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By Nils Hagerdal

The recent assassination of the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani, by a U.S. drone attack further increased tensions between the United States and Iran. Political conflicts between the two countries go back to the 1979 Iranian revolution, and despite periods of détente have never quite receded.

By Kara Ross Camarena and Nils Hagerdal

Under what conditions will forcibly displaced persons return to their original homes after wars end? We draw on theories of labor migration to show that even displaced persons who have positive feelings toward their original location may nevertheless choose to return as regular visitors rather than permanent residents unless the location offers attractive economic opportunities. Furthermore, we argue that violence can create negative emotions not only toward geographic locations of bloodshed but also against its perpetrators. After ethnic wars, the displaced may be unwilling to return to intermixed locations, exacerbating ethnic separation. We study postwar migration among Lebanese Christians displaced during the 1980s and identify economic conditions using exogenous price shocks for olive oil, a major local export. Among policy implications for economic reconstruction and transitional justice, our most important insight is that sometimes we should help the displaced in their new location rather than induce permanent return to their old homes.

By Thomas Cavanna

The Belt and Road Initiative, an unprecedented infrastructure program that extends across and beyond the Eurasian continent, has elicited increasingly hostile reactions in the West and come to symbolize US leaders’ disillusionment regarding Beijing’s growing assertiveness and authoritarianism under Xi Jinping. Many observers view the Chinese initiative as a threat. At the same time, most experts contend that its prospects of success are slim. However, Belt and Road’s contours are still unclear and the subject of intense debates.

By Monica Duffy Toft

The Trump administration’s decision to kill top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani illuminates one of the most recurrent and self-destructive fallacies of strategic thinking: that our enemies act as they do because of their “nature,” while we act as we do because we face serious structural or environmental constraints.

This short-term thinking and “fundamental attribution error” has only intensified throughout our history. And it’s possible to anticipate some of its most likely and fearful consequences.

As the Trump administration signals a return to great-power competition, it has also damaged the United States’ ability to prevail.

President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw America’s military forces from northeastern Syria and redeploy some of them into Iraq has attracted widespread condemnation. The Economist described his decision as a betrayal to the Kurds that will “blow America’s credibility and will take years to mend.” Yet as straightforward as this claim may seem, the framing of Trump’s decision as a betrayal does not allow for a balanced assessment and realistic interpretation of its motivation. The fact of the matter is the United States has made analogous military withdrawals in comparaable circumstances before when it intervened in areas peripheral to its national interests, such as Syria. In such circumstances, America’s intervention does not serve a clear vital interest and less costly policy options might exist that could still protect America’s peripheral interests without risking long-term attachment to a specific area.

By Nils Hagerdal
Records show that numerous countries experiencing civil wars – including Angola, Eritrea, Lebanon, and Somalia – witnessed environmental crime, such as the dumping of toxic waste. To explore the dynamics of waste crime in conflict zones I combine a historic overview of the international trade in toxic waste with a case study of the 1987 toxic waste dumping scandal in Lebanon. I show that conflict zones provide ideal conditions for waste criminals, that waste crime is an easy way for militias to profit, and that environmental crime differs sharply from other modes of predation in the political science literature.

Jon Caverley, associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, presented a draft manuscript of his next book on November