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International efforts, such as the Paris Agreement, aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But experts say countries aren’t doing enough to limit dangerous global warming.
Research & Analysis
Books & Reports
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Although local communities decide where and how development occurs, the federal government pays for those decisions when disaster strikes. In the face of climate change, the federal government should insist on local risk reduction measures.
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World Trade Organization (WTO)
The Trump administration has destroyed the World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body, much to the dismay of those needing the certainty of a rules-based trading system. Three reforms could get it back on track. -
The education gender gap costs the world between $15 trillion and $30 trillion in human capital. U.S. aid programs need to equip girls and women to participate in the modern digital economy.
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Revamping the U.S. Postal Service could help solve long-standing problems with validating identities in the digital realm and make email a true substitute for physical mail.
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The U.S. Department of the Treasury should transform its foreign currency report so it can be used as a tool to combat currency manipulation. This would be an important step toward a more balanced global economy with fewer persistent deficits and surpluses.
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The United States needs to safeguard the democratic process against foreign interference. It should ensure both the technical integrity of the voting system and that voters are not subjected to foreign influence operations that violate campaign laws.
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Trump’s new approach to the Palestinians will do more harm than good. The United States cannot solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, but it can and should avoid making it worse.
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Women are routinely underrepresented in peacekeeping operations, even though their participation has been shown to improve mission effectiveness and advance stability. The U.S. government should support a UN premium for police- and troop-contributing countries to increase the training and deployment of female peacekeepers.
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China is increasing its administrative control over the South China Sea. The U.S. government should initiate information operations that hinder China’s ability to expand and consolidate its control of the South China Sea and the airspace above it.
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State and Local Governments (U.S.)
An office within the State Department should facilitate and provide advisory support to international trade delegations, sister-city linkages, and networks being pursued by American cities and states. -
A substantial body of evidence confirms that investment in women and girls yields high returns for poverty eradication, economic growth, and sustainable development. However, international and nation…
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United States Agency for International Development (USAID)
Nation-building abroad has become a neuralgic term in American politics. Opposition to nation-building abroad is one of the few things that President Barack Obama and Donald Trump can agree on. And y… -
The International Military Education and Training (IMET) program, which provides U.S. government funds to members of foreign militaries to take classes at U.S. military facilities, has the potential …
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Introduction Of all the factors currently tearing the Middle East apart, none is more consequential than the war in Syria. The war has left some 250,000 Syrians dead, seven million internally dis…
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Since defecting from Six Party negotiations on denuclearization in 2008, North Korea has pursued nuclear development unchecked by international constraints. Barack Obama's administration has demanded…
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The international military presence in Afghanistan has shrunk dramatically, and even with a slower pace of troop withdrawal, the country's security situation has already worsened. Iraq's chaos provid…
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American workers continue to struggle with lost livelihoods and wasted opportunities amid the most sluggish recovery since the Great Depression. The United States needs new policies designed to help …
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President Barack Obama's strategy in Syria and Iraq is not working. The president is hoping that limited air strikes, combined with U.S. support for local proxies—the peshmerga, the Iraqi security fo…
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Europe's strategy for solving its debt woes has the problem exactly backwards. A gaping hole in Europe's policy response to date is its unwillingness to reduce excessive levels of corporate, bank, an…
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A dispute over whether South Korea (ROK) should have the right to enrich and reprocess U.S.-origin nuclear fuels has led to a deadlock in talks on a new bilateral nuclear cooperation agreement. Failu…
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Globalization has transformed the marketplace for medicines in recent decades, giving rise to new threats including the poor traceability of global supply chains, counterfeit and substandard medicine…
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Fossil fuel subsidies are a global scourge. They distort markets, strain government budgets, encourage overconsumption, foster corruption, and harm the environment while doing little to remedy inequa…
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The new Indian government, led by the Bharatiya Janata Party, has outlined trade as a national priority. But economic ties between the United States and India have soured recently, with both sides en…
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Read Edward Alden's accompanying blog post. Each year, U.S. state and local governments spend tens of billions of dollars to lure or retain business investment. The subsidies waste scarce taxpayer…