foreignpolicy--2020-11-20--Biden and Flournoy Have Clashed Over Policy in Past

Biden and Flournoy Have Clashed Over Policy in Past This article is part of The Biden Transition , Foreign Policy ’ s ongoing coverage of how U.S. President-elect Joe Biden builds a new White House administration—and what the new team ’ s policies might be .
Michèle Flournoy is widely considered to be a front-runner to become President-elect Joe Biden ’ s pick as secretary of defense , the first woman to serve in the post .
But Flournoy , a highly regarded career defense official , hasn ’ t always been on the same side of policy debates as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ potentially affect the Biden administration ’ s future approach to security concerns around the globe .
The disagreements between the two in the past have ranged from the U.S. policy stance from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria .
In Afghanistan , while Biden as Barack Obama ’ s vice president advocated for a pared-down counterterrorism ( CT ) approach that would focus narrowly on eliminating al Qaeda , Flournoy argued for a broader and more troop-intensive counterinsurgency or COIN strategy that would combine military and civil tactics to win over the population .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ a possible difference of opinion between them .
Their instincts are different , ” said David Kilcullen , a leading counterinsurgency expert who briefed Biden and other leading officials of the incoming Obama administration in 2009 .
“ She was always more focused on engaging and trying to stabilize Afghanistan for broader geopolitical and humanitarian reasons , and he was focused on pulling out ( with a CT figleaf ) .
” “ That said , I don ’ t think it ’ s going to be a huge deal this time , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Afghanistan .
I am not privy to Michele ’ s thinking at all , but from a straight strategy perspective I don ’ t think she would see much alternative to a withdrawal , given the strategic realities of the campaign as it stands .
And if she is picking her policy battles , this looks like a fairly forlorn hill to die on , this early in a new administration.
” As Obama writes in his just-released memoir , A Promised Land , Biden was consistently the determined outlier in the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , expressing little faith in the Afghan government ’ s reliability under then-President Hamid Karzai .
“ Whatever the mix of reasons , he saw Afghanistan as a dangerous quagmire and urged me to delay a deployment… ” Obama writes .
Aided by tens of thousands of U.S. troops , COIN has not worked since then ; initial hopes for spreading so-called “ ink spots ” of stability and political control in larger areas of the country to keep out the Taliban—winning over most of the Afghan population with aid and a multibillion-dollar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and build ” towns while at the same time killing insurgents threatening those towns—is already considered a lost hope in the Pentagon , which has mostly abandoned the strategy , Biden himself has already indicated he wants a swift pullout soon , with some on his team suggesting he might even want to keep on Trump ’ s envoy , Zalmay Khalilzad , who is in the middle of negotiating with the Taliban on an accelerated timetable that would draw down to 2,500 troops by Jan. 15 and have all U.S. troops out @ @ @ @ @ @ @ months into Biden ’ s tenure .
The pragmatic Flournoy , meanwhile , has admitted her views have shifted in recent years as counterinsurgency efforts have been frustrated and the Taliban have been resurgent .
In a recent podcast with retired Gen.Stan McChrystal–former commander in Afghanistan—she said that if she had it to do over again she would have asked more stringent questions about when and where COIN can work .
She indicated that she had overestimated the ability of Kabul to take over from the Americans .
“ I think we went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of partner in the Afghan government than we actually did.
” But speaking at an Atlantic Council Forum in Dec. 2012 , just after Obama ’ s re-election , Flournoy had taken a more aggressive approach in supporting COIN .
She admonished the U.S. military for becoming “ risk-averse ” because of Vietnam , Iraq , and Afghanistan , adding “ we have to be careful not to fall into the Vietnam Syndrome where we believe we ’ ll never do that again.
” She said traditional Pentagon planning programs were “ unsatisfactory @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by “ an aversion to failure.
” To produce the adaptive and flexible leaders needed to face the uncertain future threats , America needed to develop new asymmetric warfare techniques and “ we have to be willing to fail , ” she said , noting “ we don ’ t get to choose ” the nature of future conflicts .
Flournoy was apparently not only talking about counterinsurgency in this context but also creative new uses of technology , for example creating a “ network of networks ” for command and control to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ innovations .
As one of the founders in 2007 of the new think tank Center for a New American Security , which questioned the administration ’ s approach to Afghanistan , Flournoy had long been known as a strong COIN advocate against Vice President Biden ’ s later views .
And notably it was former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel , known for his extreme skepticism about the surge in Afghanistan and Iraq , whom Obama picked as his second-term defense secretary over Flournoy , though she had been Obama ’ s chief foreign @ @ @ @ @ @ @ previously undersecretary for policy .
“ She did want to engage more rather than less , ” said retired Army Col. Tony Pfaff , a professor at the U.S. Army War College who was involved in intelligence and planning during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars .
“ But now , I don ’ t think anyone can advocate for an adventurous COIN strategy anywhere , so not sure they ’ ll have a lot of room to disagree .
Unless it is about building up advisor capacity in the regular Army–that ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Flournoy may support .
On Iraq , Flournoy also took a different , also more activist approach than Biden , who along with foreign affairs veteran Leslie Gelb called for a greater federalization of Iraq , in effect turning the country into three autonomous regions , Sunni , Kurd and Shia , and then getting out .
Here too Flournoy pushed for national unity and a more troop-intensive COIN strategy .
” In Iraq I think she was more interested in maintaining the presence we have there , in part because of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In a 2007 article she wrote with her late CNAS colleague Shawn Brimley , Flournoy argued for “ a strategy focused on maintaining Iraq ’ s territorial integrity and sovereignty , as well as creating an internal balance of power among Shia , Sunnis , and Kurds that reduces the chances of mass violence and improves the chances of political reconciliation.
” Her article said “ the United States must retain sufficient ‘ top-down ’ engagement with Iraq ’ s federal government in order to retain leverage , influence behavior within Iraq @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and maintain a degree of situational awareness.
” Biden was later criticized for negotiating a too-rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011 , leading to the rise of the Islamic State—one of the outcomes that Flournoy and other hawks had feared .
Indeed , Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell , in a rare parting of ways with Trump on foreign policy , has warned the president—and by implication Biden—that something similar could happen in Afghanistan .
“ The consequences of a premature American exit would likely be even worse than President Obama ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , which fueled the rise of ISIS and a new round of global terrorism , ” McConnell said on the Senate floor this week .
“ It would be reminiscent of the humiliating American departure from Saigon in 1975.
” A spokesman for the Biden transition did not respond to a request for comment .
Since she became undersecretary of defense for policy , considered the third most powerful civilian role in the department , Flournoy has become renowned in military circles for her creative approach to maximizing the effectiveness of U.S. military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ urged the slashing of infrastructure and overhead to preserve training and modernization .
She also shares with Biden the determination to find new ways to confront the rise of China while at the same time pushing for areas of cooperation on threats like climate change and containing North Korea .
“ Even if differences existed then I doubt they continue today , ” said retired Brig .
Gen Jim Warner , a former senior Pentagon official .
“ Flournoy is the fastest and deepest learner I know .
I wouldn ’ t assume @ @ @ @ @ @ @ point as in the earlier Obama days .
There were a lot of very smart and thoughtful people … who preached variations of the COIN gospel.
” And who now admit they were wrong .
Flournoy appears to have a good relationship with Biden—in June 2016 , when it was expected Hillary Clinton would win the presidency , Biden jokingly addressed Flournoy as “ madame secretary ” at a speech and added , “ I ’ m writing a recommendation for her , you know.
” But the president-elect is also considering several @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sen. Tammy Duckworth , a disabled Iraq vet , former homeland security secretary Jeh Johnson , who would become the first African American defense secretary ; and retired Adm. William McRaven , who served as head of U.S. Special Operations Command and oversaw the missions that captured Saddam Hussein and killed Osama bin Laden .

