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.
Question And Answer
Why Counterterrorism in Afghanistan and Pakistan Still Matters
Question And Answer
What Does the Xi-Ma Meeting Mean for Cross-Strait Relations?
Q&A: Muslim Scholars Pledge Support for Religious Minorities
Muslim scholars and intellectuals from more than 120 countries issued a new pledge of support last week for the protection and freedom of religious minorities in Muslim-majority communities. Susan Hayward, USIP’s director of religion and inclusive societies and an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ, attended the three-day conference in Marrakesh, Morocco, as a supporter, and explains the significance of the pronouncement.
Bhutto Zardari: Pakistan Should Expand Counterterrorism Activities to All Provinces
The Pakistani government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif must expand its counterterrorism operations to all provinces and implement a 2015 national plan to achieve the stated goal of eradicating militant groups, said Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, leader of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party. Failure to take these steps risks undermining the nation’s fragile progress, he said.
In Nigeria, U.S. Seeks a Way Home for Boko Haram Defectors
The senior U.S. diplomat on Africa urged Nigeria to look beyond military measures in its fight against Boko Haram, and to consider how it treats both the extremist group’s victims and its fighters who may be ready to defect.
Panel Urges New View of Middle East Refugees
The refugee crisis that has spread to Europe and the breakdown of the Middle East’s century-old political order demand new thinking about the economic role of displaced people and a reassessment of donor strategies to rebuild societies in conflict, a working group convened by the U.S. Institute of Peace concluded. The panel’s report, developed under USIP’s Manal Omar and Elie Abouaoun as part of Atlantic Council’s Middle East Strategy Task Force, calls for refugees to be viewed as potential e...
Iraq Operation to Recapture Mosul Needs Plan for Aftermath
The planning taking place to recapture Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul, from the “Islamic State,” or ISIS, extremist group should involve not only meticulous military preparations but also careful thought to ensuring a peaceful aftermath is sustainable over the long term, said Qubad Talabani, the deputy prime minister of the country’s Kurdish region, which has helped lead the drive to end the extremist organization’s hold on vast swaths of territory. But the Kurdistan Regional Government (K...
Q&A: In Nigeria, War and Peace Go Beyond Boko Haram
In the shadow of global headlines about ISIS and the Middle East, Nigeria’s government has pushed another of the world’s deadliest conflicts into a new phase. For months, Nigerian troops have been recapturing territory from the Boko Haram militant group, with support from the United States, which has sent special operations forces as advisors to help. But Nigeria’s crises, and any solutions, run wider and deeper than Boko Haram, according to U.S. Institute of Peace Program Officer Oge Onubogu...
Afghan First Lady: Justice Reform is Hopeful 'Snapshot'
Afghanistan’s first lady, Rula Ghani, countering what she called the “prophets of doom and gloom,” said extensive reforms to her country’s legal system over the past 18 months are beginning to deliver results and illustrate potential progress. Speaking at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Ghani said the unity government headed since January 2015 by her husband, President Ashraf Ghani, and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah understand the need to provide fair and effective justice to Afghanistan’s p...
Q&A: Drone Strike's Impact on Afghanistan, Pakistan
The death of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Akhtar Mansour, who reportedly was killed in a U.S. drone strike in Pakistan on May 21, raises a host of questions about the Taliban’s future, U.S. strategy in Afghanistan and American relations with Pakistan. The strike, which Pakistani officials have protested, was the first publicly-disclosed military action by the U.S. inside Pakistan’s southwestern Baluchistan province, and the first to directly target senior Taliban leaders sheltering o...
U.N. Youth-and-Peace Resolution: The Hard Work Begins
The United Nations Security Council recently addressed a force quietly shaping the world: a generation of young people that, numbering 1.8 billion between the ages of 10 to 24, is the largest in history, and has enormous potential to build peace amid the violence that so often rocks their world. The council’s resolution on youth, peace and security was the first to deal with the role of young people on these issues. The hard work now is to turn the resolution’s words into reality, H.E. Ahmad ...
Why the World Humanitarian Summit Meeting in Turkey Really Does Matter
John Norris told Foreign Policy readers that the Istanbul conference would be irrelevant. It wasn’t.