This task force on Russia and U.S. national interests, from Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Center for the National Interest, makes the case that Russia remains one of the handful of countries in the world that can deeply affect American national interests, demanding constant U.S. attention.

In this Center for Preventive Action Policy Innovation Memorandum, Elliott Abrams argues that the United States should work to bring down Bashar al-Assad by isolating his regime from Syria's Alawite and business communities.

Han Sung-joo, former South Korean foreign minister and former ambassador of the ROK to the United States, writes on emerging challenges to U.S.-ROK relations as Lee Myung-bak visits the United States this week.

In this Center for Preventive Action Working Paper, Payton L. Knopf argues that the State Department must develop a framework for engaging with nonstate armed groups. He also calls on the department to make bureaucratic and operational reforms to execute this increasingly important mission.

Paul D. Williams assesses Africa's growing strategic importance to the United States, while clarifying how the African Union (AU) is poised to be a U.S. partner on the continent. Citing numerous challenges facing the AU regarding conflict management capabilities, this Working Paper enumerates practical policy recommendations for capacity-building in this area.

Yemen is experiencing serious political turmoil after more than three decades of President Ali Abdullah Saleh's autocratic rule. To help stabilize Yemen, Gregory Johnsen argues that the United States must broaden its policy toward the country beyond counterterrorism efforts.

Investment in maternal health in Afghanistan provides a cost-effective way to promote strategic U.S. foreign policy objectives including reducing maternal and child mortality, improving public health, empowering women, and fostering economic stability, and therefore, as part of a responsible drawdown in Afghanistan the U.S. government continue its commitments to training midwives and improving other maternal health programs to expand the advances made in women’s health since 2001.

In this Center for Preventive Action study, CFR scholars provide policy options for preventing a major crisis and mitigating the consequences in the territories immediately adjacent to China: North Korea, Myanmar, Pakistan, and Central Asia.

This is a joint report from CFR and Aspen Institute India detailing policy recommendations by high-level U.S. and Indian strategists for the U.S.-India relationship.

A broad-sweeping look at international efforts to combat terrorism. This is part of the Global Governance Monitor, an interactive feature tracking multilateral approaches to several global challenges.

This memo assesses the repercussions of a Pakistan-based terrorist attack on the United States and recommends responses for U.S. decision-makers.

Tobacco is reemerging as a polarizing issue in U.S. trade policy. New trade agreement negotiations are forcing the White House to choose between the tobacco debate's partisans. This policy innovation memorandum proposes a new strategy by which the Obama administration can better balance U.S. mandates on trade policy on tobacco with its interests in promoting global health and U.S. standing abroad.

Public disorder and instability in Libya could emerge if the Qaddafi regime falls. The United States should support a stabilization effort to prevent the potential consequences of regime failure.

Emma L. Belcher recommends strengthening the Proliferation Security Initiative and adopting its model for other agreements in order to advance U.S. interests in preventing proliferation and provide a useful framework to mobilize international action on important global issues.

Emma L. Belcher recommends the establishment of a nuclear security fund to which the private sector could contribute in order to help build nuclear security capacity worldwide.

Paul B. Stares offers crisis preparedness solutions to help the Obama administration reduce its chances of being blindsided by future uprisings like it was by 2011's Arab Spring.

This Policy Innovation Memorandum argues that the United States should move quickly to convert the post-bin Laden crisis into an opportunity for significant and positive reform of Pakistan's security and intelligence services.

This Contingency Planning Memorandum describes how electoral instability and insurrectionary violence may once again afflict the Democratic Republic of Congo and posits steps the United States can take to prevent these scenarios from occurring and mitigate their potential consequences.

CFR fellows Isobel Coleman and Gayle Lemmon convincingly argue that investment in voluntary international family planning is one of the most cost-effective ways to strengthen critical U.S. foreign policy objectives, including improving global health, promoting economic development, stabilizing fragile states, and encouraging environmental sustainability.

Family planning and reproductive health programs improve public health, foster stability, and enhance efforts to maximize economic growth. Consequently, investments in reproductive health and family planning are necessary for the success of U.S. foreign policy goals in high population growth countries, such as Egypt, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.