Over 200 delegates from 50 countries gather this week in Washington for the Presidential Summit on Entrepreneurship. The summit hosts entrepreneurs to teach and learn innovative ways to strengthen professional and social relationships between the U.S. and the Islamic world. During his first major address to the Muslim world, delivered in Cairo last June, President Obama pledged to increase engagement through entrepreneurship, exchange programs and multilateral service initiatives.

Volunteer-led development initiatives have begun to act on Obama’s call for citizen diplomacy and private-sector engagement. The Initiative on International Volunteering and Service at Brookings and the Building Bridges Coalition have fueled an emerging legislative initiative that calls for increasing the role of international volunteers in the U.S. diplomatic agenda and development programs. This Service World Initiative has drawn from Brookings research outlining options to advance the president’s call for multilateral service.

As seen last year, for the first time in history, the majority of the world’s population lived in urban areas. And this trend is accelerating at an unprecedented rate. By 2050, urban dwellers are expected to make up about 70 percent of Earth’s total population. These informed 21st century urban citizens demand 24-7 connectivity, smart electric grids, efficient transportation networks, safe food and water, and transparent social services. All these demands place a huge strain on existing city infrastructures and the global environment. Most affected by this rapid urban boom, are the emerging markets. So how do we tackle this development dilemma?

One way is for highly-skilled experts, from a range of countries, to volunteer their time in emerging markets to help improve economic development, government services and stimulate job growth. This type of pro-bono program has many benefits. It benefits the urban areas in these emerging markets by leveraging intelligence, connecting systems and providing near-term impact on critical issues such as transportation, water, food safety, education and healthcare. It benefits the expert volunteers by fostering their teamwork skills, providing a cultural learning experience, and broadening their expertise in emerging markets.

IBM, which chairs the Building Bridges Coalition’s corporate sector, hosts a range of volunteer-led global entrepreneurship programs that improve economic stability for small- and medium-sized businesses, increase technology in emerging markets and open doors for the next generation of business and social leaders. This program connects high-talent employees with growing urban centers around the world and fosters the type of leadership to help IBM in the 21st century.

Recently, IBM sent a group of experts to Ho Chi Minh City as part of its Corporate Service Corps, a business version of the Peace Corps. This was the first Corporate Service Corps mission to be made up of executives, and the first to help a city in an emerging market analyze its challenges holistically and produce a plan to manage them. As a result, the city has now adopted a 10-year redevelopment plan that includes seven pilot programs in areas ranging from transportation to food safety. IBM will also help the city set up academic programs to prepare young Vietnamese to launch careers in technology services. IBM will continue this program throughout the next couple years to evolve the next set of global business and cultural hubs utilizing the volunteer hours of some of its most seasoned experts.

The Presidential Summit this week will further Obama’s call to “turn dialogue into interfaith service, so bridges between peoples lead to action.” The policy initiative of the Building Bridges Coalition, coupled with entrepreneurial innovations such as IBMs, can foster greater prosperity and service between the U.S. and our global partners.

BPEA co-editor Justin Wolfers describes new research that found: people dropped out of the labor force before the recession started; there are better ways to forecast unemployment; homebuyer expectations helped inflate the bubble; the U.S. is not actually as politically polarized as most people think; central banks’ recent experiments with capital controls haven’t delivered results; and the U.S. is making inroads fighting poverty.

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• U.S. Not Actually as Politically Polarized as Most Think
• Poverty Has Fallen Much More than Previously Thought
• New Unemployment Model Can Outperform Forecasters
• Perceptions Matter: Homebuyer Expectations Helped Inflate Bubble
• Central Banks’ Recent Experiments with Capital Controls Haven’t Delivered Results

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Israeli society is diverse, dynamic, vibrant, and challenged. Israel’s long-held social solidarity faces new pressure from growing internal fissures and from the ongoing conflict with the Palestinians.

In bold and candid remarks earlier this year, Israeli President Reuven Rivlin identified four “tribes” in Israeli society, representing different worldviews, and called for a new effort to find common ground among secular, national-religious and ultra-Orthodox Jewish Israelis, and Arab citizens of Israel. How might Israel’s diverse society coalesce in the coming years? How will the future of Israeli society affect its democracy, its relations with its neighbors and with the United States?

On December 10, the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings hosted President Reuven Rivlin to discuss his vision for the future of Israeli society and the U.S.-Israeli relationship. Bruce Jones, vice president and director of Foreign Policy at Brookings, gave welcoming remarks, and Tamara Cofman Wittes, senior fellow and director of the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, introduced President Rivlin.

