Speaker Events - Thursday, September 30, 2010
UN Envoy: No Military Solution in Afghanistan and Taliban Knows It
Staffan de Mistura, UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, told an IPI audience that there is no military way out in Afghanistan, and the Taliban knows it.
“There is no military solution,” Mr. de Mistura said at the September 30th event. “We all know it. And by the way, the Talibans know it, too. Although, naturally, they won’t admit it.”
Mr. de Mistura, his finger still inked from voting in the September 19th parliamentary election despite his attempts to bleach it, said the coming months would be difficult, but there is “only one format for the next months–political dialogue, reconciliation, deal.”
“We call it, in our UN terminology, ‘hot negotiations,’” he said. “It is also the time when the maximum pressure is being exercised by either side, both sides, at the same time, in order to have a better position in terms of so-called dialogue.”
“It is going to be rough and difficult for the reason I just mentioned,” he continued, “but there is no other alternative.”
The event was moderated by Terje Rød-Larsen, IPI President.
Read transcript
Coverage in The Huffington Post:
The UN Thinks the End Is in Sight in Afghanistan
The Global Observatory
Interview with John Prendergast, Co-Founder, Enough Project
Mr. Prendergast discusses the international justice system and the new ground forged by Invisible Children's Kony2012 campaign.
Key Global Events to Watch in May
A list of key upcoming meetings and events with implications for global affairs.
The Global Observatory is a new website by IPI, providing timely analysis on peace and security issues, interviews with leading policymakers, interactive maps, and more.
Recent Events
May 10, 2012
Arbour: What the Rule of Law Means
“In my understanding of the rule of law, fundamentally, what the rule of law means is that it embraces the principle of equality before the law,” Louise Arbour, president of the International Crisis Group (ICG), told an IPI audience on May 10, 2012. Ms. Arbour outlined that this means that no one is above the law and everyone has both equal protection and equal benefit of the law. 
May 03, 2012
Shachtman: Cyber Threats Akin to South Bronx, Not Pearl Harbor
“There’s not a danger of a cyber Pearl Harbor… it’s more like the South Bronx circa 1999, where there’s a danger that it becomes such a tough neighborhood that no one wants to set up shop there and people move out,” Noah Shachtman, editor of the Danger Room blog at Wired magazine and non-resident fellow at the Brookings Institution, told an IPI audience at a panel on cyber security on May 3, 2011.
April 27, 2012
Preventing Conflicts in Africa: The Role of Early Warning and Response Systems
An April 27th roundtable discussion at IPI titled “Preventing Conflicts in Africa: The Role of Early Warning and Response Systems” examined the progress, prospects and challenges of regional and international early warning and response mechanisms to monitor, anticipate, and mitigate potential conflict situations in Africa.