The potential for confrontation between the United States and Iran, stemming from ongoing tensions over Iran’s nuclear program and western covert actions intended to delay or degrade it, remains a pressing concern for U.S. policymakers. The Saban Center for Middle East Policy hosted a one-day crisis simulation in September that explored different scenarios should a confrontation occur.

The Saban Center's new Middle East Memo, A Series of Unfortunate Events: A Crisis Simulation of a U.S.-Iranian Confrontation, authored by senior fellow Kenneth M. Pollack, presents lessons and observations from the exercise.

Key findings include:

• Growing tensions are significantly reducing the “margin of error” between the two sides, increasing the potential for miscalculations to escalate to a conflict between the two countries.

• Should Iran make significant progress in enriching fissile material, both sides would have a powerful incentive to think short-term rather than long-term, in turn reinforcing the propensity for rapid escalation.

• U.S. policymakers must recognize the possibility that Iranian rhetoric about how the Islamic Republic would react in various situations may prove consistent with actual Iranian actions.

Download » (PDF)

Downloads

• Download the paper

       

Last September, as part of its annual conference with the United States Central Command, the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution conducted a day-long simulation of a confrontation between the United States and Iran arising from a hypothetical scenario in which the Syrian opposition had made significant gains in its civil war and was on the verge of crushing the Assad regime.  

The simulation suggested that, even in the wake of President Rouhani’s ascension to power and the changed atmosphere between Tehran and Washington, there is still a risk of misunderstanding and miscalculation between the two sides.

This new Middle East Memo examines the possible U.S. foreign policy lessons that emerged from this crisis simulation, and stresses the importance of communication, understanding the Saudi-Iran conflict and the difficulty in limited interventions. 

Downloads

• Hard Road to Damascus: A Crisis Simulation of U.S.-Iranian Confrontation over Syria

       

       

Click here to read the blog in English »

2016: une année décisive

Les décideurs politiques et les spécialistes du développement sont désormais confrontés à une nouvelle série d’enjeux suite à l’établissement, par consensus mondial, du triumvirat composé du Programme d’action d’Addis-Abeba, du Programme d’action 2030 et de l’Accord de Paris [1]  : mise en œuvre, suivi et passage en revue. Les professionnels des politiques de développement doivent aborder ces enjeux tout en y intégrant ces trois piliers du développement durable que sont le développement social, la croissance économique et la protection environnementale, sans oublier les trois volets intersectoriels du consensus mondial précités, tout cela en opérant au sein d’un contexte dans lequel la planification des politiques reste accomplie de façon cloisonnée. Ils doivent également incorporer le caractère universel de ces nouveaux accords en tenant compte des différentes circonstances nationales ; à savoir les divers besoins, réalités, capacités, niveaux de développement nationaux, de même que les diverses priorités et politiques nationales. Ils doivent aussi accroître considérablement l’allocation des ressources et les moyens de mise en œuvre (comme le financement, le renforcement des capacités et le transfert de technologies) pour changer les choses et améliorer les nouveaux partenariats réunissant plusieurs parties prenantes en vue de restreindre les mouvements mondiaux de toutes sortes (notamment la migration, le terrorisme, les maladies, la fiscalité, les phénomènes météorologiques extrêmes et la révolution numérique) dans un monde résolument interconnecté. Il va sans dire que la tâche est très ambitieuse !

Ces difficultés sont à l’origine de nouveaux accords nationaux et internationaux visant à honorer les engagements pris pour répondre à ces enjeux sans précédent. Plusieurs États africains ont déjà commencé à créer des comités interministériels et des groupes de travail pour assurer l’alignement entre les objectifs mondiaux et les processus, les aspirations et les priorités actuels. 

L’Afrique prépare, en collaboration avec la communauté internationale, le premier Forum politique de haut niveau depuis l’adoption du programme d’action 2030 qui aura lieu en juillet 2016 et dont le thème sera « Veiller à ce que nul ne soit laissé pour compte ». Afin d’éclairer le leadership, l’orientation et les recommandations relatifs au Programme d’action 2030, six pays africains [2] parmi les 22 États membres de l’ONU se sont portés volontaires pour présenter des études nationales sur le travail accompli en vue d’atteindre les Objectifs de développement durable (ODD), soit une opportunité unique de fournir un examen objectif sans compromis et de mettre en avant les leviers d’exploitation et les limites à surmonter afin d’avoir un impact.

Les Nations Unies ont déployé de nombreux efforts de coordination parallèlement au travail de terrain réalisé par l’Afrique : en premier lieu, la création d’un groupe de travail interinstitutions chargé de préparer le forum sur le financement du développement de suivi synchronisé avec le Forum mondial pour l’infrastructure, qui consultera sur les investissements en infrastructures, un aspect crucial pour le continent ; un groupe composé de 10 représentants nommés dont la mission consiste à soutenir le Mécanisme de facilitation des technologies aux fins du développement, du transfert et de la diffusion de technologies pour les ODD, soit un autre aspect très important pour l’Afrique ; et enfin une équipe de conseillers indépendants dont la mission consiste à fournir des conseils sur le positionnement à plus long terme du système de développement de l’ONU dans le contexte du Programme 2030 communément appelé  « UN fit for purpose », parmi tant d’autres efforts.

Ces obligations bureaucratiques écrasantes pèseront à elles seules lourdement sur les capacités limitées de l’Afrique. C’est la raison pour laquelle le continent à tout intérêt à regrouper ses ressources en tirant parti de ses robustes réseaux régionaux pour atténuer cet obstacle de façon cohérente et coordonnée et en capitalisant sur la convergence entre les textes nouvellement adoptés et l’Agenda 2063, le programme de transformation mis en place par l’Union Africaine sur une durée de 50 ans, avec l’aide d’institutions panafricaines.

Régionalisation en Afrique : l’engrenage menant vers la phase suivante du développement

Outre les échelons nationaux et internationaux, il convient de tenir compte d’une troisième dimension : l’échelon régional. Ainsi, les trois principaux accords conclus en 2015 privilégiaient le soutien aux projets et aux cadres de coopération encourageant l’intégration régionale et sous-régionale, en particulier en Afrique. [3] C’est la raison pour laquelle des politiques industrielles communes et cohérentes relatives aux chaînes de valeur régionales formulées par des institutions régionales renforcées et portées par un leadership transformationnel volontariste s’imposent comme le meilleur moyen de favoriser l’insertion de l’Afrique au sein de l’économie mondiale.

