Vice President Kamala Harris’ choice of Ghana this week as the place to launch her show of U.S. commitment to a new partnership with Africa can be no surprise. Ghana is one of Africa’s more established democracies and is at the center of the coastal West Africa region that the United States has targeted for focused efforts to prevent instability and the spread of extremism that is driving insurgencies in the neighboring Sahel region. As Ghana confronts that threat, notably in its vulnerable north, its community and civil society groups form an essential resource that partners should support.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Fragility & Resilience;  Religion

As the U.S.-China rivalry intensifies — with some speculating a new Cold War is in the offing — many Asian countries are looking on with concern. If Washington seeks to maintain its role as a global leader, it should be judicious in how it contests Chinese influence in Asia, which seems likely to be the key battleground of the new Sino-American rivalry. The United States must understand that Asian countries do not want to be forced to constantly manage competing pressures from superpowers. Cold War-era Sino-American competition demonstrates that forcing Asian countries to choose sides can ultimately be counterproductive and undermines one of the United States’ chief attributes in this global competition.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Global Policy

President Tsai Ing-wen of Taiwan transits this week through the United States, stopping in New York on her way to Guatemala and Belize, and in California on her way home. Tsai has made six stopovers since she took office in 2016, but this is the first since July 2019. The stopovers are not official visits, but Tsai is expected to meet Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy in California. Beijing has made it known it fiercely opposes the stopover and threatened to retaliate if McCarthy and Tsai meet.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

The White House’s recent release of 10-year stabilization and conflict prevention plans marks another milestone in U.S. efforts to implement the closely watched Global Fragility Act (GFA). The legislation received bipartisan support in the U.S. Congress before being signed into law by then President Donald Trump in 2019. It requires the U.S. government to develop a strategy for preventing the drivers of violent conflict and extremism, and to test a more coordinated, cost-effective and sustained U.S. approach in hot spots around the world.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Fragility & Resilience

Among many insightful and concerning points raised by the U.S. intelligence community’s 2023 threat assessment, it notes that "great powers, rising regional powers, as well as an evolving array of non-state actors, will vie for dominance in the global order … [and] compete to set the emerging conditions and the rules that will shape that order for decades to come.” China’s efforts to supplant U.S. dominance of global governance, along with divisions in the international community over the war in Ukraine have brought to the fore questions over the utility and viability of today’s international order.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Global Policy