Simulations
Global Climate Change Policy (NSC)
A major international climate summit approaches, and all eyes are on the United States.
IB Global Politics
Explore free resources that align with your IB Global Politics curriculum.
CFR Education offers a range of free resources that can supplement your IB Global Politics curriculum. Browse readings, timelines, videos, assessments, and simulations that align with the core topics, thematic studies, and HL extension.
- Core Topics and Thematic Studies
- Understanding Power and Global Politics
- Rights and Justice
- Development and Sustainability
- Peace and Conflict
- HL Extension (Global Political Challenges): content for the HL extended inquiries, sorted by topic area
Development and Sustainability
- Mini Simulations
Economic Statecraft: Foreign Assistance
How should the United States employ foreign aid to help a country in crisis? Explore this hypothetical simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Solar Geoengineering
Should the United States consider the use of solar geoengineering to combat climate change? Explore this simulation.
- Readings
A Global Semiconductor Shortage
Expensive cars? Phone order delays? Learn how today’s globalized supply chain can affect our daily lives by exploring the global semiconductor shortage.
- Readings
Why Is The Free Flow of Oil Important?
Why does the price of oil change so much? Learn how crude oil affects the global economy and the potential for economic development, and how fluctuating prices can contribute to crises.
- Readings
Global Population Growth Is Slowing Down
Is the global population declining? Learn how changes in birth, death, and migration rates affect society, economics, and politics around the world
- Readings
What Is Economic Inequality?
Explore how severe inequalities and disparities in wealth and income can harm individuals, countries, and the global economy, and how some governments implement policies to reduce inequality.
- Readings
What Is the World Trade Organization?
What is the WTO? Learn how the World Trade Organization manages the rules for international trade and why it’s failing to address today’s most pressing issues.
- Readings
What Are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund?
What’s the difference between the World Bank and the IMF? Understand two institutions that undergird global development and the international monetary system.
- Readings
What Is the UN Security Council?
In this free resource, learn more about the United Nations’ most powerful body working to maintain international peace and security. Explore the security council’s failures and successes, and why the UN Security Council’s veto power is so controversial.
- Readings
A Brief History of U.S. Foreign Aid
Where and why the United States gives foreign aid has changed over time.
- Readings
The Sustainable Development Goals
Learn about the formation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and review the opportunities and challenges for meeting them.
- Readings
Two Koreas, Two Development Policies
How did two countries with the same language, culture, and history turn out so differently?
- Videos
Technology and Development
As Great Britain’s Industrial Revolution and India’s Green Revolution have shown, technological innovation can drive extraordinary development. Explore how digital advancements are further driving progress today.
- Videos
The Marshall Plan
Understand how the Marshall Plan, one of the first large foreign aid programs, helped Europe rebuild after World War II, but also served the foreign policy interests of the United States.
- Videos
Global Development Explained
How do governments help people everywhere become healthier and wealthier? Many countries have made great strides in global development progress but challenges remain.
- Readings
Understanding the Last Fifty Years of Global Development
Has life gotten better for people around the world? Learn how improvements in health, education, and income are measured and explore three countries’ opportunities and challenges with development.
- Readings
What Is a Central Bank and What Does It Do for You?
What is the Federal Reserve? Learn how central banks conduct monetary policy by influencing the rate of inflation, money supply, and interest rates.
- Videos
The Suez Canal Crisis
Explore a historical case study on the Suez Canal to understand how monetary policy can also be used as a tool of foreign policy.
- Videos
The Global Role of the U.S. Dollar
Why is the U.S. dollar the world’s most popular currency and how does it help the U.S. economy? Watch this video on the history of U.S. currency.
- Readings
The Global Consequences of Financial Contagion
What caused the Great Recession of 2008? Learn why a financial crisis can spread around the world with our modern globalized economy.
- Readings
Understanding Currencies and Exchange Rates
Supply and demand influence how much a currency is worth. Learn how exchange rates affect producers and consumers.
- Videos
What Is Monetary Policy?
From inflation to interest rates, understand the basics of monetary policy, currencies, and the flow of money in the global economy with this introductory video.
- Readings
Foreign Investment 101
What is foreign investment, and what does it have to do with trade? An economics expert explains.
