When jihadists get involved in civil wars, they push the conflict well beyond its original borders. Since 1990, the rate of jihadist involvement in civil conflict has jumped from 5% to 40%. What's changed? FSI senior fellow Martha Crenshaw, a counterterrorism expert, tells FSI director Michael McFaul how jihadism has grown in the last 30 years and how terrorism and civil wars affect each other.

Crenshaw is one of eight FSI scholars confronting civil war threats with the "Civil Wars, Violence, and International Responses" project. Supported by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, FSI's Karl Eikenberry and Stephen D. Krasner gathered experts from around the world to talk about changing international policy to meet these new challenges. We will be speaking with each of the scholars about how civil wars are changing, how they might affect the rest of the world, and what we can do about it.

To learn more about the project, check out the fall 2017 and winter 2018 issues of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the outreach projects Eikenberry and Krasner are embarking on around the world: www.amacad.org/content/Research/…ject.aspx?d=22262.

If you like what you hear, you can get additional content from scholars at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies by following us on X, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and by subscribing to our newsletters and updates.