Center for Strategic Communication

Will bombing ever get rid of Islamic State?

My contribution in the excellent magazine Prospect to the public conversation in the UK last week about bombing Syria in the wake of this week’s parliamentary vote. It tries to explore what exactly kinetic military campaigns can do to counter terrroist...

Good News from Sri Lanka: Is It Sustainable?

By Patricia Lee Sharpe Take a good look at the photo of Mahinda Rajapaksa, the two term president of Sri Lanka who called a snap election, expecting to win  by a landslide, then lost, decisively.  Note the aggressive mustache, the arched eyebrows, the bug eyes.  Shift...

Double Standards: Buddhists, Muslims and Murder

By Patricia Lee Sharpe Buddhist mobs have been killing Muslims in Myanmar. Where’s the outrage? Why aren’t all major Buddhist leaders, those supposed paragons of compassion, loudly, unequivocally, calling for a halt to it? Why aren’t Buddhist practitioners world wide...