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...

Global Policy

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...

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

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...

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

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...

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

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...

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

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...

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

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...

Conflict Analysis & Prevention

Pakistan launched strikes on separatist militants inside Iran on Thursday, in a retaliatory attack two days after Tehran said it struck the bases of another group within Pakistani territory. Iranian media said several missiles hit a village in the Sistan-Baluchestan province that borders Pakistan, killing at least nine people, including four children. The tit-for-tat strikes are the...

Conflict Analysis & Prevention