Comment archive

Monday, 21 Mar 2022
The Taliban, International Law and the Rest of the World

The population of Afghanistan is facing a humanitarian catastrophe. Twenty-three million Afghans, more than half of the population, are starving. The UN warns of a risk that a million Afghan children will die. In this situation, there is no way of avoiding cooperation with those in control of the country, namely ...

Saturday, 21 Aug 2021
Is Diplomacy Failing When It Is Needed Most?

Taliban rule in Afghanistan is now being shaped. The United States, Norway and many other countries have engaged in prolonged dialogue with the Taliban. Now Western countries are closing their embassies and their dialogue with the Taliban is on hold. Is dialogue failing when it is needed most? An absolutely ...

Thursday, 22 Apr 2021
Will the Taliban Gain From Negotiations?

In the summer of 2001, a Taliban delegation came to Oslo in the hope of holding talks with Norway’s government. The terrorist attacks in the United States that autumn put a stop to such talks, but the Taliban’s attempt at that time to break out of the “steel ring” of ...

Wednesday, 3 Mar 2021
A Critical Moment for Women’s Political Rights in Intra-Afghan Negotiation and Beyond

One year ago, on February 29, 2020, the Doha Agreement was signed between the United States and the Taliban. This agreement outlines a process for a gradual withdrawal of foreign troops in Afghanistan, Taliban’s commitment to preventing the use of Afghan soil against the US and its allies security, and ...

Sunday, 21 Feb 2021
Parliamentary Election in Kosovo: Democratic Development and Desire for Change

Less than a year after the fall of the Kosovo government led by left-wing reformist party Vetëvendosje (“Self-Determination”), the same party has returned to power. Following a landslide victory in the parliamentary election last Sunday, Vetëvendosje is set to form a government with a markedly stronger mandate than the first ...

Friday, 19 Feb 2021
NATO’s Exit From Afghanistan: ‘a brutal dilemma’

NATO is facing ‘a brutal dilemma, NATO’s Secretary General, Jens Stoltenberg, said to the press ahead of NATO meeting of defense ministers on 17-18 February. The goal, said Stoltenberg, is that Afghanistan shall never again become a haven for terrorists attacking NATO and its allies. He continued: ‘While no ally ...

Friday, 12 Feb 2021
In 2016, I identified four future developments that would justify the Trump-Hitler comparison. Here are the results.

In 2016, comparing president-elect Donald Trump to all-time villain Adolf Hitler seemed overdrawn. It ultimately proved to be exaggerated in 2021, with the transition of power to Joe Biden completed. However, during his presidency, Trump has taken actions similar to the ones the Nazis used to consolidate their power. This ...

Tuesday, 26 Jan 2021
After Blackwater: The changing visual identity of private military and security companies

In late December 2020, former US president Donald Trump pardoned the four Blackwater private security contractors involved in the Nisour Square incident, a 2007 shooting in Baghdad that resulted in the death of 14 Iraqi civilians. Although Joe Biden’s administration is unlikely to follow his predecessor in condoning such actions, ...

Tuesday, 19 Jan 2021
The Differing Masculinities of Trump and Biden

On January 20th, 2021, Joe Biden will be inaugurated as the 46th president of the United States, marking the end of four tumultuous years. It would be an understatement to say that Donald Trump and Joe Biden are two very different leaders, and we can expect that there will be ...

Tuesday, 12 Jan 2021
The United States Must Be Viewed as a Flawed Democracy at Significant Risk of Transitioning into Dictatorship

A study of flawed democracies and semi-dictatorships describes a common pattern of events as follows: After having lost an election, the sitting president claims that the election was invalid, whereupon he attempts a coup d’état and his supporters storm the parliament. A few years ago, this sequence of events would ...

Thursday, 19 Nov 2020
Pompeo and the Two-State Swan Song

On 19 November 2020 US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo became the most senior US politician to officially visit an Israeli settlement on the occupied West Bank. This visit, and his ensuing statement that products from Israeli settlements can be labeled as “Made in Israel”, mark the swan song of ...

Friday, 13 Nov 2020
Biden Presidency, Palestine-Israel, and the Prospects for Peace

The Biden Administration will be perceived differently by the various actors involved in the “Palestinian-Israeli conflict” and the so-called peace process. Yet, its position as a “dishonest broker for peace” will remain the constant variable, in line with previous US Administrations. It is not speculative to argue that the Biden ...

Thursday, 12 Nov 2020
What a Biden Presidency Could Mean for the Middle East

With a winner finally announced in the US election, researchers at the PRIO Middle East Centre present a few thoughts on what a Biden presidency could mean for the Middle East. What are likely to be the guiding foreign policy principles of a Biden administration and how will regional and ...

Sunday, 11 Oct 2020
A Nobel for the WFP: A Non-Political Peace Prize for Humanitarian Multilateralism?

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize is awarded to the World Food Program for its “efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and ...

Wednesday, 30 Sept 2020
Book Review: Digital Punishment: Privacy, Stigma and the Harms of Data-Driven Criminal Justice

Sarah Esther Lageson. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2020 pp. vii-242. $34.95 cloth. ISBN 9780190872007 Critical studies of security have long examined the role of information technology, databases, dataveillance and predictive risk technologies in emerging security infrastructures. These studies will be immeasurably aided by Sarah E. Lageson’s new book on criminal ...

