In a world rapidly churning out unpredictable political shocks, intelligence analysts occasionally need to clear their heads of the daily barrage of newsworthy events and instead work with simple theories that discern the direction and speed of trends …
William Bullitt accompanied President Woodrow Wilson and Colonel Edward House to Paris to negotiate an ambitious peace treaty after the carnage of World War I. Reflecting on the handiwork of vengeful allies in the Versailles Treaty, Bullitt prophetical …
Between the Sahara to the north and savanna to the south lies the semi-arid Sahel, a region stretching from Senegal to Sudan that has experienced desperate poverty, climate change, malnutrition, and violence. While every context is different, the Sahel …
Among the few bright spots in the 2015 Freedom in the World Report, the brightest may be Tunisia, which for the first time was assessed as “free” – Freedom House’s highest “freedom status” and for many political scientists the definitive indicatio …
On January 25, 2007, the Southwest Asia/Gulf program hosted demographer Richard Cincotta of the National Intelligence Council’s Long-Range Analysis Unit to discuss the correlation between demographics, focusing on the “youth bulge” hypothesis, and demo …
An asteroid impact that wiped out hundreds of millions of people would barely slow down human population growth. That’s one of the surprising results of a new computer model, which still finds that there may be a couple of things we can do to keep our …
What Can Demography Tell Us About the Advent of Democracy? Democracy is fickle. Many of the competing theories on the best ways to foment and consolidate plural, inclusive governance or predict its rise and fall focus on political and economic forces. …
Just months after popular uprisings toppled Tunisia and Egypt’s authoritarian regimes, a trio of complex-system researchers published a brief article linking these demonstrations with high levels of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization’s …
Beyond the Horizon: Understanding the Future for Better Development Today When Super Typhoon Haiyan ripped through the Philippines last month, the incredible damage visited on the people, infrastructure, and land was shaped by trends that have been in …
It would be hard to conjure up a more grave and immediate set of peacetime challenges than those that Israel faces today-from the advances in Iran’s nuclear program, to the political instabilities that continue to play out along the length of its borde …
As the United States approaches its 2014 deadline for military withdrawal from Afghanistan, one often overshadowed aspect of the conflict is the hard-won progress made by previously marginalized segments of the Afghan population, particularly women, gi …
With renewed elections in Mali slated for July and French troops containing Tuareg and Islamist insurgents, the Sahelian state appears to be on track to restart the liberal democracy that was upended in March 2012 by a coup d’état. However, several Afr …
By Richard Cincotta – The global distribution of intrastate conflicts is not what it used to be. During the latter half of the 20th century, the states with the most youthful populations – a median age of 25.0 years or less – were consistently the most …
By Richard Cincotta – Young and war-torn countries have been the ones most at risk for violent societal conflict until recently.[1] From the 1970s through the 1990s, more than 90 percent of all societal conflicts broke out in countries with a youthful …
Beijing’s 2008 decision to maintain a somewhat liberalized version of its One-Child Policy surprised both Chinese and foreign demographers. Was the decision the product of a strategic calculation, or simply bureaucratic inertia? And was Beijing’s decis …
The “demographic arc of instability” is created by highlighting countries with exceptionally young populations. Projections for 2030 indicate that demographic factors for instability will persist in Afghanistan, Yemen, Gaza, and the West Bank; ho …
By Richard Cincotta – Picture Afghanistan two decades from now. Difficult? Not really-if you’re a demographer. The two agencies that independently publish population estimates- the UN Population Division and the US Census Bureau’s International Program …
The idea of doing a comparative assessment of the use and misuse of “declaratory diplomacy” was born out of frustration. In South Asia, where the Henry L. Stimson Center has been working to promote confidence-building measures since 1991, positive sou …