China's Global Influence Operations Initiative
Faculty Lead: Daniel Mattingly
As China’s economic, political, and military footprint has expanded, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has invested heavily in efforts to influence the global public. These influence operations are a core instrument of statecraft — they build support for China’s rise, weaken narratives about the costs of China’s authoritarian political system, sow domestic political division in China’s adversaries, and create a less hostile international environment for the CCP. Building on prior research into Chinese state-run global media, public diplomacy, and TikTok, this initiative will study how Chinese AI technology is being used to shape global opinion and to influence politics in democratic countries.
Bosnia and Herzegovina EU and NATO Accession Initiative
Faculty Leads: Catherine Panter-Brick and David Simon
This project will investigate Bosnia and Herzegovina's processes of accession to the EU and NATO. The research team will use structured conversations with accession-relevant interlocutors in Washington, London, Brussels, and Geneva, building on established relationships through the Maryland Bosnia and Herzegovina Exchange Council and related U.S. policy channels, UK Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office security-focused contacts, and diplomatic networks in multilateral settings. These conversations will be used to ground-test how specific reform signals are read, what concerns they trigger, and which sequencing and communication choices increase confidence.
2025 U.S. Tariffs Initiative
Faculty Lead: Amit Khandelwal
The first Trump Administration imposed tariffs mainly on Chinese goods, most of which were maintained or expanded by the Biden administration. In 2025, the second Trump Administration has levied dramatically higher tariffs across virtually all of U.S. imports. This initiative will study the consequences of these tariff hikes on the U.S. economy. The research team will extend its previous analysis of the tariffs imposed in 2018-19, making updates with more recent data and examining the tariffs’ long-run impacts. Additionally, the team will conduct a short-term analysis of the new tariffs imposed in 2025. The findings will be prepared for a paper to be published by Brookings Papers on Economic Activity in Spring 2026.
Indian Transnational Assassination Operations Initiative
Faculty Lead: Sushant Singh
This project investigates India’s alleged extraterritorial assassination operations targeting Sikh dissidents in North America, analyzing their implications for statecraft, international norms, and global security. The study will explore the political, diplomatic, and human rights implications of these operations, as well as their impact on international relations. The research focuses on interstate dynamics, multilateral institutions, and non-state actors to assess how India’s alleged actions reflect broader trends in statecraft, where nations increasingly use covert operations to manage diaspora dissent. The project will draw lessons for other countries facing similar challenges with diaspora dissent and extraterritorial operations. It aims to produce both a monograph on India’s transnational assassination operations and a database of diplomatic communications, legal rulings, and NGO reports on that topic.
Supply Chain Disruption Initiative
Faculty Lead: Aleh Tsyvinski
It has become increasingly clear that supply chains are a critical component of the global economy. This research initiative will build on the research team’s expertise in analyzing megadata on supply chain disruptions to develop a comprehensive index and analysis specifically aimed at critical products. The initiative will develop a unique data infrastructure at global scale by integrating large, federated commercial and administrative datasets, which will provide an unprecedented level of granularity in understanding global firm-to-firm supply chains. This effort will put the Blue Center at the forefront of this area of research. The initiative’s main deliverable will be a comprehensive, granular, and near real-time index for critical and national security supply chain disruptions— the Blue Center Critical Supply Chain Index and Monitor.
Red Sea Inequality Initiative
Faculty Lead: Alden Young
The Red Sea Arena, spanning from East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula, is one of the most unequal spaces in the world: nation states within the region demonstrate vast disparities in security and wealth. This research initiative will focus on the impact of those disparities for three pressing challenges confronting the region: 1) the Scramble for the Red Sea which is marked by increased geopolitical competition and power projection, 2) economic diversification as a response to global efforts to promote decarbonization and its impact on countries around the Red Sea basin, 3) the impacts of climate change on societies surrounding the Red Sea. The initiative aims to deliver the production of novel data sets and historically-informed analysis that can contribute to policy efforts such as conflict resolution in Sudan, South Sudan, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Somalia, as well as stability in the Gulf Cooperation Countries.
Tariff-Quota Agreements Initiative
Faculty Lead: Mayara Felix
The ability to successfully promote a nation’s interests when negotiating a trade agreement is a key component of statecraft. While much is known about the potential effect of standard tariff reductions—the most common and simplest feature of bilateral trade agreements—little is known about other, more complex features of trade agreements. This project focuses on one such feature: tariff quotas. Tariff quotas are a tool used in some trade agreements, by which imports within the quota pay lower tariffs than imports above the quota. Using the U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement as a case-study, and undertaken in conjunction with economists at the Federal Reserve Bank and the Central Bank of Colombia, this initiative will produce a state-of-the-art research paper whose findings can directly inform tariff policy. The research will be communicated to practitioners and policy audiences (e.g., IMF, World Bank, the Federal Reserve Bank, Banco de la República de Colombia, and other central banks).