Narcoculture as a Crisis of Dignity: The Nature of Brutality

Indicator 2 of Dignity Deprivation: Incomprehensible Brutality

The second defining characteristic of narcoculture, already alluded to through the sublime authority and its necessary reign through terror discussed in the previous section, is its quality of brutality, which is not mere violence, but a particularly grotesque, sensational kind of violence. As interviewees in the documentary discussed, victims of cartel crimes are murdered in exorbitant numbers, but also often in performative fashions, particularly if that victim was a notable threat to the cartel’s authority. For example, Escobedo, by launching a movement against femicide that informed the masses of the cartel’s link to government corruption was a threat in its exposure of the authority which was meant to be this sublime subversive sort of control. As such, she was shot in clear view of the government, where it was known no justice would be served for the crime in the symbolic, hoped ultimate ironic failure of her protest. Others who posed a threat often had their eyes dug out, bodies dismembered, heads shoved on stakes, burning to the flesh, graffiti on bodies, acid damage, were tossed in landfills, or other stark kinds of brutality that led to the perception of a “bloodbath” rather than mere out of control violence.

Alberto-Sánchez calls the phenomenon a “spectacle of death,” and describes how images of this sensational violence have been normalized to mainstream culture by broadcasting through television and the internet scenes of “dead bodies strewn across dirt roads, riddled with bullets to the head, chest, stomach, face; headless corpses left inside abandoned cars, heads atop the car’s roof, in the trunk, or missing from the picture altogether; the noticeable profile of human bodies wrapped with black trash bags or blankets leaning lazily against walls or fences. In many cases, written confessions accompany these crimes, detailing the reasons for the executions, decapitations, or dismemberments and the person or groups responsible,” (Alberto- Sánchez, 2020, 5). These confessions are a custom of narco-culture, and meant again, to establish a formal show of power from this sovereign entity, such that their power appears calculated and insurmountable. Sometimes, in the case of Escobedo’s daughter, perpetrators would simply admit to random people on the street what they had done, and still get off in court, having to face no consequences under the protection of the corrupt, truly sovereign power. Alberto-Sánchez argues that what is notable about this excessive level of brutality is its ability to dehumanize its victims.

He says when we read headlines like “5 Decapitated, Hearts Left in the Mouths of Severed Heads,” we cannot comprehend the violence, and in this inability to comprehend, we are unable, also, to imagine these victims as people. Often, bodies are dismembered to the point where they cannot be identified at all, but are simply piled in mass graves. Similarly, unable to identify an origin for or explanation for such violence, and not wanting to accept the fear we should feel for such a reality, as Susan Brison points out of the difficulty of understanding trauma, and Hannah Arendt, among others, observes, the brutality simply is absorbed as a cultural norm, such that it cannot disrupt our stability (Alberto- Sánchez, 2020, 17; Brison, 2014). The brutality is absorbed so easily because Narco-culture is a rational extension of the excess and disregard for dignity that comes with the mores of hyper-capitalist economic social consciousness (Alberto-Sánchez, 2020, 17). This capitalist ethical and political culture of individualism fosters a psychology of mastery, as we will come to later, that harbors an aggressive neurotic obsession with domination that dissolve the self as one among a dynamic social body, and posit it as a violent force that stands against “others.” (Butler, 2020) In other words, the narco-culture treatment of the dead in this unintelligibly violent way such that they become just drops in the bucket of so many dead at the hands of this phenomenon is no accident, but again, a necessary piece of the mastery framework, and indicator of a shortage of dignity recognition. It is an inevitable consequence of the historical crisis resultant from human nature interacting with institutions of the particular moment in a contradiction of the consciousness of dignity, not specific to the particular demographic or sociological topology of Mexico. To abide by such a misconception would only aggravate the need for recognition more, leading to building prejudice rather than solutions.

Hegel concurs with this argument through the illustration the analogous brutality of the Reign of Terror of his time which he analyzes through the mastery framework. Here again, there was an unimaginable level of brutality in the killing of religious leaders, or those who pose the greatest threat to the new authority of the Enlightenment regime. They were often drowned in groups through a twisted appropriation of “Baptism” as murder. Heads were again, shoved on pikes, and mass graves dug. Formal orders of crimes, the charges of course, being their religion, were issued by the sovereign authority, just as in the case of the narco-banners, or confessions. For all those who were simply “suspected” of not being on board with the new regime, numbers which were inflated in a culture of accusation with no real justice so as to demonstrate the weight of the power and terror of the administration, they were killed in the most efficient way possible with the introduction of the publicly shown Guillotine. “Being suspected, therefore, takes the place,” he says, “or has the significance and effect, of being guilty; and the external reaction against this reality that lies in the simple inwardness of intention, consists in the cold, matter-of-fact annihilation of this existent self, from which nothing else can be taken away but its mere being.” (Hegel, 1977, §591).

Hegel describes how the Guillotine was a physical manifestation of the rule of “Reason” created through the Enlightenment-based French Revolution that shows how contorted, shallow, and brutal these fervent pushes for abstract ideologies that replace overnight all old institutions can be. What was defended as a “more humane, efficient” and therefore “rational” instrument of death of the regime was in fact killing more people as a public demonstration of power than one could possibly wrap their head around. Just as in the case of the cartel killings, Hegel describes the dehumanization of the victims that resulted from this practice using the metaphor of a “head of cabbage” that would roll from its blade to express how devoid of all dignity was this practice of death. “The sole work and deed of universal freedom is therefore death, a death too which has no inner significance or filling, for what is negated is the empty point of the absolutely free self. It is thus the coldest and meanest of deaths, with no more significance than cutting off a head of cabbage or swallowing a mouthful of water [in the case of mass drownings.]” (Hegel, 1977, §590). “…All social groups or classes are abolished…the individual consciousness that belonged to any such sphere, and willed and fulfilled in itself, has put aside its limitation; its purpose is the general purpose, its language universal law, its work the universal work.” (Hegel, 1977, §585). “In this flat, common place monosyllable is contained in the wisdom of the government, the abstract of the universal will…” (Hegel, 1977, §591). None of these victims were identifiable individuals, but instead, were indistinguishable parts of the collective.

The result of submitting these individuals to the domination by this collective power, however, does not, as pointed out in the previous contradiction in the psychology of mastery, lead to the recognition of dignity of the master. Rather, this abstract dynamic of control between powers only works to deny the dignity of those it kills. “All these determinations [honour, wealth, language, etc.] have vanished in the loss suffered by the self in absolute freedom; its negation is the death that is without meaning, the sheer terror of the negative that contains nothing positive, nothing that fills it with a content. At the same time, however, this negation in its real existence is not something alien… on the contrary, it is the universal will which is in this its ultimate abstraction nothing positive and therefore can give nothing in return,” this being the fulfillment of recognition (Hegel, 1977, §594).

Alberto-Sanchez explicitly agrees with this situation of the framework. He argues that “Narco-culture, in its material structure- one constituted by a politics and economics of competition and excess- is thus that form of life where the other can be reduced to an object, where killing him is legitimated under its own rules. Allowing the other [the victim] to be more than a “sensible datum’ would imply a recognition and acceptance of one’s own moral obligations to that other, a recognition that has no place in a culture of violence where the goal is the conspicuous consumption of resources, be they money or people,” (Alberto Sanchez, 2020, 84). He supports this with feminist philosopher Judith Butler’s analysis that “Violence…becomes necessary for an Ego that in the vulnerability of its being exposed seeks to guard itself from murder [threats to power.]…To the extent that we commit violence, we are acting on another, putting the other at risk…threatening to expunge the other,” (Alberto Sanchez, 2020, 83). What Hegel’s analysis is particularly helpful in contributing is the historical setting which has created a lack of dignity through contradiction of its institutions and consciousness of dignity, then, is what creates this thirsty cry for recognition that creates a defining, existential crisis and mores that tend toward violence and brutality or dehumanization rather than a soothing of that problem. It is not, as Alberto-Sanchez fears the misconception of, anything particular to this conflict.

To pursue, again, the question of dignity that will solve the need is an arduous task that leaves people vulnerable in their desperation to the easy answers provided by abstract authorities in a way that defines a historical moment, through what Hegel calls Spirit. “Just as the realm of the real world passes over into the realm of faith and insight, so does absolute freedom leave its self-destroying reality and pass over into another land of self-conscious Spirit where, in this unreal world, freedom has the value of truth,” (Hegel, 1977, §594). “This is just the skepticism [disillusionment with current institutions in historical moments of dignity-based contradictions] which only ever sees pure nothingness in its result and abstracts from the fact that this nothingness is specifically the nothingness of that from which it results. For it is only when it is taken as the result of that from which it emerges, that it is, in fact, the true result; in that case it is itself a determinate nothingness, one which has a content. The skepticism that ends up with the bare abstraction of nothingness or emptiness cannot get any further from there, but must wait to see whether something new comes along and what it is, in order to throw it too into the same empty abyss,” (Hegel, 1977, §79).

Indicator 3 of Dignity Deprivation: Contrasting Care for Dead Leadership

This works in complete contrast to the final characteristic; the treatment of dead cartel leaders. This treatment in some ways falls under the culture of excess previously discussed, I narrow in on it not only because of the defining quality it has for the movement, but for the place of importance it holds in the Hegelian phenomenological model of dignity. Within cartels, it was noted by the documentary that dead leaders are honored with sophisticated rituals and placed in temples that emulate the glory of Egyptian pharaohs. They are buried with their immeasurable wealth, guarded after death. As described by Alberto Sanchez, they die like a king (Alberto Sanchez, 2020, 152). Where the treatment of victims serves to dehumanize them in response to their threats to the collective power, the treatment of cult leaders does the opposite, and instead, works to recognize them as powerful, “dignified” masters, or individuals with value in their own right. In order to fully understand the significance this has in serving as an indicator of dignity deprivation being the underlying cause of this historical conflict and its character, we must first understand Hegel’s argument around the phenomenological character of death rituals.

Hegel’s historical view argues that social relations occur on two levels; one relating to the construction of particular, temporally contingent individuals which exist in their peculiar circumstances for themselves, and one where individuals exist only as part of a larger whole or universal. Institutionally, Hegel attributes the construction of an individual which exists as a particular being for itself to the Family, and the individual which exists only as part of a larger universal to the Citizen, or the person which is defined by their subservience to the larger Nation. Each of these institutional beings, Citizen and member of the Family, are defined through their activities in ethical life. For Hegel, Ethical life can be understood as the set of social norms or habits which one realizes and carries out because of their role in a particular structure, this being an institution such as the Family or the Nation. As such, the Family and Nation both have ethical norms unique to themselves which define their character as an institution. In a family, or blood relation, this is a set of habits which add onto the natural relationship that exists due to biological connection, but feel as natural as that biological connection. They are not intentional in the same way as chosen love, as we find in romantic, emotional love. Rather, they are obligations set forth from birth, or the origin of a blood connection. A key defining example of such obligations are the care a Family will exhibit for their dead. We do not choose out of a particular love for our blood relations that we should honor their death and perform rituals or care around it. It feels like a naturally bestowed duty upon us, even though it is really a socialized custom of the institution of the Family. This is the work of the True Spirit, or Ethical Order for Hegel. Relative to Narcoculture, we can think of the Family as being the inner circle of the elite leadership of cartels, where citizens are the masses subject to being victims. Their “biological bond” is simulated by membership, and the hierarchical order of intelligence.

Care for the dead is particularly relevant to defining the institution of the Family as that which exists for the individual to uncover a being for itself, rather than being for a universal whole. This is because Death, for Hegel, as something Natural of which we have no choice whether or when to experience, is the ultimate thing which subordinates our lives to the power of Nature. It condemns us to a realm of the ultimate universal where we are one in an infinite collective of the dead, and the experience of our lives becomes an indistinguishable droplet in that sea, rather than meaningful within itself. Yet, we are able to transcend that identity as nothing but indifferent powerless pieces of that collective through the Family, which remembers us as the particular beings we were, and retains that memory through the care for the dead. We remain beings for ourselves through the power of Spirit expressed in these customs. The Family can only do this, however, by actually recognizing or performing the death, this being “taking the act of destruction [death]” onto itself, such that it transforms that event into the meaningful part of the particular individual’s life and part of the broader work of Spirit, rather than only the immediate consequence of Nature’s irrational course. While the customs feel obligatory, they are still conscious actions which give Substance to that consciousness of the meaning of an individual’s life. In this way, it interrupts the natural process and adds to it this conscious meaning.

In other words, where the narcoculture brutality of throwing others in acid and mass graves, totally making them unidentifiable, and analogous Guillotine of the French Revolution are ways of rewriting death as for the collective or as a dehumanization of an individual outside the family ethical life institution, the inner Cartels building temples for their dead leaders is a way of, through the institution of their inner circle, or “Family,” maintaining dignity and personal value of that particular individual. In this way, they transcend death as being something which takes away their dignity, and pose a stark inequality to the lower masses. This, again, falls directly into the psychology of mastery. As such, it fits the model as an indicator of a crisis of dignity.

Grieving the Victims of US Sanctions

Sanctions are defined as the “withdrawal of customary trade and financial relations for foreign- and security-policy purposes.” The use of sanctions against countries perceived to be a threat to American interests began soaring in popularity in the 1990s, which was known as the “sanctions decade.” Since 9/11,  sanctions have become more precise in their targeting of individuals and entities, as a way to supposedly minimize the impact on civilians. They are utilized by both major political parties in the US and are painted as a more peaceful alternative to war; physical violence is not inflicted upon these target countries and American citizens can’t even feel their reverberations. The US currently has country-wide sanctions against Iran, North Korea, Syria, Sudan, Cuba, and Venezuela; more narrowly framed sanctions against individuals and entities have also been implemented, affecting an additional 27 countries. They are seen as the ultimate tool for enacting American interest and putting pressure on regimes the US would like to see ousted, while still being able to claim that the US cares about “peace” and foreign civilians- it’s a win-win for politicians and their polling numbers. 

However, while sanctions are painted as an ideal alternative to war, as it does not produce immediate physical violence, the damage that they create cannot be understated. Former UN Secretary-General Boutros-Ghali has described economic sanctions as a “blunt instrument” that very much harms civilians and causes long-term damage to a country’s ability to function. This article’s intention is to elaborate upon this claim and analyze sanctions and their effects on various countries through the lens of Judith Butler’s grievability. This ethical position argues that every life should be worthy of grief and that this recognition serves to create a more equal society. As Butler says in The Force of Nonviolence: “To be grievable is to be interpellated in such a way that you know your life matters; that the loss of your life would matter; that your body is treated as one that should be able to live and thrive, whose precarity should be minimized, for which provisions for flourishing should be available.” Sanctions are in direct violation of this principle; their implementation suggests that the lives of certain people, i.e. foreign civilians, especially those of target countries, are not of a particular value, and therefore not worthy of grief. Additionally, sanctions maintain a certain power dynamic that produces and exacerbates the precarity of the target country’s situation. As I will attempt to demonstrate, the impact of sanctions is extremely damaging which suggests that violence does not just manifest in physical acts of war, but also in the economic, political, and social institutions of a country. 

Iraq in the 1990s

In the 1990s, the United States imposed a number of country-wide sanctions in order to pressure certain regimes- this included Iraq. The United States used the UN Security Council to implement multilateral sanctions on Ba’athist Iraq, led by Saddam Hussein. These sanctions, coupled with unilateral sanctions from the US, created the most “comprehenseive embargo of a country since at least World War II.” Though the reported intent of these sanctions was to pressure Iraq to withdraw from Kuwait and to disclose the presence of any weapons of mass destruction, the results were disproportionately felt by civilians. Instead of ahcieving the desired results, these robust sanctions decimated Iraqi society and infrastructure. Prior to the sanctions, Iraq had one of the highest standards of living in the Middle East and boasted modern infrastructure. Contrary to what one may believe about 20th-century Iraq, it had an extensive healthcare system, water treatment facilities, and a school and university system. Additionally, Iraq had a significant reliance on imported food and technology. This meant that the all-encompassing trade sanctions decimated both the Iraqi economy and basic access to necessary goods. 

The sanctions made Iraqi civilians susceptible to food and water shortages, which were accompanied by the total collapse of the healthcare system. These food shortages were a direct result of UN sanctions, as Iraq heavily relied on imports of food which were subsequently cut off by the international community. Approximately 70 percent of calories in Iraq were imported thus meaning that the sanctions severely impacted the nutrition of Iraqis. While reports of malnourishment, especially among children, conflict with one another, it can be agreed that the sanctions had a very real impact on food access which subsequently led to health problems. Water has also been in short supply; the Gulf War damaged the general infrastructure of Iraq, including water pumping and treatement facilities. The country was unable to access the technology and engineering resources needed to fix these facilities as they no longer had access to the imported technology. This made water access extremely unreliable as well as unsafe due to the fact that water could no longer be properly treated. 

Furthermore, the decline in both quality and quantity of water sources reportedly led to the spread of infectious diseases such as cholera. However, the health problems that were produced by the food and water shortages could not be treated as the health-care system collapsed during this period. Firstly, the physical hospitals and medical centers can no longer be attended to as the financial resources to fix them are simply not there; access to the technology that could have once fixed medical infrastructure was no longer present. Secondly, the sanctions completely stopped the import of medical equipment and materials which resulted in a shortage- things such as stethoscopes were in extremely limited supply. Perhaps most damning is the fact that Iraqi doctors were also operating on outdated knowledge; within the ten years of sanctions, no new medical literature entered the country as it was specifically prohibited by the sanctions. 

While the Iraqi sanctions were eventually lifted in 2003, the damage was done. Iraq’s infrastructure and economy were in ruins. Furthermore, it is up for debate as to whether the sanctions even achieved their goal. However, that point is arguably irrelevant- what matters is the very real toll these sanctions took on Iraqi civilians. The impact of these sanctions on Iraqi society demonstrates the ways in which violence can manifest. While the US and the UN didn’t drop bombs on Iraq, at least not until the invasion of Iraq in 2003, they were still inflicting great violence- the tools for doing so just simply took on another shape. How is it not violent to cut off a country’s food supply? Or their access to clean water? Or medical supplies? Oftentimes, violence is only viewed through a lens of war, when in reality it has implications that transcend this purely physical understanding. Ignoring these implications is deliberate as it allows the US, as well as the UN, to continue pursuing foreign policy interests, which are quite frankly imperialist in nature, without facing legitimate consequences. The actions of the US and the UN prove that they assigned a lesser value to the lives of Iraqis. Taking Judith Butler’s grievability into account, it is important to understand that Iraq’s civilians are worthy of grief; to acknowledge their grievability is to acknowledge their value as humans. 

Venezuela

The US has a total embargo on Venezuela, which is coupled with sanctions from the EU. The goal of these sanctions is to oust President Nicolas Maduro, which has been a bipartisan effort in the US. The sanctions were announced in 2015 by President Barack Obama; as a result, foreign companies stopped doing business and Venezuela’s foreign accounts were closed. In 2017, President Trump then imposed an oil embargo that prevented the purchase of petroleum from the state oil company, PDVSA; this came alongside the confiscation of the US subsidiary CITGO. This has had a huge impact on Venezuela’s economy and the government’s capacity to function as it gets the majority of its revenue from oil.

Once again, the very real, and violent, impact of sanctions has been felt across Venezuelan society. One report estimates that 40,000 people may have died as a result of sanctions limiting access to food and medicine. In a similar vein as Iraq in the 1990s, the sanctions on Venezuela has destabilized the country’s economy and prevented access to basic necessities. It should be noted that US sanctions don’t explicitly prevent the import of food or medicine. However, Venezuela is very much dependent on oil revenue as a source of hard currency that private and public businesses can use to import goods. Once again, the specific undermining of Venezuela’s oil industry has led to a sharp decrease in imports; the average monthly public import dropped to $500 million in 2019 and subsequently dropped to $250 million in 2020. There are approximately 300,000 people who are at risk as there is a lack of access to medicines or treatment as a result of sanctions. The health-care sector has taken a major blow mainly due to the fact that the government has reduced its expenditure for the public health-care system; this is arguably a result of the fact that the government can no longer raise the necessary revenue due to the US’s oil embargo.

The Grievability of Those Impacted

“Peace” advocate Gene Sharp defines nonviolent action as “a sanction and a technique of struggle involving the use of social, economic, and political power, and the matching forces in conflict.” However, as previously demonstrated, there is a significant issue with this definition of nonviolent action and the way the concept of sanctions is perceived. The idea that sanctions can be qualified as “nonviolent” ignores the very real history of their use. While Iraq and Venezuela are only two examples of the impact of sanctions, the fact that both countries have experienced extreme shortages in basic necessities, thus causing thousands of deaths, is not “nonviolent action.” It is very real and very violent. Violence is not just acts of warfare, but it also manifests in the way economic, social, and political power is wielded. The fact that sanctions are perceived as nonviolent allows the US to engage in imperialism without facing legitimate criticism or consequences. And it should be noted that sanctions are an example of modern-day imperialism- the US has made it clear on many occasions that they utilize sanctions in an effort to oust regimes that they deem a threat to US interests. While these regimes are certainly flawed, the idea that the US has the right to dictate the internal affairs of a country, and use the deaths of civilians to do so, is imperialism. 

Furthermore, the use of sanctions allows the US to deny their responsibility for the deaths of thousands. These deaths go ungrieved in the international community which is precisely the point. As Judith Butler says: “After all, if a life, from the start, is regarded as grievable, then every precaution will be taken to preserve and to safeguard that life against harm and destruction.” Grievability essentially assigns worth to lives that have been historically marginalized, both in domestic and international terms. The fact that lives in the Global South, especially in countries deemed enemies of the US, are not seen as worthy of grief allows the US to impose these sanctions without care for their impact. If the US did start to care about these lives and respect their inherent value, they would have to stop their use of sanctions and seek out solutions that would actively protect their lives against “harm and destruction.” That would mean that US foreign policy would have to be completely reformed. Grievability is not in the interest of the US; to embrace such an ethical position would be anithetical to the US’s commitment to safeguarding American interests, which are often rooted in imperialism. However, this makes grievability of the utmost urgency. To embrace this position would be an embrace of an entirely different world, where those in the Global South are deemed valuable and therefore worthy of protection. This would challenge pre-existing power dynamics and create the incentive for solutions that prioritize legitimate self-determination and basic human rights.

Narcoculture as a Crisis of Dignity: Examining Abstract Leadership

Understanding the Narcoculture as a Case Study of the Deprivation of Somatic Dignity

To situate Narcoculture in this historical framework, I will examine the characteristics which Alberto-Sánchez and those who have been directly affected by Narcoculture argue define the cultural phenomenon and demonstrate how these characteristics correlate to the indicators of somatic dignity deprivation. Because the existential crisis of Hegel’s time was largely sparked over the rise of the Enlightenment Movement that politically took the form of numerous violent revolutions, including, notably, the Reign of Terror of the French Revolution, his analysis of the character of dignity crises is largely colored by examples from that historical moment. As such, this discussion will seemingly unfold as a comparative analysis of the nature of the French Revolution and Narcoculture, but the principles of comparison apply to all similarly sourced conflicts. In other words, as per the discussion of the historical trend of conflict from the previous section, these are not to be taken as coincidentally similar examples, but part of a larger analytical framework that speaks to how and why a mindset of mastery manifests out of the systemic deprivation of recognition for human dignity.

While Alberto-Sánchez offers a description of narcoculture in conversation with its philosophical relevance that will be used as well to understand its character, it will be put in conversation with The Three Deaths of Marisela Escobedo. This documentary, examining a mother’s launch of a consciousness-raising movement against femicide, or intentional violence against women on the basis of their sex, in order to attain justice for her daughter not offered by the corrupt Mexican legal system, discusses Narcoculture as a source of this violence against women, as well as the political failures to address it. In doing so, it illustrates through first-hand experiences the culture of and sheer power held by the authoritative regime of Narcoculture, these being drug Cartels and their hierarchical leadership. The defining characteristics of Narcoculture which are agreed upon between the documentary and Alberto- Sánchez’s book are the nature of the power of the Cartels, including their hierarchical order, subversive control over other institutions, and “economy of excess,” the sensationalism of the brutality Cartels inflict on their victims, and juxtaposed to that, their treatment of their dead leaders (The Three Deaths of Marisela Escobedo; Alberto-Sánchez, 2020, 5).

