peace-keeping

Since Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, the nonviolent action team here at USIP has been reflecting on what Dr. King’s life and legacy teach us about the deep links between nonviolent action and peacebuilding. As we watch protesters in Hong Kong, Iraq, or Lebanon directly confront their governments, there may not seem to be much connection between people hitting the streets and building lasting peace. But for King, the connection was inevitable and inseparable, and practitioners of both disciplines have much to offer one another.

The institutions of the U.S. national security community have recognized, but just begun to remedy, a gap in how they interact with conflict environments: the failure to understand how gender and warfare intertwine. The 2017 Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) Act provides a clarion call for operationalizing a gender perspective at each command level and in nearly all activities in the environment.

Observations from a month-long secondment in Afghanistan with DCOMISAF.