The question intrigued me. When abroad, I am used to being asked whether it was true that all Swiss men had a military rifle at home.  But, before a Japanese friend asked me about it the other day, I had never heard about a book called Civil Defense, which in the 1960s was apparently handed [...]

“Corruption undermines Governments’ ability to act and serve their people. It siphons off the finance intended to reduce poverty and discourages investment in economies,” (Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)) There is no doubt: the existence of corruption can poison the legitimacy of otherwise stable and secure governments. When the state [...]

We’ll take a closer look at the following topics this week — among many others: In ISN Insights on Monday, Dr Robert Cutler, of Carleton University’s Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, synthesizes the history of the eurozone debt crisis — bringing us to a better understanding of how and why the financial morass [...]

Cricket, as they say, is a funny old game.    Few sports can claim to inspire, in equal measure, its extensive and fanatical support — as the second-most popular sport in the world– and the blank incomprehension and derision of the uninitiated.  In India and Pakistan, the emotional lives of a billion people seem implicated in [...]

Case studies show that water scarcity is just as likely to promote cooperation as to increase the risks of violent conflict. Photo: flickr/Jasper ter Schegget What are we to believe about the relationship between environmental degradation and security?  Does environmental change open the door to conflict, or is it a force for cooperation? Is it [...]