Treaty Negotiations in the Face of Strained India-Bangladesh Relations
Introduction
India-Bangladesh relations are at a historic low ever since the August 2024 ousting of former Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Her regime was accused of enforced disappearance, power abuse, and other human rights violations in protests that left almost 1,400 people dead, according to a press release by the United Nations. Hasina subsequently fled to India, which granted her asylum, and whose historic ties with her Awami League party have fuelled accusations of India supporting her authoritarian rule. Since her removal, Bangladesh has been under a caretaker government led by Nobel Prize economist Mohammad Yunus for almost 18 months. A return to a democratically elected government may provide India with the fresh start it needs to revitalize relations between the two countries.
However, this is not guaranteed. On February 12, 2026, Bangladesh elected Tarique Rahman of the Bangladesh National Party (“BNP”) to the position of prime minister in a landslide victory, with the Islamist party Jamaat-e-Islami coming in second. Rahman campaigned on a Bangladesh First policy, reflecting the strained ties between India and Bangladesh. Although this is a slight change from Yunus’s foreign policy positions, which favored closer ties with Pakistan and China, India faces an uphill battle in relations with its eastern neighbor.
Extradition Treaty
Arguably, the most pressing diplomatic issue between India and Bangladesh recently is the extradition of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who is currently being granted asylum in India. Although India and Bangladesh have a bilateral extradition treaty, New Delhi has denied Dhaka’s request for extradition, arguing that she is being extradited for a political offense — an exception under the extradition treaty. Bangladesh has sentenced Hasina to death in absentia, along with former Bangladeshi home minister Assaduzaman Khan Kamal, through its International Crimes Tribunal, originally established by Hasina to prosecute war crimes in the Bangladesh Liberation war.
It is unclear whether Bangladesh and India will come to a solution via negotiations on this issue.
Ganges Water Treaty
Bangladesh and India are also set to renegotiate the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty, set to expire at the end of this year. The treaty, signed in 1996 after India constructed the Farakka Barrage, aims to regulate water-sharing issues on the Ganges river. The treaty mainly focuses on downstream water flows for agricultural purposes. Bangladesh also cites climate change as a concern for renegotiation, as the drawing of water at Farakka and changes in climate patterns have increased salt-water flows from the Bay of Bengal into the Sundarbans mangroves, an ecologically protected site straddling the India-Bangladesh border. This is causing erosion on the Indian side of the Sundarbans, and salinity levels and sea level rise issues are being exacerbated. Additionally, the lack of freshwater, an issue raised by Bangladeshi negotiators, is causing health problems on both sides of the border. Women who work planting crops in the mangroves report sores, infections, and other health issues caused by bathing in and consuming salt water.
The issue is further complicated by Bangladesh’s plans to construct a water management system on another shared river, the Teesta, with Chinese help, Bangladesh alleges that the current arrangement benefits India at the expense of Bangladesh’s freshwater flows. A previous proposal that would have granted Bangladesh almost 40% of the dry season river flow was blocked at the last minute by West Bengal’s chief minister, Mamata Banerjee, citing farmers’ concerns over adequate irrigation in India. The Teesta River Master Plan was originally devised by the Sheikh Hasina government, who wanted India to help manage the river. However, Yunus sought the help of Chinese technology, calling China a “master of water management” at a meeting with Chinese Water Resources Minister Li Guoying.
India cites security concerns as this river flows through the Siliguri Corridor, a thin strip of land connecting India’s northeastern states to the rest of the country. As this is an important strategic and military zone for India, they argue that any Chinese activity in the area poses a security and intelligence threat. The BNP, who were recently elected to a majority in the parliament, have voiced support for the project, so bilateral negotiations may be back on the table if New Delhi wants to have a say in the management of the river.
Identity Politics
Identity politics, particularly with regard to religion, have further strained relations between New Delhi and Dhaka. Additionally, Bangladeshi protesters are not pleased with India’s perceived influence over their country’s affairs. Although India may prefer a democratically elected government for stability, it has voiced concerns with attacks on Hindus in Bangladesh and the rise of Jamaat, an Islamist political party. Dhaka claims that these attacks are exaggerated and not the result of sectarian tensions. However, due to these tensions, Bangladesh has suspended visas for Indian travelers for about two months. This has also spilled into sports, with the Bangladeshi cricket team boycotting the T20 Cricket World Cup for alleged security reasons that may stem from political tensions with the World Cup host, India.
Conclusion
Ultimately, the ability of India and Bangladesh to resume peaceful relations depends on the political will of both sides. Their interdependency, coupled with India’s desire to remain the guiding force in the subcontinent may force negotiations to occur. Rahman’s new government has indicated that it is open to talks to ease tensions between New Delhi and Dhaka, but it is to be seen whether they will simmer down for good.
Heightened Tensions Between Ethiopia and Eritrea
On February 7, Ethiopian Foreign Minister Gedion Timotheos issued a letter accusing Eritrea of backing militants in the northern Tigray region, demanding that Eritrea “withdraw its troops from Ethiopian territory and cease all forms of collaboration with rebel groups.” Asmara responded two days later, claiming that the allegations were fake, and further alleging that Ethiopia, a landlocked country, was aiming to seize Eritrea’s Assab port through military force.
In late January, drone strikes launched by the Ethiopian National Defense Force (ENDF) in Tigray killed one person and injured another, heightening fears of a civil war over contested territory that both Amhara and Tigrayan forces claim. Addis Ababa, under Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, continues to accuse the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the Tigrayan nationalist paramilitary group, of affiliating with the Eritrean government in preparation for war against Ethiopia. The TPLF has been dealing with its own internal fractures, with the leader of the organization fleeing Mekele, the regional capital, just last year, leaving the party in disarray ever since.
Eritrea and Ethiopia have their own recent, fragile history. From 1998-2000, a border war was fought, resulting in over 100,000 deaths. A conclusive peace deal was never reached after the war, with relations only improving after Prime Minister Ahmed traveled to Asmara in 2018, winning him a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts the following year. Later, Ethiopia and Eritrea became allies during Ethiopia’s ruthless civil war from 2020 to 2022 against northern Tigrayan forces led by the TPLF, with casualty estimates ranging from 600,000 to 800,000 deaths. During the war, Tigrayan infrastructure was systematically decimated, starvation was inflicted upon the northern ethnic population, and a large-scale campaign of sexual abuse was waged on the region’s women and children.
Following the 2022 Pretoria Agreement that ended the war, the Tigray region embarked on a delicate recovery process. Yet, the TPLF has faced internal divisions due to corruption and a lack of commitment to reach a resolution, instead hoping to continue the conflict through other means. This has left the Tigrayan population incredibly vulnerable. Following the war, the TPLF fractured into two camps: anti-government hardliners and more moderate leaders. While the ENDF has thrown its support behind the moderates, the hardline faction has increasingly aligned itself with Eritrea.
In 2022, Amharan militias, allied with the Ethiopian central government and composed of the second largest ethnic group in Ethiopia, were ordered to retreat from Tigray, feeling betrayed by the Ethiopian national army, as their contributions to the war effort were dismissed through the Pretoria Agreement. Eritrean soldiers were also excluded from the treaty, reigniting the decades-old feud between Eritrea and Ethiopia. With old border grievances resurfacing, peace deals fraying, and rival factions courting external backing, recent skirmishes between Ethiopia and Eritrea risk triggering a wider war that could once again destabilize the entire Horn of Africa.
NATO After Davos: What Changed and What Comes Next?
NATO after Davos: What changed and What Comes Next?
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) has long been the heart of the pan-American and European security order, a bulwark designed to ensure collective defense and strategic stability across the Atlantic. Yet recent upheavals and growing unpredictability in U.S. foreign policy have fueled a renewed skepticism about the alliance’s long-term cohesion and credibility. Concerns intensified in the aftermath of the Venezuela operation, driven by renewed U.S. posturing toward Greenland, which sparked unease across European capitals. Fears of potential hostile action further stirred Europe, forcing the deployment of European military personnel to Greenland. Although this deployment was limited in practical effect, the event underscored broader anxieties about the reliability of the alliance despite efforts at de-escalation.
The 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos marked a notable convergence in allied messaging. Officials from across the Euro-Atlantic alliance used public remarks and follow-on engagements to reaffirm NATO’s priorities amid the prolonged war in Ukraine, mounting industrial strain, and uncertainty surrounding long-term transatlantic political cohesion. Even though Davos isn’t a security forum and doesn’t create binding policies, it has become a place where leaders reinforce shared strategic messages rather than create new ones, as well as discuss potential future policy.
NATO’s Post-Davos Messaging Shift
In the weeks following Davos, allied officials emphasized NATO’s continuity and endurance rather than escalation. Public statements from NATO leaders and member states reinforced the alliance’s commitment to collective defense while recalibrating expectations. The focus was not particularly on dramatic policy shifts or confrontational posturing toward Washington and the current administration, but on preserving deterrence over time in a shifting security environment. More aggressive rhetoric risked deepening transatlantic friction at a moment when the alliance's cohesion is paramount to its survival. NATO leaders leaned into statements that directly addressed the long-standing U.S. concerns about burden sharing and mutual military readiness. Former Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg repeatedly stressed that support for Ukraine would require “long-term commitment”, while current Secretary General Mark Rutte has emphasized the need to boost defense production and move to a “wartime mindset.” By stressing higher defense spending and industrial expansion, NATO positioned itself as responsive and proactive to American pressure.
This approach appears to be particularly effective in managing relations with the Trump administration, which has consistently criticized allied nations' shrinking in their responsibilities for defense spending. By highlighting the number of allies that now meet or exceed the 2 percent spending target, the alliance has begun to reduce grounds for confrontation while preserving its directional goals.
Historically, NATO has favored a calculated and calibrated deterrence strategy and avoided overt confrontation, preferring to operate under firm U.S. leadership. What distinguishes today's NATO is not necessarily a break in tone but a shift in the alliance's substance. The alliance remains cautious in rhetoric, yet it is more radical on issues pertaining to long-term military buildup, defense industrial coordination, and collective resilience. In that sense, NATO’s strategy reflects not only its continuity but its evolution in the changing world stage by being steady in posture, but increasingly structured to withstand volatility in Washington while reinforcing European responsibility within the alliance.
Ukraine
Following Davos, NATO also began to adjust how it framed its support for Ukraine. Rather than leaning on crisis-driven, short-term aid rhetoric, alliance messaging shifted toward a long-term framework, emphasizing sustained assistance in combating Russian adventurism in the east. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte highlighted that allies continue to coordinate weapons deliveries and training with a long-term view, saying essentially that NATO will be with Ukraine on training and arms supply while ensuring strong security guarantees over time.
This is a subtle shift from the earlier phases of the war, when allied support was often presented as an emergency response. As the conflict approaches its fourth year and costs rise, NATO is increasingly incorporating aid to Ukraine into its planning arrangements. NATO’s Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) and the NATO Security Assistance and Training for Ukraine command are some of the many examples of structures designed to sustain support beyond one-off pledges.
