ABOUT PAFPA
Promoting Public Accountability for U.S. Contributions to Global Violence through Rigorous Research and Analysis and Production of Scholarly Publications, Policy Papers, and Public Engagement
In 2024, I co-founded the Mass Atrocity Research Initiative (MARI) at American University's School of International Service. Then, in 2025, as part of MARI, I founded the Project for American Foreign Policy Accountability (PAFPA). PAFPA seeks to promote public accountability for U.S. engagement in and contributions to violations of international law, from war crimes to crimes against humanity and genocide, by investigating sources of public knowledge and memory that influence how Americans view and understand the role of the United States in the world. Organizations with similar missions concerning U.S. accountability, and with similar investigative approaches, have primarily focused on U.S. treatment of members of its own population and those who migrate to the United States. Thus, PAFPA’s focus on U.S. public accountability for its foreign policies fills an important gap by centering the impact of these policies on others beyond U.S. borders.
IMPACT
PAFPA seeks to challenge the culture of impunity within which the United States contributes to political violence around the world. Results of investigations into sources of public knowledge and memory that influence how Americans view and understand the role of the United States in the world, including U.S. education and sites of memory, will be documented and disseminated in scholarly and public-facing publications. In this regard, PAFPA will attempt to bridge the gap between its research, public debate, and public policy, with the goal of achieving education reform and construction of memory sites within the United States that recognize and memorialize those who have been harmed by U.S. contributions to global violence. With success in reforming U.S. education’s coverage of the United States’ contributions to global violence and in constructing sites of memory, PAFPA’s ultimate goal is U.S. foreign policy reform.
OUR APPROACH
Our approach is rooted in the idea that public engagement with past violence better equips societies to prevent future violence, or what James Waller refers to as downstream prevention. According to James Waller, “Justice, truth, and memory lie at the heart of tertiary downstream prevention strategies.” The potential for downstream prevention is predicated on good faith engagement with the past. Such good faith engagement is necessary to better inform public attitudes about and associated tacit support for U.S. direct and indirect involvement in global violence. Notably, downstream prevention is typically associated with redressing territorially based violence, especially genocide, committed by state actors or their non-state proxies. However, this limited application of downstream prevention fails to account for violent foreign policies. Thus, PAFPA’s approach involves the much-needed extension of downstream prevention to engagement with past and ongoing violence contributed to by a state beyond its borders.
OUR PROJECTS
In July 2025, the Pew Research Center reported that, in response to the question of who poses the greatest international threat, the United States was among the top three most common responses in 20 of the 25 countries polled. The United States was the most common response in seven countries, the second most common in ten countries, and the third most common in three. For context, China was the first (3) or second (7) most common response in 10 countries and Russia was the first (8) or second (4) most common response in 12. Among the 24 countries polled other than the United States, the U.S. was the first or second most common response, compared to nearly 42 percent for China and 50 percent for Russia.
Such views of the United States are not limited to the current international political climate. In a 2014 Win/Gallup poll, the United States was also identified as the greatest international threat. Twenty-four percent of those polled in 65 countries named the United States as the greatest threat. Pakistan was runner-up at 8 percent. In Russia and China, 54 percent and 49 percent of respondents, respectively, viewed the United States as the greatest threat to peace, but they were far from alone. Bosnia (49 percent), Argentina (46 percent), Greece (45 percent), Turkey (45 percent), Mexico (37 percent), Ukraine (33 percent), Brazil (26 percent), and Peru (24 percent) did the same. Though the percentages were lower, demonstrating more equal distribution about perceived international threats, Germany still ranked the United States as the greatest threat, while the United Kingdom had the United States tied with Iran.
It is with information like the above in mind that PAFPA’s projects aim to address the disconnect between how Americans and others understand the role of the United States in the world, and the associated lack of public accountability in the United States and obstacles to downstream prevention of U.S. contributions to global violence. For its initial projects, PAFPA is focusing on U.S. secondary education and sites of memory as key sources of public knowledge and memory.
