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.
Nancy Lindborg spoke to SiriusXM POTUS Ch. 124 about fragility in terms of lessons learned in Iraq with regard to the importance of an inclusive government and the state of affairs in Afghanistan. Lindborg explained that economics and security are as important as the military focus in Afghanistan to restore the social contract between the government and the people.
Virginia M. Bouvier, the chief of operations in Colombia for the U.S. Institute of Peace who played a vital role in reaching a 2016 peace treaty between rebel guerrillas and the government, died July 29 at a hospital in Washington. She was 58 and lived in Silver Spring, Md.
he American diplomat Brett McGurk is the central player in the seventy-two-nation coalition fighting the Islamic State, a disparate array of countries twice the size of NATO. He has now worked all of America’s major wars against extremism—in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria—under three very different Presidents: George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and now Donald Trump. McGurk served in Baghdad after the ouster of Saddam Hussein; he used his experience clerking for the late Chief Justice William Rehnquist on the Supreme Court to help draft Iraq’s new constitution. President Bush brought McGurk back to Washington to serve on the National Security Council and help run the campaign against Al Qaeda. President Obama tapped him to work Iraq and Iran at the State Department. McGurk was visiting Kurdistan, in northern Iraq, when ISISseized nearby Mosul. In 2015, he became Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIS. President Trump kept him on.
What happens at a U.S. Embassy? What does it take to become a diplomat? And how do you celebrate the 4th of July in Africa? In this episode, we get a taste of how ambassadors represent U.S. interests in foreign countries. Our guest is Johnnie Carson, a former U.S. Ambassador to Uganda, Zimbabwe, and Kenya.
Scott Worden spoke to SiriusXM POTUS Ch. 124 about the current state of affairs in Afghanistan as the Trump administration prepares to announce its strategy in the country. Worden explained why winning the peace should be the goal because a political solution is the only way to win the war there.
Andrew Wilder, vice president of the United States Institute for Peace's Asia program, said Afghanistan's young were the greatest benefactor of a post-Taliban "bubble economy" generated by international aid as well as opium trafficking.
Here & Now's Meghna Chakrabarti speaks with Moeed Yusuf, associate vice president of the Asia Center at the U.S. Institute of Peace, and considers the partition's legacy in Pakistan.
The United States has vital national interests in Afghanistan. Since 9/11, preventing another terrorist attack on the U.S. homeland has remained our key objective. While the cost in lives and treasure has been too high, this objective has largely been achieved. But it has required a sustained U.S. troop presence, the active participation of our NATO allies and a close partnership with the Afghan government.
“Pakistan’s spoiling power in Afghanistan is really unlimited,” said Moeed Yusuf, a South Asia expert with the U.S. Institute of Peace. “They could make a mess of things much more so than they have now.”
“There is pressure on Pakistan to change,” said Scott Worden, the director of Afghanistan and Central Asia programs at the U.S. Institute for Peace. “That’s been tried in the past. A lot will depend on what carrots and sticks are offered to see whether it marks a change."