The recent floods in northern India are a stark reminder of the extent of destruction wrought by natural disasters. Year after year we hear of the same hazards seemingly striking in the same places, be it floods in northern India or Pakistan, droughts in the Horn of Africa or typhoons in the Philippines. Yet, far from the media glare, localized and low-intensity recurrent disasters wear down the resilience of communities around the world through displacement and the loss of livelihoods. Unlike in the aftermath of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the 2005 Pakistan earthquake or the 2010 Haiti earthquake, no […]

The community of national security experts is consumed with debate on the appropriate size and configuration of the American military. Seldom does a week pass without some new report, commission or conference offering solemn advice on this complex issue. Policy journals and op-ed pages are awash with articles on it. Such vigorous discussion is a good thing, but it may be focused on the wrong issue—ultimately the size of the armed forces matters less than what they are asked to do. There are analysts, though, who are grappling with the type of conflicts the U.S. military may be ordered to […]

Do articles about the United Nations really have to be relentlessly depressing? Over the past six months, this column has dwelt on such bleak topics as the Security Council’s failure to halt the Syrian crisis and the mounting dangers of peacekeeping in trouble-spots like Mali and Lebanon. Yet despite all the bad news, it is arguable that the U.N. has had rather a good year on many other fronts, and focusing solely on its problems is unfair. So this column sets out to celebrate some of the organization’s successes in 2013 so far, and asks whether they might ultimately outweigh […]

Meeting in Bremerhaven, Germany, last week, the group of nations charged with regulating Antarctic fishing failed to reach agreement on the establishment of marine protected areas due to Russian objections to the legality of the group’s mandate. In an email interview, Julia Jabour, leader of the Ocean and Antarctic Governance Research Program at the Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies at the University of Tasmania, explained the process leading up to the talks and what the failure of talks means for Antarctic marine protection. WPR: What was the process that led to the talks last week in Bremerhaven? Julia Jabour: […]

Given the recent prominence in international affairs of seemingly intractable disputes over maritime rights—from the South China Sea to the Arctic to the Eastern Mediterranean—it appears to be an opportune time for a 21st-century version of Otto von Bismarck, the “honest broker,” to convene the next great set of international conferences to settle some of today’s stand-offs. Moreover, since some of the most dangerous flashpoints that could bring major powers to the brink of war, particularly in the Western Pacific, are quite literally little more than rocks, someone with a Bismarckian sense of perspective is sorely needed. After all, as […]