Recognizing and Memorializing U.S. Contributions to Global Violence
This project addresses the lack of public recognition of and public accountability for U.S. violence and U.S.-supported violence by creating a first-of-its-kind comparative analysis of state-sponsored memorialization. Thus, this project will undertake the following research. First, PAFPA will complete a comparative study of memory sites erected in countries to recognize violence perpetrated against members of their own populations, including memorialization of victims of violence committed against them by their own countries, memorialization of the members of a country’s military who died in a foreign war, and memorialization of a country’s victims of violence committed within the country by a foreign actor. Second, PAFPA will complete a comparative analysis of memory sites constructed to recognize and memorialize foreign victims of a country’s direct violence. Third, PAFPA will identify if/when a country has officially recognized, in some form, its contributions to violence perpetrated by another country or nonstate actor against members of another population.
Based on PAFPA’s findings and lessons learned regarding how other countries have recognized and memorialized domestic and foreign victims of violence, PAFPA will produce a report that documents the findings and lessons learned, and that makes recommendations concerning public recognition and memorialization within the United States of certain instances of U.S. contributions to global violence. This investigation has the potential to make a significant impact on downstream prevention by contributing to public debate and recognition regarding the harm caused to others by U.S. contributions to global violence, and by promoting permanent U.S. sites of memory, which would also act as sites of education.
Analyzing U.S. Secondary Education Coverage of U.S. Contributions to Global ViolenceLack of permanent sites of memory and, therefore, sites of education notwithstanding, are students at the secondary education level in the United States learning about U.S. contributions to global violence? If so, how are U.S. contributions being covered in content standards and the most used texts? These are key questions PAFPA seeks to address. Education standards and textbooks are key drivers of how Americans view and understand the role the United States plays in the world. If the United States’ “hands are dirty,” based on its contributions to global violence, and American minds remain “spotless,” because American education does not address or insufficiently addresses the role played by the United States, there are downstream prevention implications; this educational gap directly contributes to a culture of political and material support for ongoing and future foreign policy violence.
For this project, PAFPA will analyze: (1) secondary education U.S. History and World History content standards, as well as the content standards for state mandated courses on the Holocaust and Genocide; (2) the College Board’s U.S. and World History courses’ frameworks, instructional guidance, and sample exam questions; and (3) secondary education textbooks and suggested supplemental texts. The results of this analysis will be published as a National Curriculum Accountability Report and will serve as the foundation for future education reform advocacy efforts.
In 2024, I co-founded the Mass Atrocity Research Initiative (MARI) at American University's School of International Service. Then, in 2025, as part of MARI, I founded the Project for American Foreign Policy Accountability (PAFPA). PAFPA seeks to promote public accountability for U.S. engagement in and contributions to violations of international law, from war crimes to crimes against humanity and genocide, by investigating sources of public knowledge and memory that influence how Americans view and understand the role of the United States in the world. Organizations with similar missions concerning U.S. accountability, and with similar investigative approaches, have primarily focused on U.S. treatment of members of its own population and those who migrate to the United States. Thus, PAFPA’s focus on U.S. public accountability for its foreign policies fills an important gap by centering the impact of these policies on others beyond U.S. borders.
IMPACT
PAFPA seeks to challenge the culture of impunity within which the United States contributes to political violence around the world. Results of investigations into sources of public knowledge and memory that influence how Americans view and understand the role of the United States in the world, including U.S. education and sites of memory, will be documented and disseminated in scholarly and public-facing publications. In this regard, PAFPA will attempt to bridge the gap between its research, public debate, and public policy, with the goal of achieving education reform and construction of memory sites within the United States that recognize and memorialize those who have been harmed by U.S. contributions to global violence. With success in reforming U.S. education’s coverage of the United States’ contributions to global violence and in constructing sites of memory, PAFPA’s ultimate goal is U.S. foreign policy reform.
OUR APPROACH
Our approach is rooted in the idea that public engagement with past violence better equips societies to prevent future violence, or what James Waller refers to as downstream prevention. According to James Waller, “Justice, truth, and memory lie at the heart of tertiary downstream prevention strategies.” The potential for downstream prevention is predicated on good faith engagement with the past. Such good faith engagement is necessary to better inform public attitudes about and associated tacit support for U.S. direct and indirect involvement in global violence. Notably, downstream prevention is typically associated with redressing territorially based violence, especially genocide, committed by state actors or their non-state proxies. However, this limited application of downstream prevention fails to account for violent foreign policies. Thus, PAFPA’s approach involves the much-needed extension of downstream prevention to engagement with past and ongoing violence contributed to by a state beyond its borders.
