Category Topical

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…

Book Reviews, Regional, Security & Conflict

Beijing’s Global Media Offensive by Joshua Kurlantzick

November 30, 2023

Ahead of the 2023 BRICS Summit in South Africa, the front page of the Cape Times featured two different stories on China which highlighted Beijing’s multifaceted campaign to influence media and shape narratives around the world. The first was a…

Civil Society, Energy & Environment, Middle East, Policy & Politics

A Proposal to Manage Human Migration

November 16, 2023

The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) last fall focused the world’s attention on the many climate-related crises to come, including floods and droughts; inhospitable heat; saltwater intrusion and inundation; the loss of biodiversity; the loss of agricultural regions; and more violent storms.…

Asia Pacific, Book Reviews, North America, Security & Conflict

Cold Rivals: The New Era of US-China Strategic Competition edited by Evan S. Medeiros

November 8, 2023

Evan S. Medeiros offers a useful collection of essays that examine US-China relations from the 1970s towards our more recent, turbulent days. The defining characterization of US-China relations throughout the book is one of “strategic competition” among rivals. This is…

Asia Pacific, Security & Conflict

Unveiling Purpose and Agency in Kashmiri Women’s Participation in Militancy

October 31, 2023

The Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan traces its origins back to the partition of British India in 1947, marking the beginning of a longstanding dispute that continues to ignite violence and unrest in the region.¹ However, a pivotal turning…

Africa, Energy & Environment

Water Security & The Maghreb

October 18, 2023

North African states and communities are no strangers to careful water management and its relevance to effective governance in challenging times. Old underground water channels, ingenious methods of water storage and collection, to today’s dams and hydropower projects, are time-spanning…

Asia Pacific, Policy & Politics

The Contradictions of the Party-State: China’s Experience with the COVID-19 Pandemic

October 9, 2023

The COVID-19 pandemic has reignited the debate regarding the relative merits of democratic, illiberal, and authoritarian rule; specifically, which system has more effectively responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, and more broadly, which political system has better addressed the expectations (and…

Europe, North America, Policy & Politics

How U.S. History Can Save North Macedonia and Defeat Putinism in the Balkans

October 2, 2023

Given the spectacular killing of Yevgeny Prigozhin and the less-than-spectacular Ukrainian counter-offensive, it’s looking a lot tougher to defeat Russian President Vladimir Putin. Fortunately, the United States has a rare opportunity to defeat Putinism in the Balkans. To score this…

Europe, Security & Conflict

Post-Soviet no more – the transformative impact of war on Russia’s neighbors

September 18, 2023

This is a shortened, significantly revised article based on the authors’ chapter “Shifting balances – the war and Russia’s neighbours,” published in the report “Russia’s War Against Ukraine and the West: The First Year”, edited by Maria Engqvist and Emil…