Michèle Flournoy is widely considered to be a front-runner to become President-elect Joe Biden’s pick as secretary of defense, the first woman to serve in the post. But Flournoy, a highly regarded career defense official, hasn’t always been on the same side of policy debates as her future boss, and that could potentially affect the Biden administration’s future approach to security concerns around the globe.
Michèle Flournoy is widely considered to be a front-runner to become President-elect Joe Biden’s pick as secretary of defense, the first woman to serve in the post. But Flournoy, a highly regarded career defense official, hasn’t always been on the same side of policy debates as her future boss, and that could potentially affect the Biden administration’s future approach to security concerns around the globe.
The disagreements between the two in the past have ranged from the U.S. policy stance from Afghanistan to Iraq to Syria.
In Afghanistan, while Biden as Barack Obama’s vice president advocated for a pared-down counterterrorism (CT) approach that would focus narrowly on eliminating al Qaeda, Flournoy argued for a broader and more troop-intensive counterinsurgency or COIN strategy that would combine military and civil tactics to win over the population.
“You’re right to foresee a possible difference of opinion between them. Their instincts are different,” said David Kilcullen, a leading counterinsurgency expert who briefed Biden and other leading officials of the incoming Obama administration in 2009. “She was always more focused on engaging and trying to stabilize Afghanistan for broader geopolitical and humanitarian reasons, and he was focused on pulling out (with a CT figleaf).”
“That said, I don’t think it’s going to be a huge deal this time, largely because the horse has already bolted on Afghanistan. I am not privy to Michele’s thinking at all, but from a straight strategy perspective I don’t think she would see much alternative to a withdrawal, given the strategic realities of the campaign as it stands. And if she is picking her policy battles, this looks like a fairly forlorn hill to die on, this early in a new administration.”
As Obama writes in his just-released memoir, A Promised Land, Biden was consistently the determined outlier in the debate about putting more troops into Afghanistan, expressing little faith in the Afghan government’s reliability under then-President Hamid Karzai. “Whatever the mix of reasons, he saw Afghanistan as a dangerous quagmire and urged me to delay a deployment…” Obama writes.
Aided by tens of thousands of U.S. troops, COIN has not worked since then; initial hopes for spreading so-called “ink spots” of stability and political control in larger areas of the country to keep out the Taliban—winning over most of the Afghan population with aid and a multibillion-dollar policy to “clear, hold, and build” towns while at the same time killing insurgents threatening those towns—is already considered a lost hope in the Pentagon, which has mostly abandoned the strategy,
Biden himself has already indicated he wants a swift pullout soon, with some on his team suggesting he might even want to keep on Trump’s envoy, Zalmay Khalilzad, who is in the middle of negotiating with the Taliban on an accelerated timetable that would draw down to 2,500 troops by Jan. 15 and have all U.S. troops out by the spring of 2021, scant months into Biden’s tenure.
The pragmatic Flournoy, meanwhile, has admitted her views have shifted in recent years as counterinsurgency efforts have been frustrated and the Taliban have been resurgent. In a recent podcast with retired Gen.Stan McChrystal–former commander in Afghanistan—she said that if she had it to do over again she would have asked more stringent questions about when and where COIN can work. She indicated that she had overestimated the ability of Kabul to take over from the Americans. “I think we went in believing we had a different kind of partner in the Afghan government than we actually did.”
But speaking at an Atlantic Council Forum in Dec. 2012, just after Obama’s re-election, Flournoy had taken a more aggressive approach in supporting COIN. She admonished the U.S. military for becoming “risk-averse” because of Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan, adding “we have to be careful not to fall into the Vietnam Syndrome where we believe we’ll never do that again.” She said traditional Pentagon planning programs were “unsatisfactory” and “stale” and cramped by “an aversion to failure.” To produce the adaptive and flexible leaders needed to face the uncertain future threats, America needed to develop new asymmetric warfare techniques and “we have to be willing to fail,” she said, noting “we don’t get to choose” the nature of future conflicts. Flournoy was apparently not only talking about counterinsurgency in this context but also creative new uses of technology, for example creating a “network of networks” for command and control to fend off cyber disruptions, among other innovations.
As one of the founders in 2007 of the new think tank Center for a New American Security, which questioned the administration’s approach to Afghanistan, Flournoy had long been known as a strong COIN advocate against Vice President Biden’s later views. And notably it was former Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel, known for his extreme skepticism about the surge in Afghanistan and Iraq, whom Obama picked as his second-term defense secretary over Flournoy, though she had been Obama’s chief foreign policy spokesman during the 2012 campaign and previously undersecretary for policy.
“She did want to engage more rather than less,” said retired Army Col. Tony Pfaff, a professor at the U.S. Army War College who was involved in intelligence and planning during the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. “But now, I don’t think anyone can advocate for an adventurous COIN strategy anywhere, so not sure they’ll have a lot of room to disagree. Unless it is about building up advisor capacity in the regular Army–that’s a thing now” that he suggested Flournoy may support.
On Iraq, Flournoy also took a different, also more activist approach than Biden, who along with foreign affairs veteran Leslie Gelb called for a greater federalization of Iraq, in effect turning the country into three autonomous regions, Sunni, Kurd and Shia, and then getting out. Here too Flournoy pushed for national unity and a more troop-intensive COIN strategy. ”In Iraq I think she was more interested in maintaining the presence we have there, in part because of the threat from Syria,” said Kilcullen.
In a 2007 article she wrote with her late CNAS colleague Shawn Brimley, Flournoy argued for “a strategy focused on maintaining Iraq’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, as well as creating an internal balance of power among Shia, Sunnis, and Kurds that reduces the chances of mass violence and improves the chances of political reconciliation.” Her article said “the United States must retain sufficient ‘top-down’ engagement with Iraq’s federal government in order to retain leverage, influence behavior within Iraq’s army and National Police, and maintain a degree of situational awareness.”
Biden was later criticized for negotiating a too-rapid withdrawal of U.S. troops in 2011, leading to the rise of the Islamic State—one of the outcomes that Flournoy and other hawks had feared. Indeed, Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, in a rare parting of ways with Trump on foreign policy, has warned the president—and by implication Biden—that something similar could happen in Afghanistan.
“The consequences of a premature American exit would likely be even worse than President Obama’s withdrawal from Iraq back in 2011, which fueled the rise of ISIS and a new round of global terrorism,” McConnell said on the Senate floor this week. “It would be reminiscent of the humiliating American departure from Saigon in 1975.”
A spokesman for the Biden transition did not respond to a request for comment.
Since she became undersecretary of defense for policy, considered the third most powerful civilian role in the department, Flournoy has become renowned in military circles for her creative approach to maximizing the effectiveness of U.S. military forces with minimal expenditure; she has urged the slashing of infrastructure and overhead to preserve training and modernization. She also shares with Biden the determination to find new ways to confront the rise of China while at the same time pushing for areas of cooperation on threats like climate change and containing North Korea.
“Even if differences existed then I doubt they continue today,” said retired Brig. Gen Jim Warner, a former senior Pentagon official. “Flournoy is the fastest and deepest learner I know. I wouldn’t assume she holds the same opinions at this point as in the earlier Obama days. There were a lot of very smart and thoughtful people … who preached variations of the COIN gospel.” And who now admit they were wrong.
Flournoy appears to have a good relationship with Biden—in June 2016, when it was expected Hillary Clinton would win the presidency, Biden jokingly addressed Flournoy as “madame secretary” at a speech and added, “I’m writing a recommendation for her, you know.” But the president-elect is also considering several other candidates as defense secretary, including Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a disabled Iraq vet, former homeland security secretary Jeh Johnson, who would become the first African American defense secretary; and retired Adm. William McRaven, who served as head of U.S. Special Operations Command and oversaw the missions that captured Saddam Hussein and killed Osama bin Laden.


