When the Liberian political entrepreneur Charles Taylor began an insurgency in 1989, he did so with arms and men from nearby Burkina Faso, whose leader Blaise Compaoré was practically a pyromaniac, lighting conflagrations in Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast as well. When Nigeria, which sees itself as the West African regional hegemon, sent troops to Liberia in 1990, ostensibly as a West African peacekeeping force (the Economic Community of West African States Monitoring Group), the aim wasn’t only to stabilize Liberia and prevent Taylor from taking power, but also to rein in Compaoré’s ambitions and cement Nigeria’s status as the West African powerbroker.

In a recent article in the Journal of Modern African Studies, some colleagues and I found that just 30 percent of African conflicts since 1960 were “internal” and the remainder a mixture of “internationalized internal” and “interstate”: fully 70 percent were actually internationalized in one way or another.

In the DRC, the U.N. Force Intervention Brigade (FIB) is a combat force to supplement the peacekeeping mission, with the aim of suppressing violent insurgents in the east of the country. The most powerful of those armed groups are backed by Rwanda. The FIB’s main troop contributors are South Africa and Tanzania—both of which have political interests in keeping Rwanda’s ambitions in check.

During the last 15 years, as the African Union and United Nations, along with regional organizations such as the Economic Community of West African States, have constructed a new peace and security order for Africa, these patterns of armed interstate rivalry have not gone away

pan-African cooperation to support anti-colonial insurgencies in southern Africa; of mutual destabilization in the Horn of Africa, as Ethiopia sought to cement its position as regional hegemon and undermined governments in Somalia and Sudan and they reciprocated; of Libya’s invasion of Chad and sponsorship of rebels across the Sahel and West Africa to try to establish Muammar al-Qaddafi as the big man of Africa; of rivalries between Nigeria, Ivory Coast, and Burkina Faso fought out in Liberia and Sierra Leone; and of how the path towards Africa’s “great war” in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) was paved by interstate armed rivalries and proxy wars in the African Great Lakes, the Nile Valley, and Angola.

Similar calculations underpin Chad’s dispatch of special forces to Operation Barkhane in Mali, which is a French-led military intervention to fight al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and other insurgent groups. Scores of Chadian soldiers have died, a price that the country’s government is willing to pay because of its own security interests

The backbone of the African Union Mission in Somalia, a combat mission against the militant group al-Shabab, is made up of troops from next-door Ethiopia and Kenya, both of which have used force against Somalia many times over the previous decades. So far, the mission has suffered somewhere between around 750 and 1,150 fatalities—losses that could only be borne by countries with national-security stakes in the outcome.

old patterns of cross-border conflict are now replicated under the banner of peacekeeping

Last year’s peace deal for South Sudan was first and foremost a pact between the country’s two meddlesome neighbors, Sudan and Uganda

Peace agreements for countries such as the Central African Republic, Mali, and Somalia first cater to the interests of the regional powerbrokers and only second deal with internal issues

conflicts are likely to follow the established patterns of combining covert intervention and support to proxies, but overt wars cannot be ruled out

African countries, too, are making manufacturing a top priority. Ethiopia alone has opened nearly a dozen industrial parks in recent years and set up a world-class government agency to attract foreign investment. The World Bank has lauded sub-Saharan Africa as the region with the highest number of reforms each year since 2012.

In the last five years, the American Enterprise Institute’s China Global Investment Tracker has recorded 13 large Chinese investment deals in Africa and only nine in South Asia.

In the past few years, Bangladesh has fallen to 176 out of 190 countries in the global Ease of Doing Business country rankings. DBL Group, a Bangladeshi company, is investing in a new apparel manufacturing facility that will generate 4,000 jobs -- in Ethiopia.

Operators of the 60 000 to 90 000 oil tankers, bulk carriers, ferries and other huge cargo ships plying the seas are racing to find alternatives to fuel oil as pollution rules are tightened. The industry generates roughly three percent of Earth-warming greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, a figure that experts say could reach 17% by 2050 if nothing is done.

picked by European rocket-maker Ariane Group for a sail-equipped cargo ship to transport parts for its new Ariane 6 launcher to French Guiana starting in 2022.The ship will be equipped with four huge rectangular sails rising 30 metres (100 feet) high, supplementing a motor and cutting fuel consumption by about 30 percent.

Beside sails, some firms have designed huge kites that pull cargo ships, though just a few operators have adopted the system.

