globalisation

The serious row between Washington and Tel Aviv is about far more than the construction of homes in east Jerusalem; it goes to the heart of the close military alliance between the two states.

The doubters of global warming are emboldened by their new ability - as in the “climategate” affair - to put climate researchers on the defensive. But the experience of comparable assaults on the discipline of peace studies in the 1980s suggests that hostile scrutiny can have longer-term benefits for the target.

A shifting balance of calculation in the middle east makes Lebanon’s Hizbollah movement more confident in its strategy of “deterrence-by-terror” vis-à-vis Israel, says Robert G Rabil

The global effort to extinguish the nuclear peril needs to regain momentum. A bold act of leadership and imagination by one of the weapons-states could provide it.

The degrading realities of France’s survivalist economy put the country’s latest debate about Islamic apparel into perspective, says Patrice de Beer.

The United States’s long-term operations in Helmand and elsewhere in Afghanistan face acute military and political pressures.

The ground-level realities of western military involvement in Afghanistan - including a few dozen soldiers in an isolated base - reveal the intractability of the war.

Nepal’s path to development remains hostage to the lack of accountability over human-rights violations during the country’s civil war, says Meenakshi Ganguly.

(This article was first published on 15 February 2010)

Italy’s economy and polity are in perennial trouble, but its prime minister Silvio Berlusconi survives every blow. All the more reason to scrutinise Italy's opposition, says Geoff Andrews.

The deluge of publicity about a large-scale military operation against the Taliban must be set against Afghan realities that tell a different story.

The search for accountability for the genocide in Bangladesh in 1971 needs international support, say Jalal Alamgir & Tazreena Sajjad.

The exhaustion of the planet and existing ways of life presents a creative challenge: exploring “uncivilisation”. Paul Kingsnorth introduces the Dark Mountain Project.

The Barack Obama administration’s plans for subduing the Taliban are endangered by continuing insecurity in Iraq

The American-led effort to map Afghanistan’s future neglects the role of the country’s neighbours – and could yet be derailed by events over Iran.

The official annual commemoration of a century of genocide and its victims should be accompanied by a responsible awareness of Britain’s own historical record, says Martin Shaw. (This article was first published on 27 January 2009)

The daunting task of post-earthquake reconstruction in Haiti amounts to a long-term challenge in state-building, say Mariano Aguirre & Tone Faret of the Norwegian Peacebuilding Centre.

The breach between a corporate behemoth of the new-media age and an emerging state superpower defines the struggle for the world’s information future, say Johnny Ryan & Stefan Halper.

On the anniversary of Barack Obama’s inauguration as United States president, the al-Qaida movement invites the respected SWISH management consultancy to assess its prospects.

The combination of Iran's effort to protect its nuclear facilities and Israel's to prevent its rival developing a weapon makes a crisis in 2010 all the more likely.