L’Afrique considère depuis longtemps l’intégration économique régionale, partie intégrante de ses principaux « piliers », à savoir les huit Communautés économiques régionales (CER), comme étant une stratégie de développement de base.

Le continent s’est manifestement engagé dans cette voie : l’été dernier, trois CER, le Marché commun pour l’Afrique de l’Est et de l’Afrique australe (COMESA), la Communauté d’Afrique de l’Est (CAE) et la Communauté de développement de l’Afrique de l’Est (SADC) ont créé le Traité de libre-échange tripartite (TFTA) regroupant 26 pays, avec plus de 600 millions d’habitants et un PIB global de mille milliards de dollars US. Cet accord tripartite ouvre la voie à l’accord « méga-régional » de l’Afrique, la Zone de libre échange continentale (CFTA) et à l’instauration d’une vaste communauté économique africaine. Si la régionalisation permet la libre circulation des personnes, des capitaux, des biens et des services, c’est la connectivité intra-africaine accrue en découlant qui stimulera les échanges commerciaux au sein de l’Afrique, favorisera la croissance, créera des emplois et attira des investissements. Il devrait enfin faire démarrer l’industrialisation, l’innovation et la compétitivité. À ces fins, les institutions panafricaines, soucieuses d’exploiter les récentes performances favorables enregistrés par le continent, redoublent d’efforts pour créer un environnement propice à l’harmonisation des politiques et des réglementations et aux économies d’échelle.

Infrastructure and régionalisation

L’infrastructure, sans laquelle toute connectivité est impossible, constitue indéniablement le fondement de tout futur plan de régionalisation. Outre l’intégration du marché et le développement industriel, le développement des infrastructures est l’un des trois piliers de la stratégie du TFTA. De la même manière, l’agence pour le Nouveau partenariat économique pour le développement en Afrique (NEPAD), l’organe technique de l’Union africaine (UA) chargé de planifier et coordonner la mise en œuvre des priorités continentales et des programmes régionaux, a adopté l’intégration régionale en tant que méthode stratégique pour l’infrastructure. Le NEPAD a d’ailleurs organisé, en juin 2014, le Sommet de Dakar sur le financement des infrastructures ayant abouti à l’adoption du Programme d’action de Dakar qui présente des options en matière de mobilisation d’investissements dans des projets de développement des infrastructures, en commençant par 16 projets bancables clés issus du programme de développement des infrastructures en Afrique (PIDA). Il est intéressant de noter que ces « mégaprojets du NEPAD visant à transformer l’Afrique » ont tous une portée régionale.

Pour voir la carte des 16 mégaprojets du NEPAD visant à transformer l’Afrique, Cliquez ici

En complémentant les efforts du NEPAD et du TFTA, le Réseau d’affaires continental a été formé pour promouvoir le dialogue entre les secteurs public et privé sur la thématique de l’investissement en infrastructures régionales. Le Fond Africa50 pour l’infrastructure a été constitué en guise de nouvelle plateforme de prestation gérée commercialement en vue de combler l’énorme vide au niveau du financement des infrastructures en Afrique, un trou évaluée à 50 milliards de dollars US par an.

L’élaboration de propositions propres et les progrès institutionnels récemment observés témoignent de la détermination de l’Afrique à accélérer le développement des infrastructures, et donc la régionalisation. Lors du dernier sommet de l’UA, le Comité d’orientation des chefs d’État et de gouvernement a approuvé l’institutionnalisation d’une Semaine PIDA organisée par la Banque africaine de développement (BAD) en vue d’assurer le suivi des progrès accomplis.

L’élan des projets énergétiques régionaux en Afrique

Les partenariats énergétiques indiqués ci-dessous illustrent les avantages potentiels des méthodes de mise en œuvre et de suivi transfrontalières : l’Africa Power Vision (APV) réalisée avec Power Africa, le modèle du Centre pour les énergies renouvelables et l’efficacité énergétique(ECREEE) de la CEDEAO accompagnant l’initiative Énergie Durable pour Tous (SE4LL), une initiative mise en œuvre par la plateforme Africaine et la solution Africa GreenCo basée sur le PIDA.

• Africa Power Vision : Les ministres Africains de l’énergie et des finances réunis à l’occasion du Forum économique mondial (FEM) de Davos en 2014 ont décidé de créer l’APV. La vision fournit un modèle stratégique de mobilisation de ressources afin de permettre aux entreprises, aux industries et aux foyers africains d’avoir un accès plus rapide à l’énergie moderne. Elle dresse une liste de projets énergétiques basés sur des priorités régionales établies par l’Afrique et extraites en grande partie du Programme d’action prioritaire du PIDA, à savoir l’éventail de projets à court terme devant être achevés à l’horizon 2020. Le projet hydroélectrique Inga III qui changera les règles du jeu, l’emblématique projet solaire DESERTEC Sahara et la gigantesque ligne de transport d’électricité nord-sud couvrant la quasi-totalité du TFTA sont parmi les 13 projets sélectionnés. La note conceptuelle et le plan de mise en œuvre intitulés « De la vision à l’action » élaborés par le NEPAD, en collaboration avec l’initiative Power Africa dirigée par le gouvernement américain ont été approuvés lors du Sommet de l’UA de janvier 2015. Le paquet présente des mesures permettant de surmonter les impasses afin d’atteindre des objectifs quantifiables, la « méthode d’accélération » basée sur l’Outil de classement de projets par ordre de priorité (PPCT en anglais), l’atténuation des risques et le financement de projets d’électricité. Une conception innovante a été élaborée pour éviter les doublons, économiser des ressources, améliorer la coordination et encourager des actions transformatrices en établissant des Conseillers transactionnels Power Africa – APV portant deux casquettes, qui supervisent les plans d’investissement jusqu’à la clôture financière si et quand des projets énergétiques d’intérêt commun viennent à se chevaucher. Globalement, comme il est basé sur le PIDA, le partenariat APV permet de mutualiser les expertises tout en promouvant l’intégration économique régionale au niveau de l’électrification.

