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.
Don Jensen with the United States Institute of Peace reacts to the day’s developments in Ukraine...
As Russian troops mass on the Ukrainian border and worries of an invasion grow, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to push a familiar Russian line about the conflict: that Ukraine belongs to Russia and that the two are “one people — a single whole.” Specifically, much of Russia’s political positioning to launch an incursion into Ukrainian territory is based on Putin’s claim that Ukraine — like Russia, a former Soviet state — is an extension of Russia, the “little brother” that has been led astray by the West and must be reincorporated into the family...
The Myanmar military’s recent placement of landmines around oil and gas pipelines connected to southwestern China suggests the junta is hypersensitive to possible attacks on the projects amid an escalating national rebellion, experts say...
Russian President Vladimir Putin is apparently so confident his military will successfully invade and take over Ukraine that he’s already thinking about the pro-Russia puppets he could install in a new government in Kyiv. That’s the overly confident plot that the British government revealed to The Daily Beast this week—with Putin supposedly planning to push in a new regime in Ukraine more friendly to Russia, composed of a handful of former Ukrainian politicians...
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been talking to all the usual suspects as the United States rallies other countries to stare down a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine. The Britains, Frances and Germanys of the world are, of course, on that list...
Amb. William Taylor, former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, remarks on U.S. and NATO response to Russian aggression towards Ukraine...
After a decade of warfare, the conflict in Syria has settled into a violent, protracted stalemate. Now, as before, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad continues to act with impunity. He has forcibly disappeared tens of thousands of Syrians and subjected thousands more to torture, sexual violence, or death in detention. The country is in a full-blown humanitarian crisis: an estimated 90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line, and 60 percent are food insecure—the highest proportion since the start of the conflict, according to the United Nations...