NATO stresses that continuous and sustained deterrence, as well as capability provisions, are necessary to ensure Ukraine can bargain from a position of strength in any future negotiations. European and allied leaders recently reconfirmed broad backing for Ukraine as the war’s fourth anniversary was marked, even as debates over peace proposals and future strategy continue.
Defense Industry and Burden Sharing
As stated earlier, under pressure from the Trump administration, NATO’s burden-sharing debate became more concrete and data-driven. Trump repeatedly pushed allies to increase defense spending and even advocated for a 5% of GDP benchmark by 2035, a notable rise from the long-standing 2% guideline. This pressure helped shift NATO discussions from abstract concerns about free-riding to a concrete plan on a fixed budget with reasonable commitments. At the 2025 Hague Summit, alliance leaders agreed to pursue a 5% spending target with stronger reporting requirements, a move highlighted by both allies and U.S. officials as a response to Trump’s long-standing pressure.
The effects on defense spending are visible. According to SIPRI, according to NATO estimates, 23 allies were expected to meet or exceed the 2% benchmark in 2024, compared to just 11 in 2023, and several Eastern European states were spending well above it. For example, Poland was estimated at 4.5% of GDP, while Lithuania and Latvia were also significantly above target. For comparison, historically lower spenders like Germany have been steadily increasing defense budgets and reached near or above the 2% mark in recent years.
This dynamic has helped NATO reduce its friction with Washington by showing measurable progress on burden-sharing. Rather than confrontation, NATO leaned on quantifiable increases in allied spending and capability investments to address Trump’s critiques without undermining cohesion. The result is a gradual but notable shift toward institutionalized long-term deterrence.
Why It Matters
NATO is confronting a more uncertain strategic environment marked by wavering U.S. support, persistent Russian threats, and rising internal political volatility among member states. For example, Trump’s shifts in U.S.-Russia policy have unnerved NATO’s eastern flank and raised questions about Washington’s long-term commitment to European security, which in turn pressures European capitals to reconsider their own roles in collective defense. Simultaneously, the concerns on uneven burden-sharing and domestic pushback, such as criticism of NATO spending targets by leaders like Slovakia’s Robert Fico and Spain’s resistance to higher defense spending, highlight how populist and sovereigntist politics can undercut alliance cohesion. At the same time, Russia’s large-scale war in Ukraine, expanded defense spending, and aggressive posture along NATO’s borders continue to underscore the need for a strong deterrence.
To address these challenges, NATO’s updated approach emphasizes predictable, long-term deterrence and collective resilience over one-off crisis-response. Allied leaders have agreed to boost defense investment and modernize planning, reflecting sustained strategic competition rather than short-term threats. By doing so, NATO is reinforcing its foundational role in transatlantic security while adapting to a landscape where great-power competition, domestic politics, and resource constraints shape how deterrence must be sustained.
The Israeli-US War Against Iran
In the early afternoon of February 28th, Jordanian air raid sirens went off all across the country. Those sirens, which I heard from my apartment in downtown Amman, went off following the launch of US and Israeli missiles towards Iran over Jordanian airspace.
Mid-morning this Saturday, President Trump announced that the United States and Israel had begun “major combat operations” against Iran. The president claims that these attacks— referred to as “Operation Epic Fury”—are meant to neutralise the threat of Iran's military and nuclear programme. Only a few minutes later, after the President posted a video to the social media site Truth Social claiming that the US government “can’t take” the Iranian threat anymore, the Israeli government announced that it would also be launching strikes against Iran.
Strikes between the US-Israel alliance and Iran have become increasingly common in recent years. However, this latest round of strikes could indicate the beginning of a larger and longer regional war.
The US attack came early on Saturday morning—a weekday in Iran—as hundreds of Iranians were travelling to school or work. President Trump warned Iranians to shelter at home and claimed to support them by openly calling for regime change. Israel also issued a warning for Iranian civilians to move away from government areas. These warnings were hamstrung by the fact that many US and Israeli missiles targeted buildings in the middle of residential areas. In at least one case, it had extremely deadly effects. During the first wave of strikes, at least 153 Iranian civilians, including 40 young girls, were killed as a result of an Israeli-US strike on a girls’ primary school in a busy residential neighborhood. The timing and locations of the strikes ensured that more people would be on the streets and strengthened the likelihood of civilian casualties from the strikes. At the moment, the total number of wounded and killed is unknown, but the Red Crescent has said that at least 742 civilians are dead, including 176 children, and countless more are injured.
Another shift in the nature of this attack came in its first wave. In an unprecedented move, one of the first rounds of missiles fired by the United States struck the house of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. While it is unclear if the Ayatollah was in his house at the time, sources later confirmed that the Ayatollah was killed during this attack. After news of the death of Ayatollah and at least four other high-ranking government officials, Iranian officials said that this attack crossed “a very dangerous red line” indicating that Iran’s plans to retaliate are of unprecedented scope.
Both the killing of the Ayatollah and the increase in civilian deaths have increased the stakes for Iran. That is clear in the nation's response. The Revolutionary Guard—Iran's paramilitary force—has stated that Iran's “response will be crushing.” Iran has since launched an unprecedented series of missile and drone attacks on Israel and on US bases in neighbouring states. This wide-scale attack on multiple countries could shift the political balance in the region.
While Iran has retaliated against Israel, that is not all that it has done. Iran has also launched several attacks towards the Gulf states. While some reports are still unconfirmed, explosions from Iranian missiles have been heard in Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, and Bahrain. In the UAE, one person is confirmed to be dead, and others are injured. The targets of the attacks in Qatar are unclear, as were the targets of the attacks in the UAE and Kuwait, although both countries’ international airports were bombed. In Bahrain, however, it seems as though Iran is following up on its promise to retaliate against US military bases. The Bahraini state news agency has announced that missiles struck the US naval base in the nation, which is the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet.
In response to these attacks, Bahrain and the UAE have both released statements condemning the attacks as “flagrant violation[s]” of their sovereignty and affirming their right to retaliate in the case of further aggression. In addition to releasing a similar statement, Kuwait has summoned Iran’s ambassador for talks concerning the attacks and to assert Kuwait's right to self-defense in person.
Qatar has also released a statement regarding the Iranian strikes in its territory. In this statement, Qatar similarly affirmed its right to defend itself and condemned Iran’s infringement on its territory and sovereignty. In the statement, Qatar reaffirmed its intent to remain distant from the conflict between the US and Israel and Iran, but the state also noted that if bilateral relations between Qatar and Iran were to fail, this distance would become unsustainable. Qatar’s role as a neutral site for negotiation between MENA actors has been significant. If the threat of Iranian attacks forces Qatar to arm itself and stop allowing for negotiations to take place inside its borders, brokering peace in the region could become significantly more complicated.
Another action that Iran has taken in response to these attacks is to close off the Strait of Hormuz. The Hormuz Strait is one of the most important oil trade paths in the world and it provides many Asian countries with a majority of their fuel. India—a country that gets around 50% of its oil through the strait—has already had to activate contingency plans to safeguard its energy. By closing off the Strait, oil prices around the world could rise to over $100 per barrel. Already, oil has risen by 8% up to around $75 per barrel. This spike could continue to grow if the strait remains closed.
China, one of Iran’s largest buyers of oil, gets a large portion of its fuel through the Strait of Hormuz. This consumption has only increased since the US capture of Venezuelan president and Chinese ally Nicolás Maduro on January 3rd cut China off from the nation’s other major oil supplier. The country has been a longtime ally of Iran, and in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, announced its continued support for Iran. While the country has been building its oil reserves for some time, if Iran maintains its closure of the Strait of Hormuz and China’s oil supply dwindles, the country could become a wild card in the region.
If the joint US-Israeli attacks persist and if Iran continues to bomb US bases in neutral or uninvolved states like Jordan, the UAE, and Bahrain, the tensions in the Middle East could increase to a breaking point. President Trump has claimed that the US operation will last weeks instead of days. As Iran responds in turn, the conflict between the two blocs could boil over into other countries, inside the region and out, and plunge the region even deeper into instability and war.
The Shadow of War Looms Again in South Sudan
A noxious miasma of urgency and fear is spreading across the nation of South Sudan, as the fog of violence once again settles over the country. The fighting is most concentrated in Jonglei State, north of the capital of Juba, where the intensity of verbal and physical threats has reached a boiling point. At the end of January, the head of South Sudan’s armed forces warned civilians to evacuate and proclaimed any remaining civilians to be legitimate military targets in the campaign against the Sudan People’s Liberation Army in-Opposition (SPLA-IO), a military separatist group fighting to wrest control of the country from the central government.
Violent incidents have sprouted like weeds across the country: earlier in 2025, a United Nations (UN) helicopter was shot down by opposition forces in Upper Nile State, and in early February of this year, a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital on the border of Ethiopia was struck by the South Sudanese Air Force, killing patients and aid workers. While the warfare between the South Sudanese government and the SPLA-IO poses a direct threat to the lives of civilians, they also experience indirect threats to their well-being because of the increasing precarity resulting from the violence. For instance, as of early February, the UN World Food Programme has announced a temporary pause on food aid operations in Upper Nile State, due to constant air strikes and attacks, which made their mission unsustainable. The damage to humanitarian organizations make it harder for South Sudanese citizens to access basic resources like food, water, and medical care in a country which has already experienced acute poverty and a cascading series of crises from its birth. The central government’s disregard of humanitarian policy in its warmaking has made life harder for the South Sudanese people and has sown the seeds of greater instability and further obstacles to peace.
The renewed hostilities come at a critical inflection point for the future of South Sudan. Ahead of the general elections this upcoming December, incumbent President Salva Kiir seeks to firmly entrench his national power against political rival Riek Machar, who serves as the current Vice President under the 2018 UN-brokered power-sharing agreement. The agreement, which ended the first civil war, is the fulcrum of the country’s fragile peace. During the civil war, which began right after independence in 2011, Kiir and Machar fought for control of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM), South Sudan’s new ruling party and the former opposition force during the bitter, years-long fight for freedom from their northern rulers. During the war, South Sudan was witness to acts of mass ethnic violence, in addition to brutal war crimes and conflict-related sexual violence. In 2018, a peace deal crowned by the Transitional Government of National Unity placed Kiir and Machar at the top of the country’s leadership in an attempt to abate the ethnic tension and allow for long-term statebuilding. South Sudan’s newfound peace rested on relatively weak institutions and stabilization attempts by peacekeepers from the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS).
Since its genesis, South Sudan has been troubled by the ethnic tensions which lie beneath its icy political status quo. President Kiir represents the Dinka ethnic group, while Machar, who leads the SPLA-IO, represents the Nuer ethnic group. These are South Sudan’s two largest ethnic groups, and Kiir and Machar are competing for the dominance of their respective ethnic groups in addition to vying for overt political power. A number of factors further contribute to South Sudan’s afflictions, including the recent mass influx of refugees from Sudan amid its own civil war, and the widespread poverty experienced by most of the population, exacerbated by the elimination of vital humanitarian aid by the United States. These factors have laid the groundwork for a toxic reaction in South Sudan. The upcoming elections are the most recent catalyst, with President Kiir placing Vice President Machar and his wife under house arrest in January of 2026, a pretense for the most recent offensive.
