This handbook, CD, and website, produced from a USIP grant, describes proven strategies and tactics for nonviolent political movements. Based on first hand experience in Serbia and Georgia, the resources provide easily accessible lessons and best practices to front-line practitioners engaged in struggles for freedom around the world.
The Taliban’s new vice and virtue law, which places sweeping restrictions on women’s dress, mobility and public presence, is facing pushback from Afghan religious scholars, civil society, the wider Muslim community and even the Taliban themselves.
Iran’s ballistic missile strikes on Israel on October 1 have raised fears of an all-out war in the Middle East. The deepening spiral of bloodshed began on September 17 and 18 with the detonation across Lebanon of thousands of pagers and two-way radios used by Hezbollah operatives — one analyst deemed the unprecedented Israeli operation “the most extensive physical supply chain attack in history.” Ongoing airstrikes in Beirut and southern Lebanon have marked the most significant Israeli barrage in 11 months of tit-for-tat escalation. On September 27, Israel dealt Hezbollah a devastating blow by killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah in an airstrike on a Beirut suburb. Despite reeling from these latest reverses and the evisceration of its command structure, the Shiite militia continues to lob missiles at Israel. Stunned and outraged, Iran — Hezbollah’s patron — fired around 200 ballistic missiles at Israel; at least one person was killed in the West Bank. Iranians are now bracing for Israeli retaliation. The cycle of violence, it appears, is far from over.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s speech at the U.N. General Assembly made clear that Ukraine will not give up claims to territory. “Even if they don’t get [the land] all back right away, they will eventually get it back,” says USIP’s Ambassador William Taylor, which will leave Putin with “no choice but to look for a way out.”
The Myanmar military has endured historic losses over the past three years, leaving it in the weakest state in its history. While there are few paths to recovery — and mounting challenges to its stranglehold on power — the military has managed to stay afloat so far in the face of an expanding revolution against its rule. What are the factors threatening its viability? And what is holding it together? While there is no single explanation, a critical factor is its culture of internal loyalty cultivated over decades of military rule.
Two years after a seismic political and economic crisis rocked Sri Lanka and brought citizens to the streets in mass protests movements that ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Sri Lanka’s citizens went to the polls to cast their votes for a new president. On September 21, Sri Lankans elected the left-leaning Anura Kumara Dissanayake over established politicians including incumbent President Ranil Wickremesinghe and opposition leader Sajith Premadasa. Dissanayake’s election represents a clear break from Sri Lanka’s old guard political parties, but he will face similar challenges of navigating economic strain and a shifting geopolitical environment while working to deliver on election promises.