An Independent Task Force convened by the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations was asked to assess the consequences of this trend and to make appropriate recommendations. In its Statement, the Task Force concludes that the cuts adversely affect the ability of the United States to protect and promote its economic, diplomatic, and strategic agendas abroad. Unless the trend is reversed, American vital interests will be jeapordized.

The time has come to rethink the U.S. approach to the Indo-Pakistani nuclear rivalry, says a Council-sponsored independent Task Force. Instead of continuing the current oplicy of trying to roll back India's and Pakistan's de faco nuclear capabilities, the United States should work with both countries to pursue more limited but potentially achievable objectives, such as to discourage nuclear testing, nuclear weapons deployment, and the export of nuclear weapon or missile related material and technology.

Five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and Russia stand at a crossroads on arms control. Many of the arms control regimes established by Republican and Democratic administrations are under serious challenge in both countries, with the potential to damage U.S. security. With these concerns in mind, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom joined together to sponsor an independent Task Force on U.S.-Russian arms control. The Task Force brief was to assess current and evolving political-military circumstances and the arms control regimes, and to recommend a U.S. policy for the next 12 months. In effect, the Task Force was asked how Americans in particular should think about arms control in the wake of the Cold War’s end and its importance, how to preserve what was worth preserving, and how to change what might need to be changed.

This statement and report - the result of an expert nonpartisan Task Force including UN critics and advocates, Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives - examine whether the United Nations has advanced or hindered the pursuit of U.S. interests in the last five years.

What the United States and the international community have done for Mexico is unique. No other country, with the exception of Canada, could muster such support from the U.S. government. The Mexican peso crisis, therefore, is not a bell weather of currency troubles in emerging economies or a model of how such problems are likely to be handled.

This report offers judgments and makes recommendations on some of the most important questions affecting the future of U.S. national security: priorities for intelligence collection, the role of economic intelligence, improving analysis and increasing its impact, the future of clandestine activities, reorganizing the intelligence community, intelligence ties with both the military and law enforcement, and congressional and public oversight.

The U.S. approach to international conflicts in the post-Cold War period—how we think about them and what actions we take—is enormously affected by America's capabilities to quell them by diplomatic, economic, and military means. To date, the United States has been trapped between classic diplomatic table-thumping and indiscriminate economic sanctions on the one hand, and major military intervention on the other hand. But a new and effective middle option may emerge in the future, one that could lend weight to U.S. crisis diplomacy in situations such as the conflict in Kosovo and offer new capabilities for pressuring adversaries or fighting wars with minimal loss of life. This potential new option could come in the form of non-lethal warfare.

Americans and Europeans can fairly debate whether NATO should expand in the near term or proceed with formal expansion only if Russia again seems to pose a military threat to Central Europe. In much the same way as NATO helped the democracies of Western Europe recover from the devastation of World War II, it now should provide the sense of reassurance and community needed to help the democracies of Central Europe recover from the Cold War, while taking care not to antagonize Moscow in the hopes that the U.S. forges a cooperative relationship with Russia.

This report—the result of an expert bipartisan task force—traces the history of the negotiations, explains what the accord contains, what it requires from the parties, and provides responses to commonly raised questions and criticisms. It also suggests some guidelines for the United States, South Korea, and Japan as they implement the agreement—or protect themselves against its failure.

Released before the 1995 New York City meeting surrounding the Nonproliferation Treaty, this report states that halting the spread of nuclear weapons must be a top priority not just for the United States but for the entire international community.