- Readings
How Trade Rules Are Written
The WTO system is the foundation of modern global trade. But as trade becomes more connected, with new challenges constantly emerging, trade agreements are adapting in order to keep up.
- Readings
What a Trade Deficit Means
What is a trade deficit? And, perhaps more important, what is it not?
- Readings
What Gets in the Way of Free Trade?
Tariffs, quotas, and other barriers all get in the way of free trade. Learn why some countries impose them anyway.
- Readings
What Happened When China Joined the WTO?
The United States thought it was directing the show when China acceded to the World Trade Organization. Instead, China wrote its own script.
- Videos
Trade as Foreign Policy
When local concerns drive national trade policies, there are global consequences.
- Videos
The Globe-Trotting Journey of a Sneaker
Learn the pros and cons of the global supply chain process of making a popular Nike shoe in this video.
- Readings
How Health Care Works Around the World
Experts agree that access to quality health care is the best way to improve global health. But health-care options vary greatly depending on where you are in the world.
- Readings
Noncommunicable Diseases and How They Are Measured
How to track and understand the world’s leading causes of death.
- Videos
The Rising Tide of Diabetes in Mexico
As noncommunicable diseases become more prevalent, Mexico is coming up with innovative ideas to fight the problem.
- Readings
Global Health Then and Now
The world has become healthier over the past few centuries, but new challenges are on the horizon.
- Videos
What Is Global Health?
We have made advances in global health, but we face challenges from new disease trends—and need funding to treat them.
- Readings
Six Essential International Organizations You Need to Know
Learn about the most prominent international organizations tackling the world’s biggest issues in this free resource.
- Readings
Trains, Planes, and Shipping Containers
Three innovations shaped how people and goods move around the world today.
- Readings
Big in China: The Global Market for Hollywood Movies
Hollywood’s relationship with the Chinese market—and its gatekeepers, Chinese government censors—is changing the way movies are made and promoted.
- Videos
What Is Globalization?
Explore examples of globalization to understand the benefits and challenges of our increasingly interconnected world in this video.
- Readings
It Takes a Village to Make Your Medicine
Follow the global supply chain across borders and into your pill bottle.
- Videos
How Globalization Affects What’s for Brunch
Globalization’s effects can appear where you least expect them—including on your plate.
HL Extension: Borders
- Simulations
Asylum Seekers at the U.S. Southern Border in 2019 (NSC)
Set in 2019. Violence, instability, and poverty in the northern triangle have increased asylum seekers in the United States.
HL Extension: Environment
- Simulations
Global Climate Change Policy (NSC)
A major international climate summit approaches, and all eyes are on the United States.
- Simulations
Global Climate Change Policy (UNSC)
A major summit approaches where the UN Security Council will meet to discuss the effects of climate change on security.
- Readings
Why Energy Storage is Essential for a Green Transition
Learn how energy storage can provide reliable renewable energy.
- Readings
Why Electric Grids Need to Be More Resilient
Severe weather is causing costly disruptions. To protect the energy grid, countries need a smarter plan.
- Readings
How Electrification Can Reduce Emissions
Electrifying the economy may play a crucial role in the fight against climate change.
- Readings
How Climate Change Worsens Inequality
Climate Change is bad for everyone, but it’s worse for some.
- Readings
How to Make the Green Transition Just and Equitable
Learn how efforts to slow emissions raise concerns over inequity and justice, and what we can do to ensure a more equitable and greener future.
- Readings
How Regulations Help Fight Climate Change
Standards and regulations can help countries achieve climate goals, but they pose some drawbacks and challenges.
- Readings
How Climate Change Affects Our Health
A warmer world threatens more extreme weather and infectious disease, but policymakers can counter climate change’s damages to global health.
- Readings
What Is Climate Finance?
Learn how the public and private sectors can collaborate to fund climate solutions.
- Videos
How Climate Change is a Collective Action Problem
The world can work together in the fight against climate change, but there are challenges to international cooperation.
- Videos
How the Paris Agreement Helps Stop Climate Change
The Paris Agreement offers the world a pathway for addressing climate change, but challenges persist.
- Videos
How Renewables Can Boost a Country's Energy Security
Climate change poses energy security challenges, but building more renewable sources and taking other steps can help strengthen supply and lower risks.
- Readings
Protecting Global Food and Water Supplies in a Warming World
Discover how climate change is diminishing global food and water security, and how the world can adapt to those vital resource challenges.
