Publications
Articles, publications, books, tools and multimedia features from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest news, analysis, research findings, practitioner guides and reports, all related to the conflict zones and issues that are at the center of the Institute’s work to prevent and reduce violent conflict.
Amid War, Ukraine Aims to Protect the Rights of a Brutal Foe
At a critical phase in Russia’s war on Ukraine, U.N. human rights reports and news accounts illuminate a deepening contrast between the two nations’ adherence to humanitarian conduct amid war, notably in their treatment of prisoners. As Russian forces publicize and celebrate their brutalization of prisoners, Ukraine is striving to apply global norms rooted in a wartime order, 160 years ago this week, by U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Sustaining support for Ukraine’s adherence to international humanitarian law can help determine which patterns of conduct, brutal or humane, will shape the world in which our children will live.
The New Nonaligned Movement Is Having a Moment
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has accentuated emerging geopolitical trends that have coincided with the rise and intensification of great power competition. The re-emergence of the nonaligned movement (NAM) as a geopolitical force is perhaps the most salient example. Indeed, this month’s edition of Foreign Affairs — a reliable barometer of key trends in international affairs — is dedicated to the “nonaligned world.” By definition, NAM states do not want to be forced to choose sides between the United States and/or Russia and China. But as we move into a multipolar era of accelerating great power competition, these states will find themselves caught between major powers.
It’s Not About Picking Sides: The Nonaligned Movement and Russian Aggression
For nearly 80 years, the world has benefited from the post-World War II international legal prohibitions and norms outlawing aggressive war. While this relative peace and stability was threatened during the Cold War, a group of countries — called the nonaligned movement (NAM) — came together to declare their aversion to the bloc politics of the United States and the Soviet Union. This nonaligned movement championed key principles of the U.N. charter, including respect for territorial integrity, sovereignty and nonaggression.
The United States Should Lead the Push for Peace in Ukraine
Recent weeks have witnessed several calls for peace in Ukraine. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy just wrapped up appearances at the G7 Summit and the Arab League, urging support for his country’s peace plan. China recently followed up the release of its February 2023 peace plan by sending its top diplomat, Wang Yi, on a European tour and dispatched peace envoy Li Hiu last week to Ukraine, Poland, Germany, France and Russia. At no time since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has there been so much momentum toward a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine. The United States should seize this opportunity to play a leading role.
Dislodging Putin’s Foothold in the Balkans
The impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on the Balkans can only be understood by considering Moscow’s malign influence in the region from a broader perspective. While Russia has specific objectives related to each individual country in the region, its overall objective is clearly to target the Western Balkans through a divide and rule approach, using multiple tools of influence. While the United States and its European partners focus on the war in Ukraine, Russia is taking the opportunity to nibble away at NATO’s borders and to sow discord in countries hoping to some day present a strong case for joining the European Union.
Like Ukraine, Myanmar Deserves International Aid
Over decades of brutal military rule, Myanmar’s generals have sometimes shifted tactics but relied on one consistent strategy to ensure their grip on power — fomenting divisions within the population and fueling intercommunal violence. That repeated ploy finally failed in the upheaval that followed the 2021 coup. Today, the country has embraced an historic unity that brings together virtually every ethnic and political strand to oppose the ruling junta. Like Ukrainians, Myanmar's people are courageous, spirited and united, and willing to make great sacrifice in their fight for democracy.
15 Months on, Ukrainians Remain United on Freedom, Rule of Law
Two days into Ukraine’s unfolding counteroffensive, a soldier just back from one of the first probes into Russian defensive lines called me on WhatsApp, giddy with excitement, to report his unit’s unexpected success. “We were told to push them back 600 meters,” he said, “but we got so little resistance, we pushed them back six kilometers! The Russians were soft!”
For a Future Peaceful Russia, Engage its Exiles Now
To pursue his war on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has crushed the last of Russia’s once-vibrant civil society. He has imprisoned some 20,000 dissidents, throttled all independent media — and triggered an exodus of perhaps 1 million Russians, many of them young, educated and technically skilled. As the West helps Ukrainians’ immediate struggle to survive, any long game to defeat Putin’s assaults on Ukraine, international law and peace requires that we cultivate, not isolate, this new Russian diaspora. Whenever Russians become able to shape their country’s future after Putin, the new exiles will be potential allies of democracy and rule of law.
Corruption: Sleeper Threat to International Security
In non-violent uprisings and more full scale revolutions ranging from the Arab spring to the overthrow of the President in Ukraine, one common underlying propellant was rebellion against government corruption. The same fuel has fed continuing turmoil in post-revolutionary Libya and undercut Nigeria's fight against Boko Haram. Yet the role of acute corruption in fomenting protests and violence is underappreciated and makes Western efforts to combat it insufficient.
The Strategy Killer
The White House and State Department are hard at work on two major new documents that will lay the foundation for America's national security policy for the remainder of the Obama administration and possibly beyond: the National Security Strategy, rumored for release this summer, and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), slated for release later this year. The usual bureaucratic tussles will ensue about what should and should not be included in these documents, and the admi...