Friday, 11 Sept 2020
Trump's Kosovo-Serbia Deal is Already Falling Apart

On September 4, Kosovo and Serbia signed a deal on ‘Economic Normalization’ in the White House. Not unlike Trump’s other foreign policy endeavors, the deal was ridiculed by pundits. It also received political backlash from the international community. The EU, which has facilitated the dialog between Belgrade and Pristina for ...

Sunday, 5 Jul 2020
Oppression and Regime Survival: Will Trump’s reactions to the Black Lives Matter movement bring about his exit?

Since George Floyd’s brutal killing by the police in May, demonstrations have spread to more than 2,000 major cities and villages in the United States. Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) is probably the most widespread movement in the country’s history. In addition, we have seen huge global support, with demonstrations in ...

Monday, 15 Jun 2020
Is 2020 = 1968?

People around the world are grappling to understand events in the United States at the moment regarding the current wave of protest and protest policing.  A few events readily come to mind in this comparison but the one that probably carries the greatest resonance would be the uprisings/disturbances/riots that followed ...

Friday, 12 Jun 2020
Silence, Complicity, and Violence in the American Political System

Protests in the United States, and around the world, have drawn attention to state-sponsored violence against black people in particular and people of color in general. As Black Lives Matter protests continue, the names of the many people, whose deaths sparked this collective outrage, ring out. Social media posts tag ...

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 ...

Thursday, 26 Mar 2020
Preventing a Catastrophic COVID Crisis in America

COVID-19 is the most severe pandemic since 1918. Beyond the harrowing humanitarian costs, large-scale economic disruptions are underway that can lead to crisis and conflict. The epidemiological advice is clear: flatten the curve, whatever it takes. Any society presented with the choice between world war-levels of casualties and temporary disruptions ...

Monday, 21 Oct 2019
A New Phase in the Syria Conflict and New Security Challenges

On 9 October 2019, Turkey launched its third invasion in Syria dubbed “Operation Peace Spring”, this time in north-eastern Syria. The previous two operations, “Euphrates Shield” and “Olive Branch” took place in north-western Syria (west of river Euphrates) and established a Turkey-controlled zone between the cities of Jarablus to the ...

Friday, 20 Sept 2019
Fragmentation and External Intervention Hamper Peace in Yemen

The armed conflict in Yemen has grown increasingly complex as existing cleavages have become ever-more entrenched, and new ones are emerging. The conflict in Yemen escalated in March 2015 when a Saudi-led military intervention complicated an already intricate internal crisis. Saudi Arabia’s intent behind the military intervention was to weaken ...

Monday, 19 Aug 2019
How does the Japan and South Korea feud intensify, and is the U.S. able to help?

Japan and South Korea are facing the worst deterioration of bilateral ties in history after the 1965 normalization treaty came into force. Unfortunately, people in both countries seem to have forgotten that they successfully co-hosted a FIFA World Cup in 2002. At this moment, there is absolutely no welcoming mood ...

Friday, 16 Aug 2019
Trump calls, Israel answers

On Thursday President Trump made the unprecedented move to use a foreign power to punish domestic political actors. He tweeted that Israel should bar two congresswomen from entering the country. Prior to this tweet Prime Minister Netanyahu had decided that the congresswomen should be allowed to enter, but after the ...

Tuesday, 13 Aug 2019
Racially-Motivated Violence in the United States: What We Call It and Why It Matters

An August 3, 2019 mass shooting in El Paso, Texas highlights the continuing presence of racially-motivated violence in the United States. The shooter expressed white nationalist and anti-immigrant sentiments in a manifesto written prior to the attack, and the American news media has begun to frame the attack as one ...

Tuesday, 12 Feb 2019
What Do the Afghan Peace Talks in Moscow Mean?

The talks in Moscow between the Taliban and Afghan opposition politicians reflect a new world order, in which Russia is recognized as a global superpower. Even though the Afghan government remains on the sidelines, the talks may become an important part of the unpredictable Afghan peace process. The images from ...

Monday, 7 May 2018
The Moscow–Washington Hotline Worked – This Time Around

In the war in Syria, the two globally most militarily active superpowers – Russia and the United States – have soldiers actively deployed on opposite sides on the same battlefield. This is the first time this has happened since the end of World War II, and it is a dangerous ...

Wednesday, 7 Mar 2018
Afghanistan – a new chapter in the Great Game?

May the shifting superpower dynamics bring hope for Afghanistan? Both Moscow and Beijing are displaying increasing interest in Afghanistan, after a decade and a half of domination by Washington. This shift is having effects in both Afghanistan and among its neighbours. the international power play surrounding Afghanistan is changing Recent ...

Friday, 2 Mar 2018
Putin Brags about Missiles and Remains Mum about Mercenaries

The annual presidential address to the parliament is usually a rather dull affair in Russia, but President Putin has certainly managed to make an impression with the speech delivered on March 1, 2018. He elaborated at great length about Russia’s military might, but before describing new weapon systems (some of ...