Blogs & Opinions

Nature, Peace and Security: Too Important to Leave to Governments

Mar 2, 2026 | Doug Weir

The message is clear, the UK’s spooks have consulted with experts and concluded that global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse are a serious threat to…

Addressing the Root Causes of the DRC Conflict

Feb 27, 2026 | Vuyisile J.S. Radebe

The DRC conflict has been going on for decades. Thousands of innocent lives have been lost while scores of women, children and the elderly have…

Groundwater and the Horn’s Climate Security Future: From Technical Resource to Strategic Asset

Feb 27, 2026 | Kidus Tesfaye

The Horn of Africa’s climate debate is often framed above ground: failed rains, drying rivers, shrinking pastures, emergency relief corridors, and displacement flows. But one…

The New Age of Resource Competition Needs Transparency

Feb 27, 2026 | Helen Clark and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf

As countries scramble to secure the minerals needed for clean energy, digital technologies, AI, and defense industries, the new era of resource competition implies both…

Liberia’s Emerging Carbon Credit Sector: A Path Toward Climate Resilience, Economic Growth, and Sustainable Development

Feb 26, 2026 | Matthew Sieh Wisseh

Liberia, endowed with one of West Africa’s last vast rainforest ecosystems and significant coastal Blue Carbon resources, is moving decisively toward establishing a functional carbon…

The Environmental Peacebuilding Association: Year in Review and What’s Ahead

Feb 25, 2026 | Karishma Goswami and Madeleine Loll

With a reduction in capacity of bilateral and multilateral institutions and a broader political retreat from environmental protection and peacebuilding, environmental peacebuilding reached a turning…

Syria’s Environmental Woes Fueled Its Long Conflict. Left Unaddressed, They Will Do So Again

Feb 23, 2026 | Peter Schwartzstein

Peter Schwartzstein recently returned to Syria for his first peacetime visit. Unsurprisingly, the country is an awful mess. The destruction is somehow slightly more conspicuous…

The Converging Threats of Climate Change and War in Sudan

Feb 23, 2026 | Haley Schuler-McCoin and Mahitab Mahgoub

Environmental disasters affected hundreds of thousands of people in Sudan in 2025, and will only worsen in the coming years, with parts of the country…

Water as a Weapon: The New Frontier of an Old Conflict

Feb 22, 2026 | Muhammad Mohsin Iqbal

Parallel to the theatre of arms has been the subtler but no less consequential arena of water. The Indus basin is the lifeblood of Pakistan’s…

Kordofan and Blue Nile’s Quiet Battles: The Geopolitics of Resources behind Sudan’s Civil War

Feb 20, 2026 | Fernando Carvajal

Tens of thousands of people have been killed, and millions displaced, but this is only part of the story. Every morning, there is fear of…

The Indus Waters Treaty at Crossroads: Implications for Regional Peace & the Path Forward

Feb 20, 2026 | Mohammad Ishaq Rahman

The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) of 1960 stands as one of the most significant achievements in transboundary water cooperation globally. Brokered by the World Bank…

Pax Sinica vs Pax Silica: How China-US Mineral War Is Taking Shape

Feb 20, 2026 | Chenjie Song

If 2026 were a chess match, critical minerals would be the opening gambit, and both China and the United States are going all out. On…

Being There Is Not Enough: The Paradox of Land Restitution in Colombia

Feb 20, 2026 | María Socorro Granda Abella

Under the current government’s ‘Total Peace’ agenda, this territorial emphasis is invoked across state institutions through dialogue and negotiations with armed groups and criminal organisations,…

Water Nationalism, Climate Anxiety, and the Myth of the Coming Water Wars

Feb 18, 2026 | Jeremy Allouche

Will future wars be fought over water? Global policymakers, politicians and the media promote a sense of catastrophism about the impact of climate change on…

Clionadh Raleigh on the Race for Africa’s Minerals

Feb 17, 2026 | Clionadh Raleigh

As the United States, China and the European Union intensify efforts to secure minerals such as cobalt, lithium and coltan, all central to defence, technology…

