Anya Schmemann

CFR Staff

Anya Schmemann

Managing Director, Global Communications and Media Relations & Managing Director, Independent Task Force Program

Anya directs communications and digital marketing and manages the Task Force program at CFR in Washington, DC. Task Force reports reach consensus on issues of critical importance to U.S. foreign policy. Previously, she served as assistant dean of communications and outreach at American University's School of International Service, managed communications at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center, was a project manager at the East West Institute, and was assistant director of CFR's Center for Preventive Action. She received a BA and MA from Harvard University.

Most Recent
  • North Korea

    A new Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) Independent Task Force report, A Sharper Choice on North Korea: Engaging China for a Stable Northeast Asia, finds that the United States’ policy of “strategic…
  • Technology and Innovation

    The United States has led the world in innovation, research, and technology development since World War II, but that leadership is now at risk. Addressing the challenge from China and other rising sc…
  • Cybersecurity

    The early advantages the United States held in cyberspace have largely disappeared as the internet has become more fragmented, less free, and more dangerous. The United States needs a new foreign policy for cyberspace to secure its economic and security interests. 
  • Arctic

    Overview “The United States, through Alaska, is a significant Arctic nation with strategic, economic, and scientific interests,” asserts a new Council on Foreign Relations-sponsored (CFR) Independ…
  • COVID-19

    COVID-19 has confirmed the U.S. and global vulnerabilities that were repeatedly identified in high-level reports, commissions, and intelligence assessments on pandemic threats for nearly two decades …
  • Taiwan

    Although a conflict in the Taiwan Strait has thus far been avoided, deterrence has dangerously eroded. To maintain peace, the United States must restore balance to a situation that has been allowed to tilt far too much in China’s favor.
  • Labor and Employment

    The world is in the midst of a transformation in the nature of work, as smart machines, artificial intelligence, new technologies, and global competition remake how people do their jobs and pursue th…
  • China

    The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy undertaking and the world’s largest infrastructure program, poses a significant challenge to U.S. economic, political, climate change, security, and global health interests.

Top Stories on CFR

Russia

The mass casualty theater attack in Moscow was a reminder that affiliates of the Islamic State have reorganized and infiltrated even powerful states.

India

With India's development continuing to gain steam, one of the biggest challenges will be to avoid the mistake that others have made when they failed to recognize their newly acquired global systemic influence and adapt accordingly. Both China and Big Tech show that it is never too early to start managing one's own rise.

United States

Atmospheric rivers are gaining in intensity across California and the western United States. Communities need to adapt to the havoc wrought by this weather phenomenon.