Following President Rivlin’s remarks, Natan Sachs, fellow at the Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings, engaged the president in conversation.

Join the conversation on Twitter at #IsraelsFuture.

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The United States alliance with Saudi Arabia dates back to 1943, making the U.S. relationship with the Kingdom one of America's longest-standing in the Middle East. Saudi Arabia is a key counterterrorism and diplomatic partner within the region, yet the alliance has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years, especially in the period following the 9/11 attacks, when questions about Saudi support for extremist causes emerged. Saudi Arabia’s prosecution of the war in Yemen has added to the criticism, with many observers blaming the Kingdom for the unfolding humanitarian crisis within the Arab world's poorest state. In recent comments, President Barack Obama has been critical of Saudi policies, despite U.S. logistical and intelligence support to Saudi Arabia’s war effort in Yemen.

On April 21, the Intelligence Project and Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings hosted U.S. Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut to discuss the U.S.-Saudi alliance with Senior Fellows Bruce Riedel and Tamara Cofman Wittes. Senator Murphy has urged a more rigorous approach to cooperation with Riyadh that balances U.S. counterterrorism interests, strategic imperatives, and human rights concerns, and has led efforts on Capitol Hill to debate the war in Yemen. Cofman Wittes, director of the Center for Middle East Policy, provided introductory remarks and moderated the discussion. 

 Join the conversation on Twitter at #USSaudi.

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Many within the United States and others abroad continue to question the United States’ role in the world. Understandably, Americans have grown wary of the country’s role in the world, some asking whether the U.S. still has the power and influence to lead the international community, while others question why the United States must still take on this seemingly singular responsibility. On the eve of a major speech by President Obama addressing these questions, Senior Fellow Robert Kagan released a new essay entitled, "Superpowers Don't Get to Retire: What Our Tired Country Still Owes the World," which was published in the latest edition of The New Republic. Kagan argued that the United States has no choice but to be “exceptional.”

On May 27, the Foreign Policy program at Brookings and The New Republic hosted an event to mark the release of the Kagan essay and in advance of President Obama’s address to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Kagan, a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy at Brookings, was joined by The New Republic's Leon Wieseltier and The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt.

After the program, the panelists took audience questions.

Read the full article»

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• Americans Take U.S.-Made World Order for Granted
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For several years, President Obama has operated under a set of assumptions about the Middle East: First, there could be no return of U.S. ground troops in sizeable numbers to the region; and second, the United States had no interests in the region great enough to justify such a renewed commitment. The crises in the Middle East could be kept localized. The core elements of the world order would not be affected, and America’s own interests would not be directly threatened.

These assumptions could have been right, but instead they have proven to be wrong. The combined crises of Syria, Iraq, and the threat posed by the Islamic State (or ISIS) have not been contained. ISIS itself has proven both durable and capable, as the attacks in Paris showed. The Syrian conflict—with the resulting refugee flows—is destabilizing Lebanon and Jordan; it has put added pressure on Turkey’s already tenuous democracy; and it has exacerbated the acute conflict between Sunni and Shiite across the region. The multi-sided war in the Middle East has now ceased to be a strictly Middle Eastern problem. It has become a European problem, as well. The crisis on the periphery, in short, has now spilled over into the core.

Does this not call for a reassessment of the policies that have so far been tried in Syria and Iraq? Have not events in the Middle East, and now in Europe, reached the point where significant interests are at stake, thereby requiring a more substantial response by the United States?

Read Robert Kagan's more in-depth article on the subject in the Wall Street Journal.

Editors’ Note: The economic, political, and security strategy that the United States has pursued for more than seven decades is under attack by leading political candidates in both parties, write Ivo Daalder and Robert Kagan. But the United States plays an essential role in supporting the international environment from which Americans benefit greatly. This article originally appeared in The Washington Post.

The economic, political and security strategy that the United States has pursued for more than seven decades, under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, is today widely questioned by large segments of the American public and is under attack by leading political candidates in both parties. Many Americans no longer seem to value the liberal international order that the United States created after World War II and sustained throughout the Cold War and beyond. Or perhaps they take it for granted and have lost sight of the essential role the United States plays in supporting the international environment from which they benefit greatly. The unprecedented prosperity made possible by free and open markets and thriving international trade; the spread of democracy; and the avoidance of major conflict among great powers: All these remarkable accomplishments have depended on sustained U.S. engagement around the world. Yet politicians in both parties dangle before the public the vision of an America freed from the burdens of leadership.

