Blog Posts
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 28 March 2023
On March 23, the historic process of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) enlargement passed a critical milestone as Finnish President Sauli Niinistö signed into law legislation on accession to the Alliance approved by parliament. In response, the Kremlin merely expressed regret about this development and reiterated the absence of any ... Read more »
Posted by Balthazar Sellier on Monday, 27 March 2023
After its first steps on the African continent in Libya in 2017, the Wagner Group has been deployed in Sudan, Mozambique, Madagascar, the Central African Republic, and at the end of 2021 in Mali. This rapid expansion over the years contributes to the instability and insecurity in these regions. The ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 21 March 2023
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to Moscow, which started yesterday and is expected to go for three days, is certain to be rich in pomp and ceremony. Yet, its content remains rather uncertain. Russian President Vladimir Putin, in most cordial terms, invited his Chinese counterpart during their video conversation ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 14 March 2023
The Russian army’s ongoing struggle to capture Bakhmut might appear to be primarily a tactical episode in the larger geo-strategic picture of Russia’s war against Ukraine. However, it also affects the key political interactions shaping this picture, including the formally cordial, but in fact rather uneasy, relations between Moscow and ... Read more »
Posted by Giacomo Bruni & Ilaria Carrozza on Thursday, 2 March 2023
China’s position paper won’t contribute to peace in Ukraine, but it does offer useful insights into how Beijing conceives of its global role. On February 24, one year after Russia began its invasion of Ukraine, China released a paper on “China’s Position on the Political Settlement of the Ukraine Crisis.” In ... Read more »
Posted by Anna-Sophie Hobi & Joseph Mujere on Wednesday, 1 March 2023
In October 2022, lithium prices reached an all-time high. Lithium is an essential component for electric vehicle batteries, and with the current high ambitions in electrification of transport, demand for the mineral has been rapidly increasing, hitting a record price of $74,475 per tonne in October 2022. In Zimbabwe, where ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 28 February 2023
As the one-year mark of President Vladimir Putin’s disastrous war against Ukraine neared, the Russian army failed to score anything resembling even a minor victory to provide the Russian leader with a talking point for his public performances. In his address to the Federal Assembly on February 21, Putin said ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Wednesday, 22 February 2023
As the one-year mark approaches, the Russo-Ukrainian war shows little movement along the battle lines but plenty of action along the political dimension, which may be approaching a culmination point. First came the meeting of Ukraine’s key supporters in the Ramstein format; then the meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty ... Read more »
Posted by Sebastian Schutte on Monday, 20 February 2023
In his foundational book on the causes of war, Kenneth Waltz observed that “[a]sking who won a given war […] is like asking who won the San Francisco earthquake. That in war there is no victory but only varying degrees of defeat is a proposition that has gained increasing acceptance ... Read more »
Posted by Giacomo Bruni & Ilaria Carrozza on Friday, 17 February 2023
Long-lasting trilateral negotiations between the US, the Netherlands and Japan are expected to result in joint efforts to limit China’s domestic production of chips. The decision represents a symbolic win for the Biden Administration, but further negotiations will determine the scope and significance of the emerging “Chip-Alliance”. On January 27th, ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Thursday, 2 February 2023
The broad coalition built last week for supplying main battle tanks to Ukraine signifies a new surge in strengthening the unity of the US-led Western alliance, and Russia has had no response to this upgrade. It will take a few months to train and equip new armored battalions in the ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Friday, 27 January 2023
Two events of profound, and maybe even decisive, importance for the outcome of the Ukraine war happened last week: the Davos gathering of the World Economic Forum and the meeting of top defense officials from some 50 members of the Western coalition at the Ramstein air base in Germany. Russian ... Read more »
Posted by Sven G. Holtsmark on Friday, 27 January 2023
Let’s keep Thucydides out of Russia’s war against Ukraine “Ukraine is confronted with a stark choice: fight on through a bitter winter with death raining from above, or initiate negotiations with Russia under unfavourable terms. Two-and-a-half millennia ago, the leaders of the Greek island of Melos confronted a similar choice.” ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin Haugevik & Niels Nagelhus Schia on Wednesday, 25 January 2023
The war in Ukraine has changed the atmosphere and the dynamics within the UN Security Council. The five permanent members and veto powers of the Council distrust each other, and diplomats fear that the war will have long-lasting negative effects on other matters. How did Norway and the other elected ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Friday, 20 January 2023
Combat operations in Ukraine have largely contracted to a 10-mile battleground between Bakhmut and Soledar. During this fierce fighting, the command structure of Russia’s “special military operation” was suddenly upgraded on January 11. General Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian General Staff, is now in charge, and the previous ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Wednesday, 18 January 2023
No cease-fire can possibly mute artillery barrages in Donbas, but the intensity of political battles exceeds the intensity of this cannonade. Russian stubborn and costly attacks on Bakhmut may yield only tactical success, but in geo-strategic terms, it is the shift in Western positions on supplying heavy arms to Ukraine ... Read more »
Posted by Marie Sandnes & Ilaria Carrozza on Monday, 16 January 2023
France’s announcement to withdraw its forces from the Sahel in November 2022, alongside growing dissatisfaction with the nation’s presence in the region, opens the door for other actors to exercise greater influence in the Sahel and West Africa. As the security situation in the Sahel deteriorated dramatically over the past ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Wednesday, 11 January 2023