- Readings
How to Address the Economic Costs of Climate Change
Climate change–related weather events will destroy bridges, roads, homes, and even power plants—unless those structures become more resilient.
- Readings
How Climate Change Threatens National Security
The effects of global warming are creating various security threats. Governments can take certain measures to adapt to those increasing risks.
- Readings
Climate Change Threatens to Displace Many People
Extreme weather and climate change effects could drive millions of people to migrate. Government leaders can take steps to address those flows of people and prepare the communities at their destinations.
- Readings
How Humans Cause Climate Change
Every aspect of modern life carries hidden environmental costs. Recognizing the human-driven causes of climate change can help build a more sustainable future.
- Readings
How Climate Change Can Get Even Worse
Climate change can amplify itself through feedback loops. It can also trigger catastrophic “tipping points.”
- Readings
What Are Market-Based Solutions for Mitigating Climate Change?
Learn how policymakers can design incentives to motivate climate action.
- Readings
How to Lower Industry-Sector Emissions
Industrial emissions pose big challenges for the climate. Innovative industrial solutions can make a difference.
- Readings
How to Lower Transportation-Sector Emissions
The ways we move around the world are making it hotter. Electric vehicles and other innovations offer climate change solutions.
- Readings
How to Lower Energy-Sector Emissions
Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy can help mitigate climate change.
- Readings
How to Lower Buildings-Sector Emissions
The buildings we live in cause emissions. Changing our edifices can set up a more sustainable future.
- Readings
How to Lower Agriculture and Land-Use Emissions
Agriculture is warming the planet. Changing how we farm and manage land can decrease greenhouse gas emissions.
- Readings
What Is Geoengineering?
Learn more about the promises and perils of artificially manipulating the environment to combat climate change.
- Readings
How Are International Agreements Helping Fight Global Warming?
Explore the challenges facing international cooperation and the major treaties where the world has agreed to work together.
- Readings
What Is a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism?
Learn how governments can prevent international carbon leakage from their climate mitigation policies.
- Mini Simulations
U.S. Arctic Policy
Should the United States launch a new Arctic policy in response to climate change and investments from countries like China and Russia in the region? Explore this simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Stopping Deforestation in the Amazon
Should the United States take action to stop deforestation in the Amazon to combat climate change? Explore this simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Solar Geoengineering
Should the United States consider the use of solar geoengineering to combat climate change? Explore this simulation.
- Readings
The Inflation Reduction Act
What is the IRA? In this free resource, learn what the United States’ largest-ever climate change legislation does.
- Readings
How Can AI Combat Climate Change?
In this free climate change resource, learn how AI is helping countries reduce carbon emissions, but some innovations could ultimately contribute to a warming planet.
- Readings
How Do Governments Combat Climate Change?
In this free resource, explore seven ways countries are responding to a changing environment, from cap and trade policies to clean energy standards.
- Readings
What Is Water Scarcity?
Is there a global water crisis? In this free resource, learn how climate change is causing water scarcity to worsen worldwide.
- Readings
Climate Change Inequality
In this free resource, explore how climate change disproportionately affects certain communities and could drastically increase global inequality.
- Readings
The Sustainable Development Goals
Learn about the formation of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and review the opportunities and challenges for meeting them.
- Readings
Sources of Energy: A Comparison
Learn how turning toward cleaner energy sources means factoring in economic and energy needs alongside environmental ones.
- Readings
The Greenhouse Effect
How do greenhouse gas emissions contribute to global warming? Learn why the world is getting warmer in this free climate change resource.
- Readings
The Paris Agreement
What is the Paris Agreement? In this free resource, learn what actions countries are taking to address the global threat of climate change.
- Readings
Why Scientists Are Watching Greenland
In this free climate change resource, learn why melting ice in Greenland is causing global sea level rise.
- Readings
Who Releases the Most Greenhouse Gases?
Learn how the world measures greenhouse gas emissions and how different approaches imply different levels of responsibility.
- Videos
Who Is Responsible for Climate Change?
Why do developed and developing countries disagree about who is responsible for climate change? Explore the history of industrialization and its impacts on climate in this video.
- Videos
What Is Climate Change?
In this educational video, learn why the climate is changing, how it affects us, and what we can do about it.