foreignpolicy--2020-11-20--In Afghanistan, Bringing New Life Into the World Is Deadly

In Afghanistan , Bringing New Life Into the World Is Deadly KABUL—For a woman in the last few weeks of her pregnancy , 24-year-old Sohaila walks surprisingly quickly as she invites us into the first-floor guest room of her traditional Afghan house in the outskirts of Kabul in October .
The large yet delicately decorated room will serve as her makeshift maternity ward when she is scheduled to go into labor in three weeks .
Sohaila , who requested her name be changed , goes over her plans as she , her grandmother , the translator , and I take @ @ @ @ @ @ @ traditional cushions used for seating ) that will be used as her bed during the delivery .
“ We will cover everything with a clean cloth , ” Nooriya , Sohaila ’ s 62-year-old grandmother whose name has also been changed , explains .
“ Two women from the family will assist me with her delivery.
” Although never formally trained , the senior woman has been a midwife for most of her life , having learned the skill from her mother and aunts over the years .
In a rather worrying trend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sohaila are turning back to traditional methods of home birth in Afghanistan , over the fear of both renewed Taliban violence and catching the coronavirus in a clinic or hospital .
“ Aside from the damage caused by the disease itself , COVID-19 negatively affected all the health services in Afghanistan , ” Akmal Samsor , a spokesperson of the Afghan Ministry of Public Health , said in an October interview .
“ We admit that our initial communications around the pandemic created more fears , ” he said .
“ As a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ essential services .
Our OPD [ outpatient department ] dropped by 30 percent , and our IPC [ inpatient care ] was down by 50 percent in the first four months of the pandemic.
” The hospital beds , he said , “ were empty.
” The same goes for maternity wards .
Shafiqa Babak , a doctor who is chief of quality assurance at the Rabia Balkhi Hospital for women in Kabul and who also runs a private clinic , observed a significant drop in patient numbers .
The hospital even created @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were infected by the virus , well equipped with all medical support devices , many donated by international organizations and donor countries .
But it failed to attract many expectant mothers .
Babak , who had to close her private clinic during the worst months of the pandemic , observed many cases where women opted for home births instead .
In the last two months , people have started to return to Rabia Balkhi Hospital .
There were seven live births during a visit on Oct. 7 .
But one of the doctors @ @ @ @ @ @ @ far fewer than the average number of daily deliveries in pre-coronavirus days .
“ Earlier we used to have over 60 deliveries and C-sections in a day , but now we have far fewer than 50 , ” one of the young doctors shared on the condition of anonymity .
“ With risk of coronavirus , it has been hard for me to go to the hospitals for even checkups .
I would not want to deliver there at all , ” said another expecting mother who identified herself as Zarmina .
The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , has four other children .
Three were born in the hospital .
She ’ s decided to return to traditional birthing methods for the latest baby .
“ My mother-in-law and a relative will help with the delivery ; they ’ ve done this before , and I trust them , ” she affirmed .
The health ministry has already registered over 9,000 home deliveries in the first half of this year , and it is counting on more .
( In years past , the health ministry said , that figure @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s official count is likely far under the real total , too .
Officials have noted that in cases where babies are delivered by a family member , they very likely are not registered in the official figures , both because registration rates for home births were already low and because families now fear going to government registrars .
Even in the best of circumstances , this would be a worrying development , since delivering at home in Afghanistan can be dangerous to mothers and their newborns .
Already , the country @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per 100,000 live births , according to data from the World Health Organization ( WHO ) .
The comparable figure in the United States is 19 .
“ Every birth that is happening at home is at a risk , ” Babak warned .
“ The most common cause of death among new mothers in Afghanistan is postpartum hemorrhage .
Many Afghan women suffer from anemia , in which case even a little bleeding can be concerning , ” she said , adding that hemorrhages are extremely common in home births where there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
The risks are doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic , the doctor added : “ There are higher chances of complication and infection.
” Women frequently need to be taken to the hospital and receive treatment in a matter of minutes , “ which is not possible at home , ” she said , adding that many women die on their way to the emergency room .
Since the fall of the Taliban two decades ago , the Afghan health sector has grown and changed in many ways .
However , its overall @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reputation among the Afghan public , especially in times of crisis such as the pandemic .
When Afghans avoid hospitals , though , it leads to greater health problems , which the health sector struggles to manage .
Beyond that , in the last two years , several health facilities have come under insurgent fire .
The most recent attack , in May this year , targeted a maternity hospital in Kabul , resulting in 24 deaths including newborn babies , mothers , and medical staff .
“ Security is not good in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not safe , ” Sohaila said .
“ Your child could be born normal and healthy , but then an attack can destroys all lives .
Zarmina echoed similar concerns .
“ Nowhere is safe these days , ” she said .
“ You carry your baby in the belly for nine months , and then a stranger walks into a hospital and kills you and your baby .
Who knows when the insurgents will target another hospital ?
” That is a reasonable assessment , but with women avoiding hospitals , maternal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the country ’ s security situation improves and the pandemic wanes , the answer may be more midwives .
Over the years , Afghanistan ’ s health ministry , along with international organizations , have trained thousands of midwives .
As of 2020 , there are 3,998 working directly with the health ministry .
Another 20,000 certified professionals are registered with the Afghan Midwives Association across the country .
That is progress from the Taliban years , when restrictions on women ’ s education and work resulted in a dramatic shortage of qualified @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in 2003 , the ministry reduced the training period for midwives from 4 years to 18 months with the hopes of graduating larger numbers of trained professions .
( There are still only around 3.2 per 10,000 people , according to WHO , but this represents a sharp increase . )
Training modules were made concise and focused on the most common issues faced by Afghan women during childbirth that will help reduce maternal and infant mortality rates .
Students of these courses are taught skills to tackle serious issues such as hemorrhage @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the third stage of labor ( when the placenta is delivered ) , which those like Nooriya may not be equipped to handle .
Sohaila and her grandmother , however , dismiss such concerns .
When asked how they will prevent infections or complications at home , Nooriya replies with the confidence of a seasoned caregiver , “ We will give her warm water that has been blessed by passing under the Quran to help her.
” For Sohaila , who had considered a hospital birth prior to the pandemic , her @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are greater .
“ Hospitals are crowded , and the risk of infection is higher , ” she says .
Besides , she adds , there will be chai and naan available here while they wait for the baby to arrive .