It was a striking image for a traditional season of joy and hope: Russian President Vladimir Putin attending the Orthodox Christmas service all alone in one of the Kremlin’s cathedrals. This loneliness stands in contrast with his persistent attempts to show himself actively engaging with subordinates, particularly servicemen — for ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Wednesday, 21 December 2022
Bold and unpredictable maneuvers are supposed to be the trademark political style of Russian President Vladimir Putin; last week, however, he surprised observers of various persuasions not with a proactive move but with an unusual act of avoidance. Putin’s annual marathon end-of-the-year press conference has been canceled, as has the ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 6 December 2022
The enforcement of the price ceiling for Russian oil transported by sea enacted on December 5 is not a surprise, as this measure was being discussed by the Unites States and its key partners as early as September 2022. It is, nevertheless, important proof of the Western coalition’s undiminished resolve ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 22 November 2022
Global governance was tested at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia on November 15-16 by the urgent need to produce responses to many problems – from food insecurity to natural disasters caused by climate change – and the outcome could be marked as satisfactory. Multiple divisions were negotiated by 16 ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Wednesday, 16 November 2022
The liberation of Kherson by Ukrainian forces on November 11 was both predictable and surprising. The strategic imperative for withdrawing Russian troops from the indefensible position along the west side of the Dnipro River had been abundantly clear long before the “difficult decision” presented by the commander of Russian forces ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 1 November 2022
The Valdai Club’s annual conference used to be a gala gathering of Western and international experts who appreciated direct access to Russian elites and expected to hear about new trends and ambitions in Moscow’s foreign policy from the traditional speech given by President Vladimir Putin. This year, few veterans opted ... Read more »
Posted by Giacomo Bruni on Wednesday, 26 October 2022
The United States recently announced a new set of restrictions on the export of advanced semiconductors, chip-making equipment, and supercomputer components to China. The interim final rule further escalates the geopolitical dispute between the US and China and raises concerns about the increasing fragmentation of the digital domain. The interim ... Read more »
Over the last five weeks, numerous incidents involving drones have made headlines in Norway. These incidents include multiple drone sightings outside oil platforms and energy installations, drone incursions in the vicinity of airports leading to the temporary closure of some of them, and Russian citizens being arrested at Norwegian border ... Read more »
Posted by Anna Marie Obermeier on Wednesday, 5 October 2022
Content Warning: This blog contains content related to sexual violence and sexual assault. The Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) is steeped in a culture of sexual misconduct. CAF leadership has allowed an environment of sexual misconduct to fester for decades, stretching from military colleges through every branch of the military. Thirteen ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Monday, 19 September 2022
Samarkand didn’t go well for President Vladimir Putin. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit hosted by Uzbekistan in this ancient city gathered many leaders of various Eurasian states, from Belarus to Mongolia, but it was the meeting with China’s Chairman (the title that Putin addresses him with) Xi Jinping that ... Read more »
Posted by Vamo Soko & Bintu Zahara Sakor on Saturday, 17 September 2022
As the war in Ukraine continues in Europe, a new Cold War dynamic of the East and West tensions and strategic geopolitical alignment between powerful nations have heightened. As global proxy wars intensify, so does the competition over control of Africa’s vast natural resources and strategic trade routes, which is ... Read more »
Posted by Nora Stai on Tuesday, 30 August 2022
International peace mediation has undergone many changes in the past decade. While its fundamental principles have remained the same, the increased digitalization of peace mediation coupled with the practical challenges of peacebuilding during a global pandemic has necessitated the introduction of digital tools and virtual platforms. These developments have accelerated ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Thursday, 18 August 2022
As Russian aggression against Ukraine approaches the half-year mark and combat operations appear to be at a standstill, a new calculus has been developed in the Kremlin: A long war suits Moscow’s interests and can eventually be won. This self-serving proposition follows the failure of two previous war plans: a ... Read more »
Posted by Nic Marsh on Wednesday, 17 August 2022
The Russian invasion of Ukraine resulted in the reduction of Ukraine’s grain exports by a third. As part of its attack Russia had taken or damaged Ukrainian ports, threatened merchant ships, struck Ukraine’s rail and road infrastructure and destroyed farms. The Russian invasion was followed by rapid increases in global ... Read more »
Posted by Espen Geelmuyden Rød on Thursday, 14 July 2022
The debate about Norwegian EU membership has gained new life in the wake of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. Norway has applied for EU-membership on multiple occasions. Charles de Gaulle blocked two applications in the 60s and the Norwegian population voted NO in referendums in 1972 and 1994 despite a clear ... Read more »
Since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February, food insecurity and food prices have become increasingly concerning. However, the focus has largely been on the consequences of war for the international market and food insecurity abroad, leaving less attention to the lack of food among civilians in Ukraine. Ukrainians have fled their ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 12 July 2022
Russia’s attack on Ukraine has clearly lost momentum, but the intensity of its multi-prong confrontation with the West keeps rising. Russian military command announced an “operational pause” in Donbas after the hard battles for Severodonetsk and Lysychansk, implicitly admitting that a regrouping of battalions, which have not been rotated in ... Read more »