South Sudan’s future is incredibly precarious. With the conflict escalating, humanitarian abuses rising, and regional instability in East Africa growing, outside powers like UNMISS and more stable regional organizations like the East African Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IGAD) could step in to stabilize the situation. Should current conditions continue, the continued survival of the South Sudanese state will be under grave threat, as the dark fog of war looms ever closer.
Saudi-UAE Clash in Yemen
On December 30, 2025, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) announced it would withdraw its remaining military forces from Yemen. This announcement came hours after Saudi Arabia—a nominal partner of the UAE—bombed an Emirati weapons shipment in the Yemeni port city of Mukalla. This bombing was a response to recent territorial gains made by the UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC), a separatist group calling for an autonomous South Yemen, which came at the expense of the Saudi-backed National Shield Forces (NSF) near the Yemen-Saudi border.
At the same time as the Mukalla bombing, NSF forces were rapidly pushing the STC back, regaining control of Hadramout and eventually, the southern capital city of Aden, which had previously been held by STC forces. The STC’s leader, Aidarous al-Zubaidi, then reportedly fled to the UAE. Shortly after this, the STC announced its dissolution. This was a complete reversal of its quick gains made only weeks earlier. After this announcement, protests broke out in Aden calling for an independent South Yemen. These events were the culmination of a long-simmering rivalry between the two Gulf States, once regarded as allies, now publicly feuding with each other.
The origin of this feud goes back to 2015, when Saudi Arabia and the UAE decided to jointly intervene in Yemen to restore President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi’s government after the Houthis seized the country’s capital, Sanaa, the year prior. Over time, their priorities in Yemen diverged, with the Saudis more focused on reducing their direct involvement and maintaining border stability, while the UAE put its backing behind the STC. In 2018, Saudi Arabia reached an agreement with the Houthis in an attempt to wind down its involvement in Yemen, and eventually folded the STC into the Yemeni government in 2020, seemingly solidifying the status quo until recently.
The most recent explosion of tensions in Yemen has broader implications for the region and beyond. While Saudi Arabia and the UAE have long been considered a close duo—cooperating in their intervention in Libya, blockading Qatar, and containing Iran—they are increasingly divided on their strategy and outlook for the future. The Saudis have been strengthening their relationships with Egypt and Turkey, as well as mending their relations with Qatar and working more closely with Oman. Meanwhile, the UAE has adopted an opposing strategy focused on controlling ports along the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden through local allies and proxies. This is most noticeable in its support for the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan’s Civil War. The RSF are in opposition to the Sudanese Armed Forces, a military group supported by Saudi Arabia.
The breakdown between Saudi Arabia and the UAE will have a significant effect on regional politics, especially regarding Israel. Israel’s increasing aggressiveness across the region since 2024 has affected how Saudi Arabia views regional dynamics, especially considering the 2020 Abraham Accords, which strengthened ties between Israel and the UAE. In December, the UAE was the only Arab League member not to condemn Israel’s recognition of Somaliland. These all signal a shift in the region, with the UAE and the local groups it funds aligning more with Israel, while Saudi Arabia grows closer to Egypt and Turkey and builds its relationships with Oman and Qatar. Going forward, these two opposing blocs will likely keep competing for influence in similar battleground countries, foreboding uncertain futures for those in Yemen and beyond.
This will likely change the nature of security and strategy in the Middle East, with the old paradigm of Saudi, UAE, and Israeli rivalry with Iran replaced by these two new opposing blocs competing for influence in the region and beyond. Domestically, both Saudi Arabia and the UAE have pursued large propaganda campaigns to portray the other as duplicitous to their citizens. The close business ties between Saudi Arabia and the UAE are also likely to be affected, especially as the two countries continue to compete for investment opportunities and tourism in their pursuit of development. This could hamper both countries’ attempts to diversify their economies and reduce dependencies on oil, including Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 and the UAE’s Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030. Oil itself is another important factor in this feud as both countries are major oil producers and members of OPEC, which pumps around half of the world’s oil. This feud could extend into OPEC’s decision-making on oil production, potentially causing volatility in oil prices, harming the entire world economy.
The hidden feud between the UAE and Saudi Arabia is starting to show some visible cracks. If their relationship gets increasingly antagonistic, it will affect the entire strategic make-up of the region, creating new competition among geopolitical blocs, as well as impacting both countries’ desire to be the regional hub for investment and innovation.
Benin’s Coup Foretells an Unstable ECOWAS and Future
In a scenario that is becoming more and more familiar in West Africa today, the country of Benin found its regime threatened by dissenters from within. During the dawn hours of December 7, 2025, Beninese military units attempted to overthrow Beninese President Patrice Talon in a coup d’etat at the Presidential Palace in Cotonou. However, this story brought a new twist: peacekeeping soldiers deployed by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the main regional bloc of West Africa, thwarted the coup and restored Talon’s rule.
The coup in Benin comes at a time of national unrest: jihadist terrorist groups in the country’s north compete for local footholds and regional dominance among rival jihadist groups and the Beninese military. Meanwhile, President Talon is increasingly unpopular among the Beninese people, chiefly because of his attempted curtailing of opposition parties and press freedoms, threatening Benin’s hard-fought democracy. Discontent among the army arose from their continuing fight against the jihadist insurgency in the country’s North. This discontent manifested in a coup among Beninese military officers, who took control of the national broadcaster and attacked the Presidential Palace in Cotonou. The ECOWAS intervention was composed of soldiers from multiple ECOWAS militaries, including Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Sierra Leone, and Nigeria. The operation, led by next-door neighbor and regional power Nigeria, was reinforced by strikes by the Nigerian Air Force on both the national broadcaster and the Presidential Palace as the ground force went to re-establish government control.
Benin is a microcosm for the overarching issues which have plagued West Africa and ECOWAS for the last decade. Jihadist insurgencies have torn through the communities of the Sahel and Northern Nigeria, leaving civilian violence, destruction, and dangerous gaps in state power and legitimacy in their wake. Coups in the Sahel states (Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso) have deprived ECOWAS of over half of its landmass and crucial economic integration. Meanwhile, the coups in Guinea-Conakry and Guinea-Bissau and the contested elections in Cote d’Ivoire have cast doubt on the vitality of democracy in West Africa. By circumventing democratic norms and failing to address endemic corruption and economic inequality, many of these leaders have eroded their legitimacy in the eyes of the people and diminished faith in the democratic process as a way to solve national issues. The debates around foreign influence, the resource economy, and wealth inequality continue to haunt West Africa’s biggest players as they struggle to work towards ECOWAS’s stated goal of “collective self-sufficiency” in both economic and political realms.
In the context of its manifold challenges, ECOWAS’s swift and decisive military response to the Beninese coup can be interpreted as an effort to reassert its political, regional, and military legitimacy. ECOWAS seeks to demonstrate to regional insurgents, the increasingly popular Alliance of Sahel States (AES), and the international community that it can respond to military threats, can coordinate and maintain order among its member states, and can maintain some semblance of democracy and rule of law within its borders. While ECOWAS seeks to shore up its legitimacy, it still must contend with shifting political conditions and public opinion.
Ibrahim Traore, President of Burkina Faso and de facto leader of the AES, has been dubbed “the most popular leader in Africa” for his Pan-African ideology, rejection of French military and cultural influence, and nationalization of industry. Traore has captured the cultural zeitgeist precisely because he is seen as decisively addressing the issues which young Africans are passionate about, doing so in new ways, and using social media to reach Africans and bolster his popularity. For ECOWAS to maintain its political solvency and reach its economic goals, it must find ways to deal with the issues of terrorism, political repression, economic inequality, and souring opinions toward the West among many Africans.
Indictments for Former Prime Minister and President of South Korea
On January 21st, former South Korean Prime Minister Han Duk-soo was sentenced to 23 years in jail for his involvement in former President Yoon Seok-yeol's imposition of martial law on December 3rd, 2024. Han initially acted as president after Yoon was impeached, then Han was later impeached for refusing to fill vacant seats on the Constitutional Court, which oversaw Yoon’s impeachment trial. He was sentenced for assisting in the passage of the martial law decree by the Cabinet Council, lying under oath, and falsifying parts of a martial law document. Han is the first of Yoon's associates to be convicted of rebellion charges in relation to the decree. Other associates involved include former Defense Minister Kim Yong-hyun, Major General Kim Yong-dae, and Army Chief of Staff General Park An-su, who took on the role of Martial Law Commander.
Nine months since former South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol was removed from office, Yoon faces eight trials for imposing martial law, which is considered to involve “anti-state activities.” In South Korea, rebellion is one of the most severe offenses due to its role in impacting overall stability. An independent counsel team led by prosecutor Cho Eun-seok is calling for Yoon to receive the death penalty based on rebellion charges. The death penalty has not been used in South Korea since 1997.
Former South Korean President Yoon Seok-yeol was able to impose martial law for six hours before lawmakers were able to gather and vote to end the decree. The National Assembly voted to impeach Yoon, with a majority of 204 of 300 officials. The investigation over the former leader’s intentions ended in December of 2025 and revealed that he had been planning to use martial law to eliminate political rivals and maintain power. By imposing martial law, Yoon attempted to “[restrict] the freedom of speech, publication, assembly and association,” and apply “special changes to the authority of governments or courts.” Yoon, currently in jail, has explained that the purpose of imposing martial law was to alert the public to opposition from the Democratic Party. He specifically cited their opposition as “legislative dictatorship,” based on 22 impeachment attempts since he took office in 2022, reductions in the government’s budget, and proceedings to impeach other officials. This raises the legal question of whether a president’s emergency powers are safe from being considered rebellion. Rebellion is defined in legal terms as an action undertaken with the intention of “overthrowing constitutional order or seizing national territory,” and is considered “a mens rea–driven crime.”
Yoon’s call for martial law evoked panic due to the historic use of martial law in South Korea in the 1970s and 1980s. Post-Korean War dictatorships imposed martial law against protesters and critics of the country’s leadership. The Gwangju Uprising, for example, is considered to be the largest massacre under the military dictatorship of Chun Doo-hwan, which lasted from 1979 to 1988. Chun was initially sentenced to death by the Seoul District Court in 1996 for treason, then imprisoned for life and later pardoned by former President Kim Young-sam as requested by the then President-elect Kim Dae-jung.
The former leader’s first trial covered charges relating to Yoon’s resistance to investigation and detainment, for which he was sentenced to five years in prison. The next trials will address charges regarding corruption, rebellion, and abusing power. Yoon is expected to be in a pretrial hearing over alleged interference in a Marine death probe on February 10th. Special counsel Lee Myeong-heon’s team claims that the former president “made unlawful orders to the defense ministry and the presidential office,” and indicted Yoon last year for other interference-related charges.
