Curated expert opinion on intractable contemporary issues
Global Outlook Articles by Jordan Ryan
Jordan Ryan is a member of the Toda International Research Advisory Council (TIRAC) at the Toda Peace Institute, a Senior Consultant to the Folke Bernadotte Academy (Sweden) and former Vice President for Peace at The Carter Center. He recently completed an assignment as the lead author of the UN integration review for the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. Mr. Ryan served as UN Assistant Secretary-General and UNDP Assistant Administrator from 2009-2014, was Deputy Special Representative in Liberia, and UN Resident Coordinator in Vietnam. He holds graduate degrees from Columbia University and George Washington University and received his B.A. from Yale University. He was also a fellow at Harvard's Kennedy School.
When the Guardrails Come Off
By Jordan Ryan | 11 March, 2026
In January 2026, Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, one of America’s leading artificial intelligence companies and until recently the Pentagon’s most widely deployed AI provider, warned that sufficiently capable artificial intelligence (AI) could allow a government to generate “a complete list of anyone who disagrees with the government on any number of issues, even if such disagreement isn’t explicit in anything they say or do.”
The UN's Moment of Truth
By Jordan Ryan | 03 March, 2026
The United Nations is being defunded in the middle of a crisis it was built to prevent.
When Destruction Becomes Policy: What the Munich Security Report Reveals About the Future of Global Governance
By Jordan Ryan | 18 February, 2026
The Munich Security Report 2026, released ahead of this year’s conference, offers a diagnosis that should concern anyone invested in rules-based international order.
International Law Meets an Age of Impunity
By Jordan Ryan | 28 January, 2026
On 26 January, the UN Security Council convened a high-level open debate on “Reaffirming International Rule of Law.”, chaired by Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and featuring briefings from Secretary-General António Guterres and former International Court of Justice (ICJ) judge Abdulqawi Yusuf.
Middle Powers After Davos
By Jordan Ryan | 23 January, 2026
At the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney delivered a speech that cut against the prevailing diplomatic instinct to soften uncomfortable truths.
The UN’s Withering Vine: A US Retreat from Global Governance
By Jordan Ryan | 10 January, 2026
The Trump administration’s recent announcement of its withdrawal from 66 international organisations has been met with a mixture of alarm and applause. While the headline number suggests a dramatic retreat from the world stage, a closer look reveals a more nuanced, and perhaps more insidious, strategy.
The views and opinions expressed in Global Outlook are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Toda Peace Institute.