• Centre pour les énergies renouvelables et l’efficience énergétique de la CEDEAO : Le secrétaire général des Nations Unies, Ban Ki-moon a lancé l’initiative Énergie durable pour tous dans le monde entier dès 2011, dans le triple objectif de garantir l’accès universel à des services énergétiques modernes, doubler le taux mondial d’amélioration de l’efficacité énergétique et doubler la proportion d'énergies renouvelables dans le bouquet énergétique mondial à l’horizon 2030. Depuis sa création, SE4ALL a suscité un fort enthousiasme sur le continent et compte désormais 44 pays africains participants. Par conséquent, la plateforme africaine SE4ALL a été la première plateforme lancée en 2013. Organisée par la BAD en partenariat avec la Commission de l’UA, le NEPAD et le Programme des Nations Unies pour le développement (PNUD), son rôle consiste à faciliter la mise en œuvre de SE4ALL sur le continent. Le troisième atelier annuel de la plateforme africaine de SE4ALL tenu à Abidjan en février dernier a révélé le potentiel de cette « coalition créative » (Yumkella 2014) pour produire des résultats tant au niveau des plans d’action nationaux et des approches régionales concertées conformes à la vision continentale qu’à celui de l’ODD7 pour l’énergie et aux Contributions prévues déterminées au niveau national (CPDN) créés pour l’Accord de Paris. Avant tout, l’atelier a prouvé que la plateforme est capable de commencer efficacement à harmoniser les processus pour obtenir un résultat dans les différents pays. En dépit du fait que les États membres de la CEDEAO participent à SE4ALL, les ministres ouest-africains ont chargé leur centre énergétique régional, le CEREEC, de coordonner la mise en œuvre des Programmes d’action de SE4ALL (PA), qui sont des documents décrivant les mesures que doivent prendre les pays pour satisfaire les objectifs en matière d’énergies renouvelables et de là les Prospectus d’investissement (PI), les documents présentant les critères d’investissement relatifs aux PA. Par conséquent, la Politique relative aux énergies renouvelables (PER) et la Politique relative à l’efficacité énergétique (PEE) de la CEDEAO ont été formulées et adoptées. Un cadre de surveillance régional visant à enrichir un Cadre de suivi mondial, le système de mesure et de préparation de rapports SE4ALL, est en cours de conception. L’efficace modèle du CEREEC, en créant un pont entre les inventaires nationaux et les acteurs mondiaux, est sur le point d’être reproduit dans deux autres régions d’Afrique, la CAE et la SADC, avec l’appui de l’Organisation des Nations Unies pour le développement industriel (ONUDI).

• Africa GreenCo : Enfin, des initiatives comme Africa GreenCo sont en cours d’incubation. Ce véhicule prometteur, actuellement financé au moyen d’une subvention accordée par la Fondation Rockefeller, se veut à la fois un négociant et un courtier en électricité indépendamment géré dont la fonction consiste à déplacer de l’électricité là où elle est nécessaire. Ainsi, Africa GreenCo cherche à capitaliser sur les projets énergétiques du PIDA : en sa qualité d’acheteur intermédiaire solvable, elle prévoit d’utiliser à l’avenir son statut régional en guise de valeur ajoutée au niveau de la garantie contre les risques. À ce jour, Africa GreenCo continue à peaufiner les aspects juridiques, réglementaires, techniques et financiers de sa future structure et forge des liens avec des parties prenantes clés du secteur (États membres, banques de développement multilatérales, services publics africains de génération et d’interconnexion appelés pools énergétiques) avant l’achèvement de son étude de faisabilité en juin 2016.

Devancement et changement de paradigme à l’horizon : vers le transnationalisme

Les partenariats précités indiquent des tendances encourageantes en direction d’une coopération plus symbiotique entre les différentes parties prenantes. Comme ils relèvent d’initiatives « faites maison », il est important de ne pas perdre de vue la dimension continentale. D’une part, les plans élaborés par l’Afrique ont plus de chances de réussir que des solutions importées uniformes et d’autre part, des efforts cohérents et combinés allant dans la même direction renforcent la confiance et l’émulation et attirent des soutiens. Ceci implique que pour remplir les accords intergouvernementaux, il est nécessaire avant tout de les adapter aux réalités locales à travers un processus d’intégration respectueux de l’espace politique. Cette intégration peut ensuite faire l’objet d’ajustements en fonction d’expériences fondées sur des données et des preuves concrètes. Entre ces engagements mondiaux et les procédures nationales, la dimension nationale demeure le lien indispensable : permettre aux pays de contourner le caractère artificiel de leurs frontières héritées de l’époque coloniale et leur offrir des choix concrets pour éradiquer la pauvreté dans l’unité. L’intégration régionale est donc le préambule à l’opérationnalisation du développement durable au sein de l’Afrique et une étape clé de son parcours en direction d’une participation active sur la scène mondiale. La régionalisation peut également faire évoluer les relations internationales, à condition qu’elle aille de pair avec un multilatéralisme équitable et une gestion durable des connaissances globales. C’est pourquoi l’ouverture qui en découle et la complexité rencontrée sont autant de paramètres utiles pour enrichir la conception de réponses locales pertinentes.

Ces réussites ouvrent de grandes perspectives en termes de nouvelles expériences et synergies. Elles représentent pour moi la promesse d’un monde meilleur. Celle que je me plais à imaginer est empreinte d’écosystèmes mutuellement bénéfiques pour les personnes et la planète. Elle encourage les liens inversés où tout le monde est gagnant, c’est-à-dire un monde où les économies en développement ont des retombées plus positives sur les pays industriels. C’est un monde où, par exemple, une région d’Afrique pourrait tirer des leçons de la crise grecque et vice-versa : un monde où la Chine pourrait tirer des enseignements du Corridor de développement de Maputo pour sa ceinture économique de la route de la soie. Un monde dans lequel des instituts jumelés effectuant des travaux de recherche conjoints dans les différents centres de connaissances régionaux prospéreraient, où des « fab labs » innovateurs pourraient ambitionner une aventure spatiale basée sur des déchets électroniques recyclés en imprimantes 3D. Dans un tel monde, des collaborations innovantes dans les domaines des sciences, des technologies, de l’ingénierie et des mathématiques (STEM) seraient encouragées. Celles-ci encourageraient la participation des femmes, et aussi celle de la diaspora en vue de développer des avancées techniques solides du point de vue écologique. Des efforts proportionnels, une volonté sans faille, une ingénuité autochtone et une créativité sans limites mettent cet avenir plus souriant à notre portée.

Au-delà de la reconnaissance de la voix africaine tout au long des processus intergouvernementaux, l’Afrique doit désormais consolider ses avancées en maintenant fermement sa position et en protégeant ses gains tout au long de la phase préliminaire. Le continent doit de toute urgence définir des tactiques spécifiques offrant le plus grand potentiel en termes d’inclusion et de création de capacités de production. Parallèlement, les acteurs du développement africain doivent démarrer un cycle vertueux d’apprentissage par la pratique en vue de créer une philosophie de développement endogène prenant en considération les meilleures pratiques adaptables et les échecs. Néanmoins, la seule approche capable de produire à la fois une transformation structurelle et un changement informé conformes aux stratégies à long terme propres au continent et dirigées par lui est… l’intégration régionale.  

