The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) is an American federal institution tasked with promoting conflict resolution and prevention worldwide. It provides research, analysis, and training to individuals in diplomacy, mediation, and other peace-building measures.
Following years of proposals for a national peace academy, USIP was established in 1984 by congressional legislation signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. It is officially nonpartisan and independent, receiving funding only through a congressional appropriation to prevent outside influence. The institute is governed by a bipartisan board of directors with 15 members, which must include the secretary of defense, the secretary of state, and the president of the National Defense University. The remaining 12 members are appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate.
The institute's headquarters is in the Foggy Bottom neighborhood of Washington, D.C. at the northwest corner of the National Mall near the Lincoln Memorial and Vietnam Veterans Memorial. It currently employs around 300 personnel and has trained more than 65,000 professionals since its inception.
Mission
The United States Institute of Peace Act, passed in 1984, calls for the institute to "serve the people and the government through the widest possible range of education and training, basic and applied research opportunities, and peace information services on the means to promote international peace and the resolution of conflicts among the nations and peoples of the world without recourse to violence."
The institute carries out this mission by operating programs in conflict zones, conducting research and analysis, operating a training academy and public education center, providing grants for research and fieldwork, convening conferences and workshops, and building the academic and policy fields of international conflict management and peacebuilding. On many of its projects, the institute works in partnership with non-governmental organizations, higher and secondary educational institutions, international organizations, local organizations, and U.S. government agencies, including the State Department and the Department of Defense.
History
President Ronald Reagan signed the United States Institute of Peace Act in 1984.
Spurred by a grassroots movement in the 1970s and 1980s, Senator Jennings Randolph joined senators Mark Hatfield and Spark Matsunaga and Representative Dan Glickman in an effort to form a national peace academy akin to the national military academies. The 1984 act creating USIP followed from a 1981 recommendation of a commission formed to examine the peace academy issue appointed by President Jimmy Carter and chaired by Matsunaga.
Robert F. Turner was the institute's first president and CEO, holding that position from 1986 to 1987. He was followed by Ambassador Samuel W. Lewis (1987–1992), Ambassador Richard H. Solomon (1992–2012), and former congressman Jim Marshall (2012–2013). Kristin Lord served as acting president (2013–2014). Nancy Lindborg was sworn in as president on February 2, 2015 and served until 2020. Lise Grande was named the new president in October, 2020. In its early years, the institute sought to strengthen international conflict management and peacebuilding. In a 2011 letter of support for USIP, the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs stated that this analytical work has "helped to build the conflict management and resolution field, both as an area of study and as an applied science".
Under Solomon's leadership, the institute expanded its operations in conflict zones and its training programs, initially in the Balkans and, after September 11, 2001, in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also became the home of several congressionally mandated blue-ribbon commissions, including the Iraq Study Group, the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States, and the Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel. Today, the institute conducts active programs in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Sudan, South Sudan, and elsewhere.
In 1996, Congress authorized the Navy to transfer jurisdiction of the federal land—a portion of its Potomac Annex facility on what has been known as Navy Hill—to become the site of the permanent USIP headquarters, across the street from the National Mall at 23rd Street and Constitution Avenue NW, in Washington, D.C. Prior to its construction, the institute leased office space in downtown Washington. Construction of the headquarters building concluded in 2011.