Policy Briefs & Testimonies

"Export sanctions continue to be used by countries while attempting to change the behavior of other governments. And, they still surface at the center of current policy debates when it comes to Iran. However, we still lack complete understanding about the impact and effectiveness of export sanctions."

This analysis suggests that the United States will continue to face difficult trade-offs in its Taiwan Strait policy. On the one hand, the United States should not—as some prominent analysts have suggested—scale back its commitment to Taiwan. Such a change in U.S. policy would accelerate the shifting balance of power in the strait, thereby magnifying the risk of armed conflict between the PRC and Taiwan. On the other hand, Washington must continue to tread cautiously on the Taiwan issue. The fact remains that many in China care deeply about Taiwan.

On Nov 24, 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian fighter jet after it veered into its airspace for 17 seconds. On December 13, a Russian ship fired warning shots at a Turkish vessel in the Aegean Sea. Bilateral tensions, with overt military dimensions, have seemed to quickly replace the goodwill that characterized relations only a year ago.

Recent research in economics shows how not to design climate treaties—and suggests how to get it right.

Robert Stavins argues for an economic approach to solving environmental problems and explains why "environmental economics" is not an oxymoron.

The United States' extended system of security commitments creates a set of institutional relationships that foster political communication. Alliance institutions are first about security protection, but they also bind states together and create institutional channels of communication. For example, NATO has facilitated ties and associated institutions that increase the ability of the United States and Europe to talk to each other and to do business. Likewise, the bilateral alliances in East Asia also play a communication role beyond narrow security issues. Consultations and exchanges spill over into other policy areas. This gives the United States the capacity to work across issue areas, using assets and bargaining chips in one area to make progress in another.

The United States has considerable tax administration and cap-and-trade expertise that could highlight potentially successful carbon pricing approaches. Although this experience is not climate-related, the United States deploys an efficient and highly compliant excise tax system, and it could assist developing country efforts to build their own capacity to tax carbon. The United States also has long experience with cap-and-trade systems for criteria air pollutants, much of which is transferable to greenhouse-gas emissions trading.

John S. Park, Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Project on Managing the Atom Associate, argues that cooperation between North Korea and Iran has been a critical—yet underexamined—enabler of North Korea's recent success. He concludes that the time has come for the United States to view the two previously independent missile programs as two sides of the same coin and recommends strategies for disrupting the procurement channels between Iran and North Korea.