After President Obama made his first speech to the United Nations General Assembly last Wednesday, the collective sigh of relief within the UN and UN missions was audible.  His speech embodied the spirit of optimism and hope contained in the UN Charter, rather than the hostility to the UN that characterized the US attitude over the previous eight years.  From my informal conversations with delegates, there was a sense that Obama had said all the right things.

The Obama administration is facing a critical juncture in American foreign policy. As U.S. civilian programs have been chronically underfunded and understaffed over the last several decades, there is growing consensus that our approach to global engagement is in dire need of repair. This concern has only grown stronger in the wake of ongoing U.S. military-led operations in Afghanistan and Iraq and widespread concerns about the reliance on and inappropriate use of U.S. military in non-combat activities abroad. We can no longer afford to view American foreign policy simply through the lens of increased U.S. military might.  The problems around the globe – including humanitarian crises related to displacement -- are too complex and require a multi-faceted approach.

When will it end?

Senseless cycles of human suffering go unchecked in many parts of the world.  And we all are, I believe, accountable to break them by becoming aware and taking meaningful action.

This summer RI colleague Sean Garcia and I conducted a field visit to Thailand, where for decades the largest numbers of refugees from Burma have sought safety. Because the country remains entrenched in political and armed conflict, forced displacement continues unabated.  Large numbers of refugees have grown up in camps and some of them are now being resettled to third countries, because there is exceedingly little hope of them returning to Burma in the foreseeable future and durable solutions in Thailand continue to be elusive. But moving people, however voluntarily, is a very expensive band-aid. The root of the problem has not been solved, not even diminished.  In fact, it’s getting worse.

It is estimated that almost every civilian household in Juba, south Sudan, holds at least one gun.  Just a few years after the resolution of decades of civil war in south Sudan, it is clear that civilians still feel unprotected by the state and find it necessary to take the responsibility of protection upon themselves. Just a few months ago, I learned of a similar situation with residents in Karamoja, Uganda who were reluctant to disarm because they felt weapons were their only form of protection.  I also remember feeling the same type of concern in the Central African Republic, when I encountered villagers who had created ‘self-defense units” in order to ward off bandits. These are all clear examples of the extreme gaps in the day-to-day safety civilians feel.

On my recent trip to eastern DR Congo with my colleague Camilla Olson, we overlapped with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton as she visited Goma. The visit of such a senior U.S. official to a place people often say the world has forgotten about was encouraging. For those of us working on Congo issues, it was a rare source of hope that greater attention would be paid to the never-ending cycle of violence that has led to the deaths of millions of civilians and exhausted donors and aid workers.