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412. Development as Dignity
- Author:
- Dapo Oyewole, Andrew Quinn, and Holly Kear
- Publication Date:
- 10-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Aspen Institute
- Abstract:
- What is development? What does it look like? Development means different things to different people and in an increasingly polarized world, voices from the Global South are urgently needed to provide a balance of perspectives, lest we hear mostly one side of a multifaceted story. The Aspen New Voices Fellows writing in this anthology all agree that fundamentally, development is about dignity. Dignity of people. Dignity of planet. Dignity of life. The stories in this collection reflect this quest for dignity and share engaging insights and moving stories from diverse countries in Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. The authors challenge us, inspire us and force us to open our eyes to the many ways we can truly see and foster ‘development as dignity.’
- Topic:
- International Affairs and International Development
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
413. Global Magnitsky Sanctions: Raising the Human Rights and Anti-Corruption Bar
- Author:
- Samantha Sultoon
- Publication Date:
- 11-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Atlantic Council
- Abstract:
- Economic sanctions have become a policy tool-of-choice for the US government. Yet sanctions and their potential pitfalls are often misunderstood. The Economic Sanctions Initiative (ESI) seeks to build a better understanding of the role sanctions can and cannot play in advancing policy objectives and of the impact of sanctions on the private sector, which bears many of the implementation costs.
- Topic:
- International Political Economy and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
414. Water Crises, Security and Climate Change
- Author:
- Geoffrey Kemp and Luke Hagberg
- Publication Date:
- 12-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for the National Interest
- Abstract:
- The historically severe drought in Syria from 2006-2011 led to the migration of rural communities to already overburdened urban centers, which concurrent with the state’s mismanagement of freshwater resources, helped foment the social unrest and the uprisings against President Bashar al-Assad. The ongoing conflict has had repercussions around the globe with refugees fleeing to, and having an unmistakable political impact upon, neighboring states and Europe. The war in Yemen was rooted in the Arab Spring, but while the attempts to overthrow President Ali Abdullah Saleh were eventually successful, the political transition was not. The overextraction of Yemen’s groundwater led to an unprecedented water crisis that has been exacerbated by the civil war. Terrorist cells, militant insurgencies, and foreign interventions have undermined efforts to reform the Yemeni government and address this humanitarian catastrophe.
- Topic:
- International Security, International Affairs, and Water
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
415. Extended Deterrence in a Changing Asia: A U.S.–Japan–South Korea Dialogue
- Author:
- Paul Saunders
- Publication Date:
- 12-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- Center for the National Interest
- Abstract:
- 2012 was a year of political transitions in East Asia, with important elections in Japan and South Korea, a major Communist Party Congress in China to select a new leadership team, and a consolidation process underway in North Korea following the death of Kim Jong-il in late 2011. It was also of course a year of political campaigns in the United States that concluded with President Barack Obama’s re-election. And finally, perhaps due to these many simultaneous transitions, 2012 was a year of hope and anxiety; uncertainty about the future drove questions and speculation, intensifying the contest between possibility and destiny that underlies so many discussions of whether and how our choices can shape the world in which we live.
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
416. Allied and Lethal: Islamic State Khorasan’s Network and Organizational Capacity in Afghanistan and Pakistan
- Author:
- Amira Jadoon
- Publication Date:
- 12-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- In the years following its official formation in January 2015, the Islamic State Khorasan (ISK) has conducted some of the most devastating attacks in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region, persisting in the face of U.S. airstrikes, Pakistani military operations, and clashes with the Afghan Taliban. But what exactly is ISK? What are the broader contours of ISK’s lethality, targets, and tactics in Afghanistan and Pakistan? More broadly, what explains ISK’s demonstrated ability to survive and thrive in the AfPak region, and what do its operational trends and alliances collectively tell us about its future trajectory?
- Topic:
- International Relations and International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
417. Pulling Back the Curtain: An Inside Look at the Islamic State’s Media Organization
- Author:
- Daniel Milton
- Publication Date:
- 08-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- Over the past five years, there has been a significant amount of discussion on the propaganda created and disseminated by the Islamic State. This discourse, which mainly relies on what the group creates for external publication, has been unable to answer questions regarding the structure, policies, and management of the group’s media arm. This Combating Terrorism Center report draws on 13 internal documents that discuss the Islamic State’s media organization in great detail. These documents, obtained by the Department of Defense from Afghanistan, provide an insightful look at how the Islamic State managed its media network. More specifically, this report utilizes these documents to (1) demonstrate that Amaq News Agency is an official node of the Islamic State’s media organization, (2) show the level of detail and direction given to the creation of a wide range of products, (3) illustrate the way the Islamic State’s Diwan of Central Media used policies and programs to centralize control over the propaganda production process, and (4) outline the importance the media organization placed on information security.
- Topic:
- International Affairs and Military Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
418. Down, but Not Out: An Updated Examination of the Islamic State’s Visual Propaganda
- Author:
- Daniel Milton
- Publication Date:
- 07-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- Since the summer of 2014, the Islamic State has experienced successes and setbacks on the battlefield. That pattern has also been evident in its production of propaganda. In October 2016, the Combating Terrorism Center published a major report that examined the Islamic State’s production of official visual propaganda, such as still-images photo reports as well as the more familiar videos showing both the group’s brutality as well as its efforts to govern. This update to that major report, which relies on a dataset of over 13,000 propaganda releases, seeks to highlight the setbacks the group has faced as its production of propaganda has continued to rise and fall. As shown through the data in this report, in July 2018, the group’s production of official visual propaganda fell to its lowest level since January 2015. Focusing only on the decline of the group’s production of propaganda, however, obscures other developments that portend the possibility of the group’s resurgence in Iraq and Syria, as well as the expansion of its efforts around the world. In examining these trends, this report finds a group that is struggling to produce propaganda as it used to do only a short time ago, but one that retains the capacity to resurge in an effort to recapture the headlines.
- Topic:
- International Affairs and Military Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
419. The Islamic State and Drones: Supply, Scale, and Future Threats
- Author:
- Don Rassler
- Publication Date:
- 07-2018
- Content Type:
- Commentary and Analysis
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- The Islamic State is a group known for doing things a bit differently, for its capacity for innovation, and for its many ‘firsts.’ Two of those ‘firsts’ happened within months of each other. The first occurred in October 2016 when the group used a bomb-laden drone to kill, after the explosive hidden within the drone killed two Kurdish peshmerga soldiers who were investigating the device. Another ‘first’ happened in January 2017 when the Islamic State released a propaganda video that showed nearly a dozen examples of the group releasing munitions on its enemies from the air with a fair degree of accuracy via quadcopter drones it had modified. And it wasn’t long before the group’s bomb-drop capable drones would go on to kill, too.
- Topic:
- International Affairs and Military Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus
420. Boko Haram Beyond the Headlines: Analyses of Africa’s Enduring Insurgency
- Author:
- Jacob Zenn and et al
- Publication Date:
- 07-2018
- Content Type:
- Special Report
- Institution:
- The Combating Terrorism Center at West Point
- Abstract:
- In a conflict that has no easy answers and no solutions in sight, Boko Haram is already and will remain one of Africa’s enduring insurgencies. In order to better understand Boko Haram now and in the future, this report, edited by Jacob Zenn, challenges some key misconceptions about the insurgency and provides new analyses and insights based on many exclusive primary source materials and datasets. To provide these unique insights, several authors with on-the-ground experience contribute to six areas that are increasingly important but under-researched about Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa
- Topic:
- International Affairs
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus