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.
The Obama administration is sending disaster response teams to northern Ethiopia to try to address a humanitarian emergency and avoid a national security risk to the U.S. should the drought there spiral out of control.
For the first time since its blitz across Syria and Iraq, in 2014, the Islamic State is on the defensive in both countries. Its caliphate, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, is shrinking. Its numbers are down. It hasn’t launched a new offensive since May, 2015.
Carla Koppell, vice president of USIP's Center for Applied Conflict Transformation, appeared on Al Jazeera English’s News Hour to discuss aid priorities for Syrians while the cessation of hostility holds.
Reformists were on the verge of being excluded from Iranian politics. Now they're back at the center of the action.
Growing up, in Maplewood, New Jersey, where her father was a narcotics detective and her mother a special-education teacher, Ibtihaj Muhammad competed in softball, tennis, volleyball, and track. “In our family, you didn’t have a choice of whether to play sports,” she told me. “You only had a choice of what sports you played.”
A bomb exploded at an airport checkpoint in Somalia on Monday. But it's what the bomb was in that has the United States worried. The bomb was hidden in a laptop computer and shattered windows at the small airport north of the Somali capitol Mogadishu.
Most importantly, perhaps, the Chinese initiative signals China’s rise and a commitment to lasting future engagement with the region. Meanwhile, Cooley said, the “New Silk Road for the U.S. is associated with a legacy of regional withdrawal.” Another speaker, Scott Smith of the U.S. Institute of Peace, was just as critical of the New Silk Road policy, saying that it “is a vision that sometimes masquerades as a policy.”
U.S. Institute of Peace President Nancy Lindborg appeared on Al Jazeera English on March 9, 2016, to discuss the latest events in Syria, including the latest European border closures blocking the routes of Syrian refugees. Lindborg also spoke about the internally displaced within Syria and how the civil war might be resolved. "Let's not let the humanitarian situation continue to deteriorate," she said.
When armed groups lay down their weapons, women have rarely been part of the conflict negotiations. But in Colombia, where up to 40 percent of leftist rebels are female, women have had a much more prominent role in the anticipated peace agreement between the Colombian government and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the FARC, who have been engaged in more than a half century of armed conflict.
Koppell will lead USIP’s programs on issue areas such as rule of law and religion, as well as grants, research, education, fellowships and training. She will focus on the design, development and piloting of innovative approaches to conflict transformation and peacebuilding.