Indicator 1 of Dignity Deprivation: The Culture of Abstract Power

To examine the first characteristic, this being the culture of abstract power in a moment of historical contradiction, the drug cartels which hold the power in narco-culture are generally extremely hierarchical, but in no arbitrary sense. Rather, their leaders are regarded by members as almost mystical, religiously divine figures. They are never seen, nor use their real names. They are sublime forces of terror, causing “men [to] simply vanish and…never [be] heard of again,” (Alberto-Sánchez, 2020, 4). Most exclusive members will never know who they are, according to the speakers of the documentary. There is an elitist culture in their peripheral circle, such that to be a member of a cartel is to put you at some level of “intelligence clearance,” taking on the character of a national security protocol, or to generalize, a sovereign state of its own. Given that, as Escobedo’s story reveals, these cartels have bought out high level government officials and cemented this control with terrorizing threats, capable of killing anyone in their way in the most brutal way imaginable, they have in many ways become the sovereign power of Mexico and nearby territories. Existing in opposition to the previously dominate political regime or mainstream culture, as we will come to in a moment, in itself is not accidental, but an expression of resentment for those institutions rooted in their perceived failure to recognize the leaders of the Cartel, such that they have now gone after this recognition through force, or mastery.

Further, the leaders live in an extraordinary, immeasurable and frankly inhuman excess of wealth, as a result of their complete domination, but also focus a majority of their resources towards maintaining that control through all of their “slaves,” or lower members. Usually, leaders live in enormous mansions, with all of the finest consumption goods they can dream of. They spend their lives consuming that which is brought to them through the sales of lower members. These lower members are blindly consumed instead by their overwhelming desire to be recognized as the same level of power as their leaders, and hope to climb the ladder, but also seek fulfillment through this joining of the collective, which promises meaning, though it often never gives it. Instead, most members will inevitably die young as a result of the intensity of the violence, having spent most of their time on the run living secret lives, rather than for themselves and the sake of meaningful relationships with those they care about, or some positive purpose in the world.

Hegel notes in the introduction to The Phenomenology of Spirit that this kind of sublime, systemically controlling power is that which comes from a cultural mindset of mastery paired with societal yearning for stability during a moment of existential crisis on a historical scale, often as a result of a contradiction between consciousness that humans at that historical point have uncovered of their dignity, and the dignity which is bestowed upon them or recognized by the social norms and institutions of their day. When their consciousness of their own dignity is different than the institutional recognition, they feel that deprivation in a deep anguish that creates a revolutionary nature for change. They desire, above all else, the recognition they are now aware they deserve.

The master believes that it is only by risking their own life that they can receive recognition for their status as a human being from another conscious being. If the animal’s existence, including all of their thoughts and behaviors, are teleologically oriented to the highest goal of survival, then demonstrating one’s humanity can only be possible by subordinating that goal of survival to a higher, meaningful purpose- this being the desire for recognition. However, if one risked their life merely through killing another person, that person would no longer be alive, and therefore have consciousness with which to recognize the humanity of the other who desires it, defeating the goal. If one died in risking their life, they would also not be alive to receive recognition. Further, both parties have to have a Desire for recognition so as to understand what is at stake and have a capacity to therefore be conscious of what is gained or lost through this risk in a mutual recognition of the outcome. As such, the dynamic which comes out of the pursuit for recognition is a power differential, where one person “risks their life” but remains alive and free as another person chooses to preserve themselves by giving up their agency in exchange for safety from that figure which doesn’t back down from the risk of their life, thus deeming them the “slave” to the “master.”

On a cultural scale, the desire for dignity recognition, or psychology of mastery, requires the submission of all former authorities or institutions under the control of a new dominating movement of authority. In the case of the rise of the Enlightenment, this meant overhauling the previous religious authority, and replacing it. As Hegel put it, “If superstition and prejudice [religious authorities] have been banished [as a result of their denying recognition], the next question arises, what next? What is the truth Enlightenment has propagated in their stead?” (Hegel, 1977, §557). Being so driven by the fervent desire for a fast solution and more immediate acquisition of recognition, or a mindset of mastery, rather than committing to an institutional shift that could engage in the arduous, historical level of shifting institutions to a higher consciousness of dignity, the Enlightenment chose to define itself through the lens of its resentment; the opposite of religion. Where religion subordinated nature and human outcomes to a divine authority, or God, Enlightenment promised the power to have a domination of nature in a controllable God-like fashion.

That domination of nature, or focus on materialism and being for Earthly selves, culminated in the notion of “Utility,” or working for the consumption of human beings under their control. “Just as everything is useful to man, so man is useful too, and his vocation is to make himself a member of the group [or: “herd”], of use for the common good and serviceable to all. The extent to which he looks after his own interests must also be matched by the extent to which he serves others, and insofar as he serves others, he is taking care of himself: one hand washes the other.... he makes use of others and is himself made use of,” (Hegel, 1977, §560). “The Useful is the object insofar as self-consciousness penetrates it and has in it the certainty of its individual self, its enjoyment .... The two worlds are reconciled and heaven is transplanted to earth below....” (Hegel, 1977, §581). As we will come to in a moment, this is the epitome of the psychology of mastery, thus, again, confirming the desire for recognition present in the historical crisis.

­In order to actualize this Notion of utility in the form of institutions, the Revolution worked to redo all social norms and existing institutions under the “most Rational form.” Democratic constitutions were adopted, and then thrown out and rewritten over an over in a deliberative form (which illuminates the contradiction of mastery we will come to in that Reason clearly could not be trusted in an instantaneous moment of deliberation, so how could these institutions be so certain as to reconcile killing anyone who disagrees?). They replaced religious iconography with divine illustrations of principles of reason and equality. The Guillotine replaced former methods of state killings in an “efficient design,” and was used as a public display of the deaths of numerous religious leaders and followers, or even suspected ones. The calendar and clock were both reworked to remove any religious history and operate under the most “Rationale system,” which for the Reign of Terror meant ten hour clocks that complied with the metric system. Currencies were adjusted, units of measurement changed, and names of cities, streets and other important monuments changed to secular versions. By violently taking on systemic control of all institutions, Hegel says, Enlightenment, “ascend[ed] the throne of the world without any power being able to resist.” (Hegel, 1977, §585). It cannot receive recognition in any way but forcing the submission of former institutions through force and a complete replacement of their overhaul. Subtler but everyday shifts such as the calendar, as well as the culture of suspecting all opponents and murdering them mirror the subversive monopoly of sovereignty of cartel leaders.

We can tell this is a shallow, abstract power grab tactic, or the result of the mentality of mastery, through the contradiction, however, that arises in the foundational claim of this new regime as superior to the last. According to Hegel, while Enlightenment principles identify themselves as being the opposite of and a necessary alternative to faith, this judgement is ‘not very enlightened,” and fails to recognize that Enlightenment “principles are implicit in faith itself” (Hegel, 1977, §564). In other words, Enlightenment’s self-identification as superior to faith does not overcome, but is subject to the same epistemological fragility as religious faith. The Enlightenment movement, according to Hegel, substantiates its supremacy of insight over faith through a sort of causal efficacy. In specific moments, at which technology works or experiment results match up with those predicted by models or theories, followers of Enlightenment principles believe that they have seen the whole causal innerworkings of a system in order to produce a particular effect, and therefore, gain mastery over or transform the natural world (Hegel, 1977, §564). This causal knowledge requires them to differentiate between a desired outcome, or whole, and posit it as opposite to a different outcome which would have occurred without this particular set up or environmental interaction of components. It brings these ideas together of cause and failed cause, positive and negative, into one Notion (Hegel, 1977, §564).

Religious faith, on the other hand, believes that it will not look to falsify theories or search for the negative of a particular outcome so as to understand that something works because another causal path does not (Hegel, 1977, §564). To form such connections faith believes would pervert or make up falsehoods, according to Hegel, about each concept as it exists independently. However, even in faith, Hegel argues that such distinctions are made in order for a ‘believing consciousness,’ or one’s active belief in any explanation, theory, or narrative, including religious ones, to be true (Hegel, 1977, §564). It is simply that religious faith inclines followers to supress the consciousness of this behavior. Just as religious faith, however, fails to recognize its participation in a search for causal explanations, so does Enlightenment fail to see that they are not in fact opposite movements, but instead, share a common activity that cannot substantiate, therefore, Enlightenment’s supremacy over faith (Hegel, 1977, §564).

By also failing to see that both movements participate in the same activity of reasoning, and still positing itself as the opposite of faith, Enlightenment, according to Hegel, mistakes its own character in the same way religious faith does (Hegel, 1977, §565). Enlightenment instead takes for granted that religious faith is its opposite because the Enlightenment movement defined itself as a critique of religious faith out of pragmatic concerns of authoritative power and a fervent desire for mastery over nature rather than true epistemological sturdiness (Hegel, 1977, §565). As Hegel puts it in the Introduction to the Phenomenology, the movement itself falls into the trap of becoming drunk on the illusion of stable answers through its method which it assumes to be correct, rather than engaging in the arduous, long term task of real truth or epistemological knowledge of the whole, which is not so clear cut or accessible. As such, the Enlightenment does not see its own character in the religious faith’s shared search for negation, and thus does not create a unified Notion of the two movements (Hegel, 1977, §565). Yet, to search for unity between a phenomenon and its negation is in fact the asserted “method” of Enlightenment principles. As such, Enlightenment does not follow its own method, which is the same cause for which they attribute religious faith being less “pure.” Instead, by taking for granted its character as the negation of faith, missing Enlightenment and faith’s unified search for causal explanations, and thus sharing in one Notion, the Enlightenment movement positions itself as existing on a basis of faith, or unquestioned assumptions, as well (Hegel, 1977, §565).

This reality of the Enlightenment movement as truly defined from a pragmatic concern for mastery explains the need for leadership to both be hierarchical and pursue continued terror and violence, but also ultimately why it will fail to attain what it truly desires- dignity- due to a core contradiction of the “master/slave” dialectic. While “mastery” is first desired and pursued out of its believed capacity to assert one’s human dignity, the achievement of mastery doesn’t lead to this fulfilment. Instead, it is the Slavish consciousness which results in one’s ability to transcend an animalistic existence. In achieving mastery, one doesn’t truly achieve freedom, Hegel says, but becomes dependent on the slave for their status as a master, and therefore must maintain that risk of life for recognition in a precarious balance of powers rather than calmly exercising their autonomy to become who they should want. We see this in the constant funneling of cartel resources into acts of terror to maintain its reign, and subjection of its members’ entire lives to ones of violence rather than true living for themselves.

By instead doing physical embodied work to produce for the master’s consumption, the slave, or person who does not take on the master’s mentality but lives in fear of them, reflects on how to transform Nature by his own hand, discovering transcendent power where he can rid a natural existence of its character, including his own. The Slave has also, in the becoming a slave, seen the prospect of death (or experienced existential dread) and chosen to evade it, melting away any sense of stability and existing for their own self for protection, thus teaching that their position is not stable either, but can be transformed to a higher being for themselves. Through work, this ability to transform nature and oneself becomes a permanent habit, or longer sustainable autonomy (freedom) over some things while not the universal powers of death. The master, however, only feels freedom as a shallow fleeting sentiment, and can only continue to consume through the slave’s work, which is a more bound to Nature experience than the control a slave has over nature through production. We again, see this in the cartel leaders living for grandiose consumption through wealth obtained by the selling of drugs by their lower members, or slaves.

Scaling this to a cultural level of mastery, the “Absolute Monarchy,” or this assertion of a monopolizing sovereign power that has completely wiped out all previous authorities, amounts to an empty name in the long term, according to Hegel, because the position does not become acquired by the particular self who holds it. Rather, the title expresses a universal notion of a hold on power, which is alienated from that particular self. As such, it belongs to the universal I, or realm of the absolute. By holding the position of absolute power, the particular I does not achieve full mastery of all those below it, as they feel they will through wealth and power which allow them the illusion of controlling nature and other people in the grand dialectic. Rather, the particular “I” becomes subordinated or consumed by the position, such that their name has no meaning except that of contingency. They mean nothing outside the meaning of that position as an absolute universal construct. Their being-for-self was meant to be maximized by having this extreme power and control, but instead, disappears entirely as to be fully defined by the absolute is to no longer exist as a being-for-self at all.

To explain further the notion of absolute monarchy being one of a universal, the idea of control power, and specifically of the state, is to have everyone under that power relinquish their being-for-self to the notion of the state and identity of the state. Thus, to rule over those people is not to do so as a particular individual whose being for self is maximized, but to hold the position of a universal notion that binds all other contingent beings and absorbs them into an abstract universal. As such, by holding the position of absolute power, one holds all the power “of the state,” not for oneself, so the nationalistic or political identity, or that which defines the region of power, is now the identifying being, not the particular being, who is a mere contingency. Despite not having any real payoff, or being shallow, destabilized by this complete upheaval sparked by the new authority and the previous want for a clear path to dignity due to the initiating contradictory historical crisis, the masses seek stability in the new, seemingly stronger answers promised by the new regime. They become drunk on its lies, unable to see the truth, and held into that belief through the master’s terror that cements the gaslighting.

Judith Butler, in her recent book, The Force of Nonviolence, offers a related discourse to this Hegelian framework, arguing that governments and ideological bodies often artificially manufacture divides or conflicts to identify all those who might oppose it or threaten it through protests against its power moves, be they policy changes or cartel killings (Butler, 2020; Samay Das, Saswat, Shankar, Dhriti, 2021, 102). In doing so, it reveals the fragility of its mastery, or shallowness of its sovereignty. It is this positioning of it as a victim that needs to protect itself against threats, or more simply, rhetoric of self-defense, that is used as a moral justification for its dehumanization of others (those that demonstrate its weakness). In reality, Butler argues that the failure to see the mythical reality of these sovereign, abstract powers and truth of the self being just one of a dynamic body of interconnected selves is what leads to these large, forceful movements only doing damage to themselves by searching for and exercising justifications for violence against others.

Better the Neville You Know: Understanding the Strategy of Appeasement And the Lesson of Munich

Among the most denigrated policies in international relations, few can deny the infamy of appeasement: a strategy entailing the reduction of tension between states through conceding points of contention at the root of the conflict. This reputation among scholars is largely attributed to the 1938 Munich Conference, during which British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain negotiated territorial concessions in Czechoslovakia to Nazi Germany in exchange for peace, which failed to prevent the Third Reich from ceasing their expansion. Indeed, the powerful imagery of Chamberlain proclaiming “peace in our time” in 1938 contrasting to the violent outbreak of the Second World War with an emboldened Germany merely a year later has served to invoke aversion around the strategy. So significant was this particular failure that appeasement as a strategy has continued to be dismissed as a tool of the meek even in the United States’ contemporary foreign policy. Explaining in 2001 that the US has “learned from Munich that there is no isolation from evil. . . . the wicked must be opposed early…before they threaten us all”, George W. Bush was able to use the perceived meekness of Chamberlain’s policy as a justification for the War on Terror. With the refusal of any negotiations in favor of perpetuating one of the United States’ most costly conflicts having been legitimized by the assumption that appeasement is meritless, it is apparent that that further examination is warranted toward the strategy and its context in Munich, 1938.

Historical Background

Before one may develop an understanding of the motivations behind the Munich Conference and its subsequent condemnation, an overview of the events surrounding it is necessary. The Munich Conference and Chamberlain’s permittance of German expansionism was not an isolated incident and was one of numerous instances in which he had publicly expressed ambivalence towards the growing power of the Third Reich. During the Anschluss, an event preceding Munich by a matter of months in which Germany coerced the Austrian government into annexation, Chamberlain had expressed a refusal to intervene due to his doubt in the United Kingdom’s capacity to wage war, noting “that nothing could have arrested what has actually happened [in Austria] unless [the U.K.] ...had been prepared to use force”. Likewise, Germany’s coerced annexation of Lithuania's lucrative Memel territory was also met with a similar doubt, with Chamberlain having been willing “to give Hitler political and economic hegemony over [Memel] so long as it was accomplished peacefully”. With these sequential concessions having been repeatedly met with further German demands, there soon began to form a stigma surrounding appeasers as being “cunning but ignorant [in contrast to] the ‘anti-appeasers’, men of… principle and historical precedent”, a conflict that would only further divide British politics upon the outbreak of war. Winston Churchill, having been an outspoken opponent to appeasement during Chamberlain’s tenure, was also known to have openly condemned the cession of Austria, Memel, and the Sudetenland as “[giving] away the keys to Europe” to Germany. This denouncement of appeasement would entrench itself during the future PM’s meteoric rise to fame, following his succession of Chamberlain during WWII.

Chamberlain’s Motives and the True Purpose of Appeasement

Although this understanding of the Munich Conference might further heighten one’s sentiment that Chamberlain’s use of appeasement was cowardly, contemporary discourse has started to use this devotion of Chamberlain towards appeasement to reassess his true motives. Noting that Britain’s ability to wage a war of intervention against Germany was lacking in the years leading up to the Second World War, neoclassical realist academics Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy argue in their seminal work Wishful Thinking or Buying Time? that Chamberlain’s appeasement intended not to prevent conflict but rather hinder German expansion and allow the UK time to mobilize. Indeed, Chamberlain’s own words prior to the Munich Conference substantiate this, having stated that appeasement would not just be pursued to “remove the causes which are delaying the return of confidence in Europe” as per our current notions of appeasement, but also to "continue [the U.K.’s] program of the reestablishment of [their] defence forces”. In light of the “air-raid phobia” phenomena exhibited by the British people during the early 1930s, referring to the common “[perception] that the German Air Force clearly overwhelmed the British Air Force in the number and quality of its machines” and fear of German land invasion, it is unsurprising that Chamberlain would have chosen to repeatedly make concessions in exchange for the opportunity to restore faith in Britain’s military capabilities. While there have been critics  who have argued that “[appeasement] also gave Germany just as much time to arm”, it was this restoration not just in Britain’s military capabilities, but also their own confidence in their ability to fight another war, that gave the nation the relative advantage it needed.

In addition to its facilitation of Britain’s spiritual and logistical rearmament, Chamberlain’s use of appeasement was also effective in that it appeared to ultimately hamper Germany’s ability to expand in a timely manner before the eventual outbreak of war. Through taking the initiative to establish treaties such as the Munich Agreement, the United Kingdom had effectively taken control of the rate in which German expansion would take place. This was due to the fact that, if Germany “misbehaved and abrogated [such pacts] the world would witness [its] duplicity”, effectively forcing them to accept the stipulations of such a deal to maintain some semblance of legitimacy before choosing to expand once more. The irony of Munich being the most infamous instance of appeasement is that it was, in reality, the most effective of Chamberlain’s appeasement to these ends. The leader of Germany at the time, Adolf Hitler himself, is known to have confessed to Nazi Party minister Martin Bormann in 1945 that they “ought to have attacked [Czechoslovakia] in 1938” due to it offering Germany “the last chance [it] had of localizing the war”, believing that the prolongation of his territorial ambitions through lengthy negotiations and justifications had cheated him out of “a short war”.

Lessons In Modern Appeasement

With ample evidence to argue that the most infamous instance of appeasement— Chamberlain’s concessions at Munich—was in fact justified, it is apparent that there are instances where appeasement is far from a fruitless strategy for the meek. That being said, it is apparent that appeasement has its time and place, as Chamberlain’s strategy of appeasement hinged both on the assumption that conflict was an eventuality and that the United Kingdom possessed a latent military superiority that could be fulfilled in a timely manner. The United States, however, would have most definitely stood to gain from contemplating appeasement as a valid strategy following the 9/11 attacks as opposed to Bush’s denigration of the strategy in favor of launching the War on Terror immediately. It was apparent that the Afghan War was doomed to fail due to a lack of foresight, with Deputy National Security Advisor Doug Lute having infamously admitted in the leaked Afghanistan Papers that the U.S. was “devoid of a fundamental understanding of Afghanistan [and] didn’t know what [they] were doing”. In this regard, it is apparent that the United States would have greatly benefited from appeasing Al-Qaeda through their lack of retaliation until the U.S. reached a point in which it possessed a thorough understanding of its goals in Afghanistan in a manner that could best utilize its military capabilities with minimal losses. There is little doubt that the US did not have the necessary expertise to develop such a doctrine in a timely manner, with the publication of a dedicated counterinsurgency field manual, FM 3-24, having overtaken the conflict-focused “shock and awe” doctrine only 5 years following the initial outbreak of the War on Terror. Though the prospect of appeasing insurgents might initially seem counterintuitive due to the framing of global insurgency and terrorism as an existential threat to the free world, if there exists any lesson to be taught from Munich it is that one needs to know when to forgo smaller victories when better terms exist on the horizon, even when faced with one of the greatest threats to democracy the world has ever known.

It’s Okay to See the ICBM Program Go

Introduction

The Biden-Harris Administration comes into office facing a myriad of unprecedented domestic and international challenges. None of these challenges, however, can be resolved or mitigated by more nuclear weapons. Though the national security establishment continues to argue that a modernization of a previously critical component of the nuclear triad is essential, that position remains highly questionable.

The United States is set to construct a new weapon of mass destruction able to travel several thousand miles and carry a warhead more than 20 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945. In September of last year, the Air Force gave Northrop Grumman an initial contract of over $13 billion to begin engineering and manufacturing 600 intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as part of a nuclear triad modernization program supported by both the Obama and Trump Administrations. In total, the construction project could add up to $100 billion for the weapon, which will become ready for use by 2029. Operation and support costs could include another $164 billion. The plan is to replace the 450 Minutemen III ICBMs in active service or reserve with 600 Ground-Base Strategic Deterrent (GBSD) missiles, a more modern ICBM.

ICBMs are strategic weapons systems dispersed in hardened silos throughout the American Great Plains and Southwest to protect against attack. They are connected to an underground launch control center and typically have a minimum range of 5,000 kilometers (hence intercontinental). U.S. nuclear-armed ICBMS are on high alert, meaning they can be launched within mere minutes of a president’s command. The Air Force currently has 400 ICBMs deployed in the American West. Along with submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and nuclear bomber planes, ICBMs are one of the components of the nuclear triad. According to the Trump Administration’s 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, “The triad’ s synergy and overlapping attributes help ensure the enduring survivability of our deterrence capabilities against attack and our capacity to hold at risk a range of adversary targets throughout a crisis or conflict. Eliminating any leg of the triad would greatly ease adversary attack planning and allow an adversary to concentrate resources and attention on defeating the remaining two legs.” President Obama’s Secretary of Defense Ash Carter called the triad “a bedrock of our security” and “foundational” to U.S. policy. Is it really though?

Has the Triad Outlived its Necessity?

Traditionally, the ICBM has been understood as the most responsive element of the triad. It is a byproduct of the Cold War and the assumption that the U.S. would need to deter a surprise attack through the promise of rapid, overwhelming force and destruction. During the Cold War, ICBMs provided accuracy that was not achievable at the time from the other components of the triad. Furthermore, ICBMs served as an insurance policy in the event that the U.S.’s nuclear submarines were disabled. The basis underlying all of this was the strategic doctrine of deterrence as elucidated by Bernard Brodie in “The Anatomy of Deterrence,” who noted the paradox of deterrence: “We are...expecting the system to be constantly perfected while going permanently unused.”

This logic no longer holds. First, America’s ICBMs provide no unique nuclear strike capability not already provided by the other legs and the absence of any immediate threat to U.S. nuclear submarines means no adversary can “preempt massive retaliation” by the U.S. According to President Bill Clinton’s Secretary of Defense William Perry, “Today, the United States’ submarine and bomber forces are highly accurate, and we have enough confidence in their security that we do not need an additional insurance policy — especially one that is so expensive and open to error.” 

Furthermore, being on high alert, ICBMs pose a unique risk of accidentally starting a nuclear war. If American sensors determine that an adversary’s missiles are en route to the U.S., the president would be forced to make a decision on whether to launch ICBMs before the enemy missile would destroy them, a period as short as a few dozen minutes. Once launched, the decision is final and they cannot be recalled.

The risk of an accidental launch may seem trivial, but mistakes can always occur as long as the program exists. In 1979, computer errors at North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), Strategic Air Command’s command post, the Pentagon, and the Alternative National Military Command Center led U.S. defense officials to believe the Soviet Union had launched more than 2,000 missiles at the U.S. Nuclear bombers were prepared to take off when, a few minutes later, it was declared to be a false alarm. It turned out that according to an investigation by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), a training video had accidentally been loaded into an operational computer at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex in Colorado Springs, home to NORAD.

In September 1983, a Soviet early warning system warned that an American ICBM was incoming before the report was altered to five missiles. Soviet Air Defence Forces Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov refused to report the incoming ICBMs to his superiors, dismissing it as a false alarm (he thought that if the U.S. was going to launch a strike, it would have included more missiles). Ultimately, Petrov’s intuition was confirmed by ground radar, as the alarm was caused by a rare sunlight alignment on high-altitude clouds. 

