Our work investigates how policymakers can improve stabilization efforts, reduce violence, and increase security in the world’s most violent countries, fragile states, and conflict-affected areas.
Acceptance of political violence has been rising sharply over the past five years. The damage that this violence itself, and the conspiracies driving it, are causing to U.S. democracy are already substantial and are likely to produce significant democratic decline if not arrested soon.
For too long, the U.S. foreign policy community has approached the challenge of fragile or conflict-affected states as a parallel effort distinct from other aspects of the U.S. foreign policy agenda. It is time to bridge this divide.
A person is more likely to die violently if they live in a middle-income democracy with high levels of inequality and political polarization than if they live in a country at war. But while few people can do much to end war, regular voters can be the greatest force for change in rotten democracies.
Within two years of its formation in 2011, bad blood between South Sudan’s two most powerful leaders had flared into violence. On the six-year anniversary of hostilities breaking out, a revamped peace deal looks like the country’s best chance of restoring order.
Political violence can’t be predicted perfectly, but there’s a clear risk pattern. Violence is more likely where it has happened before, and the United States has the tinder for political violence.
Preventing targeted violence is not only an end in itself, but it is also part of a larger set of needed interventions to improve U.S. democracy.
Improving security sector governance requires looking beyond short term tactical success and investing in longer term improvements. Such reforms are necessary for fragile states to improve the effectiveness of their security forces and temper extremism.
Unless the United States redirects its approach in Syria, civilian stabilization programs will not achieve their stated objective: the “enduring defeat” of the Islamic State.
A discussion of the four key elements of U.S. negotiations with the Taliban, Afghanistan’s domestic politics, and the challenges to achieving a sustainable peace.
Addressing the forms of violence that plague the world today requires international actors to acknowledge that tackling state repression and organized crime necessitates looking beyond technical quick fixes. The private and social sectors also have an important role to play.
It is crucial that the United States and other arms exporting nations conduct additional due diligence and controls on any exports to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Assad regime’s ascendancy has pushed the EU and European governments onto the back foot. Europe needs to rethink its foreign policy priorities—and fast.