KABUL—For a woman in the last few weeks of her pregnancy, 24-year-old Sohaila walks surprisingly quickly as she invites us into the first-floor guest room of her traditional Afghan house in the outskirts of Kabul in October.
KABUL—For a woman in the last few weeks of her pregnancy, 24-year-old Sohaila walks surprisingly quickly as she invites us into the first-floor guest room of her traditional Afghan house in the outskirts of Kabul in October.
The large yet delicately decorated room will serve as her makeshift maternity ward when she is scheduled to go into labor in three weeks. Sohaila, who requested her name be changed, goes over her plans as she, her grandmother, the translator, and I take seats on the many toushaks (long traditional cushions used for seating) that will be used as her bed during the delivery. “We will cover everything with a clean cloth,” Nooriya, Sohaila’s 62-year-old grandmother whose name has also been changed, explains. “Two women from the family will assist me with her delivery.” Although never formally trained, the senior woman has been a midwife for most of her life, having learned the skill from her mother and aunts over the years.
In a rather worrying trend, an increasing number of women like Sohaila are turning back to traditional methods of home birth in Afghanistan, over the fear of both renewed Taliban violence and catching the coronavirus in a clinic or hospital.
“Aside from the damage caused by the disease itself, COVID-19 negatively affected all the health services in Afghanistan,” Akmal Samsor, a spokesperson of the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, said in an October interview. “We admit that our initial communications around the pandemic created more fears,” he said. “As a result, people were afraid to utilize essential services. Our OPD [outpatient department] dropped by 30 percent, and our IPC [inpatient care] was down by 50 percent in the first four months of the pandemic.” The hospital beds, he said, “were empty.”
The same goes for maternity wards. Shafiqa Babak, a doctor who is chief of quality assurance at the Rabia Balkhi Hospital for women in Kabul and who also runs a private clinic, observed a significant drop in patient numbers. The hospital even created a special ward for pregnant women who were infected by the virus, well equipped with all medical support devices, many donated by international organizations and donor countries. But it failed to attract many expectant mothers. Babak, who had to close her private clinic during the worst months of the pandemic, observed many cases where women opted for home births instead.
In the last two months, people have started to return to Rabia Balkhi Hospital. There were seven live births during a visit on Oct. 7. But one of the doctors on staff says that this is still far fewer than the average number of daily deliveries in pre-coronavirus days. “Earlier we used to have over 60 deliveries and C-sections in a day, but now we have far fewer than 50,” one of the young doctors shared on the condition of anonymity.
“With risk of coronavirus, it has been hard for me to go to the hospitals for even checkups. I would not want to deliver there at all,” said another expecting mother who identified herself as Zarmina. The 28-year-old, from the northern Baghlan province, has four other children. Three were born in the hospital. She’s decided to return to traditional birthing methods for the latest baby. “My mother-in-law and a relative will help with the delivery; they’ve done this before, and I trust them,” she affirmed.
The health ministry has already registered over 9,000 home deliveries in the first half of this year, and it is counting on more. (In years past, the health ministry said, that figure was far lower.) This year’s official count is likely far under the real total, too. Officials have noted that in cases where babies are delivered by a family member, they very likely are not registered in the official figures, both because registration rates for home births were already low and because families now fear going to government registrars.
Even in the best of circumstances, this would be a worrying development, since delivering at home in Afghanistan can be dangerous to mothers and their newborns. Already, the country leads the region in maternal mortality rates—638 per 100,000 live births, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO). The comparable figure in the United States is 19.
“Every birth that is happening at home is at a risk,” Babak warned.
“The most common cause of death among new mothers in Afghanistan is postpartum hemorrhage. Many Afghan women suffer from anemia, in which case even a little bleeding can be concerning,” she said, adding that hemorrhages are extremely common in home births where there is no skilled medical personnel to help.
The risks are doubled during the COVID-19 pandemic, the doctor added: “There are higher chances of complication and infection.” Women frequently need to be taken to the hospital and receive treatment in a matter of minutes, “which is not possible at home,” she said, adding that many women die on their way to the emergency room.
Since the fall of the Taliban two decades ago, the Afghan health sector has grown and changed in many ways. However, its overall infrastructure remains underdeveloped, which undermines its reputation among the Afghan public, especially in times of crisis such as the pandemic. When Afghans avoid hospitals, though, it leads to greater health problems, which the health sector struggles to manage.
Beyond that, in the last two years, several health facilities have come under insurgent fire. The most recent attack, in May this year, targeted a maternity hospital in Kabul, resulting in 24 deaths including newborn babies, mothers, and medical staff. “Security is not good in Kabul, even the maternity ward is not safe,” Sohaila said. “Your child could be born normal and healthy, but then an attack can destroys all lives.
Zarmina echoed similar concerns. “Nowhere is safe these days,” she said. “You carry your baby in the belly for nine months, and then a stranger walks into a hospital and kills you and your baby. Who knows when the insurgents will target another hospital?” That is a reasonable assessment, but with women avoiding hospitals, maternal mortality could climb even higher.
Until the country’s security situation improves and the pandemic wanes, the answer may be more midwives. Over the years, Afghanistan’s health ministry, along with international organizations, have trained thousands of midwives. As of 2020, there are 3,998 working directly with the health ministry. Another 20,000 certified professionals are registered with the Afghan Midwives Association across the country.
That is progress from the Taliban years, when restrictions on women’s education and work resulted in a dramatic shortage of qualified midwives. To overcome this gap, in 2003, the ministry reduced the training period for midwives from 4 years to 18 months with the hopes of graduating larger numbers of trained professions. (There are still only around 3.2 per 10,000 people, according to WHO, but this represents a sharp increase.) Training modules were made concise and focused on the most common issues faced by Afghan women during childbirth that will help reduce maternal and infant mortality rates. Students of these courses are taught skills to tackle serious issues such as hemorrhage, eclampsia, preeclampsia, and management of the third stage of labor (when the placenta is delivered), which those like Nooriya may not be equipped to handle.
Sohaila and her grandmother, however, dismiss such concerns. When asked how they will prevent infections or complications at home, Nooriya replies with the confidence of a seasoned caregiver, “We will give her warm water that has been blessed by passing under the Quran to help her.” For Sohaila, who had considered a hospital birth prior to the pandemic, her fears of being infected by the coronavirus are greater. “Hospitals are crowded, and the risk of infection is higher,” she says. Besides, she adds, there will be chai and naan available here while they wait for the baby to arrive.


