foreignpolicy--2020-06-04--The Coronavirus Reaches Rural India

The Coronavirus Reaches Rural India

Welcome to Foreign Policy ’ s South Asia Brief .
This week : The coronavirus reaches rural India , kills a Rohingya refugee , and leaves the Taliban ’ s top leadership seriously ill. Plus , Mike Pompeo berates China over its dispute with India and Google steps in to mediate a digital spat between the two Asian powers .
If you would like to receive South Asia Brief in your inbox every Thursday , please sign up here .
The math is catching up with India .
For two months , epidemiologists and journalists have wondered why countries in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ coronavirus cases .
But the latest data seems to suggest they haven ’ t flattened the curve—they ’ re just behind it .
On Thursday , India recorded more than 9,000 new infections , placing it seventh in the list of countries with the most cases , as shown above .
At the current rate—total cases doubling about every two weeks—India could soon rise to fourth place , behind only the United States , Brazil , and Russia .
With a growing ratio of tests returning positive , experts estimate India is weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ peak .
But predictions remain fuzzy : India ’ s testing rate of about 3,000 per million people is 20 times lower than the U.S. rate .
Rural outbreak ?
Perhaps the most concerning news is that migrant workers who left India ’ s big cities to return to their home states after the hastily announced lockdown on March 24 brought the coronavirus with them .
Of the 3,872 new cases recorded after June 1 in the state of Bihar , 71 percent were linked to people who returned in May , when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to transport migrant workers .
A rural outbreak is especially worrying because India ’ s health care problems—chiefly low numbers of hospital beds , doctors , and nurses—are worst in its villages , which are often remote and where literacy rates tend to be lowest .
A rapid spread of the virus in rural areas could be especially difficult to track , let alone contain .
Overwhelmed hospitals .
India ’ s cities are not without their problems .
HuffPost India published an increasingly familiar story of a desperate family being turned away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
After forcing their way into a hospital and begging a doctor to help , they learned it was too late .
“ Hours after we took an alive person out of his house in our car , we returned after cremating him , ” writes a family member .
Regional reopening .
Despite the data , India is moving ahead with a planned reopening .
While data on so-called informal sector workers and daily wage laborers is difficult to procure , estimates suggest that more than 100 million Indians are out of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , major cities are already humming back to life .
It seems that much of the region has arrived at the same conclusion after months of shutdowns : They can ’ t sustain any more economic pain .
And that means it ’ s quite likely South Asia will become a major coronavirus hub by the summer ’ s end .
Our weekly chart on the rising number of cases across the region : The India-China standoff .
While neither New Delhi nor Beijing took U.S. President Donald Trump ’ s offer to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Secretary of State Mike Pompeo openly rebuked China this week .
Speaking at an event at the American Enterprise Institute , Pompeo described China ’ s movement of troops to its border with India as “ the kinds of actions that authoritarian regimes take.
” The two countries plan to hold high-level talks on Saturday .
The Taliban ’ s leader has COVID-19 .
As Lynne O ’ Donnell and Mirwais Khan reported for Foreign Policy this week , the supreme leader of the Afghan Taliban , Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada , is gravely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may be more serious .
While there has been no official confirmation , Taliban figures in Pakistan say they believe Akhunzada has already died .
“ Nearly all the Taliban leadership in Doha has the bug , ” one official said .
First Rohingya refugee dies of coronavirus .
It was perhaps only a matter of time .
A 71-year-old Rohingya refugee died on May 31 at an isolation center in Bangladesh .
Fewer than 400 Rohingya in Bangladesh ’ s refugee camps have been tested for the virus so far .
Aid @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the virus starts spreading in Cox ’ s Bazar , it will be unstoppable .
The Maldives will reopen its borders to foreign visitors in July .
“ We can not keep our borders closed for long , ” said the country ’ s minister for tourism in a statement issued last month .
The island country has a population of about 500,000 , and its economy relies heavily on tourism .
Our question : How many international tourists visited last year ?
Scroll down for the answer .
Digital dispute .
Google @ @ @ @ @ @ @ app Remove China Apps from India ’ s Google Play Store after it was downloaded nearly 5 million times last week .
As the name suggests , the app promised to delete Chinese-made software from users ’ smartphones .
The digital kerfuffle took place just as tensions between India and China escalated along their unmarked border .
There ’ s a real irony to the Indian movement to go local .
Most Indians use low-cost Chinese-made smartphones manufactured under generic-sounding brand names such as Vivo , Oppo , One Plus , CoolPad , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Perhaps related to the previous story , India launched a $ 6.65 billion plan to boost electronics manufacturing this week .
New Delhi plans to offer global smartphone makers hefty incentives to manufacture in India—a move that would allow it to compete with China for post-pandemic jobs as companies diversify their supply chains .
Almost immediately after Bollywood ( and Hollywood ) star Priyanka Chopra shared her thoughts about George Floyd ’ s killing in Minneapolis on Instagram last week , social media erupted with criticism .
Some pointed out that Chopra has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on an unhealthy obsession with whiteness—and others called out Chopra and other stars for failing to act on issues within India .
We ’ ll publish an article about this issue from the journalist Raksha Kumar tomorrow , so check back in .
My own thoughts are that India has even greater policing problems than the United States , ranging from its brutal actions in Kashmir to how social divisions of caste , class , and gender play out in police work every day across the country .
So-called lower castes and the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there are certainly no mass protests arguing against it .
Perhaps the ongoing demonstrations in U.S. cities will make Indians and South Asians at large rethink problems within their own societies , too .
The Maldives welcomed 1.7 million international tourists last year .
It was hoping to increase that number to 2 million this year , but it has been unable to attract any tourists since March .
That ’ s it for this week .
We welcome your feedback at newsletters @ foreignpolicy.com .
You can find older editions of South @ @ @ @ @ @ @ FP , subscribe here or sign up for our other newsletters .

