The International Committee of the Red Cross launched an initiative this spring to encourage players of first-person shooter video games to follow the rules of war, which serves their wider agenda of strengthening civil society’s commitment to the laws of armed conflict. The approach, though, has not been without controversy.
For the past year, leaders of the Global South have resisted Western pressure to take a tougher position against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by seeking to broaden the discussion to include a global order they see as being built on—and perpetuating—political and economic inequities. It seems that effort may be bearing fruit.
New tensions in South Africa’s relationship with the U.S. emerged last week when Washington’s ambassador to Pretoria accused the country of providing arms to Russia despite Pretoria’s stated nonalignment in the war in Ukraine. The dispute could have implications for Washington’s “reset” of its relations with African countries.
Yesterday marked the 75th anniversary of the establishment of the state of Israel and the Palestinian Nakba, or “catastrophe.” It comes at a time when the prospects for peace are particularly dim, with internal political challenges on both sides and recurrent violence punctuated by periodic outbreaks of heavier fighting.
Since 2017, Cameroon has been engulfed in a bloody civil war, forcing more than 1 million people to flee their homes. Diplomatic efforts to resolve the conflict have repeatedly failed. Now divisions among the armed separatist movement fighting the government risk escalating the conflict, raising further obstacles to reaching peace.
Europe’s eyes are focused on Liverpool in the U.K. this week, as the city hosts the 67th annual Eurovision Song Contest, the most-watched annual live television event in the world. In the past, Eurovision has always tried to keep politics out of the contest. But the war in Ukraine has changed all that.
The Russia-Ukraine war has had major global implications. Some disruptions appear relatively straightforward to solve, but the realm of information security does not lend itself to quick fixes. Central and Eastern Europe provides several hard-learned lessons in how Russian disinformation is used and how it might be countered.
The commanders of armed groups in African countries are often portrayed as erratic tyrants with little understanding of the world—in both Hollywood films and in news coverage. Yet as clashes in Sudan escalate into civil war, it is becoming increasingly clear that the geopolitical sophistication of such warlords has been underestimated.
The Arab League announced the immediate reinstatement of Syria as a member on Sunday, opening the door to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s participation in the league’s upcoming summit on May 19. The diplomatic breakthrough affirms Assad’s legitimacy and confirms the acceptance across the region that he has won Syria’s civil war.
The U.S. military commitment to the Middle East has long been a core principle of U.S. foreign policy, stemming from the conviction that it keeps the region from falling into chaos and that a retreat would embolden enemies there and around the world. But the world is changing, and so should U.S. policy toward the Middle East.
Few conflicts have been predicted by so many observers, so far in advance, as the fighting that erupted on April 15 in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. Almost every external and domestic powerbroker that has exerted influence over Sudan’s development over the past four decades shares in the blame for this devastating cycle of violence.