The world historical and world-ending stakes of a launch combined with the preciously little time afforded to make that monumental decision makes an accidental nuclear ICBM launch a serious possibility no matter the odds. This is where deterrence theory falls apart, in its assumption of rational actors in control of their situation.

Will Ending the Modernization Put the U.S. at a Strategic Disadvantage?

Supporters of ICBM modernization would argue that abandoning the ICBM program will leave the U.S. exposed to nuclear adversaries. Air Force Major Shane Praiswater, a visiting military analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, argues that Russia and China’s ambitious nuclear modernization programs seek to “equal, if not surpass” U.S. nuclear capabilities, and a U.S. failure to modernize its ICBMs would leave the U.S. at a comparative strategic disadvantage. Again, however, with U.S. ICBMs on high alert, the U.S. instead runs the risk of accidentally igniting a nuclear war, which is statistically speaking much more likely to happen than a state deciding consciously to strike the U.S. Secondly, despite hawkish fearmongering about China’s nuclear arsenal, there are currently more nuclear weapons stored in Albuquerque, New Mexico than in China- by a factor of seven and a half.

Instead of an ill-defined, open-ended nuclear competition with Russia and China bound to increase the odds of an accidental nuclear holocaust, the U.S. could help prevent a global arms race simply by renouncing the ICBM, the least accurate and easiest component of the nuclear triad for adversaries to target. Moscow pursues its modernization out of the pursuit for nuclear parity with the U.S. and views the U.S. modernization as threatening, fomenting a security dilemma. 

And this is for good reason. As Brent J. Talbot, a professor of military and security studies at the Air Force Academy, notes, the Minuteman force and the proposed GBSD force ICBMs would have to fly over Russia to strike any other emerging nuclear power (like North Korea) because they are based in the northern part of the U.S. When launched from that region, “The ballistic trajectories of the missiles require polar flight paths to reach most destinations around the globe. Thus, if the United States were to retaliate against a North Korean or Iranian attack, use of ICBMs would require overflight of Russian airspace en route to their targets, perhaps causing the Russians to think that the United States had initiated an attack against them.” In Talbot’s words, “Preserving 400 of 700 launchers to strike only one adversary is, once again, evidence of Cold War logic.” Because the ICBM can only plausibly be used against Russia, it does preciously little to deter potentially rogue actors, as North Korea is often characterized by some of these same hawks. In short, it does not even do the one thing its most ardent proponents believe it does.

America’s alliances, international institutions, and arms control agreements like New START and the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA, Iran Deal) work perfectly fine to deter its competitors from obtaining nuclear weapons, much less using them. The idea that only more spending on nuclear weapons will provide deterrence assumes fatalism in diplomacy when in reality diplomacy is what has prevented the world from descending into President John F. Kennedy’s prediction of a world awash in nuclear weapons (he feared famously in 1963 that by 1975 there would be 20 nations with nuclear weapons; today there are nine). Rather than the outdated Cold War mindset that America must match Moscow missile for missile, American nuclear policy ought to be decided on the basis of how many nuclear weapons America actually needs.

Cost Savings

Finally, ending the ICBM modernization will save the U.S. billions, if not hundreds of billions of dollars that are urgently needed at home and in the diplomatic sphere. The coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis have laid bare that the most severe and serious national security threats to the U.S. are transnational and non-military. National security, in other words, has to start with human security. Ending the ICBM program, along with concurrent defense spending cuts, could save the country enough money to put a down payment on a Green New Deal, foreign aid to vulnerable populations like the Palestinians or people in Central America and the Caribbean beset by natural disasters and human rights abusing governments, or a universal coronavirus vaccine, as the bills introduced by Senator Ed Markey (D-MA) and Representative Ro Khanna (D-CA) call for. The stakes of such a decision are clear: we can either destroy the world three and a half to four times over in a fit of hubristic superpower rage or we can save it once and for all. 

Conclusion

The world survived one arms race, but barely and not without numerous close calls. Modernizing the ICBM program and swearing undying, unconditional fealty to the nuclear triad long after it has served its purpose risks igniting another one. What we have today is a policy-procurement gap, whereby contractors like Northrop Grumman’s interests are served instead of the national interest. As Joe Cirincione, the former head of the Ploughshares Fund writes, “Contracts race ahead of policy…[Continuing the triad] will lock us into building weapons we do not need at a price we cannot afford.” Nuclear weapons could not possibly be more irrelevant or ill-suited for the primary security threats the U.S. faces today in the form of the pandemic and climate change. The Biden Administration has to blow up this modernization plan before it blows everyone up.

The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend: Exploring the unlikely alliance between the People’s Republic of China and the Islamic Republic of Pakistan

On December 18, 2019, Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan implored the world to pressure the Indian government to revoke their controversial Citizenship Amendment Act, which promises citizenship to all non-Muslim refugees and immigrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Afghanistan. In his speech to the Global Refugee Forum, he stated that “if the world acts right now and puts pressure on the Indian government to stop this illegal activity, we could prevent this crisis.” He also referred to the act as “Islamaphobic” and “Xenophobic”, threatening sanctions and potential conflict with India. However, just a couple of months earlier, on July 12, 2019, Pakistan was one of 50 countries that backed China's policies in Xinjiang, with Prime Minister Khan signing a joint letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), and commending China's "remarkable achievements in the field of human rights." On the contrary, evidence shows that China is interning entire communities of Uyghur Muslims. They are interned at detention centers where they are forced to consume pork and alcohol, do manual labor, and women are forced to undergo sterilization. When confronted with this double standard, Prime Minister Khan bluntly explained that China had been a great friend of Pakistan throughout history and that “Pakistan does not talk about things with China in public right now because they are very sensitive.”

 The concept of mutual alliance based on a common enemy despite significant differences has always existed throughout history. For example, during the American Revolutionary War, The Absolute Monarchy of France signed a treaty of alliance with the fledgling enlightened democratic United States as they both had a desire to defeat Great Britain. Similarly, during the Second World War, the communist Soviet Union welcomed the capitalist United States into the Allies as they both shared a desire to defeat Nazi Germany. Currently, this diplomatic concept accurately represents the relationship between Pakistan and China as both countries seek to combat Indian aggression and influence. At first glance, such an amicable relationship between the Atheistic Communist state and the Islamic Republic should be unlikely as both countries are vastly different, both culturally and socially. Yet, throughout recent history, Sino-Pakistani relations have strengthened rather than declined as would be expected due to their sheer differences. Using course materials and primary and secondary sources, this paper aims to explore how such an unlikely relationship bloomed through the course of the Cold War and beyond. 

Political History between China and Pakistan:

To understand the blossoming relationship between these two countries, it is imperative to understand how such a relationship formed in the first place. On October 1, 1949, Chairman Mao Zedong officially proclaimed the People’s Republic of China after defeating the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-Shek and routing them to Taiwan, marking the end of the Chinese Civil War. Two years later, Pakistan became the first Muslim country to recognize the communist state. For a while, relations between the two countries remained cordial: Pakistan was hesitant to pursue closer ties with China due to its reliance on U.S. aid and China overlooked tensions between India and Pakistan as India was a socialist state with a greater influence in South Asia. Even after, in 1956, when then-Pakistani Prime Minister Huseyn Suhrawady signed a friendship treaty with then-Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, China remained largely neutral in the conflict between India and Pakistan. 

In 1958, Field Marshal Ayub Khan seized power of the Pakistani government through a military coup and quickly consolidated the country’s relations with the U.S., signing a bilateral security agreement with the U.S. in 1959, which allowed the U.S. to build military bases in Pakistan. President Khan even offered India a defense agreement for a joint defense against any external threat. This action greatly concerned the Chinese government, which feared that the U.S. was planning to surround China with nations under their sphere of influence. Furthermore, in 1959, President Ayub claimed that there were areas in the disputed region of Kashmir that China controlled but belonged to Pakistan. Buoyed by its military and economic ties with the U.S., he even went as far as stating that Pakistan would be willing to go to war for those areas, just as it had engaged in a war with India over the same region. Naturally, relations remained tense and volatile between the two countries until January 16, 1961, when President Ayub replaced his foreign minister with an ambitious 30-year-old man named Zulkifar Ali Bhutto, who would forever change Sino-Pakistani relations, along with the country of Pakistan, for generations yet to come.

Unlike his predecessors, Bhutto advocated for closer ties with China. He saw China as another world power that could counterbalance India’s influence in the region. His views were confirmed when China and India engaged in armed conflict over the Kashmiri region in 1962. After China defeated India in the conflict, President Ayub, who was reluctant to pursue closer ties with the communist state, agreed with Bhutto’s viewpoint. In March 1963, Bhutto visited China and signed a treaty of alliance with the Chinese government, which resolved all border disputes in Kashmir and established economic, military, and political ties between both nations. Bhutto returned home as a diplomatic hero, having gained Pakistan a powerful ally against India. In 1971, he was elected as Pakistan’s first socialist President. 

Furthermore, President Bhutto realigned his foreign policy towards China and away from the U.S. During the Mao years, he strengthened ties with China. Despite the Chairman pursuing an isolationist foreign policy, especially after the Sino-Soviet split of 1956, Mao Zedong had a deep respect for President Bhutto, whom he viewed as a Maoist bringing prosperity to his people. As a result, Pakistan was one of the few countries that China opened up to during the Mao years. However, a significant turning point in the relationship was when a newly empowered China, just having received the UN security council’s permanent seat from the Nationalists in Taiwan, used its first veto power to deny Bangladesh’s application for recognition as an independent country. They claimed Bangladesh to be a rebellious province of Pakistan just as Tibet was to China. To show his gratitude to the Chinese government, President Bhutto arranged for U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to take a stealth flight from Islamabad to Beijing. Kissinger mediated the secret discussions between the U.S. and Chinese governments, thus beginning the normalization of the U.S.-China relationship. Additionally, President Bhutto was the last foreign guest Mao Zedong received before his death 105 days later; subsequently, Bhutto issued a period of national mourning. Conversely, after Bhutto was ousted and executed by a right-wing military government, many Maoists in China and worldwide condemned the overthrow and execution as “barbaric and unjust.”

Even after the Cold War, the relationship between Pakistan and China has strengthened considerably. Be it right-wing military governments or left-wing democratically elected governments, Pakistan's ever-changing political leadership has always had one thing in common: to advocate for closer relations with the Chinese government. After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, which was roundly criticized by the Western world, Pakistan was one of the few nations that supported the Chinese government. Then-Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto went as far as publicly denouncing the protests even though she was a public proponent of Pakistan’s democratization. She based her foreign policy on that of her late father, and she sought to promote economic and military ties with the People’s Republic and away from the U.S. After the September 11th Attacks and the subsequent War on Terror, the Bush and Obama administrations at first favored the Pakistani government due to their close proximity to Afghanistan. However, after receiving reports that Pakistani’s Inter-Services Intelligence provided strategic support and intelligence to the Afghan Taliban, the U.S. government gradually withdrew its support for the Pakistani government and shifted it towards the Indian government. 

Consequently, this has led the subsequent Pakistani governments, be it conservative or liberal, to pursue closer ties than ever with the Chinese government, having felt betrayed and used by the U.S. In return, China provides economic and military aid to Pakistan, turns a blind eye towards the ISI supporting the Taliban, and criticizes India whenever there is a border excursion or dispute with Pakistan. Thus, a primary factor for why this unlikely alliance between these two countries exists is the culmination of decades of gradual realignment and diplomatic overtures away from the United States and towards the People’s Republic of China. 

Tensions between China and India:

Additionally, to understand China and Pakistan’s relationship, it is imperative to understand the frosty relationship between China and India. At first, relations between the two countries were cordial, with India being the first non-communist country in Asia to recognize the People’s Republic in 1950. Both countries signed a trade agreement in 1954 and, along with Pakistan, attended the Bandung Conference in Indonesia. All three countries, along with twenty-six other countries, signed the Bandung Declaration, which aimed to promote Afro-Asian economic and cultural cooperation along with opposing colonialism and neocolonialism by any nation, serving as a preamble to the Non-Aligned movement that would later arise in the Cold War. However, relations quickly soured in 1960 as border conflicts erupted in the region of Kashmir, to which both China and India lay claim to and sought to occupy. To rectify this problem, Premier Zhou Enlai visited India in what would later become a landmark event in Indo-Chinese relations. Zhou Enlai’s negotiation with Indian Prime Minister Nehru ended in a deadlock and, when he returned to Beijing, he wrote in a note to Chairman Mao that India’s “economic policy has moved increasingly towards the right [and] the gap between the rich and poor is growing.” The border disputes resulted in a short border war between the two countries in 1962, resulting in a Chinese victory. As a result of this humiliation, anti-Chinese sentiment was prevalent throughout India.

During the 1970s and 1980s, under India’s authoritarian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, who also happens to be the daughter of Prime Minister Nehru, the country was steered towards the Soviet Union to counter Chinese and U.S. influence in Pakistan. Under her rule, the Indian Communist Party was accused of being pro-Chinese and illegally funded by the Chinese government and many of their political leaders were jailed during the state of emergency that Prime Minister Gandhi imposed to secure her rule. Naturally, this infuriated the Chinese government who, in turn, provided military aid to Pakistan every time they went to war with India or funded their nuclear program to counter India’s nuclear program. 

More recently, there have been a lot of hurdles for India and China to overcome. At present, India faces a trade imbalance that is heavily in favor of China. Unlike Pakistan, the two countries have also failed to resolve their border disputes in Kashmir, and there are reports of Chinese military incursion into Indian territory. Additionally, while Pakistan has been moving closer towards China, India has been moving closer towards the U.S., which signals that both countries are wary of the other’s competing influence. China has also funded separatist groups in Northeast India, known to employ terrorist attacks in the region from time to time.

Therefore, it is impractical to state that the only reason China is allied with Pakistan is to counter India’s influence. All three countries have a complex and unique relationship with one another that would have been impossible to achieve in a standardized world. China’s tensions with India stem all the way back to 1960, and with U.S. influence in India growing by the hour, China’s best bet to counter a U.S.-influenced state on its southern border is to have a Chinese-influenced state on its southern border, and with Pakistan, that influenced state can be achieved.

Economic Ties:

Another primary factor contributing to the alliance between China and Pakistan is the deep economic ties the countries have with one another. Pakistan was one of the few nations that traded with Mao’s China. When the foreign minister of Pakistan gifted a set of mangoes to Chairman Mao in 1968, Mao quickly used the gift as a propaganda tool. Foreign Affairs journalist Evan Osnos describes in his book, Age of Ambition, how the Chinese populace worshipped the mangoes for they received the touch of Mao Zedong, and how the gift was sealed in glass boxes to avoid its decay. Essentially, Maoism became the state religion of China during his rule, and the mangoes that Pakistan gifted were a sign of a blessed economic relationship between the two countries. 

Recently, China has sought to influence other countries via economic methods. They fund and provide billions of dollars in aid and grants to developing countries, and in return, they receive economic and political influence in said country. Pakistan is no exception. In 2013, as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, the two countries established the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is an economic route stretching from Western China through Pakistan to the Indian Ocean coast, comprising a collection of vast infrastructure projects under construction in Pakistan valued at 47 billion dollars. CPEC’s potential impact on Pakistan has been compared to that of the United States in post-war Europe, with Pakistani officials predicting that CPEC could create 2.3 million jobs between 2015 and 2030 and increase the national GDP by two to three percent. When the Corridor was established, celebrations rang out in Pakistan, with many Pakistani politicians offering gratitude to the Chinese government to help build Pakistan’s inadequate infrastructure and economy. 

Additionally, Pakistan has been the largest recipient of foreign aid from the Chinese government. After the devastating 2010 floods that crippled Pakistan, then-Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao committed to and delivered 250 million dollars in humanitarian aid to the flood-stricken country, its largest-ever humanitarian aid to any foreign country. During the 1990s, Pakistan was vulnerable to economic collapse owing to a combination of severe economic mismanagement and a halt in U.S. economic assistance following the imposition of the sanctions. It narrowly avoided economic collapse due to millions of dollars of Chinese loans and capital aid. Thus, a large amount of foreign aid that China provides has considerably strengthened relations between Pakistan and China and has only moved Pakistan closer to China’s sphere. Many Pakistani citizens often have a favorable view of China, citing their capital aid and their willingness to protect Pakistan’s national pride, especially when it comes to India. In contrast, many Pakistani citizens have a negative view of the United States, blaming their interventionism in Afghanistan for causing the Afghan refugee crisis and for conducting drone strikes in rural Pakistan. Additionally, they criticize the Obama government for not respecting Pakistan’s sovereignty when they sent Seal Team Six to kill Osama Bin Laden in Abbottabad. 

However, there are critics of this economic relationship. According to Indian political journalist Harsh Pant, “China has been forced to pump in some more money, and Pakistan has been forced to take on more debt only to sustain the façade of a productive economic engagement between the two nations.” He cites the various corruptions of capital and foreign aid by members of the Pakistani government and the rolling back of special projects, and China’s security concerns of operating within Pakistan. Even in Pakistan, there are critics of Pakistan’s dependence on China, criticizing the CPEC as a debt-trap that will burden Pakistan in the long term. Pakistan has already faced numerous economic crises throughout its history and already has a stifling debt. Many Pakistani economists worry that this economic relationship with China will tie a chain of massive debt to China, forcing the country to be permanently dependent on Chinese aid, unable to dig itself out of this financial hole. 

Military Ties:

Unlike their economic relationship, the military relationship between Pakistan and China is of mutual benefit as both countries seek to contain India’s military. Pakistan’s military relationship with China goes as far back as the Mao years. Author Jung Chang revealed this in Wild Swans, written when she visited Zhangjiang to practice her English with foreign sailors. She references how a “Pakistani military attaché came down from Peking…[They] had been to Sichuan.” Her personal experience reinforces that the two countries had a stable military relationship as the Pakistani military traveled throughout China during the isolationist Mao years during the height of the cultural revolution. China has been the major arms supplier of Pakistan since 1990. Most of the weapons that the Pakistani army uses are purchased and created in China. This military relationship is mutually beneficial for both nations as Pakistan receives arms and supplies to bolster their army and protect themselves from an Indian attack. At the same time, China received Western-made arms and military technology through Pakistan after multiple nations imposed an arms embargo on China after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Pakistan’s Air Force and Navy include Chinese ships and interceptors, and Pakistan is producing the JF-17 Thunder multi-role combat aircraft jointly with China and the K-8 Karakorum light attack aircraft. The sharing of military technology between the two nations is vital for their national security. Both countries seek to combat Indian influence and intervention in Kashmir. Where both Pakistan and China have claimed Indian-controlled areas of Kashmir as their own, and border conflicts in that region are expected.

Despite their differences in culture, religion, and ideology, one aspect of the relationship that binds the two countries is their history of authoritarianism. Even though Pakistan claims that they are a democracy, the real power lies in the military’s hands, who have exercised a role in Pakistani politics since its founding. The Pakistani Army favors a relationship with China as China provides arms and technology to the Pakistani Army with no strings attached. As a result, the Chinese government can rest easy knowing that their relationship with Pakistan is stable no matter who is elected Prime Minister, as the army favors a closer relationship with China over the U.S. The military has also intervened in the premierships of the Pakistani Prime Ministers’ if they felt the Prime Minister was shifting the country away from closer ties with China, effectively a coup d'etat. They are consolidating the Pakistani-Chinese relationship further to the Chinese government’s delight. 

The most powerful military technology that China provided Pakistan with was the blueprint of the nuclear bomb. After its own acquisition of nuclear technology, China championed the rights of all nations to obtain this weapon of mass destruction as it felt the restriction of ownership was a Western imposition on the third world. This sentiment then guided Beijing to provide intelligence on nuclear weapons technology to Pakistan’s chief nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan. Additionally, after India conducted its own successful nuclear test in 1974, the Chinese government accelerated its support of Pakistan’s nuclear program. They viewed a nuclear India as a dangerous threat and believed that a nuclear Pakistan would be an effective deterrent. 

Additionally, Chinese security agencies have been accused of knowing and supporting Pakistani transfers of nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Therefore, the two countries’ military relationship is one of the leading factors in why there is an unlikely alliance between them. It is a mutually beneficial relationship wherein China receives Western arms and technology via Pakistan, while Pakistan receives arms and nuclear technology from China. The exchange is a source of national pride in both countries. 

Criticism of Sino-Pakistani Relations:

Surprisingly, there is little criticism among intellectuals of the relationship between both countries within both Pakistan and China. In China, most intellectuals often follow the State’s policy of promoting ties with Pakistan and self-censor their own thoughts of the Islamic Republic. In Pakistan, where intellectuals are given a little freedom to exercise their views, there have been very few cases of intellectuals criticizing the Sino-Pakistani alliance, more often on economic grounds rather than humanitarian. Especially shocking is the silence among Pakistani intellectuals and Islamic leaders on the internment of the Uyghur populace, a majority of whom are Muslims. Krzysztof Iwanek notes this in his article “The Deafening Silence of Pakistani Jihadists and Radicals on China’s Uyghurs.” He notes how there is little to almost no discussion among Pakistani intellectuals on the matter. He also explains that those firebrand Islamic preachers that publicly condemn the Indian, Burmese, and U.S. governments for their discrimination towards their Muslim populace “turned cold when the issue of Xinjiang camps hit the headlines around the globe.” It is quite remarkable that the country with the world’s second most Muslim population and the world’s first Islamic Republic is voluntarily silent about their fellow Muslims’ plight because of the benefits the Sino-Pakistani alliance brings to them that far outweighs the costs.

What little criticism of the relationship which may be unearthed was not from Pakistani intellectuals but rather from economists, although few in number and opinion, these economists worry that Pakistan is becoming increasingly dependent on China. For example, CPEC, which was widely celebrated among Pakistani economists and government officials, was criticized by a few U.S.-oriented economists that argued the Corridor was a debt-trap for Pakistan and that its benefits were only short-term. It is important to note that these economists favor a trade relationship with the U.S. and if the U.S. were to engage in a similar project with Pakistan, these economists would be silent on the matter.

Furthermore, there is evidence that shows that Chinese foreign aid often does not help the general public, with corruption running rampant among the Pakistani bureaucracy. Despite China providing nearly a hundred million dollars a year to aid Pakistan’s people, critics in the U.S. have pointed out that, although a substantial amount does go to help the Pakistani economy and population in terms of infrastructure or welfare, a good amount of that money does not reach the Pakistani population but rather lines the pockets of Pakistani bureaucrats or politicians, with an estimated twenty million dollars lost in corruption every year. That is another criticism among Pakistani economists about China’s economic relationship, with many arguing that foreign aid from all countries, China included, is doing more harm to Pakistan than good. Therefore, despite there being very few critics, both in Pakistan and China, about the alliance between the two countries, the few that criticize the alliance often do so from an economic perspective, not a humanitarian one, unlike Western nations. 

Conclusion:

As this paper has described, the relationship between Pakistan and China is extremely complex. This unlikely alliance is one that has been gradually developed throughout their histories. It encompasses their political, economic, and military alliance that benefits both nations. Critics of their relationship often point to Pakistan’s over-reliance on China, which China can take advantage of, especially with Pakistan’s growing debt. Yet, the Pakistani people seem to ignore all of that along with China’s persecution of their Uyghur Muslim populace; in fact, according to a 2013 Pew Research poll, 81% of Pakistani citizens have a favorable view of China, the highest in the world. International Relations scholars often point to the Chinese-Pakistani relationship as a prime example of the neo-realist school of International Relations theory, pointing out that state power considerations, rather than culture, religion, ideology, can determine foreign policy behavior. When confronted by U.S. officials about China’s uncompromising support for Pakistan, Chinese General Xiong Guangkai famously said, “Pakistan is China’s Israel.” Unless there is a significant change in foreign policy, Pakistan will always be in China’s pocket, with little hope for change in the future.  

The Stories We Tell Ourselves: A Platonic Analysis of Political Rhetoric

Today, one would be hard-pressed to find a news source that provided information to the public without a perceived twist on the narrative. Websites such as AllSides have brought attention to this notion of partisan reporting and compiled various articles from “the left,” “the right,” and “the center” to cover the same event from differing perspectives. Whether the news comes from social media celebrities, radio hosts, or mainstream cable television broadcasters, their stories contain an element of subjectivity ranging from blatantly opinionated assertions to near-invisible suggestions that only become apparent in hindsight through careful analysis and discourse. Furthermore, technological advances such as the internet have provided platforms for more opinionated individuals to post articles so laden with subjective claims and speculations that their narratives become more based on imagination than good-faith effort journalism. This becomes problematic when many individuals trust these sources to provide them with easy-to-digest, concrete reporting on what to believe, and any conflicting narrative is quickly chalked up as “fake news.”

