foreignpolicy--2020-03-31--Waiting for Peace on the Front Lines

Waiting for Peace on the Front Lines

In late November 2019 in Nahr-e-Saraj , a contested district in Afghanistan ’ s Helmand province , Afghan Border Police ( ABP ) Col. Ahmad Sagoori , 36 , draped a heavy woolen blanket over his uniform .
Helmand is hot in the summer , but the evenings had turned crisp .
Twenty days earlier , Sagoori and his men , along with local police , retook the sparsely populated agricultural district from a group of local Taliban militants , who frequently reappeared to harass the outpost with sporadic sniper fire .
“ If the politicians can ’ t address @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there will be no end to this war.
” Despite the ABP forces being severely undermanned , the Taliban concentrated recent attacks on the local police , who have less training and equipment , making them easier targets .
“ Now that we ’ ve pushed them out of the district center , we ’ re able to hold the area much more effectively , ” Sagoori said .
Though it seemed that the tide of the war was beginning to turn in favor of the government forces , the colonel didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Afghanistan is tired , ” Sagoori said softly—a sentiment echoed by many Afghans , soldiers , and civilians alike .
He said only a political solution could bring about lasting change for Afghanistan .
In September , peace talks between the United States and the Taliban to end the 18-year war had broken down .
“ The Taliban in this area are scared of us , and we have a good fighting reputation here .
We have good men , good weapons , and the people in the villages support us , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the politicians can ’ t address the bigger issues in our country , there will be no end to this war.
” But before the deal was signed , cracks were beginning to emerge that have widened in the weeks since .
Taliban attacks against government forces have increased to pre-reduction of violence levels .
In the two days after the announcement , more than 40 government soldiers were killed in Taliban attacks .
On March 19 , Afghanistan ’ s acting defense minister , Asadullah Khalid , announced that he had ordered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The violence continues .
On March 29 , Taliban attacks killed at least 27 Afghan service members across the country .
Taliban attacks against government forces have increased to pre-reduction of violence levels .
Afghanistan ’ s government remains divided in the wake of the controversial presidential election in September 2019 .
Incumbent President Ashraf Ghani was declared the winner only in February .
His main rival , Abdullah Abdullah , refuses to recognize his inauguration .
Unless some power-sharing consensus is reached , the rift at the highest level of government makes @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the Taliban unlikely .
The two sides have already missed the March 10 deadline for the intra-Afghan talks to begin .
The disputed prisoner swap of as many as 5,000 Taliban prisoners held by the government in exchange for 1,000 ANA prisoners—a move stipulated by the peace deal—remains on hold .
While these political machinations continue , Afghan soldiers and civilians are paying the cost .
Parwani is stationed with an ANA battalion east of Lashkargah , the capital of Helmand .
He spends his days patrolling the local highway in an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ devices ( IEDs ) , and scanning the surrounding terrain for Taliban snipers .
Guerrilla tactics like snipers and IEDs allow Taliban insurgents to inflict damage on government forces without exposing themselves to easy reprisals .
“ I think fear is the most powerful weapon they have.
” In November , the soldier peered warily out of a peephole beneath the crumbling wall of his small outpost , where a year ago ANA troops dug an underground network of tunnels to provide a place to retreat in the event of a surprise Taliban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ often unseen enemy have taken their psychological toll on Afghan forces .
“ The front lines are not always clear in this fight , ” Parwani said .
“ Our forces are too strong for the Taliban to directly confront us , so they mostly use snipers and IEDs in this area now .
They attack and disappear and rely on creating fear in the minds of our men.
” Parwani ’ s experiences as a soldier have already left an indelible mark on him .
Two months earlier , in early September @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was killed by a roadside bomb during a routine morning patrol .
“ I ’ ve lost many good friends , ” he said .
“ Of course we need to continue with our patrols , but I don ’ t think I realized how much his death would affect me.
” “ When the danger can come at any time and from any direction , it can have a powerful psychological hold over you .
I think fear is the most powerful weapon they have.
” Despite the U.S.-Taliban peace deal , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But Afghans have had at least one glimpse of what a halt to fighting could look like .
In June 2018 , a historic but short-lived cease-fire agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban offered a fleeting glimpse of peace .
During the Eid al-Fitr holiday , both sides laid down their arms across the country .
Uniformed government troops embraced Taliban fighters .
The cease-fire ended after three days when the Taliban announced that they would resume operations against Afghan government forces .
“ We ’ ve already seen what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ down their guns , ” Sagoori said .
“ During those three days , we had a taste of peace , but the Taliban returned to fighting , so we did too.
” “ During those three days , we had a taste of peace , but the Taliban returned to fighting , so we did too.
” At the Nahr-e-Saraj outpost , a group of Sagoori ’ s men looked over the mud walls as fresh volleys of gunfire erupted over a nearby hill .
Local police were attempting to build a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ highway , but Taliban forces still appeared for a few hours each day to slow their progress .
Sagoori seemed unconcerned .
He saw signs that the resolve of the local Taliban forces was beginning to weaken in the face of Afghan special forces operations and U.S. air support .
“ It ’ s becoming more and more difficult for them to conduct operations in this area , ” he said .
The Taliban are starting to feel the pressure , he said .
“ They ’ re starting to fight like rats.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ will not bring about an end to the current conflict or slow the procession of young Afghans fighting and dying on both sides .
So far , it seems the politicians aren ’ t faring much better than Sagoori and his men : The United States hasn ’ t brokered a deal between Ghani and Abdullah , and the country remains in a deadlock .
“ If the Taliban continue to fight , so will we , ” Sagoori said .
“ But we can see from the past years that the problems @ @ @ @ @ @ @ resolved by soldiers .
Politicians are the only ones who can end this war .
”

