Peace Channel

Shadow Government

Trump’s Asia Policy Is More Confused Than Ever

On June 3, Secretary of Defense James Mattis made a valiant effort to reaffirm to our allies and partners in Asia that the United States ...

Shadow Government

Colombia’s Tenuous Peace Needs U.S. Support

One of President Donald Trump’s highest-stakes foreign-policy encounters this week is one few people in Washington have paid any attention to. On Thursday, Colombia’s president, ...

Shadow Government

The Maximum Financial-Pressure Strategy for North Korea

The Trump administration has said that the maximum-pressure approach to address North Korea’s destabilizing nuclear and missile activities includes sanctions. That’s just the starting point ...

Argument

South Korea Is More Worried About Donald Trump Than Kim Jong Un

When I returned to the United States recently after a few weeks in Seoul, I was surprised to find Americans in a state of panic ...

Elephants in the Room

The Irony of Trump’s Trip to Masada and the Hard Road to Peace

Donald Trump’s first trip, to the Middle East and Europe rather than Canada or Mexico, looks fascinating on paper. The president will first visit Saudi ...

Shadow Government

Has President Trump Learned to Love the United Nations?

For a president who came into office promising to upend America’s relationship with the United Nations, Donald Trump and his administration seem fairly quickly to ...

Shadow Government

Trump’s Environmental Policies Are a Disaster for U.S. Foreign Policy

Amid the predictable flurry of “first 100 days” stories last week, most of those written from a foreign-policy lens focused on President Donald Trump’s erratic ...

Dispatch

China Is Playing Peacemaker in Myanmar, but with an Ulterior Motive

KACHIN STATE, Myanmar — In early March, Myanmar’s government sat down with a coalition of ethnic rebel groups, including the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), trying ...

Argument

Can Good Television Beat the Islamic State?

While U.S. President Donald Trump bans Muslims at home and bombs them abroad, an innovative partnership between the leading private media group in the Middle ...

Argument

Trump’s Damning Global Retreat on Human Rights

With just over two months under his belt as president, Donald Trump’s time in office has been marked by a frenzied pace on domestic issues, ...

Voice

Donald Trump’s Presidency Is an Assault on Women

There is no shortage of appalling imagery from the Trump White House when it comes to gender diversity and women’s issues, from this picture of ...

Shadow Government

Dear Senators: Push Back Against Iran, but Not at the Expense of the Nuclear Deal

During our time in government, there were few issues on which it was easier to build a bipartisan consensus in Congress than the need to ...

Shadow Government

For Tillerson, Showing Up at NATO Isn’t Enough

Bowing to outside pressure, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is set to attend his first meeting with NATO’s foreign ministers on Friday. But that was ...

Voice

There Are No Real ‘Safe Zones’ and There Never Have Been

As you climb the mountains high above Srebrenica, in the far east of Bosnia-Herzegovina, oak and beech trees become mixed with firs, pines, and spruce. ...

Argument

Balkan Conspiracy Theories Come to Capitol Hill

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is mulling how to respond to a letter delivered March 14 by six senators urging him to investigate the activities ...

Shadow Government

Cutting Funding to the IAEA Is a Horrible Idea

It’s not hard to start an argument these days in Washington. President Donald Trump’s newly released budget will surely spark thousands of them, as analysts, ...

Voice

Beware the Ides of Leaving the Human Rights Council

The United Nations Human Rights Council (HRC) is a multilateral institution that conservatives love to hate. It can make good fodder for incredulous expressions of ...

Report

From SEALs to All-Out War: Why Rushing Into Yemen Is a Dangerous Idea

The first foreign-policy crisis of the Trump administration may well involve a country most Americans could not find on a map. Already, the new president ...

Argument

If Trump Wants Safe Zones in Syria, There Have to Be Boots on the Ground

President Donald Trump says he wants “safe zones” in Syria. His intent is to keep displaced people, who might otherwise be inclined to join the ...