This idea of building agreeable narratives to support social or political goals is not new. Indeed, Plato identified a similar issue over 2,000 years ago. Techniques of communication involving what Plato defined as “poetry,” when applied to the masses, have proven problematic because of the likelihood and risk that such techniques will be used for destructive purposes. While the form of communication in itself is neither inherently constructive nor destructive, it does have a high potential to be abused for personal or political gains at the expense of compassion and civil discourse.

While Plato discussed the nature and consequences of poetry, he failed to provide any concrete solution to mitigate the potential negative effects. A more contemporary political philosopher emerging from the progressive movement, John Dewey, suggested that a potential defense against divisive poetry lies in educating the people on how to process this information rather than relying on government legislation. In this article, I will define Plato’s understanding of “poetry” in order to better explore his concerns about the misuse of poetry as applied to political stability and individual wellbeing. Next, I will apply Plato’s understanding of poetry to contemporary divisive rhetoric. Finally, I will discuss John Dewey’s suggestion to decrease an individual’s overreliance on single-sourced news.   

The Platonic Definition of Poetry and the 1776 Report

To the modern reader, poetry is usually perceived as a particular genre of written literature that utilizes rhythm and rhyme to convey ideas through imagery and analogy. Yet Plato’s conception of poetry was much broader than the aforementioned definition and is distinguished by four key elements. First, poetry uses mythologies or stories, typically written about significant past events, to build a common narrative and unite a group of people. Second, poetry is written to appeal to its audiences’ emotions. This could be an appeal to both positive emotions, such as happiness and compassion, or negative emotions, such as fear and anger. Third, poetry is written for a specific purpose, such as outlining an accepted framework for morality, to inspire an audience to action. Finally, poetry is made to be desirable and to entertain a mass audience.

This Platonic definition of poetry can be applied to many political documents today, such as the recent 1776 Report released by the former Trump administration. The 1776 Report’s stated intent is to present “the history and principles of the founding of the United States” and educate the masses in a way that is “accurate, honest, unifying, inspiring, and ennobling.” However, the content of the report was widely seen as a false and inaccurate representation of historical events with the true intent of promoting specific Republican talking points and crafting a very specific narrative of what constitutes a “true American.” This report may have spoken to and united a select group of individuals on their common understanding of America, faith in the Trump administration, and their anger against people with opposing political opinions. In fact, the narrative presented in this report may have increased and legitimized their hostile feelings toward these groups. Furthermore, this report gives the impression that the Trump administration and similarly minded politicians are the only people who can protect those American values.

Potential Problems with Poetry

Although poetic rhetoric can be misused, poetry as a means of communication is not in itself problematic. Indeed, Plato even proposed using a form of poetry to unite the citizens in his idea of a perfect city during his first discussion on poetry. Specifically, he included a discussion of whether poetry can be used to facilitate just and virtuous behavior by crafting stories of heroic people worthy of emulation. The hope would be to lay the foundation for citizens to emotionally connect with these characters and then strive to embody and display the same characteristics. Plato also raises the possibility of poetry as a basis for imitation such that it can be used as a positive measure to promote just practices and unite citizens under a common truth. His conception of justice in the city is used synonymously with the idea of the “common good,” which constitutes a form of social cohesion that allows for political stability where individuals are best able to meet their maximum potentials.

However, Plato’s main focus remained potential problems with poetry stemming from its appeal to human emotions and capacity to inspire a large audience to action. He feared that these consequences would ultimately destabilize the government and stop people from reaching their fullest potentials. One danger Plato notes relates to the propensity for individuals to idolize poets and take their stories to be a representation of absolute truth. If the audience is presented with a story that appeals to their desired or traditional assumptions about a given topic, then it is likely that they are predisposed to agree with the story proposed by the poet. If the narrative is geared toward social unity and individual flourishing, it may be beneficial. However, if it attacks and alienates others, it can make people less likely to listen to dissenting opinions or question the given narrative. In Plato’s opinion, poetry and idolization usually result in the latter.

Returning to the contemporary example of the 1776 Report, one can liken Trump, along with his administration, to a modern-day poet. The sentiments expressed in this report may resonate with many Trump supporters and fuel their confidence to speak out against any perceived liberal-biases in school curriculums. This aggressive call for action to restore “American values” further demonizes anyone who does not adhere to their specific ingroup. Additionally, individuals who idolize Trump are likely to refuse to acknowledge anyone who contradicts him, which will make it much more difficult to engage in civil discourse.

While Plato identifies potential issues with poetry, he does not provide a concrete and realistic solution to these problems. Ultimately, he concludes one of his dialogues suggesting that poetry does not belong in an ideal city. Poetry as a method of communication is so powerful that it could easily destroy the balance of the city, and he believed the poetry created by his contemporaries was more harmful than beneficial to the public good. That said, he does concede that if poetry could be used to support the common good in a way that justifies the high potential for misuse, it may be worth the risk to reintroduce it into the city.

The Problem of Poetry Today and Potential Solutions

In today’s age of globalism with populations having access to seemingly unlimited amounts of information through the internet, the notion of eliminating poetry from the polity seems impossible. The perception of poetry as a simple means of entertainment and artistic expression, however antiquated relative to modern social media, is fundamentally interwoven into our modern-day globalized society. Yet when considered from the Platonian perspective, technological advances such as television, the internet, and social media platforms have simply given rise to modern “poets” who can quickly and easily influence thousands of individuals worldwide.

Moreover, Plato’s admonition to maintain strict censorship of poetry may not be possible in a country like the United States which strives to promote the principles of free speech, which provides a large platform for people to espouse poetic rhetoric that is both for and against the public good. Yet the ramifications of not being able to control the flow of information provide a space for the divisive poetic rhetoric that Plato predicted could have disastrous consequences for the state.

Over a thousand years after Plato, an American political theorist, John Dewey, proposed a potential solution to help decrease the potential negative consequences of poetic rhetoric. Dewey was part of the American progressive movement and felt that the justification for social inequality was based on a mythic understanding of the past that was created to serve the rich’s interests. While he agreed with Plato insofar as seeing the powerful impact poetry can have on people’s actions, he did not think that a ban on poetry was the solution. Instead, Dewey emphasized the importance of public education as a proper function of the state to enable individuals to have the necessary “knowledge of the facts” to better address their common needs without regard for traditional norms. In doing so, the individual would be less likely to fall victim to adverse poetic rhetoric.

This sort of education could manifest itself in a myriad of ways. For example, public education could focus on interacting with multiple types of content and opinions in order to gain a more balanced view of a certain event. Additionally, individuals could also be given direction on how to analyze or consider information “sources” and the potential for bias, accuracy, and rational messaging. Finally, it might help to encourage heightened scrutiny of messages that appeal to emotions.

The consideration of “poetry” as a means of mass communication is a seemingly timeless discussion. While it is not likely, or even desirable, to eliminate poetry in its entirety, it does seem worth encouraging and enabling the populace to identify poetic rhetoric and to consider listening to a diverse range of poets and poetry.

The Disproportional Impact of Covid-19 in Pakistan

With approximately a year since COVID-19 spread rampantly across the board, with economic and political ramifications being brought to the surface, the virus is still unfolding. Since the emergence of the disease in Wuhan, China, in December 2020, there have been more than 15.2 million confirmed global cases of the virus with the number of deaths 2.5 million as of January 2021, with that number only going up. Nobody could have imagined the multitude of ways this virus would affect the lives of many across the globe. Despite its close geographic proximity and economic ties with China, the first 2 cases of Covid-19 in Pakistan were reported around mid-February of 2020, with over 560,000 cases and over 12,000 deaths currently. To curb the spread of the virus, provincial governments established lockdowns in their respective areas during the months of March and April. 

While in the case of Pakistan, there were already prevalent patterns of unequal economic opportunities, health care systems, and social condition pre-pandemic, the spread of COVID‐19 and the gradual release of strict lockdowns and subsequent implementation of social distancing protocols has further perpetuated indirect adverse effects on unequal medical accommodations, economic development, and social conditions towards the lower-middle class citizens of Pakistan. This paper will provide a comparative analysis and frame the current conditions in the health system, economic spectrum, and social life within Pakistan as a whole, concluding with what actions have taken place to mitigate the impact Covid-19 has left in these domains and what further action can be taken from the government and local people for substantial change to occur. 

Healthcare System and Covid-19 Challenges 

Prior to the pandemic, Pakistan’s neglected health care sector was already a point of contention. As of May 2020, it was reported that Pakistan spends approximately less than 1% of its GDP on the national healthcare system, despite recommendations from the World Health Organization (WHO) positing an allocation of about 6%. As expected, when coronavirus hit the country, many national and private hospitals were up against quite complex challenges. In the initial stages of lockdown procedures in March andApril, only a few specific quarantine centers were present with limited diagnostics and treatment facilities until the government received primers, testing kits, and equipment from other China among other countries. The focus was on infrastructure, supplies and staff management. The wards were redesigned and upgraded. Even now that conditions have somewhat improved, centers continue to run out of rooms, and thus make it difficult for non-Covid patients to receive prompt and attentive care.  

In terms of the provision of healthcare in Pakistan, rural populations have inadequate and inappropriate facilities compared to their counterparts. There are many stories of patients waiting to be treated even with the most dire COVID-19 symptoms, but are mostly seen only through bribery – paying powerful relatives, friends, etc. to admit these patients as promptly as possible. COVID-19 has exerted substantial impacts on “at-risk” groups: older people, healthcare providers, children, the homeless, daily wage laborers, and the economically poor, and over here there are many present case studies displaying the effect COVID has had on vulnerable patients, such as pregnant women. Where the government of Pakistan has taken necessary and strict actions to overcome the spread of the virus, no efforts have been seen to address the effects it has had on maternal health issues within the country. The pandemic has also seriously affected the availability of essential pregnancy‐related medications, vitamins and supplements, not only affecting the mother’s health but the child’s as well. The contagious nature and high mortality rates tied to COVID-19 has led to many pregnant women being apprehensive to attend doctor’s visits, and has  caused higher rates of psychological distress, depression, and anxiety. Pakistan, a low‐income country suffering from under-investment for decades, has been slow to recognize maternal health conditions coupled with the pressure to mitigate the further spread of covid-19; therefore, these issues experienced by pregnant women are considered at the end of priority list and are undertreated. 

While this remains as a brief outline of the complex healthcare challenges Pakistan continues to experience it clearly displays how these challenges disproportionately affect people at a disadvantage due to their class, gender, etc. in receiving basic, proper healthcare. There is a simple reality prevalent here: the wealthy are able to find loopholes to receive the care they need. The lower your socioeconomic status is, the more difficult it is for you to receive these basic necessities.The Covid-19 pandemic is only highlighting these cyclical issues in Pakistan’s healthcare system.  

Covid-19 and the Economic Challenges in Pakistan 

According to a Dawn News report, the most who have economically suffered have been Pakistan’s daily wage workers and urban slum settlers. Pakistan is estimated to undergo a loss of 2.5 trillion rupees ($15.5 billion) due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Pakistan's already fragile economy had only just begun stabilizing and moving towards recovery when the health crisis struck. Unemployment has risen enormously due to a large decrease in exports. With Pakistan primarily exporting textile products, the pandemic has put a halt to this consistent means of financial stability, with some orders even being cancelled altogether. When Pakistani prime minister, Imran Khan took office, Pakistan’s GDP growth was around 5.8%, now with the pandemic this has taken a major downfall at a mere 0.98%. This plethora of statistics underscore the fact that the pandemic has hit an already fragile economic system in Pakistan.  

However, some industries, such as  retail within Pakistan, despite enduring shock from the strict lockdowns, were able to withstand the challenges. Pakistan’s grocery retail space, estimated by industry insiders to be worth more than $50 billion (7.91 trillion Pakistani Rupees) in revenues annually, is mostly operated through a means of ‘karyana bazaars’ or ‘Khattaks.’ These are essentially small shops, often in large markets that cater to household basics like flour, rice, sugar, cleaning products etc. With the spread of Covid-19 becoming rampant back in March and April 2020, these small,crowded stores took an immediate hit with the loss of customers and thus revenues. These owners and their respective businesses were impacted differently and for different periods of time. The solution for all of this? Online grocery shopping. Many Pakistani retail business owners and entrepreneurs took advantage of a growing technology sector and opted for grocery orders made online and through mobile apps, achieving a profit jump by 50 to 70 percent month on month. Despite suffering initial challenges, the innovative nature of the retail sector ultimately allowed these businesses to survive and grow amidst the covid-19 related economic hurdles. 

The farming sector of Pakistan, primarily in the northern areas, has not only served as a backbone for food security but has always been a major support to the economy, being the highest contributor to GDP. There have been major disruptions in production of wheat, rice and various crops due to the limiting work force and restriction of transport facilities for dispatching harvested crops. As more people were being pushed into poverty, Imran Khan took it in his hands to place what he called as ‘smart lockdowns’ – in light of the country's high levels of poverty and unemployment, the government taking made a decision to keep the businesses and the factories running and close down only non-essential activities. Despite a major loss of agricultural sector activity and food security during this time, Khan still felt the need to proceed with the larger vision of creating wealth through industrialization and ‘all about creating wealth.’

Covid-19 and Society in Pakistan

Our inherently social nature, regardless of nationality, means that our desire for connection and interaction is the most normal thing in the world - but we have been forced to adapt to the “new normal” of physical distancing. The social ramifications of covid-19 highlights the disproportionate effects covid-19 has had on students and the education sector as a whole, as access to technology and high-speed internet have turned into the new issues many students have had to overcome. 

In March of 2020, the Government of Pakistan had mandated that all schools and universities would be part of the nationwide lockdown. This ultimately prompted the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training (MoFE&PT) to seek educational alternatives to ensure learning continuity. However, learning continuity presented itself as an issue given the unequal access to technology and internet for many in Pakistan. The transition towards online learning has meant a large allocation of resources to cater towards the academic requirement of approximately 47 million students who have discontinued their in person education. Along with this are the stresses students have had towards the online setups. In recent studies, women exhibited higher levels of anxiety and depression in comparison with men pertaining to the pandemic and its social consequences, which suggests that they hold a greater psychiatric burden of the COVID-19 pandemic.

With the new dominance of virtual learning systems, the issue of digital divides among urban and rural populations are more prevalent than ever before. In relatively less technologically privileged countries like Pakistan where only 22% of the population have access to full internet facilities. This is attributed to the already established high poverty ratio and lack of technology infrastructure, which limit the access of high-end internet facilities to students living in conditions outside of the urban or semi-urban regions and who do not usually belong to middle and upper societal classes. In December, the government launched its first Radioschool, a virtual educational program which aims to accommodate for and expand student outreach in response to the second school closure. 

However, its effectiveness and accessibility still remains in the shadows, due to a lack of transparency and training in providing these same programs to provinces across all of Pakistan. Furthermore the federal government should also help the provincial governments prepare educational content according to their respective boards so that education in these trying times can continue in the country. While the government was quick to recognize the issue students being able to access their course materials from home, Pakistan has attempted to shift to hybrid learning, with educational institutions being caught in a cycle of opening in phases and closing up again when covid-19 cases begin to rise; thus being an ineffective way to curb the spread of the virus and prevent an anticipated spike. 

Pakistan has been labelled as one of the top ranked countries in Asia with the highest response to social protection during Covid-19 crisis. Nonetheless,  the COVID-19 positivity rate and number of deaths due to the virus have increased. Now more than ever, it is critical to recognize that these issues were not just periodical challenges of March/April of 2020. A lot of the research and studies allude to these issues and the immediate relief efforts to be solely focused in the early months of 2020. The pandemic is prevalent as ever and has every potential to become widespread and rampant with the lack of enforcement for social distancing and lockdown rules coupled with overall public apathy to the virus. 

There is a need to establish rehabilitation centers across the country for mental health crises and provides 24 hours assistance to the public.The improvements of covid-19 units in hospitals and online learning initiatives should not be temporal and timely actions that were done in 2020. Imran Khan claims that a second lockdown will be detrimental to the economy, but this should not take priority over an already fragile healthcare system and the potential lives that can continue to be at risk. There needs to be consistent efforts on behalf of the government, preferably accepting that a second lockdown is must in order to ensure medical, economic, and educational security.

Tigray Crisis

Ethiopia has long been seen as a source of stability within the Horn of Africa, a region that has been subject to several intra and inter-state conflicts. Especially in recent years, Ethiopia’s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has received international recognition for his role in reaching out to Eritrea in peace and attempting to usher in a new era of democracy in the country. However, this image was shattered on November 4th, when Prime Minister Ahmed launched a military operation in the northern region of Tigray, thus kickstarting a violent confrontation between the federal government and regional leadership.  By November 28th, federal forces had taken control of Mekele, the regional capital, and declared victory. Despite this declaration, the confrontation between Tigray forces and Ahmed’s military has violently persisted. Despite the fact that this started with the Prime Minister accusing the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the regional ruling party in Tigray, of  attacking a government military base to steal artillery, it has spiraled into all-out conflict. As a result of the conflict, ethnic tensions have been exacerbated and there is an urgent  humanitarian crisis with around 4.5 million people in need of aid and nearly half a million people displaced. But this conflict did not erupt spontaneously; it is the culmination of decades of autocratic and corrupt government rule, repression, inter-state conflict, and ethnic conflict. 

A Build-Up to Conflict 

The TPLF successfully fought the military dictatorship that rose to power in the 1970s and ascended to helm the leadership of Ethiopia in the early 1990s. The group specifically led a ruling coalition known as the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front. It consisted of four main parties and was split along ethnic lines, backing an approach known as ethnic federalism, with nine regional ethnic states and two federally administered city-states. This system was specifically designed so that ethnic groups could administer their own internal affairs and set up their own political institutions. It advocates for the right to self-determination, which includes the right to secede. It has arguably kept the country from descending into civil war, despite there being government repression, and has demonstrated that, for the most part, power has been fairly distributed from federal to regional governments. Meles Zenawi, a Tigrayan, led the country from the military dictatorship’s fall in 1991 to his death in 2012. By Zenawi’s time of death, the country had gained a reputation of stability within the region and had also experienced economic growth. After three decades of TPLF rule, anti-government protests in 2018 forced the party to step down. As a result, Prime Minister Ahmed was elected. The Prime Minister has received acclaim for his foreign policy, which specificially involved reaching out to Eritrea in a peace deal; this comes after decades of a “frozen” war and seemingly ended a lengthy border dispute. Despite this success, however, Ahmed’s time in office has not been unmarred. When he was elected to office, many Tigrayan politicians were purged from power and some were and some were charged with human rights abuses which immediately led to feelings of tension. The hostility was exacerbated by Prime Minister Ahmed’s attempt to centralize more power within the federal government. The Prime Minister characterized these attempts as a way to create more unity in the country, but Tigrayans have resisted. This contentious situation came to a boiling point in September, when Tigray held regional elections, defying the federal government’s decision not to hold them due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

What are the results of the conflict?

While federal forces were able to capture Tigray’s main towns, fighting has continued and a major humanitarian crisis is looming, with 4.5 million people in need of assistance. However, it is hard to say just how the situation is unfolding, as there has been a communications blackout since the fighting began in November. Most hospitals have been looted and destroyed in the fighting, thus spelling the collapse of health care. Banks have also closed their doors, meaning that people can no longer access money to pay for basic necessities. There have also been severe shortages of food and water. Approximately half a million people have been displaced, with 60,000 officially being labeled as refugees,  fleeing into Sudan. As reported by the United Nations, by November 10th there were more than 14,000 refugees, half of them being children. According to these eyewitness accounts, Ethiopia’s military, Eritrean troops, and local ethnic militias are responsible for ethnic-based violence and large-scale sexual assault. The conflict has resulted in thousands of deaths and it has been characterized by the violence that has fallen along ethnic lines. Ethiopia’s air force bombed military and civilian infrastructure in Tigray, and Tigrayan officials and civilians have accused Eritrean troops of massacres.  Indeed, the presence of massacres has been confirmed by Amnesty International. The United Nations has also corroborated reports of ethnic massacres in West Tigray. The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission has also reported that Tigrayan miliatiamen killed 600 Amhara civilians who were mostly day laborers. Furthermore, Tigrayans who have fled to Sudanese refugee camps say that Amhara militiamen have attacked many of their kin in West Tigray. 

The role of Eritrea has also been a major focal point of this developing conflict. While the federal government has denied Eritrea’s role, eyewitnesses have  testified that a large portion of the violence has occured at the hands of Eritrean troops. Many of them have attacked refugee camps and have abducted Eritrean asylum seekers, many of whom were seen as camp leaders. They have specifically targeted aid supplies and set fire to crops. They have also been accused of killing hundreds of civilians across various towns.

This humanitarian crisis is the evident result of a  culmination of ethnic tensions that have been developing across many decades. At the end of August 2020, Genocide Watch issued a warning for Ethiopia. While it is difficult to discern what exactly is occuring due to the media blackout, the international community needs to ensure that this crisis isn’t developing into a genocide. If it has developed to the level of genoicde, international actors must take immediate action to ensure that no further lives are lost in this contentious conflict. 

What can be done?

It’s easy to say that the best solution would be for Prime Minister Ahmed to reach out to Tigray’s forces to discuss ways to end the conflict and usher in peace. While that doesn’t seem imminent, solutions should be focusing on alleviating the humanitarian crisis and making sure people have basic necessities. This would entail lifting the communications blackout and allowing humanitarian agencies to enter the country to administer relief. These agencies would be able to deliver relief with more immediacy while the Prime Minister hypothetically works to bring more long-lasting stability. Additionally, refugees need to be prioritized as they have consistently been targeted. In order to protect this vulnerable population, Eritrean forces need to leave Ethiopia. While i looks like this conflict is far from over, international organizations need to prioritize getting relief to all of the people who have been adversely affected. 

Opposition Protests in Russia: An Analysis of the Economic Effects of COVID-19 in Russia and Their Role in the Current Protests

In Russia, as snow mounds up by the feet and temperatures drop below zero, the fiery energy of the Russian people rages on stronger than ever. Hundreds of thousands of Russians across the country have been protesting in support of the Russian Opposition leader Alexei Navalny since early January. 

Anti-Putin and pro-democracy protests are nothing new, as Russians have routinely become disenchanted and frustrated with Russian President Vladimir Putin and growing issues surrounding liberal democracy and free and fair elections. However, unlike the opposition movements of the past, these protests stand a chance in bringing  about widespread social reform, and it’s not just due to Alexei Navalny’s fame and charisma. 

Russia has been hit particularly hard t by the economic crisis brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic, and with no immediate end to the pandemic in sight, it’s uncertain when the country’s economic circumstances  will improve. Millions of Russians are facing unemployment and dwindling savings are causing widespread resentment, fear, and anger towards the Russian government. Economic struggles alone are enough to bring people to protest, but the combination of economic strife, growing anger over Putin’s government, and unwavering support for Alexei Navalny is enough to create an unstoppable movement. 

Alexei Navalny

Russian Opposition Leader Alexei Navalny is a lawyer and anti-corruption activist, as well as a fierce critic of Putin. He first gained notoriety back in 2008, when he started blogging about Russian politics and corruption within the state. Following his success in blogging and reporting, Navalny expanded his influence and methods into more serious corruption investigations, demonstrating his commitment and bravery. 

Navalny’s most impressive anti-corruption work can be found on Youtube, where he reveals the investigative process of proving powerful Russian officials, such as former President Dmitri Medvedev and former Prosecutor General Chaika Yury, to be incredibly corrupt, such as using state funds to create personal, luxury villas. Navanly’s immense success in investigative journalism helped him establish the Anti-Corruption Foundation, where he and a team of other journalists carry out investigative work. 

Throughout his career Navalny has frequently faced near death incidents and poisonings, frequently traced back to the Kremlin (although they deny such claims). Most recently, Navalny was nearly killed by a lethal nerve agent planted in his clothing before being rushed to an emergency treatment center in Germany. Alexei Navalny was immediately arrested upon his recovery and returned to Russia. 

Protests

Navalny’s arrest and subsequent calls to rally on his social media drew the Russian people into the streets from St. Petersburg to Moscow to the smallest rural towns. Throughout January and February the Russian people took to the streets, and were frequently arrested and detained in mass numbers. Reports of police brutality are widespread amongst the protests, with photos and videos posted on social media showcasing police officers beating and torturing protesters. Researchers from Human Rights Watch suggest that the number of detainees at protests in Russia is higher than ever reported, finding that over  5,000 people were likely detained and arrested over the course of a single weekend. Once arrested, the detainees are placed in harsh conditions where they are frequently denied the right to food, water, and restrooms.