Posted by Ingrid Vik & Kristian Berg Harpviken on Thursday, 7 July 2022
What Do We Talk about When We Talk about War? The public debate on foreign and security policy is facing new challenges following Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. The strength of our democracy depends on our ability to move beyond emotions and moral outrage, to discuss openly, argue logically, ... Read more »
Posted by Trygve Borgersen on Thursday, 7 July 2022
Norway is becoming more secure. Not only will the military balance change, but also the geographical situation. The Nordic region is now more militarily capable than it has been for centuries. And Russia is in a historically weak position. Norway was in an isolated position during the Cold War: we ... Read more »
Posted by Niels Nagelhus Schia on Monday, 4 July 2022
The Security Council has played an important function during the war in Ukraine. There is a general perception that the war in Ukraine has caused an existential crisis for the UN and paralyzed the UN Security Council. This perception is incorrect. On the contrary, the Security Council has shown itself ... Read more »
Posted by Katsumi Ishizuka & Åshild Kolås on Thursday, 30 June 2022
Since February 2022, Japan has imposed a series of economic sanctions on Russia, in coordination with allies in the G7, including the freezing of Russian assets and the expulsion of Russian diplomats stationed in Japan. As the first major war involving European great powers in this century, Japanese security analysts agree ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 28 June 2022
The post-Soviet transformation took Russia from a fledgling democracy to a corrupt autocracy, but, since the start of the war against Ukraine, the Kremlin has taken a new turn, which amounts to a resolute top-down effort at reversing what progress has been achieved in modernizing the state system, economy and ... Read more »
Posted by Kjølv Egeland on Tuesday, 21 June 2022
The stories that are told about the Russian invasion of Ukraine – the interpretations that are advanced about what the war means and why it went the way it did – are going to play a decisive role in determining nothing less than the fate of the earth. The dominant ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Monday, 20 June 2022
The problem of humiliating Russia too deeply, by ensuring its defeat in the war against Ukraine, is more serious than just an unfortunate turn of phrase by French President Emmanuel Macron. Last Thursday, Macron traveled to Kyiv together with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi, and Romanian ... Read more »
Posted by Lars-Erik Cederman on Thursday, 16 June 2022
If nations are separated by national borders, the risk of civil war and interstate conflicts increases – as in the case of Ukraine. For this reason, Lars-Erik Cederman believes that sanctions should also be designed to have a deterrent effect on other nationalists. For numerous observers in the West, Putin’s ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 14 June 2022
The full-scale re-invasion of Ukraine, ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin on February 24, came as a shock for many groups within the Russian elite. They are still assessing the consequences of that autocratic decision and adapting to the fast-deteriorating political and economic environment. Meanwhile, Putin persists with rigidly confronting ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Friday, 10 June 2022
Modern wars are decided, according to Russian military strategy, in the high-intensity initial period, and the multi-pronged offensive into Ukraine was indeed launched with the aim of achieving a decisive success in the first couple of weeks. As the war crossed the symbolic 100-day watershed last weekend, nothing resembling a ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Monday, 16 May 2022
Russia’s aggression against Ukraine has energized the North Atlantic Alliance in every possible way, reviving its purpose and unity, and granting it new attractiveness in Europe and greater prominence in the Indo-Pacific. The prospect of Finland and Sweden joining the 30 member-states was hypothetical last autumn, when Moscow issued the ... Read more »
Drones have played a very important, multidimensional role since the beginning of the current iteration of the war in Ukraine. This importance mirrors what happens in modern conflict all over the world: both in more conventional conflict and in other insurgency / counter-insurgency settings, drones have become a central part ... Read more »
Posted by Tuomas Forsberg on Monday, 9 May 2022
Russia’s war on Ukraine has repercussions also in Northern Europe. Finland and Sweden, despite their longstanding policy of military non-alignment, are more than likely going to submit their applications for NATO membership before the summer. In light of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked war and both countries’ close existing partnership with ... Read more »
Posted by Carsten Wieland on Wednesday, 4 May 2022
One of the tragic side-effects of the war in Ukraine is that at long last – and unfortunately only now – the last person in the West may have come to understand what really happened in Syria, especially after Russian intervention. This does not help those Syrians who have been ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Monday, 25 April 2022
Predictions of a decisive offensive in Donbass and speculations about peace talks have gained new intensity in both Russian propaganda and Western commentary last week – and neither makes much sense. Artillery and air strikes on the solid Ukrainian defense lines in several key directions on the battle for Donbass ... Read more »
Posted by Monica Duffy Toft on Thursday, 14 April 2022
Despite stop-and-start peace talks, a resolution to the brutal war in Ukraine appears distant. Major cities in Ukraine are faltering. Civilians, including children, are dying of shrapnel and glass wounds, exposure and thirst. At the same time, Ukraine’s resilience and a coordinated global response means the war is not ending ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Tuesday, 12 April 2022
Russia has revised its war plan multiple times during the, so far, seven-week-long, ill-conceived large-scale invasion of Ukraine, yet it still remains incompatible with both tactical imperatives and political ambitions. The consecutive revisions themselves have been flawed in different ways: if the initial “Blitzkrieg” design was based on the assumption ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Wednesday, 30 March 2022
