• CRITICAL MINERALSEvaluation of U.S. Policies to Increase Domestic Access to Critical Minerals

    The U.S. government has responded to the need to secure access to critical minerals with a set of policy tools, such as tax credits, loans, stockpiles, import tariffs, and permitting reforms. But which tools actually work, and for whom?

  • QUICK TAKES // BY BEN FRANKELThe New Normal in the Gulf

    For oil shipments through the strait, “new normal” is the more accurate description: oil continues to flow under conditions of deep uncertainty, coercive risk, and geopolitical vulnerability. The distinction is substantive because oil markets depend not only on current physical throughput but also on confidence in the reliability of future supply.

  • CHINA WATCHThe Scope and Nature of the U.S.-China Competition

    Significant debates remain underway on some of the most essential aspects of the U.S. contest with China. What is clear is that the United States is dealing with a rival whose dynamism derives not from ideological expansion but from economic development, a growing influence in international institutions and processes, and an increasingly strong position in the fields of science and technology.

  • ESPIONAGEEspionage Boosted East Germany’s Economic Output by 7.4 Percent

    East Germany’s espionage activities in the West boosted the country’s economic output by 7.4 percent. Value added in manufacturing alone increased by 22.3 percent through industrial espionage, equivalent to 20.2 billion East German marks or approximately 4.1 billion euros at 2020 prices.

  • CRITICAL MINERALSTo Succeed in Rare-Earths Mining, Support the Whole Supply Chain

    By Francesca Ciuffetelli

    Australia’s rare-earths industry has made substantial progress. After years of project development, government investment and efforts to diversify supply chains away from China, several projects are now targeting first output between 2027 and 2030. The next challenge is to ensure that this emerging production can move through commercially viable supply chains.

  • THE AMERICASGuyana, Exxon, and the Real Price of Extraction

    Guyana’s success will be measured not by how many floating platforms Exxon operates offshore, but by whether the proceeds become schools, roads, public health, resilient institutions, and productive industries after the oil itself is gone. The question is thus not whether Exxon gives back. It is who gets to decide what “giving back” means.

  • AIThe Insurability of Artificial Intelligence

    AI-related harms are already emerging, including incorrect or misleading outputs, deepfakes, privacy violations, intellectual property disputes, fraud, product defects, and discriminatory decisions. These harms create demand for insurance but do not fit neatly within existing insurance lines.

  • CRITICAL MINERALSHow the U.S Gave Up Its Edge to China in Processing Vital Rare Earth Minerals – and What That’s Costing

    By Charles Edward Gehrke

    Rebuilding a U.S. rare earths supply chain would remove most U.S. dependence on China for rare earths and the political leverage it implies. But the U.S. should be building a supply chain with allies such as Australia or Japan, both of which have started to build capacity. This would lower the risk of the U.S. being cut off unilaterally.

  • CRITICAL MINERALSDon’t Just Secure Critical Minerals Supply. Look for Substitutes.

    By Alain Richardt

    Building complete industrial chains for critical minerals is only one way to escape reliance on concentrated foreign supply. A faster way is to find substitute materials and get several of them ready for use.

  • AIWhy AI’s Biggest Rivals Are Suddenly Calling for Restraint

    By Connor Martin

    A series of incidents and stark new warnings from AI researchers has pushed the once-abstract risk of self-improving AI into the center of public debate. CFR’s Connor Martin unpacks what’s driving the sudden alarm and why the industry’s competing incentives could make a slowdown unlikely.

  • THE AMERICASGuyana’s Boom Meets Its Geopolitical Test

    Guyana has entered the second half of 2026 with two important developments unfolding at once: an economy still expanding at a pace almost without modern parallel, and a long-running territorial conflict with Venezuela approaching what Georgetown hopes will be a definitive legal resolution.

  • AIA Blueprint for Keeping Humans in Control of AI

    By Katie Gilbert

    New research teaches independent AI agents to ask for help — and builds oversight of models we don’t fully trust.

  • AIBig AI Wants to Slow Down AI Research. Is It a Safety Pause or a Strategic Retreat?

    By Andrew Cullen

    Any successful effort at “pacing the rate of capabilities advancement so that risk prevention has time to keep up”, as Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei puts it, will require significant cooperation between rival companies – and nations.

  • SURVEILLANCEFinancial Surveillance in the Shadow of 9/11

    By Nicholas Anthony

    One of the least known consequences of the 9/11 terrorist attacks is the financial surveillance that was expanded in the wake of the attack. The damage to civil liberties caused by that surveillance is far-reaching. The 25th anniversary of the attacks is a good time to ask whether the decision Congress made in 2001 makes sense in 2026.

  • CYBERSECURITYA Year of Hands-On Security Work for Cybersecurity Master’s Students

    New embeds master’s students directly in major open-source communities for a year of hands-on security work, addressing a widening vulnerability in the software the internet depends on.