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Begin New Search Topic Foreign Policy Political Geography United States of America Content Type Working Paper Publishing Institution Center for Strategic and International Studies

1. Where Are the Northern Triangle Countries Headed? And What Is U.S. Policy?

Author:
Mark L Schneider and Michael Matera
Publication Date:
08-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Central America has been a concern for U.S. foreign policy for more than a half century, spanning the Cold War, the Alliance for Progress, military regimes, and popular upheavals. Insurgencies had ideological roots, but most of the popular movements were aimed at securing democracy, justice, and economic change and were linked to ending elite dominance, corruption, and closed political systems. Only Costa Rica, and Panama since the removal of Noriega, have managed over the past three decades to see steady political and economic forward movement. Nicaragua remains mired in the throes of a despotic, discredited regime whose disregard for human rights and national well-being is beyond argument. The Northern Triangle Countries (NTC) of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras have loomed larger in national attention ever since 2014 when a large number of unaccompanied minors suddenly appeared on the southwest border of the United States. Migrants from these countries were not new. Total migration had hit three million even before 2014, perhaps half living in the shadows, undocumented and vulnerable. This migration had been driven by the civil conflicts of the 1980s, the deportation of violent gang members (who brought back organized crime and violence from their Los Angeles barrios), and a paucity of economic opportunity. U.S. support for development efforts in the NTC since the end of the region’s domestic civil conflicts more than 20 years ago has been marked by inconsistent attention, with sudden peaks in financial commitments combining development and security cooperation. Then as other crises loomed and the Central American isthmus seemingly mellowed, Washington lost interest, without ever recognizing that weak and corrupt justice systems, dysfunctional governance, and elite-dominated economies had not changed fundamentally.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Regional Cooperation, Hegemony, and Regionalism
Political Geography:
Central America, North America, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, and United States of America

2. Human Rights in a Shifting Landscape: Recommendations for Congress

Author:
Amy K. Lehr, Michael J. Green, Victor D. Cha, Jon B. Alterman, Judd Devermont, Melissa Dalton, Mark L Schneider, and Erol Yayboke
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
Human Rights are part of the American DNA. Congress has long advocated for human rights to play an integral role in U.S. foreign policy, with significant success. However, rising authoritarianism and the gross human rights violations taking place around the world call for immediate and stronger U.S. leadership and Congressional action. To that end, the Human Rights Initiative of CSIS worked with CSIS scholars, who developed recommendations relevant to their expertise that identify how Congress can build on its past human rights leadership to meet today’s challenges.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Human Rights, Authoritarianism, Democracy, and Leadership
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

3. Energy Spheres of Influence

Author:
Sarah Ladislaw and Nikos Tsafos
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
For several decades, energy security has been defined and pursued in a multilateral world with relatively open markets and technology transfer, where energy relations have become increasingly commodified. But that world may soon disappear—energy relationships might become more political, open trade might give way to friction, and great powers might leverage energy relations or energy technology to gain an edge over each other. For decades the United States has promoted a rules-based, multilateral order, supported by shared gains from free trade and deeper economic and political integration within and among countries. Energy security, the ability to secure affordable and reliable supplies of energy, has been widely recognized as common good promoted by this system. As the world’s largest consumer and importer of energy, it was squarely in the United States’ national interest to support this approach through domestic and international energy policy as well as foreign policy. Today, this multilateral order is being challenged. The world is experiencing a new era of competition for greater geographic and economic power driven by the shifting center of gravity of the global economy, the realignment of relationships between and among countries, and rapid technological change. Energy is poised to play an important role in this upheaval and will be affected by these changes. The United States is no longer the largest consumer or importer of energy. Instead, it is now the largest producer of oil and natural gas and will soon be a net exporter of energy. The energy world also is changing rapidly, with renewable energy resources like solar and wind making up the fastest growing and largest source of new supplies and global imperatives like climate change challenging the role of status quo fuels. These changes have heralded a reexamination of the United States’ national interest regarding energy in this changing global system. The United States has important decisions to make about its position in this new environment. Can energy play an influential role in achieving U.S. foreign policy objectives in various regions of renewed geopolitical competition? Is any country or group of countries poised to dominate a given energy market or fuel and might that negatively affect U.S. national security interests? How does this changing global dynamic in which countries are vying for greater geographic and economic spheres of influence affect our approach to global energy security? Will the energy sector become fundamentally more mercantilist, and will the United States be competitive if it does? Greater insight about each of these questions is a prerequisite to the formulation of U.S. foreign and energy policy. So far, the United States has grappled with these questions by pursuing “energy dominance,” a strategy in which energy represents (1) a tool for gaining geopolitical influence in a given region and (2) an area of competitive and strategic economic advantage for the United States. But other global powers, like China and Russia, pose strong competition for this U.S. strategy. Energy features prominently in the economic, foreign, and national security strategies of all three countries but in different ways. And although all three recognize the importance of maintaining affordable and reliable energy supplies for the good of the global economy as well as their own economic well-being, they also recognize the influence of energy in the execution of foreign policy at the global and regional level. The issue for the international energy community is whether the multilateral approach to shared energy security, supported by the promotion of free and integrated markets, is breaking down into regional and economic spheres of influence more mercantile in nature—and if so, how the United States should respond.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Climate Change, Energy Policy, Environment, and Multilateralism
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