For at least the past 3 weeks of the 33-day-long war against Ukraine, it has been clear that the Russian offensive has lost momentum, with its key groupings of forces stuck in the suburbs of Kyiv, Kharkiv and Mykolaiv. The question that all concerned observers have been asking is what ... Read more »
Half of the nation states who chose not to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the United Nations General Assembly’s extraordinary session on March 2nd were member states of the African Union (AU). In the event, 25 of the AU’s 55 member states either abstained, did not vote, or voted ... Read more »
Posted by Angshuman Choudhury, Åshild Kolås & Arijit Sen on Friday, 4 March 2022
India’s decision to consistently remain ‘neutral’ when voting on resolutions on the Ukraine crisis in multilateral fora might not come as a surprise to those who follow Indian foreign policy closely and know its history. India’s decision to abstain from voting in each and every multilateral fora has, nonetheless, raised ... Read more »
Posted by Júlia Palik on Tuesday, 1 March 2022
‘Russians go home!’ (Ruszkik haza!), one of the many slogans of the 1956 revolution against the Soviet occupation, is a familiar term for every Hungarian. 66 years later, the same sentence was chanted by crowds gathered in front of the Russian Embassy in Hungary to oppose President Putin’s decision to ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Monday, 28 February 2022
Data on the concentration of Russian troops was solid; the diplomatic offensive executed by Moscow was deliberately disagreeable; yet, many experts (myself including) refused to accept the proposition on the coming war as “inevitable”. Denials streaming from the Kremlin were never convincing, but President Vladimir Putin’s reputation as a shrewd ... Read more »
Posted by Tore Wig on Sunday, 27 February 2022
The wheel of history is now in motion. Russia’s gruesome attack on Ukraine disrupts one of the most significant trends in the history of nation states, namely the astounding absence of large-scale wars of invasion and occupation in Europe since the end of World War II. For many years, peace ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin M. Bakke on Saturday, 26 February 2022
The Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 — a drastic escalation of an already devastating armed conflict ongoing since 2014 — violates the right of the people of Ukraine to live their lives in a sovereign state and independently shape their future. While much focus has been on ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Friday, 25 February 2022
I, along with many other commentators, believed until the very end that war in Ukraine was preventable and would ultimately not take place. Very sadly, and concerningly, I was wrong. Why did I hold out hope so long for the avoidance of war? What does the invasion of Ukraine tell ... Read more »
Posted by Kelly Fisher on Tuesday, 21 December 2021
In September this year, Chief Software Officer for the U.S. Air Force Nicholas Chaillian, unexpectedly resigned. The reason for his resignation? To protest the slow pace of technological transformation taking place in the U.S. military, and where he argued the U.S. had already lost the race for AI dominance to ... Read more »
Posted by Samar Abbas Nawaz on Friday, 17 December 2021
In 2019, the European Union (EU) passed regulations for the aviation safety of civilian drones. They are aimed to foster innovation and ensure the safe integration of drones, of all sizes, into European airspace. This move was made to also harmonize drone rules throughout the EU as the previous framework ... Read more »
Posted by Ayse Bala Akal on Wednesday, 24 November 2021
The 2021 EU-Belarus border crisis was preceded by a rapid deterioration of the already strained European Union (EU)-Belarus relations, in most part due to the Ryanair 4978 incident and the concomitant wide-ranging sanctions imposed by the EU on the authoritarian government of the Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, who has often been referred by the media ... Read more »
Posted by Kelly Fisher on Monday, 6 September 2021
When you think about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and war, you might find yourself thinking about killer robots, like those we have seen in movies such as The Terminator. In reality, AI and warfare looks quite different from these popularized images, and today we see many countries around the world exploring ... Read more »
Posted by Katja Lindskov Jacobsen & Karl Steinacker on Thursday, 26 August 2021
The situation in Afghanistan changes by the minute. In this blog post, we want to call attention to a largely overlooked issue: protection of Afghan refugees or other Afghans who have been registered biometrically by humanitarian or military agencies. Having collected biometrics from various parts of the Afghan population, for ... Read more »
Posted by Amalie Nilsen on Wednesday, 4 August 2021
In 2019, millions of Hong Kong citizens took to the streets to protest a proposed bill that would allow Hong Kong authorities to extradite suspected criminals to mainland China. The protests soon developed into a movement, demanding full universal suffrage, amnesty of arrested protestors, and an independent inquiry to investigate police brutality. Known as the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill (Anti-ELAB) ... Read more »
Preface On the occasion of the 10th anniversary for the terror attacks in in Oslo and at Utøya on 22 July 2011, there is a renewed debate in Norway. The main focus is on the political motivations for the attack, as well as on how Norway has dealt with (or ... Read more »
Posted by Maria-Louise Clausen & Bruno Oliveira Martins on Monday, 12 July 2021
The introduction of biometrics in Yemen is a prime example of challenges related to the use of biometric solutions in humanitarian contexts. The complexity of the situation in Yemen needs to be acknowledged by policy makers and other stakeholders involved in the humanitarian crisis unfolding in the country. The humanitarian ... Read more »
Posted by Sissel Haugdal Jore, Bjørn Ivar Kruke, Odd Einar Olsen & Kristin B. Sandvik on Thursday, 8 July 2021
July 22, 2011, at 15.25, a bomb placed inside a white van exploded next to the H-bloc (‘Høyblokka’) where the prime minister’s office was located. Eight people were killed in the blast: most were government employees, and some were passing by. More than 200 people were injured. Additionally, the explosion ... Read more »
Posted by Stein Tønnesson on Wednesday, 3 March 2021
