Thursday, May 24, 2018
How Afghans View the New U.S. Strategy
Afghanistan’s leaders are mostly breathing a sigh of relief at the release of the new U.S. strategy after such a long delay. President Trump’s speech featured important reassurances to Afghanistan and some useful warnings all around. But it also leaves questions about the difficulty of reaching the goals that both the Afghan and U.S. governments have set out.
New Afghanistan Strategy’s Core: Troops and Pakistan
President Trump’s announcement of the new U.S. strategy for Afghanistan gives badly needed clarity to the Afghan government, the South Asia region and the American people that the U.S. will continue to provide enduring support...
China’s Israeli-Palestinian Mediation Offer Shows Trend
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s recent four-point peace proposal to resolve the protracted conflict between Israel and the Palestinians represents only the latest initiative by the leadership in Beijing...
Connecting Civil Resistance and Conflict Resolution
In 2011, the world watched millions of Egyptians rally peacefully to force the resignation of their authoritarian president, Hosni Mubarak. “When Mubarak stepped down … we realized we actually had power,"...
How to End the War in Ukraine
The recently expanded U.S. sanctions against Russia, preparations for a massive Russian military exercise next door to NATO allies in September and a spike in casualties this year on the battlefields of Ukraine...
Pakistani PM’s Ouster Muddles Fight on Taliban, Beyond
Pakistan’s political stability is always tenuous on the best days. The decision by the country’s Supreme Court to send Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif packing for misstating...
How Funders Can Support Nonviolent Action Amid Crackdowns
When China’s national legislature passed a landmark bill in December 2015 outlawing domestic violence, it was the result of an unusual civic movement that reached far beyond groups concerned with violence against women. Instead, HIV-AIDS organizations, LGBTQ activists and legal experts joined the campaign...
Drought, Al-Shabab Threaten Somalia’s Recovery Plan
Somalia is one of four countries, along with Yemen, South Sudan and Nigeria, threatened with famine this year. Drought and conflict have already pushed nearly 3 million Somalis—roughly the size of Chicago’s population--to the brink of starvation, an unimaginable scale of human suffering. Worse yet is that history could repeat itself—less than a decade ago, famine killed nearly 260,000 Somalis, half of them children under 5. But the situation is different this time in at least two important ways.
For an Afghanistan Strategy, Put Peace Talks at the Fore
Senior U.S. civilian and military officials frequently acknowledge that there is no military solution to the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan, and that a peace process is needed to reach a politically negotiated end to the conflict. But for years, the military effort to win the war has sucked up the lion’s share of policy (and media) resources. Political efforts to negotiate peace remained a sideshow that never gained much traction.
Dialogues for Peace: Four Ideas That Can Improve Them
Across a violent world, governments, U.N. agencies, foundations and peace organizations sponsor dialogue projects every year, working to reduce bloodshed. In national civil wars or local land disputes, trained “facilitators” guide antagonists toward compromise. But do these approaches work, and if so, how?