Conflict & Conflict Resolution

Stephen Walt writes that it may seem harder to give thanks this year, but it's not impossible. He enumerates five things for which to be grateful, including that none of the outside parties in the Middle East seem inclined to expand the conflict beyond Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.

Assaf Zoran argues for all regional nations and international players to engage in continuous dialogue with the involved and fighting parties in order to mitigate the risk of escalation. Such talks should establish political, economic, and military disincentives for further escalation while fostering opportunities for de-escalation.

Racialization—the processes that infuse social and political phenomena with racial identities and implications—is an assertion of power, a claim of purportedly inherent differences that has saturated modern diplomacy, order, and violence. U.S. international security studies has largely omitted racial dynamics from decades of debates. A new framework considers how overt and embedded racialization shape the study and practice of international security. 

By amplifying a loaded slogan, the Michigan representative isn't helping anyone's cause.

Mohammad Tabaar analyzes Iran's strategy to weaken Israel and divide the Middle East.

Stephen Walt argues that academic institutions should always avoid taking sides. He writes that faculty and students may say or write whatever they wish, with the understanding that the institution will defend their right to do so even in the face of fierce criticism. At the same time, the university will do nothing to insulate their ideas from legitimate criticism—including from other members of the university itself.

2023 marked eighty years since the wartime adoption of the BRUSA Agreement between Great Britain and the United States. This 1943 document codified the growing relationship between
U.S. and U.K. signals intelligence organizations and included policies governing the exchange of personnel and joint regulations for handling sensitive material. Security directives and protocols aligned operational processes between the democratic governments, setting new cooperative standards for nation-states battling authoritarian regimes. 

Our colleague and friend Ash Carter left us one year ago this week. As we reflect on all he brought to our lives and our nation, and face the challenge Hamas’ vicious terrorist attack that killed 1400 innocent Israelis, it is instructive to consider what the architect of President Obama’s strategy to defeat ISIS might say if asked how Israel should respond. Netanyahu has declared that “Hamas is ISIS, and we will defeat it just like the enlightened world defeated ISIS.” While noting important differences between ISIS and Hamas, I suspect he would have taken this invitation to restate lessons learned from our own campaign against ISIS.

Johson and Wolfram argue that imposing a price cap on Iranian oil exports will diminish the benefits petrostates have in times of conflict. 

Stephen Walt analyses the past thirty years of U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East, focusing on five events.