Khalifa Haftar’s march on the Libyan capital is a bid for control of a fragmented state. Backed by a set of powerful governments, he could carry on the fight for a long time.
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Mohammed Salem/Reuters
It is time for a paradigm shift in how we think about the Middle East.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu campaigned on his tough diplomacy and his relationship with U.S. President Donald J. Trump. What happens now for the Palestinian peace process?
Indonesia
With another five-year term, President Joko Widodo will possibly revive economic reform efforts and could take a more skeptical view toward China.
Genocide
The history of the Genocide Convention stretches back more than seventy years, yet much work remains to be done to prevent and respond to atrocities.
Despite evidence of systematic violence against the Rohingya, countries remain reluctant to classify the humanitarian crisis in Myanmar’s Rakhine State as genocide.
Brexit
Sebastian Mallaby, senior fellow for international economics at CFR, discusses with James M. Lindsay the Brexit extension and Theresa May’s next six months.
UK Prime Minister Theresa May has been unable to convince her own party to pass the Brexit deal she negotiated with the European Union because of its backstop provision. What is it, and why does it matter?
Social Media
Violence attributed to online hate speech has increased worldwide. Societies confronting the trend must deal with questions of free speech and censorship on widely used tech platforms.
CFR on the Record
Ambassador Robert D. Blackwill’s Council Special Report Trump’s Foreign Policies Are Better Than They Seem takes a step back from the feverish media temperature associated with coverage of Donald J. Trump’s first two years in office and offers a detailed analytical look at the president’s foreign policies—from his heavily scrutinized approaches to NATO and European security and rising Chinese power to his stances on North Korea, Afghanistan, and Venezuela. Blackwill grades Trump not on whether the president gets what he wants, but on whether his policies successfully promote U.S. national interests.
President Tshisekedi discusses the recent elections in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the future of the country in the region.
Sheila A. Smith discusses her new book, Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power.
Governor Visco discusses Italy’s economic reform, the state of the country’s public finances, and the economic governance of the European Union.
Expert Spotlight
Explainers
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Refugees and Displaced Persons
No Refuge
Why the world’s swelling refugee population has shrinking options.
Women and Economic Growth
Growing Economies Through Gender Parity
Closing the gender gap in the workforce could add a staggering $28 trillion to the global GDP.
Wars and Conflict
Global Conflict Tracker
The Center for Preventive Action’s Global Conflict Tracker is an interactive guide to ongoing conflicts around the world of concern to the United States.
North Korea
North Korean Nuclear Negotiations: A Brief History
Nuclear negotiations involving the United States and North Korea, which have proceeded in fits and starts over more than a quarter century, have been stymied by mistrust.
China
China’s Massive Belt and Road Initiative
China’s Belt and Road Initiative is the most ambitious infrastructure investment effort in history. But is it also a plan to remake the global balance of power?
Experts in the News
Featured Publications
President Donald J. Trump’s actions have often been rash, ignorant, and chaotic. Yet some of his individual foreign policies are substantially better than his opponents assert.
Japan’s United States–imposed postwar constitution renounced the use of offensive military force, but, Sheila A. Smith shows, a nuclear North Korea and an increasingly assertive China have the Japanese rethinking that commitment—and their reliance on U.S. security.
In chronicling the adventurous life of legendary CIA operative Edward Lansdale, The Road Not Taken definitively reframes our understanding of the Vietnam War.