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.
On January 6, Sudanese paramilitary leader Mohamad Hamdan Dagalo, better known as “Hemedti”, visited the memorial in Kigali that commemorates the 1994 Rwandan genocide. Hemedti toured the museum solemnly, his sympathy-filled face belying the fact that his paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) are accused of similar atrocities in...
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is holding talks Tuesday and Wednesday in Nigeria, the largest country by population and economy in sub-Saharan Africa. His visit to the continent comes amid concerns about stability in the Sahel sub-region of West Africa following several coups in Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea and Niger since...
The rapid breakdown of a Beijing-mediated cease-fire in northern Myanmar has exposed the limits of Chinese influence in the region, even as it seeks to turn recent military gains by a rebel alliance to its advantage. The "Haigeng agreement," announced January 12, was less than a day old when witnesses reported widespread gunfire in northern Shan state, bordering China. The rebel Three Brotherhood Alliance — comprising the...
Japan recently became the fifth nation to successfully complete a soft landing on the moon’s surface, joining a select few countries — the U.S., Russia, China and India — in accomplishing this feat. But moon landings are likely to become more common over the next few years. Globally, more than 100 lunar missions, both by private companies and by governments, are expected to take place by...
When Iran and Pakistan traded airstrikes this week, both targeting what they said were militant camps, the exchange raised fears that the upheaval sweeping the Middle East was moving into new territory. To Pakistan, which was hit first, it was important to send a clear message that violations of its sovereignty would not be tolerated. But the Pakistani military quickly followed its retaliatory action with another message — one that showed its desire to contain the tensions, a wish driven in no small part by the...
It's been nearly three years since the coup in Myanmar that plunged the country into civil war - one that's left some 2 million people displaced. The fighting pits a brutal military against ethnic armed groups and post-coup resistance forces, and the military is struggling. NPR's Michael Sullivan reports from neighboring Thailand. In late October, the so-called Three Brotherhood Alliance began a surprise offensive against the...
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this week declared South Korea to be an enemy state and formally abandoned the idea of peacefully reunifying the two halves of the peninsula, a bombshell even by his fiery standards. It marked a sharp break from the long-standing principle set by his grandfather and reinforced by his father, compounded by his pronouncement that the North’s nuclear weapons were no longer just for...
President Joe Biden took office vowing to negotiate an end to a bloody war in Yemen and to remove US troops from harm's way. He enters his reelection year by launching strikes on the country instead, but his administration hopes calm can return. Experts say the Biden administration and Yemen's Huthi insurgents, as well as the group's backers in Iran, have tacitly entered a delicate and dangerous...
On Friday, a day after the U.S.-led attacks on dozens of Houthi military sites in Yemen, President Biden took a few shouted questions during a campaign stop at the Nowhere café, in Emmaus, Pennsylvania. “Do you have a message for Iran?” a reporter called out, as Biden waited for a smoothie. “I’ve already delivered the message to Iran,” he replied. “They know not to do anything.” Tehran, he added, did not want a war with...
Last fall, a coalition of rebel groups known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance launched a rapid-fire offensive across Myanmar’s northern Shan state, quickly overrunning more than 100 military outposts and seizing several key towns along the country’s border with China. This in itself was not unusual. Myanmar’s military government has faced insurgencies from ethnic and political militias for decades...