- Readings
Climate Change Adaptations
Explore how eleven countries are adapting to the effects of climate change in this free resource.
HL Extension: Health
- Mini Simulations
Preparing for and Managing the Next Pandemic
What should the United States do to secure global health preparedness before the next pandemic? Explore this simulation.
HL Extension: Poverty
- Simulations
Global Climate Change Policy (NSC)
A major international climate summit approaches, and all eyes are on the United States.
- Simulations
Global Climate Change Policy (UNSC)
A major summit approaches where the UN Security Council will meet to discuss the effects of climate change on security.
- Mini Simulations
Stopping Deforestation in the Amazon
Should the United States take action to stop deforestation in the Amazon to combat climate change? Explore this simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Solar Geoengineering
Should the United States consider the use of solar geoengineering to combat climate change? Explore this simulation.
HL Extension: Security
- Simulations
NATO Enlargement in 1994 (NSC)
Set in January 1994. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many former Soviet states express interest in joining NATO.
- Simulations
North Korean Nuclear Threat (NSC)
North Korea has reportedly acquired the technological capability to hit North America with a nuclear weapon.
- Simulations
Russia and NATO in the Baltics in 2016 (NSC)
Set in July 2016. Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, a NATO summit approaches as the Baltics face threats from Russia.
- Mini Simulations
Strategic Ambiguity Toward Taiwan
Should the United States maintain its longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan? Explore this simulation.
Peace and Conflict
- Simulations
NATO Enlargement in 1994 (NSC)
Set in January 1994. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, many former Soviet states express interest in joining NATO.
- Simulations
Dispute in the East China Sea in 2016 (UNSC)
Set in September 2016. Japan and China challenge each other in the airspace above the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.
- Simulations
North Korean Nuclear Threat (UNSC)
North Korea has reportedly acquired the technological capability to hit North America with a nuclear weapon.
- Simulations
Dispute in the East China Sea in 2016 (NSC)
Set in September 2016. Japan and China challenge each other in the airspace above the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.
- Simulations
North Korean Nuclear Threat (NSC)
North Korea has reportedly acquired the technological capability to hit North America with a nuclear weapon.
- Simulations
Russia and NATO in the Baltics in 2016 (NSC)
Set in July 2016. Following Russia’s annexation of Crimea, a NATO summit approaches as the Baltics face threats from Russia.
- Simulations
Drones in Pakistan in 2011 (NSC)
Set in Spring 2011. The United States has the opportunity to eliminate or capture a senior al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan.
- Simulations
Humanitarian Intervention in South Sudan in 2014 (UNSC)
Set in May 2014. An ongoing civil war means South Sudan faces the threat of mass violence, reprisals, and possibly genocide.
- Simulations
Humanitarian Intervention in South Sudan in 2014 (NSC)
Set in May 2014. An ongoing civil war means South Sudan faces the threat of mass violence, reprisals, and possibly genocide.
- Mini Simulations
U.S. Arctic Policy
Should the United States launch a new Arctic policy in response to climate change and investments from countries like China and Russia in the region? Explore this simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Strategic Ambiguity Toward Taiwan
Should the United States maintain its longstanding policy of strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan? Explore this simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Sovereignty and Neutrality in 1807
Should the United States remain neutral during the war between France and England? Explore this simulation set in 1807.
- Mini Simulations
Intelligence: Covert Action
How should the United States use secret measures to address a national security threat? Explore this hypothetical simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Defining an Acceptable Outcome in Russia’s War in Ukraine
How should Ukraine define success as it seeks to repel Russian forces? Explore this simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Defending Ukraine
How should the United States and its NATO allies respond to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? Explore this simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Peacekeeping
Should the United States support peacekeeping in a country filled with ethnic conflict? Explore this hypothetical simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Deterrence
How should the United States use deterrence to block threats against itself and its allies? Explore this hypothetical simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Arms Control
Should the United States use arms control to reduce the threat of a new type of weapon? Explore this hypothetical simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Armed Force
Should the United States use armed force to address a conflict in another country? Explore this hypothetical simulation.
- Readings
How Do Humanitarian Corridors, Cease-Fires, and Pauses Address Violence in Conflict?
When deadly conflict breaks out, what are different ways to respond to a humanitarian crisis, support life-saving relief, and lessen the loss of civilian lives?
