By Daniel R. Mahanty and Elena Crespo Each year, the United States spends $19.5 billion a year on security cooperation and assistance, more than 130 countries and territories in the world spend on their entire defense budgets. Not surprisingly, in the period since Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. funding has increased markedly for security partnerships focused on countering terrorism and…
February 3, 2021 By Daniel R. Mahanty On Sept. 27, 2018, the U.S.-led coalition, Operation Inherent Resolve, released a statement listing 50 confirmed incidents of civilian casualties caused by airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. First on the list, an incident in Iraq described in 23 words: “August 13, 2016, near Qayyarah, Iraq, via media report.…
By Beatrice Godefroy and Julien Théron Even as people in Ukraine’s Donbas region continue to suffer amid the seven-year-long conflict between government forces and Russian-backed separatists, populations elsewhere in Eastern Europe find themselves also at the center of lingering tensions between conflicting regional powers. The “flash” hostilities that broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan in…
By Annie Shiel, Seth Binder, Jeff Abramson, William Hartung, Rachel Stohl, Diana Ohlbaum, Adam Isacson, Brittany Benowitz and Daniel R. Mahanty In recent years, U.S. arms sold and transferred abroad have been used to commit gross violations of human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL) and fueled widespread civilian harm, corruption, and humanitarian crises in countries…
December 8, 2020 By Daniel R. Mahanty and Elias Yousif When Biden takes his seat behind the Resolute desk, he will face the competing demands of ending America’s “forever wars” and simultaneously countering lingering threats of terrorism. Biden’s immediate predecessors chose to navigate these narrow straits by limiting the role of conventional U.S. forces in…
November 10, 2020 By Beatrice Godefroy and Liza Baran Imagine that you live in one of the isolated villages located near the contact line in Eastern Ukraine. What would your life look like? Statistics show a 61% probability you would be a woman, 41% likelihood you would be over 60 years old, and 13% chance…
Following newly public allegations that British SAS forces executed unarmed Afghan civilians during a 2011 raid of a compound believed to be housing Taliban militants, the historian Andrew Roberts opined in The Sunday Times that UK military forces fighting terrorist groups should not be bound by the Geneva Conventions – which form the core of…
August 20, 2020 By Dan Mahanty So who is responsible for the duration of America’s forever wars? In his recent brief for the Quincy Institute, non-resident fellow Samuel Moyn directs the spotlight in a counterintuitive, and discomfiting, direction — toward the members of civil society that advocate for limiting civilian suffering in war. By focusing…
Supporting the implementation of mandated tasks through digital technologies By Lauren Spink UN peace operations need to employ new technologies to enhance their ability to implement their mandates more effectively in the complex conflict contexts where they are currently deployed and to adapt to changing conflict dynamics in the future. Of the 13 UN peacekeeping…