Minnesota’s Cold War
A KILLING IN CONTEXT
Another killing by federal agents in Minneapolis, Minnesota has brought tensions in the city to a boiling point, as the Trump Administration’s Twin Cities deportation operation approaches its third month. Alexander Pretti, a 37-year old U.S. citizen, was shot dead at the hands of Border Patrol agents on January 24th. Prior to the shooting, Pretti, who had a handgun on his person but does not seem to have been holding it, had been filming the agents while supporting a person whom they had just shoved. Pretti was then tackled by multiple agents, one of whom stripped him of his handgun. Seconds later, agents stepped back and fired at least ten shots into Pretti’s prone body.
Pretti’s death is only the most recent in a string of shootings involving members of the Minneapolis deportation task force. Earlier this month, Renee Good, another 37-year old U.S. citizen, was shot and killed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers while attempting to leave the scene of a traffic stop. Subsequently, local leaders claimed that Good had been acting as a legal observer at the time of the shooting. In a third incident, taking place between the two deadly shootings, federal agents reportedly shot and wounded Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis, a Venezuelan migrant who allegedly struck an ICE agent with a broomstick while trying to prevent another immigrant from being arrested.
The shootings have added fuel to the pro-immigration protest movement in Minneapolis and elsewhere. For the past two months, pro-immigration demonstrators have squared off with federal police from Border Patrol, ICE, and other agencies as the agents seek to detain and deport immigrants living in the city. The deportation operations, collectively referred to by the Trump Administration as Metro Surge, were initially prompted by claims of welfare fraud involving Minnesota’s large Somali immigrant population, but have targeted immigrants of all backgrounds. Roughly 3,000 agents are involved in Metro Surge, which is concentrated in Minneapolis and its twin city St. Paul but also involves operations elsewhere in the state of Minnesota. Per back of the envelope math, the 3,000 federal agents outnumber local police in the Twin Cities by over a thousand officers, making Metro Surge the largest operation in Department of Homeland Security (DHS) history. According to DHS Secretary Kristi Noem, the operation has resulted in roughly 3,000 arrests over its six-week timespan.
Metro Surge has upended daily life for many in the Twin Cities. Fear of immigration operations has kept many children home from school. Following the appearance of Border Patrol agents at Minneapolis’ Roosevelt High School, where they detained several people and deployed chemical irritants against bystanders, classes throughout the school district were cancelled for the next several days and all students were offered the option to attend classes virtually until at least February 12th. Fear of immigration police has also kept many from seeking medical attention, according to some doctors. While specific numbers are hard to come by, it is widely understood that there are thousands of immigrants throughout the Twin Cities–both those who are undocumented and those with some form of legal status, such as those on parole prior to receiving an asylum decision–who spend nearly all of their time hiding in their places of residence, only emerging when they feel it is absolutely necessary.
Local activists have mobilized in response to Metro Surge. Volunteers have brought food to migrants too afraid to leave their residences and driven their children to school. Many people now blow whistles or set off their car alarms when they see immigration agents. Others have adopted a more confrontational approach. Some groups, using loose, largely anonymous networks organized on the telecommunications app Signal, have begun to actively seek out and follow federal agents in their vehicles, oftentimes honking their horns to alert others to the agents’ presence. Agents seeking to make immigration arrests have often found themselves facing large crowds of people that gather within minutes of the agents’ arrival. Much of the time, such crowds are mostly composed of people filming on their phones, shouting at the agents, and blowing whistles. Other times, crowds have grown more aggressive, pelting agents with snowballs, obstructing their ability to move, and attacking their vehicles. In at least one incident, demonstrators looted abandoned vehicles belonging to the deportation task force.
These tactics have been met with an escalating federal response. They have aggressively confronted the crowds that have so often gathered around them, both attacking them physically and deploying chemical irritants. They have shattered the windows of vehicles and arrested drivers that they suspect to be following them or blocking them in. Likely because following federal agents in public is generally legal, at least some of those arrested have been released without charge after spending hours in detention. At least twice, federal agents have attacked vehicles whose occupants claimed that they were merely traveling in the vicinity of a protest, rather than participating in it. In one of those instances, a six-month old baby was rendered unconscious by tear gas that the agents deployed, according to the child’s parents.
At the same time as they have escalated their tactics against demonstrators, federal agents have taken increasingly drastic measures to track down and arrest migrants. They have staked out food banks, searching both for migrants coming to pick up food and volunteers coming to pick up food on their behalf. In another incident, they reportedly detained several members of the Oglala Sioux tribe and, according to tribal leadership, attempted to use them as leverage to coerce the tribe into signing an immigration agreement with ICE.
DEMOCRATS SEEK TO AVOID CONFLAGRATION
Through it all, Minnesota’s elected officials, the majority of whom are Democrats, have largely walked a fine line. They have sought to both empathize with their constituents’ rage over the federal operation while also avoiding a repeat of the 2020 riots that shook the state following the murder of George Floyd, a Black man and Minneapolis native, at the hands of local police. The 2020 riots damaged or destroyed over 500 businesses in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area, resulting in over $500 million in damages, the majority of which were not covered by insurance. This time, any outbreak of rioting would invite an additional threat: President Trump has hinted that he might invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty military personnel into Minnesotan streets in response to any unrest.
Minnesotan political leaders are conscious of this threat. After Renee Good was killed, Minnesota’s most prominent Democrat, Governor and former Vice Presidential candidate Tim Walz, referred to Metro Surge as an “occupation” and encouraged Minnesotans to film federal officers in order to preserve “evidence for future prosecution.” However, he simultaneously prepared the Minnesota National Guard for deployment under state orders in case of unrest. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat, has warned that Trump will use any disorder as an excuse to further the occupation of the city, repeatedly referring to acts of violence and disorder as “taking the bait.” Frey has also been stringent in his denunciations of the federal operation, calling justifications for Renee Good’s shooting “bullshit” and demanding that federal agents “get the fuck out of Minneapolis.” However, Frey and other local leaders have little to no ability to directly affect the activities of the federal government and federal agents in the short term, besides largely symbolic acts like banning them from using city parking lots.
Any attempts to hold federal agents accountable for alleged legal violations committed during Metro Surge would be complicated by the Supremacy Clause, a Constitutional provision aimed to prevent state interference in the enforcement of federal law. The Supremacy Clause prevents state-level officials from simply making it illegal for federal agents to make immigration arrests or operate in their state. Additionally, case law has long established that federal officials are immune from state prosecution if they are both acting in a capacity authorized by federal law and their actions are “necessary and proper” in performance of that capacity. While this does not completely preclude state-level prosecution of members of the Metro Surge task force, it likely ensures that any prosecution would be lengthy and challenging and thus unsuited for use as a short-term deterrent against federal agents.
Despite these barriers to the formal prosecution of federal agents, local and federal police have increasingly been on a collision course. Brian O’Hara, Minneapolis’ police chief, has largely matched the tone taken by Mayor Frey, who, alongside the city council, appointed him. While O’Hara has criticized federal agents on multiple occasions and encouraged lawful demonstrations, he has sought to contain any unrest originating from Minneapolis’ civilian population. Sometimes, this has resulted in Minneapolis police officers defending immigration agents from angry crowds. More often, however, video evidence seems to indicate the federal task force has been left on their own to handle demonstrators. This has not gone unnoticed, and federal officials from then-Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino to President Trump have criticized the Minneapolis police for their perceived unwillingness to protect federal agents from violence.
With many avenues of direct confrontation with the federal government precluded by the Supremacy Clause, Minnesota Democrats and public officials seem to have settled on a strategy for combatting the federal deployment indirectly. This strategy has two main components. Firstly, in order to keep the rage of their constituents directed away from them, Minnesota officials, including law enforcement professionals like O’Hara, have sought to avoid association with immigration enforcement to the extent possible. Secondly, they have sought to prevent any serious incidents of violence, using rhetoric when possible and force when that fails. The rhetorical strategy includes both encouragement of peaceful and legal forms of protest and denunciations of illegal or violent kinds. Their willingness to use force encompasses both local police actions against demonstrators and Walz’s threatened deployment of the National Guard.
In addition to concerns about property damage, loss of life, and Trump’s threat to deploy troops under the Insurrection Act, there are other compelling reasons for Democrats to encourage demonstrations while seeking to prevent 2020-style riots. Firstly, a growing body of evidence suggests that, in many cases, nonviolent anti-government protest campaigns may have a higher likelihood of success than violent campaigns, even when the government that they are facing is willing to use violence. Part of the reason that this is the case may be that nonviolent movements outcompete violent ones in their capacity to mobilize mass support across social boundaries, possibly because there are fewer moral and practical barriers to entry. Many observers have noted that the Minneapolis protest movement has attracted solidarity from wide-ranging constituencies that cross racial lines, from longtime progressive activists to non-activists with little previous experience protesting. Another advantage of nonviolent mass movements is their ability to draw defections from state security forces. In contrast, violent demonstrations might foster a siege mentality and encourage security forces to band together for safety. While there is little evidence of mass defections from ICE, Border Patrol, and other federal agencies, there is evidence that the widespread perception of federal overreach has deepened divisions between local and federal police, as well as undermined morale among the Metro Surge task force.
In addition to believing in the comparative efficacy of nonviolent resistance, Democrats may also be seeking to position their party favorably in the lead-up to the 2026 midterm elections. Civil unrest could lend credence to President Trump’s frequent assertion that his opponents are violent enemies of America and direct attention away from perceived federal overreach and abuses, thus undermining the Democrats’ political position. Minnesota Democrats might hope that their federal colleagues, who are currently favored to win back at least the House of Representatives, might use their positions to cut funding to DHS or the individual federal law enforcement agencies involved in Metro Surge. While House Democrats, in the minority and hampered by seven defections, recently failed to block DHS funding, the department is widely unpopular within the Democratic caucus. In the recent vote, the vast majority of House Democrats voted against DHS funding. If the party were to increase its margins in the House, severe cuts to or a total end to funding for deportation operations is almost inevitable. Additionally, this current round of DHS funding faces a major hurdle in the Senate, where minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has threatened to block it. In order for the bill to receive the 60 votes necessary for it to avoid the filibuster, seven Democratic senators would need to vote in support of the measure. Significant unrest in Minneapolis could jeopardize Democrats’ ability or willingness to strike at the mass deportation effort, either by harming Democrats’ chances in the midterms or by decreasing skittish moderate senators’ resolve to vote down the DHS funding legislation.
Taken together, belief in the efficacy of nonviolent resistance and concern about threats to the party’s short-term political future provide compelling justifications for Minnesota Democrats to maintain their current strategy. However, as tensions in Minneapolis approach their breaking point, doing so may become increasingly difficult. Following the killing of Alexander Pretti by Border Patrol officers, the Minnesotan public and their officials have increasingly regarded Operation Metro Surge as an act of state-sanctioned terror and murder. According to Mayor Frey, video of the incident shows federal agents “pummeling one of our constituents and shooting him to death.” Governor Walz denounced Metro Surge as “a campaign of organised brutality against the people of our state.” Just before the shooting, Chief O’Hara and other local police officials held a press conference where they accused the federal task force of violating both professional policing standards and the U.S. Constitution. They also claimed that off-duty officers from their departments had been stopped by federal agents and asked to prove their U.S. citizenship. After Pretti’s shooting, O’Hara ordered Minneapolis police to remain on the scene of the shooting in order to preserve evidence even after federal agents ordered the police to leave. Governor Walz promised that Minnesota would launch an investigation into the shooting, and officers from Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension were ordered to the scene to begin collecting evidence. However, despite the fact that they had received a judicial search warrant for the crime scene, the state officers were blocked from accessing the scene by federal agents, a move that is nearly unprecedented in recent U.S. history.
