Each issue of the Journal features a Forum section that brings together academics, policymakers, and other professionals to analyze a single issue in depth. By examining the topic from a unique perspective, each Forum contributor incorporates his or her personal experiences and knowledge to offer Journal readers a complete perspective on the issue at hand. Previous Forums have examined the issue of transnational crime, space-based weapons, and the intersection of religion and politics.

In this Forum, we read between the headlines to take on a perennial issue: the role of national identity in violent conflict. Immigration, war, and other forms of social upheaval challenge existing community boundaries and show us how nationalism can be exploited in moments of crisis. As the United States struggles to define who is "American," the Russian Federation works to tame its breakaway regions, various states in Asia seek ways of governing multinational states, and memories of the Balkan crisis shape perceptions of nationalism, the time is ripe for a new discussion of the challenges that national identity poses for the state. This Forum examines when the boundaries that define communities become the fault lines for violent conflict.

Excerpts from Issue 7.2

Introduction (full text) by Charles King

American Immigrants in American Conflict by Edwina Barvosa

Nationalism and Policymaking in the Balkans by Nicholas J. Miller

Russia's Islamic Challenge
by Eduard Ponarin and Irina Kouznetsova-Morenko

The Federal Solution to Ethnic Conflicts by Baogang He

›› Read excerpts from Issue 7.2