John Norris
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John Norris is the Executive Director of the Sustainable Security and Peacebuilding Initiative at the Center for American Progress. He has served in a number of senior roles in government, international institutions, and nonprofits. John previously served as the Executive Director of the Enough Project, an advocacy organization committed to preventing war crimes around the globe. John was the chief of political affairs for the United Nations Mission in Nepal as that country tried to emerge from a decade-long war. Previously, John served as the Washington chief of staff for the International Crisis Group, conducting extensive field work and senior-level advocacy for resolving conflicts in South Asia, Africa, and the Balkans.

Earlier in his career, John served as the director of communications for U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. He also worked as a speechwriter and field disaster expert at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

John is the author of several books, including the Disaster Gypsies, a memoir of his work in the field of emergency relief, and Collision Course: NATO, Russia and Kosovo. John has published commentary in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal, and elsewhere. He has a graduate degree in public administration.

Blog Entries by John Norris

The GOP's Foreign Policy: At Odds with Reality?

Posted March 23, 2011 | 21:39:41 (EST)

After a 2010 Congressional election completely absent foreign policy debates, the irony is lost on no one that events around the world now completely dominate recent headlines. At first glance, it would be easy to see the Republican Party as divided from within as it tries to figure out how...

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Peace Talks with the Lord's Resistance Army Are Unrealistic, For Now

Posted May 21, 2010 | 15:00:28 (EST)

This guest post was written by Enough's Ledio Cakaj, who is based in Kampala, Uganda and travels regularly to eastern Congo, southern Sudan, and the Central African Republic to research the Lord's Resistance Army.

As the landmark legislation, the Lord's Resistance Army Disarmament and Northern Uganda Recovery Act of 2009...

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Field Dispatch: The Arrow Boys of Southern Sudan

Posted March 12, 2010 | 14:14:02 (EST)

Many of the stories Enough's field researchers hear while immersed in their work in some of the world's worst conflict zones don't make it into our policy reports, press releases, and Congressional testimony. Indeed, as each field researcher can attest, some of the most compelling stories and interactions come at...

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Sudan Is Still Up to No Good

Posted March 11, 2010 | 18:54:33 (EST)

The Lord's Resistance Army has come to Darfur, Sudan, and that is not good news for anyone. The Lord's Resistance Army is a vicious militia led by self-proclaimed messiah Joseph Kony, and though he does not appear to be with the contingent that has moved into Darfur, Kony is widely...

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A House Divided on Sudan?

Posted March 10, 2010 | 11:01:38 (EST)

There were important statements delivered last week by two of the administration's most pivotal actors on Sudan policy, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice and Special Envoy Scott Gration. There is a great deal of interesting material in both statements, but the comments are most striking in their...

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Obama Takes our YouTube Question on Sudan

Posted February 2, 2010 | 18:43:46 (EST)

Thanks to the Sudan advocacy community's ability to quickly mobilize, the Enough Project was able to get Sudan policy front and center before President Obama not just once, but twice in 48 hours. First, President Obama was at the Duke-Georgetown basketball game on Saturday where he saw a...

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Dispatch from Congo: Ferocious Attacks by the Lord's Resistance Army

Posted January 27, 2010 | 13:30:04 (EST)

Many of the stories Enough's field researchers hear while immersed in their work in some of the world's worst conflict zones don't make it into our policy reports, press releases and Congressional testimony. Indeed, as each field researcher can attest, some of the most compelling stories and interactions...

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Dispatch from Congo: 'We Are Being Exterminated'

Posted January 27, 2010 | 12:58:23 (EST)

Many of the stories Enough's field researchers hear while immersed in their work in some of the world's worst conflict zones don't make it into our policy reports, press releases, and Congressional testimony. Indeed, as each field researcher can attest, some of the most compelling stories and interactions...

