Is democracy heading toward a depression? CDDRL Director Larry Diamond answers in a recent Foreign Policy piece, assessing the challenges of overcoming a global, decade-long democratic recession. With much of the world losing faith in the model of liberal democracy, Diamond believes the key to setting democracy back on track involves heavy reform in America, serious crackdowns on corruption, and a reassessment of how the West approaches its support for democratic development abroad. 

FSI's Francis Fukuyama and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, a William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at CISAC, write in the Financial Times that President Barack Obama's stance on ISIS is "overpromising" and that the United States should follow lessons from British history and pursue a more sustainable strategy known as "offshore balancing."

FSI's Francis Fukuyama and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry,  a William J. Perry Fellow in International Security at CISAC, write in the Financial Times that President Barack Obama's stance on ISIS is "overpromising" and that the United States should follow lessons from British history and pursue a more sustainable strategy known as "offshore balancing."

Francis Fukuyama and former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry write in the Financial Times, suggesting President Obama's stance on ISIS is "overpromising" and that America should follow lessons from British history and pursue a more sustainable strategy known as "offshore balancing." 

CISAC Consulting Professor Thomas Hegghammer writes in this Lawfare Foreign Policy Essay: Calculated Caliphate that the move by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to declare itself an Islamic State with a caliphate as its leader is a "bold and unprecedented" move.

Hegghammer, director of terrorism research at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment and a leading scholar of the jihadist movement, explores the motivations, both strategic and ideological, behind the recent ISIS revelations in Iraq.

The new president of the International Rescue Committee, David Miliband, has taken on the challenge of the largest refugee crisis in recent history. The former UK foreign secretary talks with CISAC affiliate Anja Manuell about the most pressing refugee issues today, including those in Syria, Iraq and South Sudan.

The International Rescue Committee has worked closely in the field for CISAC and FSI's UNHCR Project on Rethinking Refugee Communities, hosting and coordinating a visit to Ethiopia last year by Stanford students researching ways to improve conditions at refugee camps via technology and design.

Manuel interviewed Miliband at the World Affairs Council of Northern California.

Karl Eikenberry  Photo Credit: Rod Searcey

President Barack Obama has announced he will send several hundred troops to help secure the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad as militants aligned with the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria - known as ISIS - take neighborhoods in Baquba, only 44 miles from the Iraqi capital.

Former Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry, the William J. Perry Fellow in International Security, is interviewed by the Australian Broadcast Corporation. He says the advances by Islamic militants in Iraq in the last week "have been absolutely stunning." The retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen., however, thinks the ISIS advancement will end quickly. "The bigger worry that we have though is ISIS crossing over to the Iraqi and the Syrian frontier and the possibility of them establishing a sanctuary for international terrorists," Eikenberry says.

You can watch Eikenberry's interview here. and ready an interview in The Australian here.

Martha Crenshaw  Photo Credit: Rod Searcey

Martha Crenshaw, a senior fellow at CISAC and its parent organization, the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, is one of the world's leading experts on terrorism. She joined a panel on the public radio program KQED Forum to discuss the political situation and what the militants envision for an Islamic state.

"The ISIS is a group that is even more radical than al-Qaida itself," Crenshaw says. 
"Syria provided a launching board for them, which allowed them to become sort of a caliphate linking Syria and Iraq."

Crenshaw estimates there are between 5,000 to 6,000 members of the ISIS fighting in Iraq and that new recruits are coming in all the time. "But the source of their strength is not merely in numbers," she says. They have gained strength through discipline and communicating what an Islamic state would look like.

Listen to KQED panel discussion here.

Arash Aramesh, a national security analyst at Stanford Law School, discusses the crisis through the prism of Iran on Al Jazeera English.