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James Rupert

Senior Writer/Editor, Public Affairs and Communications

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James Rupert is a senior writer and editor at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

As a foreign affairs correspondent Rupert has reported from more than 70 countries for the Washington Post, Newsday and Bloomberg News, and served as a foreign affairs editor at the Post and Newsday. Over a 30-year journalism career, he has served as a resident correspondent in Morocco, Tunisia, France, India, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Cote d’Ivoire and Pakistan. His coverage has focused heavily on South and Central Asia, the Arab and Islamic worlds, the former Soviet Union and sub-Saharan Africa.

Rupert is a former Alicia Patterson Fellow and Michigan Journalism (now Knight-Wallace) Fellow. Before joining USIP in 2015, he served as a writer at the Atlantic Council and editor of its UkraineAlert newsletter.

Rupert graduated from Swarthmore College in 1979 and served as a Peace Corps volunteer, building and teaching in a vocational school in Morocco.

Publications By James

Nigeria’s Vote Signals Risks: How Its Partners Can Support Democracy

Nigeria’s Vote Signals Risks: How Its Partners Can Support Democracy

Thursday, March 9, 2023

By: James Rupert

Nigeria’s disputed election 12 days ago is raising protest at home and concern abroad over its implications for the strength of democracy in that country and across Africa. Yesterday’s new wrinkle was the postponement of this week’s planned election for Nigerian state governors. Nigeria’s electoral commission is working to fix problems in a vote management system that failed to transparently process and report a result on February 25. An erosion of democracy’s credibility in Africa’s most populous nation would be catastrophic.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Democracy & Governance;  Electoral Violence

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Asks: Can We Shorten This War?

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy Asks: Can We Shorten This War?

Thursday, December 22, 2022

By: James Rupert

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy seized Americans’ attention yesterday, rushing from a smoking Ukrainian battlefield to ask Congress directly for the help that can let Ukrainians turn back Europe’s most brutal war since Adolf Hitler. Flying home last night, the question Zelenskyy left behind is this: Will the United States trickle out its assistance slowly, perhaps to avoid a Ukrainian collapse but leaving this war to grind for years? Or might Zelenskyy’s impassioned appeal persuade Americans to invest in his ambition to shorten the bloodshed, reversing Vladimir Putin’s invasion in coming months to force him to accept a negotiated off-ramp from the war?

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Global Policy

In Moldova, Russia Wages Another Hybrid War

In Moldova, Russia Wages Another Hybrid War

Thursday, November 3, 2022

By: James Rupert

The past week underscores a rising threat in Europe from Russia’s savage assault on Ukraine: the Kremlin’s parallel destabilization of tiny Moldova, between Ukraine and Romania. The Kremlin is escalating a hybrid subversion campaign against Moldova’s effort to build a stable democracy and join the European Union. It is choking off vital gas supplies to tank the economy, sponsoring mass anti-government protests and helping a fugitive Moldovan oligarch launch the latest of several pro-Russia political parties. European policymakers say Moldova, partly occupied by Russian troops, is one of the countries most vulnerable to a spread of the war in Ukraine.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Global Policy

Pakistan Presses U.S. to Lead Global Response to Climate Disasters

Pakistan Presses U.S. to Lead Global Response to Climate Disasters

Thursday, September 29, 2022

By: James Rupert

Pakistan’s unprecedented flood disaster is a wakeup call for governments and international institutions on the need to build a worldwide response to the disproportionate burden of climate change on nations of the Global South — a challenge that Pakistan’s foreign minister underscored to U.S. officials and foreign policy analysts Wednesday at USIP. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari urged policymakers to lead an international effort to use the Pakistan crisis as a catalyst for a more effective international effort to help the countries most vulnerable to climate change.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Environment

Building Peace with Russia: Lessons from Gorbachev

Building Peace with Russia: Lessons from Gorbachev

Thursday, September 1, 2022

By: James Rupert

Mikhail Gorbachev enters history as a tragic figure—a pragmatist who ruled the Soviet Union for 66 months, believing he could save its dysfunctional, Russian-led imperium with liberalizing reforms. Yet Gorbachev’s struggle to humanize the Soviet machine led to its collapse. And while he and his Western counterparts managed to end the Cold War, Gorbachev in his final months watched his successor ignite in Ukraine a catastrophic version of the bloodshed he had labored to avert in Europe. Whenever Russia and the world might rebuild the kind of peacemaking moment that Gorbachev’s pragmatism presented 40 years ago, his legacy will help shape it.

Type: Analysis and Commentary

Global Policy

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