Another option is to use “Flettner rotors” like those built by Norsepower of Finland, employing a technology developed by German engineers in the 1920s.The tall columns are installed on a ship and set spinning, creating lift that propels a ship forward when they catch a perpendicular wind.

wind advocates say tighter pollution rules — potentially including more widespread taxes on carbon emissions — will force shipping firms to clean up their act

Several factors contribute to the ongoing violence in this region. Over recent years, the area has seen an increase in militias and community-based armed groups whose goal is to protect the community. At the same time there has been a proliferation of small arms and light weapons.

since the 1980s, there has been conflict between the Fulani and Daoussahaq on the border between Mali and Niger, caused partly by competition for access to natural resources and criminal activities such as cattle rustling.

Climate change and demographic pressure has disrupted the livelihoods of many and caused considerable tension between farmers, pastoralists and fishermen

Trust and confidence in traditional mechanisms of conflict management have also eroded

The Islamic State in the Greater Sahara exploits the Fulani's frustrations and desire for revenge by supporting them against the Daoussahaq. The Daoussahaq rely on the support of the Movement for the Salvation of Azawad - a militia mainly composed of Daoussahaq - which appears to benefit from France, Mali and Niger's help in the fight against terrorism.

Violent extremist groups also play the role of arbitrators between rival groups in Tenenkou in central Mali, Gabero in the Gao region, and in Oudalan, Burkina Faso.

n central Mali, issues such as the one linked to the competition for Koubi chieftaincy which was pending in court since 1999 were resolved by Katiba Macina.

Terrorist groups can be antagonists, mediators or suppressors of violence through the influence and control they exert in the areas where they operate. How groups succeed in restructuring social and economic life, and how they enforce solutions through direct threats, violence, fear or religious principles (e.g. through the idea that the land belongs to God alone) should be analysed.

To attribute the increase in violence solely to the exploitation of community conflicts by terrorists means potentially losing sight of the structural dynamics that underpin such violence. Incorrect labelling and understanding of local conflicts could exacerbate the situation. To restore peace and social cohesion in the long term, the root causes of local conflicts must be addressed.

too many people relying on calories from fat and sugar which are poor in vitamins and minerals

The global population will expand from 7.7 billion in 2019 to 8.5 billion in 2030, mostly in already hungry Africa and Asia, piling pressure on limited available resources. Urban populations will grow by 50 percent by 2030, while rural ones by more than 20 percent in some countries.

Migration fuelled by conflicts and natural disasters, in turn, worsened by global warming, will further exacerbate the situation

As more and more people are lifted out of poverty, there has been a higher demand for animal food products, the report noted. This, in turn, has contributed to deforestation to make way for farms growing animals and their feed. In a vicious cycle, shrinking forests mean fewer trees to absorb planet-warming carbon dioxide, accelerating climate change.

The Taliban are opposed to the Islamic State and actively fight against them, but that has not changed their relationship with al-Qaeda. So, though unlikely to conduct terrorist attacks themselves, the Taliban are also unlikely to clamp down on al-Qaeda. The experience of U.S. retaliation for the 9/11 attacks has done little to chasten them, partly since they believe they have defeated the United States. In their minds, they taught us a lesson, not the other way around. Indeed, the Taliban promise in the Doha talks to prevent attacks on other countries from their soil parrots the assurance Mullah Omar gave before 2001 that Osama bin Laden would do no harm to the outside world.

The fact that a president cannot discount an attack does not mean that the United States must stay in Afghanistan. How do we know preventing attacks is worth billions of dollars per year in operational expenses and some number of fallen Americans? Key variables that a president would want to weigh for that decision are unknown and likely to remain unknown: How soon might an attack occur? Will it be within the next election cycle? How big will an attack be? Will it be another 9/11 or a smaller scale Islamic State-style event? How often will attacks occur? Can very limited interventions (like an airstrike on an al-Qaeda base) prevent them? The answers are highly subjective because they demand looking years into the future under different circumstances than today. What to do consequently depends more on point of view and risk tolerance than evidence.

Although critics argue that Afghanistan is only one of several terrorist safe havens facing the United States and deserves no special treatment, a very convincing case can be made that, as the home of the jihad, Afghanistan would be a source of inspiration for new recruits and a rallying point for foreign fighters

even small-scale terrorist attacks in the United States could breed paranoia and racism at home. Billions of dollars in operational expenses abroad may conceivably be worth preserving liberties.

The United States faces many threats, not all in the security realm. Why should such a high level of funding be devoted to dealing with one particular threat of unknown timing, scale and frequency? The funds could be better spent elsewhere. Additionally, the United States is a resilient nation. Americans suffer human loss every day and endure, and periodic terrorist attacks would be no different. It is even possible that U.S. homeland defenses, which have matured since 2001, could deflect an attack. From this point of view, spending billions in Afghanistan is a luxury, a high-end insurance policy against an exaggerated risk

The U.S. president and the American people need to decide if a terrorist threat of unknown timing, magnitude and frequency is truly so worrisome that it warrants spending billions and losing American lives.