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief. This week: The coronavirus reaches rural India , kills a Rohingya refugee , and leaves the Taliban’s top leadership seriously ill.
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief. This week: The coronavirus reaches rural India, kills a Rohingya refugee, and leaves the Taliban’s top leadership seriously ill.
Plus, Mike Pompeo berates China over its dispute with India and Google steps in to mediate a digital spat between the two Asian powers.
If you would like to receive South Asia Brief in your inbox every Thursday, please sign up here.
Coronavirus Threatens Rural India
The math is catching up with India.
For two months, epidemiologists and journalists have wondered why countries in South Asia hadn’t recorded more coronavirus cases. But the latest data seems to suggest they haven’t flattened the curve—they’re just behind it.
On Thursday, India recorded more than 9,000 new infections, placing it seventh in the list of countries with the most cases, as shown above. At the current rate—total cases doubling about every two weeks—India could soon rise to fourth place, behind only the United States, Brazil, and Russia. With a growing ratio of tests returning positive, experts estimate India is weeks and maybe even months away from a peak. But predictions remain fuzzy: India’s testing rate of about 3,000 per million people is 20 times lower than the U.S. rate.
Rural outbreak? Perhaps the most concerning news is that migrant workers who left India’s big cities to return to their home states after the hastily announced lockdown on March 24 brought the coronavirus with them. Of the 3,872 new cases recorded after June 1 in the state of Bihar, 71 percent were linked to people who returned in May, when the government ran special buses and trains to transport migrant workers.
A rural outbreak is especially worrying because India’s health care problems—chiefly low numbers of hospital beds, doctors, and nurses—are worst in its villages, which are often remote and where literacy rates tend to be lowest. A rapid spread of the virus in rural areas could be especially difficult to track, let alone contain.
Overwhelmed hospitals. India’s cities are not without their problems. HuffPost India published an increasingly familiar story of a desperate family being turned away from several overcrowded hospitals in New Delhi. After forcing their way into a hospital and begging a doctor to help, they learned it was too late. “Hours after we took an alive person out of his house in our car, we returned after cremating him,” writes a family member.
Regional reopening. Despite the data, India is moving ahead with a planned reopening. While data on so-called informal sector workers and daily wage laborers is difficult to procure, estimates suggest that more than 100 million Indians are out of work. In neighboring Bangladesh and Pakistan, major cities are already humming back to life. It seems that much of the region has arrived at the same conclusion after months of shutdowns: They can’t sustain any more economic pain. And that means it’s quite likely South Asia will become a major coronavirus hub by the summer’s end.
Our weekly chart on the rising number of cases across the region:
What We’re Following
The India-China standoff. While neither New Delhi nor Beijing took U.S. President Donald Trump’s offer to mediate the dispute between them seriously, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo openly rebuked China this week. Speaking at an event at the American Enterprise Institute, Pompeo described China’s movement of troops to its border with India as “the kinds of actions that authoritarian regimes take.” The two countries plan to hold high-level talks on Saturday.
The Taliban’s leader has COVID-19. As Lynne O’Donnell and Mirwais Khan reported for Foreign Policy this week, the supreme leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Haibatullah Akhunzada, is gravely ill with the coronavirus. But things may be more serious. While there has been no official confirmation, Taliban figures in Pakistan say they believe Akhunzada has already died. “Nearly all the Taliban leadership in Doha has the bug,” one official said.
First Rohingya refugee dies of coronavirus. It was perhaps only a matter of time. A 71-year-old Rohingya refugee died on May 31 at an isolation center in Bangladesh. Fewer than 400 Rohingya in Bangladesh’s refugee camps have been tested for the virus so far. Aid workers have warned for months that if the virus starts spreading in Cox’s Bazar, it will be unstoppable.
Question of the Week
The Maldives will reopen its borders to foreign visitors in July. “We cannot keep our borders closed for long,” said the country’s minister for tourism in a statement issued last month. The island country has a population of about 500,000, and its economy relies heavily on tourism. Our question: How many international tourists visited last year?
A) 700,000
B) 1.7 million
C) 3.7 million
D) 7.7 million
Scroll down for the answer.
South Asia Inc.
Digital dispute. Google stepped in this week to remove the app Remove China Apps from India’s Google Play Store after it was downloaded nearly 5 million times last week. As the name suggests, the app promised to delete Chinese-made software from users’ smartphones. The digital kerfuffle took place just as tensions between India and China escalated along their unmarked border.
There’s a real irony to the Indian movement to go local. Most Indians use low-cost Chinese-made smartphones manufactured under generic-sounding brand names such as Vivo, Oppo, One Plus, CoolPad, and Gionee.
Make in India. Perhaps related to the previous story, India launched a $6.65 billion plan to boost electronics manufacturing this week. New Delhi plans to offer global smartphone makers hefty incentives to manufacture in India—a move that would allow it to compete with China for post-pandemic jobs as companies diversify their supply chains.
Odds and Ends
Almost immediately after Bollywood (and Hollywood) star Priyanka Chopra shared her thoughts about George Floyd’s killing in Minneapolis on Instagram last week, social media erupted with criticism. Some pointed out that Chopra has previously endorsed controversial fairness creams—an industry based on an unhealthy obsession with whiteness—and others called out Chopra and other stars for failing to act on issues within India.
We’ll publish an article about this issue from the journalist Raksha Kumar tomorrow, so check back in. My own thoughts are that India has even greater policing problems than the United States, ranging from its brutal actions in Kashmir to how social divisions of caste, class, and gender play out in police work every day across the country. So-called lower castes and the poor face the brunt of police brutality—but there are certainly no mass protests arguing against it.
Perhaps the ongoing demonstrations in U.S. cities will make Indians and South Asians at large rethink problems within their own societies, too.
And the Answer Is…
B) 1.7 million.
The Maldives welcomed 1.7 million international tourists last year. It was hoping to increase that number to 2 million this year, but it has been unable to attract any tourists since March.
That’s it for this week.
We welcome your feedback at newsletters@foreignpolicy.com. You can find older editions of South Asia Brief here. For more from FP, subscribe here or sign up for our other newsletters.


foreignpolicy--2020-06-04--Russia’s Cynicism Is Infecting U.S. Politics

Tens of thousands of Americans have taken to the streets across the country to protest the killing of George Floyd and the assaults on countless other black men and women by uniformed police officers .
The draconian response to these protests—including seemingly indiscriminate beatings , gassings , and shootings—has shocked many Americans who believed such scenes were confined to news broadcasts from abroad , not their own country .
U.S. President Donald Trump at first seemed unsure how to respond to the cascading crisis , retreating to the White House bunker on Saturday night as protesters clashed with Secret Service @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a phone call with Vladimir Putin—ostensibly about Russia ’ s place in the G-7—the president was ready to double down on his promise to aggressively stamp out protests .
Excoriating the nation ’ s governors as if he were a king and they his feudal barons , Trump essentially threatened military force against the entire country in a Rose Garden speech .
Putin knows a thing or two about riot control .
The Russian president was a low-level KGB officer in Dresden in 1989 as the Soviet Union ’ s peripheral empire collapsed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ attempting to storm the Soviet Consulate while “ Moscow was silent.
” Since coming to power 20 years ago , Putin has brutally quashed numerous protests against his rule , most famously in 2011 , when he captured his approach to handling dissent in an interview : “ The Soviet Union collapsed … the very existence of the Russian state was in question .
For that reason , we had to tighten the screws , to be blunt.
” Trump is trying just that .
Once , the United States sought to remake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with an irony worthy of Russian literature , it is now actually Americans who are becoming more like them .
The French political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the United States and Russia were the twin drivers of modernity , two nations that , as he put it , started out from different points but tended toward the same end .
He may yet be proved right .
Challenges long familiar to Russians—perennial questions of identity , creeping political ennui , a declining life expectancy driven by substance abuse and suicide—have caught @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wave of success through the latter half of the 20th century .
Today , many Americans , like many Russians , have grown weary of thinking about present challenges and instead prefer to revel in an idealized past .
A growing number of Americans , like the vast majority of Russians already , are uninterested in politics , believing it has little to do with them and that there is little they could do about it even if it did .
Russia has long been what political scientists call a low-trust society , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ one .
These societies are marked by the widespread lack of social confidence and reliance on familistic , tribal connections as the basis for all cooperation , which of course comes at the expense of a broader ability to trust strangers .
They are also characterized by the almost occult role of corruption in politics , where though “ individuals participate in and directly perceive modern secondary organizations … [ they ] reject them as illegitimate or corrupt.
” As one historian put it : “ [ A ] ny advantage that may @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the expense of one ’ s own family .
Therefore , one can not afford the luxury of charity , which is giving others more than their due , or even of justice , which is giving them their due .
… Toward those who are not of the family the reasonable attitude is suspicion.
” Imagine Putin ’ s gloating .
“ You see , ” he might instruct the coterie of sycophants gathered around him , “ they ’ re no better than us .
In fact , they ’ re @ @ @ @ @ @ @ remarked , “ Perhaps what one should do least is blame the mirror.
” Russia and the United States are so fixated on one another because each sees in the other a warped reflection of itself .
They see , in other words , what might have been or could yet come to pass .
There are some uncanny similarities , after all .
To begin with , both began on opposite fringes of Europe , considered barely civilized by more established nations .
Both grew , over time , into continental empires @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and ultimately closed the Eurasian Steppe—throwing a wrench into the engine that had driven Eurasia ’ s geopolitics for millennia .
America expanded too , subjugating or exterminating entire populations to settle its Wild West—and thereby becoming the world ’ s first truly hemispheric power .
Both were born in revolution , always more ideas than countries .
Russia might not think of itself as a multicultural country like the United States , but Moscow has always been an ersatz state , one that assimilated the aspects of its rivals it most feared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to adopting the mannerisms of French absolutism , hardly any of the things Russia is most famous for—Orthodoxy , communism , hell , even vodka—originated in Russia .
America ’ s resurgent nationalism and Russia ’ s notorious post-Soviet inferiority complex are both examples of what the historian Isaiah Berlin called states of wounded consciousness .
Such wounds are inflicted when reality doesn ’ t conform to our sense of what ’ s right and leave nations ripe for exploitation by confident demagogues peddling easy solutions who always know whom to blame .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in December 1991 , a sociocultural glacier that had determined the contours of global order for the better part of a century suddenly melted away , unleashing a torrent of change .
That flood quickly inundated Russia ’ s political landscape , washing away the old and leaving a morass of debris in its wake .
Triumphalist Western analysts saw the sudden collapse of the so-called “ evil empire ” as a vindication , but there was no “ dancing on the wall ” for Russians nor any of the liberation felt in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the “ greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century ” —which is saying a lot—and the vast majority of Russians apparently agree with him .
For them , the 1990s were a decade marked by chaos and humiliation .
Public services deteriorated , crime rates soared , and one by one formerly pliant satellites broke away as a chastened Moscow helplessly watched .
Humbled and confused , post-Soviet Russia may have been primed to turn to the West .
But the United States was not feeling particularly magnanimous toward its fallen foe and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Marshall Plan that Soviet leaders were practically begging for .
It instead unleashed the very forces that had ostensibly given it victory in the first place—the free market .
Management consultants and financial advisors practically invaded Russia in the 1990s , each one an evangelist of the gospel of unfettered growth .
The decrepit Soviet bureaucracy was dismantled through shock therapy and fire-sale privatization , completing the final demolition of the rickety apparatus of an invasive state that had governed almost every aspect of its citizens ’ lives for decades .
The result @ @ @ @ @ @ @ unpaid salaries .
Russia quickly mutated into a neo-feudalistic kleptocracy driven by the sort of crony capitalism that would have made Ferdinand Marcos blush .
Its people had become déclassé , a notion manifest in the phrase oskudeniye tsentra—the impoverishment of the core—something many Americans are feeling these days .
In Russia , one has the “ sense of being surrounded by lies , ” a condition Americans are coming to appreciate—with Russian encouragement .
Russians grew accustomed over decades of Communist rule to exhibit self-preserving circumspection about the concept of truth since @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a whim .
Getting caught on the wrong side of the party line was dangerous .
There ’ s even a name for the type of citizen this produced : Homo Sovieticus .
Soviet Man is a “ servile double-thinker with no morality , ” according to the Levada Center .
And though today he “ has somewhat changed … he still feels insecure and vulnerable .
And he ’ s just as aggressive towards his neighbor because there are no institutions that have laid down rules that people follow.
” This cynical @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Russian people that the world was against them and that change is impossible .
Like the insatiable appetite for nostalgia , “ [ c ] onspiracy theory replaces ideology with a mix of self-pity , paranoia , self-importance , and entertainment.
” In a world controlled by dark forces puppeteering every event , people seek strongmen who claim to be able to protect them .
It was into this wounded consciousness that Putin—Mr .
Nobody—emerged .
A leader capable of making Russia great again didn ’ t exist , so one had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Kremlin ’ s political technologist for more than a decade under Putin , exhumed the graves of Russian history and conjured the revenants of racism , nostalgia , and leader worship to build a made-to-order leader who appealed to the broadest span of Russia ’ s demoralized people .
Putin ’ s created persona borrows from numerous masculine images—from race car driver and cowboy to martial artist and outlaw biker .
Americans often say their political opponents today exist inside the bubble of their own echo chambers , making them susceptible to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ media ecosystem was atomized by the state for that very purpose and today holds sway over a constellation of state-owned or state-controlled outlets designed to protect Moscow ’ s regime at home and undermine its opponents abroad .
Does any of this seem familiar ?
Americans ’ confidence in their institutions has been declining for 30 years .
But so has their confidence in general : in science , in the media , even in each other .
And while Americans have always been a little crazy , they are now increasingly confused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a demagogue from central casting .
As Putin works to crystalize Russia ’ s autumnal autocracy , the United States is flirting with its own .
Where once Moscow sought to emulate the West , it is now Americans who are building a pastiche version of Putinism , complete with rampant cronyism and Soviet-style “ alternative facts.
” In hindsight , it should not have come as such a surprise that Russia ’ s current crop of cultural appropriators turned the West ’ s most recently successful weapons—the free market and advertising—against @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be closer than they appear .

