While the U.S. remains the world's strongest military and economic power, its place and role on the international stage is shifting. There are potentially dramatic implications for international peace and security from a U.S. foreign policy that is increasingly inward-looking, less predictable, less multilateral, and more reliant on the threat or use of military force to achieve its objectives. In 2017, Crisis Group established its first program dedicated to analysing U.S. policy, understanding who makes and shapes it, and offering recommendations to help guide its trajectory.
The U.S. is levying sanctions more than ever to hold warring parties accountable, restrict their access to resources and nudge them toward negotiations. Yet these measures can have unintended ill effects. Washington should take additional steps to alleviate these problems.
CrisisWatch is our global conflict tracker, an early warning tool designed to help prevent deadly violence. It keeps decision-makers up-to-date with developments in over 70 conflicts and crises every month, identifying trends and alerting them to risks of escalation and opportunities to advance peace. In addition, CrisisWatch monitors over 50 situations ("standby monitoring") to offer timely information if developments indicate a drift toward violence or instability. Entries dating back to 2003 provide easily searchable conflict histories.
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Israel/Palestine
It really shouldn’t be the case that the U.S. considers its influence severely weakened because it can’t provide military equipment or training to a certain country.
[US President Joe] Biden is in an election cycle, and the types of sanctions relief Iran is seeking won’t pass muster with the Congress.
[The Pentagon’s narrow interpretation of the Leahy Law is] a dishonest reading of the plain text and intention of Congress.
Moving forward, the United States should ensure military coups are never seen by its partners as a viable option.
Whenever the American forces there [in Syria] are attacked, the question arises again: Why are they there?
Why Israel—and the United States—Has Only Bad Options for the Day After
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Conduct in Gaza Should Prompt Scrutiny of U.S. Arms Transfers.
Terrible as the Gaza war’s toll has already been, it would get worse if sustained fighting were to erupt between the U.S. and Iran or its Middle East allies. Crisis Group experts Brian Finucane, Lahib Higel, Naysan Rafati and Ali Vaez lay out the dangers.
Why the U.S. government will find no easy answers in the Sahel's coup belt
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