Explainers

  • The Balkans have long been a source of tension between Russia and the West, with Moscow cultivating allies there as the EU and NATO expand into the region. The war in Ukraine could be shifting the calculus.
  • The United Nation’s ambitious development agenda aims to protect people and the planet via seventeen goals. But experts say governments aren’t doing enough to implement them.
  • The Inter-American Development Bank aims to bolster economic and social development in Latin America and the Caribbean, but critics say reforms are needed.
  • The Palestinian militant group has struggled to govern Gaza and remains committed to violently resisting Israel. Its surprise attack against Israel in 2023 threatens a wider conflagration in the Middle East.
  • Israel’s forces have moved to control the northern Gaza Strip but face challenges in tracking Hamas fighters into tunnels. Meanwhile, the costs for Palestinian civilians are intensifying pressure on Israeli leaders.
  • Scientists say governments need to act with more urgency to keep global warming in check. How much progress is possible at COP28?
  • Calls for a cease-fire are rising worldwide as the war between Israel and Hamas further exacerbates the dire humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
  • A much-anticipated speech by Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on November 3 largely echoed Iran’s pronouncements of support for Hamas and its threats of intervention in the group’s war against Israel.
  • Scenes from the Israel-Hamas war have reverberated across the world. In the United States, debate about the conflict has intensified, and it has resurfaced long-standing questions about policy toward Israel and the Palestinian territories. What is the U.S. goal for the region? And how is the United States responding to the war?
  • Peter Trubowitz, a professor of international relations and director of the Phelan U.S. Center at the London School of Economics and an associate fellow at Chatham House, sits down with James M. Lindsay to discuss the reasons for the rise of anti-globalism in Western countries and its consequences for world order.
  • Ukraine’s counteroffensive against Russian forces stalls as the future of U.S. aid remains uncertain; Argentina gears up for its presidential election runoff while inflation rates soar; Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan arrives in Berlin to address refugee flows and the Israel–Hamas war with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz; and David Cameron returns to the United Kingdom government as foreign secretary.
  • Taiwan's relationship with the United States, China, and the rest of the world has a complex history that informs why the island is so consequential to today's geopolitics. To better understand these dynamics, David Sacks, CFR's fellow for Asia studies, answers questions about Taiwan's history and its significance to diplomacy in East Asia. For more on the relationship between the United States, China, and Taiwan, check out the Council on Foreign Relations–sponsored Independent Task Force, "U.S.-Taiwan Relations in a New Era". cfr.org/us-taiwan
  • Artificial Intelligence (AI) could transform economies, politics, and everyday life. Some experts believe this increasingly powerful technology could lead to amazing advances and prosperity. Yet, many tech and industry leaders are warning that AI poses substantial risks, and they are calling for a moratorium on AI research so that safety measures can be established. But amid mounting great-power competition, it’s unclear whether national governments will be able to coordinate on regulating this technology that offers so many economic and strategic opportunities.
  • Since the end of World War II, nuclear weapons have threatened international relations. The Cold War produced stalemates that seemed to reduce the threat of nuclear conflict, but several countries’ more recent acquisitions of nuclear weapons have brought the world into a dangerous new era of nuclear uncertainty. With nuclear tensions on the rise once again, what lies ahead for nuclear diplomacy?  
  • In Northern Ireland, the consequences of the United Kingdom’s departure from the European Union, known as Brexit, are threatening to unravel the twenty-five-year-old Good Friday Agreement. It’s a peace deal that ended decades of violence between nationalists who wanted Northern Ireland to be reunified with the Republic of Ireland and unionists who wanted it to stay part of the United Kingdom. The agreement largely ended the bloodshed, and allowed for freer movement of trade and people across the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. However, Brexit has imperiled that free movement, and there are major concerns that resolving that issue could inflame old divisions and lead to renewed bloodshed in Northern Ireland.
  • Onetime allies, the United States and Iran have seen tensions escalate repeatedly in the four decades since the Islamic Revolution.
  • Disputes over overlapping exclusive economic zones in the South China Sea have intensified in recent decades, while the territorial row over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands in the East China Sea dates back to the nineteenth century.
  • The Democratic Republic of Congo has been subjected to centuries of international intervention by European powers, as well as its African neighbors. This timeline traces the role of the outside forces that have beleaguered eastern Congo since the end of the colonial era.
  • The United States and China have one of the world’s most important and complex bilateral relationships. Since 1949, the countries have experienced periods of both tension and cooperation over issues including trade, climate change, and Taiwan.