In late November 2019 in Nahr-e-Saraj, a contested district in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, Afghan Border Police (ABP) Col. Ahmad Sagoori, 36, draped a heavy woolen blanket over his uniform. Helmand is hot in the summer, but the evenings had turned crisp. Twenty days earlier, Sagoori and his men, along with local police, retook the sparsely populated agricultural district from a group of local Taliban militants, who frequently reappeared to harass the outpost with sporadic sniper fire.
In late November 2019 in Nahr-e-Saraj, a contested district in Afghanistan’s Helmand province, Afghan Border Police (ABP) Col. Ahmad Sagoori, 36, draped a heavy woolen blanket over his uniform. Helmand is hot in the summer, but the evenings had turned crisp. Twenty days earlier, Sagoori and his men, along with local police, retook the sparsely populated agricultural district from a group of local Taliban militants, who frequently reappeared to harass the outpost with sporadic sniper fire.
“If the politicians can’t address the bigger issues in our country, there will be no end to this war.”
Despite the ABP forces being severely undermanned, the Taliban concentrated recent attacks on the local police, who have less training and equipment, making them easier targets. “Now that we’ve pushed them out of the district center, we’re able to hold the area much more effectively,” Sagoori said. Though it seemed that the tide of the war was beginning to turn in favor of the government forces, the colonel didn’t see a long-term military solution.
“Afghanistan is tired,” Sagoori said softly—a sentiment echoed by many Afghans, soldiers, and civilians alike. He said only a political solution could bring about lasting change for Afghanistan. In September, peace talks between the United States and the Taliban to end the 18-year war had broken down. “The Taliban in this area are scared of us, and we have a good fighting reputation here. We have good men, good weapons, and the people in the villages support us,” he said. “But if the politicians can’t address the bigger issues in our country, there will be no end to this war.”
ABP Col. Ahmad Sagoori, 36, sits in the storage room of his small outpost in Nahr-e-Saraj district, in Helmand province, on Nov. 20, 2019.
Top left: A machine gun sits ready for use as a small ANA outpost in Jowman district, Helmand, on Nov 19, 2019. Top right: Stores of ammunition and supplies for the ANA's 215th Corps, located just outside Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand province, on Nov 19, 2019. Bottom left: An ANA Humvee waits for soldiers in the rain during a night patrol in Jowman district on Nov. 21, 2019. Taliban attacks on these patrols are a regular occurrence, particularly at night. Bottom right: Hand grenades sit ready for quick use at an ANA outpost in Jowman district on Nov. 19, 2019.
In the months since, Afghanistan’s hopes for peace seemed to be nearing reality. In February, U.S. and Taliban negotiators agreed to a seven-day reduction in violence, a precursor to a formal deal. Although far from violence-free—at least 22 soldiers and 14 civilians were killed—the period was hailed as a success. On Feb. 29 in Doha, Qatar, U.S. envoy Zalmay Khalilzad and Taliban political chief Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar signed a peace deal, the culmination of 18 months of on-and-off negotiations—a historic step.
But before the deal was signed, cracks were beginning to emerge that have widened in the weeks since. Taliban attacks against government forces have increased to pre-reduction of violence levels. In the two days after the announcement, more than 40 government soldiers were killed in Taliban attacks. On March 19, Afghanistan’s acting defense minister, Asadullah Khalid, announced that he had ordered ANA troops to resume defensive positions. The violence continues. On March 29, Taliban attacks killed at least 27 Afghan service members across the country.
Taliban attacks against government forces have increased to pre-reduction of violence levels.
Afghanistan’s government remains divided in the wake of the controversial presidential election in September 2019. Incumbent President Ashraf Ghani was declared the winner only in February. His main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, refuses to recognize his inauguration. Unless some power-sharing consensus is reached, the rift at the highest level of government makes a prospective deal between the Afghan government and the Taliban unlikely.
The two sides have already missed the March 10 deadline for the intra-Afghan talks to begin. The disputed prisoner swap of as many as 5,000 Taliban prisoners held by the government in exchange for 1,000 ANA prisoners—a move stipulated by the peace deal—remains on hold. While these political machinations continue, Afghan soldiers and civilians are paying the cost.
Hebaidullah Parwani of the Afghan National Army patrols with a convoy in Jowman district, along the main highway between Lashkarga and Kandahar, on Nov 19, 2019.
A young generation of Afghan soldiers already bears the physical and psychological scars of the war. Many were infants when the United States invaded Afghanistan in October 2001. Hebaidullah Parwani, 21, is tall and rangy and carries an M4 rifle with an ornamental silver chain. He joined the Afghan National Army (ANA) in 2016 when he turned 18, along with other boys from his village in Paghman district, north of Kabul. “It seems like a long time ago now,” Parwani said. “I don’t think any of us knew what we were really signing up for or the types of things we would experience.”
Parwani is stationed with an ANA battalion east of Lashkargah, the capital of Helmand. He spends his days patrolling the local highway in an armored Humvee, investigating suspected improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and scanning the surrounding terrain for Taliban snipers. Guerrilla tactics like snipers and IEDs allow Taliban insurgents to inflict damage on government forces without exposing themselves to easy reprisals.
“I think fear is the most powerful weapon they have.”
In November, the soldier peered warily out of a peephole beneath the crumbling wall of his small outpost, where a year ago ANA troops dug an underground network of tunnels to provide a place to retreat in the event of a surprise Taliban attack. The challenges of fighting an often unseen enemy have taken their psychological toll on Afghan forces. “The front lines are not always clear in this fight,” Parwani said. “Our forces are too strong for the Taliban to directly confront us, so they mostly use snipers and IEDs in this area now. They attack and disappear and rely on creating fear in the minds of our men.”
Parwani’s experiences as a soldier have already left an indelible mark on him. Two months earlier, in early September 2019, a member of his unit was killed by a roadside bomb during a routine morning patrol. “I’ve lost many good friends,” he said. “Of course we need to continue with our patrols, but I don’t think I realized how much his death would affect me.”
“When the danger can come at any time and from any direction, it can have a powerful psychological hold over you. I think fear is the most powerful weapon they have.”
A young ANA soldier searches for Improvised Explosive Devices in a culvert beneath the main Lashkargah-Kandahar highway on Nov. 21, 2019. IEDs remain one of the most commonly employed weapons of the Taliban in this area.
Despite the U.S.-Taliban peace deal, Afghanistan’s security situation remains unstable. But Afghans have had at least one glimpse of what a halt to fighting could look like. In June 2018, a historic but short-lived cease-fire agreement between the Afghan government and the Taliban offered a fleeting glimpse of peace. During the Eid al-Fitr holiday, both sides laid down their arms across the country. Uniformed government troops embraced Taliban fighters. The cease-fire ended after three days when the Taliban announced that they would resume operations against Afghan government forces. “We’ve already seen what happens when both sides agree to put down their guns,” Sagoori said. “During those three days, we had a taste of peace, but the Taliban returned to fighting, so we did too.” “During those three days, we had a taste of peace, but the Taliban returned to fighting, so we did too.”
At the Nahr-e-Saraj outpost, a group of Sagoori’s men looked over the mud walls as fresh volleys of gunfire erupted over a nearby hill. Local police were attempting to build a road connecting local villages to the nearby highway, but Taliban forces still appeared for a few hours each day to slow their progress. Sagoori seemed unconcerned. He saw signs that the resolve of the local Taliban forces was beginning to weaken in the face of Afghan special forces operations and U.S. air support. “It’s becoming more and more difficult for them to conduct operations in this area,” he said. The Taliban are starting to feel the pressure, he said. “They’re starting to fight like rats.”
An ANA outpost sits along the main road between Lashkargah and Kandahar on Nov. 19, 2019. A network of small underground tunnels dug by the soldiers offer a final fallback position in the event that the outpost is overrun by Taliban forces. A single solar panel provides the only electricity.
Sagoori admitted that military pressure alone will not bring about an end to the current conflict or slow the procession of young Afghans fighting and dying on both sides. So far, it seems the politicians aren’t faring much better than Sagoori and his men: The United States hasn’t brokered a deal between Ghani and Abdullah, and the country remains in a deadlock.
“If the Taliban continue to fight, so will we,” Sagoori said. “But we can see from the past years that the problems of this country can’t be resolved by soldiers. Politicians are the only ones who can end this war.”


foreignpolicy--2020-04-01--As the World Is Distracted, Boko Haram Terrorists Strike a Key Western Ally

As the World Is Distracted , Boko Haram Terrorists Strike a Key Western Ally As the world ’ s attention turns almost completely to the coronavirus pandemic , the battle against jihadi terrorism in Africa ’ s vast Sahel region has taken one of its deadliest turns yet .
On March 23 , Boko Haram terrorists ambushed a military encampment of Chadian soldiers on the Boma Peninsula , in the Lake Chad region .
Over seven hours , the militants—whose group ’ s name roughly means “ non-Islamic education is a sin ” —killed at least 92 heavily armed troops @ @ @ @ @ @ @ dozens of others .
It is the deadliest attack the Chadian military has ever suffered .
Chad ’ s ruler of 30 years—President Idriss Déby Itno—visited the site of the attack the next day and picked through the burned-out wreckage .
“ I have taken part in many operations , ” he said in a televised address , “ but never in our history have we lost so many men at one time.
” The massacre will reverberate far beyond the region , for it highlights and compounds a worrying trend .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s indispensable ally in the fight against terrorism in Africa—could be nearing breaking point .
It is hard to imagine a more difficult nation to govern than Chad .
The landlocked central African country is more than five times larger than Britain .
Its 16 million people are divided among more than 200 ethnic groups and consistently rank among the poorest in the world .
Chad is surrounded by conflict .
To the north , Libya ’ s civil war rages on .
To the east , powerful militias vie for control @ @ @ @ @ @ @ south , waves of bloodletting keep the Central African Republic one of the most devastatingly underdeveloped places in the world .
And to the west , powerful jihadi groups strap bombs to young girls around the Lake Chad Basin in northeastern Nigeria , Cameroon , and Niger .
To rule such a land , one must be a fighter and a canny survivor .
Déby , a wiry and softly spoken 67-year-old , is both .
He was a skilled military man before he came to power .
When Muammar al-Qaddafi tried to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the Sahel ” and sent tanks into northern Chad in the late 1980s , Déby led nimble Toyota pickup trucks packed with fighters across the Sahara to drive the ambitious Libyan back .
In 1990 , Déby ousted former dictator Hissène Habré and was proclaimed president .
Since then , he has come close to ruin several times as he faced rebellions , coups , and economic crises .
But despite overwhelming odds , Déby has always pulled through .
There are four key factors to Déby ’ s longevity .
First @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power , he has worked hard to subsume opposition movements .
He has even used several polygamous marriages to cement his hold on power .
The president ’ s many wives and children have helped him fill his government with allies , bridge ethnic divides , and control Chad ’ s key industries .
Oil is another key factor .
Black gold started to be piped out of southern Chad through Cameroon in late 2003 .
In 2018 , the country exported about 130,000 barrels per day , making it the 40th-largest oil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Denmark .
Though limited , the small trickle of oil money has been enough to help the president bring opponents onside and fund his military .
The third reason for the regime ’ s stability has been its effective military—at least until now .
Chad has a small elite army within the national army , known as the Directorate-General of Security Services of State Institutions .
It is made up largely of men from the president ’ s own Zaghawa ethnic group , ensuring a high degree of loyalty , and is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and battle-hardened force in the region .
But this military comes at a huge cost—about one-third of the national budget.Déby ’ s powerful army and willingness to use it in the global war on terrorism have made him a darling of the West and a key player in the fight against terrorist groups in Africa .
Finally , Déby has been adept at cultivating allies .
His powerful army and willingness to use it in the global war on terrorism have made him a darling of the West and a key player in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Chad sent thousands of soldiers to drive jihadis allied with al Qaeda out of towns in northern Mali in 2013 and has conducted successful campaigns against jihadis around Lake Chad—operations in which the country ’ s far larger and richer neighbor , Nigeria , has utterly failed .
Chad has also committed 1,000 troops to the G5 Sahel Joint Force , a counterterrorism force made up of 5,000 troops from the key states of the Sahel region .
Most Western leaders have ignored the regime ’ s democratic abuses , seeing Déby @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the region .
This has garnered him no small amount of international legitimacy .
In 2014 , Déby was among other African leaders hosted at a White House dinner by U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama .
Déby also makes regular visits to the Élysée Palace in Paris , where French President Emmanuel Macron embraces him like an old friend .
Both France and the United States have helped prop up his regime .
France bases its 5,100-strong Sahelian counterinsurgency mission , Operation Barkhane , out of the capital @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Washington has trained hundreds of Chadian soldiers and poured tens of millions of dollars into the country in aid , military equipment , and funding .
It has also used the country as a base for air and special forces operations .
But Déby ’ s nine lives may be running out .
Right now , he faces a toxic cocktail of challenges .
Nothing has shown the precariousness of his regime more than the events of the last year .
In February 2019 , dozens of pickup trucks filled with fighters from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) , a Chadian rebel group led by Déby ’ s own nephew , entered Chad from Libya and headed toward N ’ Djamena to overthrow the president .
Chadian airstrikes failed to stop the convoy , and crisis was averted only when French Mirage 2000 fighter jets scrambled to bomb the convoy at N ’ Djamena ’ s request .
The jets strafed the rebels for three consecutive days , stopping the advance .
The fact that France was forced to intervene showed many just how weak Déby ’ s military could @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thought that high-ranking members of the military were unwilling to fight the rebels because of ethnic ties .
According to a report released immediately after the French airstrikes by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group , the Chadian army is “ overworked ” from fighting on several fronts , and some soldiers have been “ demoralized ” by cuts to their allowances .
In this context , the report said , “ groups like the UFR will undoubtedly continue to encourage desertions.
” A year on from the rebellion , little has improved .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ than ever .
In late 2019 , the government was forced to declare a state of emergency in three eastern provinces for four months to stop a cycle of interethnic violence .
The army has suffered huge losses to resurgent jihadi groups in the Lake Chad area in the last year .
“ Déby is a survivor , and he ’ s hanging on , but he ’ s trying to put out fires all over the periphery of the country , ” Richard Moncrieff , the Central Africa director for the International @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ He has a pretty fractious inner circle , and he knows that any local conflict could quickly escalate into a national one.
” Worse still , the economy—perilously positioned at the best of times—is in tatters .
When the price of oil fell to $ 36 a barrel in 2016 , Chad went through two years of a deep recession .
The economy showed signs of recovery in 2018 but has now been hit by an even worse plunge in the oil price due to the coronavirus crisis , with the cost @ @ @ @ @ @ @ around $ 20 .
“ The economic situation is just impossible , ” said Marielle Debos , an associate professor of political science at University Paris Nanterre and the author of Living by the Gun in Chad .
“ Chad ’ s economy is very dependent on oil and civil servants , and military salaries are not being paid .
The new drop in oil prices is going to have huge consequences and make the country even more fragile.
” Moreover , huge questions remain about Déby ’ s health .
He has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ several times for medical treatment in recent years .
“ Each time he ’ s in France in a hospital , people say he ’ s sick and this time he ’ s not going to make it , ” Debos told Foreign Policy .
“ One day Déby is going to die , disappear , or be overthrown .
One of the big questions facing Chad is what happens after that .
The day he is not the president anymore , everything could fall apart .
It ’ s very dangerous to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from one ethnicity.
” Since the attack on the Boma Peninsula , Déby has already begun to turn inward and shore up power at home .
He had agreed to send around 500 troops to help provide security to the tri-border region between Mali , Burkina Faso , and Niger—but now those troops will be staying at home .
“ This is a major setback for Operation Barkhane and the G5 Sahel force , who are trying to contain the spread of groups allied to Islamic State and al Qaeda , ” said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sahel region at the Policy Center for the New South , a Moroccan think tank .
The government has declared its Lake Chad area a military zone and asked the population to leave , adding to an already critical displacement crisis .
“ We are all anticipating major humanitarian consequences , ” Lyammouri said .
Déby ’ s habit of survival has often confounded analysts , but his regime ’ s future is as uncertain as ever .