The tricky thing is that as long as casualties on U.S. soil risk domestic backlash, presidents will find it hard to escape Afghanistan. If we want out, we need to temper our sensitivity to tragic albeit perhaps bearable terrorist attacks. Only our own fears dictate that we must stay in Afghanistan.

Next year will mark the 25th anniversary of the butchery of Srebrenica. To say that what happened in Srebrenica in July 1995 was the first such crime on European soil after World War II is to completely disregard the horror of the concentration camps discovered in 1992 or the rape camps for which there is no precedent in European history. Genocide in Bosnia and Herzegovina was a long process of systematic extermination.

what happened in the 1990s in Bosnia serves as an inspiration to far right terrorists across the world as well as their "anti-imperialist" allies. Today, we can no longer claim that another genocide is impossible.

IR scholars ought to do more to study the experiences of indigenous peoples because they can help to better understand international political phenomena

In the U.S., for example, the War Department was home to the Bureau of Indian Affairs until 1849, treaty-making with Native nations persisted until 1871, the “Indian Wars” lasted until at least 1890, and Native peoples as a class did not receive citizenship rights until 1924. Relations such as these surely offer much to explore for IR scholars.

Indigenous experiences are just as varied as those of other groups and can complement or contrast with existing theories related to the concepts and debates that are central to IR.

bringing indigenous experiences into IR means bringing indigenous people into one’s research through, for example, interviews with current tribe members or through more specifically indigenous methods.

From state formation to civil-military relations and from environmental politics to genocide studies, there is much work from outside of IR that could fruitfully inform our teaching just as much as our scholarship.

The refugee cap was whittled down to 45,000 for 2018 and 30,000 for 2019, over the objections of senior officials in the Department of Defense, who view the program as crucial to rewarding and building allies in U.S. military campaigns oversees.

there are nearly 71 million displaced people around the world, many of them refugees who have been waiting years in limbo for a chance at resettlement

refugee arrivals, which had been temporarily suspended pending the release of the new resettlement numbers, should resume on October 22. While a short suspension is typical, the weeks-long halt has left many refugees who had already booked their flights stranded.

The President’s companion executive order also potentially limits the places where those that are accepted can be resettled. In the order, he said refugees should only be placed where state and local governments agree to receive them.

The administration said refugee resettlement was a drain on government resources but immigration experts said new arrivals, who come with a legal status, often quickly fill jobs and contribute to local tax revenues.

Mark Hetfield, chief executive of Jewish non-profit refugee assistance organization HIAS said the executive order was an attempt by Trump to “allow governors and mayors to imitate his own refugee ban, state by state and town by town.”

“The only game now is out-Faraging Farage,”

Johnson’s entire gambit has been to provoke his opponents in Parliament into forcing him to delay a no-deal Brexit—allowing him to claim that his attempt to implement the 2016 Brexit referendum has been thwarted by an undemocratic, pro-EU Parliament. More, he wants to blame his opponents for forcing him to call the general election that he actually wants. And in that sense, Johnson has succeeded on both counts.

Even the usually pro-Conservative Times newspaper expressed dismay at Johnson’s ruthless bluffing. “Nothing is as it seems. Boris Johnson wanted and intended to lose his historic vote,” wrote Jenni Russell. “Johnson and his chief strategist, Dominic Cummings, deliberately planned and engineered last night’s defeat, goading the Commons into opposing him; he was lying to his party, parliament and the country when he claimed that he was being pushed into calling an election.”

The Brexit endgame, then, has become a tug of war over what election date will be maximally damaging for the Conservatives and least damaging for Labour

Labour would love to delay the public vote until after Johnson is humiliatingly forced to ask for a Brexit deal—which would be a boost for the Brexit Party and scupper Conservative chances of power.

with a mandatory delay of Brexit fast making its way into law, the only way for Britain to leave the EU now will be for Johnson to persuade a majority of voters to back his radical, no-deal version of Brexit in a general election. And the polls have been showing that public opinion is going in the opposite direction.

Exacerbating this danger is the deliberate and accelerating breakdown of the arms control architecture that for decades provided restraint, transparency, and predictability for each side’s conventional and nuclear forces. In their absence, Russia and the West are assuming and planning for worst-case scenarios. The first crack appeared in 2002, when the United States withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, signed three decades earlier to prevent Washington and Moscow from deploying nationwide defenses against long-range ballistic missiles. Five years later, Russia effectively suspended another landmark agreement, the 1990 Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, and NATO followed suit. The 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty—which banned an entire class of destabilizing nuclear-capable missiles on European territory—has been dealt a likely fatal blow with this year’s decisions by Washington to withdraw from the treaty and by Moscow to suspend implementation of it.