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Dispatch from Congo: Close Encounter with the Lord's Resistance Army

Posted January 14, 2010 | 13:46:56 (EST)

Many of the stories Enough's field researchers hear while immersed in their work in some of the world's worst conflict zones don't make it into our policy reports, press releases, and Congressional testimony. Indeed, as each field researcher can attest, some of the most compelling stories and interactions...

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Sudan's Interlocking Crises (VIDEO)

Posted October 24, 2009 | 14:14:29 (EST)

Days after the release of the Obama administration's new Sudan policy, I appeared on Aljazeera yesterday afternoon with Tahir el-Faky of the Darfuri rebel group Justice and Equality Movement and Mahmood Mamdani, director of Columbia University's Institute of African Studies. We discussed the new "carrots and sticks" policy, the use...

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Sudan Score Card

Posted October 22, 2009 | 18:04:30 (EST)

This piece originally appeared on Foreign Policy.

Over the last nine months, the Sudan policy review has taken on something of a mythical air. Activists and others lost count of the number of times they were told the review would be completed "in weeks, not months" -- even as...

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Testing Obama's Sudan Policy

Posted October 21, 2009 | 13:23:52 (EST)

This piece originally appeared in the Guardian.

After a lengthy internal battle, the Obama administration has formally rolled out its new Sudan policy. The policy spells out some ambitious goals: a definitive end to conflict and genocide in Darfur, implementation of the 2005 North-South peace deal and peaceful moves...

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Top Obama Advisors to Hold Pivotal Sudan Meeting Tomorrow

Posted September 28, 2009 | 14:43:11 (EST)

A long-awaited meeting on Sudan policy between President Obama's cabinet officials is slated to take place tomorrow. This so-called principals' meeting will include Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, and other members of the president's national security team.

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Honey for Sudan's President?

Posted September 23, 2009 | 15:27:22 (EST)

Special Envoy for Sudan Major General Scott Gration recently did an interview with Radio Dabanga, located in Holland. We have been slow to post on the interview, in part because we have been in a back-and-forth with both General Gration's office and the radio station to make sure there...

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Sudan Now

Posted August 26, 2009 | 13:41:20 (EST)

Yesterday, a coalition of anti-genocide advocacy organizations announced the launch of a bold new campaign called Sudan Now: Keep the Promise. The campaign challenges President Barack Obama and top U.S. administration officials to live up to their campaign and political promises by taking strong and immediate action to help end...

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Pretzel Logic

Posted June 24, 2009 | 12:39:03 (EST)

A whopper of an op-ed by Andrew Natsios today, criticizing the Obama administration on Sudan. It is hard to know where to start. Perhaps the most egregious argument by Natsios is that:

"U.S. use of the term "genocide" is reducing our diplomatic options. In the face of genocide, the...

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YouTube Takes on Conflict Minerals

Posted May 19, 2009 | 16:58:00 (EST)

I am pleased to announce that the Enough Project is now partnering with YouTube in a video contest focused on ending the trade in conflict minerals from Congo. We are the first non-profit to be highlighted by YouTube as part of its new 'Video for Change' program, which leverages the...

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Simply Appalling

Posted April 18, 2009 | 11:38:07 (EST)

As if we needed any further proof of the predatory approach of the Sudanese Government to both its own people and the humanitarian relief community. According to the United Nations, between March 4 and 25 of this year, relief organizations had 354 vehicles, 684 computers, and 1,035 radios seized by...

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Parsing Gration in Darfur

Posted April 10, 2009 | 11:35:00 (EST)

While U.S. Special Envoy Scott Gration was making his initial tour of a displaced camp in Darfur this last weekend, he told reporters, "We have to increase the capacity and number of aid agencies that are able to move aid assistance from the warehouses to the distribution points and then...

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Natsios Slow Dances with Bashir

Posted March 30, 2009 | 15:28:36 (EST)

Andrew Natsios, the former head of the United States Agency for International Development and a special envoy to Sudan in the Bush Administration, has a new piece on Sudan up on ForeignAffairs.com. For those of you who do not remember Natsios, he is the same gentleman who assured the...

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