As the world’s attention turns almost completely to the coronavirus pandemic, the battle against jihadi terrorism in Africa’s vast Sahel region has taken one of its deadliest turns yet. On March 23, Boko Haram terrorists ambushed a military encampment of Chadian soldiers on the Boma Peninsula, in the Lake Chad region. Over seven hours, the militants—whose group’s name roughly means “non-Islamic education is a sin”—killed at least 92 heavily armed troops with machine guns and bombs and injured dozens of others.
As the world’s attention turns almost completely to the coronavirus pandemic, the battle against jihadi terrorism in Africa’s vast Sahel region has taken one of its deadliest turns yet. On March 23, Boko Haram terrorists ambushed a military encampment of Chadian soldiers on the Boma Peninsula, in the Lake Chad region. Over seven hours, the militants—whose group’s name roughly means “non-Islamic education is a sin”—killed at least 92 heavily armed troops with machine guns and bombs and injured dozens of others.
It is the deadliest attack the Chadian military has ever suffered. Chad’s ruler of 30 years—President Idriss Déby Itno—visited the site of the attack the next day and picked through the burned-out wreckage. “I have taken part in many operations,” he said in a televised address, “but never in our history have we lost so many men at one time.”
The massacre will reverberate far beyond the region, for it highlights and compounds a worrying trend. The Chadian regime—long thought of as the West’s indispensable ally in the fight against terrorism in Africa—could be nearing breaking point.
It is hard to imagine a more difficult nation to govern than Chad. The landlocked central African country is more than five times larger than Britain. Its 16 million people are divided among more than 200 ethnic groups and consistently rank among the poorest in the world.
Chad is surrounded by conflict. To the north, Libya’s civil war rages on. To the east, powerful militias vie for control of Darfur and Sudan. To the south, waves of bloodletting keep the Central African Republic one of the most devastatingly underdeveloped places in the world. And to the west, powerful jihadi groups strap bombs to young girls around the Lake Chad Basin in northeastern Nigeria, Cameroon, and Niger.
To rule such a land, one must be a fighter and a canny survivor. Déby, a wiry and softly spoken 67-year-old, is both. He was a skilled military man before he came to power. When Muammar al-Qaddafi tried to carve out a “Greater Islamic State of the Sahel” and sent tanks into northern Chad in the late 1980s, Déby led nimble Toyota pickup trucks packed with fighters across the Sahara to drive the ambitious Libyan back.
In 1990, Déby ousted former dictator Hissène Habré and was proclaimed president. Since then, he has come close to ruin several times as he faced rebellions, coups, and economic crises. But despite overwhelming odds, Déby has always pulled through.
There are four key factors to Déby’s longevity. First is clever governing. Since coming to power, he has worked hard to subsume opposition movements. He has even used several polygamous marriages to cement his hold on power. The president’s many wives and children have helped him fill his government with allies, bridge ethnic divides, and control Chad’s key industries.
Oil is another key factor. Black gold started to be piped out of southern Chad through Cameroon in late 2003. In 2018, the country exported about 130,000 barrels per day, making it the 40th-largest oil producer in the world, just ahead of Denmark. Though limited, the small trickle of oil money has been enough to help the president bring opponents onside and fund his military.
The third reason for the regime’s stability has been its effective military—at least until now. Chad has a small elite army within the national army, known as the Directorate-General of Security Services of State Institutions. It is made up largely of men from the president’s own Zaghawa ethnic group, ensuring a high degree of loyalty, and is widely considered to be the most skilled and battle-hardened force in the region. But this military comes at a huge cost—about one-third of the national budget.Déby’s powerful army and willingness to use it in the global war on terrorism have made him a darling of the West and a key player in the fight against terrorist groups in Africa.
Finally, Déby has been adept at cultivating allies. His powerful army and willingness to use it in the global war on terrorism have made him a darling of the West and a key player in the fight against terrorist groups in Africa. Chad sent thousands of soldiers to drive jihadis allied with al Qaeda out of towns in northern Mali in 2013 and has conducted successful campaigns against jihadis around Lake Chad—operations in which the country’s far larger and richer neighbor, Nigeria, has utterly failed. Chad has also committed 1,000 troops to the G5 Sahel Joint Force, a counterterrorism force made up of 5,000 troops from the key states of the Sahel region.
Most Western leaders have ignored the regime’s democratic abuses, seeing Déby instead as the key bulwark against insecurity in the region. This has garnered him no small amount of international legitimacy. In 2014, Déby was among other African leaders hosted at a White House dinner by U.S. President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama. Déby also makes regular visits to the Élysée Palace in Paris, where French President Emmanuel Macron embraces him like an old friend.
Both France and the United States have helped prop up his regime. France bases its 5,100-strong Sahelian counterinsurgency mission, Operation Barkhane, out of the capital of Chad, N’Djamena. Washington has trained hundreds of Chadian soldiers and poured tens of millions of dollars into the country in aid, military equipment, and funding. It has also used the country as a base for air and special forces operations.
But Déby’s nine lives may be running out. Right now, he faces a toxic cocktail of challenges. Nothing has shown the precariousness of his regime more than the events of the last year. In February 2019, dozens of pickup trucks filled with fighters from the Union of Resistance Forces (UFR), a Chadian rebel group led by Déby’s own nephew, entered Chad from Libya and headed toward N’Djamena to overthrow the president.
Chadian airstrikes failed to stop the convoy, and crisis was averted only when French Mirage 2000 fighter jets scrambled to bomb the convoy at N’Djamena’s request. The jets strafed the rebels for three consecutive days, stopping the advance.
The fact that France was forced to intervene showed many just how weak Déby’s military could be at home. It is widely thought that high-ranking members of the military were unwilling to fight the rebels because of ethnic ties.
According to a report released immediately after the French airstrikes by the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, the Chadian army is “overworked” from fighting on several fronts, and some soldiers have been “demoralized” by cuts to their allowances. In this context, the report said, “groups like the UFR will undoubtedly continue to encourage desertions.”
A year on from the rebellion, little has improved. The Chadian military is perhaps more overstretched than ever. In late 2019, the government was forced to declare a state of emergency in three eastern provinces for four months to stop a cycle of interethnic violence. The army has suffered huge losses to resurgent jihadi groups in the Lake Chad area in the last year.
“Déby is a survivor, and he’s hanging on, but he’s trying to put out fires all over the periphery of the country,” Richard Moncrieff, the Central Africa director for the International Crisis Group, told Foreign Policy. “He has a pretty fractious inner circle, and he knows that any local conflict could quickly escalate into a national one.”
Worse still, the economy—perilously positioned at the best of times—is in tatters. When the price of oil fell to $36 a barrel in 2016, Chad went through two years of a deep recession. The economy showed signs of recovery in 2018 but has now been hit by an even worse plunge in the oil price due to the coronavirus crisis, with the cost of a barrel of crude recently hovering around $20.
“The economic situation is just impossible,” said Marielle Debos, an associate professor of political science at University Paris Nanterre and the author of Living by the Gun in Chad. “Chad’s economy is very dependent on oil and civil servants, and military salaries are not being paid. The new drop in oil prices is going to have huge consequences and make the country even more fragile.”
Moreover, huge questions remain about Déby’s health. He has no clear heir and has visited Paris several times for medical treatment in recent years. “Each time he’s in France in a hospital, people say he’s sick and this time he’s not going to make it,” Debos told Foreign Policy. “One day Déby is going to die, disappear, or be overthrown. One of the big questions facing Chad is what happens after that. The day he is not the president anymore, everything could fall apart. It’s very dangerous to have a very powerful army coming mainly from one ethnicity.”
Since the attack on the Boma Peninsula, Déby has already begun to turn inward and shore up power at home. He had agreed to send around 500 troops to help provide security to the tri-border region between Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger—but now those troops will be staying at home. “This is a major setback for Operation Barkhane and the G5 Sahel force, who are trying to contain the spread of groups allied to Islamic State and al Qaeda,” said Rida Lyammouri, an expert on the Sahel region at the Policy Center for the New South, a Moroccan think tank.
The government has declared its Lake Chad area a military zone and asked the population to leave, adding to an already critical displacement crisis. “We are all anticipating major humanitarian consequences,” Lyammouri said.
Déby’s habit of survival has often confounded analysts, but his regime’s future is as uncertain as ever.