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[1] Issus respectivement des négociations intergouvernementales à l’occasion de la Troisième Conférence sur le financement du développement (FFD3), l’Agenda du développement post 2015 et la Conférence des Nations Unies sur les changements climatiques (COP21).

[2] Égypte, Madagascar, Maroc, Sierra Leone, Togo et Ouganda

[3] Comme précisé au Programme d’action d’Addis-Abeba par exemple : « Nous engageons instamment la communauté internationale, notamment les institutions financières internationales et les banques multilatérales et régionales de développement, à accroître leur soutien aux projets et aux cadres de coopération qui favorisent cette intégration régionale et sous régionale, notamment en Afrique, et qui améliorent la participation et l’intégration des entreprises et notamment des petites entreprises industrielles, en particulier celles des pays en développement, dans les chaînes de valeur mondiales et les marchés mondiaux. »

       

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As the 2016 election draws near, issues related to immigration and broader cultural change continue to dominate the national political dialogue. Now, an extensive new survey sheds light on how Americans view these issues. How do they feel about the proposed policy to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border or a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country? The survey of more than 2,500 Americans explores opinions on these questions and others concerning the current immigration system, immigrants’ contributions to American culture, and the cultural and economic anxieties fueling Donald Trump’s success among core Republican constituencies.

On June 23, Governance Studies at Brookings and the Public Religion Research Institute released the PRRI/Brookings Immigration Survey and hosted a panel of experts to discuss its findings. Additional topics explored in the survey and by the panel included perceptions of discrimination against white Americans and Christians, and the extent to which Americans believe that the uncertain times demand an unconventional leader.

Join the conversation on Twitter at #immsurvey and @BrookingsGov

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• The battle over the border: Public opinion on immigration and cultural change at the forefront of the election

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• The battle over the border: Public opinion on immigration and cultural change at the forefront of the election

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• Transcript (.pdf)

Event Materials

• 20160623_prri_jones_presentation
• 20160623_immigration_prri_transcript

       

I want to begin by saying how grateful we were at Brookings to partner with the Federal Reserve System on this concentrated poverty project. We like to think that at Brookings we know a lot about this subject, but it was only through this partnership with the Fed that we were able to ground this understanding in the experiences of the 16 communities across the United States that were the focus of the report’s case studies.

The report demonstrates that in addition to managing the macroeconomy, the Fed also possesses a unique and powerful understanding of the U.S. economy from the ground up, which is absolutely necessary for designing smart policy in turbulent times like these.

I want to also give special thanks to my colleagues David Erickson and Carolina Reid at the San Francisco Fed. They played several roles in this project for me: intellectual partners, co-conspirators, mood lighteners, and Fed sherpas. It can be tough for foreigners like myself to navigate this system, and they lightened my load throughout the project. I also want to thank my Brookings colleague Elizabeth Kneebone, who performed a lot of the data analysis for this project.

I want to argue three points, largely policy points, in my remarks this morning.

First, the current economic climate makes the issue of concentrated poverty, and our response, more relevant, not less.

Second, major near-term investments our country makes to resolve the economic crisis can and should provide meaningful opportunities for the most disadvantaged families and communities.

And third, our longer-run efforts to assist high-poverty areas and their residents must take account of the economic challenges and opportunities that manifest at the regional, metropolitan level.

To begin, let’s review where we were when the Fed and Brookings joined forces on this effort in May 2006.

• The unemployment rate was 4.7 percent, a five-year low.
• Payrolls were expanding every month for the third consecutive year.
• The poverty rate, while still above its low in 2000, was dropping.
• The federal deficit was a relatively manageable 2% of GDP.
• The Dow was above 11,000, and on its way up.
• And the 2008 general election promised a storied matchup between party favorites Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani.

A lot can happen in 30 months!

In the wake of record house-price declines and financial market fallout, the economic outlook today is grim. The unemployment rate is 6.5 percent and rising. One projection suggests that the downturn could eventually increase the ranks of the nation’s poor by anywhere from 7 to 10 million. And amid declining revenues and increased expenditure needs, the U.S. budget deficit is expected to top $1 trillion this year.

In short, the situation for the lowest-income communities and their residents is not encouraging.

And neither is our starting point.

As Paul Jargowsky’s research has shown, the incidence of concentrated poverty in America dropped markedly during the 1990s, after two decades of increase. Some combination of a tight labor market and policy changes to promote work and break up the deepest concentrations of poverty seemed responsible for that decline.

But as Elizabeth and I found in a recent Brookings report, we may have given back much of that progress during the first half of this decade. The population in what we termed “high working poverty” communities rose by 40 percent between 1999 and 2005. This suggests that America’s high-poverty areas may have never really recovered from the modest downturn we experienced at the beginning of the decade.

Now, with all the turmoil in our economy, it would be easy to lose sight of these places and their residents, who even seem to have missed out on the benefits of recent growth.

But if we are to meet the enormous challenges facing our country—economic, social, and environmental—we simply can’t afford to take a blind eye to the continuing problem of concentrated poverty.

As decades of research and this report have shown, concentrated poverty magnifies the problems faced by the poor, and exacts a significant toll on the lives of families in its midst.

This report greatly enhances our understanding of how high-poverty communities of all stripes bear these costs. Moreover, it suggests that the contemporary circumstances of these communities owe not just to long-term market dynamics, but also to policy choices made over several decades’ time—some deliberate in their intent, and some producing unfortunate unintended consequences.

Today we’re at an important inflection point for policy. With the economy souring, we don’t have the luxury of using an “auto-pilot” strategy of macroeconomic growth to reach the most disadvantaged places and their residents. Quite the opposite—just as these communities are often “last in” for economic opportunity during boom times, they seem to be “first out” when things shift into reverse.

But the specific nature of the current crisis also poses added challenges for high-poverty communities.

That is because many of these areas were ground zero for risky subprime lending over the last several years. In many of the case-study communities in the report, half or more of recent home mortgages were high-cost subprime loans.

Now, they are on the front lines of the fallout. Our calculations of HUD data show that census tracts where the poverty rate was at least 40 percent in 2000—the conventional definition behind concentrated poverty—have an estimated foreclosure rate over 9 percent, roughly double the nationwide average.