foreignpolicy--2020-11-21--In the Trenches With the Colonizer

In the Trenches With the Colonizer

The modernist canon that emerged from the trenches , however , largely excludes the approximately 2.3 million Africans who supported the French and British armies .
( It also excludes hundreds of thousands of nonwhite soldiers and laborers from the colonized world , many of them Indian , as well as nearly 400,000 Black Americans . )
In his treatise “ La Force Noire , ” French Gen. Charles Mangin spearheaded the effort to recruit from the colonies ’ strategic “ reservoir ” of men , campaigning for Senegalese soldiers in particular to be sent to the front .
Now @ @ @ @ @ @ @ French Senegalese writer David Diop gives a long-overdue , high-modernist treatment to the experience of the West Africans who served and died in the trenches in his novel At Night All Blood Is Black .
First published in France in 2018 , the translation by Anna Moschovakis marks Diop ’ s English-language debut .
As in many of the best novels of active combat , such as Joseph Heller ’ s Catch-22 or Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek ’ s The Good Soldier Svejk , Diop accentuates tragedy with bitter irony .
Filtered through @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1914 , this gallows humor lampoons not only the absurdities of war , but also racism .
At Night , however , is ultimately more ghost story than hysterical picaresque .
It is at once a deeply violent and gentle book .
Blending modernist monologue with myth , Diop explores the disturbing outer limits of what we do to others , and of what war can do to us .
The exploitation of colonized peoples for active duty was a point of contention among European powers in World War I .
Lacking the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Germany objected to the French deployment of African soldiers in Europe , though it emphasized race rather than imperial disadvantage .
No man ’ s land , it argued , shouldn ’ t be integrated—never mind that Germany incorporated both African soldiers and German officers into its “ Schutztruppe , ” which was charged with defending German territories in East Africa .
Germany ’ s complaints about the presence of African soldiers in Europe appealed especially to white audiences in the United States , and this propaganda gained traction after the Armistice in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ reverse racial hierarchies—sending Africans to occupy Aryans—in order to further humiliate Germany .
The deployment of African soldiers became a bargaining point in the Treaty of Versailles , with the Germans requesting that no soldiers of color be sent to occupy the Rhineland .
When France sent Senegalese soldiers anyway , Germany launched its “ Black Horror on the Rhine ” campaign , with racist pamphlets and cartoons that preyed on local fears .
Across the Atlantic , the same anxiety sentenced thousands of Black men in the United States to death by @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South—including some of the 400,000 African American soldiers who served during World War I. Unsurprisingly , the German campaign roused special sympathy in the United States and Britain , galvanizing support from women ’ s leagues and print weeklies across the political spectrum .
The weaponization of race has since been incorporated into mainstream histories of World War I .
It is the literature of the era , however , that addresses the psychic break of watching civilization collapse .
Here , Diop fills a crucial gap : What does it mean for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ empathize , however contortedly , with the enemy ?
For this soldier , who even is the enemy ?
The Germans , the French , or the colonizer at large ?
At Night All Blood Is Black extends and revises this recognizable style into something unique .
It ’ s a leaner , sparer book than Céline ’ s or Hasek ’ s , more haunted than antic .
The narrative is voice-driven and deadpan in the face of brutality , but Diop ’ s irony accents the chilling over the tragicomic .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ I emphasize the meaninglessness of life in the face of wartime horrors , At Night insists on a twisted logic of devotion : The plot is predicated on an obsession with the idea that one ’ s actions and inactions hold consequences for others .
Alfa Ndiaye distinguishes himself from a Josef Svejk or Ferdinand Bardamu with his deep sense of purpose .
He is a madman with a clear-cut goal , and what unfolds is a dark story of friendship , trauma , and revenge .
Like Céline before him , Diop @ @ @ @ @ @ @ melancholy maxims of a low-ranking soldier-narrator who has parted ways with civility .
Diop , who was born in Paris and raised in Senegal , has none of the reputational baggage of the anti-Semitic , fascist , and frankly unpleasant Céline , whose serious personal and political failings have tarnished the reception of his work .
But there is a darkness to Diop ’ s new novel that some readers may find hard to stomach .
Reader appreciation for At Night All Blood Is Black will likely depend on whether one agrees with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ world , the madman is best equipped to diagnose—if not to solve—our deepest illnesses .
After the recent U.S. election cycle , it is an idea that Americans should be especially primed to recognize .
The novel begins on the battlefield , beside narrator Alfa ’ s wounded best friend , Mademba Diop , whose agonizing death is described in matter-of-fact terms .
Mademba begs Alfa to put him out of his misery by slitting his throat , but Alfa doesn ’ t .
The slim , dense novel proceeds as a quest @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , documenting how such trauma works its way through the mind .
“ If I had been then what I ’ ve become today , ” Alfa says , “ I would have killed him the first time he asked , his head turned toward me , his left hand in my right.
” Again , with this opening , some audiences could be quick to write off At Night All Blood Is Black as too challenging or depressing .
But there is great beauty here .
Diop ’ s sentences have a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ smooth with repetition .
A single observation often extends through a chapter , shifting as it goes .
“ God ’ s truth , I believe that God always lags behind us , ” Alfa says , adding later , “ That ’ s war : it ’ s when God lags behind the music of men , when he can ’ t untangle the threads of so many fates at the same time.
” Some audiences could be quick to write off At Night All Blood Is Black as too challenging or @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here .
Placing the point of narration ahead of the story allows a madman to offer an account of his own madness .
After Mademba ’ s death , each time Alfa enters enemy territory , he brings back a severed German hand .
His comrades cheer him at first , awed by his bravery .
Little do they know that each trophy is in fact a reenactment of Mademba ’ s death .
Sneaking up on his German victims , Alfa disembowels them , letting them die just a little before finishing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ [ T ] hen I slit his throat , cleanly , humanely .
At night , all blood is black.
” It is a madman ’ s mercy : a chance to bestow upon the enemy the relief he denied his friend .
The repetition of Alfa ’ s speech and actions echoes the rhythm of surging again and again out of the trench and into enemy territory .
It ’ s when he brings back his fourth , fifth , sixth , and seventh hands that his comrades start to worry .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ say—I could read it in their eyes— ‘ This Chocolat is really strange.
’ The others , Chocolat soldiers from West Africa like me , began to say—and I also read it in their eyes— ‘ This Alfa Ndiaye from the village of Gandiol near Saint-Louis in Senegal is strange.
” The same act , repeated enough times , leaves him at once a hero and a monster .
The juxtaposition of white and Black , often in the same sentence , serves a similar purpose , both emphasizing and undercutting the hegemony @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Alfa is clear-eyed about his captain ’ s racism—in an echo of Mangin , the Chocolats are told “ to play the savage ” —and yet the syntax often points toward a grim universalism : “ At night , all blood is black.
” Impressively , Diop manages to transcend the geographic claustrophobia of his subject matter .
The entire narrative is bookended between the “ Front ” ( active combat ) and the “ Back ” ( convalescence ) of the war , and yet it spends as much time in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Alfa brings back his seventh hand , his comrades suspect him of insanity , and he is sent to recover at a field hospital .
There , Alfa is treated by the heuristically named Dr. François and nurse Mademoiselle François .
Confined to a hospital bed , his memories wander to his home village and his early friendship with Mademba .
As part of his psychiatric treatment , he draws three pictures : one of his mother , one of Mademba , and one of his seven hands .
It is revealed that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Moors and sold into sex slavery , after which Mademba ’ s family generously brought Alfa into the fold .
Through these memories the novel gains texture , interpolating the horrors of war with scenes of boyhood in the Senegalese countryside .
Together , the boys passed through traditional coming-of-age rituals , and it was a combination of Mademba ’ s ambition and Alfa ’ s mother ’ s disappearance that motivated them to go to war .
( While some African soldiers volunteered for the French Army , swayed by the promise @ @ @ @ @ @ @ more were conscripted . )
Through these memories the novel gains texture , interpolating the horrors of war with scenes of boyhood in the Senegalese countryside .
Alfa ’ s contrition toward Mademba remains a consistent and powerful throughline .
They were in love with the same girl , who on their last night before leaving for France took the handsome Alfa as her lover over the scrawny Mademba .
Alfa ’ s failure to slit Mademba ’ s throat recalls this original betrayal : “ To die without knowing all of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ fair .
Poor , incomplete Mademba.
” Without giving too much away , some impressive formal gymnastics toward the end allow for a union of the two friends ’ minds in a single body .
From the perspective of someone like Dr. François , the apparent melding of Alfa and Mademba ( “ a little voice in my head ” ) might read like schizophrenia .
But the novel has hinted earlier at the tradition of dëmms , or sorcerers , which offer an alternative interpretation .
Either Alfa succumbs to psychosis as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s—or the dëmms ’ sinister practice of “ soul-devouring ” has become at once a curse and a profound act of friendship : the mingling of two souls in a single physical form , as Alfa lends his body to his friend .
But the way in which Alfa shares his body causes further violence .
A climactic sex scene with an ambiguously consenting Mademoiselle François is recounted twice , once from Mademba ’ s perspective , once from Alfa ’ s .
Misogyny is a staple of war narratives .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the resonances of war and rape a step further .
Diop suggests that war is the ultimate penetration , of the body by machinery and of the mind by horrors witnessed .
Misogyny is a staple of war narratives .
But At Night All Blood Is Black takes the resonances of war and rape a step further .
The crossing of boundaries—of inside and outside—is a profound idea in the novel , one with a sexual connotation .
Diop suggests that war is the ultimate penetration , of the body by machinery and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ It isn ’ t until Mademba ’ s death—his “ insides outside ” —that Alfa says his own mind “ opened enough to let me see what was hiding there.
” And what ’ s hiding there is , perhaps , Mademba himself .
The final encounter with Mademoiselle François strains under the weight of too many interpretations .
It is a rape , an act of war , a national revenge against the French and a self-conscious play on the racial anxiety that fueled propaganda campaigns such as Germany ’ s Black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s also a twisted favor for a friend : a chance for Mademba , who lurks somewhere within Alfa ’ s mind , to finally lose his virginity .
Diop ’ s ambition here is admirable , but the interpretations compete with each other , jostling for attention as the novel rushes toward its end .
As a whole , however , At Night All Blood Is Black is a stunning iteration of the very oldest stories about the plunders of war .
The emphasis on friendship , marauding , and atonement harken @ @ @ @ @ @ @ plot twists and a voice uniquely his own , Diop straitjackets these themes into a more haunted psychology , reimagining a perspective too often elided from the epistolary evidence that helped inspire the idea for the book ; like all soldiers ’ letters home , At Night is deeply personal , particular , intimate , and also a kind of historical document .
Diop has backdated a Senegalese comment on existential calamity that the existing canon of the trenches would suggest belonged exclusively to Europeans .
At Night All Blood Is Black is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ But for long stretches , the narrative flows along with the chilly beauty of the river Styx , and its sorcerer ’ s ending makes it utterly distinct .
To an Anglophone literary sphere that critics have accused of simplifying the novel ’ s moral schema , signaling too clearly where the reader ’ s sympathies should lie , At Night runs explicitly , and refreshingly , against the grain .
In the ethics of war , Diop suggests , nothing is quite black or white .
There is only madness , through @ @ @