foreignpolicy--2020-04-01--White House Projects Up to 240,000 U.S. Coronavirus Deaths

White House Projects Up to 240,000 U.S. Coronavirus Deaths Here is today ’ s Foreign Policy brief : White House projects 100,000 to 240,000 deaths from COVID-19 , Pompeo releases Venezuela plan , and the Taliban prepares for prisoner ecxhanges .
We welcome your feedback at morningbrief @ foreignpolicy.com .
The coronavirus death toll in the United States—now over 4,000—has eclipsed the number killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 , 2001 .
According to projections shared during a White House briefing on Tuesday evening , the eventual death toll could equal the number of Americans killed in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is on the most optimistic end of the current estimates .
If current social distancing trends hold , the White House estimates that 100,000 to 240,000 deaths are possible in the United States .
Anthony Fauci , the country ’ s leading infectious disease specialist , said the figures are what “ we need to anticipate , but that doesn ’ t mean that that ’ s what we ’ re going to accept … Our hope is to get that down as much as we can , ” he said .
U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 28 told a New Hampshire rally “ Looks like by April , you know , in theory , when it gets a little warmer , it miraculously goes away , ” has changed his tune .
As April begins , he is telling Americans the worst of the pandemic is still to come , “ This is going to be a very , very painful two weeks , ” he said .
How does the U.S. compare on testing ?
With 1,048,971 tests conducted to date , according to the COVID Tracking Project @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people than any other nation .
The devil is in the details , however , as the United States still lags behind countries like South Korea , which has tested a far higher proportion of its population .
South Korea has tested 7,965 people per million residents , whereas the United States has tested less than half that number so far .
Do experts agree with the White House numbers ?
A survey of 20 public health experts and epidemiologists conducted by Thomas McAndrew at the University of Massachusetts Amherst largely tracks with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ survey published on March 25 , the experts estimated an average projection of 245,000 deaths from COVID-19 by the end of the year .
They also predicted the number would likely peak in either April or May .
How do these projections compare to previous pandemics ?
The most recent example is so-called Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918 .
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the United States suffered an estimated 675,000 deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic .
U.S. unveils Venezuela transition plan .
Fourteen months after backing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ president , the United States has a new plan for the country .
Yesterday , U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a “ democratic transition framework ” for Venezuela that would involve lifting economic sanctions and both Nicolás Maduro and Guaido stepping aside in favor of a new five-member governing council , the majority of whom would be chosen by the opposition-controlled National Assembly .
Although the U.S. government is pushing the plan , any changes would first need the support of the Venezuelan government ’ s major partners : China , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. proposal , Venezuela ’ s foreign ministry called it “ an effort to win geopolitical advantage in the midst of a frightening global pandemic.
” Pompeo doesn ’ t rule out Iran sanctions relief .
After weeks of adding ever more sanctions on Iran , Mike Pompeo gave the slightest signal that a shift in policy could be possible .
Asked at a press conference whether he would reevaluate his position on Iran sanctions , he replied “ We evaluate all of our policies constantly , so the answer is—would we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Foreign Policy Mark Dubowitz and Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies argue that Iran ’ s coronavirus epidemic is no reason to lift sanctions .
Hilal Elver , U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food called for sanctions to be lifted on nations that have become even more vulnerable during the coronavirus outbreak , “ The continued imposition of crippling economic sanctions on Syria , Venezuela , Iran , Cuba , and , to a lesser degree , Zimbabwe , to name the most prominent instances , severely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to sufficient and adequate food , ” she said .
Taliban prepares for prisoner exchanges .
After a long process filled with false starts and violence , the prisoner exchange so vital to peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban is set to begin .
A three-member team arrived in Kabul yesterday to “ help the process of the prisoners ’ release ” according to a Taliban spokesman .
“ They are here now and we will begin our discussion ; the prisoner release might go ahead in a few days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a senior Afghan government official told Reuters .
The news comes as Afghan opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah appeared to give his blessing to an Afghan government negotiating team ahead of talks .
Ethiopia postpones elections .
Ethiopia has postponed its parliamentary and presidential elections , originally scheduled for August of this year .
The move was taken in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the country ’ s electoral commission said they will set a new date once the crisis had subsided .
Regional opposition parties have accepted the move , according to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The city of Jena has become the first German city to mandate mask wearing for shoppers and those using public transportation .
Jena follows the lead of Austria , which now requires residents to wear masks while grocery shopping .
Asked whether Germany would soon follow Austria ’ s example , German Health Minister Olaf Scholz said his priority was for health workers to have sufficient masks first .
Amazon under fire .
New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for an investigation following the firing of an Amazon facility worker who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ workers have demanded more protections and safety precautions after reports of employees working at facilities while infected with coronavirus surfaced .
Earlier this month in Foreign Policy , James Bloodworth wrote about the growing power of Amazon as its workers began to push back against its workplace practices .
World Bank issues poverty warning .
The World Bank has warned that the coronavirus pandemic will prevent almost 24 million people from escaping poverty in East Asia and the Pacific , citing slowing economic growth rates and the impact on tourism-dependent economies .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ predicted a 2.1 percent growth rate for the region .
There is very little good news around in a pandemic , but the resilience of nature can provide us with some respite if not hope .
In Llandudno , Wales , a herd of wild goats has benefited from the absence of people on the streets of the town and migrated from their usual territory in the hills above to graze in Llandudno ’ s parks , churchyards , and garden hedges .
Andrew Stuart , the journalist who first spotted the herd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Llandudno is run by goats.
” For more from FP , visit foreignpolicy.com , subscribe here , or sign up for our other newsletters .
Send your tips , comments , questions , or corrections to morningbrief @ foreignpolicy.com .

Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: White House projects 100,000 to 240,000 COVID-19 deaths, Pompeo releases a Venezuela plan, and the Taliban prepares for prisoner exchanges.
If you would like to receive Morning Brief in your inbox every weekday, please sign up here.
White House Projects Up to 240,000 Deaths
The coronavirus death toll in the United States—now over 4,000—has eclipsed the number killed in the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. According to projections shared during a White House briefing on Tuesday evening, the eventual death toll could equal the number of Americans killed in the Korean War and Vietnam War combined—if it is on the most optimistic end of the current estimates.
If current social distancing trends hold, the White House estimates that 100,000 to 240,000 deaths are possible in the United States. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease specialist, said the figures are what “we need to anticipate, but that doesn’t mean that that’s what we’re going to accept … Our hope is to get that down as much as we can,” he said.
U.S. President Donald Trump, who on Feb. 28 told a New Hampshire rally “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away,” has changed his tune. As April begins, he is telling Americans the worst of the pandemic is still to come, “This is going to be a very, very painful two weeks,” he said.
How does the U.S. compare on testing? With 1,048,971 tests conducted to date, according to the COVID Tracking Project, the United States has tested more people than any other nation. The devil is in the details, however, as the United States still lags behind countries like South Korea, which has tested a far higher proportion of its population. South Korea has tested 7,965 people per million residents, whereas the United States has tested less than half that number so far.
Do experts agree with the White House numbers? A survey of 20 public health experts and epidemiologists conducted by Thomas McAndrew at the University of Massachusetts Amherst largely tracks with the White House projections. In the survey published on March 25, the experts estimated an average projection of 245,000 deaths from COVID-19 by the end of the year. They also predicted the number would likely peak in either April or May.
How do these projections compare to previous pandemics? The most recent example is so-called Spanish Flu outbreak of 1918. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the United States suffered an estimated 675,000 deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic.
What We’re Following Today
U.S. unveils Venezuela transition plan. Fourteen months after backing Juan Guaido as Venezuela’s new president, the United States has a new plan for the country. Yesterday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced a “democratic transition framework” for Venezuela that would involve lifting economic sanctions and both Nicolás Maduro and Guaido stepping aside in favor of a new five-member governing council, the majority of whom would be chosen by the opposition-controlled National Assembly.
Although the U.S. government is pushing the plan, any changes would first need the support of the Venezuelan government’s major partners: China, Russia, and Cuba. Reacting to the U.S. proposal, Venezuela’s foreign ministry called it “an effort to win geopolitical advantage in the midst of a frightening global pandemic.”
Pompeo doesn’t rule out Iran sanctions relief. After weeks of adding ever more sanctions on Iran, Mike Pompeo gave the slightest signal that a shift in policy could be possible. Asked at a press conference whether he would reevaluate his position on Iran sanctions, he replied “We evaluate all of our policies constantly, so the answer is—would we ever rethink? Of course.” Writing in Foreign Policy Mark Dubowitz and Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies argue that Iran’s coronavirus epidemic is no reason to lift sanctions.
Hilal Elver, U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food called for sanctions to be lifted on nations that have become even more vulnerable during the coronavirus outbreak, “The continued imposition of crippling economic sanctions on Syria, Venezuela, Iran, Cuba, and, to a lesser degree, Zimbabwe, to name the most prominent instances, severely undermines the ordinary citizens’ fundamental right to sufficient and adequate food,” she said.
Taliban prepares for prisoner exchanges. After a long process filled with false starts and violence, the prisoner exchange so vital to peace talks between the Afghan government and the Taliban is set to begin. A three-member team arrived in Kabul yesterday to “help the process of the prisoners’ release” according to a Taliban spokesman. “They are here now and we will begin our discussion; the prisoner release might go ahead in a few days if everything goes as planned,” a senior Afghan government official told Reuters. The news comes as Afghan opposition leader Abdullah Abdullah appeared to give his blessing to an Afghan government negotiating team ahead of talks.
Keep an Eye On
Ethiopia postpones elections. Ethiopia has postponed its parliamentary and presidential elections, originally scheduled for August of this year. The move was taken in response to the coronavirus pandemic and the country’s electoral commission said they will set a new date once the crisis had subsided. Regional opposition parties have accepted the move, according to Reuters.
Mask wearing gains steam. The city of Jena has become the first German city to mandate mask wearing for shoppers and those using public transportation. Jena follows the lead of Austria, which now requires residents to wear masks while grocery shopping. Asked whether Germany would soon follow Austria’s example, German Health Minister Olaf Scholz said his priority was for health workers to have sufficient masks first.
Amazon under fire. New York Mayor Bill de Blasio has called for an investigation following the firing of an Amazon facility worker who led a walkout on Monday. Amazon workers have demanded more protections and safety precautions after reports of employees working at facilities while infected with coronavirus surfaced. Earlier this month in Foreign Policy, James Bloodworth wrote about the growing power of Amazon as its workers began to push back against its workplace practices.
World Bank issues poverty warning. The World Bank has warned that the coronavirus pandemic will prevent almost 24 million people from escaping poverty in East Asia and the Pacific, citing slowing economic growth rates and the impact on tourism-dependent economies. In its baseline scenario, the World Bank predicted a 2.1 percent growth rate for the region.
Odds and Ends
There is very little good news around in a pandemic, but the resilience of nature can provide us with some respite if not hope. In Llandudno, Wales, a herd of wild goats has benefited from the absence of people on the streets of the town and migrated from their usual territory in the hills above to graze in Llandudno’s parks, churchyards, and garden hedges. Andrew Stuart, the journalist who first spotted the herd, summed up the new reality, “Llandudno is run by goats.”
That’s it for today.
For more from FP, visit foreignpolicy.com, subscribe here, or sign up for our other newsletters. Send your tips, comments, questions, or corrections to morningbrief@foreignpolicy.com.


foreignpolicy--2020-04-01--The Tourism Industry Is in Trouble. These Countries Will Suffer the Most.

According to the nonprofit World Travel and Tourism Council , which represents the international tourism industry , travel and tourism contributed $ 8.8 trillion to the global economy in 2018 and was responsible for 10.4 percent of all economic activity .
The council estimates that travel and tourism are responsible for 319 million jobs around the world .
With governments locking down their borders and people around the world staying home for weeks to help stem the spread of the coronavirus , several companies are struggling to survive .
At least three regional airlines have filed for bankruptcy in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stave off collapse , U.S. carriers have accepted $ 58 billion in loans and payroll grants as part of the U.S. government ’ s stimulus package .
The pandemic has caused bankruptcies in the cruise industry too , and cruises ’ reputation for hassle-free travel has surely taken a hit .
Which countries stand to lose the most ?
In the chart below of the world ’ s 20 biggest economies , Thailand and the Philippines rely on tourism for more than a fifth of their GDP .
Two of the worst-hit countries @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Italy , also depend heavily on this sector .
The country that relies on tourism the least—South Korea—is also handling its outbreak the best .
In absolute numbers , tourism in the United States will see the greatest losses—in large part because of the size of the economy .
Six of the world ’ s top 10 countries by tourism receipts are also ranked among top 10 countries for most coronavirus cases , suggesting a strong correlation between rates of travel and the spread of infections .
The most severe economic devastation , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the small island nations that have staked their entire economies on overseas travelers taking in their beaches and resorts .
Of the top 20 countries most dependent on travel and tourism as a source of GDP , 15 are small island nations .
Iceland , whose economy suffered a deep decline during the 2008 financial crisis , stands to lose again , as more than a third of its GDP comes from travel and tourism .
Andrew Fahie , the premier of the British Virgin Islands , has remained upbeat despite the expected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ faced many crises before , from natural disasters to epidemics , and we have always come out strong on the other side , ” he said .

A woman gets as close to the beach as possible along a shuttered coastline in Hollywood, Florida, on March 31, as more tourism locations close to stem the spread of the coronavirus.
As the coronavirus pandemic keeps billions of people at home, one sector is undergoing an immediate crisis: tourism.
According to the nonprofit World Travel and Tourism Council, which represents the international tourism industry, travel and tourism contributed $8.8 trillion to the global economy in 2018 and was responsible for 10.4 percent of all economic activity. The council estimates that travel and tourism are responsible for 319 million jobs around the world.
With governments locking down their borders and people around the world staying home for weeks to help stem the spread of the coronavirus, several companies are struggling to survive. At least three regional airlines have filed for bankruptcy in the United States and United Kingdom. To stave off collapse, U.S. carriers have accepted $58 billion in loans and payroll grants as part of the U.S. government’s stimulus package. The pandemic has caused bankruptcies in the cruise industry too, and cruises’ reputation for hassle-free travel has surely taken a hit.
Which countries stand to lose the most? In the chart below of the world’s 20 biggest economies, Thailand and the Philippines rely on tourism for more than a fifth of their GDP. Two of the worst-hit countries in the coronavirus outbreak, Spain and Italy, also depend heavily on this sector. The country that relies on tourism the least—South Korea—is also handling its outbreak the best.
In absolute numbers, tourism in the United States will see the greatest losses—in large part because of the size of the economy. Six of the world’s top 10 countries by tourism receipts are also ranked among top 10 countries for most coronavirus cases, suggesting a strong correlation between rates of travel and the spread of infections.
The most severe economic devastation, however, will likely be seen in the small island nations that have staked their entire economies on overseas travelers taking in their beaches and resorts. Of the top 20 countries most dependent on travel and tourism as a source of GDP, 15 are small island nations. Iceland, whose economy suffered a deep decline during the 2008 financial crisis, stands to lose again, as more than a third of its GDP comes from travel and tourism.
Andrew Fahie, the premier of the British Virgin Islands, has remained upbeat despite the expected downturn. “Our tourism industry has faced many crises before, from natural disasters to epidemics, and we have always come out strong on the other side,” he said.
Correction, April 2, 2020: The countries represented in the first graphic are those with the largest economies. A previous version of this article misstated the metric by which these countries were selected.


