Syria.

The urge to gloat at America's imperfections and struggles ought to be resisted, says Richard N. Haass. The rest of the world's stake in American success is nearly as large as that of the United States itself.

In light of recent reports of chemical weapons being used against Syrian civilians, Gayle Tzemach Lemmon highlights frustrations felt by some State Department employees at the lack of response from the White House.

"Behind the scenes diplomacy could encourage positive responses from concerned regional parties, Arab and Israeli, that would give them all something to talk about," writes Robert Danin.

Shannon O'Neil provides insight into President Obama's visit to Mexico this week.

Obama is right not to rush to war, given our checkered past on the use of chemical weapons and the sinkhole of hatreds in Syria, writes Leslie H. Gelb.

CFR President Richard Haass calls on Americans to "resolve our political dysfunction, rethink our foreign policy and restore the foundations of American power—and in the process provide another century of American leadership."

A preview of world events in the coming week from CFR.org: U.S. president Barack Obama visits Mexico and Costa Rica; Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe heads to Russia; and tensions persist over the East China Sea.

Andrew Kohut, founding director of the Pew Research Center, discusses the themes outlined in his forthcoming CFR Working Paper Resilient American Values: Optimism in an Era of Growing Inequality and Economic Difficulty, as part of CFR's State and Local Officials Conference Call series.

Ray Takeyh examines examples of foreign policy failures turned success, including "the shift in U.S. containment policy during the early stages of the Truman presidency; the changed U.S. approach to the Vietnam War after Richard Nixon's 1968 election; and George W. Bush's surge in Iraq."

George J. Mitchell discusses his career in government, as part of the HBO History Makers Series.

George J. Mitchell discusses his career in government, as part of the HBO History Makers Series.

Government regulators should take their cues from the statistics-obsessed sports geeks of Moneyball and use data and empirical evidence to evaluate rules, instead of relying heavily on intuition, anecdotes, dogmas, and impressions.

A decade ago, when the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, the United States chose to immerse itself in the greater Middle East when it had little reason to dive in. But now that most Americans want little to do with the region, U.S. officials are finding it difficult to turn away.

As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton helped restore America's standing in the world, but she left office with no signature achievement. If she gets her way, her tenure as the country's top diplomat will come to be seen simply as a stepping-stone to the presidency