- Readings
How Does AI Influence Conflict?
How is the military using AI? Killer robots have long been a fear and fascination of humankind. Explore how weapons that can locate, target, and kill without human involvement shape today’s conflicts and hold the potential to re-shape future conflicts.
- Videos
How Do Countries Select Their Foreign Policy Tools?
In this educational video on foreign policy, explore how U.S. relations with Japan have changed over the past century, from Pearl Harbor to a peaceful alliance.
- Videos
What Tools Do Foreign Policy-Makers Have at Their Disposal?
In this foreign policy video, learn how leaders further their countries’ interests with political, economic, and military tools such as diplomacy, trade, and intelligence.
- Readings
What Is Diplomacy?
In this free resource on diplomacy, understand how countries advocate for their national interests through foreign policy.
- Readings
What Is Trade Policy?
In this free resource on trade policy, explore how countries leverage their economic power to advance their foreign policy interests.
- Readings
What Is Armed Force?
In this free resource on military action, learn how countries use violence, or armed force, to influence foreign policy.
- Readings
What Is Peacekeeping?
In this free resource on the successes and failures of peacekeeping, learn about the UN missions tasked with transitioning countries out of war.
- Readings
What Is Arms Control?
In this free resource on arms control agreements, learn how countries try to regulate the world’s most powerful weapons through foreign policy.
- Readings
What Is Deterrence?
In this free resource, explore examples of deterrence from the Cold War to present day to learn how countries dissuade bad behavior with the threat of significant punishment.
- Readings
What Is Intelligence?
From Cold War double agents to Chinese spy balloons, explore how lying and spying inform policymaking in this resource on intelligence.
- Readings
What Is Economic Statecraft?
Learn why China lends billions of dollars abroad each year through its Belt and Road Initiative and the implications of that free resource for recipient countries.
- Videos
What Is Nation-Building?
In this free resource on nation-building, learn why developing political, economic, security, and social institutions across borders is a complex business.
- Readings
What Are Economic Sanctions?
In this free resource on sanctions, learn how countries use punitive economic measures to advance their foreign policy priorities.
- Readings
Understanding Northern Ireland’s ‘Troubles’
More than twenty years after the Good Friday Agreement was signed, challenges remain for Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland long after the conflict ended.
- Readings
Understanding Intrastate Conflict
From civil war to terrorist violence, explore the types, causes, and consequences of conflicts within countries that are increasingly threatening world order.
- Readings
What Is Interstate Conflict?
Bombs and bullets are not always required for countries to come into conflict. From Russia’s war in Ukraine to a U.S. trade war with China, explore the different ways countries come into tension.
- Videos
How Is Conflict Changing?
What is conflict? Explore the reasons why tensions, violence, and war break out and what the consequences are for the world in this video.
- Readings
The Civilian Consequences of Conflict
From World War II to Syria’s civil war, understand the deadly consequences of war and what that means about the changing nature of conflict.
- Readings
What Is International Law?
Explore the history of international law, important international agreements and the courts that aim to hold countries accountable, including the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
- Readings
What Is the UN Security Council?
In this free resource, learn more about the United Nations’ most powerful body working to maintain international peace and security. Explore the security council’s failures and successes, and why the UN Security Council’s veto power is so controversial.
- Readings
The European Union: The World’s Biggest Sovereignty Experiment
Countries fight to protect their sovereignty. So why would they willingly give it up?
- Readings
Tanks, Sanctions, and Separatists: The Various Challenges to Sovereignty
A government’s authority within its borders gets challenged all the time. Here is how.
- Readings
Understanding the Constructive and Destructive Natures of Nationalism
Nationalism can unify diverse societies. But when taken to extremes, it can also fuel violence, division, and global disorder.
- Readings
How Self-Determination Shaped the Modern World
Learn how the world’s nearly two hundred countries came to be, and whether the map is set in stone.
- Videos
Tools of Counterterrorism
What is counterterrorism? Learn how governments try to prevent terrorist attacks in this video on terrorism.
- Videos
Tools of Nonproliferation
How do world leaders try to prevent nuclear war? From diplomacy to military force, learn what policy options are most effective in this video.
- Videos
What Is Terrorism?
Learn how terrorists have sought to achieve their goals all over the world with this video on terrorism.
