Had the US diplomats actually watched al-Jazeera's reports, they would have heard the voices and players who were shaping conflicts, wars and emerging democracies.
We use a political ecology approach to reveal how complex cultural dynamics, competing interpretations of science and the environment, micropolitics, and the role of multiple actors generate and shape conflicts over dam removal.
It was also an example of how militant young settlers are shaping the conflict in the West Bank after more than two years of violence between Israelis and Palestinians.
And this week, although it has applauded the easing of tensions on the Korean peninsula, the government is shaping that conflict of half a century ago to serve its current needs.
But the forces shaping the conflict are far more complicated than that, driven by personal ambitions, old rivalries, tribal politics, the relationship between militants and states, and even the fight for control of the lucrative drug trade.
DAMASCUS, 12 June 2013 - UNICEF is appalled by the rising level of brutality that is increasingly shaping the conflict in Syria, and the devastating impact it is having on the lives of civilians, and children in particular.
Identify the people and events that have shaped this conflict.
Yet The Wall's themes – fear of state and bomb alike – continue to resonate, and their off-kilter framing here further reveals the extent to which Waters' generation was shaped by conflict.
Here too unmanned aircraft have helped to shape the conflict, supporting troops on the ground and pinpointing targets for other aircraft to attack as well as conducting strikes of their own.
Her extraordinary book offers a rare insight into the subtle and dramatic ways we are shaped by conflict, and how our personal lives can be overtaken by political forces.
