|
New Horizons for UN Peacekeeping
May 2009
The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the Department of Field Support (DFS) commissioned the Center on International Cooperation to provide the framework for their “New Horizons for UN Peacekeeping” initiative. The resulting report, Building on Brahimi: Peacekeeping in an Era of Strategic Uncertainty, assesses core issues surrounding the current crisis of confidence in peacekeeping. It offers recommendations for building a new coalition of support, as well as more effective and efficient management of peacekeeping operations on the ground.
 Read Building on Brahimi: Peacekeeping in an Era of Strategic Uncertainty
 Visit DPKO website
|
| |
President Obama’s First 100 Days
President Obama took office with a sweeping agenda to restore America’s image globally and to rebuild U.S. alliances to meet the common challenges of the 21st Century—from economic instability and climate change to nuclear proliferation and terrorism. As the new administration has reached the 100 day milestone, this brief provided by the Managing Global Insecurity (MGI) Project assesses progress toward a new era of U.S. global leadership. We compare the early actions of the Obama administration to the recommendations of the MGI Project, a two-year initiative on transnational threats and modernizing the international security system.
 Read "President Obama’s First 100 Days:Managing Global Insecurity Project Recommendations and an Evaluation of U.S. Global Engagement"
|
|
 
The Center on International Cooperation and the Canadian Permanent Mission to the United Nations are convening a series of panel discussions to explore critical issues confronting the future of UN peace operations. At the launch event for the series, on May 26, 2009, Under-Secretaries General Alain Le Roy (DPKO) and Susanna Malcorra (DFS) and CIC Director Bruce Jones will survey the symptoms and causes of peacekeeping overstretch.
Visit Thematic Series Project Page |
| Recent Publications and Press |
Moving the Ravioli Around : Managing UN Peace Operations in a Period of Crisis
July 2009
Richard Gowan assesses contrasting approaches to revitalizing UN peacekeeping in a contribution to Managing Complexity, a report published by the International Peace Institute and Geneva Centre for Security Policy. Mr Gowan also recently commented on peacekeeping concepts in a book review for the Political Science Quarterly.
Read "Moving the Ravioli Around : Mananging UN Peace Operations in a Period of Crisis"
|
Transnational Threats 'the dominant' issue facing global governance
June 2009
With the worldwide recession also having a profound effect on emerging economies in the developing world, Bruce Jones, calls for greater representation as a means to mitigate potential security threats. At a lecture organized by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Jones said the financial crisis has dispelled any notion that the developed and emerging worlds do not exist in parallel, instead illustrating how closely interconnected they are. Dr. Jones also commented on the forthcoming G8 summit for the Brookings Institution.
 Read Transnational Threats
|
The EU should do more to support UN peacekeeping in Africa
June 2009
Europeans should talk to the US about deploying more EU peacekeeping missions to support the UN in Africa if and when they pull back from Afghanistan, Richard Gowan writes for the Centre for European Reform. Mr. Gowan and CIC Senior Fellow Jean-Marie Guéhenno recently commented on Western and Chinese approaches to peackeeping for Voice of America.
Read "The EU should do more to support UN peacekeeping in Africa" |
Not the Time to Declare Victory
May 2009
In the last fifteen years, the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo have endured more suffering than any other people of the world during the same period. Political foundations of peace are being eroded and justice is ignored. Jean-Marie Guéhenno has published an essay about the DRC in the latest edition of The Huffington Post.
 Read “Not the Time to Declare Victory” |
U.N. Peace Operations and State-building: A Case Study of Haiti
May 2009
This report on statebuilding and the international community in Haiti is based on field research led by Dr. Charles T. Call (former Peacebuilding Advisor to DPA, and Senior Fellow at USIP), with support from Gigja Sorensen. This report addresses core issues surrounding the UN presence in Haiti, and broader concerns for international efforts in peacebuilding and statebuilding.
 Read U.N. Peace Operations and State-building: A Case Study of Haiti
|
An Institutional Architecture for Climate Change
May 2009
Alex Evans and David Steven explore the future international institutional requirements for managing climate change successfully in this report commissioned by the UK Department for International Development. The report sets out three scenarios for climate institutions between now and 2030, and calls on heads of government to improve policy co-ordination between climate change and broader global economic governance.