Tens of thousands of Americans have taken to the streets across the country to protest the killing of George Floyd and the assaults on countless other black men and women by uniformed police officers. The draconian response to these protests—including seemingly indiscriminate beatings, gassings, and shootings—has shocked many Americans who believed such scenes were confined to news broadcasts from abroad, not their own country.
Tens of thousands of Americans have taken to the streets across the country to protest the killing of George Floyd and the assaults on countless other black men and women by uniformed police officers. The draconian response to these protests—including seemingly indiscriminate beatings, gassings, and shootings—has shocked many Americans who believed such scenes were confined to news broadcasts from abroad, not their own country.
U.S. President Donald Trump at first seemed unsure how to respond to the cascading crisis, retreating to the White House bunker on Saturday night as protesters clashed with Secret Service officers outside its walls. But after a phone call with Vladimir Putin—ostensibly about Russia’s place in the G-7—the president was ready to double down on his promise to aggressively stamp out protests. Excoriating the nation’s governors as if he were a king and they his feudal barons, Trump essentially threatened military force against the entire country in a Rose Garden speech.
Putin knows a thing or two about riot control. The Russian president was a low-level KGB officer in Dresden in 1989 as the Soviet Union’s peripheral empire collapsed, where he supposedly stood down protesters attempting to storm the Soviet Consulate while “Moscow was silent.” Since coming to power 20 years ago, Putin has brutally quashed numerous protests against his rule, most famously in 2011, when he captured his approach to handling dissent in an interview: “The Soviet Union collapsed … the very existence of the Russian state was in question. For that reason, we had to tighten the screws, to be blunt.” Trump is trying just that.
Once, the United States sought to remake Russia in its own image. But with an irony worthy of Russian literature, it is now actually Americans who are becoming more like them. The French political theorist Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that the United States and Russia were the twin drivers of modernity, two nations that, as he put it, started out from different points but tended toward the same end. He may yet be proved right.
Challenges long familiar to Russians—perennial questions of identity, creeping political ennui, a declining life expectancy driven by substance abuse and suicide—have caught up with an America that rode a wave of success through the latter half of the 20th century. Today, many Americans, like many Russians, have grown weary of thinking about present challenges and instead prefer to revel in an idealized past. A growing number of Americans, like the vast majority of Russians already, are uninterested in politics, believing it has little to do with them and that there is little they could do about it even if it did.
Russia has long been what political scientists call a low-trust society, and the United States is swiftly becoming one. These societies are marked by the widespread lack of social confidence and reliance on familistic, tribal connections as the basis for all cooperation, which of course comes at the expense of a broader ability to trust strangers. They are also characterized by the almost occult role of corruption in politics, where though “individuals participate in and directly perceive modern secondary organizations … [they] reject them as illegitimate or corrupt.”
As one historian put it: “[A]ny advantage that may be given to another is necessarily at the expense of one’s own family. Therefore, one cannot afford the luxury of charity, which is giving others more than their due, or even of justice, which is giving them their due. … Toward those who are not of the family the reasonable attitude is suspicion.”
Imagine Putin’s gloating. “You see,” he might instruct the coterie of sycophants gathered around him, “they’re no better than us. In fact, they’re just like us.” As he once remarked, “Perhaps what one should do least is blame the mirror.”
Russia and the United States are so fixated on one another because each sees in the other a warped reflection of itself. They see, in other words, what might have been or could yet come to pass. There are some uncanny similarities, after all.
To begin with, both began on opposite fringes of Europe, considered barely civilized by more established nations. Both grew, over time, into continental empires. Russia spread eastward where it conquered and ultimately closed the Eurasian Steppe—throwing a wrench into the engine that had driven Eurasia’s geopolitics for millennia. America expanded too, subjugating or exterminating entire populations to settle its Wild West—and thereby becoming the world’s first truly hemispheric power.
Both were born in revolution, always more ideas than countries. Russia might not think of itself as a multicultural country like the United States, but Moscow has always been an ersatz state, one that assimilated the aspects of its rivals it most feared. From hijacking Kyiv’s history to adopting the mannerisms of French absolutism, hardly any of the things Russia is most famous for—Orthodoxy, communism, hell, even vodka—originated in Russia.
America’s resurgent nationalism and Russia’s notorious post-Soviet inferiority complex are both examples of what the historian Isaiah Berlin called states of wounded consciousness. Such wounds are inflicted when reality doesn’t conform to our sense of what’s right and leave nations ripe for exploitation by confident demagogues peddling easy solutions who always know whom to blame.
When Mikhail Gorbachev dissolved the Soviet Union in December 1991, a sociocultural glacier that had determined the contours of global order for the better part of a century suddenly melted away, unleashing a torrent of change. That flood quickly inundated Russia’s political landscape, washing away the old and leaving a morass of debris in its wake. Triumphalist Western analysts saw the sudden collapse of the so-called “evil empire” as a vindication, but there was no “dancing on the wall” for Russians nor any of the liberation felt in Eastern Europe.
Putin famously pronounced it the “greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century”—which is saying a lot—and the vast majority of Russians apparently agree with him. For them, the 1990s were a decade marked by chaos and humiliation. Public services deteriorated, crime rates soared, and one by one formerly pliant satellites broke away as a chastened Moscow helplessly watched.
Humbled and confused, post-Soviet Russia may have been primed to turn to the West. But the United States was not feeling particularly magnanimous toward its fallen foe and did not respond with the sort of Marshall Plan that Soviet leaders were practically begging for. It instead unleashed the very forces that had ostensibly given it victory in the first place—the free market.
Management consultants and financial advisors practically invaded Russia in the 1990s, each one an evangelist of the gospel of unfettered growth. The decrepit Soviet bureaucracy was dismantled through shock therapy and fire-sale privatization, completing the final demolition of the rickety apparatus of an invasive state that had governed almost every aspect of its citizens’ lives for decades. The result was persistent unemployment, hyperinflation, and unpaid salaries.
Russia quickly mutated into a neo-feudalistic kleptocracy driven by the sort of crony capitalism that would have made Ferdinand Marcos blush. Its people had become déclassé, a notion manifest in the phrase oskudeniye tsentra—the impoverishment of the core—something many Americans are feeling these days.
In Russia, one has the “sense of being surrounded by lies,” a condition Americans are coming to appreciate—with Russian encouragement. Russians grew accustomed over decades of Communist rule to exhibit self-preserving circumspection about the concept of truth since the Soviet apparatchiks might change it on a whim. Getting caught on the wrong side of the party line was dangerous.
There’s even a name for the type of citizen this produced: Homo Sovieticus. Soviet Man is a “servile double-thinker with no morality,” according to the Levada Center. And though today he “has somewhat changed … he still feels insecure and vulnerable. And he’s just as aggressive towards his neighbor because there are no institutions that have laid down rules that people follow.”
This cynical mindset was fed conspiracy theories that convinced the Russian people that the world was against them and that change is impossible. Like the insatiable appetite for nostalgia, “[c]onspiracy theory replaces ideology with a mix of self-pity, paranoia, self-importance, and entertainment.” In a world controlled by dark forces puppeteering every event, people seek strongmen who claim to be able to protect them.
It was into this wounded consciousness that Putin—Mr. Nobody—emerged.
A leader capable of making Russia great again didn’t exist, so one had to be invented. Vladislav Surkov, the Kremlin’s political technologist for more than a decade under Putin, exhumed the graves of Russian history and conjured the revenants of racism, nostalgia, and leader worship to build a made-to-order leader who appealed to the broadest span of Russia’s demoralized people. Putin’s created persona borrows from numerous masculine images—from race car driver and cowboy to martial artist and outlaw biker.
Americans often say their political opponents today exist inside the bubble of their own echo chambers, making them susceptible to misinformation and disinformation. Russia’s media ecosystem was atomized by the state for that very purpose and today holds sway over a constellation of state-owned or state-controlled outlets designed to protect Moscow’s regime at home and undermine its opponents abroad.
Does any of this seem familiar?
Americans’ confidence in their institutions has been declining for 30 years. But so has their confidence in general: in science, in the media, even in each other. And while Americans have always been a little crazy, they are now increasingly confused, angry, and afraid—ripe for exploitation by a demagogue from central casting.
As Putin works to crystalize Russia’s autumnal autocracy, the United States is flirting with its own. Where once Moscow sought to emulate the West, it is now Americans who are building a pastiche version of Putinism, complete with rampant cronyism and Soviet-style “alternative facts.” In hindsight, it should not have come as such a surprise that Russia’s current crop of cultural appropriators turned the West’s most recently successful weapons—the free market and advertising—against it.
Objects in the mirror may be closer than they appear.