Argument

Why Trump’s Short-Term Focus Could Put America Last

The biggest unanswered question about President Donald Trump’s foreign policy is when — or indeed if — he will move past the administration’s current “live ...

Shadow Government

There’s Such a Thing as Too Much Security, and 3 Other Tips for Tillerson

As is traditional when a new secretary of state starts work in the Harry S. Truman Building, department employees gathered in the C Street lobby ...

Argument

13 International Relations Buzzwords That Need to Get Taken to the Woodshed

The renowned Prussian military historian and analyst Carl von Clausewitz is widely held to be the author of the phrase “the fog of war,” although ...

Exclusive

The Legacy Ban Ki-moon Leaves Behind

The outgoing U.N. secretary-general touts his support for climate change and gay rights, regrets failures from Haiti to North Korea, and calls Syrian President Bashar al-Assad a liar.

Voice

The U.N. Has Great Potential for Trump!

“After January 20th things will be different at the UN,” President-elect Donald Trump tweeted ominously after a historic Security Council vote to condemn Israeli settlements ...

The Cable

Colombian Government Says New Peace Deal Final, Senate to Meet Soon

There will be no more negotiation between the Colombian government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. The new tentative peace deal reached between the ...

Argument

The United States Needs a Post-Election Peace Plan

For the first time in its modern history, the United States is going to need a post-election reconciliation plan — something typically reserved for countries ...

Dispatch

Ukraine Has Opened Pandora’s Database of Corruption

KIEV and WASHINGTON — In the early morning hours of Oct. 31, shortly after the midnight filing deadline, the incomes and assets of tens of ...

Argument

Does Winning a Nobel Peace Prize Make a Difference?

To close observers of the horrific conflict unfolding in Iraq and Syria, the story of Nadia Murad has come to exemplify the brutal treatment of ...

Shadow Government

The United States Has to Put Teeth into Its Warnings to Assad and Putin

While the world has been inundated with photos and reports about Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal and unrelenting siege on Aleppo, reports over the last ...

Argument

Will FARC and Colombia Return to the Battlefield?

On Sunday, by a razor-thin margin, Colombians rejected the peace agreement between the government of Juan Manuel Santos and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia ...

Voice

What the Hell Just Happened in Colombia?

Half of Colombia went to sleep still in shock Sunday night, after voters narrowly rejected a peace agreement many considered a done deal. Four years ...

Argument

Why Colombia’s Government Compromised for Peace

This was an important week in the history of peace. On Monday, in the charming colonial city of Cartagena, the Colombian government signed a peace ...

Argument

Talking Presidents, Politics, and Peace With Shimon Peres

Shimon Peres will be buried as a hero on Friday at a funeral in Jerusalem attended by representatives from more than 70 countries, including current and ...

Argument

Can Israel’s Peace Movement Survive the Loss of Shimon Peres?

TEL AVIV, Israel — In his twilight years, Shimon Peres became the ultimate symbol of the Israeli peace camp. The Zionist visionary, statesman, and legendary ...

Argument

Can Anyone Stop the Syrian War?

As the sun set in Syria on Monday, the country’s citizens — and the United States and Russia — all hoped the guns of war ...

Dispatch

Can Aung San Suu Kyi Bring an End to Civil War in Myanmar?

NAYPYIDAW, Myanmar — The government and military held their first peace conference with ethnic rebel groups since Aung San Suu Kyi became Myanmar’s de facto ...

Podcast

Colombia’s War Just Ended. A New Wave of Violence Is Beginning.

ALTOS DE LA FLORIDA, Colombia — They killed him on this very road, Liney Maria recalls, pointing to the dusty, unpaved trail that passes her ...

Tea Leaf Nation

It’s Time for China Analysts to Stop Talking Past One Another

On August 12, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) issued its annual report card on China’s economy and gave the country mixed grades, finding that its ...

PHILIPPINES-CHINA-MILITARY-DIPLOMACY-MARITIME

Tea Leaf Nation

Here’s How the Philippines Can Win in the South China Sea

The Philippine Islands has a problem. It has international law on its side in its quarrel with China over maritime territory, but no policeman walking ...