It remains to be seen whether Democrats will continue to be able to keep the peace while encouraging protestors to keep the pressure on the deportation task force. In the hours after Pretti’s killing, Walz deployed 1,500 soldiers of the Minnesota National Guard at the request of local police in Minneapolis and the surrounding county. The soldiers were stationed around the scene of the shooting as well as at the Whipple Federal Courthouse, where federal detainees, including those arrested by immigration agents, are held. As of now, their interactions with the public seem to have been mostly cordial, with some soldiers handing out coffee and snacks to protestors. The Trump Administration has placed another 1,500 active-duty soldiers on alert to possibly deploy to Minnesota, but has not deployed them or invoked the Insurrection Act. So far, the same fragile peace that has prevailed in Minneapolis and throughout Minnesota for the past few months seems to be holding, with furious demonstrators mostly continuing to express their frustrations peacefully. At a recent press conference, Walz celebrated this achievement, directing his gloating towards President Trump:
"What's the plan, Donald Trump? What is the plan?...What do we need to do to get these federal agents out of our state? If fear, violence and chaos is what you wanted from us, then you clearly underestimated the people of this state and nation. We are tired, but we're resolved. We're peaceful, but we'll never forget. We're angry, but we won't give up hope. And above all else, we are clearly unified."
Japan Elects Sanae Takaichi as the First Woman Prime Minister
On October 21st, in a historic first for Japan, the nation elected its first woman as Prime Minister–Sanae Takaichi, a member of the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). Her election comes after the previous LDP Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, announced his resignation earlier this September after leading the LDP in two elections where the party suffered heavily. She was elected by both houses of the Japanese Parliament, or Diet, with 237 votes in the lower house and 125 in the less powerful upper house.
Takaichi, an admirer of the late British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, and a protege of the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, is a member of the staunch conservative wing of the LDP, echoing Japan’s recent rightward shift. Her hardline, right-wing stance is evident from her election. The LDP’s longtime coalition partner, Komeito, a generally centrist party, withdrew support at the last second, but the LDP was able to make a last-minute deal with the right-wing Japan Innovation Party (JIP) to ensure her election to the office. Even with the support of the JIP, the LDP’s coalition was unable to secure a majority in either of the houses, meaning that in order to pass legislation, Takaichi will be required to work with the opposition, which may hinder some of her efforts in the Office.
While Takaichi is Japan’s first female Prime Minister, she is far from a feminist. She is among the politicians in Japan who have opposed measures aimed at increasing women’s involvement in politics. Furthermore, she has been opposed to allowing couples to have separate surnames, same sex marriages, and favors male-only succession for the Imperial family. Still, her election acts as a measure of progress in itself, as many in Japan didn't believe a woman would be able to secure enough votes to win the Prime Ministership.
Being elected is far from the only challenge Takaichi will have to face. Now that she has been elected, Takaichi will be responsible for guiding Japan and the LDP through a myriad of challenges, both domestic and international. She must build back trust in the LDP after a series of domestic controversies, such as the party’s involvement in the slush-fund scandal, and will have to grapple with soaring prices in the Japanese economy.
The domestic side might be the least of her worries. Following in the footsteps of the assassinated Shinzo Abe, Takaichi has generally had a more hawkish foreign policy supporting the strengthening of the Japanese military to counter Chinese influence in the region. However, Takaichi’s biggest foreign policy trouble may actually come from Japan’s allies. Takaichi will have to reassure regional partners like South Korea, who fear more nationalist streaks in her right-wing foreign policy. She must also navigate Japan’s relationship with the United States and the Trump Administration, facing Trump for the first time when the President visits the country on October 27th. While Japan has already reached a tariff deal with the United States, Takaichi will have to deal with the ever-unpredictable Trump administration. How she handles these early challenges will set the tone for her administration and provide crucial clues to Japan’s policy leanings for her Prime Ministership.
Judge Bars Abrupt Deportation of Guatemalan Children
The Globe and Mail - Moises Castillo/The Associated Press
On August 31st, District Court Judge Sparkle Sooknanan issued a temporary restraining order blocking the deportation of 10 Guatemalan migrant children back to their country of origin. The National Immigration Law Center filed the case L.G.M.L. v. Noem, arguing that the deportation of the children, all of whom are between the ages of 10 and 17, violates protections under the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA) and the right to due process. The center issued a statement explaining that the case does not fall under the “limited circumstances” for expedited removal. The case brings a delicate issue forward that involves migration law and concerns for children’s mental and emotional well-being.
Sooknanan’s decision extends to around 600 other Guatemalan children who are detained and have been identified for deportation. Becky Wolozin, senior attorney at the National Center for Youth Law (NCYL), explained that there was little to no “advance notice that this was happening,” and that the children were deported without their cases being heard in court, in violation of the proper procedure for deporting minors.
Guatemalan President Bernardo Arévalo and lawyers from the U.S. Justice Department claimed that the children were being sent to reunite with their families. Concerned families waited at a reception centre for returned migrants, only to be told that the children would not be coming home as planned. The children are currently being held in the Office of Refugee Resettlement’s (ORR) custody. The ORR is responsible for holding and caring for minors apprehended by agencies like ICE.
The experience of relocating to a different country and then suddenly being removed could have a significant psychological and material impact on the children involved in the case, especially given their age group. The children who arrived in the US alone experienced the emotional strain of being separated from their families and being under federal care in a foreign country. Research shows that sudden separation from family increases the risk of developing chronic mental health conditions and negatively impacts overall development. Being sheltered by the ORR may already be overwhelming for the children to acclimate to in a different country. The additional stress of experiencing sudden deportation, without warning or preparation, would inflict lasting trauma on children of a young age.
Furthermore, the lawsuit claims that if returned to Guatemala, the children would “face abuse, neglect, persecution, or torture.” The children represented by the National Immigration Law Center expressed that they wish to stay in the United States, due to unsafe conditions in Guatemala and neglectful and abusive treatment from their families. According to the lawsuit's argument, the children would be at risk of serious human rights abuses. The NILC also states that the children’s deportation would violate the government’s legal responsibility to protect minors from mistreatment or trafficking and the due process clause of the Fifth Amendment.
Senior NCYL attorney Wolozin goes on to say that, "The government is trying to spin this as child protection, but it's not, it's child abuse. It wasn't orderly; it skipped all of the procedural protections." On the other hand, the Trump Administration still holds firm to its claim that deportation is important for family reunification. As White House Deputy Chief of Staff and advisor on immigration, Stephen Miller stated, “a Democrat judge is refusing to let them reunify with their parents.”
The arguments for L.G.M.L. v. Noem reflect conflict between the prioritization of family reunification for the Guatemalan children and providing legal protections and due process in immigration cases. The developments following the temporary ban on their deportation may have consequences for future immigration cases that have to do with legal protections for minors.
The ICC Makes its First Conviction in the Sudan Case
Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman (aka Ali Kushayb), October 19, 2023 during the opening of the defense statements at the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands (ICC-CPI via Courthouse News)
At 14:00 local time on October 6th, the International Criminal Court (ICC) delivered a verdict against Sudanese militia leader Ali Muhammad Ali Abd-Al-Rahman. Abd-Al-Rahman, commonly called Ali Kushayb, was a commander of the Janjaweed, a nomadic militia operating in the Sahel region.
This verdict is the first the ICC has issued regarding the violence in Sudan. Abd-Al-Rahman stood trial for a series of crimes that are representative of this violence. With this verdict, the ICC sets the tone for how the court will treat further trials of Sudanese fighters.
The ICC issued the warrant for Abd-Al-Rahman’s arrest in February 2007. After a brief arrest and release in 2008, Abd-Al-Rahman turned himself in for arrest in June of 2020 after Sudan’s government said it would cooperate with the ICC, causing him to fear that the authorities would kill him. Abd-Al-Rahman stood accused of thirty-one counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity for atrocities committed in Sudan between 2003 and 2004. The ICC verdict found Abd-Al-Rahman guilty on twenty-seven of the thirty-one counts. Abd-Al-Rahman was not found guilty only of crimes related to inhumane treatment during attacks on the villages of Mukjar and Deleig.
Abd-Al-Rahman’s crimes were committed over two decades before the trial, but the violence he participated in killed and displaced hundreds of thousands. Between 2003 and 2004, Abd-Al-Rahman orchestrated 504 murders, 20 rapes, and the forced displacement of 41,000 people. This violence not only harmed the victims back in 2003 and 2004, but continues to ripple through Sudan today.
As the verdict was announced, conflict continued to rage in Sudan. In 2023, tensions between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) erupted. These parties were meant to oversee a democratic transition after a 2019 conflict. The RSF was born out of the Janjaweed militia, and Janjaweed groups still provide aid and assistance to the RSF.
The Janjaweed have been accused of committing genocide against non-Arab Sudanese communities from 2003 to 2008. Since the resurgence of violence in Sudan in 2023, the RSF has faced similar accusations of genocide against non-Arab Sudanese people. The conflict in Sudan is currently one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Since 2023, the fighting has killed at least 40,000 people and displaced 12 million others. In addition to the physical violence, famine is raging through Sudan. According to the World Food Programme, over 24 million people are facing severe food insecurity.
Notably, Abd-Al-Rahman was found guilty of multiple crimes of rape as a war crime and as a weapon of war. The ICC has found defendants guilty of sex crimes before, but it has faced difficulty in prosecuting and convicting defendants for the crimes of sexual violence and rape. Sex crimes are notoriously difficult to investigate, and the ICC has had a number of sex crime charges dismissed for lack of evidence or non-applicability. In the first fifteen years of the ICC, the court only prosecuted eight sex-crime cases, and only two achieved convictions. The court even overturned its first-ever conviction of sex crimes only two years after the decision was given. With Abd-Al-Rahman’s conviction for rape as a war crime and crime against humanity, the ICC is taking another important step towards successfully prosecuting conflict-related sexual violence, both in Sudan and other cases around the world.
The conviction is a landmark for the ICC. Abd-Al-Rahman's conviction affirms the UN Security Council’s condemnation of the Darfur war as a genocide. With this conviction, the court has set a precedent for recognising the crimes committed in Sudan as war crimes and crimes against humanity. This legal precedent will set the tone for future ICC trials regarding the conflicts in Sudan. This case also reaffirms that it is possible for the ICC to overcome the hurdles unique to sexual violence and successfully prosecute sex crimes as crimes against humanity. By finding Abd-Al-Rahman guilty, the ICC has created a precedent in the international community for recognising the crisis in Sudan as a conflict with elements of genocide and ethnic cleansing, which can guide further international actions in regards to Sudan.
As the RSF continues to commit atrocities and the conflict in Sudan creates new victims twenty years after Abd-Al-Rahman’s crimes, the ICC verdict should spur other governments and international bodies to take action to further justice in Sudan.
