They will form the bulwark of peacebuilding.

He said, What my Lord has furnished me is better. Yet help me with some strength, and I will make a bulwark between you and them.

He said, What my Lord has furnished me is better. Yet help me with some strength, and I will make a bulwark between you and them.

If successful, the Asia that emerges from this transformation will not only be prosperous it will also be a bulwark of world peace the ultimate global public good.

China urgently needs to maintain an annual growth rate of over 9 as a bulwark against social disorder. As a result, however, China is slowly consuming itself, and no major part of China may remain pristine.

The bottom line is that Assad has no interest in winning. The man who now holds himself up as civilization s last bulwark against the Islamic State is also the last man who wants to see it eliminated.

A longstanding Germanophile, Pius XII was nonetheless anti Nazi. He hoped that Germany could be separated from Nazism, that Nazism could be destroyed without destroying Germany, thus preserving that great nation as a bulwark against the Soviet Union.

Clear electoral rules and procedures can help ensure transparency, but accountability also comes from the broad society in between elections. Privately owned newspapers, independent radio and television networks, trade unions, churches, professional societies, and other groups within civil society provide a bulwark against despotism.

Saudi Arabia, a self proclaimed bulwark of Islamic conservatism, where popular democracy has never been considered a legitimate form of rule, has been more aggressive in some arenas than in others. Domestically, the royal family struck quickly, adopting a ban on public demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience.

Both his political legitimacy and religious authority are highly questionable, and the street violence and prison brutality of recent months has undermined his authority and shaken his social base. Increasingly reliant on the Revolutionary Guard as the bulwark of his regime, Khamenei has cut himself off from the possibility of compromise.

The second crisis was immediately preceded by the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania in March 1979, which reinvigorated the anti nuclear movement. With nuclear power regarded as the main technological bulwark against depletion of the world's oil supplies suddenly suspect, oil prices doubled again by the year's end.

Indeed, the military, the bulwark of Mubarak s regime, is now in charge in Egypt, and has been repressing, jailing, and killing protesters who dare to stand up. Most recently, it has unveiled plans to write a new constitution before the presidential election, and its electoral commission has disqualified 10 of the 23 presidential candidates on flimsy grounds.

People of good will throughout the world, including those affiliated with multilateral organizations like the UN, should descend on Zimbabwe to observe this month s elections. Accredited or not, they should stand in solidarity with the people of Zimbabwe at this crucial moment, act as witnesses to the deteriorating pre election environment, and serve as a bulwark against any escalation of state brutality during and after the vote.

Counter terrorism against groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (which now calls itself simply the Islamic State ) whether by drones, small raids, or the training and arming of local partners must become a staple of policy. It is time to recognize the inevitability of Iraq s break up (the country is now more a vehicle for Iran s influence than a bulwark against it) and bolster an independent Kurdistan within Iraq s former borders.

A bulwark of secular government and anti fundamentalism in a North Africa that is struggling to contain the spread of Islamic extremism, Libya is of strategic importance to Europe and the US beyond its oil riches, notwithstanding the overwhelming significance of its energy resources. Fully aware of its growing importance in an oil starved world, Libya will use that advantage to the full and it will no doubt guard, with Gaddafi at the forefront, its sovereign rights vociferously and assiduously.