Reports & Papers

2023 marked eighty years since the wartime adoption of the BRUSA Agreement between Great Britain and the United States. This 1943 document codified the growing relationship between
U.S. and U.K. signals intelligence organizations and included policies governing the exchange of personnel and joint regulations for handling sensitive material. Security directives and protocols aligned operational processes between the democratic governments, setting new cooperative standards for nation-states battling authoritarian regimes. 

From July 11-12, 2023, NATO leaders gathered in Vilnius, Lithuania for one of the most significant NATO summits in history. This timely brief by Eric Rosenbach, Grace Jones, and Olivia Leiwant serves as a background piece on Ukraine’s history with NATO, potential future pathways for accession, and the operational impact Ukraine’s NATO membership could have on the alliance. 

Given the potential for a long war this paper offers an assessment of key economic and political factors which will help define Ukraine’s capacity to effectively resist Russian aggression, occupation, and ultimately strengthen affected sectors of society. It offers corresponding recommendations for policymakers in Washington and Europe. 

Three factors are likely to have contributed to shaping Putin’s decision to launch the invasion one year ago.

In the past year, it has been vital to keep in mind one axiom that has become a cliché: the fog of war is dense and thickened by disinformation and propaganda. To ensure we have our feet on a solid foundation as we try to interpret the latest news from Ukraine, we created a weekly Report Card. 

Using insights from the Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (SVAC) dataset, this policy brief outlines key trends in the use of sexual violence in Russia’s war against Ukraine between 2014 and 2021, describing the reported perpetrators, where it occurred, and what forms it took.

In the first comprehensive post-mortem analysis of the Noel Kempff Mercado Climate Action Project (NKMCAP), Reine Rambert and Amanda Sardonis examine how NKMCAP failed to live up to its potential, by focusing on three different dimensions of partnership effectiveness: 1) the sustainability of the partnership, 2) the effectiveness of the collaboration process itself, and 3) the achievement of the planned objectives. Rambert and Sardonis extract several transferable lessons from the challenges faced by NKMCAP that are highly consequential to partnership effectiveness.

China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has for years held a prominent position in the global infrastructure investment space. In the absence of similarly far-reaching projects coordinated by other countries including the transatlantic partners, important questions about the BRI’s implications for Europe and America arise. Given U.S.-China competition pulling the EU in two directions and opposing approaches among member states vis-à-vis China amid a globally growing infrastructure investment gap, the need for a liberally motivated large-scale infrastructure investment approach is clear. This alternative model of advancing economic development goals stands in opposition to the BRI’s approach of creating economic dependence on China through massive recipient country debt thereby increasing Chinese geopolitical power. 

In late 2017, Mexico made headlines as Italian company Enel bid what was then a world-record low price for renewable energy in the country’s third such energy auction. This development was possible due to the historical and sweeping energy reforms passed with broad support in Mexico in 2013. Then-President Enrique Peña Nieto had succeeded where previous Mexican presidents had failed, reversing decades of resource nationalism and overhauling the energy sector through constitutional reforms that gave the private sector a larger role and advantaged renewable energy in Mexico’s economy. The 2017 auction seemed to indicate Mexico’s bright future not only as a conventional oil producer, but also as a clean energy power.

This paper will review the changing world of climate change education and opportunities for adopting innovative pedagogical approaches such as immersive technologies, participatory methods, and art-based learning.