The Russian government has frequently faced pressure to address the demands of protestors calling for Navalny’s release. With no sign of the protests stopping, the Russian government has amped up arrests despite the peaceful actions of protestors, such as holdingin candlelit gatherings or walking arm in arm through the streets. However, the Kremlin should consider the other economic and political issues currently facing Russia. Unlike in previous times of outrage and anti-Putin sentiment, this time the Russian government will have to contend with the economic burdens caused by the COVID-19 pandemic which is drawing Russians out onto the streets. 

A History of Anti-Putin Protests 

Anger over Putin, corruption, and a lack of free and deomocratic elections in Russia is nothing new. From the time that Putin rose to power in 2000, Russians have routinely expressed outrage and anger over their leader.

In the past decade alone, Russians demonstrated their political rights and views against Putin multiple times. Starting in late 2011, following the state Duma elections, over 50,000 people across the country marched in protest of apparent fraud following the election results. For the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, anti-government sentiment and anger over Putin was openly expressed. These protests drew Russians together despite the wide range of political opinions and identities  among them. The Kremlin responded as expected, denying the supposed election fraud and encouraging the arrests of protestors. The protestors demanded a cancellation of the recent election votes and  pleaded for another election. Other demands included investigations into the corruption of the Chief of Electoral Commissions and a release of arrested prisoners. 

Less than six months later, in May of 2012, protests commenced again, with Russians gathering in Bolotnaya Square to demand free and fair elections. These anti-Putin and anti-government marches became known as the “March of Millions.” Many were arrested and Human Rights Watch reported numerous instances of police brutality and unfair arrests. 

While these protests eventually dwindled due to lack of follow-through at the hands of organizers, and severe repression of information by the Russian government, the Kremlin was still forced to acknowledge that for the first time since his inauguration, Putin could no longer rely on the neverending support of the Russian people. 

At the heart of the 2011-2013 Russian protests was anger over a mismanaged democracy amongst urban, educated Russians. While the government refused to meet the demands of its people, it did create public works projects in hopes of both distracting the Russian people from the protests and restoring faith and pride in the Russian government. Numerous public works projects were created, including implementing urban renewal ventures consisting of improving city sidewalks, roads, and public parks. 

The Kremlin continued to spend money in hopes of reigniting the Russian people’s national pride and sense of unity. Hosting national sports events such as the World Cup allowed Russians to cheer on their team while promoting pride for their country. The success of the Russian government’s ability to promote Russian nationalism and  unify its people became known as the Rally Around the Flag Effect, and it heavily shaped Putin’s foreign policy approach. 

The Rally Around the Flag Effect 

The global response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014 was intense, critical, and threatening, but the sentiment within Russia could not have been more different. Following the annexation, Putin’s approval rate soared to a supposed 84%, garnering admiration from Russians across a variety of  social classes, age ranges, careers and locations. Surveys from the time reveal that overall attitudes towards national pride, hope for the future, and support for the Kremlin all rose dramatically. The success of the Crimean annexation and Putin’s response to it led to the coining of the term “Rally Around the Flag”, in which Russians supposedly put aside their issues with the state to support Russia and Putin; yet in reality this is government propaganda, in the which the Kremlin distracts the Russian people by instilling them with nationalistic values. 

However, at present the political and economic climate is vastly different. Putin and his government can no longer afford to throw money into public works projects in order to distract from the protests, and they lack the foreign policy capabilities to carry out a military event as dramatic and violent as the annexation of Crimea. Not only is the government much weaker, but it is becoming increasingly clear that Russia’s economic state, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic,  is increasingly the issue pushing Russians out onto the street in protest. 

The Economic Effects of COVID-19 in Russia 

Unsurprisingly, Russia has experienced devastating economic ramifications at both the national and local level in conjunction with the spread of COVID-19. The economic struggles caused by rising unemployment rates has affected Russians in both urban and rural regions. Russia has reported relatively low COVID-19 numbers, particularly in comparison with other European countries and the US; however, many experts speculate that these numbers have been heavily falsified and that Russian data on COVID-19 cases is likely three times higher than reported. 

Despite their seemingly low number of COVID-19 cases, Russia cannot hide its economic struggles. The country’s GDP is likely to shrink by six percent from 2020 to 2021, and the country has already seen sharp increases in unemployment, lowered wages, banking struggles, and the shrinking of major industries. A decrease in trade and drop in oil prices is at the forefront of this economic recession. While some industries such as agriculture have managed to stay afloat, it is clear after almost a year since the first initial global shutdown that  all aspects of Russia’s economy have been damaged, and in every region. This is particularly threatening to Putin’s government, who have always relied on their strongholds in smaller, conservative, rural areas. 

Protests in support of Alexei Navanly have now been reported in over a hundred cities and towns, with the largest number  in these smaller, rural areas. With all regions of the country erupting in protest, the likelihood of the government to repress these protests is lower than in earlier years. Statistically, rural areas are demonstrating a much higher turnout than in more urban areas. The effects of globalization have taken effect worldwide, including in the farming regions of Russia who are now showing increased anger over Putin than their urban peers in Moscow and St. Petersburg. This anger can also be attributed to the lack of economic relief reforms dedicated to agricultural regions both before and during the pandemic. Following the 2011-2013 protests, the Kremlin’s economic implementations mostly targeted cities, largely ignoring rural communities. It now appears as though this resentment at being ignored has finally reached its boiling point, as anti-Putin sentiment erupts across the countryside. 

Critics have been quick to claim that Russian protestors stand no chance at achieving their goals, using earlier opposition protests as evidence. Nevertheless, those who doubt the might of the Russian people should keep in mind the underlying factors at the root of this issue. Unemployment and feelings of abandonment are powerful forces that will drive anyone to the streets, regardless of political devotion. 

As the Kremlin continues to crack down on the protestors, the Russian government and the rest of the world should acknowledge the significance that the economic strife caused by COVID-19 has played throughout these protests. For the first time since Putin’s ascent to power, the Russian people actually stand a chance at achieving lasting reforms. 

Regional Cooperation Prospects: The Case of ASEAN

  In spite of border closures and efforts to isolate during the pandemic, we continue to live in an interdependent and connected world. Supply chains are globally intertwined, families transcend borders - even continents - and it remains the global imperative to continue communicating and collaborating in order to address the concerns of the pandemic. This is why regional organizations remain an important way to ensure cooperation and integration across borders. One such organization, ASEAN, was established on August 8th of 1967 in Bangkok by Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Thailand. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, these countries were joined by Brunei, Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Cambodia. As with most regional bodies, ASEAN’s formation was principally motivated by trade, but the mission goals of the group soon expanded to include regional integration, promotion of social growth, regional security, and sustainable development. The organization steadily grew to develop partnerships throughout East Asia, Oceania, as well as Western countries such as the EU, Canada, and the US through the ASEAN Regional Forum. 

            Overall, the organization has enjoyed a continuous and relatively stable existence ever since its formation and has come a long way since having a 5-article proclamation of its formation. Its terms of membership, mission statements, goals, and spheres of interest are increasingly complex and ever-expanding. However, this does not come without its limitations. The organization has also been criticized for being too loosely connected and not sufficiently involved in promoting equal growth, peace, and stability as it claims to be doing. These challenges to its mission are strong to this day. The pandemic and recent political developments throughout the world calling for a rise in authoritarianism and a halt in international cooperation only threaten to further destabilize and discredit ASEAN in spite of its great potential as a regional body. In order to maintain its credibility and success, as well as improve its future prospects, ASEAN should focus on political and socio-cultural collaboration more intensely, which it already has a basis for in its Charter as of 2008. Additionally, the body should look up to uphold the ASEAN Community ideals, and it should strive to increase and diversify its economic collaboration to include countries in other world regions, such as those in Africa and Latin America. Emphasizing the political and socio-cultural aspects of its mission will strengthen the currently fragile regional feelings of unity and trust in ASEAN as a regional organization and even an authority, while its expansion of economic interests to include those of other state actors and regional organizations throughout the Northern and Southern hemispheres would increase its trade and collaboration prospects, as well as help increase ASEAN’s independence from its traditional trading partners, allowing it more agency and choice.

Current Challenges

            ASEAN has enjoyed more than half a century of existence as an organization and a regional economic and somewhat socio-political body. Major challenges accompanied it throughout this period. After all, virtually all of its members are facing the complicated consequences of colonialism and have to operate within the post-colonial context in which they are left to struggle to model largely western model of a nation state. The region has suffered intrusion from the British, the French, the Dutch, the Portuguese, the Spanish, and later on Imperial Japan. The Philippines also found itself under US occupation. The great socio-cultural diversity in the region was largely left unaccounted for in the colonial era and following decolonization efforts after WWII. This colonial heritage leaves Southeast Asian states to simultaneously navigate processes of state formation and regional cooperation through ASEAN. This is a very unique context and a unique situation; and given these postcolonial circumstances under which ASEAN was formed, it is a grand success that it remains as operational and effective as it is today. On one hand, colonial experience, as well as the threat and presence of foreign influence during the Cold War, can be attributed as major factors in the decision of original members to finally unite in 1967 and then also work towards regional security cooperation on top of economic collaboration. However, these very circumstances also raise many uncertainties and questions. 

The region has experienced increasing turmoil in the last century. Vietnam and Cambodia have seen major political upheaval during and after the Cold War, Indonesia has faced numerous man-made uncontrolled forest fires and other environmental catastrophes, and Myanmar remains in a contentious political situation following a coup in early February of this year. ASEAN has been criticized internationally for failing to address these concerns beyond merely mentioning or acknowledging them in its committee sessions throughout the years. This is due in part to its emphasis on respect for sovereignty and fear of disturbing the forces of nationalism that came out as a logical response to the state formation process in the post-colonial world. Disturbance of this delicate balance ASEAN is currently maintaining with sovereign and national governments would inevitably lead to its destruction. ASEAN did, however, manage to more comprehensively address the issues affecting the region through its Charter signed in 2007 that went into effect in 2008. The Charter is now emphasizing the organization’s commitment towards accountability, protection of human rights, and democratic freedoms throughout its member states. This is a legally binding agreement demanding the member states’ commitment to these ideals and there are serious repercussions were these not to be abided by, including suspension of member privileges, sanctions, and even expulsion from the organization. However, more serious advances have been criticized and largely opposed by some member states. As such, ASEAN remains limited in its ability to actually act on its stature and appropriately address deviation from the unanimous charter. Addressing nationalist concerns means the organization must be heavily dependent on consensus and consultation on every major decision. 

ASEAN Community 2015 is another way in which ASEAN is looking to increase its legitimacy. The idea of ASEAN Community is grounded in the foundational ideal of ASEAN to increase regional cooperation and a sense of community among Southeast Asian states. It contains three pillars being in order: Political-Security Community, Economic Community, and Socio-Cultural Community. The member states have agreed to increase its cooperation across the three sectors for the purpose of greater cooperation, but it is no coincidence that the pillars are listed in that order. The organization prioritized addressing mutual concern for sovereignty of the region and, most importantly, each nation state as the primary goal, with traditionally accepted economic or trade interests as the second goal, and the idea for a socio-cultural pillar was thrown in briefly afterwards at a suggestion by the Philippines. This illustrates a major organizational flaw which is a lack of concern for actual socio-cultural community building, even though precisely this pillar may have unique potential to address the nationalist sentiments and bring the change from bottom up instead of from top down, resulting in a more sustainable socio-political makeup of the region in the future. 

Prospects for the Future

            The organization remains exposed to various challenges. Just over the first few weeks of February, following the military coup in Myanmar on February 1st of 2021, there have been multiple calls to call emergency sessions to address the crisis and appropriately handle those in violation of the Charter in order to ensure bloc members abide by the principles of the ASEAN Charter “including the rule of law, good governance, democracy, human rights and constitutional government.” Concerns over environmental issues as well some trade questions, such as protections on the palm oil industry, remain important questions generating distrust and fueling the nationalist cause. 

However, ASEAN is not without any way to address these challenges. The Charter and the ideals of the ASEAN Community contain legally binding principles and mechanisms to ensure accountability, rule of law, and ultimately more cooperation and integration in the region. The idea to include more socio-cultural initiatives to go along with the plans for regional integration is also there, and only needs to be more acknowledged and given more attention and significance. After all, it must be seen as paramount to promote appreciation for diversity, but also recognition of tolerance and regional unity on a socio-cultural level as a way to move towards creation of a more comprehensive ASEAN member state, and even potential future ASEAN citizen identity. In case of the European Union, as important as trade prospects were to found and maintain the core of the union, cultural initiatives such as Eurovision, and student exchange programs such as Erasmus, were quite necessary to ensure creation of a European identity, and Europe still has a long way to go. ASEAN could greatly benefit from creating similar region-wide outreach initiatives in order to move forward from the current situation of largely disjointed, self-interested members. This would also strengthen the civil society and thus improve prospects for democracy and regional stability. 

            Lastly, the region remains dependent on its traditional trading patterns. Its unity here is very important in order to allow it to take full advantage of the rivalry seen amongst Japan, China, and the United States looking for trade partners within the region. However, the region could also benefit from looking further outwards and establishing more substantial economic ties with like-minded regional blocs across the globe, such as ECOWAS and Mercosur. In fact, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Singapore was to implement its free trade agreement with Mercosur. This would exponentially increase cooperation between ASEAN and Mercosur, and drastically increase the already present $3.5 billion in trade exchange between the two. COVID-19 pandemic has slowed down this progress and potential for a sort of interregional cooperation, but developments in this area are interesting and it will be exciting to see what effect increased collaboration across these particular regional groups will bring. 

ASEAN has seen its share of successes and challenges, but it is undeniable that it has decades of experience in norm-building and community promotion within the region, and it remains the most comprehensive example of cooperation in the region. Its charters and proclamations, as challenged as they may be through continued political turmoil throughout the region, still remain proud examples of hope and potential for greater regional integration in Southeast Asia. For this reason, it is instrumental to continue looking forward and ensure the organization takes advantage of its strengths and improves upon its shortcomings to provide for a more united and strengthened Southeast Asia.

Nayib Bukele: Central America’s First Hipster Despot

Nayib Bukele’s election as president of El Salvador in 2019 sent shockwaves that have reverberated throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. At just 37 years of age on election day, he was but a ten year old boy when the Chapultepec Peace Accords were signed, ending his country’s protracted and bloody civil war. A right-wing populist and the former mayor of the capital San Salvador, Bukele campaigned on anti-corruption and a tough approach to crime, all in blue jeans and a leather jacket. His campaign was also unique in that it was so reliant on social media that he did not even bother to participate in a formal debate (a decision that may have helped him in the polls, distinguishing him from the establishment candidates). 

Bukele’s election was unique in that it proved a repudiation of the establishment and the status quo in El Salvador, much like the election of Donald Trump in the U.S. and the rise of right-wing illiberal populists around the world. As a member of Gran Alianza por la Unidad Nacional (or the Grand Alliance for National Unity), he became El Salvador’s first president elected from outside of the two-party system since his fellow former San Salvador mayor Jose Napoleon Duarte left the presidency in 1989. Contemporary Salvadoran politics has traditionally been dominated by the conservative Alianza Republicana Nacionalista (ARENA) and the left-wing Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion Nacional (FMLN) FMLN and ARENA also represent the two main parties of the civil war. 

This rupture of the two-party system in El Salvador is emblematic of a broader regional movement away from stable two-party systems, which have recently fallen in Venezuela, Colombia, Mexico, Costa Rica, Uruguay, and Honduras,. While some of these countries have been able to support multi-party democracies, others have descended into authoritarian states. In his two years as president, Bukele is quickly leaving no doubt that he intends for El Salvador to be in the second category for the foreseeable future.

The U.S. Role in El Salvador and Why It Matters

In its history, El Salvador has long grappled with severe economic inequality, like many countries in the region. The smallest of the Central American republics (in fact, only about the size of Massachusetts), the country (like its neighbors) profited immensely when coffee became a major global cash crop, at one point responsible for up to 95 percent of the country’s income. Just two percent of the country, led by the country’s oligarchic richest 14 families, owned more than 75 percent of the nation’s arable land and more than 70 percent of its wealth during the 20th century. While these families were each worth tens to hundreds of millions of dollars, the Great Depression left millions of peasants with nothing, and in 1932, the peasants led an uprising in the western part of the country that was met with brutality from the military government.

Then, in 1969, the Football War between El Salvador and Honduras strengthened the power of the corrupt military government, which began to expand its arms imports, purchasing weapons from Israel, Brazil, West Germany, and the United States. The 1972 elections were rigged in favor of the military government, and left-wing groups like the FMLN began to become more militant, leading President Arturo Armando Molina to embrace modest land reforms that were ultimately defeated by the Salvadoran elite. Civil war ensued and did not relent until the 1990s.

The Salvadoran Civil War was one of the bloodier conflicts of the Cold War, with war crimes committed by both parties. However, the right-wing military government was the more brutal party, with the United Nations (UN)-supported truth commission finding it guilty of 85 percent of the war’s human rights abuses, compared to just 5 percent for the guerillas. Raymond Bonner of The Atlantic, who covered the war for The New York Times, described the war as “a civil war of the 1980s, one that pitted leftist revolutionaries against the alliance of countries, oligarchs, and generals that had ruled the country for decades—with U.S. support—keeping peasants illiterate and impoverished...Peasants were shot en masse, often while trying to flee. Student and union leaders had their thumbs tied behind their backs before being shot in the head, their bodies left on roadsides as a warning to others.”

American nuns were assassinated on the orders of the military. So were Salvadoran priests who advocated for peace and spoke out against the military’s human rights abuses despite the Catholic Church’s long-standing, close ties with the military government. And on December 11, 1981, the government carried out its worst massacre, one of the most genocidal actions of the entire Cold War: the El Mozote Massacre. At El Mozote, the Salvadoran army and air force, alongside death squads trained by the United States, tortured and subsequently murdered the village’s men, raped the village’s women and girls — some of them as young as ten years old — and murdered them with machine guns. Children were killed, with their throats slit or by being hung from trees. Months later, the Salvadoran military would collect the skulls of the children they murdered to keep as good luck charms. After virtually the entire population of El Mozote had been killed, the soldiers marched to nearby Los Toriles, took its people from their homes, robbed them, shot them dead, and then set their homes on fire. It took the Salvadoran government two decades to apologize for the massacre, and litigation ensues to this very day to ensure its victims can be heard.

And where was the United States during this conflict? Unapologetically behind the military government. With the exception of a brief interlude when Jimmy Carter temporarily suspended aid to El Salvador (before ultimately increasing it on his way out the door), the United States ignored or even praised the repression of the anti-communist government. During the Reagan Administration, only Egypt and Israel received more American military and economic aid than El Salvador, and its embassy staff size rivaled that of the American embassy in India. 

With that aid came next to zero accountability. After the massacre of the American nuns, the Reagan Administration ordered Ambassador Robert White to cover up the Salvadoran government’s culpability. When he refused, he was fired and expelled from the Foreign Service entirely. After El Mozote, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs (and later Trump’s envoys to Iran and Venezuela) Elliott Abrams smeared Bonner and the reporters on the ground in El Salvador as activists exaggerating both the death toll and the government’s culpability. He also extolled the Salvadoran government’s human rights record before the Senate. The State Department inflated claims of left-wing violence and downplayed their own links to the death squads to persuade the American public that backing a right-wing dictatorship was worth it in the end because nobody’s hands were clean. As Joan Didion wrote in her seminal account of the conflict, Salvador, “If it is taken for granted in Salvador that the government kills, it is also taken for granted that the other side kills; that everyone has killed, everyone kills now, and if the history of the place suggests any pattern, everyone will continue to kill.” This amoral, cynical Cold War policy contributed to the subsequent development of El Salvador immensely.

Bukele, El Mozote, and the Legacy of the War

Though the war ended in 1992 with the signing of the Chapultepec Peace Accords, its legacy continues to haunt El Salvador. In a narrow sense, the Chapultepec Accords have been a success, with its prescribed ceasefire holding to this very day and the UN applauding the compliance of the parties in the immediate aftermath. The grave inequality that was long characteristic of El Salvador has been partially rectified with the FMLN’s integration into the political system and its reforms under President Mauricio Funes. But while the country continues to be a fragile democracy, its representatives have often failed to deliver on institutional reforms. 

El Salvador ranks fifth in the world in its annual number of instances of gender-based violence. Inequality, although reduced, remains in place and threatens to persist thanks to the neoliberal project of ARENA that preserved wealth and political power in the hands of a small class of elites through intense privatization and the Central American Free Trade Agreement (with the support of the U.S.). The FMLN made some changes to the arrangement, but did not radically transform Salvadoran political economy, as it acted much less radically than its other left-wing equivalents in the region.  Almost 1.5 million (or about 1/5 of the Salvadoran population) has been forced to migrate north to the United States due to the threat of domestic violence, economic depression, or the war as refugees. Once again, U.S. policy was at the center of the issue: during the Trump Administration, former Attorney General Jeff Sessions instructed immigration courts not to grant asylum to victims of gender-based violence and gang violence, even if they had a credible fear of returning to their home country, a decision that severely and adversely impacted Salvadoran migrant women and their children.

Given these failings of the political establishment and the political fragmentation of the country, it was perhaps not surprising that Bukele was able to gain election as an outsider running on a nationalistic platform. But rather than the post-war candidate he ran as, he is increasingly resembling the brutal right-wing dictatorship responsible for the vast majority of its casualties. 

At every turn, Bukele has responded to a myriad of political issues with intense repression. In early February 2020, Bukele countered parliamentary opposition to his proposal to increase funding for the police and armed forces to combat crime by asking his supporters to rally, and he ultimately had the armed forces occupy the Legislative Assembly. When the coronavirus pandemic reached El Salvador, Bukele used it as a pretext to ask the police to crack down on gang members, arbitrarily detaining citizens and holding them in unsanitary conditions. Some died after not receiving adequate medical care even as the country has universal health care for all citizens while others were assaulted by police for violating quarantine protocols. The crackdown was denounced by human rights organizations and the Democratic majority on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. 

Despite nominally running an anti-corruption campaign, Bukele’s government has been under scrutiny for breaches of the public trust. While he fulfilled a campaign promise in 2019 to create a new anti-corruption commission modeled after the largely successful but now defunct UN-backed International Commission Against Impunity (CICIG) in Guatemala, journalists and prosecutors have uncovered sizable evidence of financial improprieties, misallocated funds, and corruption in government contracting since the advent of the pandemic. El Salvador was also singled out by anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International for its irregularities and corruption cases relating to pandemic-related procurement and “alarming concentration of power” in its executive branch. Furthermore, as these scandals have emerged, Bukele has moved away from his anti-corruption rhetoric, instead cracking down on independent media outlets that expose evidence of government wrongdoing. Investigative outlet El Faro is currently under an ongoing money laundering investigation after publishing a report claiming Bukele negotiated with gang leaders to secure a reduction in violence in exchange for political support. El Faro denies any malfeasance and asserts that the investigation is political retaliation. 

Finally, the “post-war” president has exploited, not healed the wounds of El Mozote in particular. While he ran on declassifying military archives “from A to Z” that would allow inspectors to investigate the massacre in accordance with a court order, in June 2020 he reversed his position, claiming that national security would be endangered if he opened the archives. When the judge, Jorge Guzman, who issued the order scheduled the inspections anyway and showed up to the sites, he was denied access by a group of soldiers. Bukele had deployed troops and police officers to many one time FMLN strongholds using the cover of the pandemic to intimidate residents and inspectors. In a subsequent address, he bashed the courts, Salvadoran human rights organizations, and the bipartisan group of American legislators who sent him a letter expressing their concern over his lack of respect for the rule of law. He singled out Guzman as a saboteur of the government and military’s image motivated by FMLN sympathies. 

Bukele’s disinterest in the rule of law poses a grave threat to El Salvador’s fragile democracy and the project of national reconciliation. His autocratic ambitions have disillusioned those who believed in transformative, structural change and should have eroded unconditional American support for his every action.

And yet Bukele was embraced wholeheartedly by the Trump Administration. Former Ambassador to El Salvador Ronald Johnson commended Bukele for his handling of the pandemic, arguing that the violent abuses and arbitrary detentions carried out by his police forces were merely consensual arrangements between the government and people to give up some freedoms for security in a crisis. Bukele was also a convenient ally for the Trump Administration on immigration and agreed to several accords to reduce protections for asylum seekers from El Salvador.

