Blog post archive
Displaying 101 blog posts in series Peacebuilding
October 2024
No Shortcut to Hard Road to Peace in Ukraine
As Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches its 33rd month, no drastic changes are expected on the battlefield. Ukraine has intensified its behind-the-scenes multilateral political maneuvering, as evidenced by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s promotion of his own victory plan, despite little change on the battlefield. Zelenskyy’s proposal emphasizes that only ...
The Zelensky 'Victory Plan' That Evaporated
Is the Ukrainian president weakened? Sir Michael Howard, one of the most renowned war historians of all time, often pointed out that wars were lost or won as a result of events that took place far from the front lines. The past weeks have powerfully reminded us of the truth ...
July 2024
Russian Intrigues in Middle East Surge
On July 24, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad was summoned to Moscow for a secret meeting in the Kremlin with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the same day that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of the US Congress. The visit was announced only the following day when al-Assad ...
Moscow Seeks to Drive ‘Peace’ Wedge into Trans-Atlantic Unity
Russian President Vladimir Putin has not demonstrated any discernible change over the last few weeks in his maximalist stance on how to end his war in Ukraine. Nevertheless, many other governments and organizations continue to propose ideas and initiatives for how to end this devastating conflict, though not all of ...
March 2024
Peacemaking for Ukraine: The Swiss Track, the Chinese Pretence, and the Antalya Diplomacy Forum
Battles in the Donbas trenches and across the Black Sea waters keep raging as the belligerents persist with their strategies of attrition. Neither President Volodymyr Zelensky’s defiant presentation at the Munich Security Conference, nor President Vladimir Putin’s address to the Federal Assembly contained any indication of readiness to compromise. Notwithstanding this determination to keep ...
What Has Peacekeeping Ever Done for Us?
Are we overlooking positive synergetic effects of peacekeeping operations for peace and development? While UN peacekeeping operations have increasingly come into disrepute, studies underline that operations can prevent conflict re-escalation, limit violence against civilians, and promote settlement – even if not all missions are fully successful. In the new The ...
December 2023
Illusions and Peace Plans in the Middle East
Both the two-state and one-state solutions exist only in the imagination. Time has run away from them, as things stand today. The violent conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has been going on for 75 years, with Israel emerging stronger from all of the more serious outbreaks of warfare. How ...
Gaza: A Religious Conflict?
Hamas named its terror attacks on 7 October ‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’. Hamas believes that Jewish extremists, with the direct and indirect support of the Israeli authorities, pose a threat to, and are plotting to take over, the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in Jerusalem. The terror attacks led to an outbreak of ...
October 2023
Two Wars Set a Triple Test for Western Unity
International attention has shifted its focus from Ukraine to the conflict in Gaza and its potential impact on global governance. The Western front faces challenges in navigating peace efforts in both regions. The war in Ukraine has all but disappeared from the international news stream since the brutal attack by Hamas terrorists ...
The Next Surge of Conflict in the South Caucasus Is Still Preventable
The tragic exodus of the Armenian population from the Nagorno Karabakh region has closed a chapter in the long saga of conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The disappearance of this self-proclaimed republic provides the opportunity to bring these bitter hostilities to an end; it takes, nevertheless, plenty of wishful political ...
August 2023
The Two-State Solution Vacuum
In Israel/Palestine, it is an established truism that there is no alternative to the two-state solution. When the Oslo Accord was signed in September 1993, this solution was its central premise. Developments over the past 30 years, however, have rendered it impossible. This is something we must talk about. Jerusalem, ...
Hard Georgian Lessons for Ending the War in Ukraine
Russia’s all-out aggression against Ukraine, which will pass the 18-month mark next week, is indirectly but strongly connected to the Russo-Georgian war of 15 years ago. In the first week of August 2008, Georgian villages in South Ossetia, a separatist enclave controlled by Russia since 1992, came under heavy artillery ...
Ukraine’s ‘Counteroffensive’ in the Global South
The low-profile and high-impact meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on August 5 and 6 was never intended to produce a road map for ending the war in Ukraine; neither was it a summit, since the invitations sent to some 40 countries specified the level of representation as national security advisers. ...
March 2023
The Future of Peace Dialogues in Colombia: Challenges and Opportunities
Despite the landmark 2016 agreement between FARC and the Colombian government, peace is far from the reality in Colombia. According to the INDEPAZ report, armed actors are present in at least 500 out of the 1123 municipalities of the country. Several heavily armed actors such as the National Liberation Army ...
China’s Plan for Ukraine Is No Plan at All
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 ...
April 2022
Українські жінки беруть участь в опорі і мають брати участь у мирних перемовинах: результати нового опитування
Жінки є «невід’ємною частиною країни та її опору» – з таким посланням звернулася до світу президент організації «Ла Страда-Україна» Kaтeринa Чeрeпaхa, виступаючи перед Радою Безпеки ООН у квітні. У своєму виступі вона також підкреслила високу вразливість жінок і дівчат щодо загроз викрадення, катувань та вбивств. Тепер ми знаємо, що жінки ...
Ukrainian Women Engage in Resistance and Should Be in the Peace Talks: New Survey Evidence
Women are an “integral part of her country and its resistance.” This was the message that Kateryna Cherepakha, President of the organization La Strada-Ukraine, communicated to the world when speaking before the UN Security Council in April. Her speech also highlighted increased vulnerability of women and girls to the threat ...
Year
Series
Topics
Tags
.. and 1183 more tags.