foreignpolicy--2020-06-04--In Afghanistan, the Islamic State Threatens Long-Term Peace

Overall violence in Afghanistan has abated somewhat as large numbers of both Taliban and Afghan national forces have continued to informally observe a cease-fire called during the Eid al-Fitr holiday , which marked the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan in late May .
But on May 30 , a roadside bomb in Kabul killed a journalist and a driver from an Afghan television station , and the Afghan franchise of the Islamic State—known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province ( ISKP ) —claimed responsibility .
On Tuesday , June 2 , another attack occurred , killing Mawlana Mohammed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ served as the imam of the Wazir Akbar Khan Mosque in the heart of Kabul , and ISKP later said it was responsible for that blast as well .
The surge of ISKP attacks suggests to many Afghan experts that the terrorist group is likely intent on disrupting any long-term move toward peace .
Many of the most brutal attacks in the last few weeks appear to have been the work of the ISKP .
One of the bloodiest occurred on May 12 , when at least 24 mourners were killed by ISKP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ province of Nangarhar .
On the very same day , another gut-wrenching massacre took place in western Kabul .
A Médecins Sans Frontières-run maternity clinic was attacked by gunmen dressed up as security personnel and medics .
Twenty-four civilians were killed , and dozens were injured , including women and newborns .
While no group took responsibility , many observers believe that ISKP was behind the attack , noting that this attack , like others committed by ISKP , targeted Shiite Hazaras .
A few weeks earlier , in late March , ISKP @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s old town , killing 25 members of the Afghan Sikh community .
But while ISKP ’ s parent organization is largely known in much detail , its Afghan branch remains mysterious since its first appearance in 2015 .
In a further perplexing twist , it seems that any connection between the two barely exists beyond paper .
“ I would look at them separately , also because of the geography , ” said Thomas Ruttig , the co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network .
Ruttig said many of these Afghan Islamic State @ @ @ @ @ @ @ suggesting that negotiation might prove impossible .
“ They don ’ t have to interact with each other .
They are able to operate separately while proclaiming attacks under one banner .
That ’ s the whole idea of the Islamic State ’ s franchise terrorism , ” Ruttig told Foreign Policy in a phone conversation .
As a result , like many other observers of the Afghan war , Ruttig believes that despite a U.S. orchestrated plan for peace talks , long-term stability in the country appears far-fetched as long as terrorist @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Waheed Mozhdah , a late Afghan analyst and writer known for his insight on Islamist militant groups , “ war in Afghanistan will decrease , but conflict and bloodshed will not vanish.
” Mozhdah himself became a part of his analysis when he was killed last November by unknown gunmen in Kabul .
A new report by the U.S. Institute of Peace suggests that ISKP is laying the groundwork for ideological radicalization not just in rural areas but also in urban areas in Afghanistan , and this will probably not stop even if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Afghan national government and the Taliban .
The report , by Borhan Osman , one of the leading experts on militant groups in the region , notes that many ISKP members have a middle-class , educated background and are from urban areas like Kabul .
“ In contrast with their rural counterparts , who often step into the jihadist enterprise in the absence of promising normal career options , a significant number of those joining ISKP from the central urban areas ( Kabul and the surrounding urban centers of Parwan , Kapisa @ @ @ @ @ @ @ families that can be labelled ‘ middle-class , ’ ” Osman wrote .
Many are non-Pashtuns who were radicalized in universities .
“ In terms of educational performance , a remarkable feature found in about one-third of the ISKP members interviewed is their outstanding intellectual record , ” he wrote .
“ In addition to several professors of universities who recruited for ISKP , the presence in the Kabul cell of many ‘ first-graders ’ ( awal-numra , those who topped their classes—usually of about thirty students—in annual rankings ) and graduates gives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ significant number of first-graders were drawn from the sharia faculty .
Others came from law , chemistry , engineering , and literature departments , often in state-funded universities .
Three universities contributed the largest number of recruits to ISKP ’ s ranks : Kabul University , Nangarhar University , and Al-Biruni University.
” ISKP tactics are also sowing mistrust between the two main parties to the conflict , the government and the Taliban .
After the horrific attack on the maternity ward last month , the government was quick to blame the Taliban @ @ @ @ @ @ @ some analysts , like Ruttig , thought ISKP was much more likely responsible for the attack .
“ Obviously , the attack has ISKP fingerprints .
It did not make sense from the Taliban ’ s view , ” Ruttig said .
“ The Afghan government still exploits the Islamic State threat for its own benefits .
We could see this immediately after the most recent attacks when Kabul blamed the Taliban for the bloodbath and conducted new operations against them , ” said Zakir Jalaly , a Kabul-based political analyst .
After @ @ @ @ @ @ @ President Ashraf Ghani ’ s government claimed that both ISKP and the Taliban were the culprits .
The Taliban denied responsibility .
Indeed , according to Jalaly , there is more evidence indicating that the Taliban took the fight against ISKP seriously and pushed the group back in rural sites , while the government in Kabul might have seen ISKP as a strange bedfellow in its political battle against the Taliban—which , contrary to ISKP , is the largest and most organized insurgency in the country .
Until today , no group has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Moreover , the mere existence of ISKP is often blamed on the Taliban , and it will continue to disturb any kinds of negotiation talks and peace—or “ less conflict , ” as Mozhdah called it—in general .
For the moment , both the Taliban and the government are going forward with plans for negotiations , with prisoner releases underway .
In a statement , the Taliban ordered “ all the Mujahideen to adopt special preparatory measures for the safety of our countrymen and not to attack the enemy in any place.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ announcement , accepted the truce , and also declared that it would release hundreds of Taliban prisoners imminently .
Concurrently , calls from politicians and civil society activists grew louder in demanding an extension of the cease-fire and the commencement of intra-Afghan talks .
Unofficially , the former already happened , but questions persist as to the durability of the goodwill of both sides , having warred against each other for two decades .
During the last days , several attacks took place , including operations against Afghan security forces and at least @ @ @ @ @ @ @ During the last months and years , both the Afghan government and the Taliban have also regularly reported how they defeated the ISKP by clearing out whole districts .
One day before the May 12 attacks , several ISKP key figures were arrested by government forces in Kabul , according to government officials .
Although some former Taliban members joined ISKP , the Taliban themselves were engaged in a large-scale conflict against the group , primarily due to ideological issues , the existence of which were glossed over by those on the outside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ideological hurdle between the two groups is still very high , which also indicates that after a peace deal many Taliban fighters might not want to defect to the Islamic State , ” Ruttig said .
Theologically , the Islamic State is known for its foreign-imported brand of Salafi extremism , while the Taliban market themselves as native sons of the soil , as heirs of Afghanistan ’ s deeply rooted , centuries-old Sunni Hanafi traditionalism .
Some observers believe that overall ISKP is still a small , insignificant player in the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has not been eliminated , despite reports of more than 10,000 of its fighters being killed or captured since 2015 .
Generally , these have been caused by Afghan forces , U.S. airstrikes , and the Taliban .
“ This demonstrates incredible resiliency , to be able to consistently bring in new recruits and continue operating while losing members in such staggering numbers , ” said Andrew Watkins , a senior analyst on Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group .
Estimates of the group ’ s membership today still put its strength in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ members or more .
Nevertheless , there is reason to doubt those official numbers , especially those put forth by the Afghan government , which , according to many observers , has an opaque , problematic relationship with ISKP .
And some analysts suggest that the Kabul government will benefit from keeping ISKP around in small numbers , using its existence to blame the Taliban for any given terrorist attack , suggesting a similar strategic relationship to the one between Bashar al-Assad ’ s regime and the Islamic State in Syria .
Others @ @ @ @ @ @ @ little more than “ conspiratorial thinking held together by grains of truths.
” “ We can ’ t deny that the Afghan government has at times behaved very strangely toward ISKP fighters and commanders , arresting them alive and even treating them surprisingly well in custody , ” he said .
“ But it is important to say any comparison of Kabul ’ s relationship to ISKP with Assad ’ s regime to ISIS is strongly off base .
The Afghan government has devoted considerable military resources to its campaign against ISKP in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ five years even implicitly taking action that would clearly benefit the Taliban in rural areas of the province.
” When it comes to the peace process , Watkins suggests that the terrorist group ’ s interference is mainly taking place because of ideological reasons .
“ ISKP has clearly grown active in direct response to the deal between the United States and the Taliban .
In their own propaganda , they decried the deal , labeling it as a proof the Taliban are the ‘ kafr ’ and infidels they have always accused @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the months before February , ISKP had not claimed a single incident in Kabul , but in the days leading up to the signing ceremony in Doha , the group resumed activity with a vengeance , ” he said .

