We live in an environment in which connectivity and cyberspace are transforming all workplaces, including the humanitarian workplace.

Conflicts are increasingly causing devastation in densely populated urban centres rather than open battlefields, creating a host of new problems through the cumulative impact from the destruction of vital services like water and electricity.

Conflicts are not temporary interruptions: they are structural, socio-economic catastrophes, and funding must be allocated accordingly.

People living through armed conflicts need infrastructure and services which will last, and the last thing on their mind is which budget line applies.

Whenever there is an international crisis - an earthquake, a flood, a war - Americans provide more assistance than the people of any other nation.

Gen. Tommy Franks told me the war was being compromised as specialized personnel and equipment were being shifted from Afghanistan to prepare for the war in Iraq - a war more than a year away.

Government tends to stifle innovation, and it abhors improvisation. Any good military strategist will tell you that a battle plan rarely survives past the first engagement. After that, you have to improvise to survive and to win.

American culture is torn between our long romance with violence and our terror of the devastation wrought by war and crime and environmental havoc.