Rights and Justice
- Simulations
Unrest in Bahrain in 2014 (NSC)
Set in August 2014. Political unrest in Bahrain has led to a government crackdown.
- Simulations
Unrest in Bahrain in 2014 (UNSC)
Set in August 2014. Political unrest in Bahrain has led to a government crackdown.
- Simulations
Asylum Seekers at the U.S. Southern Border in 2019 (NSC)
Set in 2019. Violence, instability, and poverty in the northern triangle have increased asylum seekers in the United States.
- Simulations
Humanitarian Intervention in South Sudan in 2014 (NSC)
Set in May 2014. An ongoing civil war means South Sudan faces the threat of mass violence, reprisals, and possibly genocide.
- Mini Simulations
Cuban Immigration in 1980
How should the United States respond to the massive influx of Cuban migrants? Explore this historical simulation set in 1980.
- Readings
Marriage Equality Around the World
An increasing number of countries recognize same-sex marriage, but discrimination and persecution persist.
- Readings
Statelessness Around the World
Without a country to call their own, millions of people experience discrimination and persecution.
- Readings
Human Trafficking in the Global Era
Understand the various forms of human trafficking, including forced labor, forced marriage, and forced organ removal.
- Readings
What Is International Law?
Explore the history of international law, important international agreements and the courts that aim to hold countries accountable, including the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
- Readings
What Is the UN Security Council?
In this free resource, learn more about the United Nations’ most powerful body working to maintain international peace and security. Explore the security council’s failures and successes, and why the UN Security Council’s veto power is so controversial.
- Videos
What Is the Liberal World Order?
Explore the organizations and agreements that have promoted global peace and prosperity since the end of World War II, as well as the challenges that the liberal world order now faces in this video.
- Readings
The European Union: The World’s Biggest Sovereignty Experiment
Countries fight to protect their sovereignty. So why would they willingly give it up?
- Readings
Tanks, Sanctions, and Separatists: The Various Challenges to Sovereignty
A government’s authority within its borders gets challenged all the time. Here is how.
- Readings
How Health Care Works Around the World
Experts agree that access to quality health care is the best way to improve global health. But health-care options vary greatly depending on where you are in the world.
- Videos
Should the Internet Respect National Borders?
The United States supports internet freedom. China, a proponent of cyber sovereignty, disagrees.
- Readings
Internally Displaced Persons: Migrants Who Do Not Cross a National Border
Who are IDPs and how are they different from refugees? Understand what happens to people who are forced from their homes but remain inside their own country through country case studies.
- Videos
The Lasting Effects of Emigration
When migrants seek work abroad, what does their home country gain and lose? Explore one example of a country shaped by emigration, the Philippines.
- Videos
History of U.S. Immigration Policy
Explore how the United States has responded to migrants throughout history—from the Chinese Exclusion Act to DACA—and how immigration policy influences the society, economy, and politics of a country.
- Readings
For Migrants, Labels Matter
What is the difference between immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers? Explore how contested definitions of migrants have a profound effect on the rights and protections of people leaving their homes.
- Videos
What Is Migration?
Why do people migrate? Understand why migration means different things for individuals, countries, and economies in a globalized world.
- Readings
Migration Today
Understand where migrants come from, where they go, and why migration is increasing through maps, charts, and data.
Understanding Power and Global Politics
- Simulations
Dispute in the East China Sea in 2016 (UNSC)
Set in September 2016. Japan and China challenge each other in the airspace above the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.
- Simulations
Cyber Clash With China (UNSC)
Tensions escalate between the United States and China as the Nasdaq faces a devastating cyberattack.
- Simulations
Boko Haram in Nigeria in 2017 (NSC)
Set in February 2017. A Boko Haram attack threatens the stability of Nigeria, as the country seeks U.S. aid.
- Simulations
Dispute in the East China Sea in 2016 (NSC)
Set in September 2016. Japan and China challenge each other in the airspace above the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea.
- Simulations
Boko Haram in Nigeria in 2017 (UNSC)
Set in February 2017. A Boko Haram attack threatens the stability of Nigeria, as the country seeks international aid.
- Mini Simulations
How Should the United States Interact With the Taliban?
The United States has tried to avoid legitimizing the Taliban since it regained power in Afghanistan. But that approach has certain drawbacks. Should the United States change the way it interacts with the Taliban going forward?
