Carnegie Connects

In recent weeks, terror attacks in Israel and operations launched by the Israeli Defense Forces have claimed the lives of more than thirty Palestinians and Israelis. Israeli police have also clashed with Palestinians on the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount in Jerusalem. This escalation is occurring at a critical moment for the region as negotiations to revive the Iran nuclear deal have stalled, raisin...

“Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has ended America’s thirty-year holiday from history,” Robert Gates opined in the Washington Post last month, referencing the United States’ reentry into great-power conflict for the first time since the Cold War. No more salient words have been written on the U.S. role in the crisis. Russia’s brutal military campaign against Ukraine and its horrifying war cri...

Across nearly four decades in the U.S. Foreign Service, Marie Yovanovitch has served in far-flung outposts from Mogadishu to Moscow to her last post in Kyiv as the ambassador to Ukraine—a position from which she was abruptly recalled and then drawn into the politics surrounding the impeachment of a U.S. president. This may well have been her toughest assignment and one in which she demonstrated tr...

Truth is said to be the first casualty of war, leaving journalists to play an indispensable role on the front lines and convey the grim reality of conflict. Nowhere has that been more clearly demonstrated than in the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, where journalists provide constant coverage at great risk to themselves—and sometimes with tragic consequences.  Aaron sits down with CNN’s senior...

Although not on the battlefield, China figures as a central player in the Ukraine crisis. The strength of China-Russia relations was clearly a factor for Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine, as sweeping Western sanctions have only highlighted Putin’s dependence on Xi Jinping. Indeed, China is the only nation of consequence that fully supports Russia. But how enduring is that support? What...

Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Ken Burns has emerged as one of America’s most gifted and prolific storytellers. From baseball to country music and his upcoming film on Benjamin Franklin, Burns explores America’s greatest achievements and most extraordinary heroes. But he also documents the darkest moments of the American republic, such as the Civil War and the national stain of racial injustice....

The U.S. Intelligence Community has played a critical role in predicting Putin’s invasion and countering Moscow’s disinformation campaign as the Biden administration purposefully released intelligence on the Kremlin’s plans and troop movements leading up to the invasion. But what are the challenges of intelligence gathering and analysis in response to a fast-moving crisis? What makes for an effect...

After willfully provoking the crisis in Ukraine, Vladimir Putin seems strangely uncertain about what to do with it. Despite preparing both conventional and hybrid military options, he also seems open to the possibility of using diplomacy to achieve his goals. But what exactly are those objectives? Is there a negotiated outcome that Putin is prepared to accept that would end the crisis? And how doe...

In a recent interview , National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan spoke on President Biden’s foreign policy one year into the administration and yet made no mention of the Middle East. What is Biden's foreign policy in the Middle East, a region studded with humanitarian crises and seemingly intractable conflicts that impinge on U.S. interests, from Iran, Israel and Palestine, Lebanon, Libya, Syria,...

Want to listen to Carnegie Connects live? Visit our website to sign up for invitations.  

2022 may well be the most crucial year in America's history, Boston College American historian Heather Cox Richardson argues. A surging pandemic; runaway inflation; the tribalization of American politics, a battle over voting rights, and upcoming midterms presage a tumultuous year ahead. How will the Biden administration deal with these challenges? Aaron David Miller sits down with Professor Richa...

Perhaps no question figures more centrally in the Biden administration’s foreign policy than what to do about China. Indeed, no other nation impacts America’s security, economy, and politics as vitally. How should the United States deal with a rising China. And what does China want from the United States? Is there an approach that can create a sustainable balance of interest? Or is the future goin...

This week the Biden Administration will host the Summit for Democracy at a pivotal time for democracies around the world. Democracy has been in global decline for over a decade and is on track to sustain the worrying trend this year—given coups and power grabs Tunisia, Myanmar, Afghanistan, and Sudan. Can Biden’s summit be a fruitful convening given democracy’s downturn? Is dividing dictatorships...

Today, the United States faces a seemingly impossible set of global challenges: a dwindling clock on climate change; persistent nuclear proliferation; and democracies under threat from populism and authoritarianism. At home, the situation is no less challenging as inflation, white nationalist extremism, political polarization, and an unending pandemic cloud the future. Rarely has the Republic seem...

The recent Taliban military and political takeover of Afghanistan brought an end to two decades of U.S. efforts to transform the country into a democratic, pro-Western polity and to prevent it from again becoming a sanctuary for terror attacks. Why did those efforts fail? What was it about the country and its neighbors that U.S. policymakers failed to understand? And how does Washington hope to pr...

As the coronavirus' delta variant recedes and new U.S. COVID-19 cases decline by more than a third, it is possible to imagine—at least in the United States—a more normal future beyond the pandemic. Vaccine resistance and the politicization of public health remain serious problems, and failure to prioritize and accomplish rapid, global vaccination will ensure a resurgence of the pandemic. But vacci...

The Islamic Republic of Iran represents one of the greatest challenges in the Middle East and beyond for the Biden administration. As the United States approaches the prospect of a seventh round of negotiations in Vienna over the fate of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), what are the chances for success? Is the agreement still viable? If not, is a broader framework realistic? And if...

Professor, author, diplomat, and businesswoman, Madeleine K. Albright served as America’s sixty-fourth secretary of state from 1997–2001 and, at the time, was the highest-ranking woman in the history of the U.S. government. Please join us as Aaron David Miller sits down with Secretary Albright for a conversation on America’s foreign policy, politics, and the current domestic and external challenge...

James A. Baker, III, occupies a unique place in the history of American foreign policy and politics. He is the only person to serve as Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, and White House Chief of Staff (twice). He also led five presidential campaigns. Please join us as Aaron David Miller sits down with America’s 61st Secretary of State for a discussion of U.S. foreign policy, domestic p...

A pandemic by definition is a threat to global public health, and yet when it comes to production and distribution of vaccines, the world is reacting with national, not international, priorities in mind. Aside from the moral hazard of an approach based on every country for itself, there are compelling public health, economic, and political reasons for adopting a global view of the problem and solu...

With the release of the incriminating U.S. intelligence report on the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, President Biden—in a sharp break with the Trump administration—has clearly outlined his intention to recalibrate the U.S.-Saudi relationship to ensure it advances U.S. interests and values.  Are the administration’s initial steps sufficient to rebalance the relationship? Or does more n...

The storming of the U.S. Capitol shocked those in the United States and around the world, but the ideological roots of the right-wing groups leading the attack that day reside deep in the nation’s soil. It comes as no surprise that law enforcement has identified domestic extremism as the gravest internal security threat to the United States, but who are these groups; what are their origins and obj...