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

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

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.

The G8 summit affirmed the group's importance as a U.S. partner as it seeks a common front on the "Arab Spring" uprisings, and in forging collective action on human rights and security matters, says CFR's Stewart Patrick.

Stewart Patrick contends that assumptions about the threats posed by failing states--or "weak links"--are based on anecdotal arguments and challenges the conventional wisdom through systematic empirical analysis.

Secretary of State Clinton's new call for vigorous U.S. leadership of global institutions to face modern challenges runs up against the rise of unpredictable emerging powers and Washington's shrinking stature, says CFR's Stewart Patrick.

Recent events in Darfur raise the familiar question of whether international law facilitates the kind of early, decisive, and coherent action needed to effectively combat genocide. Matthew C. Waxman argues that putting decisions about international intervention solely in the hands of the UN Security Council risks undermining the threat or use of intervention when it may be most potent in stopping mass atrocities.

China has benefited enormously from Western-dominated global structures, writes CFR's Stewart Patrick, and Washington now expects it to contribute more significantly to world order.

Surveys during the past decade show consistent support among Americans for the UN's role in the world order but also worry about its dysfunctions. CFR's Stewart Patrick says President Barack Obama should echo these sentiments in his UN address.

President Obama's first appearance before the UN General Assembly is an opportunity to reassert U.S. leadership at the world body on issues from nonproliferation to peacekeeping, writes CFR's Stewart Patrick.