Articles

During the Trump administration, the usual ways of conducting diplomacy have been upended. Many positions in the State Department have never been filled, and meetings with foreign leaders such as Kim Jong-un and Vladimir Putin have been undertaken with little advance planning. What effect are these changes having now, and how will they affect ongoing relationships between the United States and its allies and adversaries?

Eric Bartz and Khalid Momand respond to Geoffrey Swenson's Summer 2017 article, "Why U.S. Efforts to Promote the Rule of Law in Afghanistan Failed."

Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have traditionally been created to recycle excess reserves from natural resource or non‐commodity revenues. However, in recent years funds are being established under conditions of capital scarcity with objectives to contribute domestic economic development, often through the buildout of national infrastructure programs. Such trends in new fund creation represent a fundamental shift in the sovereign wealth fund paradigm and raise serious questions about how these entities are to be capitalized and also the implications of capitalization models on their sustainability. This study examines the recent evolution of SWF models focused on economic development. Its analytic focus is drawn, in particular, to countries that are neither endowed with oil wealth, nor otherwise enjoy export surpluses to be used to capitalize a development‐oriented SWF. While this study is relevant to and expands the scope of the broad literature on SWFs, its specific contribution is as a focused analysis of how SWF funding sources impact achieving long‐term financial and socio‐economic development objectives.

"This article examines al-Shabaab's organizational state, including its strengths and potential weaknesses, through an analysis of its administrative, military, and media activities in 2017 and into the first quarter of 2018. Primary sources produced by al-Shabaab and core Islamic State and Islamic State–Somalia have been used in tandem with relevant secondary sources, including local and international news reporting and NGO, United Nations, African Union, and U.S. government publications, and in consultation with sources on the ground when possible so that the militant groups' claims are not simply taken at face value."

Expert on jihadi-insurgent groups Christopher Anzalone talks about the recent activity and future of the jihadist group Al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Historically, most civil wars have ended with the military defeat of the losing side. In the 1990s, by contrast, civil wars usually ended with a negotiated settlement. What accounts for this anomaly?

Ruolin Su responds to Alexander B. Downes and Lindsey A. O'Rourke's fall 2016 article, "You Can’t Always Get What You Want: Why Foreign-Imposed Regime Change Seldom Improves Interstate Relations."

Michael J. Boyle responds to Michael C. Horowitz, Sarah E. Kreps, and Matthew Fuhrmann's fall 2016 article, "Separating Fact from Fiction in the Debate over Drone Proliferation."

To what extent can international peacekeeping promote micro-foundations for positive peace after violence? Drawing on macro-level peacekeeping theory, the authors' approach uses novel experimental methods to illustrate how monitoring and enforcement by a neutral third party could conceivably enhance prosocial behavior between rival groups in a tense, postconflict peacekeeping environment.