By John Ramming Chappell and Ari Tolany Recent months have seen a flood of revelations concerning civilian harm resulting from U.S. military operations. The last U.S. airstrike of the war in Afghanistan, which killed ten civilians including an aid worker and seven children, was soon followed by news of U.S. operations in Syria targeting and endangering civilians. Reporting from The…
By Daniel Levine-Spound On November 30, 2021, the Congolese army (FARDC) and the Ugandan military (UPDF) launched joint operations in the Beni territory of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) against the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), an armed group that originated in Uganda but has operated in eastern Congo since the mid-nineties and is responsible for…
By Lauren Spink The United Nations peacekeeping mission in South Sudan — known by its acronym UNMISS — has perhaps been most known for providing security to civilians inside protection of civilians (POC) sites in and around its bases. In October 2020, UNMISS began the process of re-designating the POC sites into camps for internally…
By Daniel Levine-Spound and Samuli Harju The UN Security Council is expected to renew the mandate of the world body’s peacekeeping mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo during discussions later this month in New York. But as the mission – known by its French acronym MONUSCO – makes plans to draw down and eventually…
By Viola Giuliano and Josh Jorgensen The United Nations Security Council in the coming weeks will be negotiating a new mandate for the peacekeeping mission in the Central African Republic (CAR) – known by its acronym MINUSCA. Since the Security Council adopted the Mission’s current mandate last November, a new armed rebellion has plunged the country into…
By Annie Shiel, Jordan Street, and Abigail Watson As attention across the world remained fixed on the Afghanistan withdrawal and the runup to the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, the Biden administration quietly delivered one of the first public insights into its developing counterterrorism policy. In a speech at the Atlantic Council on Sept.…
By Abigail Watson, Beatrice Godefroy, Rocco Blume, Camilla Molyneux, Jamie Gaskarth, Lucia Withers, and Murray Jones With the UK’s Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy signalling an increased focus on building the capacity of foreign security forces, through the generation of a new Ranger Regiment, the UK has an opportunity to take stock of…
By Beatrice Godefroy and Suleiman Mamutov On July 22, 2020, representatives from Ukraine, Russia, and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) agreed to implement an enhanced ceasefire in eastern Ukraine. In the months that followed, ceasefire violations significantly decreased and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights reported zero conflict-related civilian casualties resulting from…
By Daniel Mahanty False promises are at the heart of making war. In August 1914, German and British soldiers were sent to the front on the false promise they would be home by Christmas, as were American soldiers shipped to Korea 36 years later. The Vietnam War and Iraq War were both started and sustained by false promises…