However, with a Democrat in the White House, it is possible that fortunes may change for Bukele’s critics. President Joe Biden has already suspended Trump’s anti-asylum immigration accords with El Salvador. In an attempt to curry favor with Biden, Bukele has invested in D.C. lobbyists and requested a private meeting with President Biden. However, the White House rebuffed his offer, citing concerns about Bukele’s lack of commitment to the rule of law and democratic rule. Biden’s National Security Council’s senior director for Latin America Juan Gonzalez also took an implicit recent shot at Bukele, asserting that no leader in the region unwilling to tackle corruption would be considered a U.S. ally. And the outlet that interviewed Gonzalez? El Faro, the very one subject to the retaliatory investigation.

Congressional criticism of Bukele is mounting as well. Rep. Norma Torres (D-CA) and Rep. Albio Sires (D-NJ, and chairman of the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Latin America) sent a letter to Bukele urging him to refrain from stoking divisions and violence ahead of the country’s February legislative elections. And at the end of the Trump Administration, legislation supported by Democrats barring El Salvador from accessing a State Department program that finances the purchase of American weapons was adopted into law. The same bill authorizes targeted sanctions on government officials in Central America’s Northern Triangle — which includes El Salvador — who have undermined democratic institutions. What is clear is this: Congress and the White House are distancing themselves from Bukele’s El Salvador, and quickly.

With Donald Trump in the White House, aspiring autocrats like Bukele, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, and Bolivia’s former president Jeanine Áñez thrived free from American concerns about the rule of law and democracy. Without a course correction that prioritizes human rights and withdraws unconditional support for Bukele, democracy in El Salvador may be lost for good.

Chile’s New Constitution Must Progress Past Its History Towards a More Egalitarian Society

On October 26th, 2020, the streets of Santiago, Chile erupted into celebration as the results of a momentous referendum were announced to the public. With almost all of the ballots counted, 78% of Chileans had voted in favor of re-writing the country’s Constitution, which has served as a lasting legacy of the right-wing dictator Augosto Pinochet. 

Chilean voters will return to the ballot boxes on April 11th, 2021 in order to elect 110 people who will be responsible for writing the new Constitution. With an estimated time period of 9 months to create the document, and the option of an extra three-month extension, the Chilean people will finally open a new chapter in their country’s history by April 2022 at the latest. It will be crucial for these elected officials to create a Constitution that encapsulates the diversity of the Chilean nation, addresses its drastic inequalities, and progresses away from the damaging methods of neoliberal governance that have marked its past. 

The 2020 plebiscite itself was the culmination of decades of civil discontent towards the current Constitution, written in 1980 under the military dictatorship of Augosto Pinochet. Pinochet headed Chile’s military government from 1974 to 1980 after leading a military junta that overthrew the country’s democratically-elected socialist president, Salvador Allende. Inaugurated in 1970, Allende began to restructure Chilean society in line with socialist values, democratic government, civil liberties and due process under law. His government took control of key mining and manufacturing sectors, as well as took over large agricultural estates to be used by peasant coalitions. Allende also implemented expansionary monetary policy in an attempt to redistribute wages and increase government spending on social programs, along with expropriating U.S.-owned copper companies, which created a tense relationship between his government and the U.S. Though successful at first, after a few years international influence against these policies led to hyperinflation, strikes, food shortages and rising civil unrest. Much of this government opposition was supported by U.S. President Nixon and the CIA, given U.S. strategic interest in the region as well as the context of Cold War ideological opposition. 

Allende’s policies had led to a period of economic retraction, but his government was given little opportunity to curb these effects as they were overthrown by a military coup led by Pinochet in September of 1973. The U.S. had been heavily involved in the lead-up to this coup, with Nixon authorizing $10 million for the covert operation against Allende, citing his government as a threat to democracy in Chile and Latin America. Mandated by Washington, the CIA attempted to bribe, coerce and blackmail Chile’s Congress and military to unseat Allende, launched an international disinformation campaign against him, and assassinated the chief of the armed forces, who was opposed to intervention in Chile’s democratic processes. 

Following this coup, Pinochet became dictator of Chile and immediately rounded up hundreds of Allende’s supporters to be tortured and executed. The U.S. offered military and economic aid to Pinochet, who they ironically considered the “savior of democracy,” and the CIA is speculated to have helped his government capture and execute dissidents - a total of 3,000 in his 17 years in power. 

With this U.S. involvement also came U.S. influence over the economic system that Pinochet implemented during his 17-year rule. This economic plan was created by a group of Chilean economists known as the “Chicago boys,” who were trained in free-market capitalist ideologies by notorious American economists Milton Friedman and Arnold Harberger. The Chicago boys’ plan was also developed alongside CIA collaborators. Under this model, the Chilean government would allow private enterprise to operate completely independent of government control. It became the first country in the world to implement such a model, and the effects on the nation have been drastic to say the very least. 

The model of perfect competition that the Chicago Boys envisioned did not become a reality in the Chilean context. Powerful monopolies crushed smaller producers and businesses as well as raising the prices for everyday consumers. Workers were not provided protection in negotiating their wages, unemployment skyrocketed, and wealth inequality reached an extreme. Educational institutions were also largely privatized, leading to lessening equality of opportunity among Chileans. The same principle applies to healthcare access. In other words, Chile’s upper classes benefited immensely from these reforms while the everyday worker suffered immensely, despite extreme economic growth for the country as a whole. This liberal economic model has remained in place, and over the years wealth inequality has remained extremely high, contributing to extreme civil unrest as seen in the violent protests in Santiago in fall of 2019. 

The Chilean Constitution of 1980, serving as their current Constitution, was largely created to help secure the implementation of these neoliberal economic ideals. Created only by a small group of lawyers loyal to Pinochet, its drafters knew that though Pinochet could not stay in power indefinitely, this Constitution would secure his legacy for future generations of Chileans.  This Constitution ensured that unfeasibly large majorities would be needed to challenge the neoliberal economic policies that the military dictatorship was implementing, outlawed left-wing political parties, and made the military the “guarantors” of the state. Presidential vetoes also required an overwhelming Congressional majority to overthrow, securing Pinochet’s position. Though the document was approved in a national plebiscite, it was considered widely fraudulent. 

Democratic rule in Chile was reinstated by a popular referendum to oust Pinochet in 1989, and Constitutional amendments have tweaked the constitution to allow it to function within  democratic regimes. Nevertheless, the Constitution was created to preserve the governing interests of right-wing dictatorship, leans towards a conservative interpretation of the law, and provides no formal protections or avenues for citizens to participate in political decisions. It also favors private property rights and entrepreneurship over human and social rights, such as healthcare, education, and worker’s rights. Additionally, any amendments to the document require a ⅔ approval in Congress, which is often difficult to solidify. All of these concerns go without saying that the Constitution itself was approved in a fraudulent, non-democratic plebiscite, yet it continues to represent people who are now able to participate in democratic processes. 

The irrefutable issues contained in the Constitution itself as well as the lack of legitimacy it holds over the Chilean people, on top of the economic inequality fortified by this Constitution, led the Chilean people to take to the streets in fall of 2019, demanding a new Constitution and increased social protection. Marked by extreme violence, destruction of property, and police repression, these uprisings marked a tipping point for the Chilean working class, who have long awaited a government which would secure their rights. 

As a response to these protests, in November of 2019 Chile’s National Congress signed an agreement to hold a national referendum that would rewrite the Constitution, if approved. Though originally set to take place in April of 2020, COVID-19 lockdowns delayed the plebiscite until October of 2020. With overwhelming approval, members of Chilean civil society as well as politicians have begun to contemplate what type of social and civil rights should be integrated into the new Constitution, and whether or not the economic legacy of the Pinochet era should be continued. Chileans will elect who will constitute the body who will write the Constitution in April of this year, and these members will have a year to produce their product. 

Interestingly, the small minority who opposed the Constitutional change in the first place was concentrated among the political elite. In a map of Santiago neighborhoods that went viral, the only ones to vote in a majority against the reform were the wealthiest neighborhoods in the city. It is evident, therefore, that the 1980 Constitution continues to secure the interest of these classes, and doing away with the document presents an opportunity to check the power of these classes and equally redistribute this power among the classes below. Thus, it will be crucial for the body who drafts the new Chilean Constitution to equally represent all sectors of Chilean society, in terms of class, race, gender, and other identities. 

In fact, measures to include diverse groups of policymakers in the drafting body have already taken hold. The drafting body itself includes a gender-parity requirement, meaning that Chile’s new constitution will be the first in the world to be drafted by an equal number of men and women. In addition, 17 out of 155 seats on the drafting body have been reserved for representatives of Indigenous communities, constituting a proportion just shy of the 13% of 7 million Chileans who identify as indigenous. Meeting this 13% representation should have been a non-disputable measure, yet these types of steps towards political representation in Chile have set a historic precedent which should become a global standard. This is especially true for post-colonial societies, which have tended to suppress the political participation of their indigenous populations. 

This representation will provide indigenous populations in Chile for a prime opportunity to not only represent their existence within the country, as the only Latin American country that has yet to officially recognize their indigenous population in their Constitution, but also to include Constitutional measures that will secure indigenous rights in Chile for centuries to come.

For example, water privatization is a key issue that has disproportionately impacted Chilean indigenous populations for decades. The 1980 Constitution, under Pinochet, enshrined the complete private ownership of water. After the democratic transition, water sanitation sources were also privatized. As a result of these efforts, Chile now pays the highest rates in Latin America for drinking water, which is owned primarily by transnational corporations. With indigenous populations located in some of the driest regions in the country, indigenous populations have been disproportionately affected by the privatization of water and land resources. 

Improvements in workers’ rights are also expected to be a key issue brought about by the Constitutional reform. All-encompassing privatization of industry has meant less regulation in terms of securing workers’ rights to collectively bargain and advocate for workplace safety in the country, so the new Constitution expects to see major reforms to the Chilean labor code as well. Private businesses will no longer be allowed relatively full autonomy in conducting their relations with workers, as they were in the past. 

Chilean Mayor of Valparaíso, Jorge Sharp, accurately described the pivotal opportunity that rewriting the Chilean constitution will provide the country in an interview with the Times: “Chilean neoliberalism isn’t just an economic policy. It’s become a way of conceiving life itself: social relations, cities, democracy, society, and the economy. Rewriting the Constitution is our chance to lay the foundations of a new society, a new state, and a new country.” 

With this Constitutional reform comes a momentous opportunity to remove the holds of neoliberalism from its roots, not just in Chile but in other Latin American countries which have been so profoundly disrupted by the unjust societal and economic structures brought about by it. Time will only tell whether the new Constitution will provide such progressive and necessary reforms, but representing Chile’s diverse populations in its drafting committee is a monumental step in the right direction. 

Italy’s Never-Ending Political Crisis: New Prime Minister, Old Challenges

Introduction

Italy, the European Union’s third-largest economy, is well acquainted with political uncertainty. Its crisi di governo are incredibly frequent, resulting in 19 different governments since the fall of the Berlin Wall, with each having an average lifespan of slightly over 18 months. No strangers to political restructuring, Italians have seen their fair share of snap elections, coalition construction, and new prime ministers.

This winter’s political turmoil followed this trend. The government of Giuseppe Conte collapsed following disagreements over the distribution of coronavirus relief funds. After Conte failed to patch together a new coalition, President Sergio Mattarella tapped a replacement: Mario Draghi, the former European Central Bank chief who famously promised to do “whatever it takes” to save the euro. His new government is unique, as University of Birmingham Professor Daniele Albertazzi notes, in that it includes almost all major Italian parties from both the left and right wings. They certainly don’t call him “Super Mario” for nothing.

But it also includes a roster of many ambitious politicians, all with their own divergent political motives. Amidst a pandemic that has claimed over 100,000 Italian lives at the time of writing and decimated the economy, Draghi radiates hope. However appealing and necessary he may be at the moment, including to a wider Europe, his success in forming a government likely does not end Italy’s persistent political minefield. Regardless, Draghi’s entry offers an opportunity to investigate the roots of Italian political discord and the challenges they pose for one of Europe’s most crucial countries.

Politics As Usual

The 2010s saw the end of longtime Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s controversial tenure and the shock waves of the global financial crisis, which devastated Italy. After a series of mainstream leaders, voters punished traditional parties in the 2018 parliamentary elections, instead favoring two populist Eurosceptic alternatives: the left-wing Five Star Movement (Italian: Movimento Cinque Stelle) and the far-right League (Italian: Lega). The resulting government chose Conte as prime minister, an unknown lawyer accepted by President Mattarella. Against the odds, Conte maintained his post through two governments — including by presiding over a second cabinet of erstwhile enemies Five Star and the Democratic Party — and maintained impressive approval ratings. The christened “people’s lawyer” seemed to be Italy’s new rising star.

The coronavirus pandemic only deepened public faith in Conte. But when it came time to oversee relief funds issued by the E.U., conflict brewed with a small party in his coalition: Italia Viva, started by former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The “Demolition Man,” as Italians know Renzi, lived up to his name by pulling his ministers, thus denying Conte his parliamentary majority and triggering his departure. President Mattarella, as Renzi likely wanted all along, tapped Draghi to move forward. Renzi may note that he owes this effective political maneuver to the fact that he hails from Florence like Niccolò Machiavelli; yet however successful he was, his low approval ratings suggest Italians see him as more of a dunce than a prince.

The ensuing unity government, buttressed by parties across the political spectrum, has fostered a sense of optimism among many. However, these parties and their leaders are rather strange allies, likely united more by opportunism than patriotism. This haphazard cast of characters presents a key challenge for Draghi: to keep all satisfied in perpetuity, even those who may find incentive to work against him. Like before, politics remains in flux, contributing to sustained unpredictability. Regardless of this, the new administration is a temporary boon: after some weeks of volatility, a nation enduring sweeping health and economic crises has regained leadership under an undeniably competent figure. But it remains to be seen if Draghi can maintain a dynamic enough presence to put an end to the constant infighting that has come to emblematize Italian politics, or if he even wants this role for long. Many of his new bedfellows have their own aspirations; likely, Draghi is just one more cumbersome step in the way toward political success. With an election set for early 2023 at the latest, it is conceivable that future maneuvers may imperil Draghi’s government before then and thus reopen the floodgates.

Five Star and PD: Changing Fates on the Left

The Five Star Movement’s (M5S) considerable victory in 2018 gave it the most seats in parliament. It was founded by comedian and blogger Beppe Grillo in 2009, famous for encouraging vulgar protests against the political class. More confounding is its ideological position; scholars Lorenzo Mosca and Filippo Tronconi find it does not fit neatly on the left-right spectrum, but instead advocates an “eclectic populism” of sorts. It has prioritized some key left-wing positions like strident environmentalism and a reddito di cittadinanza — a universal basic income — in combination with Grillo’s key ingredient: fury against the elitist, corrupt governing casta, which encompasses both domestic elites and external ones, like the E.U. While victorious at the polls, this stance made the transition into governance quite difficult. It has, albeit at different times, partnered with both the rightist League and its erstwhile enemy, the Democratic Party, as part of fractious coalitions.

Today it stands at risk of political implosion. At near 15%, M5S polls below the Democrats and two right-wing competitors. Its partnerships with other parties likely make it less authentic to many who supported it in a rage against the machine. When they asked their supporters online whether or not to back Draghi, a tepid 59% responded ‘sì,’ even with a question with wording some considered skewed to favor this outcome. On the day of voting to confirm Draghi’s government in parliament, at least 15 M5S members voted against him; more party defections have followed. Many cited working in coalition with Berlusconi as the final straw.

Even so, new elections would likely yield substantial losses. Thus the technocratic, establishment Draghi is a bitter pill to swallow, but digest it M5S must for now. (One development to watch is if Conte accepts offers to serve as a new party leader, which some polls suggest could revive M5S’s support.) Meanwhile, the center-left Democratic Party (PD) has reversed its fortunes since 2018, when it won the fewest number of votes in its history, and is now rising again in the polls. With Renzi having broken off for his personal Italia Viva project, the PD has again become a force that could improve its standing in the future. All three parties have joined forces with Draghi to govern. Whereas M5S is making a largely tactical move, PD and Italia Viva have a prime minister much more to their liking — for now at least. Draghi’s success and brand could also help rejuvenate theirs if he remains popular. 

Salvini and Friends: The Shadow of the Far Right

The right side of Italy’s political equation, on the other hand, includes some of the country’s most notorious politicians. The ubiquitous Matteo Salvini of the League is a far-right, Eurosceptic populist and immigration hardliner with a formidable social media following. As the former Minister of the Interior, he proudly denied boats carrying migrants from docking, contrary to international asylum principles. He also impressively helped to transform the League from a pro-northern, anti-southern regionalist party to a full blown right-wing populist outfit. Considering this political acumen and popularity, Salvini has certainly earned the title of “most feared man in Europe.”

His decision to back Draghi is a strategic one as well. The term ‘far-right’ has been an albatross around the League’s neck, and at the urging of some in parliament and a sizable northern moderate constituency, Salvini has chosen to downplay his Euroscepticism and support a mainstream government. The last time he saw an opportunity — albeit one that did not go quite as planned — to sink a government to consolidate power in a snap election, he did so. Salvini, without doubt, wants to be prime minister one day, and could bargain to collapse the government eventually if he smells blood. He would also have some allies to fall back upon. The right-wing Brothers of Italy (Italian: Fratelli d’Italia, FdI) has gained markedly in the polls, picking up much of any support Salvini has lost, claiming the title of Italy’s third most popular party at the moment. A consistent far-right option, party leader Giorgia Meloni could be a potential ally to Salvini, sharing his views on immigration, Islam, and other social matters. More than this, she has chosen to steer clear of joining Draghi’s government, allowing her to receive attention as the opposition and remain insulated from potential government controversy. The brash Berlusconi and his Forza Italia (FI) party have also reentered the limelight, granting support to Draghi.

For all the fears of a Marine Le Pen victory in France, Italy could very easily produce a far-right government in the hands of Salvini, with the backing of Meloni and Berlusconi. In the event of another shakeup, Salvini and Meloni likely fare well in elections and could be ready to form a replacement bloc. This is not to say the two do not also have reason to compete; if Brothers continues its growth and League remains on its current trajectory, their positions on the hierarchy could switch, rendering them Italy’s premier electoral competitors. Yet it is clear that Salvini’s ambition, which sometimes requires him to water down some positions and rhetoric, even those positions which have become integral to his identity, is not purely ideological. His will to power is clear.

Draghi’s Challenge and Italy’s Purgatory

“Why Italy wants Mr. Draghi is easy to see,” commented the Wall Street Journal Editorial Board, but “why Mr. Draghi wants the job… is a mystery for the ages.” It is true, premiers receive few thanks and suffer many headaches, as governing in Rome has not been easy. The last time a technocrat rode in on a white horse to “save Italy,” it was Mario Monti, who shepherded bitter austerity measures from 2011 to 2013. This time, explains Carlo Invernizzi Accetti of Foreign Policy, the E.U.’s coronavirus recovery aid will help Rome avoid this fate again, but this presents the challenge of how best to distribute it, a lesson Conte learned all too well. Draghi could be successful in reversing long-term decline in Italy’s economy using new stimulus, but could be constrained by entrenched obstacles and the need to satisfy his new allies as well.

Many politicos also favored Draghi in order to avoid new elections, which many see as an invitation for a right-wing, decidedly Eurosceptic coalition to enter government. But this is quite a double-edged sword. However successful he may be, selecting leaders in this fashion is an unsustainable strategy, as it simply pushes off inevitable consequences at the ballot box. Moreover, it can serve to shake faith in establishment politics. Continuing to push forth a chosen savior, technocratic figure when the going gets tough can create popular mistrust, fueling the rise of anti-establishment challenger parties. The potentially fractious nature of his coalition means that, beyond just governing, Draghi will need to hold together quarreling parties while also preserving his own political aspirations. Rumor has it he may hope to replace Mattarella as president in the coming years, for which he will need the continued support of parliament. 

What is clear is that Italian politics have become no simpler. Draghi may have calmed the waters, but sharks still circle. The party system fluctuates over the span of a few years, leading to rapid change, inconsistent fortunes, and inherently unstable compromise governments. Short-lived coalitions, however, have been endemic to Italy throughout its postwar democracy. But in an era where economic circumstances have changed, usual institutions are under duress, and the impacts of a global recession a decade ago continue to reverberate, Italy — and other European countries — suffer from this uncertainty.

Looking Abroad

Despite its large economy and cultural significance, Italy has a less prominent profile in European affairs than one might expect. As Karolina Muti and Arturo Varvelli at the European Council on Foreign Relations note, despite Italy’s rather consistent pro-European and transatlantic sentiments, “chronic internal instability tends to undermine its credibility and reliability in the eyes of both NATO and EU allies.” Increasingly though, Rome seeks a more outsized role in security, including by bolstering its military capabilities as part of a European framework and settling issues like the Libyan conflict on favorable terms. Draghi seems well positioned to bolster Italy’s profile within the E.U., given France’s Emmanuel Macron is concerned with his own reelection fight next year, Germany’s Angela Merkel is in the final year of her chancellorship, and the United Kingdom has sailed away. If successful, he could conceivably play a role in mitigating the dominant Franco-German partnership over the E.U. and reorient Rome as a renewed ally for Washington. In fact, there is reason to believe that U.S. President Joe Biden’s administration may be celebrating Draghi, especially as it looks to rejuvenate the transatlantic partnership.

Other European leaders also have reason to pray for his success. After all, the rise of Eurosceptic parties in Italy is hardly comforting and Draghi may well stave them off for long enough. The prospect of real reform in one of Europe’s most debt-ridden economies is also cause for cautious celebration. Last but not least, Italy is a founding member of the E.U. and a beacon of culture and history for the continent with untapped potential in the modern era. But the distinct possibility of a short-lived government dampens long-term hope. The favorable reception to Draghi is probably not sufficient to keep allies from fearing they may have to communicate with a new voice in Rome in due time. On the other hand, if Draghi manages to position Italy well during his tenure, it could provide an incentive for future governments to continue on a similar — or at least not totally dissimilar — path.

Conclusion

Draghi is clearly a capable leader for uncertain times in Rome. However, his arrival does not resolve the existing factors driving frequent turnover in Italy’s government. The party system fluctuates often, contributing to unpredictability and troubling discontinuity. Euroscepticism and populism have become part of mainstream politics, while the establishment increasingly relies on selected technocrats to hold together temporary coalitions. It is worth noting that Italy has long experienced this sort of turmoil, but modern trends like rising debt and shaken faith in the European project make them all the more worrying. If Rome could stabilize its politics, pursue fiscal reforms without resorting to austerity, and augment its role in foreign affairs, it could shake many of the stumbling blocks and fault lines which have grown to characterize its civic identity. Draghi certainly has his work cut out for him, but could begin to tackle these challenges if his premiership ultimately proves successful. Thus, the hope for Italy is not that he is simply triumphant, but that he is transformative.

The Plight of Saudi Human Rights Activists

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has frequently been in the news for human rights violations, marring the image crown prince Mohammad bin Salman (often referred to as MBS) has attempted to craft for himself as a progressive ruler who is ushering in a new golden age for Saudi Arabia. Chief among his efforts to portray himself as a departure from the regressive policies of his predecessors was lifting the ban on women driving in the kingdom - almost ironically, one of the most damning incidents in the past couple of years has been the arrest, detainment, and alleged torture of activist Loujain al-Hathloul. A graduate of the University of British Columbia, al-Hathloul was arrested in March 2018 when attempting to drive into Saudi Arabia from the United Arab Emirates where no restrictions on women driving exist. Since then, she has been detained in a prison, where her family has alleged on several occasions that she has been electrocuted, sexually assaulted, threatened with rape and murder, and put into solitary confinement for long periods of time. al-Hathloul, who is currently on a hunger strike, has become a symbol for the continued mistreatment of human rights activists in Saudi Arabia, with multiple diplomatic envoys, world governments, and human rights organizations attempting to intervene on her behalf. 

Beyond Loujain al-Hathloul, Saudi Arabia has perhaps inadvertently built a reputation for being one of the most repressive regimes in the world. In 2019, they held the second highest numbers of writers and public intellectuals in prison globally (PEN America), they were ranked the 170th worst country for press freedom in the world out of 180 (Reporters Without Borders), they ranked 146th out of 153 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index (World Economic Forum), and overall, were the the world’s seventh least free country (Freedom House). Political parties, trade unions, independent human rights groups are banned altogether with the kingdom denying access to foreign organizations such as Amnesty International, while protests and public demonstrations were prohibited by the Saudi Ministry of Interior in 2011. Particular attention was called to Saudi Arabia’s human rights record after the assassination of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was dismembered and killed in the Saudi consultate in Istanbul on October 2, 2018. Khashoggi had been extremely critical of MBS in particular, and had fled Saudi Arabia in 2017, expressing concern for his life. 

