"France can help us more than we think," writes Walter Russel Mead looking through the history of the rocky U.S.-French relationship to provide context for the current state of the alliance.

Richard Haass looks back to the lessons learned from the Cold War and argues that they still have implications to today's global challenges.

Experts recall how the the United States envisioned its role in a post-Soviet world two decades ago when the Berlin Wall fell and whether expectations of 1989 square with the challenges of 2009.

Listen to experts recall how the the United States envisioned its role in a post-Soviet world two decades ago when the Berlin Wall fell and whether expectations of 1989 square with the challenges of 2009.

Watch experts recall how the the United States envisioned its role in a post-Soviet world two decades ago when the Berlin Wall fell and whether expectations of 1989 square with the challenges of 2009.

Ray Takeyh argues that many critics of the Afghanistan war are wrong to compare it to Vietnam and that such comparisons are "absolutely toxic," in the way that they are limiting progress in Afghanistan.

Watch experts analyze reasons for the fall of the Berlin Wall and how this fit into the larger context of the end of the Cold War.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was not the only significant international development of 1989, writes James Goldgeier. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan and the Tiananmen Square massacre in China signified the emergence of two new international challenges: failed states and illiberal capitalism, each of which has "vexed" the United States for the past two decades.

The fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago marked a triumph of the U.S. strategy of containment. But U.S. policymakers have been struggling to establish new guidelines for confronting the world's complex challenges.

Paul Lettow reviews the book, The Hawk and the Dove by Nicholas Thompson. A joint biography of Paul Nitze and George Kennan--two Soviet-era State Department officials--the book is hailed as "well conceived and deftly written," by Lettow.

Luiza Ch. Savage discusses Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's worries about restoring the Canadian-American relationship.

Richard N. Haass argues, "Golf... provides more insight into politics and economics than most people realize."

Peter Beinart discusses Hillary Clinton's speech at CFR.

George Herring's well-written and lively book may turn out to be one of the last attempts by a leading scholar to compress a comprehensive and comprehensible account of the United States' foreign relations into a single volume.

Rory Stewart writes on his fear that policy language on Afghanistan--language that can be "applied as easily to Somalia or Yemen as Afghanistan"--will create a single worldview. Adopting such a worldview, Stewart writes, may mislead us into "minimising differences between cultures, exaggerating our fears, aggrandising our ambitions, inflating a sense of moral obligations and power, and confusing our goals."

Peter Beinart discusses Franklin D. Roosevelt's foreign policy legacy.

Watch Jeffrey Mankoff, adjunct fellow for Russia studies at CFR, discuss his new book, Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics.

Listen to Jeffrey Mankoff, adjunct fellow for Russia studies at CFR, discuss his new book, Russian Foreign Policy: The Return of Great Power Politics.

Leslie H. Gelb discusses foreign policy bestsellers.

Listen to CFR President Richard N. Haass discuss his new book, War of Necessity, War of Choice: A Memoir of Two Iraq Wars, with educators as part of CFR's Academic Conference Call series.

Learn more about CFR's Academic Initiative.