4. More Is Possible Now to Address North Korea’s Health and Humanitarian Needs

Author:
J. Stephen Morrison
Publication Date:
02-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
As President Trump and Kim Jong-un meet for their second summit in Hanoi, will there be serious consideration given to what concrete actions can be taken to protect and advance a health and humanitarian agenda that can directly benefit North Korea’s impoverished majority and reduce the threat of a runaway tuberculosis (TB) outbreak? Perhaps. Certainly, let’s hope so. There is much that can be done.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Health, Poverty, and Humanitarian Crisis
Political Geography:
Asia, North Korea, North America, and United States of America

5. U.S. Foreign Exchange Policy—Currency Provisions and Trade Deals

Author:
Mark Sobel
Publication Date:
04-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
The Barack Obama administration’s efforts to secure Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), in conjunction with advancing the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), brought into focus a congressional push to associate currency provisions with U.S. trade agreements. Since that time, discussions on the association of currency provisions with trade deals have gained momentum and become a feature of U.S. foreign exchange policy, especially under the Donald Trump administration. What is the historical context for including currency provisions alongside or as part of trade deals in U.S. exchange rate policy? What has actually been done? Is including currency provisions alongside or in trade deals a good idea? How should this be best managed?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, International Cooperation, International Trade and Finance, Exchange Rate Policy, and Trans-Pacific Partnership
Political Geography:
North America and United States of America

6. After the Killing of Jamal Khashoggi: Muhammad bin Salman and the Future of Saudi-U.S. Relations

Author:
F. Gregory Gause III
Publication Date:
12-2018
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Center for Strategic and International Studies
Abstract:
On October 24, 2017, Muhammad bin Salman (MBS), the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, welcomed over 3,500 of the world’s financial elites to a conference center adjoining the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Riyadh for an “economic coming-out party.”1 The crown prince was selling investors and government officials on his plans for the transformation of the country, not just its economy but also its society. His Vision 2030 plan to lessen the economy’s dependence on oil and increase the role of the private sector required investment, both from at home and abroad.2 It was a glittering show, featuring plans for a new city on the Red Sea coast, Neom, which would be staffed at least in part by robots. Within a few weeks of this impressive gathering, hundreds of the Kingdom’s economic and political elites were prisoners in that same Ritz Carlton. One year after the conference, self-exiled Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi was killed by agents of the Saudi government in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. When the crown prince convened a second investment conference in Riyadh, a “Davos in the desert” as some billed it, in October 2018, the guest list was much reduced. A number of high-profile political leaders and CEO’s backed out, including the U.S. treasury secretary, the president of the World Bank, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the CEOs of JPMorgan Chase, HSBC, Credit Suisse, BNP Paribas, and the London Stock Exchange.3 While $50 billion in investment deals were announced, over $30 billion were with Saudi Aramco, the state oil company.4 In the year between the two conferences, the crown prince suffered a number of setbacks that called into question both his judgment and his political capacity. The killing of Jamal Khashoggi was simply the most recent in that line. Whether the killing was directly ordered by the crown prince or the work of close aides who believed they were carrying out his wishes, the ultimate responsibility rests with him. Some of those setbacks can be attributed to MBS’s own decisions; others simply reinforced the fact that there are considerable obstacles confronting his ambitious plans. His regional foreign policy initiatives, in particular, have not worked out as he had hoped. But these setbacks do not mean that the crown prince’s days are numbered in the Saudi leadership. He has successfully consolidated power in his own hands in a way that is unprecedented in recent Saudi history. The Trump administration, which hitched its wagon to MBS in an imprudent and counter-productive way, now has to decide how to use the fallout from this crisis to change MBS’s behavior, avoiding the extremes of a purely symbolic reaction that has no effect on Saudi policy and the unrealistic goal of declaring, as Trump ally Senator Lindsey Graham did, that the crown prince “has got to go.”5
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Authoritarianism, and Assassination
Political Geography:
Middle East, Saudi Arabia, North America, United States of America, and Gulf Nations