The Brookings Foreign Policy program is the leading center of policy-relevant scholarship advancing actionable solutions to the major challenges to international peace and security. Brookings Foreign Policy scholars engage in in-depth, nonpartisan research and analysis aimed at informing policymakers and the public debate and developing concrete ideas for addressing the world’s toughest problems.

Brookings Foreign Policy scholars have left indelible imprints on policymaking over the past century by combining deep academic expertise and innovative ideas with high-level policy experience. Our comparative advantage remains our long-form research — in-depth, empirical, policy-relevant, and peer-reviewed publications that look beyond the day-to-day turbulence to underlying relationships and dynamics that will shape future decisions. We provide senior officials in the national security community, as well as stakeholders across all sectors, with trusted real-time analysis and quiet counsel in their efforts to navigate geopolitical relations and crisis points. Building on the depth of our bipartisan relationships, we play an active role in driving national security decision-making by informing Congress, the private sector, civil society, and public debates through briefings, events, commentary, and media appearances.

This formula supports an unparalleled track record of impact that dates back to the institution’s renowned role in setting out the blueprints for the United Nations and helping to establish the Marshall Plan. For decades, Brookings’s insights have advanced key policies in the U.S. and elsewhere. Foreign Policy scholars forged doctrine for the nuclear age and early arms control strategy; laid the intellectual ground work for the evolution of U.S. policy toward China and Arab-Israeli peacemaking; paved the way for building new ties with India and other emerging powers; defined American understanding of terrorism and counter-terror strategy; influenced public debate and U.S. strategy around the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq; and set the stage for American grand strategy in the current age of geopolitical competition.

These contributions are deeply valued by senior decisionmakers. Brookings scholars have served in the National Security Council and/or Departments of State or Defense for every president, Republican and Democrat alike, since Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Our structure

Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology

The Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology (Talbott Center) brings together experts on U.S. grand strategy; U.S. military affairs, including defense modernization, innovation, and technology; American alliances and security partnerships; transnational threats; arms control; and U.S. foreign policy in the changing international order. The center is named after former Brookings President Strobe Talbott to recognize his remarkable contributions to the institution and to American foreign policy over his long career in journalism, public service, and academia.

The Talbott Center convenes major events throughout the year, including with top leadership from the Departments of Defense and State, the intelligence community, international organizations, and other policy actors. It hosts regular events and meetings as part of its Africa Security Initiative and Initiative on Nonstate Armed Actors. The center also hosts a group of Federal Executive Fellows each year, who are rising leaders in the U.S. military and other security organizations. Scholars write in-depth research in the form of policy briefs, reports, and books; they also regularly publish op-eds and comment in prominent news outlets.

The center’s work also contributes to research across Brookings on technology, often in collaboration with the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative.

Center for Asia Policy Studies

Established in 1998, the Center for Asia Policy Studies (CAPS) conducts research, analysis, and exchange to enhance policy development and understanding on the pressing political, security, and economic issues facing Asia and the United States in the region. The Center provides expert insight and analysis into current events and emerging trends in Asia, including Southeast Asia, and their implications for U.S. interests. Its four Chairs and cadre of associated researchers conduct in-depth, cutting-edge research on understudied and looming issues concerning the region. Center research and analysis appear in the form of seminars, roundtable discussions, books, policy papers, web-based publications, Congressional testimony, and journal articles.

John L. Thornton China Center

The John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings develops timely, independent analyses and policy recommendations to address long-standing challenges related to U.S.-China relations and China’s internal development. Through a broad range of publications — from blogs and op-eds to monographs and books — its scholarly research is made accessible to both policymakers and the public. Building on Brookings’s inherent convening power, the Center hosts a wide array of public programs, roundtables, conferences, and track II dialogues to advance and highlight this work.

Center on the United States and Europe

The mission of Brookings’s Center on the United States and Europe (CUSE) is to offer independent research and recommendations for policymakers, foster high-level dialogue on developments in Europe and global challenges that affect trans-Atlantic relations, and convene roundtables, workshops, and public forums on policy-relevant issues.

Center for Middle East Policy

The Center for Middle East Policy (CMEP) is dedicated to the formulation of more effective and sustainable U.S. policy toward the Middle East. It conducts research to illuminate the issues that shape, or should shape, U.S. policy toward the region and the major trends affecting the lives of the people who live there. Established in 2002, CMEP furthers its mission through research, convening, publications, and private exchanges. Its scholars reflect varying points of view and work to foster a productive, nuanced, and informed debate.

Energy Security and Climate Initiative

The Energy Security and Climate Initiative (ESCI) at Brookings encourages the development, discussion and dissemination of high-caliber energy and climate research. ESCI is guided by the premise that energy policy choices of the past have shaped the current economic, environmental and strategic landscape in profound ways, and that the energy decisions we make today will have an equally profound impact on the future. Forging a path to a low-carbon, secure, and affordable energy system will require determined and clear-eyed effort to transform ambitions into effective policy prescriptions.