What these politicians don’t say, perhaps because they don’t understand it themselves, is that the price of ending our engagement would far outweigh its costs. The international order created by the United States today faces challenges greater than at any time since the height of the Cold War. Rising authoritarian powers in Asia and Europe threaten to undermine the security structures that have kept the peace since World War II. Russia invaded Ukraine and has seized some of its territory. In East Asia, an increasingly aggressive China seeks to control the sea lanes through which a large share of global commerce flows. In the Middle East, Iran pursues hegemony by supporting Hezbollah and Hamas and the bloody tyranny in Syria. The Islamic State controls more territory than any terrorist group in history, brutally imposing its extreme vision of Islam and striking at targets throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. None of these threats will simply go away. Nor will the United States be spared if the international order collapses, as it did twice in the 20th century. In the 21st century, oceans provide no security. Nor do walls along borders. Nor would cutting off the United States from the international economy by trashing trade agreements and erecting barriers to commerce.

In the 21st century, oceans provide no security. Nor do walls along borders. Nor would cutting off the United States from the international economy by trashing trade agreements and erecting barriers to commerce.

Instead of following the irresponsible counsel of demagogues, we need to restore a bipartisan foreign policy consensus around renewing U.S. global leadership. Despite predictions of a “post-American world,” U.S. capacities remain considerable. The U.S. economy remains the most dynamic in the world. The widely touted “rise of the rest”—the idea that the United States was being overtaken by the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China—has proved to be a myth. The dollar remains the world’s reserve currency, and people across the globe seek U.S. investment and entrepreneurial skills to help their flagging economies. U.S. institutions of higher learning remain the world’s best and attract students from every corner of the globe. The political values that the United States stands for remain potent forces for change. Even at a time of resurgent autocracy, popular demands for greater freedom can be heard in Russia, China, Iran and elsewhere, and those peoples look to the United States for support, both moral and material. And our strategic position remains strong. The United States has more than 50 allies and partners around the world. Russia and China between them have no more than a handful.

The task ahead is to play on these strengths and provide the kind of leadership that many around the world seek and that the American public can support. For the past two years, under the auspices of the World Economic Forum, we have worked with a diverse, bipartisan group of Americans and representatives from other countries to put together the broad outlines of a strategy for renewed U.S. leadership. There is nothing magical about our proposals. The strategies to sustain the present international order are much the same as the strategies that created it. But they need to be adapted and updated to meet new challenges and take advantage of new opportunities.

The widely touted “rise of the rest”—the idea that the United States was being overtaken by the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China—has proved to be a myth.

For instance, one prime task today is to strengthen the international economy, from which the American people derive so many benefits. This means passing trade agreements that strengthen ties between the United States and the vast economies of East Asia and Europe. Contrary to what demagogues in both parties claim, ordinary Americans stand to gain significantly from the recently negotiated Trans-Pacific Partnership. According to the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the agreement will increase annual real incomes in the United States by $131 billion. The United States also needs to work to reform existing international institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, so that rising economic powers such as China feel a greater stake in them, while also working with new institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to ensure that they reinforce rather than undermine liberal economic norms.

The revolution in energy, which has made the United States one of the world’s leading suppliers, offers another powerful advantage. With the right mix of policies, the United States could help allies in Europe and Asia diversify their sources of supply and thus reduce their vulnerability to Russian manipulation. Nations such as Russia and Iran that rely heavily on hydrocarbon exports would be weakened, as would the OPEC oil cartel. The overall result would be a relative increase in our power and ability to sustain the order.

The world has come to recognize that education, creativity and innovation are key to prosperity, and most see the United States as a leader in these areas. Other nations want access to the American market, American finance and American innovation. Businesspeople around the world seek to build up their own Silicon Valleys and other U.S.-style centers of entrepreneurship. The U.S. government can do a better job of working with the private sector in collaborating with developing countries. And Americans need to be more, not less, welcoming to immigrants. Students studying at our world-class universities, entrepreneurs innovating in our high-tech incubators and immigrants searching for new opportunities for their families strengthen the United States and show the world the opportunities offered by democracy.

Americans need to be reminded what is at stake.

Finally, the United States needs to do more to reassure allies that it will be there to back them up if they face aggression. Would-be adversaries need to know that they would do better by integrating themselves into the present international order than by trying to undermine it. Accomplishing this, however, requires ending budget sequestration and increasing spending on defense and on all the other tools of international affairs. This investment would be more than paid for by the global security it would provide.