ICE Raids Spark Debate on Profiling & Constitutional Rights
On July 2, the ACLU and other civil rights groups filed a class action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and Secretary Kristi Noem, representing individuals, organizations, and a legal service provider affected by the ICE raids in Southern California. On July 11th, U.S. District Court Judge Maame Ewusi-Mensah Frimpong for the Central District of California issued an injunction barring federal agents from stopping individuals solely based on their race, ethnicity, or spoken language. The civil rights groups who filed the case argued that ICE is unconstitutionally using its authority to detain individuals based on those characteristics.
The case was taken up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals on July 28th, where the court ruled in favor of the civil rights groups, affirming that the basis of the ICE detainments in question is unconstitutional. In her ruling, she argued that the “reasonable suspicion” standard, which is used by law enforcement to justify detaining undocumented individuals, cannot be based on a person’s “apparent race or ethnicity,” accent when speaking English, profession, or presence at locations where undocumented immigrants may be expected to gather.
Judge Frimpong’s injunction was stayed by the Supreme Court decision in Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo. Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s concurring opinion argued that the legal reasoning for the Supreme Court’s ruling lies in the idea that judges “may have views on which policy approach is better or fairer. But judges are not appointed to make those policy calls.” He went further, arguing that given the context of the population in LA, it is lawful for ICE to exercise its power by considering ethnicity alongside other factors as part of the “totality of the circumstances.”
As this case exemplifies, the pattern of partisan rulings persists. In this case, the majority of the justices who declared that ICE should be able to use a more general investigation approach are all Republican appointees. In comparison, the Democratic appointees on the Court—Justice Sotomayor, Justice Kagan, and Justice Jackson—ruled that ICE’s actions in this case were unconstitutional.
In a twenty-one-page dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor, joined by Justices Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, argued that ICE’s interpretation of “reasonable suspicion” violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against “unreasonable searches and seizures.” In direct opposition to Justice Kavanaugh’s argument, Justice Sotomayor expressed that using contextual evidence, such as one's accent to detain individuals, leaves all Latinos at risk of being “fair game to be seized at any time.”
Outrage from local LA communities ensued. In response to the increase in ICE raids, immigrant rights activists have held “know your rights” workshops and had volunteers post about raids and detainments on social media. The efforts of immigrant rights activists to coordinate expressions of protest against ICE highlight the role that social media has played in the anti-ICE movement. “Know Your Rights” posts have become a widespread form of protest against ICE activity and advocacy for immigrant rights.
ICE released a statement heralding the ruling as “a win for the safety of Californians and the rule of law.” The legalization of racial profiling creates the possibility of future chaos in marginalized communities, under issues other than migration. The split in the justices’ opinions on the Court’s past decisions reflects the current state of political polarization, and concerns about how partisanship may influence the interpretation of the law. Public approval of the court has decreased from 70% in August 2020 to 48% as of this September. Statistics show that about 47% of Americans view the Court as conservative. Comparing favorability and political statistics suggests a correlation that indicates the low level of trust the public currently has in the Court. The Court’s decision in the case of Noem v. Perdomo presents the persistent question of who the law is protecting, and the cost to those under the mercy of those who wield it.
Russia’s Expanding Drone and Airspace Violations Across NATO
By Dpsu.gov.ua, CC BY 4.0
As of October 6, 2025, the airspace over Europe has become increasingly contested. What began on September 10 as an incursion of at least 19 Russian kamikaze drones into Polish territory has evolved into a broader and persistent pattern of airspace violations across NATO’s eastern flank. The incursion of Russian drones up to 300 kilometers into Polish airspace prompted a massive NATO response. Polish F-16s, Dutch F-35s, and Italian AWACS aircraft worked alongside NATO refueling tankers in one of the largest coordinated air operations since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Airports in Warsaw, Rzeszów, and Lublin were temporarily closed, and debris from intercepted drones fell near residential areas, but no injuries were reported.
Since then, similar incidents have spread westward. Estonia confirmed that three Russian MiG-31s briefly entered its airspace on September 19. Romania reported a drone crash along the Danube just days later. Germany has investigated a “drone swarm” over Schleswig-Holstein, believed to be surveilling critical infrastructure, and several other European nations have been forced to temporarily shut a number of airports in late September after repeated unidentified flights over a series of Danish and German regions.
The rise in Russian flyovers and drone incursions into NATO airspace reflects a shift toward aerial harassment designed to exploit the grey zone between peace and open war. By testing NATO’s air defenses and resolve, Moscow seeks to undermine deterrence without provoking a direct military clash. Each overflight increases the risk of miscalculation, where one mistaken interception could trigger a crisis.
The incidents have accelerated European defense integration. Poland and the Baltic states are expanding air surveillance networks, Germany and Denmark have tightened coordination with NATO command, and the EU is fast-tracking procurement for anti-drone systems. Western leaders, including Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron, and Keir Starmer, have condemned the drone incursions as deliberate provocations meant to unsettle the continent.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk called the September drone incursion “the most serious violation of sovereignty since World War II.” NATO invoked Article 4 and began Operation Eastern Sentry, an integrated air defense mission to protect the eastern flank. Later that week, at an EU summit in Copenhagen, defense ministers proposed and began to discuss plans for an “Eastern Flank Drone Wall.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy added to the proposal by recommending that frozen Russian assets be used to fund a joint European air defense system.
Europe’s airspace is becoming an increasingly contested zone, with drone and aircraft incursions now a regular occurrence. The incidents have hardened NATO’s stance, reinforced defense spending commitments, and stressed the need for shared air surveillance. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s comments on October 6, calling the drone disruptions “a useful reminder of the dangers of war,” underscore the Kremlin’s intent to use intimidation as a strategic tool.
These repeated provocations mark a new phase in European security: one defined by invisible confrontations above the clouds, where vigilance replaces rest and every radar blip could carry diplomatic consequences. The safety of Europe now relies as much on coordination and composure as on the weapons that guard its skies.
Burkina Faso Abolishes Visa Requirements for African Citizens
As of September 2025, Burkina Faso has abolished all visa requirements for travelers who hold African citizenship. While travelers will have to fill out an online visa application, they no longer need to pay visa fees or go through the standard procedure. This follows a trend of other African countries, including Ghana, Rwanda, and Kenya, some of the most visible and prominent countries in their respective regions of Sub-Saharan Africa. Policies like this facilitate increased commerce and trade within the continent, allowing it to become more interconnected and promoting more intra-continent cooperation and cohesion.
This is an especially important moment for Sub-Saharan Africa, both politically and economically: it has some of the world’s youngest populations, while much of the Global North faces fertility challenges, and houses many of the material resources crucial to the development of technology, like AI and electric vehicles. Africa’s young population provides it with a major source of labor and burgeoning expertise that is vital as it urbanizes and develops its domestic and continental economies. Its resources likewise enable the growth of homegrown companies in the automotive, industrial, and technology industries while attracting foreign investment. Countries like Rwanda and Botswana seek to attract international attention and investment through rapid modernization and political and economic leadership among African states. The extensive cobalt veins in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or the large amounts of bauxite (aluminum) in Guinea are essential to the continuing tech boom in the Global North. Africa was instrumental in the initial emergence of the Global North and industrialization, and is instrumental today in a new epoch of technological advancement, but many on the continent today aim to do so on their own terms, shaking off the rust of colonialism and neocolonialism. It is this mindset that envelops and motivates African leaders today, born after colonialism yet raised in its dark shadows.
This new policy emerges amid the Pan-Africanist orientation of Burkina Faso’s new government, led by military captain and iconoclast Ibrahim Traore, following a military coup in 2022. As a leader, Traore has ignited a radical turn away from the West and Western-backed institutions. Thus far, he has ejected French forces fighting Islamist terrorist groups in the Sahel, nationalized foreign-owned industries like the gold industry, and pulled out of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) alongside the similarly junta-led Mali and Niger to form the Sahel Confederacy. Further exacerbating relations with the West, Traore has chosen to ally with Russia, which has supplied him with military and material support but has drawn ire from international observers. Allying with Russia thereby forgoes previous relationships with the United States and France, Burkina Faso’s former colonial ruler. His stringent anti-Western policies and public image have gained him significant popularity on the continent, partially fueled by extensive and largely positive, if often dubious, social media coverage. In social media and his speeches, his goal has been to pioneer a modern form of Pan-Africanism in order to combat and ultimately “win the war against terrorism and imperialism,” issues which have rocked the Sahel in recent years.
Ultimately, Traore’s actions reflect his efforts to use this modern Pan-Africanism to foster greater African self-reliance and cooperation. More implicitly, this is a way for Traore to bring more economic activity to the struggling nation, as it attempts to grow its mining industry, invest in domestic automotive companies, and harness the labor and economic potential of its young population. All the while, Traore is increasing his prominence on the continent as a paragon of Pan-African strength, independence, and agency in the face of competing global interests in Africa. In many ways, Traore is intentionally harnessing and reinforcing the legacy of Pan-African leaders past, including Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah and Burkina Faso’s very own Thomas Sankara, who implemented similar socialist policies and enjoyed incredible popularity before his assassination. These iterations of Pan-Africanism were intended as a radical push towards African independence in the immediate aftermath of decolonization. The other Sahel countries (Mali and Niger), similarly ruled by military juntas, are working to emulate the Pan-African approach and have worked closely with Burkina Faso. Looking to the future, Traore’s policies could see a greater emphasis on cooperation among other African nations and regional intergovernmental organizations, possibly building up to the goal of fashioning the African Union (AU) on the European Union’s shared currency, freedom of movement, and joint policies.
Discord Elections and Youth Revolutions: Nepal’s Gen-Z protests
The youth-led protests that erupted in Nepal on September 9 have led to a new dawn with the appointment of former Chief Justice Sushila Karki as the country’s Interim Prime Minister on September 12th. The sun set on Prime Minister Sharma Oli’s administration after the anti-corruption protests forced him to step down. In a uniquely Gen Z election, Karki was chosen via an election on Discord, a social media platform, due to protesters’ support of her previous stands against corruption.
The “Gen-Z” protests were in reaction to the rising corruption and authoritarian actions by the Nepali government. Viral videos of the luxurious lives of politicians’ children, also known as “Nepo Kids,” further exacerbated frustrations amongst Nepalis. Protestors were frustrated by the government’s recent ban on major social media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, YouTube, and X. Protestors thus took to the streets, fighting for a government that could better manage the faltering economy and the mounting unemployment rate. The protests grew violent, leading to the deaths of at least 72 people, according to official accounts. Among the injured was the wife of former prime minister of Nepal, Jhala Nath Khanal, who sustained serious burn injuries as their home was set on fire.
Hami Nepal, the group that organized these protests, notably used social media to coordinate its cause. Discord, a messaging platform often used by online gamers, served as the stage for debates regarding the appointment of the interim prime minister. Hami Nepal created a channel on the platform titled “Youth Against Corruption,” where more than 10,000 people participated in discussions. Ultimately, former Chief Justice Sushila Karki, known for taking a stand against corruption during her time on the Supreme Court, was chosen. She was sworn in on September 12th with the help of the military and the president. Elections for Nepal’s post-interim elections are set to be held on March 5th.
