March 28, 2014

By Zachary Wolfraim: Editor’s note: On Wednesday, March 26, US President Obama visited Brussels to recommit his position to the NATO alliance. This piece is a response by a former NATO consultant who attended the event. * This speech was initially meant to discuss the transatlantic relationship, events in the Ukraine conspired to turn the … Continue reading “Obama, NATO and the Brussels Response”

March 27, 2014

By Jill S. Russell: I attended last week a very interesting panel discussion on the Arab Spring [1], its meanings and the response it deserves. A theme that was shared across the panel was that the West [2] owed the movement its support because the latter was promoting the values held to be sacred by … Continue reading “‘It’s the brotherhood, stupid.’ Values and the Arab Spring”

March 25, 2014

By Joana Cook, Managing Editor, Strife Giandomenico Picco served for over two decades as a UN official. Among other work, he led the UN efforts which brought about the release of many of the Western hostages from Lebanon and the agreement which ended the Iran-Iraq war. He has been a consultant in the private sector … Continue reading “Interview with Giandomenico Picco and Gabrielle Rifkind, authors of "The Fog of Peace: The Human Face of Conflict Resolution””

March 24, 2014

Editor’s Note: This movie’s highlight for those like myself fascinated by diplomacy, its study, theory and practices, is its exceptional depiction of Track II diplomacy. We see Olivier, French businessman, deeply involved in many of the preliminaries to the Angola-Namibian accords. Whilst the claim of the film, that this was crucial to the end of … Continue reading “The player: "Plot for Peace"”

March 21, 2014

By Nicholas Barker: ‘Who rules when the fighting stops? … When political groups resort to war, it is because they cannot agree on who gets to call the tune in peace.’[i] The Geneva II peace talks have foundered on the questions of a political transition and what will replace Assad and his regime. Determining who … Continue reading “Who will rule in Syria? Fragmented sovereignty and the problems of transition”

March 18, 2014

By Louis Mignot: Josho Brouwers, Henchmen of Ares: Warriors and Warfare in Early Greece. Rotterdam: Karwansaray Publishers, 2013. Pp. 208. €29,95/ £25.07. ISBN: 978-94-90258-07-8. Brouwers’s Henchmen of Ares traces the development of warrior culture from the thirteenth to the fifth century BC. By using Homeric epics and other near-contemporary accounts in tandem with archaeological finds, … Continue reading “Henchmen of Ares”

March 14, 2014

By Patricia Nangiro: Gone are the days when the thought of a woman in public leadership sent doubt signals to men and women alike. More so, in a conflict-affected context like Central African Republic (CAR), her capacity to lead and make critical decisions on behalf of the people would automatically be put to question or … Continue reading “Believing in the Strength of a Woman: Can Central African Republic (CAR) finally be saved?”

March 12, 2014

By Avram Lytton: At the moment of writing, Russian troops have completed a de facto annexation of the Crimean Peninsula. Ukrainian military installations are holding out but are under siege. A referendum is to be held in a few days to determine whether the Crimea should join the Russian Federation or not. The outcome seems … Continue reading “Why Russia does what it can and Ukraine will suffer what it must”

March 7, 2014

By Charlotte Manson: Recent reports pouring out of Iraq paint a rather bleak picture. With unprecedented levels of countrywide violence in 2013, almost 7,818 civilians and 1,050 members of the security forces were killed in violent attacks. Iraqis face daily upheaval as unpredictable disorder infringes on their daily freedom of movement and sense of security. … Continue reading “Beyond the fog of Iraq’s power vacuum”

March 4, 2014

By Professor Gertrude Fester: My schooling was under apartheid South Africa (SA) and yes, the system taught us directly and indirectly that we were inferior. Fortunately, at High school we had teachers from the Trotskyite Unity Movement of South Africa (UMSA). They made us interrogate the system in SA.  So even though we were given … Continue reading “Diary of a Teacher: Reflections of a South African MP on education during apartheid”