All these efforts are interrelated, and, indeed, a key task for responsible political leaders will be to show how the pieces fit together: how trade enhances security, how military power undergirds prosperity and how providing access to American education strengthens the forces dedicated to a more open and freer world.

Above all, Americans need to be reminded what is at stake. Many millions around the world have benefited from an international order that has raised standards of living, opened political systems and preserved the general peace. But no nation and no people have benefited more than Americans. And no nation has a greater role to play in preserving this system for future generations.

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On June 23, voters in the United Kingdom will go to the polls for a referendum on the country’s membership in the European Union. As one of the EU’s largest and wealthiest member states, Britain’s exit, or “Brexit”, would not only alter the U.K.’s institutional, political, and economic relationships, but would also send shock waves across the entire continent and beyond, with a possible Brexit fundamentally reshaping transatlantic relations.

On May 6, the Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) at Brookings, in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Stiftung North America, the UK in a Changing Europe Initiative based at King's College London, and Wilton Park USA, will host a discussion to assess the range of implications that could result from the United Kingdom’s referendum. 

After each panel, the participants will take questions from the audience.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #UKReferendum

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On July 20 and 21, defense ministers from several nations will gather in Washington, D.C. at the invitation of U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. The meeting will bring together representatives from countries working to confront and defeat the Islamic State (or ISIL). French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will be among those at the summit discussing how to accelerate long-term efforts to fight ISIL in Iraq and Syria. The close relationship between France and the United States has provided a solid base for security cooperation for decades, and in recent years, France has become one of America’s strongest allies in fighting terrorism and a prominent member of the international coalition to defeat ISIL.

On July 20, the Foreign Policy program at Brookings hosted Minister Le Drian for a discussion on French and U.S. cooperation as the two countries face multiple transnational security threats. Since becoming France’s defense minister in 2012, Le Drian has had to address numerous new security crises emerging from Africa, the Middle East, and within Europe itself. France faced horrific terrorist attacks on its own soil in January and November 2015 and remains under a state of emergency with its armed forces playing an active role in maintaining security both at home and abroad. Le Drian recently authored “Qui est l’ennemi?” (“Who is the enemy?”, Editions du Cerf, May 2016), defining a comprehensive strategy to address numerous current threats.

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An academic-industrial partnership published last January in the prestigious journal Nature the results of the development of antibiotic teixobactin. The reported work is still at an early preclinical stage but it is nevertheless good news. Over the last decades the introduction of new antibiotics has slowed down nearly to a halt and over the same period we have seen a dangerous increase in antibiotic resistant bacteria.

Such is the magnitude of the problem that it has attracted the attention of the U.S. government. Accepting several recommendations presented by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) in their comprehensive report, the Obama Administration issued last September an Executive Order establishing an interagency Task Force for combating antibiotic resistant bacteria and directing the Secretary of Human and Health Services (HHS) to establish an Advisory Council on this matter. More recently the White House issued a strategic plan to tackle this problem.

Etiology of antibiotic resistance

Infectious diseases have been a major cause of morbidity and mortality from time immemorial. The early discovery of sulfa drugs in the 1930s and then antibiotics in the 1940s significantly aided the fight against these scourges. Following World War II society experienced extraordinary gains in life expectancy and overall quality of life. During that period, marked by optimism, many people presumed victory over infectious diseases. However, overuse of antibiotics and a slowdown of innovation, allowed bacteria to develop resistance at such a pace that some experts now speak of a post-antibiotic era.

The problem is manifold: overuse of antibiotics, slow innovation, and bacterial evolution.

The overuse of antibiotics in both humans and livestock also facilitated the emergence of antibiotic resistant bacteria. Responsibility falls to health care providers who prescribed antibiotics liberally and patients who did not complete their prescribed dosages. Acknowledging this problem, the medical community has been training physicians to avoid pressures to prescribe antibiotics for children (and their parents) with infections that are likely to be viral in origin. Educational efforts are also underway to encourage patients to complete their full course of every prescribed antibiotic and not to halt treatment when symptoms ease. The excessive use of antibiotics in food-producing animals is perhaps less manageable because it affects the bottom line of farm operations. For instance, the FDA reported that even though famers were aware of the risks, antibiotics use in feedstock increased by 16 percent from 2009 to 2012.

