Explainers

Special Projects

CFR produces a range of special resources, including trackers and data visualizations, for policymakers and citizens to get up to speed on major foreign policy and security challenges.

Interactives Filters and Cards

Women and Women's Rights
Women’s Power Index
Find out where women around the world wield political power—and why it matters.
Cybersecurity
Cyber Operations Tracker
The Digital and Cyberspace Policy program’s cyber operations tracker is a database of the publicly known state-sponsored incidents that have occurred since 2005. Know of an incident not listed in the…
Taiwan
Why China Would Struggle to Invade Taiwan
Although China’s ambition to gain control of Taiwan is clear, doing so through force would prove enormously difficult and costly.
COVID-19
Judging How U.S. States Performed in the COVID-19 Pandemic Depends on the Metric
The United States struggled with COVID-19, but some states managed to keep deaths and infections relatively low without shutting society down or ignoring the crisis.
Wars and Conflict
Global Conflict Tracker
The Center for Preventive Action’s Global Conflict Tracker is an interactive guide to ongoing conflicts around the world of concern to the United States.
Health
How New Tobacco Control Laws Could Help Close the Racial Gap on U.S. Cancer
This interactive examines how nationwide bans on menthol cigarettes and flavored cigars, as proposed by the Biden administration on April 28, 2022, could help shrink the racial gap on U.S. lung cancer death rates.
China
Belt and Road Tracker
This tracker shows how the Belt and Road Initiative changed countries’ bilateral economic relationships with China over time.
Noncommunicable Diseases
Noncommunicable Diseases Kill Slowly in Normal Times and Quickly in COVID-19 Times
Why addressing chronic diseases is crucial for future pandemic preparedness
Conflict Prevention
Women’s Participation in Peace Processes
Peace negotiators often overlook a proven strategy to reduce conflict and advance stability: include women.
China
China's Digital Silk Road
A Transformative Approach to Technology Financing or a Danger to Freedoms?
Elections and Voting
President-Elect Biden on Foreign Policy
President-Elect Joe Biden will face a suite of challenges on the global stage, from nuclear tensions with North Korea to coordinating a response to the ongoing pandemic. 
Economics
Tracking Currency Manipulation
Currency manipulation is one way countries can shift patterns of trade in their favor. By buying foreign currency in the market, a country can artificially change the price of its imports and its exp…
China
China’s Approach to Global Governance
Learn about China's evolving approach to global governance and how it has shifted strategy under President Xi Jinping related to trade, the belt and road initiative, and the coronavirus pandemic.
Noncommunicable Diseases
Autocracy Is Hazardous for Your Health
Democracy does not die in the darkness so often anymore. It dies in the light, one election at a time, with voters embracing the populists and autocrats who promise to cut the red tape and deliver th…
Diplomacy and International Institutions
Report Card on International Cooperation 2018-2019
https://www.cfr.org/interactive/councilofcouncils/reportcard2019/#!/ Global think tank leaders grade the world's performance and prospects for 2019.