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…
By Seán Smith The United Nations secretary-general is expected to deliver a report to the Security Council today that will make recommendations for or against the deployment of additional peacekeepers to the U.N. peacekeeping mission in Mali (MINUSMA). The report, which should be made public within weeks, is the result of a compromise struck towards…
By Annie Shiel and Chris Woods Karrar Sabbar was at his job as an airport security guard in Karbala, Iraq, when he was killed by American airstrikes. Saleh Ahmed Mohammad al-Qaisi was driving near a health center in Al Bayda, Yemen after visiting his family, when he was inexplicably targeted and killed by a U.S. drone. Eighteen-year-old Nurto Kusow Omar Abukar was…
By Sahr Muhammedally May 11, 2021 – Protecting civilians in urban operations is complex. Separating military targets from civilian populations is hard in any environment, but in urban areas, the density of the population, civilian objects – such as homes and schools, hospitals, electric power grids, and water sources – magnifies the challenges. Urban environments…
By Sahr Muhammedally Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, in a letter to the mayor and council of Atlanta before he besieged the town in 1864, wrote, “war is cruelty and you cannot refine it.” As a practitioner whose work focuses on the protection of civilians, I have witnessed indiscriminate attacks on civilians, and both governments and…
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.…