The coup d’état in Myanmar marks a defeat for the military’s attempt to create a “discipline-flourishing” democracy. The coup occurred on 1 February, just before the newly elected parliament was set to convene. This timing made it easy to arrest the country’s leading politicians. The military used allegations of electoral ... Read more »
Posted by Neven Ahmad on Tuesday, 23 February 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic has triggered the acceleration of pre-existing technological trends. As states introduce new rules and technological solutions to fight the pandemic, it can be tempting to view these technological applications as neutral scientific decisions. However, we must critically examine these decisions because times of crisis set standards which ... Read more »
Posted by Sebastian Schutte on Friday, 12 February 2021
In 2016, comparing president-elect Donald Trump to all-time villain Adolf Hitler seemed overdrawn. It ultimately proved to be exaggerated in 2021, with the transition of power to Joe Biden completed. However, during his presidency, Trump has taken actions similar to the ones the Nazis used to consolidate their power. This ... Read more »
Posted by Kristoffer Lidén on Friday, 29 January 2021
The COVID-19 pandemic highlights the political potential of National Risk Assessments (NRAs). The consistent focus of European NRAs on the risk of pandemics while public attention was glued to terrorism demonstrates their relevance to the question of how to prevent and prepare for future disasters – be they natural or ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik, Gyöngyi Kovács & Tina Comes on Monday, 30 November 2020
After various stretches of lockdowns and the related dire political, social, and economic consequences, the world has welcomed the news that several companies – including Moderna, AstraZeneca and Pfizer – are approaching an effective vaccine for Covid-19. Approximately 200 more are in the pipeline, of which 48 in clinical and 164 in pre-clinical stages of development. While there is ... Read more »
Posted by Bintu Zahara Sakor & Vamo Soko on Tuesday, 24 November 2020
In the past weeks, the Nigerian city of Lagos had been rocked by numerous youth-led protests against police brutality by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, also known as SARS. These protests which started peacefully turned deadly with numerous reports accusing the Nigerian police officers of shooting the demonstrators, resulting in at ... Read more »
Posted by Alaa Tartir on Friday, 13 November 2020
The Biden Administration will be perceived differently by the various actors involved in the “Palestinian-Israeli conflict” and the so-called peace process. Yet, its position as a “dishonest broker for peace” will remain the constant variable, in line with previous US Administrations. It is not speculative to argue that the Biden ... Read more »
With a winner finally announced in the US election, researchers at the PRIO Middle East Centre present a few thoughts on what a Biden presidency could mean for the Middle East. What are likely to be the guiding foreign policy principles of a Biden administration and how will regional and ... Read more »
Posted by Derrick Darby, Christian Davenport & David Armstrong on Thursday, 5 November 2020
The nation’s frenzied attention on the presidential election comes amid the backdrop of the crucial issues of the COVID-19 pandemic, police violence, racial protest, militia threats, the Supreme Court and active attempts at voter suppression. Supporters of both presidential candidates see the other side’s win as apocalyptic. Our recent research ... Read more »
The PRIO – GWPS Women Peace and Security Index is now available as a US edition, with scores for each of the 50 individual states and the District of Colombia.[1] With the US election today, highlighting ongoing struggles and gender-related conflicts, we ask; what does gender have to do with ... Read more »
Posted by Neven Ahmad on Friday, 30 October 2020
To say that the world was not prepared for a pandemic is an understatement. The point was made early on that in order to overcome COVID-19 and make it to the other side, it was “all hands-on deck”. This included individuals, health experts, governments, the private sector and – the ... Read more »
Posted by Ilaria Carozza on Monday, 26 October 2020
As the ongoing confrontation between the US and China has entered the technological and digital realms, we are pushed to rethink the relationship between individuals, nations and the entire world as more fluid than it has ever been before. While we grapple with these changes, the EU is on the ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik on Tuesday, 13 October 2020
April 16, 2020, the Norwegian COVID-19 tracking app Smittestopp was launched to great fanfare. The app was presented as crucial to the effort of saving lives and curbing infection rates. September 28 it was finally over, although the post-mortem dissection of the app has been unusually acrimonious for the Norwegian context. ... Read more »
Posted by David Beasley on Monday, 12 October 2020
This piece was originally posted on the PRIO blog in 2018. We’re reposting it now in 2020 on the occasion of the World Food Programme winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Constant war drove Fazle, his wife and four children away from their home and farm in the Khyber region of ... Read more »
Posted by PRIO on Monday, 12 October 2020
Introduction For over six decades, our mission here at the Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) has been to produce research for a more peaceful world. We analyze the conditions, causes, and dynamics of the political and social processes that create conflict or peace, and communicate this knowledge to policymakers, stakeholders, ... Read more »
Posted by Katja Lindskov Jacobsen & Kristin B. Sandvik on Tuesday, 6 October 2020
In 1971, the US declared a War on Drugs. In 2001, it began a still ongoing War on Terror. In 2020, the country has initiated a global War on Data to ‘combat’ the malicious collection of US citizens’ personal data. It is the first time that America is going to ... Read more »
Posted by Raluca Csernatoni on Monday, 5 October 2020
The global coronavirus pandemic has prompted states to rush to embrace digital surveillance tools such as contact tracing apps as quick fixes and policy responses to the crisis. Understandably, a lot of sophisticated yet questionable new technological solutions have been hurriedly deployed due to the severity of the pandemic. However, ... Read more »
The fire at the Moria camp underlines the depth of the crisis in the international system intended to protect people fleeing their home countries. Under the Refugee Convention, people in need of asylum must be given the opportunity to apply for it. The fundamental flaws in this system weighs heavily ... Read more »
