What Happens When a Cascade of Crises Collide?
Humanity faces a complex knot of seemingly distinct but entangled crises that are causing damage greater than the sum of their individual harms.
Conflict
States of Emergency
By 2025, American democracy could collapse, causing extreme domestic political instability, including widespread civil violence. By 2030, if not sooner, the country could be governed by a right-wing dictatorship. How should Canada prepare?
Climate Change and Violent Conflict: Reflections after 30 years
Presentation to a conference on Climate Change & (In)Security: Trends, Lessons, Challenges. University of Oxford; CHACR, UK Army
Trump needs a war
Donald Trump needs a war. He needs a war to fire Robert Mueller. Special counsel Mueller oversees an aggressively expanding investigation of Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election…
Who’s the chicken in Trump’s high-stakes game?
U.S. President Donald Trump loves to play chicken – the game of chicken, that is. And while his predilection toward the game is bad enough, it also turns out that he plays it badly, and that’s truly scary.
Crisis analysis: How much damage can Trump do? (A lot)
This structured analysis of crisis risks arising from the Trump presidency was published in 2017, but it remains relevant to a potential second Trump presidency in 2025.
What is really at stake in extremist attacks
We’ve been lucky so far, because the bad guys have usually been stupid. But they probably won’t be stupid forever, so our luck probably won’t last. When it finally runs out, we need to make sure we don’t do the bad guys’ work for them.
Synchronous Failure: The Emerging Causal Architecture of Global Crisis
Recent global crises reveal an emerging pattern of causation that could increasingly characterize the birth and progress of future global crises. A conceptual framework identifies this pattern’s deep causes, intermediate processes, and ultimate outcomes.
The Ideological Conflict Project: Theoretical and Methodological Foundations
with Stephen Mock | Ideology is important to conflict. Shared beliefs create a sense of group identity, specify targets of hostility and enable coordinated action. Understanding ideology is key to effective conflict resolution and management.
Ebola Epidemic Could Tear Societies Apart
World leaders finally seem to be waking up to the gravity of the Ebola threat. Like the rest of us, they’ve been distracted by the Islamic State’s rampage in Syria and Iraq, the Ukrainian crisis, and even the mini-drama of the Scottish independence referendum.