July 20, 2022

Who Gets Smart? Explaining How Precision Bombs Proliferate

Recent publication from Minerva-funded researchers theorize about the key drivers of smart bomb proliferation, including an interaction between the security environment, regime type, and the interest of states in precision to help them follow the law of war.

July 6, 2022

The Defense Education and Civilian University Research (DECUR) Partnership competition is NOW OPEN

The Defense Education and Civilian University Research (DECUR) Partnership competition is NOW OPEN on grants.gov. White paper submissions are due on Thursday, September 8th. The DECUR FOA follows different guidelines and deadlines than the Minerva University Grants FOA, though the Research Priorities are the same.

June 22, 2022

Leadership Targeting and Militant Alliance Breakdown

Minerva-funded researcher’s recent publication in the University of Chicago’s Journal of Politics show that leadership targeting can lead to the breakdown of alliances among militant groups.

June 9, 2022

Minerva-funded researchers new article, "What will keep ships — and people — safer in the Gulf of Guinea?"

"While global maritime piracy generally decreased from 2015 to 2020, piracy incidents increased substantially in the Gulf of Guinea."

May 26, 2022

Minerva-funded researchers new article "The Myth of US Energy Independence" published in Nature

"The Russia–Ukraine crisis has exposed vulnerabilities in US energy security. The US may import only a small amount of Russian oil but it is tied to Russian energy via its participation in highly globalized supply chains."

May 5, 2022

Minerva-USIP Peace and Security Fellow Casey Mahoney's new article "Shared Responsibility: Enacting Military AI Ethics in U.S. Coalitions"

"AI is making human judgment in war more, not less, important. This means the United States and its allies and partners will need to innovate together, focusing on more than broad ethical principles and technical solutions."

April 28, 2022

Exploring the Social-Ecological Factors that Mobilize Children into Violence

This article applies the social-ecological model to children’s mobilization into two violent groups—Central American gangs and terrorist organizations. While these two groups clearly differ in important ways, there are contextual similarities that frame a child’s involvement in each. For example, both flourish in low-resource settings where governmental structures may have been weakened or disrupted.

April 13, 2022

Minerva-funded Research Reveals How Misinformation can be Re-invigorated in Discourse Through the Novelty of a Major Event

Analysts of social media differ in their emphasis on the effects of message content versus social network structure. The balance of these factors may change substantially across time. When a major event occurs, initial independent reactions may give way to more social diffusion of interpretations of the event among different communities, including those committed to disinformation.

April 7, 2022

Rising Power Alliances team from the Fletcher School new publication "Brazilian alliance perspectives: towards a BRICS development–security alliance?"

This study examines Brazil’s perceptions by introducing and analyzing a new data set of Brazilian expert discourses on alliances since 1990 and using its participation in BRICS as an empirical case.

March 29, 2022

Mia Bloom's new article "How fairy tales shape fighting spirit: Ukraine’s children hear bedtime stories of underdog heroes, while Russian children hear tales of magical success" published in The Conversation.

"The difference in traditional Russian and Ukrainian folklore might in part explain the difference between the Russian and Ukrainian armies’ performances".