The development of antibiotics—perhaps a more adequate term would be anti-bacterial agents—indirectly contributed to the problem by being incremental and by nearly stalling two decades ago. Many revolutionary innovations in antibiotics were introduced in a first period of development that started in the 1940s and lasted about two decades. Building upon scaffolds and mechanisms discovered theretofore, a second period of incremental development followed over three decades, through to 1990s, with roughly three new antibiotics introduced every year. High competition and little differentiations rendered antibiotics less and less profitable and over a third period covering the last 20 years pharmaceutical companies have cut development of new antibiotics down to a trickle.

The misguided overuse and misuse of antibiotics together with the economics of antibiotic innovation compounded the problem taking place in nature: bacteria evolves and adapts rapidly.

Current policy initiatives

The PCAST report recommended federal leadership and investment to combat antibiotic-resistant bacteria in three areas: improving surveillance, increasing the longevity of current antibiotics through moderated usage, and picking up the pace of development of new antibiotics and other effective interventions.

To implement this strategy PCAST suggested an oversight structure that includes a Director for National Antibiotic Resistance Policy, an interagency Task Force for Combating Antibiotic Resistance Bacteria, and an Advisory Council to be established by the HHS Secretary. PCAST also recommended increasing federal support from $450 million to $900 million for core activities such as surveillance infrastructure and development of transformative diagnostics and treatments. In addition, it proposed $800 million in funding for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to support public-private partnerships for antibiotics development.

The Obama administration took up many of these recommendations and directed their implementation with the aforementioned Executive Order. More recently, it announced a National Strategy for Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria to implement the recommendations of the PCAST report. The national strategy has five pillars: First, slow the emergence and spread of resistant bacteria by decreasing the abusive usage of antibiotics in health care as well as in farm animals; second, establish national surveillance efforts that build surveillance capability across human and animal environments; third, advance development and usage of rapid and innovative diagnostics to provide more accurate care delivery and data collection; forth, seek to accelerate the invention process for new antibiotics, other therapeutics and vaccines across all stages, including basic and applied research and development; finally, emphasize the importance of international collaboration and endorse the World Health Organization Action Plan to address antimicrobial resistance.

University-Industry partnerships

Therefore, an important cause of our antibiotic woes seems to be driven by economic logic. On one hand, pharmaceutical companies have by and large abandoned investment in antibiotic development; competition and high substitutability have led to low prices and in their financial calculation, pharmaceutical companies cannot justify new developmental efforts. On the other hand, farmers have found the use of antibiotics highly profitable and thus have no financial incentives to halt their use.

There is nevertheless a mirror explanation of a political character.

The federal government allocates about $30 billion for research in medicine and health through the National Institutes of Health. The government does not seek to crowd out private research investment; rather, the goal is to fund research the private sector would not conduct because the financial return of that research is too uncertain. Economic theory prescribes government intervention to address this kind of market failure. However, it is also government policy to privatize patents to discoveries made with public monies in order to facilitate their transfer from public to private organizations. An unanticipated risk of this policy is the rebalancing of the public research portfolio to accommodate the growing demand for the kind of research that feeds into attractive market niches. The risk is that the more aligned public research and private demand become, the less research attention will be directed to medical needs without great market prospects. The development of new antibiotics seems to be just that kind of neglected medical public need. If antibiotics are unattractive to pharmaceutical companies, antibiotic development should be a research priority for the NIH. We know that it is unlikely that Congress will increase public spending for antibiotic R&D in the proportion suggested by PCAST, but the NIH could step in and rebalance its own portfolio to increase antibiotic research. Either increasing NIH funding for antibiotics or NIH rebalancing its own portfolio, are political decisions that are sure to meet organized resistance even stronger than antibiotic resistance.

The second mirror explanation is that farmers have a well-organized lobby. It is no surprise that the Executive Order gingerly walks over recommendations for the farming sector and avoid any hint at an outright ban of antibiotics use, lest the administration is perceived as heavy-handed. Considering the huge magnitude of the problem, a political solution is warranted. Farmers’ cooperation in addressing this national problem will have to be traded for subsidies and other extra-market incentives that compensate for loss revenues or higher costs. The administration will do well to work out the politics with farmer associations first before they organize in strong opposition to any measure to curb antibiotic use in feedstock.

Addressing this challenge adequately will thus require working out solutions to the economic and political dimensions of this problem. Public-private partnerships, including university-industry collaboration, could prove to be a useful mechanism to balance the two dimensions of the equation. The development of teixobactin mentioned above is a good example of this prescription as it resulted from collaboration between the university of Bonn Germany, Northeastern University, and Novobiotic Pharmaceutical, a start-up in Cambridge Mass.

