Experts from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest analysis and perspective on the world’s critical hot spots, U.S. and global security and issues involved in violent conflict, based on the Institute’s work on the ground and with key individuals, governments and organizations. They give interviews and background briefings to journalists and write for news outlets around the world.
“Some military units clearly viewed rape as a legitimate means of demoralizing and degrading their enemies,” Clapp said. “Yes, that was used. It still is, unfortunately.” “In reality, the military government was using violence against everybody, not just women,” she continued. “The army was an equal-opportunity violence machine, aimed at men, women, and children.”
Clapp is the co-author with Mort Halperin of what I consider one of the most important books you can read about US foreign policy. It’s called Bureaucratic Politics and Foreign Policy, and as the title suggests, the book describes the role of the bureaucracy in shaping US foreign policy. We kick off with an extended conversation about that book, and then have another extended conversation about how Clapp, as the State Department official in charge of refugee programs in the late 1980s, used t...
Chinese police have issued arrest warrants for several members of a junta-aligned crime family that it believes is closely involved in online scamming operations in northeast Myanmar, as resistance forces continue to make gains across the region. According to the CyberScamMonitor account on X (formerly Twitter), which cited warrants from the Wenzhou City Public Security Bureau in Zhejiang Province, Chinese police are seeking the arrest of...
Nov. 8 marked the third anniversary of elections in Myanmar, whose results were overturned by a military coup on Feb. 1, 2021. The coup set in motion some of the largest, most diverse protests in the country’s history, which subsequently led to a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy activists. Today, the junta is prosecuting a war of terror, marked by airstrikes against civilians, the blocking of humanitarian aid to the...
Last fall, a coalition of rebel groups known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched a rapid-fire offensive across Myanmar’s northern Shan state, quickly overrunning more than 100 military outposts and seizing several key towns along the country’s border with China. This in itself was not unusual. Myanmar’s military government has faced insurgencies from ethnic and political militias for decades...