Overall violence in Afghanistan has abated somewhat as large numbers of both Taliban and Afghan national forces have continued to informally observe a cease-fire called during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marked the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan in late May.
Overall violence in Afghanistan has abated somewhat as large numbers of both Taliban and Afghan national forces have continued to informally observe a cease-fire called during the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which marked the end of the Islamic month of Ramadan in late May.
But on May 30, a roadside bomb in Kabul killed a journalist and a driver from an Afghan television station, and the Afghan franchise of the Islamic State—known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP)—claimed responsibility. On Tuesday, June 2, another attack occurred, killing Mawlana Mohammed Ayaz Niazi, a well-known cleric who served as the imam of the Wazir Akbar Khan Mosque in the heart of Kabul, and ISKP later said it was responsible for that blast as well. The surge of ISKP attacks suggests to many Afghan experts that the terrorist group is likely intent on disrupting any long-term move toward peace.
Many of the most brutal attacks in the last few weeks appear to have been the work of the ISKP. One of the bloodiest occurred on May 12, when at least 24 mourners were killed by ISKP militants at a funeral in the eastern province of Nangarhar. On the very same day, another gut-wrenching massacre took place in western Kabul. A Médecins Sans Frontières-run maternity clinic was attacked by gunmen dressed up as security personnel and medics. Twenty-four civilians were killed, and dozens were injured, including women and newborns. While no group took responsibility, many observers believe that ISKP was behind the attack, noting that this attack, like others committed by ISKP, targeted Shiite Hazaras. A few weeks earlier, in late March, ISKP attacked a Sikh temple in Kabul’s old town, killing 25 members of the Afghan Sikh community.
But while ISKP’s parent organization is largely known in much detail, its Afghan branch remains mysterious since its first appearance in 2015. In a further perplexing twist, it seems that any connection between the two barely exists beyond paper. “I would look at them separately, also because of the geography,” said Thomas Ruttig, the co-director of the Afghanistan Analysts Network. Ruttig said many of these Afghan Islamic State militants act independently of each other, suggesting that negotiation might prove impossible. “They don’t have to interact with each other. They are able to operate separately while proclaiming attacks under one banner. That’s the whole idea of the Islamic State’s franchise terrorism,” Ruttig told Foreign Policy in a phone conversation.
As a result, like many other observers of the Afghan war, Ruttig believes that despite a U.S. orchestrated plan for peace talks, long-term stability in the country appears far-fetched as long as terrorist groups like ISKP exist. According to Waheed Mozhdah, a late Afghan analyst and writer known for his insight on Islamist militant groups, “war in Afghanistan will decrease, but conflict and bloodshed will not vanish.” Mozhdah himself became a part of his analysis when he was killed last November by unknown gunmen in Kabul.
A new report by the U.S. Institute of Peace suggests that ISKP is laying the groundwork for ideological radicalization not just in rural areas but also in urban areas in Afghanistan, and this will probably not stop even if a final peace deal is reached between the Afghan national government and the Taliban. The report, by Borhan Osman, one of the leading experts on militant groups in the region, notes that many ISKP members have a middle-class, educated background and are from urban areas like Kabul.
“In contrast with their rural counterparts, who often step into the jihadist enterprise in the absence of promising normal career options, a significant number of those joining ISKP from the central urban areas (Kabul and the surrounding urban centers of Parwan, Kapisa, and Panjsher Provinces) come from families that can be labelled ‘middle-class,’” Osman wrote. Many are non-Pashtuns who were radicalized in universities.
“In terms of educational performance, a remarkable feature found in about one-third of the ISKP members interviewed is their outstanding intellectual record,” he wrote. “In addition to several professors of universities who recruited for ISKP, the presence in the Kabul cell of many ‘first-graders’ (awal-numra, those who topped their classes—usually of about thirty students—in annual rankings) and graduates gives it a distinctly elite character. A significant number of first-graders were drawn from the sharia faculty. Others came from law, chemistry, engineering, and literature departments, often in state-funded universities. Three universities contributed the largest number of recruits to ISKP’s ranks: Kabul University, Nangarhar University, and Al-Biruni University.”
Volunteers carry an injured boy in a hospital following an attack at the funeral of a local police commander in Nangarhar, Afghanistan, on May 12.
ISKP tactics are also sowing mistrust between the two main parties to the conflict, the government and the Taliban. After the horrific attack on the maternity ward last month, the government was quick to blame the Taliban, though no group took responsibility and some analysts, like Ruttig, thought ISKP was much more likely responsible for the attack. “Obviously, the attack has ISKP fingerprints. It did not make sense from the Taliban’s view,” Ruttig said.
“The Afghan government still exploits the Islamic State threat for its own benefits. We could see this immediately after the most recent attacks when Kabul blamed the Taliban for the bloodbath and conducted new operations against them,” said Zakir Jalaly, a Kabul-based political analyst. After the attacks in Kabul and Nangarhar, President Ashraf Ghani’s government claimed that both ISKP and the Taliban were the culprits. The Taliban denied responsibility. Indeed, according to Jalaly, there is more evidence indicating that the Taliban took the fight against ISKP seriously and pushed the group back in rural sites, while the government in Kabul might have seen ISKP as a strange bedfellow in its political battle against the Taliban—which, contrary to ISKP, is the largest and most organized insurgency in the country. Until today, no group has taken responsibility for the Kabul hospital attack.
Moreover, the mere existence of ISKP is often blamed on the Taliban, and it will continue to disturb any kinds of negotiation talks and peace—or “less conflict,” as Mozhdah called it—in general.
For the moment, both the Taliban and the government are going forward with plans for negotiations, with prisoner releases underway. In a statement, the Taliban ordered “all the Mujahideen to adopt special preparatory measures for the safety of our countrymen and not to attack the enemy in any place.” Ghani’s government welcomed the announcement, accepted the truce, and also declared that it would release hundreds of Taliban prisoners imminently. Concurrently, calls from politicians and civil society activists grew louder in demanding an extension of the cease-fire and the commencement of intra-Afghan talks. Unofficially, the former already happened, but questions persist as to the durability of the goodwill of both sides, having warred against each other for two decades. During the last days, several attacks took place, including operations against Afghan security forces and at least one government airstrike causing civilian casualties.
During the last months and years, both the Afghan government and the Taliban have also regularly reported how they defeated the ISKP by clearing out whole districts. One day before the May 12 attacks, several ISKP key figures were arrested by government forces in Kabul, according to government officials. Although some former Taliban members joined ISKP, the Taliban themselves were engaged in a large-scale conflict against the group, primarily due to ideological issues, the existence of which were glossed over by those on the outside unfamiliar with Islamic polemics. “The ideological hurdle between the two groups is still very high, which also indicates that after a peace deal many Taliban fighters might not want to defect to the Islamic State,” Ruttig said. Theologically, the Islamic State is known for its foreign-imported brand of Salafi extremism, while the Taliban market themselves as native sons of the soil, as heirs of Afghanistan’s deeply rooted, centuries-old Sunni Hanafi traditionalism.
Some observers believe that overall ISKP is still a small, insignificant player in the country. But the fact remains that ISKP has not been eliminated, despite reports of more than 10,000 of its fighters being killed or captured since 2015. Generally, these have been caused by Afghan forces, U.S. airstrikes, and the Taliban. “This demonstrates incredible resiliency, to be able to consistently bring in new recruits and continue operating while losing members in such staggering numbers,” said Andrew Watkins, a senior analyst on Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group.
Estimates of the group’s membership today still put its strength in the hundreds, perhaps even 1,000 remaining members or more.
Nevertheless, there is reason to doubt those official numbers, especially those put forth by the Afghan government, which, according to many observers, has an opaque, problematic relationship with ISKP. And some analysts suggest that the Kabul government will benefit from keeping ISKP around in small numbers, using its existence to blame the Taliban for any given terrorist attack, suggesting a similar strategic relationship to the one between Bashar al-Assad’s regime and the Islamic State in Syria. Others like Watkins say such theories amount to little more than “conspiratorial thinking held together by grains of truths.” “We can’t deny that the Afghan government has at times behaved very strangely toward ISKP fighters and commanders, arresting them alive and even treating them surprisingly well in custody,” he said. “But it is important to say any comparison of Kabul’s relationship to ISKP with Assad’s regime to ISIS is strongly off base. The Afghan government has devoted considerable military resources to its campaign against ISKP in Nangarhar, at times over the last five years even implicitly taking action that would clearly benefit the Taliban in rural areas of the province.”
When it comes to the peace process, Watkins suggests that the terrorist group’s interference is mainly taking place because of ideological reasons. “ISKP has clearly grown active in direct response to the deal between the United States and the Taliban. In their own propaganda, they decried the deal, labeling it as a proof the Taliban are the ‘kafr’ and infidels they have always accused [them] of being. In the months before February, ISKP had not claimed a single incident in Kabul, but in the days leading up to the signing ceremony in Doha, the group resumed activity with a vengeance,” he said.


