Creating a Prevention-Focused Foreign Policy

Nearly two decades ago, the bipartisan Genocide Prevention Task Force produced a pivotal report concluding that preventing genocide is an achievable goal. The report,  “Preventing Genocide: A Blueprint for U.S. Policymakers,” provided a set of recommendations intended to help shape U.S. foreign policy priorities and move atrocity prevention from the margins to the mainstream. 

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

For the most part, however, the United States has failed to translate rhetoric into action. Presidential administrations under both parties have been slow to act, implemented inconsistent policies, and at times directly committed mass atrocities or supported their commission by allies. Recently, new challenges to the atrocity prevention agenda have emerged. The White House under President Donald Trump has dismantled or gutted many of the mechanisms, offices, and funds established to improve the capacity to reduce violent conflict, state fragility, and mass atrocities. The shutdown of the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the closure of several offices across the State Department, the deprioritization of prevention initiatives across the interagency, and increases in military operations and spending collectively mean that prevention approaches will continue to be sidelined, at least in the near term. 

Despite these setbacks, bipartisan support for genocide prevention remains. While more challenges to the prevention agenda are likely in the short term, there is an opportunity to build a bipartisan base of support to strengthen prevention mechanisms with new leadership in Washington. This is a critical time to develop concrete, actionable, and ambitious recommendations ahead of approaching national elections to select the next president and members of the 121st Congress. 

To meet current challenges and plan for the future, New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy, in partnership with the Human Security Project and others, is launching an initiative to develop a blueprint for a prevention-focused foreign policy to guide Congress and the next president on the best ways to renew, reform, and improve efforts to center genocide prevention in U.S. foreign policy. 

Building Upon the Bipartisan Support for Prevention

Prevention policy already exists in U.S. law. The Women, Peace, and Security Act, enacted in 2017, makes it U.S. policy to promote the meaningful participation of women across the full conflict cycle, including prevention. With its passage, the United States became one of the first countries with a domestic law dedicated to this agenda. In 2019, Congress passed the Elie Wiesel Genocide and Atrocities Prevention Act, declaring it U.S. 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 presidential administrations to submit annual reporting to Congress. Also in 2019, Congress passed the Global Fragility Act, reorienting U.S. 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 won near-unanimous congressional approval, and Trump signed all three into law during his first term. Until recently, the understanding that investments in prevention are cheaper, more effective, and consistent with American values was not a partisan issue. And despite the Trump administration’s radical changes to U.S. foreign policy approaches, bipartisan support for these principles still exists in Congress. In the last two years, bills have been introduced in the House and Senate to extend or reauthorize the Elie Wiesel and Global Fragility acts, demonstrating that a bipartisan coalition still supports these principles and hopes for future mobilization and collaboration. 

Closing the Gap Between Rhetoric and Reality

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

U.S. complicity in mass atrocities perpetrated by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza that left over 70,000 Palestinians dead, 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 in recent U.S. history. It has been complicit in mass atrocities committed in Yemen by U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. It failed to take decisive action despite clear warning signs of mass atrocities in Sudan. It directly perpetrated atrocity crimes in Iran and the Caribbean, and directed 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 spanning administrations of both parties and a significant gap between rhetoric and policy implementation. Legal safeguards applied unevenly undermine the principles of prevention and the impact of U.S. foreign policy against mass atrocities. Consistent application, on the other hand, strengthens them. 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 would seek to reverse these cuts under 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 policy gaps, and developing innovative solutions to improve the prevention and peacebuilding capacity of the U.S. 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 the groups working to prevent conflicts and atrocities, counter violent extremism, and enact the Women, Peace, and Security agenda, thereby 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: Collaboration 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 next presidential 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. The U.S. government and civil society 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. New Lines and the Human Security Project intend to offer the next president and the 121st Congress a credible, nonpartisan, 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 initiative, support this project, or get involved, contact Mike Brand at [email protected].

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not an official policy or position of New Lines Institute.

_{Photo: An Israeli attack on the Shahran oil depot on June 15, 2025, was one of several targeting military, scientific, and residential locations, as well as senior government officials. (Photo by Stringer/Getty Images)}