Since the end of the Cold War, economic sanctions have become an essential instrument of global and national foreign policy, imposed to end civil wars and thwart nuclear proliferation, mass atrocities, and terrorism. But over the past decade sanctions have become...
The United States has a long history of enacting sanctions on Syria, beginning in 1979 with the designation of Syria as a “state sponsor of terrorism.” Initial measures were limited to restrictions on weapons transfers and targeted sanctions on government officials...
The U.S. imposed sanctions on Iran in 1979 following the Islamic revolution and the taking of U.S. hostages. Iranian imports to the U.S. were banned, and more than $12 billion in Iranian assets held in U.S. accounts were frozen. These sanctions were broadened in 1984...
The United States first imposed economic sanctions on Venezuela in 2017 when it blocked the government and its state-owned oil firm from access to financing and dividend payments. These actions, which initially came in response to the Maduro regime stripping of powers...
After 20 years, culminating in the collapse of the U.S.-supported government in Afghanistan, it is clear that militarized counterterrorism policies have failed. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq led to increased numbers of global terrorist attacks which remain at high...
What have peacebuilding experts learned from twenty years of counterterrorism? Here are seven reflections. 1. Violent extremism results from fear and frustration paired with the fantasy of a “pure” society. Since 2001, Muslims have spoken out about the stigma they...
In the first 15 years of the United Nations’ post-9/11 counterterrorism program, gender issues were hardly mentioned. This, despite the clearly stated intention of violent extremists and terrorist groups to suppress gender equality, women’s rights, girls’ education,...
In April 1971, more than a thousand Vietnam veterans descended on Washington, DC, for a series of antiwar actions dubbed Dewey Canyon III, “a limited incursion into the land of Congress.” For a week the veterans demonstrated and lobbied government officials to end the...
The ignominies of the U.S. war in Vietnam are well known, as recounted in Chuck Searcy’s essay. Less well known is the rebellion in the ranks known as “the GI Movement,” which David Cortright discusses in his article. Active duty servicepersons circulated dissident...
When I flew out of Viet Nam in 1968, it was with huge relief that I was departing safely after a tumultuous year that made clear to me and the world that America would never win this war. But I was also troubled, confused, and angry. The Vietnamese people were...
According to UNCHR, the United Nations refugee agency, at the end of 2019 there were 79.5 million people forcibly displaced worldwide, including 26 million refugees and 4.2 million asylum seekers. The percentage of the world’s population that are displaced is at an...
Climate change in the early 21st century is causing acute and chronic environmental displacement within and across borders.[1] Within the United States, from Puerto Rico to Louisiana to the southern Atlantic Coast to Paradise, California, to the indigenous coastal...
The children who cross Mexico and arrive at the U.S. border are not “immigrants,” not “illegals,” not merely “undocumented minors.” Those children are refugees of a war, and, as such, they should have the right to asylum. But not all of them have it.[1] In the summer...