foreignpolicy--2020-06-04--Yes, Lafayette Square Is Tahrir Square

Yes, Lafayette Square Is Tahrir Square

As is often the case with major crises around the world , social media has exploded over the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers and the subsequent nationwide protests .
Twitter , in particular , has featured both virtue-signaling performance art and access to information that one would not otherwise know existed .
Somewhere in between those two extremes have been the contributions of regional experts like me , who perceive the scenes on the streets of major American cities as inviting comparison to other parts of the world .
Is Minneapolis Sidi Bouzid , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Spring after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi ?
No .
But recent uprisings in the Middle East—specifically in Egypt and Turkey—and the responses they evoked from their governments , do provide a useful lens through which to understand America ’ s present crisis .
Of course , the history , politics , and economic institutions of Turkey , Egypt , and the United States are quite different from each other , as are the complicated webs of political , economic , and social grievances that sparked their respective uprisings .
But their similarities @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Tahrir Square in early 2011 and in Istanbul ’ s Gezi Park two years later , protesters expressed their outrage over police brutality , crony capitalism , corruption , the arrogance of those in power , rigged politics , and their collective marginalization .
The immediate cause of the Gezi Park protests was the planned destruction of a nine-acre park adjacent to Taksim Square in Istanbul .
The green space—a diminishing commodity in the Turkish megalopolis—was slated to be redeveloped into a mall fashioned to look like the Ottoman-era barracks that once stood @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in late May 2013 , which subsequently blew up into something much bigger , spawning demonstrations in Turkey ’ s major cities .
In Egypt , the protesters who descended on Tahrir Square were inspired , in part , by the memory of Khaled Said—a young man beaten to death by police in Alexandria in June 2010 .
The most obvious parallel to draw between the Middle East and the protests happening around the United States is between the deaths of Floyd and Said .
But it would be a mistake to stop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fact , deeper and more profound .
In both cases , Egyptians and Turks were exhausted and outraged that political institutions of the state and the prevailing social orders had combined to rob them of their dignity .
They were left powerless until some unexpected and unpredictable development led them to take to the streets in large enough numbers that they felt safe demanding change .
The self-martyred Bouazizi , the slaughtered Said , and the brutality of riot police in Istanbul tripped something in the collective consciousness of Tunisians , Egyptians , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ action .
In each case , the state responded with violence .
This should feel familiar to Americans by now .
When I listen closely to what the folks brave enough to protest at this moment in the United States are saying , I see they are making similar demands as their courageous counterparts that I heard in the now famous squares of Arab countries and Turkey a decade ago .
What is Black Lives Matter if it is not a demand for dignity ?
As a community , black Americans have been @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that exists in U.S. society , which in their most grotesque and heartbreaking variety manifest in the killing of innocent people at the hands of police who are never held accountable for their crimes ( just like the police in the Middle East ) .
The only ones unable to understand the justice of the demands to be spared the indignities of such inequality are the beneficiaries of America ’ s corrupt status quo , its corrosion of institutions , militarization of the police , destruction of the social safety net , unchecked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ people of color regardless of their socioeconomic status .
This blindness among the American political class and white America writ large has rendered them as out of touch as Egyptian elites no matter how many times they may have written # BLM in the last week .
And then there are those influential voices in the United States who approximate the vile Turkish trolls and government officials who insisted that witnesses to the violence of Turkey ’ s riot police were doing the bidding of the enemy of the nation .
Of course @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the American right focused their ire on Jews—in the former case , Zionists and international bankers , and in the latter , George Soros .
What does this say about America and American foreign policy ?
There is a side debate happening among some foreign-policy analysts about whether the violent spectacle of American streets robs the United States of any credibility to speak about human rights in other counties .
It does .
How could I raise an objection to the treatment of Gezi ’ s “ girl in the red dress , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ range , when American police officers are doing the same ?
There is no moral high ground on press freedom when CNN ’ s Omar Jimenez is arrested while doing a live shot in Minneapolis or when an American police officer punches an Australian journalist in the face while on air a few blocks from the White House .
My words about the condition of prisons in Egypt or Turkey are compromised when the United States imprisons more people than anywhere in the world , the majority of whom are black men .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the Middle East told me that they were outraged about America ’ s conduct in the region but they loved the United States for its principles , its ideals , and its institutions .
I don ’ t hear that anymore .
So , yes , there are differences in the protests but not as many as Americans like to tell themselves .

As is often the case with major crises around the world, social media has exploded over the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers and the subsequent nationwide protests. Twitter, in particular, has featured both virtue-signaling performance art and access to information that one would not otherwise know existed. Somewhere in between those two extremes have been the contributions of regional experts like me, who perceive the scenes on the streets of major American cities as inviting comparison to other parts of the world.
As is often the case with major crises around the world, social media has exploded over the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers and the subsequent nationwide protests. Twitter, in particular, has featured both virtue-signaling performance art and access to information that one would not otherwise know existed. Somewhere in between those two extremes have been the contributions of regional experts like me, who perceive the scenes on the streets of major American cities as inviting comparison to other parts of the world.
Is Minneapolis Sidi Bouzid, the Tunisian city that sparked the Arab Spring after the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi? No. But recent uprisings in the Middle East—specifically in Egypt and Turkey—and the responses they evoked from their governments, do provide a useful lens through which to understand America’s present crisis.
Of course, the history, politics, and economic institutions of Turkey, Egypt, and the United States are quite different from each other, as are the complicated webs of political, economic, and social grievances that sparked their respective uprisings. But their similarities are instructive.
In Egypt’s Tahrir Square in early 2011 and in Istanbul’s Gezi Park two years later, protesters expressed their outrage over police brutality, crony capitalism, corruption, the arrogance of those in power, rigged politics, and their collective marginalization. The immediate cause of the Gezi Park protests was the planned destruction of a nine-acre park adjacent to Taksim Square in Istanbul. The green space—a diminishing commodity in the Turkish megalopolis—was slated to be redeveloped into a mall fashioned to look like the Ottoman-era barracks that once stood there. Concerned environmentalists began a sit-in in late May 2013, which subsequently blew up into something much bigger, spawning demonstrations in Turkey’s major cities. In Egypt, the protesters who descended on Tahrir Square were inspired, in part, by the memory of Khaled Said—a young man beaten to death by police in Alexandria in June 2010.
The most obvious parallel to draw between the Middle East and the protests happening around the United States is between the deaths of Floyd and Said. But it would be a mistake to stop there. The parallels are, in fact, deeper and more profound.
In both cases, Egyptians and Turks were exhausted and outraged that political institutions of the state and the prevailing social orders had combined to rob them of their dignity. They were left powerless until some unexpected and unpredictable development led them to take to the streets in large enough numbers that they felt safe demanding change. The self-martyred Bouazizi, the slaughtered Said, and the brutality of riot police in Istanbul tripped something in the collective consciousness of Tunisians, Egyptians, and Turks, galvanizing people to take action. In each case, the state responded with violence.
This should feel familiar to Americans by now. When I listen closely to what the folks brave enough to protest at this moment in the United States are saying, I see they are making similar demands as their courageous counterparts that I heard in the now famous squares of Arab countries and Turkey a decade ago. What is Black Lives Matter if it is not a demand for dignity? As a community, black Americans have been forced to confront every variety of pathology that exists in U.S. society, which in their most grotesque and heartbreaking variety manifest in the killing of innocent people at the hands of police who are never held accountable for their crimes (just like the police in the Middle East).
The only ones unable to understand the justice of the demands to be spared the indignities of such inequality are the beneficiaries of America’s corrupt status quo, its corrosion of institutions, militarization of the police, destruction of the social safety net, unchecked power of corporations, and criminalization of people of color regardless of their socioeconomic status. This blindness among the American political class and white America writ large has rendered them as out of touch as Egyptian elites no matter how many times they may have written #BLM in the last week. And then there are those influential voices in the United States who approximate the vile Turkish trolls and government officials who insisted that witnesses to the violence of Turkey’s riot police were doing the bidding of the enemy of the nation. Of course, both the Turks and commentators on the American right focused their ire on Jews—in the former case, Zionists and international bankers, and in the latter, George Soros.
What does this say about America and American foreign policy? There is a side debate happening among some foreign-policy analysts about whether the violent spectacle of American streets robs the United States of any credibility to speak about human rights in other counties. It does. How could I raise an objection to the treatment of Gezi’s “girl in the red dress,” who was famously pepper-sprayed at close range, when American police officers are doing the same? There is no moral high ground on press freedom when CNN’s Omar Jimenez is arrested while doing a live shot in Minneapolis or when an American police officer punches an Australian journalist in the face while on air a few blocks from the White House. My words about the condition of prisons in Egypt or Turkey are compromised when the United States imprisons more people than anywhere in the world, the majority of whom are black men.
It used to be that my interlocutors in the Middle East told me that they were outraged about America’s conduct in the region but they loved the United States for its principles, its ideals, and its institutions. I don’t hear that anymore. So, yes, there are differences in the protests but not as many as Americans like to tell themselves.