The fate of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is also in doubt, with four Republican U.S. Senators writing to President Donald Trump this past spring asking if he would consider “unsigning” the treaty. The future of the 2010 New START treaty is also unclear

At the same time as checks on existing weapons are falling away, new technologies threaten to further destabilize the military balance. Sophisticated cyberattacks could compromise early warning systems or nuclear command-and-control structures, increasing the risk of false alarms. Prompt-strike forces, including delivery systems that pair conventional or nuclear warheads with a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle or cruise missile, can travel at very high speeds, fly at low altitudes, and maneuver to elude defenses. If deployed, they would decrease a defender’s warning and decision time when under attack, increasing the fear of military planners on both sides that a potential first strike could deliver a decisive advantage to the attacker. Then there is the militarization of outer space, a domain that remains virtually unregulated by agreements or understandings: China, Russia, and, most recently, India have built up their antisatellite capabilities, and Washington is mulling a dedicated space force. 

the absence of dialogue between Russia and the West—in particular, between civilian and military professionals in the defense and foreign ministries. The current disconnect is unprecedented even when compared with the height of the Cold War

The United States and its NATO allies are now stuck in a retaliatory spiral of confrontation with Russia.

transatlantic discord has damaged the perception of NATO as a strong alliance

By virtue of its vast geography, permanent membership in the UN Security Council, rebuilt military, and immense nuclear forces, Russia can disrupt geopolitical currents in areas vital to the interests of the United States, including Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Arctic. Further clashes and crises are not just possible but probable

The fact that Trump and Putin reportedly agreed to a new dialogue on strategic stability and nuclear dangers at a meeting in Helsinki in July 2018 was a step in the right direction. But their inability to follow through—including at the level of civilian and military professionals, who need the green light from their leaders—underlines how dysfunctional relations have become

the United States and Russia could take more specific steps to reduce the likelihood of a new nuclear arms race—of vital importance for international security, particularly in light of the probable demise of the INF treaty. All nations have an interest in seeing the New START treaty fully implemented and extended through 2026, the maximum five-year extension permitted by the treaty.

Today, decision-makers in Washington and Moscow have only a precious few minutes to decide whether a warning of a possible nuclear attack is real and thus whether to retaliate with a nuclear attack of their own. New technologies, especially hypersonic weapons and cyberattacks, threaten to make that decision time even shorter. The fact that Russian troops are deployed, and routinely conduct military exercises, in Russia’s western regions close to NATO’s boundaries, and NATO troops are deployed, and have recently conducted military exercises, close to Russia’s borders further raises fears of a short-warning attack. Such shrinking decision time and heightened anxieties make the risk of a mistake all too real. Leaders in both Washington and Moscow should clearly direct their military leaders to work together on ways to minimize such fears and increase their decision time

leaders in Moscow, London, and Paris could once again become consumed with fears of a short-warning nuclear attack that could decapitate a nation’s leaders and its command and control, which would greatly increase the risk of false warnings.

Exchanging more information about each side’s operations and capabilities could help ensure that prompt-strike systems, such as modern hypersonic missiles, do not further erode strategic stability. This is primarily a U.S.-Russian issue, but with China’s reported development of hypersonic missile capabilities, addressing it will ultimately require broader engagement. It would also help to offer more transparency on nonnuclear prompt-strike systems and commit to segregating these conventional capabilities from nuclear-weapons-related activities or deployments.

Cyberattacks on nuclear facilities, nuclear command-and-control structures, or early warning systems could cause miscalculations or blunders, such as a false warning of a missile attack or a failure to prevent the theft of nuclear materials. As states continue to develop and refine their ability to attack satellites, the United States and Russia could be blinded in the early stages of a conflict.

the understanding, first articulated in 1985 by U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Affirming this principle was an important building block to ending the Cold War.

some have suggested abandoning U.S.-Russian talks and waiting for new leadership in both countries. That would be a mistake. Dialogue between the two presidents remains essential: only that can create the political space for civilian and military officials in both nations to engage with one another in discussions that could prevent catastrophe

Washington and Moscow are acting as if time is on their side. It is not.