While these statistics and incidents leave most with no doubt about Saudi Arabia’s utter disregard - some may say contempt - for human rights, the kingdom remains committed to rebranding themselves as a progressive beacon of the region. In what Human Rights Watch has called “a deliberate strategy to deflect from the country’s image as a pervasive human rights violator,” MBS has undertaken a spending plan dubbed “Vision 2030,” which aims to attract tourists - and foreign investment - while restructuring Saudi’s economy. A sweeping set of reforms was announced in July 2020, when the Council of Ministers implemented amendments to three landmark laws, all of which dealt with the kingdom’s highly controversial and discriminatory male guardianship system. Firstly, a change made to the Labor Law clarified that a “worker” - until then widely understood as being synonymous with a man - could be female as well, and introduced new protections against discrimination in employment on the basis of sex, disability, of age. This is particularly significant in that it is now illegal for private employers to insist that potential female employees provide proof of approval of their male guardian. Secondly, these reforms included changes to civil status issues, as women can now register their children’s births with the civil status office in addition to informing the office of death, marriage, or divorce. Women can also now be considered a “head of household,” granting them significantly more rights where their children are concerned. Finally, for the first time, Saudi women over the age of 21 can obtain their own passports without being forced to seek permission from their male guardian - in mid-August, this was expanded by a change in regulation allowing women over 21 to travel abroad without required permission from their male guardian. In addition to these legislative changes, sports games and music concerts have been opened up to women, allowing them to participate in civil society in a way not seen before. Major reforms, to be sure - however, women operating outside the scope of these reforms remain in jail, subjected to horrific treatment, and on a lesser scale, severe social stigma. As Walid al-Hathloul put it in the Guardian, “How can we claim we are opening up to the world when we don’t even respect basic human rights?” Saudi women still need a male guardian’s approval to get married, male guardians can still file cases for “disobedience” against their female charges (daughters, wives, or relatives), which can lead either to forcible return to their male guardian’s house or in extreme cases, imprisonment. 

Human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, Freedom House, and Human Rights Watch have widely reported on the atrocious conditions women rights activists in particular face in prison. Amnesty International’s Middle East research director, Lynn Maalouf, has released a statement saying “We are extremely concerned about the wellbeing of these activists, who have been in arbitrary detention for around nine months simply for standing up for human rights… we are calling on the Saudi Arabian authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all human rights defenders who are being detained solely for their peaceful human rights work.” Saudi authorities have dismissed these torture allegations as baseless, claiming that “The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s judiciary system does not condone, promote, or allow the use of torture. Anyone… being investigated is going through the standard judiciary process led by the public prosecution while being held for questioning, which does not in any way rely on torture either physical, sexual, or psychological.'' Reports by Amnesty International say otherwise, providing evidence that a total of 10 activists were tortured and sexually abused during their first three months of detention alone. One activist was wrongly told her family members had died, and was kept under this pretension for a full month, while others alleged being tortured with electric shocks. In addition to discrediting the progressive image the kingdom is attempting to craft for itself, the treatment of women violates social norms commonly held in both Saudi Arabia and Islam itself, according to Loujain al-Hathloul’s sister, Alia al-Hathloul.

Among those who have been subjected to the harshest treatment are womens rights activists who have protested the ban on driving, prior to its lifting in 2016. While Loujain al-Hathloul is possibly the most well-known, Aziza al-Yousef, Eman al-Nafjan, and Hatoon Al-Fassi have also attracted media attention for protesting both the female driving ban and male guardianship system. Yousef, in 2016, started a petition to have the male guardianship system dissolved - and in 2013, both Nafjan and and Yousef participated in a protest demanding the government end the driving ban for women. Beyond the troubling allegations of torture, Saudi Arabia has attracted criticism for the secrecy with which these trials have been conducted, beginning with the charges themselves. According to the International Federation for Human Rights, these activists (as of 2019) had yet to be publicly presented with any charges from the authorities. Vague accusations have been leveled against them by local media, including “financial support to enemies overseas”, and “suspicious contacts with foreign entities.” Perhaps most concerning, their hearings have been closed to reporters and diplomats, preventing any third parties from seeing if there have been any legitimate claims leveled against them.

Beyond the continued outcry from human rights groups, diplomatic and supranational organizations have condemned Saudi violations of human rights. In 2019, Australia delivered a joint statement at the UN in Geneva on behalf of Member States, a cross-regional group, expressing “serious concerns over the persecution and intimidation of activists, including women human rights defenders, involving reports of torture, extrajudicial killing, enforced disappearances, unfair trials, arbitrary detention, and impunity for perpetrators.” ISHR’s Human Rights Council advocate Salma El Hosseiny added, “A cross-regional group of States led by Australia have stood up today for human rights despite the political and economic costs… The international communty sent a strong and clear message to the government of Saudi Arabia that its crimes won’t go unanswered and that as a Council member, it will be held to heightened scrutiny.” In the United States, forty-five members of Congress have formally and publicly expressed concern over Saudi Arabia hosting the 2020 G20 summit. Similarly, the European Parliament voted to downgrade its representation at the summit in response to Saudi Arabia’s human rights abuses.

It remains to be seen whether a combination of following through on reforms, a return to the type of equitable and humanitarian treatment Islam demands, and pressure from the international community will push Saudi Arabia to change its despicable track record on human rights abuses.

The Child Welfare Fraud Scandal: Resignations of the Dutch Government

On January 15, the entire Dutch government resigned over a child welfare fraud scandal. Although Prime Minister Mark Rutte was the one who handed in the resignations, the Cabinet made the decision unanimously, and the officials accepted full responsibility for their mistakes. They concurred with the masses of parents and concerned citizens who brought the issue forward that their efforts to limit abuses of child care benefits led to widespread false accusations of tax fraud. Some families were told that they had to reimburse all of the benefits that they had ever received from the government, and these types of cases have caused extreme financial hardship for many families across the country. Although this was a large scandal with discriminatory and serious repercussions for numerous Dutch people, it seems that the Netherlands is not really in the midst of political uncertainty. When the results come in from the upcoming elections, some suspect that those in power will be relatively unchanged. 

The Dutch Government

In order to grasp the implications of these resignations, one must understand the leadership and political structures at play. The Netherlands is a constitutional monarchy, meaning that the Constitution regulates the monarch’s powers. While King Willem-Alexander is currently the head of state, it is generally accepted that Parliament — the House of Representatives — is the “highest political body.” It is also important to note that the word “government” often refers only to the executive branch, and Parliament is generally not included in that term. The Cabinet is part of the executive branch and composed of both ministers and state secretaries, and they make up the collective that resigned on January 15. The “actual decisions” on behalf of the government are made by the Council of Ministers, and the Council is chaired by the Prime Minister, who is appointed by the monarch. Mark Rutte remains as the Prime Minister with a demissionary status, and as aforementioned, he is the one who delivered the cabinet’s resignation to the King. 

The Child Welfare Scandal

The scandal emerged from the government’s efforts to prevent excessive abuses of the benefit system. The push was a result of the “Bulgarian fraud” issue that was uncovered in 2013, where the Dutch people discovered that Bulgarian gangs and migrants had made fake claims for childcare and housing benefits. About $120 million was involved, and the public began to grow worried about increases in immigration throughout the European Union. The massive fraud became a major point of concern, but in trying to respond to the scandal, the Dutch government unknowingly created a larger one.

The Childcare Act of 2005 provided money to low-income families in order to pay for daycare and babysitting. However, after the implementation of the Act, the Dutch government created a system for extra screening in 2012. The next substantive official action in the government’s mission to crack down on fraud was a provision in a coalition agreement, originating during Prime Minister Rutte’s first term. Afterwards, the government created a Fraud Management Team on May 28, 2013 which then established another coalition. The coalition lasted until 2015. The anti-fraud systems were designed in order to weed out those who did not actually qualify for the child welfare benefit, but once these systems were instated, they ended up being far more extensive and restrictive than the goals of the government’s original mission. Miniscule errors such as forgetting to sign a single line on a form led to accusations of fraud, and “these families were forced to pay the entirety of the benefits back, driving many families to bankruptcy.” Despite lesser public attention surrounding the butchered welfare systems, Finance Minister Frans Weekers resigned in 2014 due to the scandal. However, it was not enough to stop the negligence that has carried on.

As parents began to call for the resignations of the Dutch government, the world learned that 20,000 to 30,000 Dutch families were accused of fraud over a period of the past several years. An investigation into the government’s actions was launched, and a parliamentary report was generated as a result of that investigation. Some major condemnatory points were explicitly stated: “Fundamental principles of the rule of law were violated,” and there was “unprecedented injustice” involving a multitude of innocent parents and families. Accordingly, “at least 20 families are pursuing legal action against ministers who were involved in the affair, although it was announced that nobody in the tax office was being sued. The Cabinet accepted the conclusions of the report and acknowledged that they were some of the main people responsible, and Prime Minister Rutte called the report “hard as nails” but “fair.” There seems to be little contention outside of and within the government about whether or not to hold them responsible for negligence and extreme error.

Inequality in the Netherlands

The child welfare fraud scandal has opened the door to a further discussion of various inequalities in the Netherlands. As part of Article I of the Dutch Constitution, the text reads: “All persons in the Netherlands shall be treated equally in equal cases.” It also supposedly binds the government to “ensure that anyone who needs social security benefits will receive them.” However, this epic scandal serves as evidence that the law is not always adhered to, even in pieces of national legislation. The widespread and wrongful fraud accusations have furthered the current problematic economic disparities, and the parliamentary report explained that they have disproportionately affected immigrants as well as poor families. 

This scandal has increased the distrust between the Dutch people and their government, and there has been a call for more transparency. In May of 2020, the government asked public prosecutors to look into any possible discrimination in the years between 2013 and 2017. The results of this investigation have not yet been released to the public. Prime Minister Rutte also addressed the situation specifically, by calling the discrimination and rampant inequalities “unacceptable” and once again taking responsibility for his hand in it. He expressed that the government must make sure that nothing like that ever happens again, and his administration passed a resolution giving 10,000 affected families €30,000 each. Yet, the lawyer representing 600 victims said that this money had not yet been distributed. 

The Prime Minister, Political Parties, and the Upcoming Elections 

Prime Minister Mark Rutte was appointed by the King and sworn into office in 2010, and he resigned partway into his third term. He had a relatively reputable standing as a politician before this national scandal, occasionally being given the description of a “rule follower,” “a straight-shooter,” and other positive descriptors. This strong image is one of the reasons why the child welfare fraud scandal may have come as a shock to people across the world. 

While Prime Minister Rutte and the members of his Cabinet continue in politics with somewhat tarnished reputations, the opportunity for a change in Dutch leadership is approaching. The general election has been scheduled to be held on March 17, and there are currently three main political parties in the Netherlands: the Christian Democrats (CD), Labour (PvdA), and Liberal (VVD) parties. Voting happens through a “list system of proportional representation.” 

Prime Minister Rutte is the first Liberal in his senior position in 92 years, and one would likely think that his party would be significantly harmed by the ongoing benefit scandal. However, the center-right Liberal Party he represents has been polling extremely well, even after the resignations; they actually remain the number one party in the polls. This is probably not too surprising to those who know that mass resignations and this sort of political upset have happened before in the Netherlands — even recently. To get a sense of what may come in March, people can recall the political effects of 2006. Much like in the current situation, the full Cabinet stepped down, including the Prime Minister. Instead of a political flip, Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende continued in his position, ultimately serving from 2002 to 2010. Considering the combination of the polls and the events of 2006, it seems that the leaders in Dutch politics will be relatively unchanging in March, despite the massive scandal and admitted negligence on the part of the government. It may also help that the government took the blame for their actions, making them look like they are willing to be held accountable and will learn from their mistakes. 

In the Dutch government’s efforts to prevent abuses of the benefit system, Cabinet officials displayed negligence that led to discriminatory and harsh actions against a multitude of innocent families. The repercussions of the government’s crackdown on fraud were devastating — but many people do not anticipate a major shift in political leadership. The child welfare fraud scandal and the subsequent resignations of the top Dutch officials may not have as much of an impact as people would expect. At the moment, the political future of the Netherlands and the status of Dutch representation in the European Union seems relatively stable.

One Face, One World: The Life and Legacy of Sultan Qaboos bin Said

As the world reels from the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic, unmanageable civil unrest, and widespread political upheaval, it is easy to lose sight of seemingly smaller events. For many living in the United States and the Western world, the passing of Omani Sultan Qaboos bin Said on January 10th, 2020 was little more than a passing headline. But for the people of Oman, the death of their reigning monarch represented the end of an era. Bereavement did not fail to extend outside of the country however, as family and officials in Muscat received condolences from leaders worldwide. From Kenya to Pakistan and across the Middle East, Omanis everywhere shouldered their grief with the plethora of kings, presidents, and prime ministers who had the distinct honor of meeting the Sultan. It is hard to fathom the impact of such a man upon Oman and the region. Why did the death of one man elicit such an outpouring of sympathy from leaders across the world? How is it that this natural cycle of a noble’s ascension, rule, death, and succession to the next ruler would cause tens of thousands to gather in Muscat for his funeral? 

In order to understand this subject, I paid a visit to the Omani Embassy in Washington, DC to interview Marwan al-Balushi, the Information Attaché. Meeting Mr. Al-Balushi for the first time, I am kindly greeted and welcomed into his office with a firm handshake before he instructs me to take a seat as he quickly darts out of the room. His office is tidied and neat, and as I adjust myself on the couch he has pointed me toward, I notice Sultan Qaboos’ royal portrait hung adjacent to that of his successor: Sultan Haitham bin Tariq. The gazes of both are intense but temperate, exuding a wisened calm into the room which is only added onto by the traditional Arabic music coming from Mr. Al-Balushi’s computer. Moments later when my interviewee returns, he carefully hands me a piping hot jigger of rich coffee, which he tells me is a classic Omani brew. Little bigger than a shot glass, it only takes a few sips of the uniquely spiced coffee before I’m jolted awake. After sharing some pleasantries and outlining the purpose of my presence at the embassy that day, Mr. Al-Balushi excitedly reaffirms his commitment to aiding in my understanding, and we begin the interview.

Where It All Began

I first ask for him to offer me an understanding of Sultan Qaboos’ accomplishments and policies, but before doing so, Mr. Al-Balushi insists that “a history of Oman is required” to put everything into perspective. “The time before Sultan Qaboos unmet the aspirations of its people,” he begins. “Oman was isolated, cut off from the world, and largely underdeveloped—there were only three schools in the entirety of the country.” In spite of its rich, triumphant history, it is true that the decades preceding Sultan Qaboos were a low point for the great nation. For instance, as can be seen from this biography of the time prior to Sultan Qaboos’ tenure, Taimur bin Feisal (Qaboos’ grandfather), was so disinterested in running his own country that he exiled himself to India to separate himself from the responsibility of managing Oman. Marked by a power feud between the imamate and sultanate—or the religious and political heads of state—then-Sultan Said bin Taimur significantly isolated the country and stagnated its industries. By the late-1960s, as the Sultan waged war with the Marxist guerilla group the Dhofar Liberation Front, the British had decided that Said bin Taimur had become too much trouble. Realizing his rule could not be legitimized through conquest alone, in July of 1970, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office aided in the coup d’état which placed bin Taimur’s son, Qaboos bin Said, upon the throne. As a July 27th, 1970 article from the New York Times writes, the Sultan expressed “I have watched with growing dismay and increasing anger the inability of my father to use the new‐found wealth of this country for the needs of its people. That is why I have taken control.”

Of course, it begs the question: Why was Britain so intent on managing Oman? Furthermore, where was this organized socialist opposition in the form of the DLF coming from? To the first point, Britain’s focus on Omani stability stemmed from the profound connection that Britain has possessed in relation to Oman since the late 1920s. At that time, Oman was technically two loosely-connected states comprising of Muscat (the coast) and Oman (the interior). These two states were essential in the consolidation of the London-based Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC). This monopolization of the Omani oil industry by the British contributed to the disunity of Oman and their further desire to stabilize it under Sultan Qaboos. As for the Dhofar Rebellion, much of this disturbance may be traced to the geographical vicinity of the Dhofar Governate in Oman to Yemen, which at the time was the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen. Fundamentally dedicated to spreading Marxism across the Arabian Peninsula, the DLF was a conglomeration of transnational irregular fighters which waged an almost 10-year war on the sultanate. With Qaboos’ successful stabilization efforts as well as armed support from the British and Imperial Persia, the Dhofar Rebellion finally ceased to be a significant entity by 1976.

A Step in the Right Direction

Under Sultan Qaboos, Oman redefined the responsibility of the government to its people, and substantially improved human rights and quality of life nationwide. Rather than hoarding the wealth to his own private treasury, Qaboos used the renter income from Oman’s petroleum industry to finance infrastructure projects, healthcare, education, and agriculture improvements. From 1960 to 2000, Oman’s infant mortality rate fell dramatically, from 169 for every 1,000 to just 18 for every 1,000.  “Improving the lives of workers was a big task for the Sultan,” Al-Balushi tells me, “and there are plenty of stories of the Sultan himself travelling the country, hearing out the personal stories of his countrymen and recommending them to the government for federal work. Occasionally, he even used his private wealth to pay outstanding family debts.” In some ways, Oman remained authoritarian and restricted. While Sultan Qaboos granted universal suffrage to all those over 21 in 1996 under Oman’s first constitution, “unauthorized public gatherings remained prohibited.” Compared to the state of Oman prior to 1970, however, the living standards for the average citizen dramatically increased with the ascension of Sultan Qaboos.

Oman additionally experienced a revolution to its very political system. “The old government style was referred to as barza,” Al-Balushi explains, “a decentralized form more akin to tribal rule than centralized power.” He goes on to explain how Sultan Qaboos introduced a bicameral system consisting of the houses of shura and dawla (equivalent to the American House of Representatives and Senate respectively). While the dawla is made up of appointed officials, the introduction of a democratically-elected shura was an incredible step in allowing for formal representation in the Omani political process. Unlike his father, Qaboos additionally introduced a system of “10-year advisors”, meant to legitimize a formerly informal system of consultants to the sultan as it had existed for centuries prior. This interest in a parliamentary system is unsurprising of course, given Qaboos’ education at Oxford and Britain’s Royal Military Academy of Sandhurst. But it was because of his broadening of political communications—for instance, joining the UN and Arab League in 1971—that allowed Oman to place the foundation for its foreign policy later.

Sultan Qaboos’ Foreign Policy

This brought us to the question of how the late sultan conducted his foreign policy. Al-Balushi explained that “the Sultan lived by, I would say, three core tenants: respect your neighbor, no intervention, and no agenda in other countries.” These pillars of Qaboos’ philosophy in relation to foreign nations is what has allowed Oman to remain on such stable terms with its neighbors and across the waters over the decades. Joseph Kechichian of the RAND Corporation expressed this in his piece covering Omani diplomacy. For Kechichian and other scholars, it was Qaboos’ “balancing [of] interests, tolerance toward differences, and a determined search for mutual benefits” that managed to skyrocket Oman’s prevalence on the world stage as a mediator during conflict. Al-Balushi chuckles lightly before stating “There’s a funny story, actually. During the conflict between Iraq and Kuwait, Oman was involved with the US-led coalition, and it formally condemned Sadam’s invasion. But when all other countries cut ties with Iraq, Oman was the only one to maintain its embassies in both Kuwait and Iraq.” This is confirmed by Kechichian in his article, and is frequently told to embody the spirit of Omani foreign policy. For Sultan Qaboos, there was no such thing as stepping away from the negotiating table.

Oman’s foreign policy has not gone without scrutiny however, and its involvement with some countries like Yemen has remained split to this day. On one hand, as Al-Balushi details, “following Oman’s war with Yemen early in Sultan Qaboos’ reign, he tried everything to connect with Yemen and ease tensions.” Indeed, Oman had previously opened its first consulates with Yemen under Sultan Qaboos, and had been involved in an attempt to jumpstart the Yemeni oil industry. But with the collapse of the Yemeni political system and the civil war there, Oman has come into shaky conflict with its fellow neighbors. For instance, in 2016 Oman was accused of smuggling arms to the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen, against the wishes of the Saudi-backed Gulf Cooperation Council. Oman similarly came into conflict with the rest of the Arab World following Egypt’s recognition of Israel in 1979. Oman stood with only Sudan and Somalia in maintaining relations with Anwar Sadat for what was considered an ultimately controversial decision. These examples serve as instances where Omani neutrality has served as a technicality for Middle Eastern countries to condemn it for its contradictory policies or inaction.

But this is where the uniqueness of Sultan Qaboos’ foreign policy comes into play. “He wanted one face and one world,” Mr. Al-Balushi continues. “Oman was about respect for human rights—even when it came to Israel and Palestine, Sultan Qaboos stood firm that any decision should be made in the respect of the rights of both parties to their sovereign determination. It is why Oman supports the legitimate and just demands of the Palestinian people of an independent Palestine with a capital in East Jerusalem, while simultaneously upholding the Arab Peace Initiative and a two-state solution.” Like with his general rule of non-interventionism, Sultan Qaboos was an advocate for universal equality and outcomes that benefited both parties. The reason why the story of Oman’s response to the Gulf War is so notable is because it shows a line of consistency. Just as in the recognition of Israel in 1979, Oman remained steadfast in supporting its ally in Egypt and not caving to the pressure of denouncing Sadat’s action so harshly. Meanwhile, not only are the claims of Houthi rebels being aided in the Yemeni conflict unreliable given Oman’s mediation of both sides, but Oman has remained steadfast in its conviction to holding no favorites. 

Remembering Sultan Qaboos bin Said

Recalling his experience with the phenomenon of Sultan Qaboos’ public image and how it has changed over time carefully, Mr. Al-Balushi illustrates how differences have been settled by telling me of how different the Arab Spring was for Oman. “Where other countries had protestors calling for the heads of state to be removed, the people of Oman said no. ‘We love you Sultan Qaboos, just not the ministers.’” This trend continued throughout the 2011 protests in Oman, as Omani civilians expressed “We love His Majesty, but there are problems we need to fix.” Al-Balushi continues, “Even then, you know what happened? Sultan Qaboos listened to his people.” Sure enough, Sultan Qaboos responded by firing a third of his cabinet in addition to helping the people directly by promising 50,000 government jobs and the opening of a second public university. Ultimately, the people of Oman were happy with the outcome of their protests, and praised the Sultan for his handling of the unrest.

As I am about to finish the interview, I ask Mr. Al-Balushi to try summarizing how Sultan Qaboos’ legacy will live on. Looking out the window as if in deep thought, Marwan’s eyes lightly water as he recalls “There are only two times in my life that I have cried. One of those times was upon the death of Sultan Qaboos.” Pausing to collect himself, he continues: “Sultan Qaboos crafted a new Oman and a new country from nothing, and he has crafted a foundation for everyone after him. I mean no disrespect, but Americans don’t understand. In the United States, in the West, politicians are temporary figures meant to serve three or four years. Their title and their position are their job and they are looked at like a worker. In Oman, Sultan Qaboos was more than that. He was not only a king; he was a father to everyone. He respected his country, and so his country respected him.”

A cynic will look at Oman and see an absolutist monarchy with little in the way of oversight as in the Western democracies. But this is not an endorsement of every policy and procedure under Sultan Qaboos. It is that there is a trust in the system, unique to Oman, which has allowed the country to thrive in the years following Sultan Qaboos’ ascension to the throne. It largely works because of the “kind of people the Omani people are" as Mr. Al-Balushi describes it. “We are a tolerant and an open-minded people. You want to go to a mosque, you go to a mosque, or you want to go to an opera, you go to an opera. You will find some Omani women with head scarves, and others without. That is what the Omani people are about.”

There is no way to completely predict what is in store for Oman or its people in the years to come. But if one thing is for certain, it is that Sultan Haitham bin Tariq has some big shoes to fill with the passing of Sultan Qaboos bin Said only a short while ago. If Oman is to survive as a unified people, they must continue to uphold the values of their beloved sultan: tolerance, rule of law, mutual respect, and spiritual passion. One can only hope that these principles are adopted by others around the world, and that a more stable Middle East and international order may be crafted from them.

UNAMID: A Retrospective

The United Nations/African Union Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID, for short) is coming to its conclusion, marking the first major UN peacekeeping mission to finish its tasks since the United Nations Missionin Liberia in early 2018. While the mission’s mandate ended with the new year, its actual drawdown will continuethrough the spring into early summer.