This poses both an immediate and a long-term threat to what little stability these communities possess.

Over the short term, these areas face problems associated with heightened property neglect, vacancy, and abandonment. Not only can those conditions breed crime and disorder, but also they can accelerate a process of further disinvestment from high-poverty neighborhoods, which are all too familiar with that cycle of decline.

Over the long run, the public sector will work to return foreclosed properties in these neighborhoods to productive use. But there is a danger that we may once again re-concentrate poverty in these neighborhoods if these assets are not managed and deployed strategically.

In sum, recent trends and a perilous road ahead merit a meaningful policy response to the challenges facing areas of concentrated poverty and their residents.

This brings me to my second point, which is that near-term policy choices can ameliorate the impacts of the current crisis on areas of concentrated poverty.

In less than 50 days, a new administration will take office in Washington, facing economic challenges of a scale not seen in decades.

The president-elect and his advisors have signaled that they are ready to “do what it takes” to stimulate the economy, create and protect jobs, and catalyze investment in new sectors to spur longer-term growth.

I believe that policies advanced by the new administration and Congress in the first few weeks of the new year, if designed and executed well, could matter greatly for the fortunes of the nation’s high-poverty communities.

First, a comprehensive strategy to deal with the foreclosure crisis is sorely needed. This would feature, first and foremost, a broad plan to forestall the rising tide of mortgages, including many in high-poverty communities, headed for default due to falling home prices, economic dislocation, and poor underwriting.

However, even a sweeping, generous approach will not prevent the inevitable. Especially in high-poverty areas, more loans will fall into foreclosure, more people will lose their homes, and fiscally-strapped local governments will be left to manage the consequences of increasing vacancy and abandonment.

The Neighborhood Stabilization Program enacted by Congress and the Bush administration during the summer of 2008 represents an initial effort to arm state and local leaders with the resources to tackle the neighborhood impacts of rising foreclosures.

But significant deterioration of the economy in the intervening months suggests that the problem may now be of a much larger scale than was originally anticipated. What’s more, many local governments lack the capacity, expertise, and legal authorities to use existing or additional resources strategically.

So the new administration, and HUD in particular, will need to consider a further round of response—using some mix of fiscal, regulatory, capacity-building, and bully pulpit powers—to help cash-strapped local governments mitigate the impacts of foreclosure on their most vulnerable communities.

Second, there seems to be wide agreement that the economic recovery package should include a series of measures that inject money into the economy right away.

So the package will provide immediate assistance to families, communities, and governments hit hard by the downturn, in the likely form of extended unemployment and increased food stamp benefits, increased state and local aid, and low- to middle-income tax cuts, spending designed to make a real economic impact in the next several months.

A couple of details here are of real consequence to communities of concentrated poverty.

• Income tax cuts included in the package should be refundable, like the Earned Income Tax Credit, or EITC. Boosting the EITC, for instance, would provide additional help to workers most likely to be hit hard by the downturn, and target resources to families most likely to spend the additional cash immediately. As the report shows, at least 30 percent, and as many as 60 percent, of families in the case-study communities today benefit from the EITC.
• Unemployment insurance benefits should be extended, but also modernized. As the case studies showed, work among residents of high-poverty communities is often seasonal or part-time, even in a good economy. As a result, many laid-off workers from poor areas in several states may not qualify for benefits due to outmoded eligibility rules. Therefore, in addition to extending weeks of eligibility for UI, Congress and the new administration might also consider providing incentives to states to expand the pool of workers who could benefit from the program during the downturn.

Third, infrastructure will clearly figure prominently among the spending priorities in the recovery package.

Yet there is a significant risk that focusing dollars primarily on projects that states deem “shovel-ready,” as has been discussed, will repeat mistakes of the past. It would primarily subsidize road-building at the metropolitan fringe, and do little to enhance long-run economic growth, or provide better opportunities for low-income people and the places they live.

Infrastructure investments of the magnitude under consideration must not only create jobs, but also promote inclusive and sustainable growth. That means setting strict criteria for federal investment, including a real assessment of costs and benefits that considers economic, environmental, and social impacts. As the report shows, poor infrastructure often acts as a barrier to the economic integration of high-poverty communities into their larger municipal and regional areas.

To that end, we should also consider providing direct support for large, cash-strapped municipal governments that they could use to modernize and preserve roads, bridges, transit, water, sewer, and perhaps even broadband infrastructure. At the same time, we should hold them and grantees at all other levels of government accountable for connecting younger, disadvantaged workers and communities to the jobs that result.

In short, what happens in the first several weeks of the new year here in Washington could, if structured properly, provide meaningful support and opportunity for low-income areas and their residents. At a minimum, this might avert the sort of backsliding these communities suffered during the much milder recession we experienced earlier this decade.

So that brings me to my third and final point, which is that, over the longer term, we must advance policies that actively link the fortunes of poor communities to those of their regional neighbors. As you probably heard or read, our division at Brookings is named the “Metropolitan Policy Program.”

Our mission is to provide decision makers with cutting-edge research and policy ideas for improving the health and prosperity of cities and metropolitan areas.

You might ask, why metropolitan? After all, this is not a term that most Americans use, think about, or even recognize, even though 85 percent of us live in metropolitan areas. A friend of the program once told us that it sounded like a combination of “metrosexual” and “cosmopolitan.” Not exactly what we were going for.

More specifically, what relevance does “metropolitan” have for addressing the challenges of concentrated poverty?

Well, the report points to skills and employability problems that hold back residents of high-poverty communities. If the route to improving the lives of families affected by concentrated poverty runs in part through the labor market, then we must devise strategies and solutions that respect and respond to the geography of that market—which is metropolitan.

The report also points to housing problems, of various stripes, that segregate the poor in these communities and make their daily lives more difficult. Housing markets, too, are metropolitan—and housing dynamics in the wealthiest parts of each metro are inextricably linked to those in the poorest parts.

The fact is, our national economy—and that of most industrialized nations—is largely the aggregate of its individual metropolitan economies. In the United States, the 100 largest metro areas account for 12 percent of our land mass, hold 65 percent of our residents, and generate three-quarters of our Gross Domestic Product. They possess even greater shares of our innovative businesses, our most knowledgeable workers, the critical infrastructure that connects us to the global economy, and the quality places that attract, retain, and enhance the productivity of workers and firms.

