Bipartisan CNAS Task Force Calls for Renewed U.S. Commitment to Global Democracy

Washington, October 28, 2024 — Today, the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) released a report calling on Washington to reassert global leadership on democracy and human rights. The product of a high-profile, bipartisan task force of foreign policy experts, the paper urges the next U.S. administration to engage with the contest between freedom and authoritarianism.

“The stakes today are enormous,” said Richard Fontaine, chief executive officer of CNAS and one of the report’s lead authors. “For years now, democracy has declined globally, and human rights have come under new pressures. Acknowledging both our limitations and our domestic challenges, the United States should lead in supporting democratic values and human rights abroad.”

Leading the Free World: Reasserting U.S. Leadership on Democracy and Human Rights calls on U.S. policymakers to embrace a values-infused foreign policy agenda and recommends concrete steps by which Washington can do so. The report is authored by Richard Fontaine, Shanthi Kalathil, Tod Lindberg, Tom Malinowski, Sarah Margon, Gibbs McKinley, Derek Mitchell, Nicole Bibbins Sedaca, Corban Teague, and Daniel Twining.

The report recommends that policymakers and lawmakers:

• Expose global human rights abuses

• Counter corruption and hybrid threats

• Employ Congress to enhance the visibility of dissidents and activists

• Combat transnational repression

• Protect individual privacy as a foundation of democratic societies

• Partner with other democracies in pledging collective, nonmilitary responses to election interference by foreign states

The authors urge U.S. policymakers to seize the moment, recommit to a values-based foreign policy agenda, and combine their defense of U.S. democracy with an affirmative effort to support political freedom and human rights abroad. The time to act, they emphasize, is now.

For more information or to arrange an interview with the report authors, please contact Charles Horn at [email protected].