Conflicts

The use of nuclear weapons in an urban area, particularly by a terrorist group, remains a palpable threat for many in a post-9/11 world. As populations congregate in ever-larger cities around the globe, scientists are seeking to measure all the likely physical impacts of such an attack on these dense clusters.

The 2011 decision by NATO and the United States to enforce a no-fly zone in Libya was met with both support and concern. The costs of entering another conflict, coupled with doubts about the effectiveness of the no-fly zone in achieving military and political outcomes, left policy makers and the public divided on the strategy’s merits. But many observers ultimately declared it a relative success.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has an open investigation into the genocide that occurred over the last decade in Darfur, Sudan. Though mass extermination is the chief focus of the international law, Article II of the 1948 Genocide Convention also bans “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction.”

Many societies that feature democratic forms of governance on the surface suffer from a variety of ills that can chip away at citizens’ trust in their current form of government. Corruption, crime and bribery plague much of the developing world. But precisely which factors are essential to the growth and continued prosperity of democratic institutions is a longstanding debate in the social sciences.

Governments in developed countries often provide foreign aid to developing countries in an effort to improve economic, social and political development. Regardless of the intended use for the money, recipient governments sometimes employ the funds to keep civil peace and to accommodate the demands of new groups, especially in times of tension. A sudden withdrawal of foreign aid could thus trigger internal struggles.

The Republic of South Sudan became the world’s newest nation on July 9, 2011. Although the Second Sudanese Civil War officially ended in 2005, nearly 40 years of conflict have left South Sudan with substantial economic and infrastructure challenges, ranging from protracted border disputes to a high rate of illiteracy and limited access to clean water.

Relations between the governments of the United States and Iran have been tense, often hostile, since the Iranian Revolution in 1979. After Iran began to develop a uranium enrichment program, however, tension has again risen acutely, and increasingly strict economic sanctions have been put in place — particularly on Iran’s crucial energy sector — by the U.S. and some of its Western and East Asian allies.