foreignpolicy--2020-04-01--America’s Pandemic War Games Don’t End Well

On June 22 , 2001 , a group of well-known U.S. officials and a handful of senior policymakers gathered at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland for a senior-level exercise that simulated a biological weapons attack—an outbreak of deadly smallpox—on the United States .
Designed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies ( now called the Center for Health Security ) and the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies ( CSIS ) , the day-and-a-half-long “ Dark Winter ” simulation was conducted to gauge how senior leaders would respond to such an attack and included such high-level @ @ @ @ @ @ @ played the president ) , former White House advisor David Gergen ( the national security advisor ) , and the retired career diplomat Frank Wisner ( the secretary of state ) .
But Dark Winter has since become legendary in senior policymaking circles in Washington for a different reason : It has regularly been cited by its designers and participants as the clearest exhibit of the spiraling stresses , and potential social collapse , that could be sparked by a public health crisis .
Dark Winter ( which stipulates a smallpox attack by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ( a disease inadvertently spread by human contact ) , of course .
But the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic bears an eerie resemblance to the simulation : leaders hampered by an inability to address a crisis they hadn ’ t foreseen ( “ We ’ d have been much more comfortable with a terrorist bombing , ” Nunn later said in congressional testimony ) ; national decision-making driven by data and expertise from the medical and public health sectors ; management options limited by the swift and unpredictable spread of the disease @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) ; a health care system that lacks the surge capacity to deal with mass casualties ; increased tensions between state and federal authorities ; the rapid spread of misinformation on cures and treatments for the outbreak ( the only way to treat smallpox is to not get it ) ; the difficulty of controlling unpredicted flights of civilians from infected areas ; domestic turmoil sparked by political uncertainty ( with sporadic rioting—quelled by National Guard units—in large urban areas as grocery stores are shuttered ) ; and an increasing reliance on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ citizens to self-quarantine to stop the spread of the contagion .
The Dark Winter exercise ended on the second day of the simulation after three long sessions—and purposely without resolution .
But then , the exercise ’ s goal was not to predict the future but to dramatize the issues faced by the federal government during a nationwide health crisis .
In this it masterfully succeeded , showing that what begins as a localized disease outbreak ( of smallpox appearing in Oklahoma City and then in two other densely populated urban areas ) @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the entire nation and the world : State borders become chokepoints crowded with those fleeing the disease , Canada and Mexico close their borders with the United States , and foreign nations restrict the travel of American citizens .
There is no worst-case scenario , with the collapse of American democracy , but democratic institutions are severely tested and strained .
After Dark Winter was concluded , the participants drew clear lessons from the exercise , focusing on the federal government ’ s lack of preparation for a public health crisis .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ exercise provided a stark preview of what the United States would face in 2020 : the unfamiliarity of governing officials with public health issues and the medical options available to address them ; a likely lack of good information in the earliest moments of the crisis ( Is the outbreak localized ?
How many Americans are infected ?
Where are they located ?
What health resources are available to treat them ? )
; an unfamiliarity with the health care system and how medical care is actually delivered ; the indecision surrounding the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be voluntary or required ?
Should they be local , statewide , or national ?
How should they be enforced ? )
; the necessity of providing a medical surge capability that would alleviate the strain on hospitals and care providers ( the U.S. military can build hospitals and quickly—as one participant noted—but who ’ s going to staff them ? )
; and the need to act quickly and decisively to identify the threatening virus and , more crucially , to identify who is infected and who isn ’ t .
These @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , particularly after its participants and designers briefed key figures in the Bush administration and members of Congress on their findings .
Included in the briefing was a series of grimly realistic videotapes of the exercise that dramatized its likely effects .
“ It is not pleasant , ” CSIS ’ s John Hamre told members of Congress in introducing the videos .
One of those who agreed , according to retired Air Force Col. Randall Larsen ( who co-designed the simulation for CSIS ) , was Vice President Dick Cheney , who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ days after 9/11 ) in his office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building before offering his own judgment .
“ This is terrifying , ” he said .
“ Dark Winter was an exercise designed to push the system to failure in order to learn about its vulnerabilities , ” said Andrew Lakoff , a professor of sociology at the University of Southern California who has studied Dark Winter and its impact .
“ The lessons of Dark Winter shaped biological preparedness policy for the next 10 years , but it is always @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over time.
” Trained as a sociologist and anthropologist of science in medicine , Lakoff is the author of Unprepared : Global Health in a Time of Emergency , an account of global and national responses to disease outbreaks from the SARS epidemic through the spread of the Ebola virus .
So it is no surprise that Lakoff has been following the national response to the coronavirus pandemic closely—and worrying that the crisis portrayed by Dark Winter is being replayed now , in what is clearly not a simulation .
Not surprisingly , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a growing number of health care providers , medical professionals , and policymakers who not only cite Dark Winter as one of the earliest and most well-known disease simulations but who note that it spawned a handful of follow-on exercises that , over the last two decades , should have ( but seemingly didn ’ t ) prepared public officials for the COVID-19 pandemic .
“ Dark Winter is extremely important , ” Larsen told Foreign Policy , “ but there were any number of follow-ons , right up until very recently—including one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ —that simulated what is happening right now with the coronavirus.
” In fact , by one count , there have been no less than four separate U.S. simulations that prefigured the events that unfolded in central China in January of this year .
In 2005 , “ Atlantic Storm , ” organized by the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center , simulated an international outbreak of a smallpox pandemic ( as opposed to the domestic smallpox terrorism attack stipulated by Dark Winter ) .
“ The SPARS Pandemic 2025-2028 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ medical responses to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus in St. Paul , Minnesota .
“ Clade X , ” hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in 2018 , proposed a worldwide coronavirus outbreak with no vaccine ( and which , according to Tom Inglesby , the center ’ s director , was designed to “ provide experiential learning ” for Trump administration officials ) .
And , in October 2019 , “ Event 201 ” presented an exercise that started with an outbreak of a novel coronavirus ( “ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as its designers premised ) that spread globally—and that presciently forecast COVID-19 .
“ Event 201 was basically an exercise that forecast the economic troubles a pandemic would likely cause , ” Larsen said , “ and proposed a series of economic preparedness steps the U.S. and global economic actors could take in responding to the crisis we ’ re facing now.
” According to the exercise , the pandemic ( a respiratory illness that starts in Brazil but ends up killing 65 million people globally ) would place outsized economic strains on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ broader cooperation among global health organizations and coordination among supply chain providers .
Event 201 showed that an economic response to a coronavirus outbreak would mirror the medical response gamed out in Dark Winter—with an economic response that would be hampered in its earliest days by a lack of good information , which would , in turn , destabilize markets and seed monetary instability .
The exercise presaged the events of COVID-19 that would take place within months of the simulation ’ s end .
“ It very clearly showed that a global @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Larsen said .
“ It was uncannily accurate.
” “ I think these simulations , these exercises , are critically important—absolutely crucial , ” said Gigi Kwik Gronvall , a senior scholar at the Center for Health Security .
“ And I think that ’ s true because to really digest what is happening in a pandemic you have to experience it.
” But even given the intensity to the series of simulations that began with Dark Winter in 2001 , Gronvall notes that the current pandemic has exposed what the simulations @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was slowed by a lack of testing , which led to a lack of situational awareness , ” she said .
“ The truth of this , the lesson , is that we just didn ’ t take the coronavirus reports coming out of China seriously enough soon enough .
We just weren ’ t quick enough , and now we ’ re scrambling to catch up .
It is a real problem for hospitals , which are bearing the brunt of this mistake .
We needed to surge help into our nation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we didn ’ t .
It didn ’ t need to happen.
” Of course , the slow response outlined by Gronvall is bound to be a central issue in any after-action report , as it was in each of the simulations that started with Dark Winter .
The issue is , after all , deeply political—as Dark Winter showed .
And it is not just lives that are at stake .
So , too , is the ability of the American form of government to respond deftly to a nationwide medical crisis @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this crisis , it was clear that the response was insufficiently proactive at the federal level , ” Lakoff argued .
“ Over the last century , we have developed a system for governing crisis situations that has saved us from falling into dictatorship in times of emergency .
We have shown that a democracy can respond as well as a dictatorship to emergencies .
But I wonder if our system will hold up in the face of the current crisis .
I certainly hope so .
”