And as the report shows, regions—both metropolitan and non-metropolitan—each retain distinctive clusters that shape their individual contributions to the national economic pie. Photonics in Rochester. Hospitality and tourism in Atlantic City and Miami. Manufacturing in Albany, Georgia. Agriculture and business services in Central California. These clusters do not possess equal strength or equal potential, but they define the starting point for thinking about the regional economic future of these areas, and economic opportunities for their residents.

Not only are the assets of our economy fundamentally metropolitan… increasingly, our challenges are, too. In 2006, we found that for the first time, more than half of the poor in metropolitan America lived in suburbs, not cities. While poor suburban families don’t yet concentrate at the levels seen in the communities in this report, they are trending in this direction. Between 1999 and 2005, the number of suburban tax filers living in “moderate” working poverty communities rose by nearly 50 percent.

So what does recognition of our metropolitan reality imply for longer-run policies to help the poorest communities and their residents?

Bruce has argued elsewhere that our nation must embrace a new, unified framework for addressing the needs of poor neighborhoods and their residents. He has termed this, Creating Neighborhoods of Choice and Connection. Neighborhoods of choice are communities in which lower-income people can both find a place to start, and as their incomes rise, a place to stay. They are also communities to which people of higher incomes can move, for their distinctiveness, amenities, or location. This requires an acceptance of economic integration as a goal of housing and neighborhood policy.

Neighborhoods of connection are communities that link families to opportunity, wherever in the metropolis that opportunity might be located. This requires a much more profound commitment to the “educational offer” in these communities and the larger areas of which they are a part. It also requires a pragmatic vision of the “geography of opportunity” with regard to jobs, housing, and other choices.

If we take this vision seriously, then our interventions must operate within, and relate to, the metro geography of our economy. This means viewing the conditions and prospects of poor areas through the lens of the broader economic regions of which they are a part, and explicitly gearing policy in that direction.

A simple example relates to the geography of work. In the Springfield, Massachusetts metro area, roughly 30 percent of the region’s jobs still cluster in the neighborhoods close to downtown, including Old Hill and Six Corners. In the Miami metro area, by contrast, only 9 percent of the region’s jobs lie close to its downtown, implying transportation needs of a quite different scale for Little Haiti’s residents. In response, we should empower metropolitan transportation planners to address the unique nature of these spatial divides, and measure their performance on creating inclusive systems that overcome them.

This metro lens applies to workforce development as well. Labor market intermediaries are some of the most promising mechanisms for bridging the information and skills divide between poor communities and regional economic opportunity. One of the highest performers, the Wisconsin Regional Training Partnership, works in the home region of one of our case-study communities, Milwaukee. If workforce policies and funding at all levels of government were to emphasize employer partnerships, provide greater flexibility, and reward performance, we could grow more capable institutions like these that serve the needs of low-income communities and regional firms alike.

A metro perspective can apply to school reform as well. We have called for a new focus at the Department of Education on supporting proven, successful educational entrepreneurs—charter management organizations like KIPP, human capital providers like Teach for America, student support organizations like College Summit. The demand for these entrepreneurial solutions extends well beyond the highest-poverty neighborhoods. Federal education policy should consider investing in these entrepreneurs at the metropolitan scale, to aggregate a critical mass of those organizations, serve a significant percentage of the area’s children, and drive positive changes in the entire public education environment.

Finally, our housing policies must embrace metro-wide economic diversity, which is a hallmark of neighborhoods of choice and connection.

This means expanding housing opportunities for middle-income families in deprived neighborhoods. We simply cannot continue to cluster low-income housing in already low-income areas, perpetuating the sort of economic segregation evident in so many of the case-study communities, and thereby consign another generation to a childhood amid concentrated poverty. Likewise, we must guard against the possibility that the current foreclosure crisis leads to a re-concentration of poor households in neighborhoods that were just beginning to achieve greater economic diversity.

But this is a two-way street. It also means creating more high-quality housing opportunities for low-income families in growing suburban job centers. Requiring or providing incentives to metropolitan areas to engage in regional housing planning, alongside regional transportation planning, may be a necessary first step. Those plans could also apply a more rational screen to the development choices that have fueled sprawl, and thereby added to the social and economic isolation of the lowest-income communities.

Let me end where I began.

This is both an auspicious and a challenging moment at which to wrestle with the problem of concentrated poverty in America.

Auspicious in that we are approaching the dawn of a new government in Washington that has signaled concern for our nation’s low-income residents and communities, recognition that metropolitan economies are the engines of our prosperity, and a pragmatic commitment to doing what works.

Challenging in that making progress against concentrated poverty, and improving opportunity for those in its midst, is a tall order when the macroeconomy isn’t cooperating.

But the current economic climate is not an excuse to avoid this problem; rather, it’s an imperative to act, strategically and purposefully.

That means doing the big near-term things the right way, so that low-income communities and their residents do not bear an excessive brunt of the downturn, and so that they participate meaningfully in our eventual economic recovery.

And it means getting the long-term vision right, so that policy advances sustainable, metro-led solutions that connect poor neighborhoods and poor families to opportunity in the wider economy around them.

The Federal Reserve System has tremendous, well-earned credibility for understanding and advancing dialogue around the future of our nation’s economic regions. I look forward to continuing to work with the Fed to increase public understanding of concentrated poverty, and to make tackling it a crucial element of strategies to promote regional and national prosperity.

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Most sub-Saharan African countries have long had to rely on foreign assistance or loans from international financial institutions to supply part of their foreign currency needs and finance part of their domestic investment, given their low levels of domestic saving. But now many of them, for the first time, are able to borrow in international financial markets, selling so-called eurobonds, which are usually denominated in dollars or euros. 

The sudden surge in the demand for international sovereign bonds issued by countries in a region that contains some of the world’s poorest countries is due to a variety of factors—including rapid growth and better economic policies in the region, high commodity prices, and low global interest rates. Increased global liquidity as well as investors’ diversification needs, at a time when the correlation between many global assets has increased, has also helped increase the attractiveness of the so-called “frontier” markets, including those in sub-Saharan Africa. At the same time, the issuance of international sovereign bonds is part of a number of African countries’ strategies to restructure their debt, finance infrastructure investments, and establish sovereign benchmarks to help develop the sub-sovereign and corporate bond market. The development of the domestic sovereign bond market in many countries has also help strengthen the technical capacity of finance ministries and debt management offices to issue international debt.

