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The single most important challenge facing the United States and the democratic world in the twenty-first century is the rise of an increasingly authoritarian and aggressive China under Xi Jinping. China has long had an integrated, operational strategy for dealing with the United States. The United States has so far had no such strategy with regard to China. This is a dereliction of national responsibility. US strategy and policy toward China must be laser-focused on the fault lines among Xi and his inner circle–aimed at changing their objectives and behavior and thus their strategic course. Communist Party elites are much more divided about Xi’s leadership and vast ambitions than is widely appreciated. The foremost goal of US strategy should be to cause China’s ruling elites to conclude that it is in China’s best interests to continue operating within the US-led liberal international order rather than building a rival order, and that it is in the Chinese Communist Party’s best interests to not attempt to expand China’s borders or export its political model beyond China’s shores.

This report assesses the defense policies of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden as they apply to the Arctic. Russia’s annexation of Crimea, its militarization of the Kola Peninsula, and its opposition to the liberal international order forced Arctic states to revisit their defense policies. Some focused attention on the Baltic Sea. Others focused on territorial defense. Still others focused on the Arctic. By 2021, however, each state had a relatively well-defined defense policy for the Arctic. This report details each policy’s content, trends over time within each country, and areas of convergence or divergence across countries. The report then places the concept of domain awareness within the context of Arctic defense strategies. The report concludes with recommendations on acquiring and using manned and unmanned systems, data links, distributed basing, and military exercises to ensure a secure and stable Arctic.

The urgency of climate action has clouded the future of oil and gas in the energy transition. Pressure on oil and gas producers to adapt their operations to fit into a net-zero world has grown, from both policymakers and the investment community. But a supply crisis and price spikes have illustrated the danger of moving away from these fuels without a sufficient corresponding uptake of cleaner alternatives. Most models of the energy transition also suggest that continued petrochemical demand and use in transportation will ensure a considerable level of oil and gas demand, even in a net-zero scenario. Oil and gas will thus continue to play a key role in the energy transition. It will be incumbent on the industry, policymakers, and investors to walk a precarious tightrope, keeping markets stable through sufficient continued oil and gas production while pursuing ambitious decarbonization targets. Technologies like clean hydrogen and carbon capture, utilization, and storage, with the potential to lessen oil and gas’ traditionally emissions-intensive footprint, could help. So could carbon offsetting. But clarity is needed, and without it, supply-demand mismatches could rage on without any meaningful emissions reductions to speak of. For the transition to be both smooth and comprehensive, oil and gas will require both rigorous accountability and support for the practices and technologies that can help make them compatible with a net-zero world.

An energy mix enabled by clean technologies will be far more mineral-intensive than its hydrocarbon-based predecessor. Demand for minerals like lithium, nickel, and cobalt is projected to skyrocket over the coming years, with supply chains largely unprepared to scale up accordingly. And procurement of these minerals has been plagued by concerns over environmental impact, human rights violations, and state monopoly over specific parts of the value chain, posing both moral and strategic issues. The onus now falls on policymakers in the United States and Canada to develop resilient, sustainable, and transparent mineral supply chains. As two of the world’s most advanced economies, the US and Canada have the opportunity to take the lead in preempting the emergence of some of the hazards that characterize the oil and gas-based system. It will not be easy; value chains are full of choke-points, and mining operations have not always followed best practices. But to both enable a smooth energy transition and ensure that procurement does not negate minerals’ carbon-reducing benefits, the US and Canada must act now.

Achieving US climate goals requires the development and widespread deployment of all available clean energy solutions. Geothermal energy, while currently only a marginal component of the US energy economy, can contribute significantly to the climate action effort. It has the potential to support deep decarbonization through clean baseload generation, efficient heating and cooling, lithium co-production, and a host of other applications. However, current policy towards geothermal energy has, thus far, prevented the emergence of a vibrant market that would stimulate sector growth. To realize the potential of geothermal energy, public- and private-sector leaders must support policies that encourage geothermal industries and address regulatory, technical, and economic barriers. This report and accompanying two-pager make several recommendations with the potential to optimize US geothermal policy to set the sector up for a central role in the fight against climate change.

