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.
Iraqi Prime Minister Says Trump Offers Support
Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, speaking at the U.S. Institute of Peace after his first meeting with President Donald Trump, said the new U.S. administration is “prepared to do more” to fight terrorism than its predecessor, but he cautioned that military force alone won’t defeat ISIS. Abadi said his government is trying to gain the trust of the Iraqi people by reducing abuses by security forces, ensuring that areas recaptured from ISIS are stabilized and making the government more accountable.
Burma is Still on the Rocky Road to Democracy
When the iconic democracy champion Aung San Suu Kyi won her historic, landslide election in Burma (Myanmar), she was met by soaring expectations, as well as by the formidable challenges of violent conflicts, a stuttering economy and the significant constraints of sharing authority with a still-powerful military.
In a Divided U.S., One Event Proved There's Still Bipartisan Foreign Policy
Amid the public debate about America's divisions, it may have been easy to miss this image just days before the inauguration: the national security advisers of Presidents Obama and Trump standing side by side to vow bipartisan cooperation in the transition of authority.
Senator Graham Urges Trump to Back Development Aid
Senator Lindsey Graham said President-elect Donald Trump needs to understand that foreign assistance is a critical tool for fighting terrorism around the world and requires a jolt in spending no less than his proposed boost for the military. Speaking at the U.S. Institute of Peace’s “Passing the Baton” conference on Jan. 10, the South Carolina Republican said that, without more resources for intelligence and for humanitarian and development aid, the new administration “will miss the boat on w...
Kerry, Rice, Flynn Talk Foreign Policy
Secretary of State John Kerry and National Security Advisor Susan Rice and designated incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn are among the Cabinet-level and other senior foreign policy and national security figures from the outgoing and incoming administrations gathering on Tuesday, Jan. 10 at USIP for a day of discussion about the global challenges facing the United States in the coming months and years.
Trump & Obama Aides, Experts Weigh America’s Global Role
Seven weeks past an election that stirred talk of U.S. isolationism, national security aides from the incoming, outgoing and previous administrations held private discussions January 9 that found a broad point of consensus: The United States must lead more, not less, in the world. The meetings, among more than 80 past, present and future officials and independent foreign policy analysts, opened a bi-partisan conference on national security issues convened by the U.S. Institute of Peace (USIP)...
From ISIS to Al-Qaida: The Changing Extremist Threat
The Islamic State may be crumbling across Iraq, but the future prospects of violent extremist groups are far from fading. While ISIS rampaged across Iraq and Syria in 2014, setting up a terror-based regime to impose its will, a revitalized al-Qaida was taking a different, more sustainable approach by grafting itself onto local extremist groups, experts said in a forum at the U.S. Institute of Peace that also examined community approaches to preventing and countering violent extremism. Al-Qaid...
Can Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting Be Stopped?
When she was merely a week old, Jaha Mapenzi Dukureh underwent female genital mutilation in her native Gambia. But the 26-year-old mother of three, now living in the United States, knows the procedure is not something that happens only in some far-off country. She is an outspoken advocate for ending the custom. At a daylong conference at the U.S. Institute of Peace, Dukureh and other experts and government officials detailed the difficulties—and possibilities—of ending a practice that has bee...
Standing by Colombia for Peace, as in War
When Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos accepts his Nobel Peace Prize this week in Oslo for pursuing an end to a half century of conflict, Americans can take a measure of pride.
World Bank Seeks Crisis Flexibility for Long-Term Impact
The World Bank Group generally reserves its cheapest loans for the world’s poorest countries. But as protracted conflicts have swelled the number of global refugees, the bank in September unveiled a new, more flexible crisis program that allows, for example, middle-income Jordan and Lebanon, both inundated with uprooted Syrians, to borrow on the bank’s most favorable terms. The shift reflects a growing consensus that traditional distinctions among relief, reconstruction and development work a...