On June 22, 2001, a group of well-known U.S. officials and a handful of senior policymakers gathered at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland for a senior-level exercise that simulated a biological weapons attack—an outbreak of deadly smallpox—on the United States. Designed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies (now called the Center for Health Security) and the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the day-and-a-half-long “ Dark Winter ” simulation was conducted to gauge how senior leaders would respond to such an attack and included such high-level participants as Sen. Sam Nunn (who played the president), former White House advisor David Gergen (the national security advisor), and the retired career diplomat Frank Wisner (the secretary of state). But Dark Winter has since become legendary in senior policymaking circles in Washington for a different reason: It has regularly been cited by its designers and participants as the clearest exhibit of the spiraling stresses, and potential social collapse, that could be sparked by a public health crisis.
On June 22, 2001, a group of well-known U.S. officials and a handful of senior policymakers gathered at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland for a senior-level exercise that simulated a biological weapons attack—an outbreak of deadly smallpox—on the United States. Designed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies (now called the Center for Health Security) and the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), the day-and-a-half-long “Dark Winter” simulation was conducted to gauge how senior leaders would respond to such an attack and included such high-level participants as Sen. Sam Nunn (who played the president), former White House advisor David Gergen (the national security advisor), and the retired career diplomat Frank Wisner (the secretary of state). But Dark Winter has since become legendary in senior policymaking circles in Washington for a different reason: It has regularly been cited by its designers and participants as the clearest exhibit of the spiraling stresses, and potential social collapse, that could be sparked by a public health crisis.
Dark Winter (which stipulates a smallpox attack by an unknown assailant) is not COVID-19 (a disease inadvertently spread by human contact), of course. But the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic bears an eerie resemblance to the simulation: leaders hampered by an inability to address a crisis they hadn’t foreseen (“We’d have been much more comfortable with a terrorist bombing,” Nunn later said in congressional testimony); national decision-making driven by data and expertise from the medical and public health sectors; management options limited by the swift and unpredictable spread of the disease (and a limited stockpile of vaccines); a health care system that lacks the surge capacity to deal with mass casualties; increased tensions between state and federal authorities; the rapid spread of misinformation on cures and treatments for the outbreak (the only way to treat smallpox is to not get it); the difficulty of controlling unpredicted flights of civilians from infected areas; domestic turmoil sparked by political uncertainty (with sporadic rioting—quelled by National Guard units—in large urban areas as grocery stores are shuttered); and an increasing reliance on the willingness (and unwillingness) of individual citizens to self-quarantine to stop the spread of the contagion.
The Dark Winter exercise ended on the second day of the simulation after three long sessions—and purposely without resolution. But then, the exercise’s goal was not to predict the future but to dramatize the issues faced by the federal government during a nationwide health crisis. In this it masterfully succeeded, showing that what begins as a localized disease outbreak (of smallpox appearing in Oklahoma City and then in two other densely populated urban areas) can quickly become a crisis that envelopes the entire nation and the world: State borders become chokepoints crowded with those fleeing the disease, Canada and Mexico close their borders with the United States, and foreign nations restrict the travel of American citizens. There is no worst-case scenario, with the collapse of American democracy, but democratic institutions are severely tested and strained. After Dark Winter was concluded, the participants drew clear lessons from the exercise, focusing on the federal government’s lack of preparation for a public health crisis.
The lessons drawn from the 2001 Dark Winter exercise provided a stark preview of what the United States would face in 2020: the unfamiliarity of governing officials with public health issues and the medical options available to address them; a likely lack of good information in the earliest moments of the crisis (Is the outbreak localized? How many Americans are infected? Where are they located? What health resources are available to treat them?); an unfamiliarity with the health care system and how medical care is actually delivered; the indecision surrounding the impact of quarantine orders (Should they be voluntary or required? Should they be local, statewide, or national? How should they be enforced?); the necessity of providing a medical surge capability that would alleviate the strain on hospitals and care providers (the U.S. military can build hospitals and quickly—as one participant noted—but who’s going to staff them?); and the need to act quickly and decisively to identify the threatening virus and, more crucially, to identify who is infected and who isn’t.
These lessons rippled out into the policymaking community, particularly after its participants and designers briefed key figures in the Bush administration and members of Congress on their findings. Included in the briefing was a series of grimly realistic videotapes of the exercise that dramatized its likely effects. “It is not pleasant,” CSIS’s John Hamre told members of Congress in introducing the videos. One of those who agreed, according to retired Air Force Col. Randall Larsen (who co-designed the simulation for CSIS), was Vice President Dick Cheney, who sat through the presentation (just nine days after 9/11) in his office at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building before offering his own judgment. “This is terrifying,” he said.
“Dark Winter was an exercise designed to push the system to failure in order to learn about its vulnerabilities,” said Andrew Lakoff, a professor of sociology at the University of Southern California who has studied Dark Winter and its impact. “The lessons of Dark Winter shaped biological preparedness policy for the next 10 years, but it is always difficult to ensure that preparedness is sustained over time.”
Trained as a sociologist and anthropologist of science in medicine, Lakoff is the author of Unprepared: Global Health in a Time of Emergency, an account of global and national responses to disease outbreaks from the SARS epidemic through the spread of the Ebola virus. So it is no surprise that Lakoff has been following the national response to the coronavirus pandemic closely—and worrying that the crisis portrayed by Dark Winter is being replayed now, in what is clearly not a simulation.
Not surprisingly, Lakoff’s worries are reflected among a growing number of health care providers, medical professionals, and policymakers who not only cite Dark Winter as one of the earliest and most well-known disease simulations but who note that it spawned a handful of follow-on exercises that, over the last two decades, should have (but seemingly didn’t) prepared public officials for the COVID-19 pandemic. “Dark Winter is extremely important,” Larsen told Foreign Policy, “but there were any number of follow-ons, right up until very recently—including one in 2019 called ‘Event 201’—that simulated what is happening right now with the coronavirus.”
In fact, by one count, there have been no less than four separate U.S. simulations that prefigured the events that unfolded in central China in January of this year. In 2005, “Atlantic Storm,” organized by the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, simulated an international outbreak of a smallpox pandemic (as opposed to the domestic smallpox terrorism attack stipulated by Dark Winter). “The SPARS Pandemic 2025-2028,” conducted in 2017, tested medical responses to the outbreak of a novel coronavirus in St. Paul, Minnesota. “Clade X,” hosted by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in 2018, proposed a worldwide coronavirus outbreak with no vaccine (and which, according to Tom Inglesby, the center’s director, was designed to “provide experiential learning” for Trump administration officials). And, in October 2019, “Event 201” presented an exercise that started with an outbreak of a novel coronavirus (“a high-impact respiratory pathogen pandemic,” as its designers premised) that spread globally—and that presciently forecast COVID-19.
“Event 201 was basically an exercise that forecast the economic troubles a pandemic would likely cause,” Larsen said, “and proposed a series of economic preparedness steps the U.S. and global economic actors could take in responding to the crisis we’re facing now.” According to the exercise, the pandemic (a respiratory illness that starts in Brazil but ends up killing 65 million people globally) would place outsized economic strains on international medical supply chains unless there were broader cooperation among global health organizations and coordination among supply chain providers. Event 201 showed that an economic response to a coronavirus outbreak would mirror the medical response gamed out in Dark Winter—with an economic response that would be hampered in its earliest days by a lack of good information, which would, in turn, destabilize markets and seed monetary instability. The exercise presaged the events of COVID-19 that would take place within months of the simulation’s end. “It very clearly showed that a global pandemic would take a global response,” Larsen said. “It was uncannily accurate.”
“I think these simulations, these exercises, are critically important—absolutely crucial,” said Gigi Kwik Gronvall, a senior scholar at the Center for Health Security. “And I think that’s true because to really digest what is happening in a pandemic you have to experience it.” But even given the intensity to the series of simulations that began with Dark Winter in 2001, Gronvall notes that the current pandemic has exposed what the simulations predicted. “The response to COVID-19 was slowed by a lack of testing, which led to a lack of situational awareness,” she said. “The truth of this, the lesson, is that we just didn’t take the coronavirus reports coming out of China seriously enough soon enough. We just weren’t quick enough, and now we’re scrambling to catch up. It is a real problem for hospitals, which are bearing the brunt of this mistake. We needed to surge help into our nation’s hospitals right away. And we didn’t. It didn’t need to happen.”
Of course, the slow response outlined by Gronvall is bound to be a central issue in any after-action report, as it was in each of the simulations that started with Dark Winter. The issue is, after all, deeply political—as Dark Winter showed. And it is not just lives that are at stake. So, too, is the ability of the American form of government to respond deftly to a nationwide medical crisis. “In the earliest days of this crisis, it was clear that the response was insufficiently proactive at the federal level,” Lakoff argued. “Over the last century, we have developed a system for governing crisis situations that has saved us from falling into dictatorship in times of emergency. We have shown that a democracy can respond as well as a dictatorship to emergencies. But I wonder if our system will hold up in the face of the current crisis. I certainly hope so.”


foreignpolicy--2020-04-01--Ukraine to World: This Is Not the Time to Go Wobbly on Sanctions

Ukraine to World : This Is Not the Time to Go Wobbly on Sanctions Facing a global sanctions backlash because of coronavirus concerns , Ukraine has mounted a lone appeal to the United Nations leadership to maintain economic pressure on Russia and other international scofflaws to comply with international law , saying any backtracking on sanctions at this moment would amount to “ appeasement.
” “ [ W ] e are witnessing attempts by some states to convince the international community that sanctions constrain their ability to counter the COVID-19 , ” Ukraine ’ s U.N. ambassador , Sergiy Kyslytsya @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres .
“ Those claims are artificial and groundless.
” “ Sanctions remain an important tool to restore the respect to international law , ” he added .
“ The only way for sanctions to disappear is not through their cancellation under the pretext of need to face and counter some new global pandemic , but through ensuring a thorough implementation of the UN Charter and complete halting of continuous violations of international law , including armed aggression , occupation and human rights abuses.
” The move comes as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ China , Russia , Iran , North Korea , Democratic lawmakers in the United States , relief agencies , and the U.N. leadership—have advocated an easing of measures in response to the coronavirus .
It poses the greatest challenge to U.S. sanctions policy since the 1990s , when the Clinton administration faced charges that sweeping economic sanctions against Iraq were contributing to soaring levels of malnutrition .
“ Sanctions imposed on countries should be waived to ensure access to food , essential supplies and access to COVID-19 tests and medical support , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Guterres and made public on Tuesday .
“ This is the time for solidarity not exclusion.
” Several Democratic lawmakers in the United States—including presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders .
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez , Sen. Chris Murphy , Sen. Patrick Leahy , and Sen. Tim Kaine—have urged the Trump administration to ease sanctions against countries struck hard by the coronavirus , including Iran and Venezuela , which they claim impede the import of medical supplies and protective gear .
“ We should not feel guilty about sanctions , period .
We didn ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The sanctions were there for good reasons , ” said Daniel Fried , a former senior diplomat who served as the State Department ’ s sanctions coordinator .
“ But in the coronavirus situation , the humanitarian impact of sanctions is a legitimate issue to raise.
” The Trump administration has issued exemptions to sanctioned countries for the delivery of humanitarian supplies .
But Fried said the conditions the administration placed on these exemptions are too onerous to work .
“ It didn ’ t feel like a serious initiative .
… It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” “ The right to health is a human right , ” added Louis Charbonneau , the U.N. director at Human Rights Watch , which published a report last year on the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iranians ’ health .
“ What we see in Iran is exemptions from sanctions for medicine and humanitarian aid don ’ t work .
We have a global health crisis , we ’ ve got a pandemic , and countries need to make sure they are not doing anything to worsen it.
” China and Russia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Iran , Nicaragua , North Korea , Syria , and Venezuela—that are seeking to parlay the coronavirus pandemic into a case for easing U.S. sanctions .
“ [ W ] e respectfully urge you to request the complete and immediate lifting of such illegal , coercive and arbitrary measures of economic pressure , ” the eight governments wrote in a joint letter to Guterres on March 25 .
“ As you are well aware , we live in an interconnected world ; hence , in the context of the global pandemic , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ heightens the risk for all of us.
’ ” “ [ W ] e can not allow for political calculations to get in the way of saving human lives , ” they added .
“ This is a time , as you have stated over and over again , not for fostering chaos , but for global solidarity , cooperation and prudence.
” The anti-sanctions campaign appeared to be gaining some traction in Washington , though officials and experts say the Trump administration is highly unlikely to permanently lift any sanctions on Iran @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of State Mike Pompeo said the United States would consider lifting sanctions against Venezuela if its de facto leader , Nicolás Maduro , agreed to step aside and make way for a transitional government .
( Maduro ’ s government swiftly rejected the offer after it was made . )
On Tuesday , Pompeo floated the idea that the United States might be prepared to ease up on some sanctions to help other countries , including Iran , in response to the health crisis .
Asked if Washington might reevaluate its sanctions policy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like Iran , Pompeo said : “ We evaluate all of our policies constantly .
So the answer is , would we ever rethink it ?
Of course , we ’ re constantly trying to make sure we have our policies right.
” The appeal for sanctions has received a mixed response from key players , particularly in Europe , where governments largely disagree with U.S. unilateral sanctions against countries like Cuba , Iran and Venezuela .
On Tuesday , Britain , France , and Germany said they would seek to channel medical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system—called Instex—that was set up to enable European countries to get around U.S. sanctions against Tehran .
But European governments have doubled down on sanctions against regimes in other parts of the world .
Ambassador Jürgen Schulz , a senior diplomat from Germany , which presides over the U.N. Security Council ’ s North Korea sanctions committee , expressed concern Tuesday about the “ humanitarian situation in North Korea.
” But he said the council had responded to all of Pyongyang ’ s requests for exemptions from sanctions to fight the coronavirus with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The sanctions are therefore no impediment to effectively combating COVID-19 in the DPRK , ” he said , using the acronym for North Korea ’ s official name , the Democratic People ’ s Republic of Korea .
“ We have to sadly note that the DPRK unfortunately continues to give priority once more to its illegal weapons programs , instead of working with the WHO and the U.N. family to make best use of the assistance on offer .
Unfortunately , there seems to be a lack of transparency in DPRK ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which we find dangerous and cynical.
” Russia has been the target of U.S. and European sanctions since 2012 , when President Barack Obama signed the Magnitsky Act , a first round of penalties imposed on Russian officials in retaliation for the death of the imprisoned tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in 2009 .
The U.S. and European governments imposed a fresh round of sanctions against Russia following its military intervention in Ukraine , and its annexation of Crimea , in early 2014 .
On Friday , Russia drafted a U.N. General Assembly @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from applying “ any unilateral coercive measures undertaken without the mandate of the Security Council , ” a provision that runs counter to U.S. and European sanctions on Russia .
The resolution is unlikely to secure more than a handful of supporters .
Ukraine ’ s foreign minister , Dmytro Kuleba , meanwhile urged states to keep the pressure on Russia , saying it continues to shell Ukrainian territory despite a U.N. appeal for a global cease-fire .
“ The international community has imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its armed aggression @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do with the coronavirus pandemic , ” Kuleba said Monday in a statement .
“ Russia ’ s misuse of the pandemic for political purposes , its calls to lift sanctions are a dirty manipulation and an attempt to benefit from the suffering of millions .
”