Russia and China are often mischaracterized as allies. There is a perception that their revisionist preferences for international order align, and that their desires for a less US-centered international order mean they are collaborating toward this end. The challenge they pose to the United States has been acknowledged by the Obama, Trump, and Biden administrations, and “great power competition”’ (GPC) or “strategic competition” has replaced counterterrorism at the center of US strategy. The Biden administration’s 2021 Interim National Security Strategy Guidance states that “we face . . . growing rivalry with China, Russia, and other authoritarian states.” It describes China as “the only competitor potentially capable of combining its economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power to mount a sustained challenge to a stable and open international system,” and Russia as “determined to enhance its global influence and play a disruptive role on the world stage.” The Pentagon’s “2+3” framework for GPC has China and Russia as the two primary threats, and North Korea, Iran, and terrorism as the three secondary threats, reinforcing a two-tiered system that implies that “China and Russia are similar threats while the others are lower in priority.” In the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), their behavior-tandem vetoes on Syria at the United Nations, mutual anger about Libya, arms exports to traditional US allies, and cooperating with Iran despite multilateral sanctions5—feeds into the perception that they have a coordinated agenda to push out the United States, or at least to challenge its preponderance there. In a February 2021 speech by General Kenneth F. McKenzie, commander of the US Central Command overseeing MENA and Central Asia, he noted that “the United States faces increasing competition in the region from Russia and China, both vying for power and influence through a combination of diplomatic, military, and economic means. This adds another layer of tension and instability to an already complex and challenging region.” This report provides a comparative analysis of the approaches that China and Russia have adopted to develop their regional presence in MENA across four realms of influence: political, economic, security, and public diplomacy.

The complex interplay of social, economic and structural drivers, including poverty, gender inequality, unequal power relationship , gender-based violence, social isolation and limited access to schooling increase the HIV vulnerability of women and girls. Furthermore these factors deprive them of voice and the ability to make decisions regarding their lives, reduce their ability to access services that meet their needs, increase their risks of violence or other harmful practices, and hamper their ability to mitigate the impact of AIDS. Adolescent girls and young women are more than twice as likely to acquire HIV as their male peers. AIDS-related illnesses remain one of the leading causes of death for women of reproductive age (aged 15 to 44 years) in Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, young women and adolescent girls accounted for one in four new infections in 2019, despite making up about 10% of the total population. In addition, only about one third of young women in subSaharan Africa have accurate, comprehensive knowledge about HIV. Nearly 30% of women aged 15 years and above have experienced gender-based violence with intimate partner violence ranging from 13% - 97%. During displacement and times of crisis, the risk of gender-based violence significantly increases for women and girls. Forty years of responding to HIV has taught the global community that a human rights-based approach is essential to create enabling environments for successful HIV responses and to affirm the dignity of people living with, or vulnerable to HIV. This study is timely and is set against the backdrop of several global and regional commitments that address systemic inequalities and those that respond to HIV including Africa’s Agenda 2063, Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, Maputo Plan of Action, and the 2021 Political declaration on AIDS. It highlight how gender intersects with other drivers of inequalities such as income, age, gender-based violence, stigma, discrimination and child marriage to exacerbate the vulnerability and susceptibility of women to HIV infection and also influence the health outcomes. Demands for social and gender transformative approaches are building as the HIV response reaches an important milestone and is moving towards the last mile. Countries have implemented several comprehensive best practice programmes focused on increasing the agency, economic empowerment and improving access to HIV and sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights (SRH&RR) services for adolescent girls and young women such as the DREAMS, SASA, HER programme and She Conquers with positive outcomes reported. Greater investments in these proven innovations is required to sustain and accelerate progress towards the 2030 goals. Member States have demonstrated political will and leadership to address HIV. Eastern and Southern Africa has provided leadership by increasing their domestic resource allocation to HIV programs by 26% between 2010 and 2019.

