Articles by Alex de Waal

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The Nazis Used It, We Use It: The Return of Famine as a Weapon of War
Alex de Waal | London Review of Books – TRANSCEND Media Service, 26 Jun 2017

15 Jun 2017 – In its primary use, the verb ‘to starve’ is transitive: it’s something people do to one another, like torture or murder. Mass starvation as a consequence of the weather has very nearly disappeared: today’s famines are all caused by political decisions, yet journalists still use the phrase ‘man-made famine’ as if such events were unusual.

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Do-Gooders, Do No Harm: What Are the Best–and Worst–Ways to Help Those Mired in International Conflicts?
Laura Seay and Alex de Waal – The Washington Post, 20 Jul 2015

Since the end of the Cold War, numerous international advocacy efforts concerning global conflict sprung out of good intentions. Yet the results of these movements are often, at best, mixed, and in some cases actually made a crisis or the plight of innocent civilians worse.

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