Ten million soldiers died fighting in World War I, many of them in the trenches. The large-scale slaughter permanently changed not only the way Europe governed and considered weaponry, but also how people made art. Mechanized brutality rendered former modes of expression like realism obsolete. The subsequent reckoning with industrialized warfare and voracious nationalism ushered in movements such as Dadaism, Futurism, and the canon of literary modernism, influencing writers in the Anglosphere from Virginia Woolf to T.S. Eliot.
The modernist canon that emerged from the trenches, however, largely excludes the approximately 2.3 million Africans who supported the French and British armies. (It also excludes hundreds of thousands of nonwhite soldiers and laborers from the colonized world, many of them Indian, as well as nearly 400,000 Black Americans.) In his treatise “La Force Noire,” French Gen. Charles Mangin spearheaded the effort to recruit from the colonies’ strategic “reservoir” of men, campaigning for Senegalese soldiers in particular to be sent to the front. Now, over a century later, the French Senegalese writer David Diop gives a long-overdue, high-modernist treatment to the experience of the West Africans who served and died in the trenches in his novel At Night All Blood Is Black. First published in France in 2018, the translation by Anna Moschovakis marks Diop’s English-language debut.
At Night All Blood Is Black, David Diop, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 160 pp., , November 2020 (Translated from French by Anna Moschovakis)
As in many of the best novels of active combat, such as Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 or Czech writer Jaroslav Hasek’s The Good Soldier Svejk, Diop accentuates tragedy with bitter irony. Filtered through the perspective of an African soldier around 1914, this gallows humor lampoons not only the absurdities of war, but also racism. At Night, however, is ultimately more ghost story than hysterical picaresque. It is at once a deeply violent and gentle book. Blending modernist monologue with myth, Diop explores the disturbing outer limits of what we do to others, and of what war can do to us.
The exploitation of colonized peoples for active duty was a point of contention among European powers in World War I. Lacking the colonial reach of France and Britain, Germany objected to the French deployment of African soldiers in Europe, though it emphasized race rather than imperial disadvantage. No man’s land, it argued, shouldn’t be integrated—never mind that Germany incorporated both African soldiers and German officers into its “Schutztruppe,” which was charged with defending German territories in East Africa. Germany’s complaints about the presence of African soldiers in Europe appealed especially to white audiences in the United States, and this propaganda gained traction after the Armistice in 1918, when the French intended to reverse racial hierarchies—sending Africans to occupy Aryans—in order to further humiliate Germany. The deployment of African soldiers became a bargaining point in the Treaty of Versailles, with the Germans requesting that no soldiers of color be sent to occupy the Rhineland.
When France sent Senegalese soldiers anyway, Germany launched its “Black Horror on the Rhine” campaign, with racist pamphlets and cartoons that preyed on local fears. Across the Atlantic, the same anxiety sentenced thousands of Black men in the United States to death by torture and lynching in the Jim Crow South—including some of the 400,000 African American soldiers who served during World War I. Unsurprisingly, the German campaign roused special sympathy in the United States and Britain, galvanizing support from women’s leagues and print weeklies across the political spectrum.
The weaponization of race has since been incorporated into mainstream histories of World War I. It is the literature of the era, however, that addresses the psychic break of watching civilization collapse. Here, Diop fills a crucial gap: What does it mean for a Senegalese soldier in the trenches to empathize, however contortedly, with the enemy? For this soldier, who even is the enemy? The Germans, the French, or the colonizer at large?
A postcard and posters from World War I feature African soldiers in the French Army.
Diop’s narrator, Alfa Ndiaye, a young recruit from rural Senegal, belongs to an interwar tradition of roguish soldier protagonists, a literary lineage that includes Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s Journey to the End of the Night and the Czech satire The Good Soldier Svejk—World War I tales inflected with hysteria, unreliable narration, and alienation from a world that has lost all sense of reason. Diop has cited Céline’s magnum opus and French soldiers’ letters as influences. They are apt blueprints for the novel’s unsentimental study of human nature under the utmost duress.
At Night All Blood Is Black extends and revises this recognizable style into something unique. It’s a leaner, sparer book than Céline’s or Hasek’s, more haunted than antic. The narrative is voice-driven and deadpan in the face of brutality, but Diop’s irony accents the chilling over the tragicomic. And while earlier responses to World War I emphasize the meaninglessness of life in the face of wartime horrors, At Night insists on a twisted logic of devotion: The plot is predicated on an obsession with the idea that one’s actions and inactions hold consequences for others. Alfa Ndiaye distinguishes himself from a Josef Svejk or Ferdinand Bardamu with his deep sense of purpose. He is a madman with a clear-cut goal, and what unfolds is a dark story of friendship, trauma, and revenge.
Like Céline before him, Diop filters the madness of war through the melancholy maxims of a low-ranking soldier-narrator who has parted ways with civility. Diop, who was born in Paris and raised in Senegal, has none of the reputational baggage of the anti-Semitic, fascist, and frankly unpleasant Céline, whose serious personal and political failings have tarnished the reception of his work. But there is a darkness to Diop’s new novel that some readers may find hard to stomach. Reader appreciation for At Night All Blood Is Black will likely depend on whether one agrees with the Shakespearean idea that in a mad world, the madman is best equipped to diagnose—if not to solve—our deepest illnesses. After the recent U.S. election cycle, it is an idea that Americans should be especially primed to recognize.
The novel begins on the battlefield, beside narrator Alfa’s wounded best friend, Mademba Diop, whose agonizing death is described in matter-of-fact terms. Mademba begs Alfa to put him out of his misery by slitting his throat, but Alfa doesn’t. The slim, dense novel proceeds as a quest to atone for this failure of friendship, documenting how such trauma works its way through the mind. “If I had been then what I’ve become today,” Alfa says, “I would have killed him the first time he asked, his head turned toward me, his left hand in my right.”
Again, with this opening, some audiences could be quick to write off At Night All Blood Is Black as too challenging or depressing. But there is great beauty here. Diop’s sentences have a tidal quality, carrying in phrases worn smooth with repetition. A single observation often extends through a chapter, shifting as it goes. “God’s truth, I believe that God always lags behind us,” Alfa says, adding later, “That’s war: it’s when God lags behind the music of men, when he can’t untangle the threads of so many fates at the same time.”
Some audiences could be quick to write off At Night All Blood Is Black as too challenging or depressing. But there is great beauty here.
