Sessions

Former US Senator Bob Corker, Republican of Tennessee, who led the Senate Foreign Relations Committee from 2015 to 2019, and Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass analyze the United States’ role in the world — how our relationships, responsibilities, entanglements, and motivations, have shifted in recent years and what’s at stake in the months ahead.

In 2018, economic activity was accelerating in almost all regions of the world. One year later, much has changed. The escalation of US-China trade tensions, credit tightening in China, and macroeconomic stress in key G20 economies have all contributed to a weakened global expansion. As the US trade war with China deepens, what are the biggest risks at this delicate moment?...

Three survivors of the war in Syria share their personal stories of strength and determination under the most difficult of circumstances. The Syrian conflict has raged for five years, and killed half a million people. 11 million refugees have either fled to other countries, or are displaced within Syria. Syrian violinist Mariela Shaker says she “ran under bombs and mortars...

Following Hurricanes Harvey, Irma, and Maria — not to mention the floods, wildfires, and storms that put 2017 on the books as one of the most disastrous years ever — some 4.7 million people registered with the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But what exactly is FEMA’s role in relief and recovery? A conversation with the agency’s leader takes you inside the oft-misunde...

In the nearly 18 months of his presidency, Donald Trump has made an array of foreign policy changes. It began with withdrawing from the TPP, instituting the travel ban, and calling for strikes in Syria in the early months of 2017, continues through recognizing Jerusalem, announcing tariffs, pulling out of the Iran Nuclear deal, and culminates just weeks ago during a meetin...

The US government misjudged the rise of China over the last decade — as the country has grown in economic power, it's become more rambunctious internationally, not less. Its Belt and Road Initiative is winning over countries that used to be US allies. It’s expanding its military power and reach in the South China Sea, attacking US companies in cyberspace, and advancing in...

The spring of 2013 marked the 15th anniversary of the US invasion of Iraq, and the war in Afghanistan has gone on long enough that children born after 9/11 are now old enough to enlist in the military. Is there any path out of conflict for Iraq and Afghanistan — for the United States, or for the citizens of the war-weary countries?

Winner of the 2014 National Book Award, Osnos based “Age of Ambition” on eight years of living in Beijing, and traces the rise of the individual in China, and the clash between aspiration and authoritarianism. (Book signing to follow.)

This session will inhabit a number of angles to examine the Syrian Civil War, a conflict that’s left one in ten Syrians wounded or killed since 2011. How did the tragedy build to its current point, and what were the global community’s greatest missteps? What factors and interests are at play in this volatile and bloody war? Who is most effectively helping the affected mill...

Vladimir Putin offered Donald Trump a swap at the now infamous Helsinki summit: I’ll let you interview the twelve Russian agents accused of hacking DNC emails, if you give my team access to Bill Browder. Browder is the founder and CEO of Hermitage Capital Management and author of the 2015 New York Times best-seller Red Notice, which recounts his experience as the largest f...

In the summer of 2018, President Trump sang praises about the country’s economic conditions, tweeting, “In many ways this is the greatest economy in the HISTORY of America.” But just how much of the upswing can be attributed to White House policies? Former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers says very little. He disagrees with Trump on trade, tariffs, and the rethinking of...

Galina Timchenko used to run Lenta.ru, a widely read Russian news site. When she was fired and replaced in 2014 by a Kremlin-backed editor, most of the editorial staff followed her to Riga, Latvia, where they established Meduza, an independent Russian news site. Alexey Kovalev used to work for Russian State media, but now runs a site dedicated to exposing fake news and pro...

President Trump says he does not want a major war in the Middle East. But many allies and observers worry that hardlinders in the US and Iran are on a collision course toward conflict. The US exit from the Iran deal and the “maximum pressure” campaign have escalated tensions between Washington and Tehran in recent months. Iran has called the announced deployment of US troo...

When Obama drew his now infamous “red line” in August of 2012, the world closely observed. Chemical weapons and barrel bombs strangled the streets of Damascus and Aleppo while the intervention-cautious Obama administration furiously calculated its next steps. Fast forward four years: Obama’s Syria strategy is viewed by many as his presidency’s greatest foreign policy blund...

Many would argue that some of the same forces that propelled Donald Trump to victory in 2016 also fueled Britain’s Brexit vote that same year. Both countries are still grappling with the results of those elections, facing new questions about trade, security, and to some extent, national identity. For decades, the special relationship between the United Kingdom and the Unit...

Robert Mueller made clear the bottom line of his investigation: Russia attacked our democracy — and, as he said, every American should focus on that. Instead, recent news reports reveal that the Department of Homeland Security wasn't even allowed to bring up the threat of election attacks with President Trump. As candidates hit the 2020 campaign trail, what should the Unit...

What is trust? “A firm belief in the reliability, truth, ability, or strength of someone or something.” (We googled it). How much, not to mention who, we should trust is more complex now, given the technological tools we have at our disposal and the crafty creatives who might push the world’s next great product, or the next fake story, or — far worse — the hackers who can...

From election meddling to new US sanctions to close calls between fighter planes over the Baltic Sea, the US-Russia relationship is as complicated as ever. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has described US-Russian relations as being “at an all time low, and deteriorating further.” Meanwhile, anti-corruption protests have sprouted up all over Putin’s Russia, and here in the...

World order is never in stasis for too long. And indeed, we seem to be witnessing a historic shift now. The relatively stable decades after World War II saw gains for global democracies, rapid economic growth fueled by globalization, and the birth of the Internet. But they also saw the speeding of global warming, widening inequality, and the scourge of transnational terror...

US officials have cited North Korea as the hardest intelligence collection target in the world; the problem of understanding its opaque leadership has challenged two generations of policymakers. Today, the rambunctiousness of its nuclear program belies a bleak, troubled economy, where millions face starvation and the regime faces such cash and technology shortfalls that it...