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.
Why Is the U.S. Deploying Long-Range Missiles in Germany?
On the sidelines of last month’s NATO summit, the United States and Germany announced that Washington will begin episodic deployments of long-range conventional capabilities to Germany. In 1987, the United States and Soviet Union agreed to eliminate these systems under the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, but Russia’s violations led the United States to withdraw from the treaty in 2019. Three years later, Russia invaded Ukraine and has engaged in nuclear saber-rattling since then. Washington plans to deploy these systems to strengthen deterrence, but Moscow has criticized them.
Russia’s War and China’s Rise Set a New Path for South Korea-NATO Relations
July 2024 marked the third time South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol joined a NATO summit along with the leaders of the alliance’s other Indo-Pacific partner countries (Australia, Japan and New Zealand), informally known as the IP4. This represents a new phase in South Korea’s relations with the Atlantic alliance, but building a lasting friendship will take time and requires navigating a series of challenges. Amid an emerging global division of democratic and authoritarian camps and the challenges posed by China and Russia for both the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic regions, it is incumbent on both Brussels and Seoul to build a more cooperative relationship. That journey, however, has just begun.
Ukraine’s Pivot Changes the Narrative in Russia’s war; Outcome Remains Unclear
Almost 30 months into Vladimir Putin’s brutalization of Ukraine with a full-scale invasion that has pulverized vast swaths of its farmlands, towns and cities, Ukrainians have surprised Putin and the world by driving the war back into Russia — a move that, if nothing else, has altered the current narrative around this conflict. Ukraine has again brandished its determination, initiative and innovation, effectively resetting assumptions in its defense against its much larger attacker. The possible outcomes of Ukraine’s strike remain varied and unpredictable — and its eventual implications will rest on the evolutions of several questions, both military and political.
Donald Jensen on Ukraine’s Surprise Incursion into Russia
The Ukrainian military seized a chunk of territory in the Kursk region of Russia as part of a surprise incursion that has left the Russian military in “a panic,” says USIP’s Donald Jensen, adding that Putin’s strategy until now did not “take into account that Ukraine could strike back, and they certainly have.”
After Trading Prisoners with Russia: Can the World Negotiate with Putin?
Last week’s prisoner exchange with Russia — the largest since the Cold War, with 24 captives exchanged among seven countries — sparked hopes internationally that, just maybe, similarly determined diplomacy might help thaw the frigid relations between Russia and the West and open space for a negotiated end to Russia’s aggressions abroad. Unfortunately, the prisoner deal’s underlying message is that Vladimir Putin’s regime uses negotiations only when it sees the outcome, as it did last week, as a victory at the expense of its perceived enemies. The deal illustrates the narrowness of opportunity for any negotiated solution to settle the sides’ differences.
China’s Global Security Initiative: Tilting the Balance in Central Asia
In recent years, Beijing has been reevaluating its conceptual framework for foreign policy, with a focus on enhancing its role in global governance. With the aim of transforming China into the world's leading country, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has put forward a number of new initiatives — including the Global Security Initiative (GSI) — as a way of creating new formats of cooperation between China and the countries of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Global South.
Ambassador William Taylor on the Russia Prisoner Exchange
The recent exchange of prisoners between Russia and Western countries was historic on multiple fronts. But the “coherence and solidarity” displayed by U.S. allies was what made the deal possible, says USIP’s Ambassador William Taylor: “The conversations among allies were as important as the conversation with the Russians.”
As Moldova Nears an Election, Russia Exploits an Unhealed Ethnic Rift
In 2024, Russia’s hybrid war on Europe is notably targeting tiny Moldova, which, like Ukraine, is struggling for full independence from centuries of domination by Moscow. Specifically, Vladimir Putin’s government is campaigning to scuttle Moldova’s decision to join the European Union — and one strategy is to sustain opposition by the country’s minority Gagauz community. In just 11 weeks, Moldovans will vote whether to re-elect their pro-Europe president and ratify her government’s European choice. The Kremlin is sponsoring an opposition campaign that appears certain to lose those votes; Moscow may try instead to undermine the elections’ credibility, partly through political manipulation among the Gagauz.
With Russia’s U.N. Veto, Where Do North Korea Sanctions Go From Here?
Earlier this spring, Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council proposal to extend the “panel of experts” that had been monitoring the implementation of U.N. sanctions on North Korea’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs since 2009. While many saw the veto coming, the decision stands to majorly disrupt not just the enforcement of U.N. sanctions on North Korea but could undermine the effectiveness of U.N. sanctions as a whole. USIP spoke with George Lopez, who served previously on the panel in 2010-2011 and again in 2022-2023, about why Russia vetoed the renewal, what the international community loses now that the panel is finished, and what options there might be to replace it.
As Russia Builds Influence in Africa, its Church Takes a Role
Vladimir Putin’s campaign to make the world safe for violent authoritarianism visibly exploits conflicts and bolsters military rule in Africa with mercenary armies, internet-borne disinformation and weaponized corruption. A less recognized Russian effort to build influence in Africa is an expansion across the continent of the Russian Orthodox Church. As the Russian church’s overt support for Putin’s war on Ukraine has corroded its influence in the traditionally Orthodox Christian world, the Moscow Patriarchate is opening parishes and hiring priests away from the established African church.