- Simulations
Drones in Pakistan in 2011 (NSC)
Set in Spring 2011. The United States has the opportunity to eliminate or capture a senior al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan.
- Simulations
Humanitarian Intervention in South Sudan in 2014 (UNSC)
Set in May 2014. An ongoing civil war means South Sudan faces the threat of mass violence, reprisals, and possibly genocide.
- Simulations
Cyber Clash With China (NSC)
Tensions escalate between the United States and China as the Nasdaq faces a devastating cyberattack.
- Simulations
Humanitarian Intervention in South Sudan in 2014 (NSC)
Set in May 2014. An ongoing civil war means South Sudan faces the threat of mass violence, reprisals, and possibly genocide.
- Mini Simulations
U.S. Foreign Policy: Multilateralism or Unilateralism?
Should the next U.S. president prioritize a multilateral or unilateral approach to foreign policy? Explore this simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Stopping Deforestation in the Amazon
Should the United States take action to stop deforestation in the Amazon to combat climate change? Explore this simulation.
- Mini Simulations
Economic Sanctions
How should the United States apply sanctions to influence a crisis abroad? Explore this hypothetical simulation.
- Readings
Seven “Hot Wars” During the Cold War
The United States and the Soviet Union never directly clashed, but the Cold War was far from bloodless.
- Readings
Statelessness Around the World
Without a country to call their own, millions of people experience discrimination and persecution.
- Readings
How Does AI Influence Government?
Artificial intelligence can empower authoritarians but also support democracies.
- Readings
What Roles Do Congress and the President Play in U.S. Foreign Policy?
What does the Constitution say about foreign policy? In this free resource, explore how the powers of Congress and the president protect and advance the country’s interests abroad.
- Readings
What Is the Relationship Between Domestic and Foreign Policy?
Explore maps and charts that illustrate how climate change, terrorism, COVID-19, and internet freedom require both international and domestic solutions in an increasingly interconnected world.
- Readings
How Do Forces Outside Government Influence Policymaking?
Learn how journalism, social media, public opinion, and lobbies are all a part of American democracy and influence U.S. foreign policy.
- Readings
What Is the National Security Council?
Learn how the president’s advisors protect U.S. national security and help with foreign policy decision-making and coordination across the executive branch.
- Videos
What the Kyoto Protocol Can Tell Us About How Treaties Are Made Today
In this U.S. foreign policy video, understand the challenges of negotiating treaties and dive into two international climate agreements.
- Videos
Why Does U.S. Foreign Policy Matter?
In this educational video on U.S. foreign policy, learn how the United States has shaped the world with its military and economic might.
- Videos
How Do Countries Select Their Foreign Policy Tools?
In this educational video on foreign policy, explore how U.S. relations with Japan have changed over the past century, from Pearl Harbor to a peaceful alliance.
- Videos
What Tools Do Foreign Policy-Makers Have at Their Disposal?
In this foreign policy video, learn how leaders further their countries’ interests with political, economic, and military tools such as diplomacy, trade, and intelligence.
- Videos
How Did the United States Approach the Tiananmen Square Crackdown?
In this educational video, learn how idealism and realism shaped U.S. foreign policy following the Chinese government’s massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989.
- Readings
What Is Trade Policy?
In this free resource on trade policy, explore how countries leverage their economic power to advance their foreign policy interests.
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What Is Armed Force?
In this free resource on military action, learn how countries use violence, or armed force, to influence foreign policy.
- Videos
What Is Nation-Building?
In this free resource on nation-building, learn why developing political, economic, security, and social institutions across borders is a complex business.
- Videos
How Do Governments Approach Foreign Policy?
In this educational video, explore three fundamental questions that shape a country’s relationship with the world through foreign policy.
- Readings
Unilateralism Versus Multilateralism
What is unilateralism? What is multilateralism? In this free resource on foreign policy, explore why leaders address some challenges independently and others as part of a team.
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Isolationism Versus Engagement
What is isolationism? What is engagement? In this free resource on foreign policy, explore why some leaders view the outside world as a threat and others view it as an opportunity.
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Idealism Versus Realism
What is idealism? What is realism? In this free resource, explore two schools of thought on a country’s foreign policy priorities.
