Research Library

In June 2018, Saudi Arabia finally put an end to its legal ban on women driving, opening the way for millions of new drivers to navigate across a country three times bigger than Texas. While the long-overdue policy shift provides relief to women who lacked freedom of mobility, the onset of so many new drivers has enormous consequences for transportation and the energy sector, as well as labor market participation and public health.

The authors seek to spark a deeper conversation on the merits of geoeconomics — i.e., using economic instruments to produce beneficial geopolitical results — as a potential source of new and scalable policy options for the US, as well as the EU and its individual member states, to bolster gas supply and national security across Europe.

The authors examine merits of using a gas geoeconomics approach to develop U.S. and EU policy options to bolster gas supplies and national security in Europe.

This brief on the Trump administration's approach to the battle against ISIS is the first of a three-part series on America's foreign policy in the Middle East. Subsequent reports will examine U.S. policy in Syria and the intensified competition between Iran and traditional U.S. partners in the region, notably Saudi Arabia and Israel.   

This brief quantifies the potential exposure of key European countries to Russian gas price and supply manipulation, shows how Moscow has used energy as an instrument of coercive diplomacy since the early 1990s, and briefly assesses the impacts and future policy implications of Russian entities’ past use of the “energy weapon” in and near Europe. Although it has not been widely successful to date in the former Soviet zone, Russia's use of the energy weapon against Western European countries in various forms still constitutes a strategic threat that warrants close attention from policymakers in Washington and throughout Europe, writes fellow Gabriel Collins.

Bonner Means Baker Fellow Joe Barnes analyzes how President Trump’s criticism of NATO members and the Paris accord on climate change during summits in Brussels and Taormina might affect U.S.-European relations. Baker Institute Blog: http://bit.ly/2qxrxyU.

Drug Policy Program director Bill Martin summarizes the scientific and fiscal evidence supporting the efficacy of syringe exchange programs and outlines a framework for public policies to deal with this aspect of drug use and abuse.

Fellow Joe Barnes looks back, and ahead, at the impact of President Obama's foreign policies.

This working paper analyzes the roots of Iran’s “dissonant” political system and revolutionary ideology, the fractious contest over defining and applying this ideology, and the implications of these struggles for Iranian foreign and security policy.

This working paper analyzes the prospects of Iran changing its domestic and foreign policy behavior over the longer term, and outlines what the United States and others can do to promote such changes.