INTRASTATE CONFLICT
AP Photo
Summer 2008
"Identities, Interests and the Resolution of the Abkhaz Conflict"
Journal Article, Caucasian Review of International Affairs, issue 3, volume 2
By Ondrej Ditrych, Former Research Fellow, International Security Program, 2007-2008
"The recent crisis in Abkhazia reveals a fundamental qualitative change in the conflict in which the balance among three main actors is shifting, and increasingly the conflict plays a more important role in the triangular relations between Georgia, Russia and the West. The search for a new equilibrium in the conflict, one that would be an optimal outcome for the actors involved, will require rethinking the mutually constitutive roles (identities) and interests they want to assume with respect to the conflict and the entire South Caucasus...."
Marcelo Wain
August 18, 2008
"Tripoli and Middle East Currents"
Op-Ed, Agence Global
By Rami Khouri, Dubai Initiative Senior Fellow, Director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut, and Editor-at-Large of the Daily Star
When I returned to live and work in Lebanon some years ago, a wise Lebanese friend advised me to go to Tripoli in north Lebanon if I really wanted to understand the complex forces that drove the country and the region. He was right, as I discovered on several visits to the city. Today that advice is more valid than ever, though sadly the Middle East 's prevailing politics and ideologies often assert themselves violently.
Michael Bronner
August 16, 2008
"When the War Ends, Start to Worry"
Op-Ed, New York Times
"EVEN as Russia and Georgia continue their on-again, off-again struggle over South Ossetia and Abkhazia, a frenzied tea-leaf reading about the war's global political ramifications has broken out across airwaves and think-tank forums. But as the situation on the ground recedes inevitably to some new form of the pernicious "frozen conflict" that has plagued the region since Georgia's civil wars of the early 1990s, few are paying attention to a less portentous but equally critical international threat: an increase in the longstanding, rampant criminality in the conflict zones that is likely to further destabilize the entire Caucasus region and at worst provide terrorist groups with the nuclear material they have long craved."
AP photo
Summer 2008
"Closing Time: Assessing the Iranian Threat to the Strait of Hormuz"
Journal Article, International Security, issue 1, volume 33
How might Iran retaliate in the aftermath of a limited Israeli or U.S. strike? The most economically devastating of Iran's potential responses would be closure of the Strait of Hormuz. According to open-source order of battle data, as well as relevant analogies from military history and GIS maps, Iran does possess significant littoral warfare capabilities, including mines, antiship cruise missiles, and land-based air defense. If Iran were able to properly link these capabilities, it could halt or impede traffic in the Strait of Hormuz for a month or more. U.S. attempts to reopen the waterway likely would escalate rapidly into sustained, large-scale air and naval operations during which Iran could impose significant economic and military costs on the United States — even if Iranian operations were not successful in truly closing the strait. The aftermath of limited strikes on Iran would be complicated and costly, suggesting needed changes in U.S. force posture and energy policy.
AP Photo
June 25, 2008
"Who Will Have the Courage to Save Zimbabwe?"
Op-Ed, The Boston Globe
By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution
AFTER Idi Amin terrorized and killed his own Ugandans throughout the 1970s, President Julius Nyerere of neighboring Tanzania finally sent his army across the border to end the mayhem and restore stability. Who will now do the same for beleaguered Zimbabwe?
June 9, 2008
"Attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan Highlight Instability"
Media Feature
By Xenia Dormandy, Director of the Belfer Center's Project on India and the Subcontinent
Xenia Dormandy, Director of the Project on India and the Subcontinent, was interviewed for The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on June 9, 2008 regarding instability along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.
AP Photo
June 2, 2008
"Why Islam Lies at the Heart of Iraq's Civil War"
Op-Ed, Christian Science Monitor
By Monica Duffy Toft, Associate Professor of Public Policy
"...[N]ot until 2007 did the Pentagon acknowledge that Iraqi sectarian violence had crossed a threshold to become a civil war.
But policymakers still haven't come to terms with the implications of that fact. If they did, they'd see that a wisely executed withdrawal of US-led forces could well be the surest path to peace. That's because withdrawal is likely to transform the fighting in Iraq into a defensive struggle for power in a nation-state, as opposed to an offensive battle rooted in religion."
May 6, 2008
"Turkmenistan under Niyazov and Berdymukhammedov"
In the News
By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution
A monument of Turkmenistan’s former autocratic ruler, Saparmurat Niyazov, will be removed from the center of the country’s capital, the New York Times reported on Monday, May 5, 2008. The removal was ordered by Turkmenistan’s current president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. What seems to be a symbolic move away from the repression that has plagued Turkmenistan is more likely the removal of one autocratic legacy to make room for another.
May 6, 2008
"Assessing Repression in Syria"
In the News
By Robert Rotberg, Director, Program on Intrastate Conflict and Conflict Resolution
Even as evidence mounts pointing to a partnership between Syria and North Korea in the construction of a Syrian nuclear reactor, Syria and North Korea continue to deny the allegations, leading the U.S. to condemn both countries’ secrecy.
May 6, 2008
"U.S. Worry Grows over Pakistan's Tribal Peace Deal"
Media Feature
By Xenia Dormandy, Director of the Belfer Center's Project on India and the Subcontinent
Jackie Northam of NPR interviews Xenia Dormandy, Director of the Project on India and the Subcontinent, regarding the new Pakistani government's negotiations with militants tied to al Qaeda.
