Experts from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest analysis and perspective on the world’s critical hot spots, U.S. and global security and issues involved in violent conflict, based on the Institute’s work on the ground and with key individuals, governments and organizations. They give interviews and background briefings to journalists and write for news outlets around the world.
A seemingly perpetual battlefield caught under the tension between the United States and Iran, Iraq goes to elections at a time when the domestic discontent towards the eastern neighbour and criticism towards the American presence are at their height, paving way for an uncertain future of the US-Iran relationship that has haunted Iraq for years...
Khayan is a largely rural township in Myanmar near Yangon city. Like much of the rest of the country, it is on an edge. An army captain was killed there in August in a drive-by shooting. Similarly gunned down was a military-appointed village administrator who once ran for election as a member of the military proxy, Union Solidarity and Development Party...
A Chinese military intervention against Taiwan represents a major security threat for Japan. So it is not surprising that a Japanese poll found 74 percent of respondents supportive of their government engaging to advance peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait. Tokyo’s potential role in a military contingency involving Taiwan has also been in the spotlight, however, following increased Chinese and U.S. tensions over the island and a series of comments by senior Japanese officials, including Deputy Prime Minister Taro Aso...
Much has been written about the Boko Haram terrorist organization. The group has conducted numerous violent attacks since 2009, and the Nigerian state's failure to contain the insurgency is a prominent theme of discussion in national politics. Among the most notorious of Boko Haram's attacks are three mass abductions and three mass murders of Nigerian students, conducted in the space of just seven years...
India, which has suffered far more than the United States when it comes to assaults, attacks and aggressions of terrorism, has been and will continue to be America’s major partner not only in countering the menace but also in other geo-strategic and security ways as well, a former US diplomat said on Tuesday...
A Pakistan minister has defended Prime Minister Imran Khan after he said that his government is holding talks with some groups of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), sparking criticism. In an interview with a Turkish news channel, Imran Khan said that the Pakistan government holding talks with some groups of the banned Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) to ask them to lay down their weapons and make them agree to adhere to the country's constitution...
In 2015, Al-Shabaab, a Somali extremist group, launched the worst terrorist attack in Kenya since the 1998 bombing of the US embassy there. Moving among dorms at a local university, terrorists separated Christian students from Muslim students and killed the Christians. By the end of the attack, 147 students were killed...
As Russian President Vladimir Putin met his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi to address escalating tensions in Idlib, Moscow and Damascus are working to consolidate recent political gains made along the country's southern border...
The African Union suspends Guinea following a coup. Meanwhile, a high-level delegation from the regional grouping, ECOWAS, arrives to discuss the way out of the crisis. Plus, hundreds displaced in Kenya from the Rift Valley's Laikipia conservation area. Also, the challenge of balancing elephant conservation with people's livelihoods in southern Tanzania...
Although not a new phenomenon in Africa, military takeovers or coups occurred with disturbing frequency over the last year, writes Dr. Jude Mutah, an Africa program specialist at the United States Institute of Peace and a Penn Kemble Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). While experts argue that democracy is backsliding or shrinking in Africa, recent developments prompt the question: were democratic values ever really embedded...