Read "An Institutional Architecture for Climate Change"
Read Guardian article |
The World’s Deadliest Spot
April 2009
Michael O’Hanlon and Bruce Jones in an op-ed article published in the Washington Times state "with all the attention given to Iraq, Afghanistan, and Darfur, one place consistently forgotten is the Democratic Republic of Congo." The commentary, which calls for an international effort to help restore order to the “world’s deadliest spot”, lays out a plan for humanitarian assistance, military deployments and creative political solutions.
Read Commentary |
Rapid Deployment of Civilians for Peace Operations: Status, Gaps, and Options
April 2009
A thematic debate in the UN Security Council identified three primary weaknesses in international performance to support stabilization and early recovery from conflict: a strategic gap, a financing gap and a capacity gap. Rapid Deployment of Civilians for Peace Operations: Status, Gaps, and Options ,a paper published by CIC, takes a detailed look at the issue of rapidly deployable civilian capacity.
Read Rapid Deployment of Civilians for Peace Operations: Status, Gaps, and Options |
Providing Aid in Insecure Environments: 2009 Update- Trends in violence against aid workers and the operational response
April 2009
The study by the Humanitarian Policy Group/ODI, Humanitarian Outcomes and the Center on International Cooperation/NYU, serves to update the Providing Aid in Insecure Environments report released in 2006. The initial report to date remains the only comprehensive source of data on major incidents of violence against aid workers, covering not only UN agencies but the humanitarian community writ large. In the 2009 Update, researchers Abby Stoddard, Adele Harmer and Victoria DiDomenico provided the most up-to-date data on incident rates as well as a new state of the art analysis of the security challenges currently facing aid workers.
The 2009 Update was also featured in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Reuters, TIME and the Associated Press.
Read Providing Aid in Insecure Environments: 2009 Update |
The Future of Peacekeeping Operations: Fighting Political Fatigue and Overstretch
April 2009
Drawing from the insights of an international policy debate on peacekeeping overstretch co-organized by Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Richard Gowan identifies major stresses of the UN and non-UN peacekeeping system. Analyzing the biggest UN (DR Congo) and NATO (Afghanistan) peace operations, he blames "risk transferral" and mistrust as key obstacles, driving political divergences and operational mismanagement. He proposes five policy options for greater transparency and trust, allowing better peacekeeping strategies, including a heads-of-government conference to foster strategic discussion.
Read The Future of Peacekeeping Operations: Fighting Political Fatigue and Overstretch |
Survey of US Security Sector Reform
March 2009
This report by Jake Sherman for Saferworld provides an overview of the US Government's arrangement for monitoring and evaluating (M&E) the support it provides to security sector reform. It examines the M&E systems that already exist for similar types of work as well as looking at any specific treatment given to SSR, before also identifying outstanding needs, challenges and any trends and opportunities that exist for improving M&E in this area.
Read a Survey of US Security Sector Reform |
The Broader Horn:Peacekeeping in a Strategic Vacuum
March 2009
The deployment of peacekeepers is increasingly becoming a reflex solution to crises, often in the absence of viable political agreements. The cluster of peace operations in the Broader Horn of Africa are disjointed even though the various conflicts in the region are inter-linked. Dr. Sarjoh Bah argues that weak commitment and slow implementation have hampered peacekeeping efforts across the region.
Read The Broader Horn:Peacekeeping in a Strategic Vacuum |
The Purposes of Peace Operations
March 2009
This essay by William J. Durch, with Madeline L. England traces the evolution and adaptation of peace operations, first to the Cold War and then to the post-Cold War environment, and more recently to a new post 9/11 era in which the ever-expanding purposes of peace operations is blurring the line between peacekeeping and war-fighting.
Read The Purposes of Peace Operations |
Strengthening Security Sector Governance in West Africa
March 2009
Across West Africa, the absence of effective, democratic governance of the security sector has been a significant casual factor of state fragility or civil war. Jake Sherman, Lead Researcher for CIC ’s Security Sector Reform project, funded by the Royal Government of Norway, undertook a comparative study of legislative oversight of security sector reform (SSR) in West Africa during 2008.