Facing a global sanctions backlash because of coronavirus concerns, Ukraine has mounted a lone appeal to the United Nations leadership to maintain economic pressure on Russia and other international scofflaws to comply with international law, saying any backtracking on sanctions at this moment would amount to “appeasement.”
Facing a global sanctions backlash because of coronavirus concerns, Ukraine has mounted a lone appeal to the United Nations leadership to maintain economic pressure on Russia and other international scofflaws to comply with international law, saying any backtracking on sanctions at this moment would amount to “appeasement.”
“[W]e are witnessing attempts by some states to convince the international community that sanctions constrain their ability to counter the COVID-19,” Ukraine’s U.N. ambassador, Sergiy Kyslytsya, wrote in a March 30 letter to U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres. “Those claims are artificial and groundless.”
“Sanctions remain an important tool to restore the respect to international law,” he added. “The only way for sanctions to disappear is not through their cancellation under the pretext of need to face and counter some new global pandemic, but through ensuring a thorough implementation of the UN Charter and complete halting of continuous violations of international law, including armed aggression, occupation and human rights abuses.”
The move comes as an unlikely but growing coalition of forces—including China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Democratic lawmakers in the United States, relief agencies, and the U.N. leadership—have advocated an easing of measures in response to the coronavirus. It poses the greatest challenge to U.S. sanctions policy since the 1990s, when the Clinton administration faced charges that sweeping economic sanctions against Iraq were contributing to soaring levels of malnutrition.
“Sanctions imposed on countries should be waived to ensure access to food, essential supplies and access to COVID-19 tests and medical support,” according to a U.N. report commissioned by Guterres and made public on Tuesday. “This is the time for solidarity not exclusion.”
Several Democratic lawmakers in the United States—including presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Sen. Chris Murphy, Sen. Patrick Leahy, and Sen. Tim Kaine—have urged the Trump administration to ease sanctions against countries struck hard by the coronavirus, including Iran and Venezuela, which they claim impede the import of medical supplies and protective gear.
“We should not feel guilty about sanctions, period. We didn’t put them on by accident. The sanctions were there for good reasons,” said Daniel Fried, a former senior diplomat who served as the State Department’s sanctions coordinator. “But in the coronavirus situation, the humanitarian impact of sanctions is a legitimate issue to raise.”
The Trump administration has issued exemptions to sanctioned countries for the delivery of humanitarian supplies. But Fried said the conditions the administration placed on these exemptions are too onerous to work. “It didn’t feel like a serious initiative. … It felt like a bureaucratic sleight of hand.”
“The right to health is a human right,” added Louis Charbonneau, the U.N. director at Human Rights Watch, which published a report last year on the impact of U.S. sanctions on Iranians’ health. “What we see in Iran is exemptions from sanctions for medicine and humanitarian aid don’t work. We have a global health crisis, we’ve got a pandemic, and countries need to make sure they are not doing anything to worsen it.”
China and Russia are leading a coalition of countries—including Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela—that are seeking to parlay the coronavirus pandemic into a case for easing U.S. sanctions.
“[W]e respectfully urge you to request the complete and immediate lifting of such illegal, coercive and arbitrary measures of economic pressure,” the eight governments wrote in a joint letter to Guterres on March 25. “As you are well aware, we live in an interconnected world; hence, in the context of the global pandemic, ‘impeding medical efforts in one country heightens the risk for all of us.’”
“[W]e cannot allow for political calculations to get in the way of saving human lives,” they added. “This is a time, as you have stated over and over again, not for fostering chaos, but for global solidarity, cooperation and prudence.”
The anti-sanctions campaign appeared to be gaining some traction in Washington, though officials and experts say the Trump administration is highly unlikely to permanently lift any sanctions on Iran.
But on Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said the United States would consider lifting sanctions against Venezuela if its de facto leader, Nicolás Maduro, agreed to step aside and make way for a transitional government. (Maduro’s government swiftly rejected the offer after it was made.)
On Tuesday, Pompeo floated the idea that the United States might be prepared to ease up on some sanctions to help other countries, including Iran, in response to the health crisis. Asked if Washington might reevaluate its sanctions policy as the death toll mounts in countries like Iran, Pompeo said: “We evaluate all of our policies constantly. So the answer is, would we ever rethink it? Of course, we’re constantly trying to make sure we have our policies right.”
The appeal for sanctions has received a mixed response from key players, particularly in Europe, where governments largely disagree with U.S. unilateral sanctions against countries like Cuba, Iran and Venezuela.
On Tuesday, Britain, France, and Germany said they would seek to channel medical aid to Iran through an electronic payment system—called Instex—that was set up to enable European countries to get around U.S. sanctions against Tehran.
But European governments have doubled down on sanctions against regimes in other parts of the world. Ambassador Jürgen Schulz, a senior diplomat from Germany, which presides over the U.N. Security Council’s North Korea sanctions committee, expressed concern Tuesday about the “humanitarian situation in North Korea.”
But he said the council had responded to all of Pyongyang’s requests for exemptions from sanctions to fight the coronavirus with “unprecedented speed and urgency.”
“The sanctions are therefore no impediment to effectively combating COVID-19 in the DPRK,” he said, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“We have to sadly note that the DPRK unfortunately continues to give priority once more to its illegal weapons programs, instead of working with the WHO and the U.N. family to make best use of the assistance on offer. Unfortunately, there seems to be a lack of transparency in DPRK’s cooperation with the U.N. over COVID-19, which we find dangerous and cynical.”
Russia has been the target of U.S. and European sanctions since 2012, when President Barack Obama signed the Magnitsky Act, a first round of penalties imposed on Russian officials in retaliation for the death of the imprisoned tax accountant Sergei Magnitsky in 2009. The U.S. and European governments imposed a fresh round of sanctions against Russia following its military intervention in Ukraine, and its annexation of Crimea, in early 2014.
On Friday, Russia drafted a U.N. General Assembly resolution that calls on states to refrain from applying “any unilateral coercive measures undertaken without the mandate of the Security Council,” a provision that runs counter to U.S. and European sanctions on Russia.
The resolution is unlikely to secure more than a handful of supporters.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, meanwhile urged states to keep the pressure on Russia, saying it continues to shell Ukrainian territory despite a U.N. appeal for a global cease-fire.
“The international community has imposed sanctions on Russia in response to its armed aggression against Ukraine. This has nothing to do with the coronavirus pandemic,” Kuleba said Monday in a statement. “Russia’s misuse of the pandemic for political purposes, its calls to lift sanctions are a dirty manipulation and an attempt to benefit from the suffering of millions.”
Foreign Policy staff writer Robbie Gramer contributed to this report.