Placing the point of narration ahead of the story allows a madman to offer an account of his own madness. After Mademba’s death, each time Alfa enters enemy territory, he brings back a severed German hand. His comrades cheer him at first, awed by his bravery. Little do they know that each trophy is in fact a reenactment of Mademba’s death. Sneaking up on his German victims, Alfa disembowels them, letting them die just a little before finishing them off with a knife: “[T]hen I slit his throat, cleanly, humanely. At night, all blood is black.” It is a madman’s mercy: a chance to bestow upon the enemy the relief he denied his friend.
The repetition of Alfa’s speech and actions echoes the rhythm of surging again and again out of the trench and into enemy territory. It’s when he brings back his fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh hands that his comrades start to worry. “The white soldiers were beginning to say—I could read it in their eyes—‘This Chocolat is really strange.’ The others, Chocolat soldiers from West Africa like me, began to say—and I also read it in their eyes—‘This Alfa Ndiaye from the village of Gandiol near Saint-Louis in Senegal is strange.” The same act, repeated enough times, leaves him at once a hero and a monster.
The juxtaposition of white and Black, often in the same sentence, serves a similar purpose, both emphasizing and undercutting the hegemony of the color line in the trench. Alfa is clear-eyed about his captain’s racism—in an echo of Mangin, the Chocolats are told “to play the savage”—and yet the syntax often points toward a grim universalism: “At night, all blood is black.”
Senegalese infantrymen repel an assault in France during World War I.
Throughout At Night, Diop documents how the French exploited racial fears, both on the battlefield and beyond. Before disemboweling a Kraut victim, Alfa registers in his blue eyes “a panicked fear of … what he’s been told about me, and what he’s believed without ever seeing me.” The West African recruits, many of whom neither read nor speak French, are asked to adopt racial stereotype as military strategy. Far from a war waged exclusively between European powers, World War I had imperialism and its attendant logic at its core.
Impressively, Diop manages to transcend the geographic claustrophobia of his subject matter. The entire narrative is bookended between the “Front” (active combat) and the “Back” (convalescence) of the war, and yet it spends as much time in Senegal as on the battlefield.
After Alfa brings back his seventh hand, his comrades suspect him of insanity, and he is sent to recover at a field hospital. There, Alfa is treated by the heuristically named Dr. François and nurse Mademoiselle François. Confined to a hospital bed, his memories wander to his home village and his early friendship with Mademba. As part of his psychiatric treatment, he draws three pictures: one of his mother, one of Mademba, and one of his seven hands. It is revealed that Alfa’s mother was kidnapped by Moors and sold into sex slavery, after which Mademba’s family generously brought Alfa into the fold.
Through these memories the novel gains texture, interpolating the horrors of war with scenes of boyhood in the Senegalese countryside.
Together, the boys passed through traditional coming-of-age rituals, and it was a combination of Mademba’s ambition and Alfa’s mother’s disappearance that motivated them to go to war. (While some African soldiers volunteered for the French Army, swayed by the promise of wages and possible emigration, many more were conscripted.) Through these memories the novel gains texture, interpolating the horrors of war with scenes of boyhood in the Senegalese countryside. Alfa’s contrition toward Mademba remains a consistent and powerful throughline. They were in love with the same girl, who on their last night before leaving for France took the handsome Alfa as her lover over the scrawny Mademba. Alfa’s failure to slit Mademba’s throat recalls this original betrayal: “To die without knowing all of the pleasures of the body isn’t fair. Poor, incomplete Mademba.”
Without giving too much away, some impressive formal gymnastics toward the end allow for a union of the two friends’ minds in a single body. From the perspective of someone like Dr. François, the apparent melding of Alfa and Mademba (“a little voice in my head”) might read like schizophrenia. But the novel has hinted earlier at the tradition of dëmms, or sorcerers, which offer an alternative interpretation. Either Alfa succumbs to psychosis as his consciousness begins to blend with Mademba’s—or the dëmms’ sinister practice of “soul-devouring” has become at once a curse and a profound act of friendship: the mingling of two souls in a single physical form, as Alfa lends his body to his friend.
But the way in which Alfa shares his body causes further violence. A climactic sex scene with an ambiguously consenting Mademoiselle François is recounted twice, once from Mademba’s perspective, once from Alfa’s.
Misogyny is a staple of war narratives. But At Night All Blood Is Black takes the resonances of war and rape a step further. Diop suggests that war is the ultimate penetration, of the body by machinery and of the mind by horrors witnessed.
Misogyny is a staple of war narratives. But At Night All Blood Is Black takes the resonances of war and rape a step further. The crossing of boundaries—of inside and outside—is a profound idea in the novel, one with a sexual connotation. Diop suggests that war is the ultimate penetration, of the body by machinery and of the mind by horrors witnessed. It isn’t until Mademba’s death—his “insides outside”—that Alfa says his own mind “opened enough to let me see what was hiding there.” And what’s hiding there is, perhaps, Mademba himself.
The final encounter with Mademoiselle François strains under the weight of too many interpretations. It is a rape, an act of war, a national revenge against the French and a self-conscious play on the racial anxiety that fueled propaganda campaigns such as Germany’s Black Horror on the Rhine. It’s also a twisted favor for a friend: a chance for Mademba, who lurks somewhere within Alfa’s mind, to finally lose his virginity. Diop’s ambition here is admirable, but the interpretations compete with each other, jostling for attention as the novel rushes toward its end.
As a whole, however, At Night All Blood Is Black is a stunning iteration of the very oldest stories about the plunders of war. The emphasis on friendship, marauding, and atonement harken back to the Odyssey. With genre-bending plot twists and a voice uniquely his own, Diop straitjackets these themes into a more haunted psychology, reimagining a perspective too often elided from the epistolary evidence that helped inspire the idea for the book; like all soldiers’ letters home, At Night is deeply personal, particular, intimate, and also a kind of historical document. Diop has backdated a Senegalese comment on existential calamity that the existing canon of the trenches would suggest belonged exclusively to Europeans.
At Night All Blood Is Black is not for the faint of heart. But for long stretches, the narrative flows along with the chilly beauty of the river Styx, and its sorcerer’s ending makes it utterly distinct. To an Anglophone literary sphere that critics have accused of simplifying the novel’s moral schema, signaling too clearly where the reader’s sympathies should lie, At Night runs explicitly, and refreshingly, against the grain. In the ethics of war, Diop suggests, nothing is quite black or white. There is only madness, through and through.


