State Fragility, Violent Conflict, and the GFA with Corrine Graff | Security Past and Present

Violent conflicts have risen in number, duration, and intensity since 1990, spurring the spread of violent extremism and one of the largest displacement crises in human history, causing untold human suffering. In response, the international community has coalesced around the need for new approaches to reduce conflict’s underlying drivers and increase resiliency to shocks. In the US, this consensus culminated in the Global Fragility Act (GFA), an ambitious measure signed into law in late 2019 that aims to overhaul the way the US engages in countries vulnerable to conflict-especially in fragile states, where the social contract between citizens and the state is severed, and societies are fragmented and prone to violence. Will this new framework begin to transform US policy and assistance in fragile countries? Does it offer an alternative to the multibillion-dollar state-building efforts that we have seen in places like Afghanistan and Iraq? Watch Dr. Corrine Graff's discussion of the GFA and its prospects over the coming months and years.
This event was part of CSS’s fall series, Security Past and Present. This series evaluates the conflicts, tensions and resolutions of yesterday that have shaped the challenges of today. Watch as we consider how our past helped create our present, and what we can learn from history to avoid repeating it in the future.