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.
Q&A on Iraq: 'Standing on Quicksand'
Iraq faces an array of obstacles this year, as the government of Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi struggles to unify competing factions and confronts the brutal militants of the so-called “Islamic State” militarily. Abadi must navigate significant economic challenges and massive displacements of citizens because of the fighting, while struggling to meet terms set out by the country’s Kurdish Regional Government in the north and the Sunni coalition who joined his government in Baghdad.
Ukrainians Broadly Reject Russian Actions and Influence, Poll Shows
A new survey of Ukrainians shows a broad majority, including in the East, reject the boldest moves against their country, belying notions that Russian President Vladimir Putin may be winning the fight through propaganda and military aid to separatists.
In a World of Syria and Ukraine, How Can Conflict Managers Adapt?
Today’s global political realities of chaos and violent conflict are well-captured by the declaration, “The center cannot hold.” It’s the title of the first chapter in a new book, Managing Conflict in A World Adrift, that dissects the shifts in international security and the tense debates about how to adapt. The trends were the subject of a recent discussion at USIP that featured co-editors Chester A. Crocker and Pamela Aall and expert authors, including an award winning marine ecologist.
Liberia’s President Thanks U.S. for Helping Control Ebola Epidemic
In August, West Africa’s outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus exploded into Liberia’s capital, filling its hospitals beyond capacity and killing many of the city’s already-too-few doctors and nurses. With her government struggling and Liberians dying in Monrovia’s streets, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf placed urgent calls to both Democratic and Republican members of Congress, “who I awakened at night,” she recalled today.
Q&A: Pakistan in the Shifting Neighborhood of 2015
A public backlash against the Pakistani Taliban after a December attack in northwestern Pakistan that killed 134 children has raised hopes that the country’s government and military might finally muster the political will to tackle terrorism and violent extremism. U.S. Institute of Peace Director of Pakistan and South Asia Programs Moeed Yusuf considers the odds in the face of Pakistan’s deteriorating relations with India on the eastern border and a new, though divided government in a still-s...
Feingold Presses Three African States on Elections
Russell Feingold, the U.S. Special Envoy working to stabilize Africa’s Great Lakes region, urged Rwanda, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) to hold fair, democratic elections as a key step to bringing peace to the region. And he pressed the DRC to launch a promised military offensive in the country’s East against an ethnic Hutu militia that includes fighters who participated in the anti-Tutsi genocide in Rwanda 21 years ago.
Pakistan’s Interior Minister Outlines New Anti-Terror Plan
The Pakistani Taliban’s killing of more than 150 people at the Army Public School in Peshawar in December spurred the Pakistani government to draft a new National Action Plan against terrorism. A primary architect of that plan, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, discussed his country’s terrorism challenge on Feb. 18 in his first public appearance in Washington since taking office in 2013.
How Not to Fight a Fanatic
The United States needs to take a wider view of whom it works with in its war against religious extremists.
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.
Dalai Lama, American Muslims Urge Activism to Bridge Faiths
From blood drives after 9/11 to aid for Iraqi Christians and Yazidi refugees today, and on to the simple act of listening to survivors of violence for solutions to their communities’ conflicts, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama and American Muslim leaders, including USIP’s Manal Omar, recently exchanged ideas for overcoming the misunderstandings of Islam perpetuated by the brutal conflicts of the past decade-plus.