foreignpolicy--2020-06-04--The Stakes Are High, and We Must Be Better Than This

On Wednesday , current and former military leaders came out with powerful messages against President Donald Trump ’ s calls to deploy the U.S. military to quash nationwide protests against racial injustice , set off by the gruesome killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police .
What would soldiers putting down protests mean for the United States ?
Foreign Policy asked six former military leaders and security experts to weigh in .
The American People May Soon Find Themselves the ‘ Enemy ’ by John Allen , president of the Brookings Institution , a retired U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S .
Forces in Afghanistan .
Every member of the U.S. military—be they active duty , National Guard , or reserve—swears an oath to “ support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies , foreign and domestic.
” Deploying the military against U.S. citizens sends the wrong message at the wrong moment and is antithetical to everything America represents.That is their solemn vow and at the heart of their service to America .
History has shown that there are indeed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ such a level that they require the direct involvement of federal troops to keep the peace .
Now , however , is not one of those moments .
If the military begins to hold primary responsibility for law enforcement in the United States , I fear the American people may soon—against their own wishes—take on the mantle of the “ enemy.
” That is simply unacceptable , especially at this horrendous moment of national pain stemming both from the killing of George Floyd and others and from the pressures of COVID-19 .
And @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from America ’ s national leadership .
Deploying the military against U.S. citizens sends the wrong message at the wrong moment and is antithetical to everything Americans represent as a people .
The stakes are high , and we must be better than this .
The Call for Force Must Come From the Governors by Loree Sutton , a former brigadier general and highest-ranking psychiatrist in the U.S. Army who is currently running for mayor of New York City .
Throughout nearly 40 years in public service—as a U.S. Army psychiatrist , retired @ @ @ @ @ @ @ commissioner—I have grown to revere the trust , judgment , and legitimacy on which the character and habits of principled leadership depend .
Those entrusted to lead America ’ s treasure—its daughters and sons—know the moral implications and personal agony involved in ordering troops into harm ’ s way.When force is not necessary , reasonable , and proportional , the fabric of civic society begins to unravel .
The use of force must be approached with due caution and restraint , even when it is necessary , reasonable , and proportional .
When @ @ @ @ @ @ @ or federal—is perceived or deemed otherwise , the fabric of civic society begins to unravel .
The question we should be asking therefore has less to do with whether federal forces should ever be deployed to quell domestic unrest but whether , at a given moment , the facts on the ground require additional reinforcement .
This judgment must come from the country ’ s governors , exercising their legal authority to do so .
Unless and until this is the case , federal troops should remain at their posts , in their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Let Law Enforcement and the National Guard Handle This by Dana Pittard , a retired U.S. Army major general and the co-author of Hunting the Caliphate : America ’ s War on ISIS and the Dawn of the Strike Cell .
It really is something when two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—Gen .
Martin Dempsey and Adm. Mike Mullen , both of whom I ’ ve worked with—feel a need to speak out against using the military on American soil during a domestic crisis .
It really is something when @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Staff feel a need to speak out.We ’ re at a tough time in our country right now , between the pandemic , the unprecedented unemployment , as well as this bubbling up of something that ’ s been under the surface for quite a while .
There are occasions when we have used the military in domestic crises in consultation with state governors .
I don ’ t believe we ’ re at that point yet .
At this point it is something that law enforcement can handle—and the National Guard @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for civil unrest .
Packed in Vile Rhetoric by an Odious Leader—but Not Without Precedent by Richard K. Betts , the director of Columbia University ’ s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies , an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations , and the author of American Force .
How ironic : Originally it was racists and rightists who most vehemently opposed deploying federal troops to suppress local disorder ; now it is anti-racists and liberals who condemn President Donald Trump ’ s attempt to do so .
Some @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rest opposition to Trump on the notion that using the military for law enforcement is impermissible would reject ample historical precedent .
It was white southerners and the Democratic Party that pushed through the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 that forbids the use of federal troops to enforce law in the states .
This cemented the end of Reconstruction in the former Confederacy and enabled the resubjugation of African Americans .
Legal ambiguity remained , however : The 1807 Insurrection Act authorizes the use of federal forces and has been invoked numerous times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In 1863 , draft riots in New York City killed more than 100 African Americans before they were put down by U.S. Army soldiers and Marines together with state militia .
In 1957 , President Dwight D. Eisenhower deployed elements of the 101st Airborne Division and the federalized Arkansas National Guard to safeguard school desegregation in Little Rock .
Five years later , John F. Kennedy sent Army units against white rioters protesting integration at the University of Mississippi .
His successor , Lyndon B. Johnson , dispatched them in 1967 to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ inflicted fewer casualties than ineffectual and trigger-happy National Guard troops ) and again in 1968 to pacify Washington ( where none of the 13 dead were killed by the military ) .
George H.W .
Bush sent Army soldiers and Marines to Los Angeles in 1992 .
Some of these cases involved more extreme violence than we have seen so far today , some less .
As usual , Trump ’ s rhetoric and actions are vile and alarming , and his desire to use the military is unnecessary as long as violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Guard .
But to rest opposition to the odious current president on the notion that using the military for law enforcement is impermissible would reject ample historical precedent , much of which has served justice more than Trumpian villainy .
Our Allies Watch Ashen-Faced and Weep for This Country by Harold Hongju Koh , a professor of international law at Yale Law School , founding editor of Just Security , and legal advisor at the State Department from 2009 to 2013 .
In this defining moment , for personal political gain , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the military , and the rule of law to perform a masquerade that is nakedly antithetical to each .
He violated the core biblical mandate to love , not demonize , one another .
He violated the core military credo that civilian leaders do not dispatch U.S. soldiers onto U.S. soil to attack fellow citizens peacefully exercising their constitutional rights.To those enabling this revolting charade : Have you no decency , backbone , self-respect , and love of country ?
And he violated the law of the land , trampling on the Constitution @ @ @ @ @ @ @ right of the people peaceably to assemble , and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
” Congress has not authorized , and in fact has forbidden , deploying the U.S. military on American streets , particularly when citizens are lawfully demanding investigation of serious charges of police brutality .
America ’ s allies around the world are watching ashen-faced , weeping for how the country they respected has been degraded by its leaders .
At this historic moment , when we need serious leadership to address the uniquely toxic blend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ racial discord , shame on the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , the attorney general , and Republican legislators for enabling this revolting charade .
Have you no decency , backbone , self-respect , and love of country ?
Using the Military for Partisan Grandstanding Will Backfire by Peter Feaver , a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University , where he directs the Program in American Grand Strategy .
There is ample historical precedent for the National Guard and even active-duty military to be mobilized to quell @ @ @ @ @ @ @ local law enforcement officials are overwhelmed and governors ask for help , it is a fraught mission for military units , who would generally prefer to stay out of domestic conflict .
In the current situation , governors are not asking for help.If there is a genuine threat that law enforcement can not handle , the public will welcome military backup assistance .
President Donald Trump was inserting federal units into a politically charged situation for what appeared to be partisan reasons : a desire to replace politically damaging reports of the president @ @ @ @ @ @ @ House with more favorable images of him taking charge .
Using the military as wallpaper for photo-ops is something every administration in the modern era has done , but it comes at a price .
It drags the military into the partisan fray and lowers public views of the competence and trustworthiness of the military as an institution .
If there is a genuine threat to the citizenry that law enforcement can not handle , the public will welcome military backup assistance .
But if the military is being used as a prop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
“ Let Law Enforcement and the National Guard Handle This ” by Dana Pittard is excerpted from a June 4 interview in Foreign Policy .

