Creating a Prevention-Focused Foreign Policy

*We are excited to announce our new collaboration with the New Lines Institute to develop policy recommendations for the next administration to establish a prevention-focused foreign policy.*

Nearly two decades ago, the bipartisan Genocide Prevention Task Force authored a pivotal report that concluded preventing genocide was an achievable goal. The report, Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers, provided a set of recommendations for the incoming Obama administration to help shape its foreign policy and move atrocity prevention from the margins to the mainstream.

The blueprint paved the way for several critical improvements to the US government’s ability to prevent and respond to mass atrocities globally–at least in theory. Following the report’s recommendations, President Obama created a high-level interagency Atrocity Prevention Board. Congress introduced new flexible funding in the Complex Crises Fund, and landmark bipartisan legislation was enacted to prioritize conflict and atrocity prevention across US foreign policy.

Even with this progress, the US has often failed to translate rhetoric into action. Both Democratic and Republican administrations have been slow to act, implemented inconsistent policies, and at times directly committed or supported the commission of mass atrocities by allies. Recently, new challenges to this agenda have emerged. Many of the mechanisms, offices, and funds established to improve the capacity to reduce violent conflict, fragility, and mass atrocities have been dismantled or gutted by the Trump administration. The shutdown of the US Agency for International Development (USAID), the closure of several offices across the State Department, the deprioritization of prevention initiatives across the interagency, and drastic increases in military operations and spending collectively mean that prevention approaches will, at least for now, continue to be sidelined.

Despite these setbacks, bipartisan support for prevention remains. While we should expect more challenges to the prevention agenda in the short term, there is an opportunity to build a bipartisan base of support to strengthen prevention mechanisms with new leadership in Washington. With the 2028 presidential and Congressional elections just two years away, this is a critical time to develop concrete, actionable, and ambitious recommendations for the next administration and the 121st Congress.

To meet current challenges and to plan for the future, the Human Security Project, in partnership with the New Lines Institute, and other partners, is launching a new initiative to develop a Blueprint for a Prevention-Focused Foreign Policy. The goal of this initiative is to guide the next president and Congress on the best ways to renew, reform, and improve efforts to center prevention in US foreign policy.

Building Upon the Bipartisan Support for Prevention

It is worth remembering that bipartisan agreement on prevention already exists in law. In 2017, Congress passed the Women, Peace, and Security Act, making it US policy to promote the meaningful participation of women across the full conflict cycle, including prevention, and making the United States one of the first countries in the world with a domestic law dedicated to this agenda. In 2019, Congress passed the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, declaring it US policy to treat the prevention of genocide and other atrocities as a core national security interest, mandating atrocity-prevention training for Foreign Service officers, and requiring administrations to submit annual reporting to Congress. Also in 2019, Congress passed the Global Fragility Act, reorienting US engagement away from reactive crisis response and toward sustained, long-term investment in preventing violent conflict, fragility, and instability.

All three landmark laws enjoyed strong bipartisan support: two were passed with near-unanimous support, and all three were signed into law by President Trump during his first term. Until recently, the understanding that investments in prevention are cheaper, more effective, and consistent with American values was not partisan. And despite some radical changes made by the Trump administration to how US foreign policy is conducted, bipartisan support for these principles still exists in Congress. In the last two years, bipartisan bills have been introduced in the House and Senate to extend or reauthorize the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act and the Global Fragility Act. This shows there is still a bipartisan coalition in support of these principles and hope for future mobilization and collaboration.

Closing the Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality

Any credible roadmap for the future must first acknowledge the shortcomings of the past. Across administrations and Congresses, early warning signs have gone unheeded, legal safeguards and requirements have been applied inconsistently, and prevention-oriented institutions have been weakened rather than strengthened.

The complicity in mass atrocities perpetrated by the Israeli Defense Forces in Gaza, resulting in the deaths of over 70,000 Palestinians, is one of the most recent and egregious examples of this inconsistency. The disregard for national laws governing arms transfers, including the Leahy Law, which prohibits the transfer of arms to foreign security forces if there is credible evidence that those forces are committing gross human rights violations, clearly violates national laws and principles of prevention. But this isn’t the only example. Past complicity in mass atrocities committed in Yemen by US allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. A failure to take decisive action despite clear early warning signs of mass atrocities in Sudan. Directly perpetrating atrocity crimes in Iran, the Caribbean, and drone strikes across Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere, in addition to mass atrocities committed during the height of the so-called “Global War on Terror.”

These examples illustrate a dangerous pattern across Democratic and Republican administrations and a significant gap between rhetoric and policy implementation. The principles of prevention and impact of US foreign policy against mass atrocities are undermined when legal safeguards are applied unevenly, and are strengthened when they are applied consistently. A central aim of our project will be to recommend mechanisms that make consistent application the norm rather than the exception.

Building Back Better - Creating a Prevention-Focused Foreign Policy

The Trump administration’s dismantling of USAID and closure of key offices responsible for implementing efforts to prevent and respond to conflict and mass atrocities, including the Bureau of Conflict and Stabilization Operations, Office of Global Criminal Justice, Office of Global Women's Issues, as well as significant cuts to the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor, and offices responsible for countering violent extremism have resulted in a significant reduction in personnel, expertise, and program capacity. While some are looking ahead to reverse these cuts in a future administration, the goal should not be to simply restore what was lost and return to the status quo. Instead, significant effort must be dedicated to learning from the past, exposing gaps, and developing innovative solutions to improve the prevention and peacebuilding capacity of the US government.

That is where the Atrocity Prevention Initiative comes in. This project will combine rigorous research, candid interviews, and sustained dialogue to diagnose the structural, political, and institutional barriers to prevention—and to chart a realistic and ambitious roadmap for reform. It will bridge the silos that too often separate atrocity prevention, conflict prevention, countering violent extremism, and the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, treating prevention as a single integrated enterprise. The work will rest on four pillars:

Key informant interviews: In-depth conversations with former senior U.S. officials, current and former members of Congress and congressional staff, civil servants, political appointees, military and intelligence professionals, academics, and leaders from civil society working on atrocity prevention, peacebuilding, human rights, and development.

Convenings and consultations: A series of in-person and virtual roundtables to test findings, surface political and institutional constraints, and build buy-in across the national security, development, diplomacy, and human rights communities.

Reports: A widely accessible report, accompanied by targeted briefings for presidential campaigns, Congressional offices, donors, and civil society networks, along with summaries and talking points designed to equip advocates with clear, actionable demands.

Collaborative advocacy strategy: We will collaborate with partners across several sectors to engage in joint advocacy efforts and awareness-raising campaigns to advance the recommendations produced by this initiative.

With the 2028 election two years away, there is a real and timely opportunity to build consensus, mobilize leaders, and provide an actionable agenda to implement in 2029. The legal architecture for a prevention-focused foreign policy already exists, built by bipartisan majorities and supported by presidents of both parties. We have the analytical capacity to forecast and recognize the warning signs of a pending crisis. The missing element has been the institutional capacity and political will to implement prevention policies consistently and at scale.

We cannot continue down the current path and should not return to pre-2025 business as usual. The New Lines Institute and the Human Security Project intend to offer the next president and Congress a credible, cross-partisan, and concrete plan—so that whoever takes office in January 2029 arrives with the mandate, the roadmap, and the support to make prevention the rule rather than the exception.

To learn more about the project, to support our initiative, or to get more involved, contact us at info@humansecurityproject.org.

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