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.
Is the Middle East on the Verge of a Wider War?
Three months after the Hamas terror attack on Israel, reverberations from the ensuing conflict in Gaza threaten to engulf the region in a wider war.
Assad's Hollow Mandate
On June 3, in a parody of democracy, Bashar al-Assad will be reelected as president of Syria for his third seven-year term. If he serves out this term, Assad will be eligible to run for a fourth term in 2021 that would extend his presidency to 28 years -- two years short of his father's tenure. Syrians may yet be spared almost six decades of direct Assad family rule, but the outcome of Tuesday's vote is a foregone conclusion.
The Strategy Killer
The White House and State Department are hard at work on two major new documents that will lay the foundation for America's national security policy for the remainder of the Obama administration and possibly beyond: the National Security Strategy, rumored for release this summer, and the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR), slated for release later this year. The usual bureaucratic tussles will ensue about what should and should not be included in these documents, and the admi...
To Save Lives, or Not to Save Lives
The humanitarian crisis in Syria is incomprehensible -- and getting worse. The United Nations estimates that 9.3 million people are in need of urgent humanitarian aid. Among those, approximately 3.5 million people are in "hard to reach" or besieged areas. Exact numbers of deceased, injured, and displaced Syrians are difficult to verify, but there is relative consensus that real figures are higher than estimates reflect.
Why the U.S. Foreign Aid and Disaster Relief Process is Broken
Changing how peacebuilding organizations measure success could save aid projects that are stuck trying to meet rigid, dated, and increasingly arbitrary goals in conflict zones.
Wanted: A Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State and Assad
Halting the violent fracturing of the Middle East requires the U.S. and regional states to stop talking past each other.
Through Syria, Darkly
Will Assad agree to a political solution? Can ISIS be defeated? A sobering report from the latest PeaceGame.
The United States Will Never Win the Propaganda War Against the Islamic State
To win hearts and minds in the Middle East, America needs to let local allies do the talking.
Peace, Inc.
To make their mark, the architects of peacebuilding's bleeding edge need to leave the government payroll and start their own industry.
To Prevent and Resolve Violent Conflict, “We Need a Ground Game”
In an increasingly globalized, super-connected world, violent conflict moves faster and less predictably than a generation ago, with less regard for national borders. It combines dangerously with cyber networks, social media, environmental degradation and disease.