Question And Answer
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.
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.
Brazil’s Lula Looks to Revive Regional Cooperation — But He’s Got Critics
As the leader of Brazil, South America’s largest country — biggest by far in area, population and GDP —President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has enormous clout and the ambition to match. Six months into his third term in office (after a 12-year absence) the gregarious Brazilian leader — known around the world simply as “Lula” — has jumped eagerly back onto the world stage as a champion of the Global South.
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.
15 Months on, Ukrainians Remain United on Freedom, Rule of Law
Two days into Ukraine’s unfolding counteroffensive, a soldier just back from one of the first probes into Russian defensive lines called me on WhatsApp, giddy with excitement, to report his unit’s unexpected success. “We were told to push them back 600 meters,” he said, “but we got so little resistance, we pushed them back six kilometers! The Russians were soft!”
Lula busca reactivar la cooperación regional – pero tiene detractores
Como líder de Brasil, el país más grande de Sudamérica – tanto en términos de tamaño, población y PIB – el presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva tiene una enorme influencia, así como una ambición de igual escala. Tras seis meses de su tercer mandato (luego de 12 años de ausencia), el gregario líder brasileño – conocido a nivel mundial simplemente como "Lula" – ha saltado de nuevo con ansias al escenario mundial, mostrándose como el líder del Sur Global.
Tracking the Evolution of Conflict: Barometers for Interstate and Civil Conflict
This paper presents news ways to track violent conflict over time, providing conflict barometers for interstate and civil conflict, respectively. After critiquing previous efforts at measurement, the authors discuss general principles concerning the utility of conflict barometers. The interstate barometer is based on establishing a baseline for the relationship between a pair of states and then using the incidence and severity of militarized confrontations to track variations around those baselines. The resulting Interstate Conflict Severity Barometer (ICSB) is scaled from 0 (no violent conflict) to 1,000 (rivalry plus severe militarized confrontations) for 2,631 different state-state relationships over the period 1900–2015.
Keith Mines on the Crises in Venezuela and Haiti
While Haiti’s and Venezuela’s political, security and humanitarian situations remain dire, there are promising regional efforts underway to address both countries’ crises. While “the U.S. is looking for someone else to take the lead” on these situations, “there are things at play that are encouraging and at some point are going to need very tangible U.S. support,” says USIP’s Keith Mines.
The Taliban’s Successful Opium Ban is Bad for Afghans and the World
The Taliban have done it again: implementing a nearly complete ban against cultivation of opium poppy — Afghanistan’s most important agricultural product — repeating their similarly successful 2000-2001 prohibition on the crop. But the temptation to view the current ban in an overly positive light — as an important global counter-narcotics victory — must be avoided. This is particularly true given the state of Afghanistan’s economy and the country’s humanitarian situation. Indeed, the ban imposes huge economic and humanitarian costs on Afghans and it is likely to further stimulate an outflow of refugees. It may even result in internal challenges for the Taliban itself. And, in the long run, it will not have lasting counter-narcotics benefits within Afghanistan or globally.
Earth’s best defenders are Indigenous. They pay a price: violence.
Little noted by the world, warfare in India’s northeastern state of Manipur this spring has killed hundreds of Indigenous people and uprooted more than 35,000 residents. This violence along the India-Myanmar border fits a global pattern, also little noted: For decades, some 80 percent of human conflicts have smoldered in the “biodiversity hotspots” where our planet’s flora and fauna are most threatened by battles for resources and wealth — and where Indigenous peoples suffer the violence while protecting humanity’s common ecological heritage. We should strengthen the world’s inadequate public attention and policies on this crisis, and 2023 offers a chance to do so.
The Growing Threat of the Islamic State in Afghanistan and South Asia
When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, counterterrorism experts were alarmed at the possible resurgence of Islamist terrorist groups within the country. This Special Report lays out why those concerns, particularly about the regional Islamic State affiliate known as Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP), were well-founded. The report discusses the likely trajectory of ISKP’s activities in South Asia and recommends measures to minimize potential threats to the West and build regional resilience to extremism.