Whether the rash of borrowing by sub-Saharan governments (as well as a handful of corporate entities in the region) is sustainable over the medium to long term, however, is open to question. The low interest rate environment is set to change at some point—both raising borrowing costs for the countries and reducing investor interest. In addition, oil prices are falling, which makes it harder for oil-producing countries to service or refinance their loans. In the medium term, heady economic growth may not continue if debt proceeds are only mostly used for current spending, and debt is not adequately managed.

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Stability in Europe’s eastern neighborhood, already precarious, is being further strained. The political prospects of several countries, including Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey and Russia, remain unclear. The region is grappling with the fallout of the economic crisis, and Russia and Turkey, in particular, are threatened by the turmoil in the Arab world.

On April 13, the Center on the United States and Europe at Brookings (CUSE) hosted former European Union High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana for a discussion on how the European Union (EU) and NATO should engage with Europe’s strategic partners in the East and Southeast. As a former secretary general of NATO and secretary-general of the Council of the European Union, Solana offered insight into the prospects for future EU and NATO enlargement, the potential impact of the eurozone crisis on the region and how Europeans should attempt to cooperate with their neighbors in tackling global challenges.

Brookings President Strobe Talbott provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion.

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• Syria, Russia and Iran
• Global Governance Can Work
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• Europe's Eastern Frontiers: A Conversation with Javier Solana

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Cutting-edge technology has led to medical breakthroughs, the information age, and space exploration, among many other innovations. The growing ubiquity of advanced technology, however, means that almost anyone can harness its power to threaten national, international, and individual security. In their new book, The Future of Violence: Robots and Germs, Hackers and Drones—Confronting a New Age of Threat (Basic Books, 2015), Benjamin Wittes and Gabriella Blum explore the potential dangers of modern technology when acquired by hostile groups or individuals.

On March 11, Governance Studies at Brookings hosted a book event to discuss the new threats to national security and the developing framework for confronting the technology-enabled threats of the 21^st century. In order to manage the challenges and risks associated with advanced technology, governments, organizations, and citizens must reconsider the intersection of security, privacy, and liberty. What does this mean for domestic and international surveillance? How will the government protect its citizens in an age of technology proliferation?

After the program, panelists will take audience questions.

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It is well recognized across the health care industry that the major goals of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) include not only expanding health insurance coverage, but also improving the quality of care and the patient health care experience. A key strategy in achieving these goals is improving the efficiency and delivery of care through innovative financing mechanisms and new delivery models, such as Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs), patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs), bundled payments for acute and post-acute care, and population-based models that aim to improve the health of entire communities. These alternative models emphasize quality and outcomes, while moving care away from the traditional and predominant method of fee-for-service (FFS).¹

The Frontline Work Force
Many conversations focused on the implementation of these models typically emphasize the role of physicians. However, the success of these models relies heavily on the support and manpower of a multidisciplinary team; particularly "frontline health care workers." Frontline workers may include medical assistants (MAs), medical office assistants, pharmacy aides, and health care support workers. Oftentimes, they provide routine, critical care that does not require post-baccalaureate training.²

For example, MAs can play an important role in a medical home model. Upon discharge from the hospital, frontline workers can provide direct outreach to patients that are at high risk for readmission, and discuss any lingering symptoms, worsening of conditions, or medication issues. If necessary, MAs can assign a high-risk patient to a social worker, care coordinator or nurse.³

In a team care environment, frontline health care workers are essential for taking over routine tasks and allowing physicians to employ their specialized skills on their most complex patient cases, which allows all team members to work at “the top of their license”.⁴ Frontline workers can also bridge the gap between patients and a multitude of providers and specialists; help deliver care that is culturally and linguistically appropriate; and provide critical patient education and outreach outside of regular office visits. 

A Workforce in Need of Reform
While team-based care is widely accepted as an industry norm, its current infrastructure is not well-supported. While the frontline workforce represents nearly half of all health care professionals, they are markedly underpaid, underappreciated, and lack formal training to transition into higher-skilled and/or higher paid positions.

A recent study by the Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program “Part of the Solution: Pre-Baccalaureate Healthcare Workers in a Time of Health System Change” demonstrates this glaring disparity between current frontline workforce investment and its value to health reform efforts. The study analyzes the characteristics of the top ten ‘pre-baccalaureate health care workers’ (staff that holds less than an associate’s degree) within the US’s one-hundred largest metropolitan areas (see Table 1).

Table 1: Top ten pre-baccalaureate health care workers in the US’s top one-hundred metropolitan areas

Personal care aides represent a striking example of the underinvestment in frontline workers. The study shows that personal care aides have the lowest levels of educational attainment compared to their peers (32% have no more than a high school diploma), and have the lowest median earnings ($20,000 annually). Meanwhile, The Center for Health Workforce Studies’ (CHWS) estimates that this profession is among the top three national occupations with the highest projected job growth between 2010 and 2020. They are also in highest demand: between 2010 and 2020 there will be an estimated 600,000 personal aide vacancies.⁵ According to this study, MAs are also among the least educated and lowest paid frontline professions. Ninety percent lack a bachelor’s degree and a significant share (29%) are classified as ‘working poor.’

Policy Solutions

A number of policy solutions can be applied to enhance the frontline worker infrastructure. Our recommendations include:

Invest in front line health care workforce training and education. Case studies from a recent Engelberg Center toolkit, outlines how providers are training their frontline workforce to master fundamental skills including care management, patient engagement, teamwork, and technological savviness.

For example, a New Jersey ACO carried out clinical transformation by investing in new frontline staff, and by redefining the role of medical assistants to include health coaching. The return on investment for employers is potentially large. After injecting a substantial initial investment into this project, this ACO saw a 12.3% decrease in net health care costs within the first year of the program’s implementation; as well as significantly improved efficiency, quality of care and patient experience. As the educational curricula for frontline professions are largely variable, more attention should also be spent on the quality of educational content to train these occupations, as well as on developing an understanding of how delivery systems are augmenting traditional educational curricula.

2. Active inclusion of frontline health care workers in payment reform. Although the services of frontline health care workers are beginning to play a role in new payment models, typically frontline staff does not benefit directly from any bonus payments or shared savings incentives. However, their increasingly valuable role in the care team may warrant allowing frontline health care staff to be included in the receipt of shared savings and/or bonus payments based on the achievement of specifically tailored performance and outcomes targets.

