The Decades-Long Effort to Make Sanctions ‘Smart’: The Sanctions Age Podcast with Esfandyar Batmanghelidj and Alistair Millar

By Esfandyar Batmanghelidj, Alistair Millar

Podcast — 14 April 2026
The Sanctions Age: The Decades-Long Effort to Make Sanctions ‘Smart’. Esfandyar Batmanhelidj’s conversation with Alistair Millar.

Listen (42:02)

The Responsibility to Protect and Not Neglect: At Home and Abroad, the Afghan People Deserve More International Support for a Better Future

By Amina Ahmed

Policy brief — February 2025

This study by the Fourth Freedom Forum’s 2024 Howard S. Brembeck Fellow, Amina Ahmed, emphasizes the critical role the Afghan diaspora plays in lobbying their host nations for meaningful support for Afghans in Afghanistan, refugees, and those trapped in limbo without legal status in countries like Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey. In essence, this brief serves as a call to action for the diaspora to organize and advocate effectively for their fellow Afghans.

Defunding the War Against Ukraine: Economic Strategies for Countering Russian Aggression

By David Cortright, Anna Romandash

Report — December 2023

This report is a project of the New Paradigm Project, which is made possible with support from the Fourth Freedom Forum, the Colombe Foundation, the Jubitz Foundation, the Chino Cienega Foundation, Cynda Collins Arsenault, Rockefeller Family Associates, and the Samuel Rubin Foundation. The New Paradigm project assesses the costs and consequences of overly militarized U.S. policies that led to failure in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries, and diverted trillions of dollars from needed investment at home. The project examines the advantages of cooperative multilateral approaches to international security based on principles of human rights and military restraint. The project produces analyses and policy proposals for greater reliance on diplomacy, peacebuilding, development, economic statecraft, and participatory governance as means of preventing armed conflict and violent extremism.