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Latest Policy Briefs and Reports
Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament
The Minefields That Could Sink SSN AUKUS
Policy Brief No.156 - April, 2023 • By Ramesh Thakur
This Policy Brief considers the concealed minefields that could yet sink the AUKUS nuclear sub project and lead to finger-pointing recriminations. US President Joe Biden and British and Australian Prime Ministers Rishi Sunak and Anthony Albanese have unveiled the agreement on the way forward for the new tripartite security pact AUKUS to equip Australia with a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines. AUKUS integrates and strengthens Australia’s historic alliances and embeds the UK and the US firmly into Australia’s Indo-Pacific strategy. President Biden has described the naval partnership as a critical instrument, at this ‘inflection point in history’, to stabilise the Indo-Pacific region at a time of rising tensions and the distinct possibility of a war over Taiwan.
Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament
The Geopolitics of the Middle East
Policy Brief No.155 - March, 2023 • By Sverre Lodgaard
This Policy Brief discusses the new geopolitical landscape and its implications for war and peace in the Middle East. US retrenchment from the Middle East—long in waiting—has caused Arab states to seek new partnerships in order to reduce their vulnerabilities in a turbulent world. The geopolitical fault line between East and West has moved westward, from Iran to Saudi Arabia, and the new agreement between Iran and these countries has a huge potential to turn the region in a cooperative direction. Given all the uncertainties, however, the significance of it can only be tested over time.
Social Media, Technology and Peacebuilding
A Roadmap for Collaboration on Technology and Social Cohesion
Policy Brief No.154 - February, 2023 • By Lisa Schirch
This commissioned report is one of several resulting from a year-long research project funded by the Toda Peace Institute’s program on Social Media, Technology and Peacebuilding The tech sector wields enormous power over the thoughts and actions of billions of people. Toxic polarization stymies governments from helping to solve pressing problems from Covid to the climate crisis. Humanity needs technology that builds trust and civic health rather than outrage and division, and people who understand how to build bridges in divided communities to be better equipped to use technology. In 2020, a working group formed to explore a Council on Technology and Cohesion to bring practitioners who heal division together with people who design technology. This report maps the kinds of activities that could help to build a movement for prosocial technology to support social cohesion.
Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament
Can Conflict Resolution Principles Apply in Ukraine?
Policy Brief No.153 - January, 2023 • By Hugh Miall
This Policy Brief analyses the Russia–Ukraine conflict at three inter-related levels, and explores the belief that conflict resolution principles could be applied if the parties were to move away from their current positions. It is vital to try to bring the conflict to an end, to avert the obvious risks of the conflict widening and escalating. Yet there are few expectations of an early peace and the conflict seems highly resistant to resolution. Is the application of conflict resolution and the achievement of a reasonable outcome completely hopeless in these circumstances?
Cooperative Security, Arms Control and Disarmament
External and Domestic Drivers of Nuclear Trilemma in Southern Asia: China, India, and Pakistan
Policy Brief No.152 - January, 2023 • By Jingdong Yuan
This Policy Brief discusses both the external and domestic drivers of the nuclear trilemma in Southern Asia that involves China, India, and Pakistan. It identifies and examines the internal dynamics of the China–India and India–Pakistan conflicts and explores how domestic drivers such as nationalism, public opinions, and civil-military relations either mitigate or exacerbate nuclear risks in a region marked by perennial disputes, emerging rivalry, and long-standing extra-regional interferences. The paper addresses the central theme of the nuclear trilemma between China, India, and Pakistan by looking at causes of instability, risks of conflicts and escalation to nuclear use, and prospects of restraints and risk reduction.