Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Earlier this month, the lead U.N. representative for Yemen announced a two-month cease-fire, the first major breakthrough since 2015 in the conflict between the Houthi rebels and Iran on the one side and the Yemeni government and its Gulf backers on the other.
But regardless of what he does, authoritarian leaders around the globe will continue to find creative ways to subjugate their citizens and pillage their countries’ resources. Liberal democracies will still have to contend with polarized publics, populist movements, and political disillusionment.
The how, why, and everything that can go wrong when we arm the world.
Such savings, even if only in a few cities and a select number of instances, will likely be of greater value to the population of Ukraine than the findings of a panel of judges decades from now. Such subtle shifts might even begin to create a pathway for a humanitarian cease-fire that would actually stick.
As governments find more effective ways to carry out internet shutdowns, citizens and democracies need more effective ways to combat them.
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.
They have to be seen as being responsive to the employment woes and economic stagnation afflicting many young people.
Regrettably, educational institutions that accept illicit funding and welcome students from families with ties to criminal activity currently do little to counteract this threat.
While digital platforms have long faced pressure from governments around the world to take down content, block political critics, and open local offices on which government control can be more easily exerted, Western pressure and Russia’s crackdown are accelerating a paradigm shift for how tech firms operate.
Hopefully this is a lesson to everybody, and it will reinforce people's sense of why it is a good thing to live in a liberal society.