John Allen, Loree K. Sutton, Dana Pittard, Richard K. Betts, Harold Hongju Koh and Peter Feaver

On Wednesday, current and former military leaders came out with powerful messages against President Donald Trump’s calls to deploy the U.S. military to quash nationwide protests against racial injustice, set off by the gruesome killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police.
On Wednesday, current and former military leaders came out with powerful messages against President Donald Trump’s calls to deploy the U.S. military to quash nationwide protests against racial injustice, set off by the gruesome killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis police.
What would soldiers putting down protests mean for the United States? Foreign Policy asked six former military leaders and security experts to weigh in.
The American People May Soon Find Themselves the ‘Enemy’
by John R. Allen, president of the Brookings Institution, a retired U.S. Marine Corps four-star general, and former commander of the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. Forces in Afghanistan.
Every member of the U.S. military—be they active duty, National Guard, or reserve—swears an oath to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Deploying the military against U.S. citizens sends the wrong message at the wrong moment and is antithetical to everything America represents.That is their solemn vow and at the heart of their service to America. History has shown that there are indeed periods when domestic threats or unrest reach such a level that they require the direct involvement of federal troops to keep the peace. Now, however, is not one of those moments.
If the military begins to hold primary responsibility for law enforcement in the United States, I fear the American people may soon—against their own wishes—take on the mantle of the “enemy.” That is simply unacceptable, especially at this horrendous moment of national pain stemming both from the killing of George Floyd and others and from the pressures of COVID-19. And it is well beneath what is needed from America’s national leadership. Deploying the military against U.S. citizens sends the wrong message at the wrong moment and is antithetical to everything Americans represent as a people. The stakes are high, and we must be better than this.
The Call for Force Must Come From the Governors
by Loree Sutton, a former brigadier general and highest-ranking psychiatrist in the U.S. Army who is currently running for mayor of New York City.
Throughout nearly 40 years in public service—as a U.S. Army psychiatrist, retired general officer, and New York City commissioner—I have grown to revere the trust, judgment, and legitimacy on which the character and habits of principled leadership depend. Those entrusted to lead America’s treasure—its daughters and sons—know the moral implications and personal agony involved in ordering troops into harm’s way.When force is not necessary, reasonable, and proportional, the fabric of civic society begins to unravel.
The use of force must be approached with due caution and restraint, even when it is necessary, reasonable, and proportional. When force at any level—local, state, or federal—is perceived or deemed otherwise, the fabric of civic society begins to unravel.
The question we should be asking therefore has less to do with whether federal forces should ever be deployed to quell domestic unrest but whether, at a given moment, the facts on the ground require additional reinforcement. This judgment must come from the country’s governors, exercising their legal authority to do so. Unless and until this is the case, federal troops should remain at their posts, in their camps, and at their stations.
Let Law Enforcement and the National Guard Handle This
by Dana Pittard, a retired U.S. Army major general and the co-author of Hunting the Caliphate: America’s War on ISIS and the Dawn of the Strike Cell.
It really is something when two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—Gen. Martin Dempsey and Adm. Mike Mullen, both of whom I’ve worked with—feel a need to speak out against using the military on American soil during a domestic crisis. It really is something when two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff feel a need to speak out.We’re at a tough time in our country right now, between the pandemic, the unprecedented unemployment, as well as this bubbling up of something that’s been under the surface for quite a while.
There are occasions when we have used the military in domestic crises in consultation with state governors. I don’t believe we’re at that point yet. At this point it is something that law enforcement can handle—and the National Guard, by the way, is trained for civil unrest.
Packed in Vile Rhetoric by an Odious Leader—but Not Without Precedent
by Richard K. Betts, the director of Columbia University’s Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies, an adjunct senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and the author of American Force.
How ironic: Originally it was racists and rightists who most vehemently opposed deploying federal troops to suppress local disorder; now it is anti-racists and liberals who condemn President Donald Trump’s attempt to do so. Some even assert that it would be illegal.To rest opposition to Trump on the notion that using the military for law enforcement is impermissible would reject ample historical precedent.
It was white southerners and the Democratic Party that pushed through the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 that forbids the use of federal troops to enforce law in the states. This cemented the end of Reconstruction in the former Confederacy and enabled the resubjugation of African Americans. Legal ambiguity remained, however: The 1807 Insurrection Act authorizes the use of federal forces and has been invoked numerous times, often to protect vulnerable black citizens.
In 1863, draft riots in New York City killed more than 100 African Americans before they were put down by U.S. Army soldiers and Marines together with state militia. In 1957, President Dwight D. Eisenhower deployed elements of the 101st Airborne Division and the federalized Arkansas National Guard to safeguard school desegregation in Little Rock. Five years later, John F. Kennedy sent Army units against white rioters protesting integration at the University of Mississippi. His successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, dispatched them in 1967 to quell the Detroit riots (where they inflicted fewer casualties than ineffectual and trigger-happy National Guard troops) and again in 1968 to pacify Washington (where none of the 13 dead were killed by the military). George H.W. Bush sent Army soldiers and Marines to Los Angeles in 1992. Some of these cases involved more extreme violence than we have seen so far today, some less.
As usual, Trump’s rhetoric and actions are vile and alarming, and his desire to use the military is unnecessary as long as violence does not overwhelm police and the National Guard. But to rest opposition to the odious current president on the notion that using the military for law enforcement is impermissible would reject ample historical precedent, much of which has served justice more than Trumpian villainy.
Our Allies Watch Ashen-Faced and Weep for This Country
by Harold Hongju Koh, a professor of international law at Yale Law School, founding editor of Just Security, and legal advisor at the State Department from 2009 to 2013.
In this defining moment, for personal political gain, the U.S. president wrapped himself in religion, the military, and the rule of law to perform a masquerade that is nakedly antithetical to each. He violated the core biblical mandate to love, not demonize, one another. He violated the core military credo that civilian leaders do not dispatch U.S. soldiers onto U.S. soil to attack fellow citizens peacefully exercising their constitutional rights.To those enabling this revolting charade: Have you no decency, backbone, self-respect, and love of country? And he violated the law of the land, trampling on the Constitution’s directive to respect “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Congress has not authorized, and in fact has forbidden, deploying the U.S. military on American streets, particularly when citizens are lawfully demanding investigation of serious charges of police brutality.
America’s allies around the world are watching ashen-faced, weeping for how the country they respected has been degraded by its leaders. At this historic moment, when we need serious leadership to address the uniquely toxic blend of pandemic, economic depression, and racial discord, shame on the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the attorney general, and Republican legislators for enabling this revolting charade. Have you no decency, backbone, self-respect, and love of country?
Using the Military for Partisan Grandstanding Will Backfire
by Peter Feaver, a professor of political science and public policy at Duke University, where he directs the Program in American Grand Strategy.
There is ample historical precedent for the National Guard and even active-duty military to be mobilized to quell domestic strife. However, even when local law enforcement officials are overwhelmed and governors ask for help, it is a fraught mission for military units, who would generally prefer to stay out of domestic conflict. In the current situation, governors are not asking for help.If there is a genuine threat that law enforcement cannot handle, the public will welcome military backup assistance.
President Donald Trump was inserting federal units into a politically charged situation for what appeared to be partisan reasons: a desire to replace politically damaging reports of the president sheltering in the basement of the White House with more favorable images of him taking charge. Using the military as wallpaper for photo-ops is something every administration in the modern era has done, but it comes at a price. It drags the military into the partisan fray and lowers public views of the competence and trustworthiness of the military as an institution. If there is a genuine threat to the citizenry that law enforcement cannot handle, the public will welcome military backup assistance. But if the military is being used as a prop for political grandstanding, it will backfire.
“Let Law Enforcement and the National Guard Handle This” by Dana Pittard is excerpted from a June 4 interview in Foreign Policy.