Posted by Ole Sevrin Nydal on Friday, 4 September 2020
Mali cannot afford another rushed and destabilizing election process. Sustaining and strengthening international cooperation should be the first priority, even if this implies a temporary military regime. No surprise, but very inconvenient Mali’s recent coup – the third in three decades – came as no surprise. An escalating civil war, ... Read more »
Posted by Zoë Gorman & Marie Sandnes on Thursday, 27 August 2020
In the early morning hours of Wednesday 19 August, the Malian President Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta (IBK) appeared on national TV to resign after a military junta had arrested him, the prime minister and several other members of the administration the day before. Motivated by dissatisfaction of military salaries and political ... Read more »
Posted by Sirianne Dahlum on Wednesday, 12 August 2020
The coronavirus pandemic seems to be strengthening China and its leader Xi Jinping, while weakening the United States. If an autocracy gains strength on the international stage, while at the same time fear and uncertainty are spreading among the global population, this may provide fertile ground for a new wave ... Read more »
Posted by Bruno Oliveira Martins, Chantal Lavallée & Andrea Silkoset on Friday, 24 April 2020
The fight against the COVID-19 pandemic has mobilized national and international resources of all types, from funding of medical research to financial rescue plans, and has led to widespread state of emergency declarations. While the approaches adopted all over the world have differed from one country to another, an underlying ... Read more »
Posted by Mareile Kaufmann on Wednesday, 8 April 2020
When I observe the surveillance and disciplinary measures spreading together with COVID-19, questions arise. It is not just professionals who should have the answers. Everyone asks themselves where this pandemic is headed. That is probably why the road towards monitoring measures is short, and often necessary. After all, a virus ... Read more »
Posted by Indigo Trigg-Hauger, Bruno Oliveira Martins, Andrea Silkoset & Heiko Schaub on Tuesday, 4 February 2020
On February 12 PRIO will host a launch event for the report: Counter-Drone Systems: Implications for Norway in an EU and NATO context. The report aims to comprehensively address opportunities and potential risks, associated with the implementation of counter-drone technology (C-UAS). Together with Arthur Holland Michel, PRIO researchers Bruno Oliveira ... Read more »
Posted by Kristin B. Sandvik on Monday, 18 November 2019
Children are becoming the objects of a multitude of monitoring devices—what are the possible negative ramifications in low resource contexts and fragile settings? The recent incident of a UNHCR official tweeting a photo of an Iraqi refugee girl holding a piece of paper with all her personal data, including family ... Read more »
Posted by Anna Roessing on Thursday, 17 October 2019
Scientific breakthroughs and technological innovations are often subject to public discussion about their capacity to affect international security, either by their military exploitation or their uptake and re-appropriation through non-state actors and terrorists. While accompanying proliferation and militarisation concerns are not new, the challenge of governing emerging technologies is as ... Read more »
Posted by Neven Ahmad on Monday, 23 September 2019
The European Union’s vision for an integrated Europe has reached new heights. With the release of the highly anticipated guidelines for unmanned aircrafts, the EU takes a big step toward a singular sky. Violeta Bulc, EU Commissioner for Transport, stated that “the EU will now have the most advanced rules ... Read more »
Posted by Shohei Doi & Atsushi Tago on Monday, 19 August 2019
Japan and South Korea are facing the worst deterioration of bilateral ties in history after the 1965 normalization treaty came into force. Unfortunately, people in both countries seem to have forgotten that they successfully co-hosted a FIFA World Cup in 2002. At this moment, there is absolutely no welcoming mood ... Read more »
On Thursday President Trump made the unprecedented move to use a foreign power to punish domestic political actors. He tweeted that Israel should bar two congresswomen from entering the country. Prior to this tweet Prime Minister Netanyahu had decided that the congresswomen should be allowed to enter, but after the ... Read more »
The talks in Moscow between the Taliban and Afghan opposition politicians reflect a new world order, in which Russia is recognized as a global superpower. Even though the Afghan government remains on the sidelines, the talks may become an important part of the unpredictable Afghan peace process. The images from ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Monday, 11 February 2019
Russia has positioned itself as the main supporter of Nicholas Maduro regime in Venezuela, taking the risk of turning a crisis in a far-away country into an embarrassing political defeat. Official propaganda has amplified this issue, so that 57 percent of respondents in a recent poll confirmed that they were ... Read more »
The negotiations between the United States and the Taliban may represent the most important turning point in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led intervention. But the path to an internal Afghan peace process is difficult, and only history will tell whether these negotiations marked the onset of a sustainable Afghan peace ... Read more »
Note: On 18 March 2016, the EU and Turkey agreed on a deal to stop refugees from crossing the Mediterranean. At that time, Maria Gabrielsen Jumbert and Pinar Tank warned that the agreement was advantageous for Europe and Turkey but not for the refugees whose rights to protection were severely ... Read more »
Posted by Júlia Palik on Friday, 7 December 2018
This week the spotlight is on Sweden and UN Special Envoy Martin Griffiths: On Wednesday representatives of the Yemeni government and Houthi rebels arrived in Stockholm to find solutions to what the UN described as the ‘worst [humanitarian] crisis in the world’. The Saudi Arabia-led nine-member coalition has been at ... Read more »
The Middle East is set to become the major test for China as a global power. The region is characterized by war, political tensions and economic stagnation. China is ramping up its role, not least with its Belt and Road Initiative. What do the Chinese think about the challenges in ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Monday, 29 October 2018
