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President Trump sent U.S. troops to the border with Mexico to supplement the work of authorities there. President Biden pledges a new approach as pressures mount along the boundary.
About the Expert
Expert Bio
Stewart M. Patrick is James H. Binger senior fellow in global governance and director of the International Institutions and Global Governance (IIGG) Program at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). His areas of expertise include multilateral cooperation on global issues; U.S. policy toward international institutions, including the United Nations; and the challenges posed by fragile and post–conflict states. Patrick is the author of The Sovereignty Wars: Reconciling America with the World, as well as Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security. He also writes the blog, The Internationalist.
From 2005 to April 2008, he was research fellow at the Center for Global Development. He directed the center's research and policy engagement on the intersection between security and development, with a particular focus on the relationship between weak states and transnational threats and on the policy challenges of building effective institutions of governance in fragile settings. He also taught at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.
From September 2002 to January 2005, Patrick served on the secretary of state's policy planning staff, with lead staff responsibility for U.S. policy toward Afghanistan and a range of global and transnational issues, including refugees and migration, international law enforcement, and global health affairs. He joined the staff as an international affairs fellow at CFR.
Prior to government service, Patrick was from 1997 to 2002 a researcher at the Center on International Cooperation at New York University, where he ran two multi-scholar research programs on post-conflict reconstruction and on multilateralism and U.S. foreign policy.
Patrick graduated from Stanford University and received two master’s degrees and his doctorate in international relations from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. He is the author, coauthor, or editor of five books. He has also authored numerous articles and chapters on the subjects of multilateral cooperation, state-building, and U.S. foreign policy.
Patrick lives in Bethesda, Maryland. He has three children.
Affiliations:
- BCMStrategy, board of advisors member
- Paris Peace Forum, steering group committee member
- Truman Center for National Policy, advisory board member
- World Politics Review, columnist
Featured
Stewart Patrick argues that the United States can protect its sovereignty while advancing American interests in a global age. He clarifies what is at stake in the sovereignty debate, arguing that the nation must make "sovereignty bargains" to achieve its aims in a complex world.
Climate change and the environment feature prominently in 2019's global summit lineup.
Current Projects
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We have entered a new era of infectious disease. The path to global health security begins with protecting nature.
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Collapsing biodiversity is a major ecological emergency. In the wake of Earth Day, it’s worth stepping back to consider the financial value of biodiversity's ecosystem services.
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Biden’s Earth Day summit leaves important, lingering questions, the most important of these being the feasibility and credibility of his plans.
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For multilateralism to be credible, the Biden administration will need to reconsolidate a U.S. political consensus on global engagement and persuade foreign partners of America’s global staying power.
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In the next 40 years, institutions at all levels could struggle to adapt to abrupt demographic shifts, economic turbulence, runaway climate change, and technological innovation.
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To preserve a stable biosphere, scientists believe humanity must protect 30 percent of the Earth by 2030, and ideally half of the planet by midcentury.
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A global concert of major powers has undeniable attraction as a potential deus ex machina in our age of global turbulence. But its elegant simplicity is a mirage.
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The pandemic has taught us many harsh lessons. After such a painful year, we can’t forget them.
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Some deployment of geoengineering is inescapable. The world urgently needs to begin crafting strong principles and rules for geoengineering's collective governance.
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The high seas are poorly governed. Ratifying the proposed high seas pact would plug this gaping hole and help preserve the future of life on nearly half of the planet.
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Fewer than 20 percent of the globe’s inhabitants now live in a “free” country today. What might be done to reverse the autocratic tide?
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Bold U.S. leadership is needed now more than ever to address the biodiversity crisis. The Biden administration should submit the UN biodiversity convention to the Senate for ratification.
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The dramatic loss of global biodiversity poses a grave threat to humanity. The Biden administration has two golden opportunities to embrace environmental stewardship.
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The rationale behind Biden’s democracy summit is not idealistic but deeply realistic. It reflects a conviction that a world order based on a core of resilient democracies is likely to be a safer, more open, and more prosperous one.
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Biden drew the curtain on the disastrous Trump era, emphasizing the nation’s strength at home determines its success abroad—and vice versa.
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The Doomsday Clock reads just 100 seconds to midnight. Whether the world moves in a more hopeful direction this year depends partly on the United States.
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The Global Initiative to End Wildlife Crime proposes a practical approach to tackling the illicit trade in wild animals. The world should embrace it.
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The Biden administration should still host its proposed Summit for Democracy provided it approaches it in the spirit of humility rather than hubris.
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Washington will need to work toward a more equal strategic partnership with Europe, rather than continue to assume U.S. leadership.
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Ten major summits in 2021 will help determine the future of international security, freedom, prosperity, development, health, and indeed of the planet itself.
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Our economic models have failed to adjust to dire ecological realities, placing humans and the planet on a collision course.
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The cooperative vision of space is under stress. Biden should commit the United States to forge new norms and rules of collective security to manage the shared risks and advance the common purposes of all peace-loving nations.
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COVID-19 is a global menace, but its impact falls heaviest on the most vulnerable. The world needs to close the yawning gap between urgent humanitarian needs and funds available to meet them.
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The cost of humanity’s assault on the planet is astronomical. Biden has a golden opportunity to help the world change its disastrous trajectory by elevating biodiversity conservation in U.S. foreign policy.