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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.
The NATO Summit: Three Takeaways for Europe, War and Peace
This week’s NATO summit conference wrought significant advantages for Ukraine in its fight for independence, and on behalf of Europe’s security. Ukraine and most NATO members sought an unconditional invitation for Ukraine to join the NATO alliance following its war with Russia. They achieved part of that goal — a shorter, clearer path to Ukraine’s membership, USIP analysts note. Turkey’s reversal, to support Sweden’s accession to the alliance, strengthens the community backing the Ukrainians’ self-defense. While the summit had no prospect of lightening the burdens of defending Ukraine, Europe and the international rule of law, it accomplished what was achievable in the moment.
U.S. Sends Mixed Signals with Cluster Munitions and Chemical Weapons Calls
The Biden administration’s National Security Strategy is grounded in a “belief that the rules-based order must remain the foundation for global peace and prosperity.” Yet international security norms have come under increasing threat in the past decade, from China’s construction of artificial islands in the South China Sea to the Syrian government’s use of mustard gas against its own people. Most egregiously, Russia’s unprovoked assault on Ukraine and continuing war crimes threaten basic principles of sovereignty and humanity in international law. Amid the many foreign policy challenges the United States faces, the question it must confront is how to uphold international norms, while still pursuing U.S. interests.
Donald Jensen on What the NATO Summit Means for Putin
The NATO summit cleared major hurdles for Sweden to join the alliance and offered a consensus for Ukraine’s eventual accession. With Moscow still dealing with the fallout from Prigozhin’s recent uprising, signs indicate that “Putin is now weaker than anybody in the West thought he’d be two months ago,” says USIP’s Donald Jensen.
Mirna Galic on the Role of Indo-Pacific Partners at the NATO Summit
While much of the conversation at this week’s NATO summit will be focused on Russia’s war in Ukraine, the presence of NATO partners Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand “is a testament to … [NATO’s] interest in the Indo-Pacific and the focus on the challenges that China poses for the alliance,” says USIP’s Mirna Galic.
New Zealand Draws Closer to NATO with a Wary Eye
Until recently, if New Zealanders thought about their country’s links to NATO, it was likely the two-decade long deployment to Afghanistan that came to mind. But if there might have been some sense those ties lay in the past, Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has brought them squarely back to public attention. New Zealand’s links as a non-member partner of NATO have been central to its response to the war, including channeling aid to Kyiv. Last June, Jacinda Ardern became the first New Zealand prime minister to attend a NATO summit, joining three other leaders from Australia, Japan and South Korea as NATO’s four Indo-Pacific partners (IP4).
What’s Behind NATO’s Tightening Ties with its Indo-Pacific Partners?
NATO’s summit in Madrid, Spain, in June 2022 marked the first time the four leaders of NATO’s Indo-Pacific partner countries — Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea (ROK) — joined NATO counterparts for a meeting at the heads of state and government level. July 2023, at the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, will mark the second. The high level of media attention paid to the attendance in Madrid of the Indo-Pacific partners, known informally as the Indo-Pacific Four or IP4, is likely to be repeated in Vilnius. Beyond this, what should Indo-Pacific watchers expect from the Vilnius Summit in terms of NATO-IP4 developments?
Mary Glantz on the NATO Summit and the Wagner Mutiny
Ukraine’s potential admission into the Euro-Atlantic security alliance will top the agenda at next week’s summit in Lithuania. While it’s unlikely that there will be any clear-cut decision next week, “the opinion in the alliance is leading toward Ukraine moving faster rather than slower” in terms of joining, says USIP’s Mary Glantz. “I think history is on Ukraine’s side right now.”
What Does the Wagner Mutiny Mean for Putin and His War on Ukraine?
Before Vladimir Putin launched his illegal war on Ukraine, the Russian-funded paramilitary Wagner Group was an infamous, shadowy tool of Moscow’s foreign policy, advancing its objectives in the Middle East and Africa. After Putin’s February 2022 invasion, the private miliary company — led by Putin’s former chef, Yevgeny Prigozhin — became a critical cog of the Russian military’s war effort. But as cracks emerged across Russian society and within the elite over the war, Prigozhin has been one of the most outspoken critics, alienating his adversaries in Russia’s defense ministry. Eventually, Putin sided with Priogzhin’s opponents ordering Wagner to be officially subsumed within Ministry of Defense.
For a Future Peaceful Russia, Engage its Exiles Now
To pursue his war on Ukraine, Vladimir Putin has crushed the last of Russia’s once-vibrant civil society. He has imprisoned some 20,000 dissidents, throttled all independent media — and triggered an exodus of perhaps 1 million Russians, many of them young, educated and technically skilled. As the West helps Ukrainians’ immediate struggle to survive, any long game to defeat Putin’s assaults on Ukraine, international law and peace requires that we cultivate, not isolate, this new Russian diaspora. Whenever Russians become able to shape their country’s future after Putin, the new exiles will be potential allies of democracy and rule of law.
Like Ukraine, Myanmar Deserves International Aid
Over decades of brutal military rule, Myanmar’s generals have sometimes shifted tactics but relied on one consistent strategy to ensure their grip on power — fomenting divisions within the population and fueling intercommunal violence. That repeated ploy finally failed in the upheaval that followed the 2021 coup. Today, the country has embraced an historic unity that brings together virtually every ethnic and political strand to oppose the ruling junta. Like Ukrainians, Myanmar's people are courageous, spirited and united, and willing to make great sacrifice in their fight for democracy.