As Nepal looks toward its future, its history brings up key questions for nations worldwide. Nepal’s protests connect to a broader global phenomenon of rising frustration with corrupt and increasingly authoritarian governments. With TikTok bans being considered in the United States during the Biden administration, as well as various social media platforms being banned in other nations, the straw that broke Nepal’s back may soon occur elsewhere.
There are many possible implications of the presumed success of these protests. Hami Nepal’s uniquely social media-oriented organization presents new possibilities for protests and revolutions in the 21st century. This form of virtual polls on Discord was considered by supporters to be more egalitarian, accessible, and transparent to the general public, especially in comparison to the backdoor actions of Nepali politicians in the past. At the same time, possible issues include misinformation or misuse of accounts on social media. With youth voter turnout lower in rural US states, these Discord polls can present a unique opportunity. Furthermore, social media users from around the world have taken inspiration from the Gen-Z style revolution put together by the Nepali youth, and are highlighting similar frustrations with their governments, with the desire to replicate the revolution. For other countries, particularly in the region, these protests could inspire similar outcries from their own young adults. The question thus arises: Could more countries see Discord elections in their future?
The Caribbean Gang Problem
LinkedIn: Addressing Gang Violence in the Antigua and Barbuda: A Blueprint for the Caribbean
When most people think of the Caribbean, they often picture luxurious beaches and scenic mountains, perfect for a family vacation. However, underneath what appears to be islands full of rich ecosystems and culture, lies a deeper problem in the rapid spread of gangs across the region. Violence has skyrocketed as of 2025, with Haiti having a 78.9 crime index, followed by Trinidad at 70.9 and Jamaica at 67.4 (measured on a scale of 0-100). Gangs fight to control huge swaths of territory, and innocent civilians are caught in the crossfire as governments fail to protect them properly. Gangs are an issue of governance, and in order to protect their citizens, North American nations must form a united plan to implement effective governmental policies.
Since the assassination of President Jovenel Moise in 2021, Haiti and its government have collapsed. An attempt to establish a nine-member council to provide stability until the next election failed on account of multiple charges of corruption. Without any clear power structure present, gangs were able to roam freely, competing with each other to secure as much influence as possible. By 2023, gangs had taken huge swaths of the capital of Port Au Prince. Since then, these gangs have induced mass killings that have significantly affected the community, claiming around 1,000 lives since October 2024 and a record displacement of 1.3 million Haitians. Those who remain in Haiti are subject to brutal cruelty such as rape, stabbing, and kidnappings, to name a few. Now the violence has begun to spread outside of the capital, destroying vital infrastructures such as hospitals, apartments, and schools. Haiti’s gang problem shows no signs of ending, and it is rapidly becoming one of the biggest humanitarian crises faced.
While Haiti has been the most notable example of the rise in gang violence, other Caribbean islands have been subjected to similar fates. In Trinidad, gang-related violence comprised 40% of total murders within the region in 2024, leading to heavy criticism of the government, which has failed to act effectively. States of emergencies were also implemented in Trinidad as well as Jamaica within the last year due to persistent gang violence, in which police were granted the right to search and seize assets to aid in the peace-keeping process. Jamaica, specifically, has one of the highest levels of gang fragmentation, creating more volatile factions that rival those seen in Haiti. Police often engage in brutal conflicts with gangs, creating immense pressure. Puerto Rico has also been notorious for their gang presence, with clashes between gangs rising substantially to exceed last year's levels due to the rivalry between Los Viraos and El Burro. These gangs have even been labeled as transnational criminal groups by the Jamaican prime minister, Andrew Holness, who publicly stated that Trinidad gangs may have links to Jamaican ones. This ongoing transnational gang violence threatens the lives of innocent citizens, as one in ten children experience sexual abuse in Trinidad, and women continue to be subjected to domestic violence. With so many nations already being affected by the brutality of gangs, it is important to mitigate the issues as soon as possible, or fear other nations such as Grenada or Barbados becoming absorbed with gang violence.
When examining these Caribbean islands and their high rate of gang violence, there are a few common trends. Many of these nations, such as Trinidad and Haiti, have governments that suffer from a weak executive branch due to significant corruption and inefficiency. A weak central government results in weak institutions that fail to enforce the law, allowing gangs to roam around freely with very little resistance. When conflict arises, gangs are often more coordinated than official government responses because of a greater sense of unity. These Caribbean islands also heavily suffer from poverty and inequality, compounded by the ineffectiveness of the government in remedying these issues. Gangs take advantage of the socioeconomic gap, providing relief to those subjected to poverty in the form of food, water, clothes, and money. The result is people residing in those towns pledging loyalty to respective gangs because they have improved their lives, legitimizing themselves over the government. Finally, all these Caribbean nations are geographically trapped between the U.S. and Latin American illegal drug trafficking routes. Gangs smuggle drugs illegally into these Caribbean islands, selling to the U.S. in exchange for firearms. In nations such as Trinidad and Haiti, the illegal U.S. firearm market has yielded significant money for these gangs to help claim territory, leading to high murder rates that directly correlate with gun trafficking.
To help mitigate the violence of gangs, the Caribbean Community (Caricom) should coordinate a united policy with the U.S. This idea has already been presented at the Caricom Summit in July, with the St Kitts and Nevis prime minister, Terrance Drew, stressing the necessity of “the coordination of all of the member states.” The first act of Caricom should be to work with the US to negotiate for better security over gun trafficking, with the U.S. imposing much stricter policies and control when it comes to illegal drug and firearm trade, considering most of it goes to Caribbean gangs. Secondly, Caricom should look to break up the international connectivity of these gangs. This could be done through establishing a border task force, negotiating agreements on persecuting criminals if they flee to another island, and increasing funding for information centers. Thirdly, Caricom and the U.S. should provide some funding to Caribbean nations such as Trinidad and Haiti, which have severe issues of poverty. Providing some relief for these vulnerable communities decreases the likelihood that citizens will rely on gangs for survival.
Gang violence can be solved, as seen recently, where Jamaica, despite having high crime rates, decreased its murder rate by 40% for the first 5 months of 2025 by integrating new technology into law enforcement operations. Therefore, to ensure stability in the Caribbean, the issue of gang violence must be solved sooner rather than later.
Narco-Feminism Is a Lie: The Myth of Empowered Women in Cartels
Introduction: The Illusion of Power
In cartel culture, women hold guns, manage drug operations, and appear to wield influence. Social media, pop culture, and even certain feminist narratives frame them as powerful figures breaking into a male-dominated underworld. The rise of the buchona aesthetic—a hyper-glamorous, luxury-driven style associated with cartel wives and girlfriends—further fuels this perception. But does their presence in organized crime signify genuine empowerment, or is it simply another manifestation of patriarchy?
Choice feminism suggests that any decision a woman makes is inherently empowering. This logic extends to women who enter cartel life, assuming that if they choose to launder money, traffic drugs, or command sicarios (assassins), they are asserting autonomy. In reality, cartel culture does not liberate women—it subjugates them to a hyper-violent system designed to use and discard them. Radical feminism makes this clear: participation in oppression does not equate to freedom, as choices made within oppressive structures are often shaped by those structures. Cartel women may appear powerful, but their influence is conditional, and their survival often hinges on their relationships with men in power.
Women in the Cartel World: Authority or Survival?
While a handful of women have reached leadership roles in cartels, their ascent is almost always tied to male figures. For example, Enedina Arellano Félix of the Tijuana Cartel took control only after her brothers were arrested or killed, managing finances rather than commanding troops. Similarly, Rosalinda González Valencia, associated with the CJNG (Jalisco New Generation Cartel), handled financial operations but was ultimately arrested while her husband, a major cartel leader, remained at large. Sandra Ávila Beltrán, the so-called "Queen of the Pacific," leveraged her family’s cartel ties but ended up imprisoned, like so many others before her. These women may have wielded influence, but they were never at the top of the power structure. They occupied a position of authority because the men around them were temporarily absent and unable to do so.
Beyond leadership, women serve other roles in cartel operations, yet none offer true security. The buchona aesthetic is often presented as a symbol of cartel women’s financial independence because, on the surface, it visually signals access to wealth, luxury, and power. Women who embody this look typically display markers of high status—designer clothing, luxury handbags, dramatic makeup, and surgically enhanced bodies—which are conventionally associated with success and autonomy in capitalist, image-driven societies. It is, however, actually a reflection of control. Cartel-affiliated men dictate the physical appearance of their wives and girlfriends, funding plastic surgeries and designer wardrobes to fit a beauty standard designed to flaunt their wealth, even if it kills them. These women, though seemingly elevated by their proximity to power, remain vulnerable. If they lose their usefulness—whether through age, disloyalty, or legal troubles—they are easily replaced.
Others are thrust into direct criminal activity. Women are frequently recruited as drug mules because they attract less suspicion at border crossings. Some, like La Catrina, a high-profile cartel assassin, become sicarias themselves. However, many are coerced into these roles and given no real alternative. La Catrina, who became notorious for her involvement in cartel violence as a member of the Jalisco New Generation cartel, was dead by twenty-one, killed in a police raid. Her notoriety did not protect her, nor did it grant her the longevity or security enjoyed by her male counterparts. The promise of power in the cartel world is often a short-lived illusion.
Why Choice Feminism Fails
Choice feminism insists that women exercising agency—even within oppressive systems—are inherently empowered. This framework, however, collapses when applied to cartel women. While they may choose to enter the drug trade, that choice is rarely made in a vacuum. Many come from environments where cartel involvement is one of the few economic options available. Others are drawn in through coercion, manipulation, or familial ties. The argument that their participation is an act of empowerment ignores the structural conditions that drive them into organized crime in the first place.
Even for those who voluntarily enter cartel life, power remains tenuous. A woman’s influence within a cartel is almost always tied to a man—her father, brother, husband, or lover. Unlike their male counterparts, whose authority is recognized through force or reputation, women in cartels gain status relationally. The moment their connection to a male figure weakens, their protection disappears. They are not dismantling patriarchal structures, but operating within them, often at great personal risk. The notion that women gain equality by playing the same violent game as men disregards the reality that cartel structures were never designed for female autonomy.
Social Media and the Glorification of Cartel Culture
The romanticization of cartel life extends beyond the criminal world into mainstream culture, particularly through social media. Platforms like TikTok and Instagram promote an idealized version of the buchona lifestyle, showcasing extravagant wealth, designer clothing, and luxury cars under hashtags like #NarcoQueen and #CartelWife. These curated images create a false narrative that cartel-affiliated women live glamorous, consequence-free lives. Missing from these portrayals are the violence, domestic abuse, and lack of agency that many of these women face.
This glorification extends to music as well. Narcocorridos, or drug ballads, often depict women in cartel culture as either deadly and seductive or beautiful and submissive, reinforcing the idea that their worth is tied to their desirability or usefulness to men. Young women consuming this media may not recognize the disparity between the image and the reality. Instead, they see a path to financial security and status without realizing the inherent dangers of cartel life. The aesthetics of power should not be mistaken for actual power, and yet, social media blurs this distinction.