Dispatch

Crisis of Governance: Local Edition

Ridha Abbassi, the mayor of the Tunisian city of Kasserine, presides over a roomy office amply endowed with comfortable leather chairs. An intricate map of ...

Dispatch

Politics Roils Colombia’s Tentative Peace Deal With the FARC

BOGOTÁ, Colombia — When Wilson Córdoba was growing up in rural Colombia, his 90-minute walk to school through the forest was a perilous one: He and ...

Voice

Why the World Humanitarian Summit Meeting in Turkey Really Does Matter

John Norris predicted a “train wreck” at last month’s World Humanitarian Summit in Turkey, citing bad atmospherics, an ill-chosen host, and a backdrop of escalating ...

Passport

Dalai Lama: Those Who Cause Bloodshed Are Not “Genuine” Practitioners of Islam

The days after a mass shooting in the United States have become a national ritual of helpless grief and anger. On Monday, the Dalai Lama ...

Voice

A History of Sustainable Violence

Shortly after becoming secretary of state in 2013, John Kerry spoke to the American Jewish Committee and made it clear that the status quo between ...

Dispatch

What Happens When You Replace a Just War With a Just Peace

In April, at the invitation of the Vatican, some 85 theologians, priests, bishops, religious sisters, and nonviolent activists (including representatives of the RECONCILE Peace Institute, ...

Shadow Government

For Middle East Peace, Look to Israel’s Arab Partners

Speculation is rife that President Barack Obama will make one final stab at putting his mark on the Middle East peace process before he leaves office. ...

Argument

Don’t Blame Sykes-Picot for the Middle East’s Mess

Sometime in the 100 years since the Sykes-Picot agreement was signed, invoking its “end” became a thing among commentators, journalists, and analysts of the Middle ...

Passport

NGOs Avert Russian-Inspired Restrictions in Central Asia’s Only Democracy

In a surprise move, the Kyrgyzstan Parliament rejected a controversial Russian-style bill Thursday that would have placed tough restrictions on groups that receive funding or ...

Iraqi Kurdish Forces Launch Offensive Against ISIS Near Kirkuk

The Cable

Oil Politics: Iraqi Kurdish Official Calls for Country’s Split

Just hours after the Islamic State hit multiple sites in Shiite neighborhoods across Baghdad, killing over 90 civilians, the governor of Kirkuk province in the ...

The Cable

Saudi Arabia Vows to Retake Sanaa if Peace Talks Fail

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly said the only way to resolve the year-long civil war in Yemen is through a negotiated political solution. But a Saudi ...

Argument

In the Event of the Islamic State’s Untimely Demise…

The power of the Islamic State is waning. With its loss of Ramadi and Palmyra over the past several months, and the steady advance of ...

Argument

How East Timor’s Democracy Is Making it an Outcast

Five years since submitting its formal membership application to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the small Pacific country of East Timor is more ...

Argument

America Will Regret Abandoning the Middle East

The surreal presidential campaign unfolding this year has highlighted the gap between the foreign policy elite and voters. It has upended the foreign policy establishments ...

Passport

One of Aleppo’s Last Pediatricians Killed in Airstrike on MSF-Supported Hospital

At least 17 people -- including three doctors -- were killed after an airstrike destroyed one of the last remaining hospitals in a rebel-held southern ...

Argument

Spare a Prayer for Staffan de Mistura

Staffan de Mistura, the U.N.’s indefatigable special envoy for Syria, is at it again. On Wednesday, he reconvened peace talks in Geneva between a “government” ...

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A partnership between Foreign Policy and the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Peace Channel is FP’s home for cutting-edge analysis and reporting on international conflict prevention and resolution. The Peace Channel’s authors examine what’s driving the world’s most vexing challenges and explore new ways to resolve the conflicts that threaten lives, livelihoods, and human dignity.

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