conflict

BY ANNA MYSLIWIEC   After nearly eight years and immense human suffering, the Bashar al-Assad regime is nearing victory in Syria. Aleppo City, Homs, and Rif Damascus—once strongholds of the opposition—have fallen to government forces. President Assad, who in the course of the conflict has employed chemical weapons and indiscriminate violence against Syrians, has now […]

BY ESTHER BRITO In 1993, women represented only 1% of all UN uniformed personnel deployed in peacekeeping missions. In 2017, women peacekeepers remained at 4%, far from the UN target of 15%. The role of women in peacekeeping operations (PKOs)—not only as a matter of principle, but as a necessary condition for their success—has only […]

BY SYLVIE STOLOFF AND ANNA GIANNUZZI What if we could deescalate some of the world’s deadliest conflicts by nudging people to think differently about their opponents? Contemporary international conflicts are increasingly shaped by identity politics, since religion, race, social background and other identity-based factors play a large role in determining political affiliations. This poses a […]

War seems an inescapable fact of human life. But in past decades it has been civilians, not soldiers, that have borne a disproportionate brunt of warfare across the planet. Historians often reference that, in the last major battle of the 19th century in Solferino, 40,000 combatants were either wounded or killed but only one civilian […]

Faysal Itani is a Resident Fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Rafik Hariri Center for the Middle East. Itani is a Middle East analyst who focuses on the Levant including Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, and Jordan. His expertise includes the conflict in Syria and its regional impact, sectarian politics, and political economy. Before joining the Atlantic Council, […]

Tamirace Fakhoury is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Lebanese American University. Recipient of the Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship, she is currently carrying out research on the nexus between Arab migration and politics at the German Institute of International and Area Studies in Hamburg. Growing Prevalence and Influence of Arab Migration Trends In recent […]