If the NIH cannot secure an increase in research funding for antibiotics development and cannot rebalance substantially its portfolio, it can at least encourage Cooperative Research and Development Agreements as well as university start-ups devoted to develop new antibiotics. In order to promote public-private and university-industry partnerships, policy coordination is advised. The nascent enterprises will be assisted greatly if the government can help them raise capital connecting them to venture funding networks or implementing a loan guarantees programs specific to antibiotics.  It can also allow for an expedited FDA approval which would lessen the regulatory burden. Likewise, farmers may be convinced to discontinue the risky practice if innovation in animal husbandry can effectively replace antibiotic use. Public-private partnerships, particularly through university extension programs, could provide an adequate framework to test alternative methods, scale them up, and subsidize the transition to new sustainable practices that are not financially painful to farmers.

Yikun Chi contributed to this post

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On July 20 and 21, defense ministers from several nations will gather in Washington, D.C. at the invitation of U.S. Secretary of Defense Ash Carter. The meeting will bring together representatives from countries working to confront and defeat the Islamic State (or ISIL). French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian will be among those at the summit discussing how to accelerate long-term efforts to fight ISIL in Iraq and Syria. The close relationship between France and the United States has provided a solid base for security cooperation for decades, and in recent years, France has become one of America’s strongest allies in fighting terrorism and a prominent member of the international coalition to defeat ISIL.

On July 20, the Foreign Policy program at Brookings hosted Minister Le Drian for a discussion on French and U.S. cooperation as the two countries face multiple transnational security threats. Since becoming France’s defense minister in 2012, Le Drian has had to address numerous new security crises emerging from Africa, the Middle East, and within Europe itself. France faced horrific terrorist attacks on its own soil in January and November 2015 and remains under a state of emergency with its armed forces playing an active role in maintaining security both at home and abroad. Le Drian recently authored “Qui est l’ennemi?” (“Who is the enemy?”, Editions du Cerf, May 2016), defining a comprehensive strategy to address numerous current threats.

Join the conversation on Twitter using #USFrance

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On August 7, the White House announced cancellation of the planned Moscow summit in early September between Presidents Obama and Putin, saying there were no prospects for significant progress on key issues at the meeting.  The White House also said cooperation with Russia remains a priority, and on August 9 Secretaries Kerry and Hagel met with their Russian counterparts, Ministers Lavrov and Shoigu.  While President Obama intends to travel to St Petersburg for the G20 summit on September 6 and 7, there has been no word on whether there will be a bilateral meeting with President Putin on the margins of the summit.  Clearly, U.S.-Russian relations have entered troubled times.

On August 28, the Center on the United States and Europe hosted a panel discussion to address these developments and future prospects for the bilateral relationship between Washington and Moscow.  Brookings Senior Fellows Clifford Gaddy, Steven Pifer and Angela Stent will take part.  Brookings Visiting Fellow Jeremy Shapiro moderated.   Following opening comments, the panelists took questions from the audience.

Watch full video from the event at C-SPAN.org »

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• What the U.S. Does in Syria Will Be Costly for Russia
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Professor Riek Machar, former vice president of South Sudan and now leader of the rebel group that is fighting the government of South Sudan for control of the apparatus of the government, has publicly threatened to capture and take control of both the capital city of Juba and the oil-producing regions of the country. Branding South Sudan’s president, Salva Kiir, a “dictator” and arguing that he does not recognize the need to share power, Professor Machar stated that the present conflict, which has lasted for more than five months and resulted in the killing of many people and the destruction of a significant amount of property, will not end until Kiir is chased out of power.

Violent mobilization by groups loyal to Machar against the government in Juba began in December 2013. It was only after bloody confrontations between the two parties that targeted civilians based on their ethnicity had resulted in the deaths of many people (creating a major humanitarian crisis) that a cease-fire agreement was signed in Addis Ababa on January 23, 2014, with the hope of bringing to an end the brutal fighting. The cease-fire, however, was seen only as the first step towards negotiations that were supposed to help the country exit the violent conflict and secure institutional arrangements capable of guaranteeing peaceful coexistence.

