home > think tank > research projects
Below you will find a chronological list of current Council research projects. You can search by issue or region by selecting the appropriate category. In addition to this sorting control, you can search for specific subjects within the alphabetical, regional, and issue categories by choosing from the selections in the drop-down menu below.
Each project page contains the name of the project director, a description of the project, a list of meetings it has held, and any related publications, transcripts, or videos.
April 2007—Present
February 1, 2007—Present
| Staff: | |
|---|---|
| Director: | Steven Simon, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies |
The United States is faced with an array of serious challenges in the Middle East, perhaps unprecedented in the past fifty years. An attempt to provoke a revolutionary change in the Middle East has collapsed with a large U.S. land army lodged in the heart of the region. The United States now confronts a Middle East that features an imploding Iraqi state, an aggressive Islamic Republic about to cross the nuclear threshold and a Palestinian state broken into two failed entities.
The Roundtable on the U.S. and Middle East will seek to develop strategies for the next administration. Should the United States attempt to recoup its position by pressing forward, albeit more prudently and with international cooperation, or should the United States go "back to the future," and place "stability over freedom," to use President Bush's phrase? Is it time to create an alliance with Sunnis to stave off the immediate threat of Iranian encroachment? What should the United States' grand strategy be in the Middle East? These and other questions will be the focus of monthly discussions.
October 2007—Present
| Director: | J. Anthony Holmes, Cyrus Vance Fellow in Diplomatic Studies |
|---|
This series will meet periodically in New York during the 2007-2008 programming year, seeking to examine the issues facing the African continent and the U.S. policy makers dealing with it. Particular attention will be given to the evolving crisis in Zimbabwe, a discussion with Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazer, Africa as an emerging market for capital flows, and the expanding role of the U.S. military in our Africa policy.
October 2007—Present
| Director: | Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Alliance Relations (on leave) |
|---|
This roundtable consists of a series of meetings on European political, economic, demographic, and defense trends. The series explores what Europe is likely to become over the next decade and beyond, and what this evolution will mean for U.S. foreign policy and for the transatlantic relationship.
October 2007—Present
| Director: | Vali R. Nasr, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies |
|---|
The challenges facing the Muslim world occupy the forefront of U.S. foreign policy. The roundtable series on Global Islamic Politics facilitates discussion and debate on key issues that will shape the direction of politics in the Muslim world in the coming years and their ensuing impact on U.S. foreign policy. Roundtables are held in both New York and Washington, DC, ensuring a wide mix of participants working in policymaking, government, business, media, and academia. Sessions will address the implications of the changing balance of power in the Middle East, the future of radical Islam in Europe, as well as Hezbollah and Iran.
July 2007—Present
| Director: | Max Boot, Jeane J. Kirkpatrick Senior Fellow for National Security Studies |
|---|
This series focuses on issues, primarily military, that affect American national security. The series begins withan early focus on the war on Iraq, and later roundtables examine issues relating to the transformation of the American armed forces to cope with warfare in the information age.
March 2007—Present
| Director: | Edward Alden, Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow |
|---|
This roundtable series examines the impact of post-9/11 measures on U.S. economic competitiveness and diplomatic relations, and considers possible government responses to address these problems.
May 2007—Present
| Director: | Daniel Markey, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South Asia |
|---|
The South Asia Roundtable Series examines the major issues facing South Asia today. On Afghanistan, speakers and participants analyze stability, reconstruction, and counterinsurgency efforts. For sessions on Pakistan, they consider many aspects of the nature of the U.S.-Pakistan partnership, ranging from counterterrorism cooperation to issues of governance. Meetings on India look at the U.S.-India relationship and the tensions, limits, and opportunities that will define the American relationship with India moving forward. Other sessions may also examine timely issues that arise in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, or Nepal.
November 2007—June 2009
| Staff: | Suzanne Maloney, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution Martin S. Indyk, Director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution Daniel L. Byman, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution |
|---|---|
| Director: | Gary Samore, Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair |
| Fellows: | Stephen Biddle, Senior Fellow for Defense Policy Isobel Coleman, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy Steven A. Cook, Hasib J. Sabbagh Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies Kenneth M. Pollack, Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy Michael E. O'Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution, Brookings Institution Bruce O. Riedel, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution Steven Simon, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies Shibley Telhami, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution Tamara Cofman Wittes, Senior Fellow, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution |
| Advisory Board: | Richard N. Haass, President, Council on Foreign Relations Samuel R. Berger, Chairman, Albright Stonebridge Group Odeh F. Aburdene, President, OAI Advisors Timothy C. Collins, Founder, Senior Managing Director, and Chief Executive Officer, Ripplewood Holdings LLC Rita E. Hauser, President, The Hauser Foundation Robert K. Lifton, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Medis Technologies Jami Miscik, President and Vice Chairman, Kissinger Associates, Inc. Brent Scowcroft, Resident Trustee, The Forum for International Policy Hassan Nemazee, Chairman and CEO, Nemazee Capital Corporation Joan E. Spero, Visiting Fellow, Foundation Center Strobe Talbott, President, Brookings Institution Ezra K. Zilkha, President, Zilkha & Sons, Inc. |
| Staff: | Ariel Kastner, Senior Research Assistant, Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution |
| Advisory Board: | Roy Zuckerberg, Chairman and Founding Principal, Samson Capital Advisors LLC |
| Staff: | Katie Ivanick |
Toward A New U.S.-Middle East Strategy is a joint Saban Center at Brookings–Council on Foreign Relations project staffed by Middle East experts from both policy establishments. After an eighteen-month period that includes trips to the region, research, and consultation with government officials in the United States and the Middle East, the strategy group will publish a final report, brief members of the incoming administration, and present its recommendations for constructing a new Middle East policy framework to the public.
