Financing America's Leadership

Protecting American Interests and Promoting American Values

Task Force Report
Analysis and policy prescriptions of major foreign policy issues facing the United States, developed through private deliberations among a diverse and distinguished group of experts.

More on:

Foreign Aid

United States

Diplomacy and International Institutions

Relative to the average of the 1980’s, U.S. government spending on international affairs has fallen nearly 20 percent in real terms and will decline by as much as another 30 percent under budget-balancing plans proposed by the president and Congress.

An Independent Task Force convened by the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations was asked to assess the consequences of this trend and to make appropriate recommendations. In its Statement, the Task Force concludes that the cuts adversely affect the ability of the United States to protect and promote its economic, diplomatic, and strategic agendas abroad. Unless the trend is reversed, American vital interests will be jeapordized.

More on:

Foreign Aid

United States

Diplomacy and International Institutions

Task Force Members

Mickey Edwards

Morton H. Halperin

Lawrence J. Korb

Richard M. Moose

Stephen J. Solarz

Top Stories on CFR

Middle East and North Africa

CFR experts Steven A. Cook and David J. Scheffer join Amnesty International’s Agnes Callamard and Refugee International’s Jeremy Konyndyk to discuss the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Japan

The highlights from Kishida Fumio's busy week in Washington.

Genocide and Mass Atrocities

Thirty years ago, Rwanda’s government began a campaign to eradicate the country’s largest minority group. In just one hundred days in 1994, roving militias killed around eight hundred thousand people. Would-be killers were incited to violence by the radio, which encouraged extremists to take to the streets with machetes. The United Nations stood by amid the bloodshed, and many foreign governments, including the United States, declined to intervene before it was too late. What got in the way of humanitarian intervention? And as violent conflict now rages at a clip unseen since then, can the international community learn from the mistakes of its past?