Read Strengthening Security Sector Governance in West Africa |
The Afghan National Development Strategy: The Right Plan at the Wrong Time?
February 2009
In 2005 the Government of Afghanistan initiated a process leading to the formulation of the Afghanistan National Development Strategy(ANDS). Jake Sherman argues that flawed assumptions about the nature of Afghanistan's political, economic and social realities will undermine the objectives pursued by ANDS.
Read The Afghan National Development Strategy:The Right Plan at the Wrong Time? |
What can Europe do in Iraq?
February 2009
In this article for the Heinrich Boell Stiftung, Richard Gowan and Daniel Korski argue that Europe has a major strategic stake in Iraq, and should step up its engagement there as the U.S. draws down its forces. The EU should expand its small Rule of Law mission to cover Security Sector Reform and border security issues, while supporting a new regional security mechanism in the Gulf.
Read What can Europe do in Iraq? |
MGI launches Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats
MGI Project Co-Directors Bruce Jones, Carlos Pascual, and Stephen Stedman provide the conceptual underpinnings for a new approach to sovereignty and cooperation in their new book, Power and Responsibility: Building International Order in an Era of Transnational Threats. MGI Advisory Group members Ambassador Thomas Pickering and Samuel Berger helped launch this important book on the future of U.S. foreign policy at London's The Chatham House. The event, the first of a series of launches which MGI will hold around the globe and across the country, was hosted in part by United Kingdom Foreign Minister David Miliband.
Read transcript
 Listen to a complete recording
Read a Guardian editorial on the event
Read MGI "Plan of Action"
 Order a Copy of Power and Responsibility |
Top of Page |
|
| Afghanistan Project News |
Back from the Brink? A Strategy for Stabilizing Afghanistan-Pakistan
An Asia Society Task Force Report
April 2009
A new Asia Society Task Force report outlines a comprehensive strategy for the new U.S. administration to pursue a dramatically different course in Afghanistan-Pakistan. Both countries are now struggling to limit the spread of violent insurgencies, curb losses in public confidence, and address major weaknesses in governance while being faced with a growing economic crisis. Barnett Rubin is the principle author of this report.
Read Executive Summary
Read A Strategy for Stabilizing Afghanistan-Pakistan
A Tribe Apart
January 2009
The Boston Review has published an essay by Barnett Rubin entitled A Tribe Apart. The essay, filled with anecdotes of Mr. Rubin’s many visits to Afghanistan, presents a country devastated by war, chaos and pervasive class disunity.
Read A Tribe Apart
Pakistan in Decline
December 2008
On the anniversary of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto many Pakistanis also lament their country's decline into political and economic chaos. An article published in The Times suggests that diplomatic strategies presented in a paper by Barnett Rubin and Ahmed Rashid may help prevent Pakistan’s descent.
The Times article
Barnett Rubin on Radio Times
December 2008
Barnett Rubin appeared as a guest on Radio Times with Marty Moss-Coane to discuss Afghanistan.
Listen to Interview
From Great Game to Grand Bargain
November 2008
Barnett Rubin co-authored an essay with Ahmed Rashid entitled "From Great Game to Grand Bargain" in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs.
Read Listen
30 Issues: Pakistan and Afghanistan
October 2008
Former New York mayor Ed Koch, Steve Coll, Barnett Rubin and Tariq Ali talk about what the next president faces in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The U.S. and Iran in Afghanistan: Policy Gone Awry
October 2008
This essay for MIT’s Center for International Studies, by Barnett Rubin with Sara Batmanglich, discusses how the U.S. and Iran’s preoccupation with their grievances has prevented them from cooperating in Afghanistan. The reluctance to acknowledge this key area of mutual interest has not only been detrimental to the goals of the US, Iran and Afghanistan alike, but has also benefited the Pakistan military, the Taliban and al-Qaida.
Read Essay
More Afghanistan Project News |
|