The increasing demand for frontline health care workers, driven in part by the ACA’s payment and delivery reforms, will likely spell out a brighter future for these occupations, whose services had routinely been undervalued and underpaid. Future policy efforts should be focused on extending educational grants that have been aimed at primary care and nursing to frontline workers, as well as considering dedicating portions of shared savings to enhancing the earning potential for frontline workers. Some efforts, such as the U.S. Department of Labor’s recent rule to grant wage and overtime protections to home health and personal care aides, are early suggestions of a shift toward greater respect and empowerment for these occupations. It is yet to be seen what effects the continuation of such efforts will have on their high projected attrition trends.

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There are lots of ways for Syria to go wrong for Russia. Analysts have tended to focus on Moscow’s military shortcomings in that theater, wondering if Syria will become Russia’s Vietnam. They’ve also pointed to Russia’s deep economic troubles—exacerbated, of course, by very low oil prices—which call into question its ability to pay for the military campaign over time.

One of the understudied aspects of Russia’s involvement in the Syrian conflict is the ramifications it could have for the Russian government’s relations with Muslims back at home. Moscow is now home to the largest Muslim community of any city in Europe (with between 1.5 and 2 million Muslims out of a population of around 13 million, although illegal immigration has distorted many of the figures). Russian President Vladimir Putin and other leaders have consciously avoided choosing sides in the Sunni-Shiite divide in the Middle East—recognizing that doing so could provoke a backlash among Russian Muslims.

The rise of an extremist, Salafi- or Wahhabi-inspired, religious state in Syria—an Islamic caliphate established either by the Islamic State or by any religiously-based extremist group in the region—could pose a significant problem for Russia. That’s both because of how it’s likely to behave toward other states in the region (including key Russian partners like Israel, Egypt, and Iran) and because of what it could inspire in Mother Russia, where efforts by militant groups to create their own “caliphate” or “emirate” in the North Caucasus have created headaches for Moscow since the early 2000s. 

Islam and Russia go way back

Russia is a Muslim state. Islam is arguably older than Christianity in traditional Russian territory––with Muslim communities first appearing in southeastern Russia in the 8th century. It is firmly established as the dominant religion among the Tatars of the Volga region and the diverse peoples of the Russian North Caucasus. These indigenous Sunni Muslims have their own unique heritage, history, and religious experience. The Tatars launched a reformist movement in the 19th century that later morphed into ideas of “Euro-Islam,” a progressive credo that could coexist, and even compete, with Russian Orthodoxy and other Christian denominations. Sufi movements, rooted in private forms of belief and practice, similarly prevailed in the Russian North Caucasus after the late 18th century. 

Before the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s, when Central Asia and the South Caucasus were also part of the state, the USSR’s demography was in flux. The “ethnic” Muslim share of the population was rising as a result of high birthrates in Central Asia, while the Slavic, primarily Orthodox, populations of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine were declining from high mortality and low birthrates. Since the dissolution of the USSR, Russia’s nominal Muslim population has swelled with labor migration from Central Asia and Azerbaijan, which has brought more Shiite Muslims into the mix, in the case of Azeri immigrants. As in other countries, Russia has also had its share of converts to Islam as the population rediscovered religion in the 1990s and 2000s after the enforced atheism of the Soviet period came to an end.

The foreign fighter problem

The Kremlin cannot afford the rise of any group that fuses religion and politics, and has outside allegiances that might encourage opposition to the Russian state among its Muslim populations. The religious wars in the Middle East are not a side show for Russia. Thousands of foreign fighters have flocked to Syria from Russia, as well as from Central Asia and the South Caucasus, all attracted by the extreme messages of ISIS and other groups.

Extremist groups have been active in Russia since the Chechen wars of the 1990s and 2000s. A recent Reuters report reveals how Russia allowed—and even encouraged—militants and radicals from the North Caucasus to go and fight in Syria in 2013, in an effort to divert them away from potential domestic terrorist attacks ahead of the February 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics. The Kremlin now worries that these and other fighters will return from Syria and further radicalize and inflame the situation in the North Caucasus and elsewhere in Russia. Putin intends to eliminate the fighters, in place, before they have an opportunity to come back home.

Putin also knows a thing or two about extremists from his time in the KGB, as well as his reading of Russian history. As a result, he does little to distinguish among them. For Putin, an extremist is an extremist—no matter what name he or she adopts. Indeed, Russian revolutionaries in the 19th and 20th centuries wrote the playbook for fusing ideology with terror and brutality; and Putin has recently become very critical of that revolutionary approach––moving even to criticize Soviet founder and Bolshevik Party leader Vladimir Lenin for destroying the Russian state and empire one hundred years ago in the Russian Revolution of 1917. For Putin, anyone whose views and ideas can become the base for violence in opposition to the legal, legitimate state (and its leader) is an extremist who must be countered. Syria is a crucial front in holding the line.

The long haul

With this in mind, we can be sure that Putin sees Russia in for the long haul in Syria. Recent signs that Russia may be creating a new army base in Palmyra to complement its bases in Latakia and Tarsus, underscore this point. Having watched the United States returning to its old battlegrounds in both Afghanistan and Iraq to head off new extremist threats, Putin will want to prepare contingencies and keep his options open. 

The fight with extremists is only beginning for Russia in Syria, now that Moscow has bolstered the position of Bashar Assad and the secular Alawite regime. For Putin and for Russia, Syria is the focal point of international action, and the current arena for diplomatic as well as military interaction with the United States, but it is also a critical element for Putin in his efforts to maintain control of the homefront.

       

       

       

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By most metrics, the 1991 Gulf War, also known as Operation Desert Storm, was a huge and rapid success for the United States and its allies. The mission of defeating Iraq's army, which invaded Kuwait the year prior, was done swiftly and decisively. However, the war's impact on soldiers who fought in it was lasting. Over 650,000 American men and women served in the conflict, and many came home with symptoms including insomnia, respiratory disorders, memory issues and others attributed to a variety of exposures – “Gulf War Illness."

On June 16, the Center for 21st Century Security and Intelligence at Brookings and Georgetown University Medical Center co-hosted a discussion on Desert Storm, its veterans, and how they are faring today. Representative Mike Coffman (R-Col.), the only member of Congress to serve in both Gulf wars, delivered an opening address before joining Michael O’Hanlon, senior fellow at Brookings, for a moderated discussion. Joel Kupersmith, former head of the Office of Research and Development of the Department of Veterans Affairs, convened a follow-on panel with Carolyn Clancy, deputy under secretary for health for organizational excellence at the Department of Veterans Affairs; Adrian Atizado, deputy national legislative director at Disabled American Veterans; and James Baraniuk, professor of medicine at Georgetown University Medical Center.

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• Desert Storm after 25 years: Confronting the exposures of modern warfare

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