the Trump administration has stopped at nothing to push the argument that job creation is justification enough for supporting weapons manufacturers to the hilt. Even before Donald Trump was sworn in as president, he was already insisting that military spending was a great jobs creator. He’s only doubled down on this assertion during his presidency. Recently, overriding congressional objections, he even declared a national “emergency” to force through part of an arms sale to Saudi Arabia that he had once claimed would create more than a million jobs. While this claim has been thoroughly debunked, the most essential part of his argument — that more money flowing to defense contractors will create significant numbers of new jobs — is considered truth personified by many in the defense industry

In 2012, concerned that those caps on defense spending would cut into their bottom lines, the five top contractors went on the political offensive, making future jobs their weapon of choice. After the Budget Control Act passed, the Aerospace Industries Association — the leading trade group of the weapons-makers — warned that more than one million jobs would be at risk if Pentagon spending were cut significantly. To emphasize the point, Lockheed sent layoff notices to 123,000 employees just before the BCA was implemented and only days before the 2012 election. Those layoffs never actually happened, but the fear of lost jobs would prove real indeed and would last.

Pentagon spending was actually higher in 2018 than in 2012

From 2012 to 2018, overall employment at Lockheed actually fell from 120,000 to 105,000, according to the firm’s filings with the SEC and the company itself reported a slightly larger reduction of 16,350 jobs in the U.S. In other words, in the last six years Lockheed dramatically reduced its U.S. workforce, even as it hired more employees abroad and received more taxpayer dollars

where is all that additional taxpayer money actually going, if not job creation? At least part of the answer is contractor profits and soaring CEO salaries. In those six years, Lockheed’s stock price rose from $82 at the beginning of 2012 to $305 at the end of 2018, a nearly four-fold increase. In 2018, the company also reported a 9% ($590 million) rise in its profits, the best in the industry. And in those same years, the salary of its CEO increased by $1.4 million

From 2012 to 2018, the unemployment rate in the U.S. plummeted from roughly 8% to 4%, with more than 13 million new jobs added to the economy. Yet, in those same years, three of the five top defense contractors slashed jobs. In 2018, the Pentagon committed approximately $118 billion in federal money to those firms, including Lockheed — nearly half of all the money it spent on contractors. This was almost $12 billion more than they had received in 2012. Yet, cumulatively, those companies lost jobs and now employ a total of 6,900 fewer employees than they did in 2012, according to their SEC filings.

In addition to the reductions at Lockheed, Boeing slashed 21,400 jobs and Raytheon cut 800 employees from its payroll. Only General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman added jobs — 13,400 and 16,900 employees, respectively — making that total figure look modestly better. However, even those “gains” can’t qualify as job creation in the normal sense, since they resulted almost entirely from the fact that each of those companies bought another Pentagon contractor and added its employees to its own payroll

“the aerospace and defense (A&D) sector scored record revenues and profits in 2018” with an “operating profit of $81 billion, surpassing the previous record set in 2017.” According to the report, Pentagon contractors were at the forefront of these profit gains. For example, Lockheed’s profit improvement was $590 million, followed closely by General Dynamics at $562 million. As employment shrank, CEO salaries at some of these firms only grew. In addition to compensation for Lockheed’s CEO jumping from $4.2 million in 2012 to $5.6 million in 2018, compensation for the CEO of General Dynamics increased from $6.9 million in 2012 to a whopping $20.7 million in 2018.

weapons-making outfits spend more than $100 million on lobbying yearly, donate tens of millions of dollars to the campaigns of members of Congress every election season, and give millions to think tanks annually

research has repeatedly shown that, even with this supposed “multiplier effect,” defense spending produces fewer jobs than just about anything else the government puts our money into. In fact, it’s about 50% less effective at creating jobs than if taxpayers were simply allowed to keep their money and use it as they wished

As Brown University’s Costs of War project has reported, “$1 billion in military spending creates approximately 11,200 jobs, compared with 26,700 in education, 16,800 in clean energy, and 17,200 in health care.”

not only are the green energy and education areas vital to the future of the country, they are also genuine job-creating machines. Yet, the government gives more taxpayer dollars to the defense industry than all these other government functions combined.

Reports from the industry’s own trade association show that it has been shedding jobs. According to an Aerospace Industries Association analysis, it supported approximately 300,000 fewer jobs in 2018 than it had reported supporting just three years earlier

add to their army of lobbyists, their treasure trove of campaign contributions, and those think tanks on the take, the famed revolving door that sends retired government officials into the world of the weapons makers and those working for them to Washington

since 2008, as the Project On Government Oversight’s Mandy Smithberger found, “at least 380 high-ranking Department of Defense officials and military officers shifted into the private sector to become lobbyists, board members, executives, or consultants for defense contractors.”