If Machar and his supporters have the wherewithal to carry out the threats and successfully do so, there is no guarantee that peace would be brought to the country. For one thing, any violent overthrow of the government would only engender more violence as supporters of Kiir and his benefactors are likely to regroup and attempt to recapture their lost political positions. What South Sudan badly needs is an institutionalization of democracy and not a government led by political opportunists. In fact, an effective strategy to exit from this incessant violence must be centered around the election of an inclusive interim government—minus both Kiir and Machar—that would engage all of the country’s relevant stakeholders in negotiations to create a governing process that adequately constrains the state, establishes mechanisms for the peaceful resolution of conflict, enhances peaceful coexistence, and provides an enabling environment for the rapid creation of the wealth needed to deal with poverty and deprivation.

On March 9, 2012, less than a year after South Sudan gained independence, then-Vice President Machar met with several Brookings scholars, including myself, in New York City. The meeting was part of the new country’s efforts to seek assistance from its international partners to address complex and longstanding development challenges, including critical issues such as the effective management of the country’s natural resource endowments, gender equity, the building of government capacity to maintain law and order, the provision of other critical public goods and services, and poverty alleviation. Among participants in this critical consultation were Mwangi S. Kimenyi, senior fellow and director of the Africa Growth Initiative (AGI) at the Brookings Institution; Witney Schneidman, AGI nonresident fellow and former deputy assistant secretary of state for African Affairs; and me. The vice president, who appeared extremely energetic and optimistic about prospects for sustainable development in the new country, requested an analysis of the commitments and achievements that the government of South Sudan had made since independence and suggestions for a way forward. The scholars, working in close collaboration with their colleagues at Brookings, produced a policy report requested by the vice president. The report entitled, South Sudan: One Year After Independence—Opportunities and Obstacles for Africa’s Newest Country, was presented at a well-attended public event on July 28, 2012. Panelists included Peter Ajak, director of the Center for Strategic Analyses and Research in Juba; Ambassador Princeton Lyman, U.S. special envoy for South Sudan and Sudan; Nada Mustafa Ali scholar at the New School for Social Research; Mwangi S. Kimenyi and me.

The report provided a comprehensive review of the policy issues requested by the vice president—the provision of basic services; future engagement between South Sudan and the Republic of Sudan; efficient and equitable management of natural resources; ethnic diversity and peaceful coexistence; federalism; eradication of corruption; and the benefits of regional integration. Most important is the fact that the report placed emphasis on the need for the government of South Sudan to totally reconstruct the state inherited from the Khartoum government through democratic constitution making and produce a governing process that (i) guarantees the protection of human and fundamental rights, including those of vulnerable groups (e.g., women, minority ethnic groups); (ii) adequately constrains the government (so that impunity, corruption and rent seeking are minimized); (iii) enhances entrepreneurial activities and provides the wherewithal for wealth creation and economic growth; and (iv) establishes mechanisms for the peaceful resolution of conflict and creates an environment within which all of the country’s diverse population groups can coexist peacefully.

Unfortunately, when the report was completed, members of the ruling Sudan People’s Liberation Movement were already embroiled in a brutal power struggle that eventually led to President Kiir sacking his entire cabinet, including the vice president. The collapse of the government raised the prospects of violent and destructive mobilization by groups that felt the president’s actions were marginalizing them both economically and politically. The ensuing chaos created an environment that was hardly conducive to the implementation of policies such as those presented in the Brookings report.

The government of Sudan has failed to engage in the type of robust institutional reforms that would have effectively prevented President Kiir and his government from engaging in the various opportunistic policies that have been partly responsible for the violence that now pervades the country. South Sudan’s diverse ethnic groups put forth a united front in their war against Khartoum for self-determination. Following independence, the new government engaged in state formation processes that did not provide mechanisms for all individuals and groups to compete fairly for positions in the political and economic systems. Instead, the government’s approach to state formation politicized ethnic cleavages and made the ethnic group the basis and foundation for political, and to a certain extent, economic participation. This approach has created a "sure recipe for breeding ethnic antagonism," and has led to the crisis that currently consumes the country.

While the most important policy imperative in South Sudan today is the need to make certain that the cease-fire continues to hold, long-term prospects for peaceful coexistence and development call for comprehensive institutional reforms to provide the country with a governing process that guarantees the rule of law. Hence, both the opposition and the government—the two sides in the present conflict—should take advantage of the cease-fire and start putting together the framework that will eventually be used to put the state back together. A new interim government, without the participation of the two protagonists—Kiir and Machar—should be granted the power to bring together all of the country’s relevant stakeholders to reconstitute and reconstruct the state, including negotiating a permanent constitution.