July 1, 2007—Present
| Directors: | Elizabeth C. Economy, C.V. Starr Senior Fellow and Director for Asia Studies Adam Segal, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies |
|---|
The U.S.-Asia Update Roundtable Series is an ongoing series that provides a forum for the discussion of the major issues that shape Chinese domestic policies and that have an impact on the U.S. relationship with China and the rest of the region. The Roundtable cosponsors events with the Council’s General Meetings and Corporate programs. Recent sessions have included speakers such as Michael Green, Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs; Major General Karl Eikenberry; and Randall Schriver, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Approximately six sessions are held each program year.
This series is made possible through generous support from the Starr Foundation.
January 1, 2006—Present
| Director: | Elliot Schrage, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Business and Foreign Policy |
|---|
June 2006—Present
January 2006—January 2007
| Director: | Douglas Holtz-Eakin |
|---|
This roundtable series brings together policymakers, scholars, and journalists to explore current policy challenges that have both economic and national security dimensions.
December 1, 2004—Present
| Director: | Douglas Holtz-Eakin |
|---|
This meeting series is designed to bring Council members together in a small seminar environment to discuss new and innovative thinking at the intersection of economics and foreign policy.
January 2006—April 2007
| Staff: | Sebastian Mallaby, Director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies and Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics |
|---|---|
| Author: | Gordon H. Hanson, Professor of Economics, University of California, San Diego |
Immigration is a toxic political issue in the United States. This report by University of California, San Diego Professor Gordon Hanson indicates that the economic costs of illegal immigration roughly match the economic benefits. That is, the net economic impact of illegal immigration is close to zero. Thus, the political debate must revolve around other sources of costs, or efforts to curb illegal immigration, such as increased border enforcement, would result in a net loss to the U.S.economy. He also finds that illegal immigration provides a labor supply that more closely tracks shifts in the need for labor across time and geography, while legal immigration—even when temporary—cannot keep up with these cyclical shifts. Any policy aimed at addressing the demand for low-skilled labor must also address the need for flexibility.
June 2006—May 2007
| Author: | Peter B. Kenen, Adjunct Senior Fellow for International Economics |
|---|
In April 2006, the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund made a set of proposals aimed at enhancing the legitimacy and efficiency of the Fund and involving it more directly in the resolution of large imbalances involving the major economies. Some of his proposals were endorsed at the 2006 Annual Meetings of the Fund, and others are being implemented by the Fund's Executive Board. The most important reforms involve a redistribution of IMF quotas, which determine, among other things, voting power in the Fund. This Council Special Report provides a brief history of the Fund, stressing the changes that have occurred as a great many developing countries, large and small, have joined the Fund. It strongly endorses most of the Managing Director's proposals, although it criticizes others, including the way that the Managing Director would have the Fund involve itself in resolving major international financial imbalances. It argues that the United States should strongly support measures to enhance the legitimacy of the IMF, because the United States cannot readily accomplish unilaterally what the Fund can accomplish multilaterally.
November 2006—February 2007
| Author: | Steven Simon, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies |
|---|
December 2006—Novemer 2007
| Staff: | William L. Nash, Adjunct Senior Fellow for Military Affairs and Director of the Military Fellows Program |
|---|---|
| Author: | Reuben E. Brigety |
A major task of early warning of violent conflict is to understand the linkage between political, economic, and social sources and triggers of violence and larger, systemic issues that consistently contribute to unrest. One such dynamic is the international proliferation and trade, licit and illicit, in small arms and light weapons (SALW). This forthcoming report will review the current state of the global SALW problem, examine the U.S. policies for tackling the problem, and then propose tangible, realistic steps for the United States to address SALW proliferation and misuse as a form of systemic conflict prevention.
May 2006—September 2007
| Staff: | Sebastian Mallaby, Director of the Maurice R. Greenberg Center for Geoeconomic Studies and Paul A. Volcker Senior Fellow for International Economics |
|---|---|
| Author: | Robert J. LaLonde, Professor, Harris School of Public Policy, University of Chicago |
Professor Robert J. Lalonde, professor of economics at the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, is writing a Council Special Report on job displacement and the experienced worker. In this report, Professor LaLonde examines evidence on the causes of job loss, both through trade, technological change, and other factors, and suggests policies for aiding workers most harmed by job displacement—long-tenured, displaced workers. The report outlines the merits of a wage insurance program that would supplement the earnings of long-tenured workers displaced by international trade and other factors. The report contends that without policies to aid the workers most adversely affected by job loss, public support for further economic liberalization will likely diminish.
March 2006—November 2006
| Director: | Douglas Holtz-Eakin |
|---|---|
| Author: | Keith E. Maskus, Stanford Calderwood Professor of Economics, University of Colorado |
This report evaluates the effectiveness of the U.S. intellectual property regime in encouraging innovation and discusses the U.S. push to harmonize intellectual property standards with its trading partners. Professor Maskus argues that the intellectual property system is so skewed toward patent holders that it actually discourages innovation, and that the aggressive drive toward harmonization with other countries should be replaced by an emphasis on the enforcement of existing standards.
Explore the international finance regime with a new interactive from CFR's program on International Institutions and Global Governance.
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
For more information on the David Rockefeller Studies Program, contact:
James M. Lindsay
Senior Vice President, Director of Studies, and Maurice R. Greenberg Chair
+1.212.434.9626 (NY); +1.202.509.8405 (DC)
jlindsay@cfr.org
Janine Hill
Deputy Director of Studies Administration
+1.212.434.9753
jhill@cfr.org
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.