Conclusion: Narco-Feminism is a Façade
Women in cartels are not revolutionaries; they are participants in a system that was never built to protect them. The idea that their involvement represents a form of feminism ignores the realities of how power functions within organized crime. Holding a gun or managing cartel finances does not free women from patriarchy. Running a criminal operation does not shield them from the violence, exploitation, and disposability that define cartel life.
Choice feminism argues that because these women have chosen their roles, they are empowered. Radical feminism exposes this fallacy. True empowerment does not come from maneuvering within an oppressive system—it comes from dismantling it. If narco-feminism were real, women would not have to navigate cartel culture by the rules men established; they would be rewriting them entirely. But they aren’t. They are surviving, and survival is not the same as liberation. There is no feminism in a system built to destroy women. The only way forward is to reject the structures that keep them bound.
The EU Struck a Deal for Detention Centers and Desert Dumps: A Crisis for African Migrants
In 2024, the European Union (EU) signed bilateral agreements and memorandums with several Muslim-majority nations, including Tunisia, Morocco, and Libya, that contained financial agreements to curb migrant flow through border control and closure or violent action towards migrants if necessary. These agreements come as a result of a well-documented rise in anti-immigrant sentiment across Europe as thousands of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa have fled conflict and persecution in their homelands to establish a better life on the other side of the Mediterranean. Migrants, particularly those from Libya and Syria, are fleeing the violence of the ongoing war and factional power struggle, where they are vulnerable to extortion, violence, and other abuses by the government and armed groups. One individual interviewed had fled military service in Syria under al-Assad’s regime due to conflict with his oath as a medical professional–he, along with 125 other refugees, fled Syria to Europe for freedom from violent conflict since 2009, 4.48 million Syrian refugees have sought asylum in Europe.
With the increasing immigrant population, especially from Muslim countries, many white Europeans fear that low fertility rates among “European natives” will create a self-effacing Europe devoid of Western identity. Xenophobic political sentiment has begun to influence the EU and its agreements with North African countries, regions that groups such as Liberian migrants must traverse before attempting to cross the Mediterranean. These agreements have already dropped irregular border crossings by an overall 38%—the lowest level since 2021 (due to COVID-19)—though the West African route saw an 18% increase, the highest since data collection began in 2009. This means that while efforts have been made to close off points of crossing, immigrants are finding alternative routes and bypassing blocked routes.
In response to the increased migration across the Mediterranean, Tunisia and Italy have developed a coordinating strategy that integrates migration control with national identity and economic policies. Tunisia stated that the reason for their aggressive migration crackdown and policy development is a defense against migrants who threaten to transform the state into an “African” country rather than an “Arab-Muslim” one. EU nations such as Italy have pitched migration policy as a facet of plans to boost the economies of African countries directly involved with migrant flow into the EU. Last year, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen both presented plans with economic benefits in tandem with stricter migration policy. Leyen’s partnership package plan held over 1.08 billion dollars in assistance, with approximately 164.5 million dollars targeted towards border management.
This is not the first time agreements have been used to curb migration into the EU. In 2017, an EU summit in Malta saw the promise of greater funding for migrant containment and the closing of the Liberian and Tunisian Central Mediterranean migrant routes. This is the same route that experienced a 59% drop in crossings in 2024, according to Frontex. The EU’s concerted response differs greatly from those in 2015, alongside the growth of xenophobia and the election of far-right politicians. There is a fear that Europe is losing its Western identity, particularly from invading Arab populations who, from their perspective, terrorize the white European population. Germany had committed 6.6 billion dollars to support 800,000 migrants entering the country and take in 500,000 migrants a year, with Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly stating that the EU cannot fail on the matter of supporting refugees if they wished to remain “the Europe [they] wished for.”
These recent agreements have increased the expulsion of migrants in North Africa who sought to cross the Mediterranean, some even using brutal tactics, including documented human rights violations and imprisonment. As a result, migrants face threats of torture, sexual violence, starvation, serious injury, and death. Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has now been denied access and obstructed from providing treatment to those individuals inside two of Libya’s major detention facilities after more than seven years of access, from 2016 to 2023. At one detention center, Abu Salim, women reported to MSF workers that they were told they could be released in exchange for sexual favors, and that they experienced sexual abuse at the hands of armed guards and men brought from outside the facility. Prisoners described being routinely denied life-saving medical treatment. In response to the exposed abuse, MSF has called for a stop to detention practices and the release of all those held, and for refugees to be provided with safe and legal pathways out of Libya.
Other countries, such as Tunisia, have begun a process known as “desert dumping,” abandoning migrants into the no-man’s land along their border in the Sahara Desert, providing them with no food or water and adequate medical care. Funded with more than 400 million euros by the EU Trust Fund under the pretense of migrant management, these operations use the funds to operate vehicles and commute out to remote regions of the Sahara to abandon migrants, according to a year-long investigation from Lighthouse Reports. Many who are left in the desert face threats of kidnapping, extortion, torture, violence, and death; others are sold and held for ransom. Vehicles used to round up migrants during raids and transport them to desert regions have been matched to vehicles donated to Tunisia by Italy and Germany. Some people, like African-American citizen Timothy Hucks, have been wrongfully arrested and subsequently abandoned in the desert following a police interrogation.
Of the 613 men arrested and sent back to Niger in December 2024, a majority reported mistreatment by authorities during their time in detention centers and while being transported. Few, including a 25-year-old from Guinea, are detained despite holding UNHCR refugee status papers. Those detained also include pregnant women and children; one group interviewed reported suffering hallucinations and heel infections. Many were dehydrated, injured, and abused by organized crime and trafficking rings that operate in the dumping zones. One group reportedly had been photographed by Spanish officers before knowingly being abandoned in an al-Qaeda-linked active war zone in the Malian desert.
Damaging migration policies from the EU and partnering African nations have resulted in the forceful return of migrants, refugees, and asylum seekers to Libya and neighboring regions, where they face horrific and abusive conditions in detention centers and abandonment in the Sahara Desert. When groups are finally able to reach nearby cities, often the same from which they were rounded up, many risk being detained and dumped again, creating a cycle of violence and abuse. Using violent and abusive detainment as a solution to reduce migration will not reduce the influx of migrants and refugees into Europe, but rather force those desperate enough to create newer and potentially more dangerous routes to the EU and their assumed freedom from violent conflict. Scholars have long since connected this crisis to the colonial historical legacy left by many nations that participate in the prevention of African and Muslim migration into the EU. If the European Union is desperate to contain and prevent migrants at the cost of billion-dollar economic deals, it would be a greater use of funds to build instead grassroots support for democracy and peace-building efforts in regions of conflict.
Yemenis Face Death As Trump Administration Blocks Aid
On March 15, drones and fighter jets from the USS Harry S. Truman conducted the first in a series of “relentless” bombings across Yemen. These attacks lasted for a little over seven weeks before a ceasefire was achieved. US President Donald Trump and his administration have stated that the targets of those attacks were members of the Houthi militant group, however, many of the people killed or injured in the strikes were civilians not affiliated with the terrorist organisation.
While the March 15 strikes were the first U.S. actions that actively harmed Yemeni civilians since Trump’s reelection, many of the cuts and changes made by his administration to U.S. policy may have ripple effects that could place more innocent Yemenis at risk.
One Trump-era policy change with such side effects was the administration's re-designation of the Houthis as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO), a move that came after former President Joe Biden reversed a last-minute policy made by the first Trump administration when he took office in 2021.
On February 5, 2021, only seventeen days after the Trump administration designated the Houthis as an FTO, former President Biden removed the designation. In a now-deleted White House webpage, the Biden administration said that it was lifting the FTO designation in order to help mitigate the humanitarian crisis that has been plaguing Yemen for years.
The FTO designation makes it illegal for any United States entity—private or public—to provide “support or resources” to an FTO. Since the Houthis control over seventy percent of Yemen, this prohibition greatly hinders any aid initiatives, as U.S. entities must ensure that no aid reaches a Houthi member or civilian with ties to the Houthis.
Critically for Yemen, “support or resources” includes food aid. Yemen relies on imports for up to ninety percent of its food, fuel, and medicine, and while it is legal to provide medical supplies to FTO-controlled areas, U.S. entities cannot legally provide food and fuel to FTOs or any civilians related to FTOs. Currently, 17.4 million people in Yemen are food insecure, 15 million of whom are women and children. The FTO designation risks devastating the Yemeni economy and could potentially send parts of Yemen into a famine.
In 2024, after a series of Houthi attacks on U.S. naval vessels, the Biden administration re-designated the Houthis as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) organisation, a less severe category that would block entities associated with the de facto Houthi government from conducting financial transactions or owning property inside the United States. Importantly, an SDGT designation does not prohibit the distribution of American humanitarian aid abroad. Despite this new designation, and against the warnings of humanitarian aid organisations, the Trump administration redesignated the Houthis as an FTO on March 4.
On top of placing restrictions on U.S.-based entities and NGOs providing humanitarian aid in Yemen, the Trump administration has drastically reduced the amount of American government aid being provided to Yemeni citizens. On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order “reevaluating” the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID). This reevaluation came along with a severe reduction in USAID programmes in every region of the world and by March 11, over 80 percent of the agency's programmes had been terminated.
The Trump administration has also been see-sawing on many decisions regarding some of the most important USAID programmes. Among these programmes is the USAID Urgent Food Aid programme—one of the most critical USAID programmes in Yemen. On April 8, the administration cancelled the programme. However, less than 24 hours later, aid was restored for all countries except Afghanistan and Yemen. This cancellation included food already at distribution centres in Yemen, ending lifesaving aid to at least 2.4 million people.
The Trump administration said it was cutting USAID programmes in Yemen because it claimed the Houthis were stealing aid. This statement is likely accurate as the Houthis have been accused of aid theft by multiple different sources. In 2019, the Houthis reportedly stole around 1 percent of the food aid that entered Yemen. This number is significant, but it does not outweigh the potential famine that will come about as a consequence of the FTO designation and the loss of USAID Urgent Food Aid.
The FTO designation will not only starve many innocent Yemenis, but it could even push some into extremism. When people are facing food insecurity and are unable to properly feed themselves and their families they become vulnerable to extremist groups. These individuals often do not want to join the Houthis, but as they begin to starve, joining becomes one of the only options available to them. The Houthis either keep the excess food for the members of their organisation or they resell the food for an extortionate amount. As aid dries up, the people of Yemen will have to face a choice: spend money they do not have to buy food from the Houthis, join the Houthis in order to eat, or die.
Since Donald Trump took office in January, his administration has enacted policies that have put the health and safety of 17.4 million Yemenis at immediate risk. Despite the ceasefire, these innocent Yemenis are still in danger. Not only has it become significantly more difficult for private entities in America to provide humanitarian aid, but U.S. government aid to the people of Yemen has been reduced to next to nothing. If they are unable to access aid, millions of people in Yemen face starvation, thousands of whom will likely die.