The narratives on U.S. development aid to Pakistan—as well as Pakistan’s own development policy discussion—frequently invoke the conventional wisdom that more education and better economic opportunities result in lower extremism. In the debate surrounding the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill in 2009, for instance, the late Ambassador Richard Holbrooke urged Congress to “target the economic and social roots of extremism in western Pakistan with more economic aid.”

But evidence across various contexts, including in Pakistan, has not supported this notion (see Alan Kreuger’s What Makes a Terrorist for a good overview of this evidence). We know that many terrorists are educated. And lack of education and economic opportunities do not appear to drive support for terrorism and terrorist groups. I have argued that we need to focus on the quality and content of the educational curricula—in Pakistan’s case, they are rife with biases and intolerance, and designed to foster an exclusionary identity—to understand the relationship between education and attitudes toward extremism.

My latest analysis with data from the March 2013 Pew Global Attitudes poll conducted in Pakistan sheds new light on the relationship between years of education and Pakistanis’ views of the Taliban, and lends supports to the conventional wisdom. The survey sampled 1,201 respondents throughout Pakistan, except the most insecure areas of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Baluchistan. This was a time of mounting terror attacks by the Pakistani Taliban (a few months after their attack on Malala), and came at the tail end of the Pakistan People's Party’s term in power, before the May 2013 general elections.

On attitudes toward the Pakistani Taliban, or Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), 3 percent of respondents to the Pew poll said they had a very favorable view, 13 percent reported somewhat favorable views, while nearly 17 percent and 39 percent answered that they had somewhat unfavorable and very unfavorable views, respectively. A large percentage of respondents (28 percent) chose not to answer the question or said they did not know their views. This is typical with a sensitive survey question such as this one, in a context as insecure as Pakistan.

So overall levels of support for the TTP are low, and the majority of respondents report having unfavorable views. The non-responses could reflect those who have unfavorable views but choose not to respond because of fear, or those who may simply not have an opinion on the Pakistani Taliban.

The first part of my analysis cross-tabulates attitudes toward the TTP with education and income respectively. I look at the distribution of attitudes for each education and income category (with very and somewhat favorable views lumped together as favorable; similarly for unfavorable attitudes).

Figure 1. Pakistani views on the Pakistani Taliban, by education level, 2013

Figure 1 shows that an increasing percentage of respondents report unfavorable views of the Taliban as education levels rise; and there is a decreasing percentage of non-responses at higher education levels (suggesting that more educated people have more confidence in their views, stronger views, or less fear). However, the percentage of respondents with favorable views of the Taliban, hovering between 10-20 percent, is not that different across education levels, and does not vary monotonically with education. 

Figure 2. Pakistani views on the Pakistani Taliban, by income level, 2013

Figure 2 shows views on the Pakistani Taliban by income level. While the percentage of non-responses is highest for the lowest income category, the percentages responding favorably and unfavorably do not change monotonically with income. We see broadly similar distributions of attitudes across the four income levels.

But these cross-tabulations do not account for other factors that may affect attitudes: age, gender, and geographical location. Regressions (not shown here) accounting for these factors in addition to income and education show interesting results: relative to no education, higher education levels are associated with less favorable opinions of the Pakistani Taliban; these results are strongest for those with some university education, which is heartening. This confirms findings from focus groups I conducted with university students in Pakistan in May 2015. Students at public universities engaged in wide ranging political and social debates with each other on Pakistan and its identity, quoted Rousseau and Chomsky, and had more nuanced views on terrorism and the rest of the world relative to high school students I interviewed. This must at least partly be a result of the superior curriculum and variety of materials to which they are exposed at the college level.

My regressions also show that older people have more unfavorable opinions toward the Taliban, relative to younger people; this is concerning and is consistent with the trend toward rising extremist views in Pakistan’s younger population. The problems in Pakistan’s curriculum that began in the 1980s are likely to be at least partly responsible for this trend. Urban respondents seem to have more favorable opinions toward the Taliban than rural respondents; respondents from Punjab and Baluchistan have more favorable opinions toward the Taliban relative to those from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, which as a province has had a closer and more direct experience with terror. The regression shows no relationship of income with attitudes, as was suggested by Figure 2.

Overall, the Pew 2013 data show evidence of a positive relationship between more education and lack of support for the Taliban, suggesting that the persisting but increasingly discredited conventional wisdom on these issues may hold some truth after all. These results should be complemented with additional years of data. That is what I will work on next.