Publications

Recent developments regarding Iran, Syria and China suggest that President Barack Obama, like his predecessors, will concentrate more on international issues as his presidency winds down. The American public, however, may not let him do so.

Revelations by Edward Snowden of U.S. National Security Agency spying have exposed both similarities and differences in public attitudes toward privacy among Europeans and Americans.

The American public thinks that the United States does too much to try to solve the world’s problems, and increasing percentages want the U.S. to “mind its own business internationally” and pay more attention to problems at home.

While Americans are more open to economic engagement than they have been in the past, they also continue to exhibit a wariness about refocusing U.S. policy toward Asia and have misgivings about accepting more high-skilled immigrants.

Foreign policy, once a relative strength for President Obama, has now become a target of substantial criticism among both the general public and foreign policy experts.

Americans' willingness to take on new international burdens is at an all-time low, and it is not clear that a rebalancing of U.S. interests and engagement toward East, Southeast and South Asia has the full support of the American people.

As negotiators convene in Geneva in an effort to reach agreement on curbing Iran's nuclear program, the American people are supportive of a deal, even though they are fairly cynical about the likelihood of it working.

America’s rise in the 50 years since President Kennedy was killed has been far from trouble-free – and America’s international standing since the fall of its great Cold War rival has reflected the ups, downs and uncertainties of the past five decades.

Even as the immigration policy debate continues to intensify, the issue looks like it might be about to take another twist as the sharp decline in the U.S. population of unauthorized immigrants that accompanied the 2007-2009 recession bottoms out. Americans now appear ready for a new approach to immigration policy.

Americans believe that the National Security Agency may have gone too far in spying on U.S. allies. They also think that the NSA has intruded on personal privacy in scooping up massive amounts of phone calls and emails, but don't expect to see citizens taking to the streets.

While the American public increasingly has been looking inward after years of economic stress at home and a decade of wars abroad, they have a keen awareness of the challenges posed to the U.S. by China in the superpower competition between the two countries.

After a remarkable run of economic expansion that has lifted tens of millions out of poverty, the Chinese public is waking up to the side effects of progress.

As American, European, Russian, Chinese and Iranian negotiators jockey in Geneva over ending the West’s economic sanctions on Tehran in return for a dismantling of Iran’s nuclear weapons program, European and U.S. publics are sending negotiators on both sides a clear message: they oppose Iran having nuclear armaments.

As Washington ramps up its efforts to get the Israelis and Palestinians to fashion a lasting settlement of their differences, there is no uniform American Jewish viewpoint on the peace process.

In the wake of rising public unrest, Tunisia's government has announced it will step down and begin talks with the opposition about forming an interim administration in the run-up to new parliamentary and presidential elections.

Germans' concern about the gap between the rich and the poor suggests inequality is likely to be on Germans' minds when they cast their ballots September 22. While recent surveys of voters' intentions do not indicate such worries will necessarily influence the outcome of the election, polling data suggests measures to address inequality may be high on the agenda of the new German government.

It is not clear that such high-minded bipartisanship has ever driven Americans' views on foreign policy. What is notable today, however, is the degree of such partisanship and the accelerating pace of this polarization on key international policy issues.

The prospect of a U.S. military strike on Syria has focused new attention on the role and influence of Islamic extremist groups – including Jabhat al-Nusra, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, and jihadists from Chechnya, Pakistan and other countries – opposing the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

While UN approval might provide legal justification for a military strike against Syria, it is not at all clear that it would afford the American government and its European allies with political cover at home.

In the debate over whether the U.S. and one or more of its NATO allies should launch a military strike against the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad over its alleged use of chemical weapons, much has been made of the need for multilateral sanction for such an effort, either by the U.N. Security Council or NATO.

In his bilateral discussions with other world leaders at the G-20 Summit, President Barack Obama will be pressing for their support for his proposed military action against Syria’s chemical weapons capability. But his challenge may be less with heads of state than it is with their populations, including his own.