The need for effective human protection remains a central peace and justice priority. The world's weakest and most fragile states pose shared global security challenges such as genocide, terrorism, disease, famine, and even piracy. The international community could more effectively address state fragility and its many symptoms by making the issue a central organizing concept and supporting a more effective United Nations on complex humanitarian operations. The United States must also better integrate its own civilian and military capacities for human protection efforts.

Countries such as China, India, and Brazil are becoming increasingly more influential in the world, causing a major transformation of global power dynamics. International institutions and systems must evolve to reflect the needs of a 21st-century world. A new consultative mechanism of world powers such as an expanded Group of Eight summit should incorporate middle and rising power states, address peace and security issues and work toward effective global governance. This can be achieved, in part, through robust American cooperation and leadership.

There is a clear need to move toward greater nuclear disarmament and better nonproliferation control, as well as preventing loose nuclear material from falling into the wrong hands. US leadership and robust implementation of international agreements such as UN Security Council Resolutions 1373 and 1540 could lead to all global supplies of nuclear material being secured and, where possible, eliminated in the next four years.

Thinking globally, acting locally. The Stanley Foundation organizes and supports a number of international, multicultural, and global education projects, including the Catherine Miller Explorer Awards and The Story in My Backyard. For projects in and near our hometown of Muscatine, Iowa, contact Jill Goldesberry.