Category Topical

Middle East, Security & Conflict

The Failings of Israeli and Palestinian Leadership

April 16, 2024

In the past months, the media has frantically shifted its attention to the perilous situation in the Middle East. The Israeli-Hamas war has shattered the brittle status quo between Israelis and Palestinians. The savagery committed by Hamas on October 7…

Regional, Security & Conflict

The Territorial Roots of Interstate Conflict

April 7, 2024

After a prolonged period of relative peace between states, the last fifteen years have seen an explosion of global interstate conflict, with conflict between military forces of sovereign nations spiking and continuing to rise.[1] Indeed, over the last eighteen months…

Europe, Governance & Law, Policy & Politics, Security & Conflict

International Law’s Role in a Strat-Dominated World—Part 2

March 18, 2024

In our previous article we observed that in a world dominated by realists, academics are more likely to focus on strategic studies and not international law.[1] We nevertheless found noteworthy the extent to which international law enters into strategic thought…

Europe, Governance & Law, Security & Conflict

Utilizing the European Convention on Human Rights to Transfer Frozen Russian Assets to Ukraine

March 13, 2024

There is growing concern that countries funding the defense of Ukraine may not continue to do so. This has led to a discussion whether it’s possible to provide Ukraine with some or all of more than $327 billion in Russian…

Asia Pacific, Economics, Policy & Politics

In Hindsight: Evaluating the Complex Legacy of China’s WTO Accession

March 8, 2024

In the 1980s, a growing amicability in US-China economic relations began to emerge despite ongoing political tensions. Policymakers in both countries concentrated their efforts on formalizing trade relations, with the declaration of China’s Most Favored Nation status in the 1990s…

Asia Pacific, Economics

Unlocking BIMSTEC’s Potential: Successes, Challenges and the Road Ahead

February 28, 2024

In an era marked by unprecedented global connectivity and interdependence—regional collaborations, especially those structured around institutions, play a pivotal role in shaping the geopolitical and geo-economic landscape. The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) stands…

Energy & Environment, Regional, Security & Conflict

Water, Energy, Food, and Terrorism: Towards a Nexus Approach

February 21, 2024

Water, energy, and food are highly interdependent resources fundamental to both the sustainment of life and the modern global economy. While our understanding of their interdependence is hardly new, it was only in 2011 that scholars, practitioners, and policymakers first…

Civil Society, Middle East, Security & Conflict

Sifting Facts from Fiction: The Underpinnings of the Taliban’s ‘Islamic Emirate’

February 15, 2024

Even after the Taliban have assumed power in Afghanistan twice, their ideology remains poorly understood, evident from the misconceptions surrounding it. Some believe this ideology is reflective of Islam while others attempt to find its basis in the Pashtun culture.…

Africa, Governance & Law, Policy & Politics, Security & Conflict

Don’t Call It Farmer-Herder Conflict

February 9, 2024

As violent conflict rises across West Africa, the phrase “farmer-herder conflict” has taken hold from the local to international levels. Farmer-herder conflict is an umbrella term for a range of interactions, typically describing resource competition between pastoralist herders and sedentary…

Asia Pacific, Europe, North America, Security & Conflict

WHAT IS ‘STRATEGIC COMPETITION’ AND ARE WE STILL IN IT?

February 2, 2024

The last two (Trump and Biden) US national security strategies have claimed that the United States is in ‘strategic competition’ (a.k.a., ‘Great Power Competition’) with the autocracies of Russia and the People’s Republic of China. What does the term mean?…

Africa, Civil Society, Security & Conflict

Limits to Inclusion: Explaining the Inclusion-Effectiveness Dilemma with the 2020 Libyan Political Dialogue Forum

January 26, 2024

In most conflict-afflicted countries, the 2020 Covid-19 pandemic aggravated civil war, political divisions, economic collapse, and humanitarian suffering. Most people predicted that Libya would suffer the same fate as conflict escalated in and around Tripoli in early 2020 and the…

Book Reviews, Regional, Security & Conflict

A Third Approach to the Contemporary Just War Tradition

December 26, 2023

In today’s increasingly polarized international community, the criteria defining a just war—that is a war deemed morally or theologically just—are subject to intense debate. In Limited Force and the Fight for the Just War Tradition, Christian Nikolaus Braun illustrates the…