Dan Smith, Director of SIPRI, has published a very informative and thoughtful blog on the apparently imminent breakdown of the INF Treaty. Following up with a week-old second thoughts, I can share this article (adapted from the Order from Chaos, published by the Brookings). The discussion of the pending U.S. ... Read more »
Posted by Jørgen Jensehaugen on Wednesday, 17 October 2018
Forty years ago, President Jimmy Carter orchestrated peace between Israel and Egypt; yet the conflict between Israel and Palestinians is further than ever from a solution. Those outcomes are closely linked. There are lessons for President Donald Trump to learn from Carter’s experience, if he is attentive. An unprecedented breakthrough ... Read more »
The Norwegian government must have known that the 2011 bombing campaign in Libya could lead to the fall of Muammar Gaddafi, argues PRIO researcher Kristian Berg Harpviken. In light of the recent release of the commission’s official report on Norway’s participation in the military operation in Libya, Harpviken was asked ... Read more »
Posted by Pavel Baev on Monday, 24 September 2018
The destruction of an Il-20M radio-electronic surveillance aircraft with 15 crew members in the late evening of September 17 was not the worst tragedy in the records of the three years long Russian military intervention in Syria but it is perhaps the most difficult one to explain away. It was ... Read more »
The scholarship on law, conflict and suffering has for the past two decades been dominated by a moral and analytical concern with “women and children” and sexual violence. However, when we look up and do the body count out in the physical and political world – in the city and ... Read more »
On 4 August 2018, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s speech at a military parade in Caracas was interrupted by the sound of two explosions. Maduro’s camp immediately claimed that the explosions resulted from a failed assassination attempt by drones carrying explosives. Although the nature of the incident remains disputed, and is ... Read more »
Posted by David Beasley on Friday, 13 April 2018
Constant war drove Fazle, his wife and four children away from their home and farm in the Khyber region of Pakistan eight years ago. They loved their home, but with all the shooting and the armed extremist groups, he had to leave or endure the death, destruction and instability that ... Read more »
Posted by Gunhild Hoogensen Gjørv, Ståle Ulriksen & Kristian Berg Harpviken on Monday, 9 April 2018
Foreign and security policy impacts everyone, and is therefore too important a topic to be silenced or restricted to the backrooms of government ministries. In general Norwegians have a high level of knowledge on international affairs, not least reflected in a substantial societal interest in the subject. The world is ... Read more »
Posted by Melanne Verveer on Tuesday, 28 November 2017
Despite major strides, women in many countries continue to face huge constraints in personal security, social and political inclusion, and legal protections that harm their wellbeing and hold back economies. The Index reflects a shared vision that countries are more peaceful and prosperous when women are accorded full and equal ... Read more »
Posted by Ben Hayes & Frank Barat on Thursday, 9 November 2017
A look back on three years since the end of Operation Mare Nostrum. Three years ago today, pressure by the European Union on Italy forced the end of one of the EU’s most successful humanitarian missions, Mare Nostrum, a search-and-rescue operation that in just one year brought 130,000 refugees safely ... Read more »
Posted by Åshild Kolås on Tuesday, 18 July 2017
In addition to states, a wide range of actors are involved in the performance of sovereignty today, including private security companies, civil society movements, militant groups, multinational corporations, international non-governmental organizations, and multilateral agencies. Terms such as popular, hybrid, public-private, graduated, shared, parallel and social sovereignty have been used to describe their state-like practices. As people, citizens and consumers, we are more ... Read more »
Last fall I spent two months in Poitiers, France as a visiting researcher at Migrinter. The last time I lived in France before that was in 2008, just when the financial crisis fully hit. A lot has changed since then, some of it directly or indirectly linked to the financial ... Read more »
Posted by Stein Tønnesson on Tuesday, 21 March 2017
Stein Tønnesson delivered this year’s The Fjord Memorial Lecture at Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences, Lillehammer. The lecture discusses Trump’s team of advisors, calls for fighting the increasing use of lies in political campaigning, sees Trump’s election as having weakened democracy worldwide, and perceives a major risk to world ... Read more »
Posted by Mareile Kaufmann on Thursday, 23 February 2017
When we discuss artificial intelligence, the digital technology that makes it happen, and singularity – the idea that both of them will exponentially take over the progression of society – we refer to them in singular. This is not a coincidence. Both, science and fiction have portrayed AI as a ... Read more »
The past month has seen historic events in India. On Tuesday 8 November 2016, the Modi government announced without prior warning that all 500 and 1000 Indian rupee notes would be rendered valueless more or less overnight. In effect, this meant immediate withdrawal of the largest bank notes in circulation, ... Read more »
We all have a “data double”. But how well do you really know this other aspect of your identity? Unless you know what your entirely digital identity looks like, you should take responsibility for finding out and, at the same time, contribute to a digital drive to ensure that we ... Read more »
Images of refugees using smartphones have now become common in the Western media landscape, and everybody seems to have learned that refugees and migrants, too, use smartphones. Indicative of this awareness, European governments are now looking into how to make use of these assets in their identity checks and in ... Read more »
Posted by Rajiv Nayan & Åshild Kolås on Thursday, 18 August 2016
India became the 35th member of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) on 27 June 2016. The MTCR is an informal and voluntary association of suppliers of ballistic and cruise missiles capable of delivering Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD), and other unmanned aerial vehicles. It was established in 1987 with ... Read more »
Posted by Eric Cezne on Thursday, 4 August 2016
