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Non-State Conflict

Meeting Security Challenges in a Disordered World

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Tuesday, June 6, 2017
Abstract in English: 
Today the world faces a volatile convergence of instability, state weakness, and conflict. Lethal civil conflicts rage in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Libya, and South Sudan, stoking regional rivalries, offering safe havens to violent extremist groups, and triggering immense and unprecedented humanitarian crises. Even in regions and states where overt conflict is absent, such as West Africa or Central America, institutional and economic weakness creates unstable conditions that may enflame low level shocks or simmering criminal activity. At times resolution of these conditions may prove elusive and intervention fruitless; however, sometimes security challenges emerging in these environments require immediate and direct response.

The United States must be prepared to operate in a range of complex environments to meet a range of security challenges and threats, such as humanitarian emergencies, terrorism and violent extremism, great power aggression, health security crises, and international criminal violence. This study focuses on these five functional security imperatives and illustrates each imperative through regionally or subnationally defined operating environments. In each case, the selected security imperative must be addressed in the near term to help meet other U.S. objectives. The goal of the case studies is to characterize the operating environment, identify key tasks and responsibilities to address the security imperative, and develop a set of tools and policy recommendations for operating in those specific environments.
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Number of pages: 
130
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Future (im)perfect? Mapping conflict, violence and extremism in Africa

Date of Editorial Board meeting: 
Publication date: 
Thursday, October 1, 2015
Abstract in English: 
The central challenge for sub-Saharan Africa is to build accountable, capable governments that can deliver security and inclusive growth. Research into the drivers, trends and characteristics of violence in Africa may help achieve these goals. This paper firstly presents global and African trends in armed conflict since 1960, while looking at armed conflict within the broader context of political violence using recent event data. The fatality burden between key affected countries is also discussed. The paper then turns to an examination of the high levels of non-state conflict in the Middle East and Africa compared to the rest of the world and the systemic imbalances that drive instability. Finally, challenges in measuring the relative contribution of violent Islamist extremism to political violence are presented.
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Number of pages: 
24
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