Truth. Sacrifice. Radical Conviction.

Crisis-Management

St. Jude Thaddeus

Cynicism Is Not Realism

I encounter cynicism so frequently in the fields I work in – conflict resolution, humanitarian response, geopolitical analysis – that I have begun to treat it as a diagnostic indicator. Not of the situation being analyzed, but of the analyst.

Cynicism presents itself as sophistication. The cynic claims to see the world as it really is, stripped of illusion, clear-eyed about human nature and the limits of intervention. They speak with the authority of experience and the tone of resigned wisdom.

Geopolitics
St. Jude Thaddeus

What the Forgotten Crises Teach Us

There is a list that the United Nations maintains, updated annually, of humanitarian crises that are classified as “underfunded.” In practice, this means crises that have been forgotten – not resolved, but removed from the public consciousness through the simple mechanism of other, newer emergencies competing for the same finite pool of attention and resources.

The people in these crises are still displaced. Still hungry. Still dying at rates that would command headlines if they occurred in countries the media considers important. The difference is that no one is writing about them anymore.

Geopolitics
St. Jude Thaddeus

The Anatomy of a Lost Cause

I would like to examine what it means for a cause to be “lost,” because the phrase is used so frequently in geopolitical discourse that its actual content has become invisible. When an analyst, a diplomat, or a journalist describes a situation as a lost cause, they are making a specific claim – and it is usually the wrong one.

The claim is that the situation cannot be resolved. That the forces in play are too entrenched, the actors too intractable, the history too bitter for any outcome other than continued suffering.

Geopolitics