This Friday the iconic Maracanã stadium in Rio is set to host the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games. For the first time in South America, the world yet again comes together to celebrate sports, unity and diversity. Against the backdrop of turbulent times marked by all sorts of ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Wednesday, 20 July 2016
As 22 July 2011 becomes a more distant memory, we are overwhelmed with massacres and terrorist attacks in other parts of the world, including fierce attacks in Turkey, France, and the United States. At the time of writing, the terrorist attack in Nice, France, is the most recent. Many of ... Read more »
Following the terror attack in Nice, the French President Hollande has responded to mounting criticism by sharpening both his rhetoric and the country’s proposed reactions to terror. But no society can be protected against all risks, and anti-terror efforts do not always have the intended effects. Within a split second, ... Read more »
Posted by Francis Steen on Monday, 18 July 2016
Wednesday June 1st was my last day of Spring Quarter teaching at UCLA. At 9:50am, a BruinAlert trickled into my inbox announcing “Police Activity at Engineering Building 4. Avoid area until further notice” and a few minutes later “Shooting at Engineering 4. Go to secure location and deny entry (lockdown) ... Read more »
Posted by Åshild Kolås on Tuesday, 28 June 2016
Five years ago, the Basque militant group ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom) announced a unilateral and permanent cessation of operations. Since then, the disappearance of political violence has given rise to a new debate on Basque nationhood: more inclusive, more open, more civic, and at the same time stronger in ... Read more »
Posted by Åshild Kolås & Katrine Fangen on Wednesday, 22 June 2016
Foreign fighters returning from Syria have emerged as a looming security threat in many European countries, so also in Norway. As well as preventive measures against radicalization and mobilization by the Islamic State, there have been calls for the withdrawal of citizenship and deportation of returned foreign fighters. This raises a number of questions: Are Norwegians more secure ... Read more »
Posted by Åshild Kolås on Monday, 30 May 2016
On Friday 27 May 2016, PRIO celebrated Ola Tunander’s 30-year academic career with a seminar on ‘Sovereignty, Subs and PSYOPS’, and a reception. The celebration was, of course, focused on Ola and his work, spanning topics from the geopolitics and organic state theory of Rudolf Kjellén to the 27 October ... Read more »
The agreement reflects the EU’s self-interest just as much as Turkey’s, but takes little account of the interests and rights of the refugees. On Friday 18 March, Turkey and the EU concluded a deal designed to put an end to refugees’ use of the sea route to travel from Turkey ... Read more »
Posted by Rocco Bellanova on Thursday, 10 March 2016
The fourth season of the Netflix series House of Cards was released worldwide on the 4th March. Which is to say, the week-end when many International Relations (IR) researchers are still rushing to finalize their conference paper for the annual convention of the International Studies Association (ISA). And, if you ... Read more »
Posted by Hanne Eggen Røislien & Bjarte Malmedal on Friday, 26 February 2016
Apple, CISCO and Microsoft rule the world, and intend to do so. Imagine if CISCO or Apple held a general election. Billboards with potential board members smiling at us with an apple in one hand and a ballot in the other. Anyone who owns a computer or an iPad or ... Read more »
Posted by Rocco Bellanova on Thursday, 14 January 2016
Several governments see in the mass-surveillance of passenger data the key tool of counter-terrorism. These data are generally known as PNR – Passenger Name Records, and their potential for law enforcement has been discussed at least since the 1990s. Now European Union (EU) debates about the creation of a European ... Read more »
Posted by Henrik Syse on Friday, 27 November 2015
In his New Year’s Eve speech last year, King Harald used the expression “We should say kind words”. Some weeks later, many of us were saying “Je suis Charlie”, expressing solidarity with a periodical that published satire that many people certainly found was not kind at all. Can we reconcile ... Read more »
Posted by John Mueller on Wednesday, 25 November 2015
For more than a decade, alarmists have essentially argued that, because the 9/11 attackers proved to be good with box-cutters, they would soon be able to fabricate nuclear weapons. And now, after the dramatic and horrible Paris terror attacks, a similar process of alarmed exaggeration seems to be happening with ... Read more »
The EU’s response to the increased flow of refugees crossing the Mediterranean has been to boost border security by means of Operation Triton, which is the responsibility of Frontex, the EU border agency. There is little one can do, however, to impose effective border controls at sea. Operation Triton does ... Read more »
Boko Haram’s influence and cruelty is still increasing. On the 3rd of January the Islamist group first attacked Baga, situated at the riverside of Lake Chad in the north of the State of Borno. They then came back several days later and demolished the entire city and its surrounding villages. ... Read more »
We cannot make do without surveillance, and even political actors must expect to be kept under observation if they espouse extreme positions. But we must keep surveillance under control. This article tells the story of the information about me that had lain in the files of the police security service ... Read more »
A record number of refugees have arrived by boat in southern Europe this summer. Norway should voice its support for a common European solution to the issue of boat migrants crossing the Mediterranean. Last year this would have been front-page news, but now each new arrival – or each refugee ... Read more »
Posted by Rocco Bellanova & Gloria González Fuster on Tuesday, 13 May 2014
Following last year’s revelations, Edward Snowden seems to be trapped in a role ironically reminiscent of another famous character – George Orwell’s Big Brother. You are being watched. This classical surveillance slogan hides a subtler, and more insidious message: you must believe you are always being watched, and you probably ... Read more »
Posted by Kristian Skrede Gleditsch & Idean Salehyan on Tuesday, 11 February 2014
The Syrian refugee crisis has been heartbreaking to watch. According to the United Nations, over 2.4 million people have fled the country, and many more have been displaced internally. This human tragedy has shocked the world’s conscience and has led for appeals for humanitarian relief. However, does the influx of ... Read more »