Sarah Smiles Persinger As public support for the Afghan war wanes, the concept of reconciliation with the Taliban and insurgent groups has gained currency and is now the declared policy of the United States and the Afghan government. Reconciliation poses a quandary...
Jennifer Freeman and Dee Aker October 2010 marked the 10th anniversary of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for women to be engaged in all phases of securing, building, and maintaining peace. Commemorative events have focused on the...
David Cortright As the scale of the military intervention has increased in Afghanistan, so has the armed violence and influence of the Taliban. Reversing this deadly dynamic will require an approach that pursues demilitarization through the gradual disengagement of...
Robert C. Johansen International law and time-honored ethical traditions prohibit the targeting of noncombatants. Yet in most recent conflicts, more civilians have been killed than soldiers. What can we do to increase the influence of legal and ethical norms...
Maryann Cusimano Love General David Petraeus was in the hot seat during his Senate confirmation hearings in Washington this summer, and it had nothing to do with the heat wave outside. While senators were confirming Petraeus as commander of U.S. and international...
George A. Lopez Much attention is paid to noncombatant casualties caused by military strikes and terrorist bombings, but few observers have focused on the impact of non-military actions, such as economic sanctions, on civilians. The shift more than a decade ago from...
Atalia Omer On March 22, 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton affirmed uncompromising U.S. support of Israel at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. On May 4, President Barack Obama had lunch with Elie Wiesel, the Nobel laureate,...
R. Scott Appleby This post includes video content. (6:01) In a major foreign policy speech in Cairo last June, President Barack Obama addressed not another state or group of nations but a religion: Islam, which many Americans continue to view (erroneously) as...
Emad El-Din Shahin Three issues are vital to U.S. security in the Middle East and will define America’s future relations with the Muslim world: the peace process (in Palestine, as well as in Iraq and Afghanistan); the United States’ continued support for corrupt and...
Larissa Fast It may seem logical that military and civilian actors should work in close collaboration, especially in places like Afghanistan and Sudan, where non-governmental organizations and other humanitarian actors work in close proximity to combat and...
Lisa Schirch and David Cortright In conflict zones around the world, military troops and civilian peacebuilders are interacting and sharing space in unprecedented ways. In Thailand, civil society groups worked with the military to write national security policy for...
Myla Leguro Civilian peacebuilders in the southern Philippines are strategically engaging the military as an important stakeholder in the peace process. An increasing number of former military officials are now directly involved in the Mindanao peace negotiations...
Linda Gerber-Stellingwerf Since the 1979 Islamic revolution and the subsequent hostage crisis, the United States has imposed sanctions against Iran on a continuous basis. The initial measures were moderately influential in resolving the hostage crisis, when combined...
George A. Lopez This post includes video content. (4:35) The nuclear standoff between Iran and the western powers has intensified to the point where the only question being asked in Washington is how “crippling” — to use Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s preferred...
An interview with Peter Wallensteen Peter Wallensteen, a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden and the Kroc Institute at Notre Dame, is an expert on economic sanctions and regime change. We asked him about the reform movement in Iran and how it would be affected...