Iran’s Water Crisis: A National Security Imperative – Analysis

Feb 17, 2026 | Scott N. Romaniuk, Erzsébet N. Rózsa, and László Csicsmann

Iran is confronting an unprecedented water crisis. Rivers that have sustained settlements and agriculture for centuries are drying, while groundwater reserves are being extracted far…

Climate Security Should Be a Bigger Priority at the Munich Security Conference

Feb 13, 2026 | Beatrice Mosello

At the Munich Security Conference (MSC) – long a barometer of global security priorities – climate change is of reduced importance this year. While it…

The Munich Security Conference's Uncomfortable Truth: Fossil Fuels Are Now a Security Risk

Feb 12, 2026 | María Mendiluce

At Munich world leaders will talk about defence readiness, economic resilience and strategic autonomy, but energy and climate change should be understood as central to…

Reimagining Land, Justice, and Post-War Responsibility in Liberia

Feb 12, 2026 | Ysyndi Martin-Kpeyei

Nations emerging from conflict are not rebuilt by rigidity, but by vision anchored in humanity. In Liberia, it is unproductive and ultimately visionless to suggest…

Venezuela’s Democratic Transition Needs Women, Including Machado

Feb 11, 2026 | Caroline Hubbard
Council on Foreign Relations

Women have been on the frontlines fighting Maduro’s dictatorship, and other countries’ transitions show that women’s participation is vital for democracy to succeed. 

Power Shift: Can Syria's Oil Fields Reshape Its Energy Future?

Feb 11, 2026 | Cian Ward

Following the government’s takeover of much of northeast Syria from the Kurdish-majority Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in recent weeks, Syria’s vast oil fields now have…

Water, Power, and the Future of Conflict

Feb 11, 2026 | Nick Kraft and J. Carl Ganter

In 2026, water is emerging as one of the world’s most contested shared resources. Water is becoming the protagonist in a story of global disruption and…

Climate & Policing

Feb 10, 2026 | Mohammad Ali Babakhel

Climate change is changing policing roles. Besides crime, police are now also expected to handle disaster management, help with evacuation, rescue, control traffic, secure relief…

Local Resilience Can Mitigate Climate Conflicts in the Pacific

Feb 9, 2026 | Tobias Ide

The Pacific Island countries are at the frontline of climate change. Their territories mostly consist of small, low-lying islands, with long coastlines and vast ocean…

Can Climate Security Survive the Crisis of Multilateralism?

Feb 3, 2026 | Tabea Campbell Pauli and Benedetta Zocchi

Multilateralism is under threat, as many global powers increasingly choose to center their security priorities around defense and economic competition over international cooperation. This shift…

Environmental Security: A Key Element of Ukraine’s National Policy

Feb 3, 2026 | Polina Tsybulska

As war and climate change inflict damage on Ukraine’s environment, from polluting rivers and soils to destroying ecosystems, how could these threats be transformed into…

A UK Climate Security Report Backed by the Intelligence Services Was Quietly Buried – a Pattern We’ve Seen Many Times before

Feb 3, 2026 | Marc Hudson

Last autumn, a UK government report warned that climate-driven ecosystem collapse could lead to food shortages, mass migration, political extremism and even nuclear conflict. The…

How the EU’s New Carbon Border Undermines Military Decarbonisation

Feb 2, 2026 | Grace Alexander

The EU has positioned itself as a global leader on climate action and decarbonisation. Its European Green Deal sets a goal for carbon neutrality by…

When Nature Becomes a Security Risk

Feb 2, 2026 | Rhett Ayers Butler

Britain’s national security thinking has traditionally been shaped by familiar concerns: hostile states, terrorism, energy supply, and, more recently, cyber threats. A new assessment from…

Local Resilience Can Mitigate Climate Conflicts in the Pacific

Jan 31, 2026 | Tobias Ide

The Pacific Island countries are at the frontline of climate change. Their territories mostly consist of small, low-lying islands, with long coastlines and vast ocean…