- Readings
Radicalization and Right-Wing Extremism
Learn how QAnon, white supremacists, and Silicon Valley have contributed to an evolving domestic terror threat.
- Readings
Social Media: Revolutionizing Communication
Social media has connected people at lightning speeds and upended long-held monopolies on information. But like past innovations, it has also created major societal challenges.
- Videos
How Is Conflict Changing?
What is conflict? Explore the reasons why tensions, violence, and war break out and what the consequences are for the world in this video.
- Readings
What Is the World Health Organization?
What is the WHO? Learn how the UN agency in charge of international public health responds to crises that threaten global health coordination, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Readings
What Is the World Trade Organization?
What is the WTO? Learn how the World Trade Organization manages the rules for international trade and why it’s failing to address today’s most pressing issues.
- Readings
What Are the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund?
What’s the difference between the World Bank and the IMF? Understand two institutions that undergird global development and the international monetary system.
- Readings
What Is International Law?
Explore the history of international law, important international agreements and the courts that aim to hold countries accountable, including the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court.
- Readings
What Is the UN Security Council?
In this free resource, learn more about the United Nations’ most powerful body working to maintain international peace and security. Explore the security council’s failures and successes, and why the UN Security Council’s veto power is so controversial.
- Videos
What Is the Liberal World Order?
Explore the organizations and agreements that have promoted global peace and prosperity since the end of World War II, as well as the challenges that the liberal world order now faces in this video.
- Readings
Understanding Revolutions
Explore the powerful political movements that can reshape forms of government.
- Readings
Laws, Norms, and Democratic Backsliding
Are countries less democratic than they used to be? Learn how democratic principles like checks and balances, free elections, and freedom of the press are under threat around the world.
- Readings
What Are Different Types of Government?
Learn about different forms of government—including democracy, authoritarian rule, and monarchy—and how their distinctions aren’t always so clear.
- Videos
What Is Government?
From direct and parliamentary democracy to authoritarianism, learn how rulers take power—and who decides.
- Videos
Reimagining Sovereignty in a Global Era
When fires in the Amazon affect countries around the world, is there a need to rethink a centuries-old understanding of sovereignty?
- Videos
What Is Sovereignty?
Understand the principle that has underpinned world order for the past four hundred years.
- Readings
The European Union: The World’s Biggest Sovereignty Experiment
Countries fight to protect their sovereignty. So why would they willingly give it up?
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Tanks, Sanctions, and Separatists: The Various Challenges to Sovereignty
A government’s authority within its borders gets challenged all the time. Here is how.
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Understanding the Constructive and Destructive Natures of Nationalism
Nationalism can unify diverse societies. But when taken to extremes, it can also fuel violence, division, and global disorder.
- Readings
How Self-Determination Shaped the Modern World
Learn how the world’s nearly two hundred countries came to be, and whether the map is set in stone.
- Videos
Should the Internet Respect National Borders?
The United States supports internet freedom. China, a proponent of cyber sovereignty, disagrees.
- Readings
What the World’s Terrorist Groups Have in Common
From the KKK to al-Qaeda, learn how strong ideology motivates terrorist groups to commit violence, no matter their goals.
- Readings
The Paris Agreement
What is the Paris Agreement? In this free resource, learn what actions countries are taking to address the global threat of climate change.
- Readings
South Africa: Why Countries Acquire and Abandon Nuclear Bombs
Why did South Africa give up its nuclear weapons? In this historical case study, learn about the only country in the world to have developed and then dismantled its nuclear program.
- Videos
What Is Nuclear Proliferation?
In this video on nuclear proliferation, learn why countries develop nuclear weapons—and what is being done to prevent the spread of these weapons and the possibility of nuclear war.
- Readings
The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty
What is the NPT and how has the treaty influenced the spread of nuclear weapons?
- Readings
Who Counts As a Terrorist?
What are the major types of terrorism? From foreign groups to domestic threats, learn how the U.S. government defines terrorism and its legal consequences.
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How a Single Phrase Defined the War on Terror
What is the 2001 AUMF and what does it have to do with 9/11? From the invasion of Afghanistan, to the Iraq War, and more, learn how the United States justified U.S. counterterrorism policy for over two decades.
- Videos
Terrorism and the Media
How do terrorists use the media? From Osama bin Laden to the Islamic State, learn how terrorists use internet and media coverage to shape their goals.
