2016 ANNUAL REPORT

PHOTO: HALIL FIDAN/ANADOLU/GETTY IMAGES
FOREIGN POLICY
PROMOTING PEACE AND SECURITY
IN TURBULENT TIMES
After the end of the Cold
War, the world experienced
more than two decades
of relative peace, prosperity, and
stability. But in the last several
years, the international community
has witnessed a return to great
power competition, with Russia’s
aggression in Ukraine and mounting
tensions between China and the
United States in the South China
Sea. Rising violence in the Middle
East contributes to regional and
even global instability. Europe, too,
faces multiple challenges, with
terrorist attacks, large refugee flows,
and the British vote to separate
from the European Union. To help
make sense of these developments
and devise possible paths forward,
experts in the Foreign Policy
program are conducting rigorous
research and analysis to articulate
and disseminate actionable policy
solutions.
Order from Chaos
In 2016, the Foreign Policy program
launched a year-long initiative
examining the key issues facing the
United States and the international
community. The project will culminate
in February 2017 with a set
of policy recommendations for the
incoming U.S. Administration. The
Order from Chaos project seeks to
produce incisive analyses and actionable
strategies to enable the United
States to shape, defend, and adapt
the liberal international order for the
21st century. Five books out of 14
have already been published—by
Michael O’Hanlon, Harold
Trinkunas, Ted Piccone, Teresita and
Howard Schaffer, and Cheng Li—in
the “Geopolitics in the 21st Century”
series; and several policy paper series
are in development, covering China
and East Asia, the Middle East, and
Europe/Russia.
Addressing the Syrian Crisis
The Syrian civil war is generating
one of the worst humanitarian crises
since the end of the Cold War. To
help increase understanding of
this crisis, Brookings convened a
high-level forum in June 2016 that
featured Senator John McCain
(R-Arizona), David Miliband,
president of the International Rescue
Committee, and Brookings’s Leon
Weiseltier, along with more than 100
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