Regions

Article

Race, Gender, Region: Understanding the Decline in U.S. Life Expectancy

Author: Thomas J. Bollyky
Council on Foreign Relations

Last week, the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), part of the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention, released its 2015 mortality statistics, which showed U.S. life expectancy fell from 78.9 to 78.8 years over the prior year. It is worth putting these results in the context of long-term trends in U.S. life expectancy and comparing them to other nations. Three lessons emerge when you do.

See more in United States; Health

News Release

Kurlantzick Chronicles the U.S. Secret War in Laos and Creation of a Paramilitary CIA in New Book

“Over the course of the war, U.S. bombing of Laos would become so intense that it averaged one attack every eight minutes for nearly a decade,” observes Joshua Kurlantzick in his new book, A Great Place to Have a War: America in Laos and the Birth of a Military CIA. Kurlantzick, a Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow for Southeast Asia, mines extensive interviews and recently declassified Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) records to give a definitive account of the secret war in the tiny Southeast Asian nation of Laos, which lasted from 1961 to 1973, and was the largest covert operation in U.S. history. The conflict forever changed the CIA from a relatively small spying agency into an organization with vast paramilitary powers.

See more in Laos; Vietnam; Intelligence; Wars and Warfare

Event

The Future of the U.S. Supreme Court

Speaker: Linda Greenhouse
Speaker: Charles M. Lane
Speaker: James D. Zirin
Presider: Michael Kramer

Experts provide their perspectives on the polarization of the U.S. Supreme Court, the role partisan politics has played in recent decisions, and the impact of the presidential election on the Court.

See more in United States; Politics and Strategy

Article

Post-Ebola Reforms: Ample Analysis, Inadequate Action

Authors: Suerie Moon, Jennifer Leigh, Liana Woskie, Francesco Checchi, Victor Dzau, Mosoka Fallah, Gabriella Fitzgerald, Laurie Garrett, Lawrence Gostin, David Heymann, Rebecca Katz, Ilona Kickbusch, J. Stephen Morrison, Peter Piot, Peter Sands, Devi Sridhar, and Ashish K. Jha
British Medical Journal

Reports on the response to Ebola broadly agree on what needs to be done to deal with disease outbreaks. But Laurie Garrett and colleagues find that the world is not yet prepared for future outbreaks.

See more in Global; Health Policy and Initiatives; Public Health Threats and Pandemics

Article

The National Security Hole at the Heart of the Trump Transition

Author: Max Boot
ForeignPolicy.com

Thousands of key policymakers — from State to the Department of Defense — still need to be appointed to new positions. But nothing’s happening. Days before Trump steps into office, he has failed to announce enough capable replacements for the 4,000 political appointments that any president must make.

 

See more in United States; Presidents and Chiefs of State; Defense and Security