The Agreement establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) is a legal instrument – an agreement among the African Union Member States to create a single market. But the AfCFTA represents much more. On the one hand, it is a significant milestone on the journey to African integration and development. On the other hand, it is a catalyst for new ways of doing business, producing, working and trading within Africa and with the rest of the world. This report demonstrates that, beyond the numbers and negotiations, the realization of this promise will depend on decisive actions and the collective efforts of the African people. Concrete policy measures and investments are needed, in particular to ensure that women and youth, who account for the majority of the population, business owners and workforce, can be better integrated into the value chains, jobs and opportunities stemming from the AfCFTA. The AfCFTA is also central to recovering from the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and enhancing Africa’s resilience. Trade of all types of goods and services underpins efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, and the Agenda 2063 of the African Union cannot be implemented without the AfCFTA. In anticipation of trading under AfCFTA terms in 2021, the ‘Futures Report: Making the AfCFTA Work for Women and Youth’ is a narrative about the promise of the AfCFTA as told through the voices of Africa’s producers, traders, policy officials and regulators. Under the Agreement, African Union Member States, now also AfCFTA State parties, explicitly seek to achieve gender equality and enhance the export capacity of women and youth. This report presents opportunities in the AfCFTA, as pursued by women and youth entrepreneurs and business owners, and discusses ongoing efforts by Governments and development institutions to ensure that these groups derive maximum benefit from the Agreement. Policy actions to implement the protocols already in force are also presented to enable the AfCFTA to work to the greatest advantage of Africa’s women and youth.

2021 was clearly not a year for geopolitical optimism. Almost every month, a new crisis dominated the news, contributing to a sense that this mounting tide of crises threatens to overwhelm us. Against this backdrop, it is not surprising that in Europe and beyond, concern about a growing loss of control is prevalent. In fact, findings from the Munich Security Index 2022 not only reflect the high level of risk perceived by respondents in the G7 and BRICS countries; they also suggest the emergence of “collective helplessness” in the face of a plethora of crises that reinforce each other. Just like people can suffer from “learned helplessness” – a psychological term describing the feeling that nothing one does can effect positive change – societies, too, may come to believe that they are unable to get a grip on the challenges they are facing. Whether it is the seemingly endless pandemic, the increasingly tangible threat of climate change, the vexing vulnerabilities of an interconnected world, or increasing geopolitical tensions, all these challenges contribute to a feeling of a loss of control. Liberal democracies appear to feel particularly overwhelmed. This perception is highly dangerous because it can turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy. Societies that have concluded that they cannot solve humankind’s most challenging problems might no longer even try to turn the tide. Will our stressed and overburdened societies end up accepting what they see as their fate, although they have the tools and resources to change it? Unfortunately, 2021 overall did not alleviate these concerns. With the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, for instance, the past year has also reinvigorated a debate about what international interventions are able to realistically accomplish. In light of the limited achievements of the United States and its partners in Afghanistan, hard questions arise about the West’s ability to build capable, legitimate state structures and promote stability elsewhere in the world. As Afghanistan now finds itself on the brink of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, with civil liberties being severely restricted under Taliban rule, the investments of two decades of external intervention are at risk. While the West has ended an “endless war,” people in Afghanistan are looking toward an uncertain future.

Transatlantic leaders seem to have come to a common conclusion: the world’s liberal democracies are facing a new systemic competition. While they support a joint strategy for dealing with their autocratic challengers by strengthening cooperation with each other, they are only at the beginning of thinking about the best way to compete where they must – and to cooperate with competitors where they can. At last year’s Munich Security Conference, world leaders discussed a world shaped by “Westlessness” – as diagnosed by the Munich Security Report 2020. Unfortunately, various developments have vindicated last year’s dire analysis. Not only did Western countries continue to exhibit a lack of joint action on crucial global issues, the past year also saw continued attacks on liberal-democratic norms in key Western countries, with the storming of the US Capitol as the most emblematic symbol of the threat to democracy. But there is hope. In the midst of a global pandemic, almost exactly one year after a divisive Munich Security Conference 2020, the speakers at the virtual MSC Special Edition on February 19, 2021, including US President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, French President Emmanuel Macron, and other world leaders all voiced their support for a new beginning in the transatlantic relationship and for revamping cooperation among liberal democracies to prevail in a new age of systemic competition. After what can be called an “autocratic decade,” liberal democracies are now willing to push back to turn the “illiberal tide.” President Biden, having declared that “America is back” and ready to lead, is stressing at every opportunity that democracies find themselves at an inflection point and need to prove that democracy is not a phase-out model but can deliver tangible benefits to the people.