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This week on War & Peace, Olga Oliker and Hugh Pope talk to researcher Petr Topychkanov about the balance of nuclear power between India and Pakistan, deterrence and nuclear transparency.

This week on War & Peace, Olga Oliker and Hugh Pope talk to Jessica Cox, director of Nuclear Policy at NATO, about the alliance’s position on nuclear weapons, NATO’s deterrence policy, and how all this might evolve as relations with Russia change.

This week on War & Peace, Olga Oliker and Hugh Pope discuss with researchers Edward Geist and Ivan Kalugin what planning for the worst looks like in the U.S. and Russia, comparing today to the peaks of nuclear anxiety during the Cold War.

A study of social media content shows that Venezuelan opposition figures often take harder anti-government lines if they flee abroad. Exiles’ voices are important, but those trying to end Venezuela’s crisis should listen to others as well, recalling that compromise offers the only peaceful exit.

This week on Hold Your Fire!, Rob Malley and Naz Modirzadeh talk with New York Times cybersecurity reporter Sheera Frenkel about the role that social media platforms played in the mob assault on the U.S. Capitol and the ways that online disinformation fuels conflict worldwide.

The mob incursion into the U.S. Capitol on 6 January proved that the United States’ transfer of power holds dangers without modern precedent. Political leaders of both parties should urgently explore their constitutional options for protecting the country’s people and institutions from their own president. 

Two years after Cameroon’s contested presidential election, political rivalry has taken a worrying direction as the incumbent’s supporters trade ethnic slurs with backers of his main challenger. The government should undertake electoral reforms, bar discrimination and work with social media platforms to curtail hate speech.

The plunging homicide rate in El Salvador has sparked debate about the role of the new president’s hardline policies. Much of it transpires on Twitter, where his champions and critics engage in rows that could pre-empt reasoned discussion of how to keep tamping down violence.

Fighting in Myanmar’s Rakhine State is taking a rising toll. It will hinder any effort to contain COVID-19 or resolve the Rohingya crisis. Rather than trying to defeat the Arakan Army, Naypyitaw should negotiate with ethnic Rakhine, endeavouring to convince them of electoral democracy’s benefits.

The “war on drugs” has not smashed Mexican organised crime but broken it into smaller fragments that fight each other for turf. The sheer difficulty of counting the criminal groups underscores the scale of the government’s challenge in protecting the public.