OUR PROJECTS
In July 2025, the Pew Research Center reported that, in response to the question of who poses the greatest international threat, the United States was among the top three most common responses in 20 of the 25 countries polled. The United States was the most common response in seven countries, the second most common in ten countries, and the third most common in three. For context, China was the first (3) or second (7) most common response in 10 countries and Russia was the first (8) or second (4) most common response in 12. Among the 24 countries polled other than the United States, the U.S. was the first or second most common response, compared to nearly 42 percent for China and 50 percent for Russia.
Such views of the United States are not limited to the current international political climate. In a 2014 Win/Gallup poll, the United States was also identified as the greatest international threat. Twenty-four percent of those polled in 65 countries named the United States as the greatest threat. Pakistan was runner-up at 8 percent. In Russia and China, 54 percent and 49 percent of respondents, respectively, viewed the United States as the greatest threat to peace, but they were far from alone. Bosnia (49 percent), Argentina (46 percent), Greece (45 percent), Turkey (45 percent), Mexico (37 percent), Ukraine (33 percent), Brazil (26 percent), and Peru (24 percent) did the same. Though the percentages were lower, demonstrating more equal distribution about perceived international threats, Germany still ranked the United States as the greatest threat, while the United Kingdom had the United States tied with Iran.
It is with information like the above in mind that PAFPA’s projects aim to address the disconnect between how Americans and others understand the role of the United States in the world, and the associated lack of public accountability in the United States and obstacles to downstream prevention of U.S. contributions to global violence. For its initial projects, PAFPA is focusing on U.S. secondary education and sites of memory as key sources of public knowledge and memory.
Recognizing and Memorializing U.S. Contributions to Global Violence
This project addresses the lack of public recognition of and public accountability for U.S. violence and U.S.-supported violence by creating a first-of-its-kind comparative analysis of state-sponsored memorialization. Thus, this project will undertake the following research. First, PAFPA will complete a comparative study of memory sites erected in countries to recognize violence perpetrated against members of their own populations, including memorialization of victims of violence committed against them by their own countries, memorialization of the members of a country’s military who died in a foreign war, and memorialization of a country’s victims of violence committed within the country by a foreign actor. Second, PAFPA will complete a comparative analysis of memory sites constructed to recognize and memorialize foreign victims of a country’s direct violence. Third, PAFPA will identify if/when a country has officially recognized, in some form, its contributions to violence perpetrated by another country or nonstate actor against members of another population.
Based on PAFPA’s findings and lessons learned regarding how other countries have recognized and memorialized domestic and foreign victims of violence, PAFPA will produce a report that documents the findings and lessons learned, and that makes recommendations concerning public recognition and memorialization within the United States of certain instances of U.S. contributions to global violence. This investigation has the potential to make a significant impact on downstream prevention by contributing to public debate and recognition regarding the harm caused to others by U.S. contributions to global violence, and by promoting permanent U.S. sites of memory, which would also act as sites of education.
Analyzing U.S. Secondary Education Coverage of U.S. Contributions to Global ViolenceLack of permanent sites of memory and, therefore, sites of education notwithstanding, are students at the secondary education level in the United States learning about U.S. contributions to global violence? If so, how are U.S. contributions being covered in content standards and the most used texts? These are key questions PAFPA seeks to address. Education standards and textbooks are key drivers of how Americans view and understand the role the United States plays in the world. If the United States’ “hands are dirty,” based on its contributions to global violence, and American minds remain “spotless,” because American education does not address or insufficiently addresses the role played by the United States, there are downstream prevention implications; this educational gap directly contributes to a culture of political and material support for ongoing and future foreign policy violence.
For this project, PAFPA will analyze: (1) secondary education U.S. History and World History content standards, as well as the content standards for state mandated courses on the Holocaust and Genocide; (2) the College Board’s U.S. and World History courses’ frameworks, instructional guidance, and sample exam questions; and (3) secondary education textbooks and suggested supplemental texts. The results of this analysis will be published as a National Curriculum Accountability Report and will serve as the foundation for future education reform advocacy efforts.