Sluggish growth, massive corruption, and declining trust in democratic institutions are plaguing a newly fragile region.
Rodrigo Garrido/Reuters
Hong Kong
Tyrone Siu/Reuters
As the twentieth anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover to China approaches, questions persist about ‘One Country, Two Systems.’
Saudi Arabia
King Salman's son Mohammed is now the desert kingdom's dominant figure—and the challenges before him are huge.
Saudi Arabia’s stability is not under immediate threat, but questions about the Kingdom's fate in longer-term will persist.
Labor and Employment
CFR's Ted Alden and Bob Litan join Jim Lindsay to talk about cultivating new job skills, automation, and American competitiveness.
Experts explore the potential for mass job loss created by technological advances and, in turn, the possible need for a large welfare state to care for an increasingly underemployed population.
FBI
The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been reoriented toward counterterrorism in recent years, but continues to face charges of overreach.
The dismissal of FBI Director James Comey raises concerns about the government’s ability to investigate Russian meddling in U.S. elections, and the broader national security role of the agency.
CFR on the Record
Senator John Cornyn discusses the challenge facing the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.
Is it possible for the United States to avoid a confrontation with China?
Experts discuss foreign language learning in the U.S. education system as well as learning methods that go beyond the classroom walls, and the value of foreign language learning to U.S. national security.
Expert Spotlight
Adjunct Senior Fellow for Business and Globalization
Competitiveness Labor and Employment Technology and Innovation
Explainers
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Labor and Employment
The Migrant Worker Challenge
Hundreds of thousands of migrants come to the United States each year for work, but Washington has struggled to balance the shifting needs of industry with the concerns of the domestic labor force.
Democratic Republic of Congo
The Eastern Congo
Over the past two decades, the eastern provinces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo have experienced fighting that has killed more than five million people. As the eastern Congo struggles to overcome years of regional war, its hard-won progress remains at risk.
Cuba
U.S.-Cuba Relations
The Trump administration has partially rolled back some business guidelines with Cuba while largely leaving the normalization policy unchanged.
Religion
The Sunni-Shia Divide
Sectarian conflict is becoming entrenched in a growing number of Muslim countries and is threatening to fracture Iraq and Syria. Tensions between Sunnis and Shias, exploited by regional rivals Saudi Arabia and Iran, could reshape the future Middle East.
Kurds
Are Conditions Ripening for Iraqi Kurdish State?
Iraqi Kurds have enjoyed virtual autonomy for more than two decades, but formal independence might finally be in reach due to changing realities facing Iraq and Turkey. (Azad Lashkari/Reuters)
Experts in the News
Featured Publications
A sweeping narrative account of the last five years in the Middle East and a timely argument of how and why the Arab uprisings failed.
CFR President Richard N. Haass argues for an updated global operating system to address challenges from terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons to climate change and cyberspace.
The definitive account of the secret war in the tiny Southeast Asian nation of Laos, which lasted almost two decades and forever changed the CIA’s controversial role in foreign policy.