Comment archive

Tuesday, 3 Jan 2023
Right on Its Side, but Not Might?

The lessons an ancient Greek war can teach Ukraine today. Ukraine is confronted with a stark choice: fight on through a bitter winter with death raining from above, or initiate negotiations with Russia under unfavorable terms. Two-and-a-half millennia ago, the leaders of the Greek island of Melos confronted a similar ...

Monday, 25 May 2020
Afghanistan’s road to peace: what about the fighters?

After a year and a half of negotiations in Doha, the United States and the Taliban signed a peace agreement on 29 February. Essentially the agreement provided that the Taliban, in return for the withdrawal of international forces, would not allow Al Qaeda or similar groups to use Afghan soil ...

Wednesday, 8 Jan 2020
This Is How Countries End up in the “Inequality Trap”

Inequality fosters violent conflict, which again causes inequality, triggering a vicious cycle. In December the UN Development Programme (UNDP) released its annual ‘Human Development Report’. For 2019 the report focused on inequality. The report is being launched as nightly news is dominated by pictures of protests in countries like Lebanon, Iraq, Chile and Hong Kong. These ...

Tuesday, 29 Oct 2019
On the Front Lines of Sustaining Peace in Colombia

Sustaining peace in Colombia Conflict-ridden societies, including –counterintuitively– those that have recently overcome violent conflict through a political settlement, are fraught with mistrust, polarisation, and resistance to change. The implementation of peace agreements is often the new arena where tension and controversy manifest themselves. In Colombia, for example, the recent ...

Friday, 24 May 2019
Will There Be Peace in Westeros?

In my last Game of Thrones blog post I looked into whether there were any similarities between the War of the Five Kings and modern war in the real world. I found a surprisingly large number of similarities. Now that we have seen the end GoT, and we know who ...

Tuesday, 19 Feb 2019
With Politicians Who Can’t Be Bothered to Read Peace Agreements, It’s No Wonder Brexit Negotiations Are Such a Mess

Like every peace settlement, the Good Friday Agreement is a compromise document, the result of a long and difficult bargaining process that should be properly understood. Perhaps not a “cracking read”, to use the words of former Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab, but the Good Friday Agreement has been a pillar ...

Monday, 4 Feb 2019
Can President Trump Bring Peace to Afghanistan?

The negotiations between the United States and the Taliban may represent the most important turning point in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led intervention. But the path to an internal Afghan peace process is difficult, and only history will tell whether these negotiations marked the onset of a sustainable Afghan peace ...