Middle East & North Africa

22 Items

Displaced Ethiopians from different towns in the Amhara region wait for food to be distributed at lunchtime at a center for the internally-displaced in Debark, in the Amhara region of northern Ethiopia

AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene

Policy Brief - Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Women in Public Policy Program, Harvard Kennedy School

SVAC Explainer: Wartime Sexual Violence in Tigray, Ethiopia, 2020–2021

| March 2023

The Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict (SVAC)dataset measures reports of the conflict-related sexual violence committed by armed actors during the years 1989–2021. The dataset includes information about the prevalence, perpetrators, and forms of the reported sexual violence by each armed actor in each conflict-year. The information used to compile these data comes from three sources: the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. 

A Lynx Helicopter of the Army Air Corps ready to touch down on a desert road south of Basra Airport, to link up with a RAF Regiment vehicle patrol. 25 November 2003.

Harland Quarrington/MOD

Testimony

Written Evidence Submitted to the UK Parliament's Defence Select Committee

| October 13, 2015

This written testimony to the UK Parliament's Defence Select Committee focuses on the continuing challenges posed to the United Kingdom by the weakness of state institutions and the resultant instability, civil war, and insurgency in the Middle East and North Africa. It argues that the spillover effects of this state weakness threaten the UK directly and the cohesion of its vital European security partnerships.To avoid a cycle of inaction followed by tardy and inappropriate over-reaction, the UK needs to work with its international partners to craft a strategy of sustained engagement towards the region.

Farah Pandith at the 2015 PeaceGame in Washington, DC, an event that focused on countering violent extremism.

Dakota Fine/Foreign Policy

Testimony

The Rise of Radicalization: Is the U.S. Government Failing to Counter International and Domestic Terrorism?

| July 15, 2015

Thank you for inviting me to share my perspective and experience. My name is Farah Pandith, and for eleven years I served as a political appointee for Presidents George W. Bush and Barack H. Obama, most recently as our government’s former first-ever Special Representative to Muslim Communities. I felt deeply honored to serve our nation at the highest levels in a post 9/11 environment and to work on an issue that is, in my opinion, one of this century’s most serious and misunderstood.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, center, speaks during the opening session of a high-level meeting on countering nuclear terrorism, Sept. 28, 2012 in the General Assembly at UN headquarters.

AP Photo/ Mary Altaffer

Policy Brief - Quarterly Journal: International Security

States Will Not Give Nuclear Weapons to Terrorists

    Authors:
  • Keir A. Lieber
  • Daryl Press
| September 2013

Assessing the risk of nuclear attack-by-proxy turns on the question of whether a state could sponsor nuclear terrorism and remain anonymous. A leader could rationalize such an attack—and entrust terrorists with a vitally important mission—only if doing so allowed the sponsor to avoid retaliation. After all, if a leader did not care about retaliation, he or she would likely conduct a nuclear strike directly. Giving nuclear weapons to terrorists makes sense only if there is a high likelihood of remaining anonymous after the attack.

Policy Brief - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Why America Should Not Retrench

| March 2013

The United States' extended system of security commitments creates a set of institutional relationships that foster political communication. Alliance institutions are first about security protection, but they also bind states together and create institutional channels of communication. For example, NATO has facilitated ties and associated institutions that increase the ability of the United States and Europe to talk to each other and to do business. Likewise, the bilateral alliances in East Asia also play a communication role beyond narrow security issues. Consultations and exchanges spill over into other policy areas. This gives the United States the capacity to work across issue areas, using assets and bargaining chips in one area to make progress in another.

Gen. David Petraeus, left, coalition forces commander in Afghanistan, and U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates at his arrival in Kabul, Mar. 7, 2011. Gates began a 2-day visit to gauge war progress as the Obama administration ponders troop level reductions

AP Photo

Policy Brief - Quarterly Journal: International Security

Resurrecting Retrenchment: The Grand Strategic Consequences of U.S. Decline

| May 2011

"Husbanding resources is simply sensible. In the competitive game of power politics, states must unsentimentally realign means with ends or be punished for their profligacy. Attempts to maintain policies advanced when U.S. relative power was greater are outdated, unfounded, and imprudent. Retrenchment policies—greater burden sharing with allies, less military spending, and less involvement in militarized disputes—hold the most promise for arresting and reversing decline."