Op-Ed / Middle East & North Africa 29 March 2016 Jordan: How Close to Danger? Originally published in The New York Review of Books Share Facebook Twitter Email Linkedin Whatsapp Save Print Poor Jordan. A small, economically precarious country, it shares a two-hundred-mile border with Syria. Yet unlike Syria’s other neighbors, Turkey, Iraq, and Lebanon, it rarely gets any attention in the international press. Indeed, while the world focuses on the European Union’s controversial deal with Turkey—in which Ankara has agreed to limit the number of asylum-seekers hoping to reach Greece’s shores in exchange for a lavish foreign aid package from Europe—hardly anything has been said about this crucial American ally on Syria’s southern border. But as I observed on a recent visit, Jordan is struggling to cope with vast numbers of refugees and an alarming rise in extremism. We ignore it at our peril. On paper, the size of the Syrian influx should have turned Jordan into a basket case. The Hashemite Kingdom has a per capita GDP of just over $5,000, and its official youth unemployment rate is around 30 percent. Though it is about half the size of Oklahoma, it has received perhaps three quarters of a million refugees since the war began—there are some 630,000 registered with the UN, but many more according to the authorities—meaning that Syrians now constitute about a tenth of Jordan’s population of 6.4 million. This is on top of a very large wave of Iraqis who came during the Iraq War a decade ago. How to feed this many, and provide them with potable water? How to school them, and how to employ them, especially when Jordanians themselves have trouble finding work? Continue Reading >> Related Tags Humanitarian Fallout of Conflict Jordan More for you Podcast / Europe & Central Asia Internal Displacement and Humanitarian Response in Ukraine Podcast / Africa Can a “Humanitarian Truce” Help End Ethiopia’s Civil War? Up Next Podcast / Europe & Central Asia Any Hope Left For Diplomacy Over Ukraine?
Podcast / Europe & Central Asia 5 March 2022 Any Hope Left For Diplomacy Over Ukraine? This week on Hold Your Fire!, Richard Atwood hosts a two-part episode on the Ukraine war, talking to Crisis Group’s Europe/Central Asia director Olga Oliker about the fighting and Western policy and then to UN director, Richard Gowan, about dynamics at the UN and how the world has reacted. Share Facebook Twitter Email Save Print Fighting rages on in Ukraine. Despite massive advantages in fire and manpower, the Russian military is facing much fiercer Ukrainian resistance than Moscow appears to have anticipated and has stepped up airstrikes on Ukrainian cities. Diplomatic efforts still continue, with the two sides meeting to talk about humanitarian access. But casualties and the levels of destruction continue to rise. Western countries have responded with punishing sanctions, further NATO troop build-ups along the alliance's eastern flank and continued supplies of arms to Ukraine. Meanwhile, a UN General Assembly meeting on 2 March saw a large majority of states vote to condemn Russia’s aggression. Whether Moscow’s diplomatic and economic isolation will have any impact on the Kremlin’s calculations remains to be seen. This week on Hold Your Fire! Richard Atwood discusses again the war in Ukraine and its fallout, in a two-part episode with Crisis Group experts, Olga Oliker, Europe & Central Asia director and Richard Gowan, UN director. Olga talks about the latest fighting dynamics, what the coming weeks could bring, the Western response so far and whether diplomatic efforts stand any hope of getting to a ceasefire or end to the fighting. Richard Gowan then looks at the overwhelming condemnation in the UN General Assembly of Russia’s aggression and reactions to the crisis from around the world. He asks what role the UN might play in Ukraine and examines the war’s potential impact on an already deeply divided Security Council and its conflict management more broadly. Click here to listen on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. For more of Crisis Group’s analysis, visit our Ukraine regional page, and make sure to read our recent commentary, ‘The Ukraine War: A Global Crisis?’ and our statement, ‘War in Europe: Responding to Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine’. Related Tags Multilateral Diplomacy Humanitarian Fallout of Conflict Ukraine Global Contributors Richard Atwood Executive Vice President atwoodr Olga Oliker Program Director, Europe and Central Asia OlyaOliker Richard Gowan UN Director RichardGowan1