Why It Matters

Feeding the world's eight billion people has never been easy. Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine shocked the market for fertilizer, that task has gotten even hard...

Before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the possibility of nuclear war felt like a problem of days past. Now, as great-power competition heats up, the potential for ...

All current U.S. military personnel have one thing in common: they volunteered. But falling recruitment has raised questions of national security, military readiness...

Freedom of the press is under attack around the globe, but for journalists in Latin America in particular, reporting has become a matter of life and death. Populist ...

As rising global temperatures thaw the ice at the North Pole of the planet, competition between nuclear-powered states threatens to heat up the Arctic Circle even fu...

The world is entering a new era of great-power competition. As U.S. policymakers look ahead, it pays to know what global threats to anticipate. Every January, the Co...

In 2022, several colossal events dominated the headlines, most prominently the war in Ukraine and the worldwide inflation that it helped spark. But beyond Ukraine, e...

For years, the world thought of the internet as a borderless zone that brought people from around the world together. But as governments pursue very different regula...

The 2022 FIFA World Cup has kicked off in Qatar, and billions of fans worldwide are tuning in to the world’s most popular live event. And yet as in years past, the Q...

The global arms trade is big business and the United States accounts for more than 40 percent of the world’s weapons exports. Aside from the profit motivation, selli...

How does a war end? In this special episode, Why It Matters speaks with CFR President Richard Haass on the conflict in Ukraine. We ask if and how this war can come t...

The U.S.-Saudi relationship is fraught with complications. Saudi Arabia has the largest oil reserves in the world, giving it influence over what Americans pay at the...

Beware, coffee lovers: climate change could disrupt your precious morning cup of joe. Coffee beans could lose half of their farmable land by 2050 as temperatures and...

Hip-hop is a phenomenon that has captured hearts around the world. Its musical form ranges from party anthems to critical social commentary. But the genre plays anot...

For the past two thousand years, the pope has been a major player in global affairs. He is frequently called upon to act as a peace broker, a mediator, an advocate, ...