UNAMID was a bold, innovative, and controversial mission. This essay will be divided into three separate parts. First, I will examine the creation of UNAMID, then I will examine UNAMID’s effectiveness during its dozen years of service, and I will conclude by examining the present security environment in Darfur.

The Creation

UN Peacekeeping was in a strange position in the mid to late 2000s. The organization was still confronted by the endemic failures that had led to the mass killing of civilians in Rwanda and in Bosnia. Major policy papers, such as the 2000 Brahimi report, had outlined a more aggressive and more robust peacekeeping strategy that the architects of UN Peacekeeping were just starting to fully implement. The UN deployed a whole host of complex peacekeeping missions in 2004, sending forces into Haiti, Timor-Leste, Burundi, and Côte d’Ivoire, adding onto missions in Kosovo, Sierra Leone, and Liberia.

While the UN was sending troops all over the world, they didn’t deploy to Darfur. The western region of Sudan fell into brutal violence in 2003, when mobile Arab cattle herders known as Janjaweed began raiding the villages of Black Sudanese populations, frequently massacring, looting, and enslaving the population. The Janjaweed had the support of the Sudanese government, who wanted to wipe out Black Sudanese rebel groups in the region.

By 2004, the situation in Darfur had become one of the worst human rights crises in the world. A variety ofhuman rights organizations, civil associations, and celebrities formed the

“Save Darfur” campaign and began lobbying western governments. The United States and European Union both described the crisis as a genocide, and the UN Security Council recommended charges to the ICC. While the Security Council believed UN Peacekeepers were stretched too thin at the time, African Union peacekeepers would deploy in 2004. As part of the AU Mission in Sudan (AMIS), thousands of African soldiers would deploy to the region. After several international observers questioned their ability to protect civilians and their willingness to confront the Sudanese government, the UN took over the mission in 2007, “re-hatting” the existing troops from AU green to UN blue, and deploying additional UN forces.

 This marked a new innovation in UN Peacekeeping operations. Prior to UNAMID, cooperation betweenthe UN and other regional bodies was still being developed. While UN Peacekeepers had worked alongside ECOWAS forces in West Africa, and NATO forces in the Balkans, UNAMID marked a new frontier in both inter-institutional cooperation as well as a new model for cooperation going forward. The UN would provide the peacekeeping expertise and the AU would provide committed troop contributors. Furthermore, there was also a key political divide that greatly increased effectiveness: the UN would engage with western partners, with whom they had a strong rapport and the AU would engage with the Sudanase government, who the AU had experience working with.

UNAMID also was a major innovator in Protection of Civilian mandates. While all missions created in the new millennium had a Protection of Civilians mandate, UNAMID was one of the few that was primarily focused on protecting civilians. Authorized under Chapter VII of the UN charter, rather than the traditional Chapter VI,UNAMID was deployed into a situation where there was, at best, limited peace to keep. It was also faced with a deeply uncooperative government in Khartoum. UNAMID was the one of the first UN Peacekeeping missions that deployed ready to, if needed, violently engage with its host state and its paramilitary provies in order to protect civilians.

UNAMID During Operations

UNAMID’s deployment was slow. Two years in, it had only deployed 79 percent of its authorized military personnel and 71 percent of the police contingent. Part of this was caused by many countries being unwilling to deploy peacekeepers to a dangerous environment, while part of this delay was caused by the uncooperative nature of the Sudanese government. In addition, UNAMID deployed five years into a brutal conflict. It’s estimated that about 300,000 civilians had died by late 2008, mostly from starvation and disease. UNAMID was authorized too late, and once authorized, the recruitment of additional forces took too long. This consistent late reaction has been a hallmark of UN peacekeeping missions, and unfortunately UNAMID was no exception. Once deployed, UNAMID was a mixed bag. While successful with the resources that it had, it lacked the resources it needed to adequately implement its mission.

Let’s start with the good. UNAMID was mostly able to protect civilians within its area of operations. UNAMID police forces were able to create a secure environment inside of the dozens of internally displaced persons (IDP) camps throughout the region, and UN troops deterred combatants from attacking certain civilian population centers near UN bases. Furthermore, UN troops engaged in proactive protection of civilian patrols. The most notable of these were the “firewood patrols” which protected displaced women as they gathered firewood outside of the camps, a previously highly dangerous activity. UNAMID was able to protect humanitarian aid shipments, which helped alleviate someof the deep food and medicine shortages in the region.

Through negotiation and mediation, UNAMID was able to lay down the framework for a long term peace.

But UNAMID had its flaws. The mission was never strong enough to fully accomplish its mission. Darfur is a region with the size of California and the population of Michigan. While UNAMID’s 20,000 soldiers and police officers made it one of the largest peacekeeping missions in the world, it was not large enough to fully protect a region of that size. In 2010, UNAMID would admit that it could only adequately protect half of the region's population, mostly those concentrated in IDP camps and urban areas. UNAMID was plagued with major transportation issues. Protecting civilians is a mostly reactive task, quickly deploying troops to areas where civilians are in imminent danger. To accomplish that rapidreaction capability over such large, sparsely populated areas, a peacekeeping mission requires transport helicopters. UNAMID was never able to scrounge up the helicopters it needed in order to complete its mission, with the ones it were able to requisition beingeither unsuited to the task, insufficient in number, or too short-term to make a difference.

Furthermore, the Sudanese government proved to be a nuisance at best, and a menace at worst. An agreement between the UN and the Sudanese government which allowed UNAMID to deploy with Sudanese consent stipulated that the mission must have a predominantly ‘African character.’ Khartoum would take great advantage of this provision, frequently vetoing the deployment of non-African contingents, leaving UNAMID undermanned and underequipped. As a 2014 Foreign Policy report had succinctly put it, UNAMID had ”been bullied by government security forces and rebels, stymied by American and Western neglect, and left without the weapons necessary to fight in a region where more peacekeepers have been killed than in any other U.N. mission in the world.”

UNAMID was a mixed bag. While it was successful in some respects, it failed in others. It’s failureshighlighted a continuing gap in almost all UN Peacekeeping missions between what is asked of them and the means they are provided with in order to actually accomplish that task.

The End of UNAMID

Several dramatic changes in both the Sudanese and UN situations in the late 2010s would lead to UNAMID’s eventual withdrawal. First, Omar al-Bashir, the President of Sudan since 1989, was overthrown in a 2019 military coup following months of extensive street protests.

Al-Bashir was was the one who funded the Janjaweed, and would the next year be extradited to the International Criminal Court (ICC) to face genocide charges. The new government in

Khartoum would be a hodge-podge transitional government of civilians activists and military strongmen, but theyproved to be a much better group of peacemakers than al-Bashir's regime.

The Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF), the main opposition rebel group, would reach a peace agreement with the Sudanese government in 2020. The SRF would integrate with the Sudanese Armed Forces and they would get seats in government.

At the same time the UN was faced with a financial problem. Demands for budget cuts to peacekeeping,initially by the Trump administration and then later as a result of COVID, made eliminating one of the UN’s largest and most expensive missions a needed cost saving measure in the eyes of the Security Council. UNAMID began to hand over control of key military installations and protection of civilian missions to the newly integrated Sudanese Armed Forces in late 2020.

There are still reasons to be concerned. Violence is still common in the region, and the situation in Sudan as a whole is deeply unstable and unpredictable. Most of the military leaders who control half of Sudan's new government, and who are now charged with protecting the people of Darfur, were the same military officers who commited war crimes in the region while serving al-Bashir. But even with that in mind, it looks like Darfur has its greatest opening for peace since the war started in 2003.

While UNAMID’s withdrawl constitutes a severe reduction in the UNs presence in Sudan, it does not mark a total withdrawl. A special political mission, the UN Integrated Transition Assistance Mission in Sudan (UNITAMS) will replace UNAMID as a successor mission, with a focus on peacebuilding and engagement with the Sudanese government. It won’t have any troops, and will lack the Protection of Civilians mandate that was present in UNAMID. This transition is emblematic of Secretary-General Guterres’ peacekeeping strategy throughout his term. He has consistently favored smaller, cheaper, and more agilepolitical missions rather than larger, more capable, more expensive multidimensional peace operations.

UNAMID was a strange mission. A UN/AU hybrid, created as a result of a primarily western human rightscampaign rarely seen in peacekeeping history, it was able to accomplish some of its goals with limited support from New York. While it was not a full success, UNAMID taught UN peacekeeping as a whole vital lessons in inter-organizational cooperation, troop deployment, and Protection of Civilian missions that will hopefully be taken to heart going forward.

Comparing Trump and Biden's Foreign Policy

It’s a new day in Washington D.C.. With the swearing in of Joseph R. Biden over, and the confirmation of his cabinet members well underway, the Biden administration has commenced overturning several key policy themes of the previous administration, from climate change to civil rights. One contentious area where drastic changes have yet to occur, however, is foreign policy. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has quickly set about contacting his counterparts across the globe, and the Paris Climate Agreement has been rejoined - but on many pressing issues, the tone is all that has changed. 

With the presidential campaign heating up amidst a global pandemic killing hundreds, if not thousands of Americans daily, deteriorating race relations reaching a breaking point after the murders of George Floyd, Ahmad Arbury, and Breonna Taylor, and the largest economic downturn on record since the Great Depression, it is perhaps unsurprising that foreign relations were low on the list of priorities in debates, speeches, or press releases. Russia, one area that was always a little bit too relevant for the Trump administration, did arise on the campaign trail, with President Biden lambasting Trump for his lack of action against Russian President Vladimir Putin, in wake of the startling news that Putin was paying bounties to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. While the Trump administration has been characterized by its lenience in the face of election interference and bounties on American troops alike, they have not been quite so steadfast in China-US relations, where they swung wildly between hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping for a summit and getting into a trade war that, at least according to Vice President Kamala Harris, the US has lost. Biden has advocated for, firstly, taking a harder stance on human rights from Hong Kong to the Uyghur genocide, and secondly, applying pressure on China’s trade practices. Biden’s advisers have touted some aspects of Trump’s China policy as worth continuing, such as the economic and diplomatic pressure placed on Beijing over things such as trade practices and technology theft. These advisers have held more fault with Trump’s erratic, brash statements than the policy itself. There is a similar disconnect between policy and rhetoric in the Middle East; while Trump and Biden had a shared goal of withdrawing troops, Trump insisted, publicly and often, that troops would be pulled out on a strict timeline that never materialized. On the other hand, President Biden struck a more cautious tone, saying withdrawal was contingent on the meeting of benchmarks that have yet to be determined. 

Much of Biden’s foreign policy appears to be a return to the Obama years, a strategy that fits neatly into his overall message about a return to normalcy. Included in this return to normalcy is reaffirming our commitment to NATO and the Iran nuclear deal which Trump pulled out of directly, imposing sanctions that hurt Iran's economy and resulted in an increase in nuclear activity. While some leftists have criticized Biden for failing to promise more progressive foreign policy, many have argued that Trump damaged both relations with allies and the very institution of American diplomacy to the point that it needs to be walked back to a baseline and stabilized before any more action is taken. One area that illustrates this is Afghanistan - Trump campaigned on pulling troops out, and the administration brokered a deal with the Taliban calling for US troops to leave by mid-2021. Biden has refused to commit to a definitive end date, insisting that conditions on the ground must be monitored closely. This is not to say Biden is taking no action on foreign policy at all - beyond rejoining supranational institutions such as the Paris Climate Agreement, World Health Organization, NATO, the Iran Nuclear Deal, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership, he has also swiftly reversed some actions of the Trump administration, such as the “Muslim ban, a travel ban that restricted citizens of primarily Muslim countries from immigrating to the United States. Continuing in this vein, President Biden has pledged to take a stance on refugees that is more humanitarian than isolationist, in a sharp turnaround from the Trump administration’s cap of 15,000 annually. Indeed, Biden is even surpassing the Obama administration’s cap of 85,000, to admit 125,000 refugees annually. 

While on the campaign trail, almost exactly a year ago, President Biden laid out his foreign policy proposal, full of idealism and promises for direct action, in Foreign Affairs magazine. Included in this were a laundry list of changes, a “day-one down payment on our commitment to living up to democratic values at home.” Among these were the reversal of the Trump administration’s highly controversial family separation policy, reaffirming the ban on torture, more transparency in US military operations, and restoring a government-wide focus on lifting up women and girls around the world. Later, he would propose a “global Summit for Democracy,” calling democratic leaders and civil society organizations around the world to America to “put strengthening democracy back on the global agenda”. 

While the Summit for Democracy seems to have been put on the back burner, global leaders seem unequivocally relieved to have someone with foreign policy experience and diplomatic chops in the White House again. Biden is uniquely suited to repair America’s image abroad, having served twice as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and having met with close to 150 foreign leaders from nearly 60 countries. Anne Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris, provided perhaps the best endorsement of Biden’s positive image abroad, tweeting “Welcome back America” shortly after the election.

In his first hundred days, beyond the myriad domestic crises occurring, Biden has been left with a series of increasingly alarming international crises, the Trump administration’s parting gift. In his lame duck days, Trump set about damaging the last reachable parts of Obama’s foreign policy legacy that Biden came in hoping to rebuild. As Raffaello Pantucci, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies in Singapore put it, “The Trump administration is locking in place a series of conflicts that change the starting point for Biden walking into office on the world stage.” In his last days in office, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo oversaw legislation and statements that named Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism, planned to designate the Houthi rebels in Yemen as a foreign terrorist organization, and lifted restrictions on contact between American officials and Taiwanese officials. This last shift in policy is particularly dangerous, diplomatically speaking, as it threatens to wreak havoc on a fragile peace struck by decades of building US-China relations. Since the US established formal diplomatic ties with the People’s Republic of China in 1979, it has refrained from having official diplomatic relations with China - until now. 

All in all, it is easy to believe that there will not be a seismic shift in foreign policy with the transition of power, but rather in rhetoric. Restoring moral leadership and soft power as cornerstones of American foreign policy are priorities of the Biden administration - the Summit for Democracy is simply the manifestation of a desire to showcase the commitment to returning strengthening global democracy to a priority. While Biden may be focusing on rebuilding the moral aspects of US foreign policy, Trump focused mainly on economic and security ideas - translating, policy-wise, to a priority on peace and international cooperation for the former, and prosperity and safety for the latter.

In the foreign policy proposal published in March 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was gathering strength, Biden pledged, “As president, I will take immediate steps to renew U.S. democracy and alliances… This is not a moment for fear. This is the time to tap the strength and audacity that took us to victory in two world wars and brought down the Iron Curtain.” It is almost ironic, Biden calling for Americans to not be afraid, directly before one of the most tumultuous years in American history, before a year that would see hundreds of thousands dead from the pandemic, millions unemployed, widespread civil unrest, and an insurrection that killed five and very nearly resulted in the assassination of multiple members of Congress. If we tapped into our reserves of strength and audacity to lead us to victory in two world wars and brought down the Iron Curtain abroad, America will need to dig deeper than ever before to heal our own divisions before we attempt to lead the world again. It remains to be seen whether the actions taken thus far are just the first step in Biden’s self described “return to soft power,” or yet another area where the American people will have to say, as Greta Thunberg put it, “while we do appreciate beautiful speeches and promises - we prefer action”.

Trump’s Legacies in China: Lessons Biden Can Learn

Introduction

President Trump’s withdrawal of the United States from international institutions, and subsequently the international arena, has left rising powers such as China to undermine the liberal world order. The US has classified China as a revisionist power on the basis that China is exploiting global rules and norms in favor of its own interests over the interests of others. Yet, President Trump’s approach towards China does not prevent China from taking advantage of the US and will have long lasting implications for the future of US-China relations. Before President Trump, disagreements between China and the United States over trade, human rights, and cybersecurity already existed. President Trump’s strategy towards China did not resolve these issues but exacerbated existing conflicts and created new problems. President Trump’s attempt at holding China accountable for taking advantage of the US economy, intellectual property, and institutions have pushed the two countries to the brink of war. With Joseph Biden winning the 2020 US Presidential election, American allies, scholars on US-China relations, and citizens of both countries are paying close attention to what President-elect Biden’s approach to China will look like. Based on the current tensions between the US and China, it is likely that the confrontational approach of President Trump will continue under Biden. The enduring implications of President Trump’s foreign policy towards China has lessons in which President-elect Biden can learn and develop a more effective way of dealing with the superpower.

Lessons Biden Can Learn From 

Lesson #1: Trade disputes can be resolved by economic tools other than tariffs, and trade agreements should address structural issues.

President Trump has regularly prided himself on the fact that he is a businessman and believes his skills will help the US gain a competitive advantage over China in trade. In the summer of 2018, Trump began his lengthy trade war with China by imposing tariffs on thousands of Chinese manufactured products. Before the trade war, the Chinese economy was already showing signs of slowing economic growth. Therefore, the trade war further impacted China’s economy. The tariffs that Trump imposed significantly impacted Chinese manufacturers who saw a decline in exports to the US by more than 12%. The trade war exacerbated China’s existing sluggish economic growth and forced smaller businesses to exit the market. 

Despite the negative impact of the tariffs on China’s economy, the real evaluation of the trade deal Trump negotiated with Beijing is whether it benefits the American people. Trump’s trade war has received much criticism from economists and scholars who argue that the cost outweighs the benefits. US consumers who have to pay higher prices for imported goods are taking the brunt of the high tariffs. A study conducted by Moody’s Analytics estimates that the trade deal has caused the US to lose more than 300,000 jobs and reduced US GDP by 0.3% in just one year into the trade deal. The US is not a price setting country which means that the tariffs did not lower the world market price of imports. In other words, the impact of higher tariffs is fully passed on to US consumers and businesses. Tariffs are not the best economic tool in dealing with China. For instance, Tom Giovanetti, president of Institute for Policy Innovation, argues that a more effective way of dealing with trade disputes with China is to use the World Trade Organization and other international economic institutions to pressure them. President Trump either did not get consider or understand the impact of tariffs on American people and firms before he enacted the tariffs. Another downside to tariffs in the trade war with China is that it does not address the structural issues that are behind the origin of China’s economic expansion. For example, Ana Swanson and Alan Rappeport explain how cybersecurity issues such as hacking are linked to trade and remain unsolved in Trump’s trade deal with China. Another issue Swanson and Rappeport bring up is the failure of Trump to address China’s currency manipulation and subsidization of goods by the Chinese government which allows the “cheap goods to flood the United States.” Without addressing the structural issues linked to trade, the US cannot stop China from taking advantage of the global economy. Therefore, the lesson that Biden should take away from Trump’s trade negotiations with China is that a successful trade deal should consist of effective methods that do not involve tariffs and address structural problems associated with China’s unjust economic practices.

Lesson #2: Multilateralism is one of America’s best tools for addressing transnational issues.

US democracy and the US-led liberal order is under threat due to the Trump administration. During Trump’s presidency, he withdrew the US out of several international institutions thus abandoning multilateralism and the spread of US democracy. Some of the international organizations Trump has pulled out of include the Paris Agreement, the UN Human Rights Council, and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The most important implication of Trump’s unilateral “America first” approach is allowing revisionist powers such as China to shape the international rules and institutions that the US once founded. 

As seen in China’s creation of the Belt and Road initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank, China’s goal is not simply to surpass the US in the global economy, but to replace the US-led liberal world order. Therefore, the more crucial conflict between the US and China is over ideology. The ideological nature of the conflict makes it more important to emphasize multilateralism as a way to counteract China’s threat to the liberal world order. William Moreland, a research analyst at the Brookings Institution, explains that the three main dimensions to multilateralism are “measured collaboration on shared challenges, revitalize to provide for deconfliction and crisis off-ramps, and compete selectively both with existing institutions and via new ones to better defend democratic values against authoritarian rivals.” In other words, multilateralism creates a support system of similar ideologically based countries. Although Trump rejected multilateralism on issues such as the environment and economy, in the past year, he has started to restore friendly relations with allies in Europe to address cybersecurity challenges Western countries face from Chinese tech companies such as Huawei. Some cybersecurity challenges that China poses include state-sponsored espionage, threatening and monitoring dissenters abroad, and intellectual property theft. President Trump’s efforts in persuading European countries to divest from China’s 5G network and technology companies have been successful so far. For example, Britain, Germany, and Sweden are countries who have most recently succumbed to President Trump’s pressure to not use Chinese technology. As more countries join the US-Europe front to halt Chinese tech, China will eventually run out of markets to sustain Chinese tech companies and be forced to play by global rules and norms. In the aspect of cybersecurity, President Trump has started an effective multilateralism campaign to address challenges with Chinese tech. However, President Trump’s multilateralism ignores a core aspect of US values which is human rights. President Trump has ignored China’s human rights violations against the Xinjiang Uyghur population, due to a “fear of jeopardizing trade talks with Beijing.” By upholding one aspect of the liberal world order at the expense of human rights is contradictory and can undermine the coherence of the ideologies that created multilateralism in the first place. During President-elect Biden’s campaign for the presidency, he made remarks vowing to “renew trust in American international engagement and leadership” which will restore disbanded international agreements and strengthen existing multilateralism with US allies. Biden’s track record on emphasizing American leadership in the international system and continued cooperation with US allies will help the US restore core democratic principles that were undermined during the Trump administration. 

Lesson #3: Rash decisions lead to misperceptions about the opponents actions and escalate tensions between the two countries. 

China is the world’s second largest economy next to the US and is projected to surpass US GDP in around a decade. There exists a debate within the field of international economics about whether China will actually surpass the US since there are signs that its economy is slowing down. Despite the debate between scholars on whether China will be able to sustain its rise, however, facts show that China is projecting its influence and coercing regions such as Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In other words, the US is no longer in an asymmetrical power relationship with China. 

As the power dynamic between the US and China shifts from an asymmetrical relationship to a symmetrical relationship, there needs to be a change in the US approach towards China. The US is no longer in a more powerful position to make China subordinate to the US. China has responded to the US’s attempts to avert China by mimicking US actions against China. This places the US and China in a tit-for-tat strategy. An example of the tit-for-tat strategy playing out in US-China relations recently is President Trump’s order that restricted Chinese graduate students and researchers from attending American universities this past summer. Beijing responded to President Trump’s order by similarly, restricting and detaining US academic scholars and journalists in China. The initial provocation started by President Trump led to an escalation of US-China relations into a “hostage diplomacy” scenario. President Trump’s decision to detain and exclude Chinese graduate students and researchers sends a message to Americans to view “Chinese students as perpetrators of espionage and intellectual property theft.” President Trump’s action merely shifts the blame on Chinese academic scholars which for the most part is not involved in problems involving China’s economy, human rights, cybersecurity, etc. President Trump’s short-sighted decision to block students fuels xenophobia and does not answer the underlying issues of intellectual property theft by China. China responded to President Trump’s order to restrict Chinese students and researchers by initiating similar threats against US researchers and journalists which instantly escalate the existing conflict between the two countries. Therefore, as China’s power becomes just as compelling as the US, the Biden administration’s foreign policy towards China needs to emphasize decisions that can help achieve long-term goals as opposed to short-term reactionary decisions. Long-term preventive measures also have the benefits of being able to negotiate with China beforehand to prevent retribution of an action on the US. 

Adapting to Change in the New Era of US-China Relations 

By the time President Trump leaves the Oval Office, US-China relations will not be where it was previously. The change in US-China relations is not only due to decisions President Trump made during his presidency, but also the evolving nature of China and its relationship with other countries. The confrontational foreign policy approach President Trump has employed on dealing with China helped make clear China’s intentions and the problems the incoming administration needs to address. However, President Trump’s way of dealing with China has also led to a decline in US engagement in international agreements and organizations. Therefore, there needs to be a better strategy to address China’s unjust practices. Decisions based on short term reactionary impulses will not solve the underlying issues China presents because it undermines certain pillars of US foreign policy (i.e., human rights) for economic or political advantages and lacks long term preventive measures. 

The incoming Biden administration needs to be aware of the evolving nature of China and other countries. The actions that were taken during the President Trump administration or previous administrations are not going to be effective in dealing with China in a new international environment. An adaptive strategy that acknowledges China’s rise, but also addresses the violations and challenges China poses for the US in terms of sustaining its international competitive edge and democratic values is necessary to effectively deal with China. During Trump’s presidency there was an attempt to establish superiority and contain China which has colonialist overtones and can exacerbate the existing tensions between the two countries. The new administration’s goals with China should not be one that emphasizes dominating China, instead it should be one that focuses on establishing preventive measures and addressing China’s existing misconduct and foster a more cooperative relationship based on common goals. The US and China are the two largest countries in terms of GDP and representatives of the two opposing ideologies in contemporary times which makes it more important for a new strategy that is focused on long-term preventive measures and foster a favorable atmosphere for cooperation.