foreignpolicy--2020-11-21--Our Top Weekend Reads

Our Top Weekend Reads

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed , who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 , now finds his country on the precipice of civil war .
Abiy assumed office in 2018 , wresting power from the Tigray People ’ s Liberation Front ( TPLF ) , which had ruled the country for three decades and controlled virtually all echelons of Ethiopia ’ s military and political establishment .
Now , the TPLF ’ s attempts to regain control in Addis Ababa are being mistaken as a plea for autonomy .
Meanwhile , U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo broke @ @ @ @ @ @ @ illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories—a de facto acknowledgment that the two-state solution heralded under the Oslo peace process is obsolete .
That conclusion is just about the only common ground he shares with Palestinians .
And check out a profile of Michèle Flournoy , who could become the first female U.S. secretary of defense .
1 .
Tigray ’ s War Against Ethiopia Isn ’ t About Autonomy .
It ’ s About Economic Power .
Sure , Tigrayans are frustrated that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed postponed regional elections @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s real grievance in Ethiopia ’ s burgeoning civil war has nothing to do with separatism—and everything to do with control over the things the country shares , like natural resources and finances , Kassahun Melesse writes .
Palestinians are glad that U.S. President Donald Trump will be leaving office in January .
But U.S. President-elect Joe Biden ’ s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are grounded in dated ’ 90s norms that won ’ t change the oppressive reality faced by Palestinians on the ground , Salem Barahmeh writes .
3 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Policy in Past Michèle Flournoy is widely considered U.S. President-elect Joe Biden ’ s top pick to lead the Department of Defense .
She ’ d be a unique choice not only because she would be the first woman to hold the post , but also because she and Biden sparred on counterinsurgency strategy during the Obama administration , FP ’ s Michael Hirsh writes .
4 .
Yes , Islam Is Facing A Crisis .
No , France Isn ’ t Helping Solve It .
French President Emmanuel Macron is preaching Enlightenment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of French Muslims and decrying critical press as “ blasphemy.
” That ’ s counterproductive—and myopic , Mustafa Akyol writes .
South Korea ’ s chaebol system of family-owned conglomerates has been the defining feature of the country ’ s economic system since the Korean War—and led to the rise of household names like Samsung , Hyundai , and LG .
Now , many frustrated young professionals are challenging its rigidity , Frank Ahrens writes .

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, now finds his country on the precipice of civil war. Abiy assumed office in 2018, wresting power from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which had ruled the country for three decades and controlled virtually all echelons of Ethiopia’s military and political establishment. Now, the TPLF’s attempts to regain control in Addis Ababa are being mistaken as a plea for autonomy.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2019, now finds his country on the precipice of civil war. Abiy assumed office in 2018, wresting power from the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), which had ruled the country for three decades and controlled virtually all echelons of Ethiopia’s military and political establishment. Now, the TPLF’s attempts to regain control in Addis Ababa are being mistaken as a plea for autonomy.
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo broke decades of diplomatic precedent by visiting an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian territories—a de facto acknowledgment that the two-state solution heralded under the Oslo peace process is obsolete. That conclusion is just about the only common ground he shares with Palestinians.
And check out a profile of Michèle Flournoy, who could become the first female U.S. secretary of defense.
Here are Foreign Policy‘s top weekend reads.
Ethiopian soldiers and thousands of mourners attend the official state funeral of Ethiopia's late prime minister, Meles Zenawi, on Sept. 2, 2012 in Addis Ababa.
Sure, Tigrayans are frustrated that Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed postponed regional elections due to COVID-19. But the TPLF’s real grievance in Ethiopia’s burgeoning civil war has nothing to do with separatism—and everything to do with control over the things the country shares, like natural resources and finances, Kassahun Melesse writes.
Then-U.S. Vice President Joe Biden holds a joint press conference with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah on March 10, 2010.
Palestinians are glad that U.S. President Donald Trump will be leaving office in January. But U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are grounded in dated ’90s norms that won’t change the oppressive reality faced by Palestinians on the ground, Salem Barahmeh writes.
Former Defense Undersecretary for Policy Michèle Flournoy
Michèle Flournoy is widely considered U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s top pick to lead the Department of Defense. She’d be a unique choice not only because she would be the first woman to hold the post, but also because she and Biden sparred on counterinsurgency strategy during the Obama administration, FP’s Michael Hirsh writes.
Activists of the Pakistani Sunni Tehreek organization burn a poster of French President Emmanuel Macron during an anti-French protest in Lahore on Nov. 1, 2020.
French President Emmanuel Macron is preaching Enlightenment values while infringing upon the religious liberties of French Muslims and decrying critical press as “blasphemy.” That’s counterproductive—and myopic, Mustafa Akyol writes.
Employees eat in a cafeteria during the coronavirus pandemic
South Korea’s chaebol system of family-owned conglomerates has been the defining feature of the country’s economic system since the Korean War—and led to the rise of household names like Samsung, Hyundai, and LG. Now, many frustrated young professionals are challenging its rigidity, Frank Ahrens writes.


foreignpolicy--2020-11-21--The West’s Constitutional Crises Threaten the Economy’s Last Best Hope

The West ’ s Constitutional Crises Threaten the Economy ’ s Last Best Hope In the looking-glass moment of November 2020 we should perhaps no longer be surprised to see the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve , Jerome Powell , and the head of the European Central Bank ( ECB ) , Christine Lagarde , demanding more fiscal action to address the coronavirus crisis .
But one does have to pinch oneself .
Did we ever dream that we would see the central bank guardians of price stability taking on the role of lead cheerleaders for massive fiscal activism @ @ @ @ @ @ @ needed to make the case .
Fiscal activism was the order of the day .
Central banks were crucial in stabilizing the financial markets in March and April .
But the main burden of the coronavirus response lay with fiscal policy .
The pandemic has triggered a crisis of the real economy first and foremost , not a collapse of credit .
The U.S. CARES Act was a prompt and massive stimulus measure .
At first the European Union flailed .
But then in July the Europeans agreed a quasi-constitutional settlement , with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the joint Recovery Pact .
This would provide the fiscal backdrop to enable Europe to achieve not just a recovery , but the first steps toward its much-vaunted Green Deal .
With fiscal policy taking the lead , central banks could play a supporting role , juicing financial markets with quantitative easing .
What has now driven the central bankers into action is that since the summer , on both sides of the Atlantic , the political agreement on the terms of fiscal policy has broken down .
And that puts the central @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the absence of government spending or tax cuts , the burden of sustaining the economy is inevitably left with the central bank .
Under normal circumstances , politicians are happy to hand off their problems to central bankers working quietly on the margins of political life .
But the partisan conflicts and disagreements that have emerged this year on both sides of the Atlantic are so deep that a more dramatic possibility has emerged : that the central banks themselves are sucked into the political fray .
2019 gave a foretaste .
At @ @ @ @ @ @ @ mini recession brought on in part by U.S. President Donald Trump ’ s trade war .
The Fed faced vicious attacks from Trump for failing to respond with lower interest rates .
Powell found himself compared by Trump to Chinese leader Xi Jinping .
In Europe , the recessionary storm clouds were even darker .
Berlin was standing pat on fiscal austerity .
To meet the threatened deflation , then-ECB President Mario Draghi was prompted to launch a final round of quantitative easing .
This was welcomed by the markets , but it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ conservative European central banking circles .
The anti-Draghi revolt was figure-headed by Jens Weidmann of the Bundesbank .
One year on , as Europe and the United States confront the second phase of the coronavirus crisis , American politicians wrangle over the still-disputed presidential election , and Europe faces its nationalist-populist demons , we are witnessing a new cycle of politicization .
In the United States , the stimulus consensus broke down over the summer , ahead of the election .
The Democrats were hoping that an electoral blue wave would give them @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a $ 2 trillion stimulus .
That hope came crashing down on the night of Nov. 3 .
Assuming the Republican Party retains control of the Senate , Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have a deciding say in any legislation from President-elect Joe Biden and the House Democrats .
That painful prospect triggered open discussions in the Biden camp about the possible use of the remaining funds in the Fed ’ s emergency programs as a way of sidestepping the Republican roadblock in Congress .
But the Trump administration and its allies @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Nov. 19 , Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin ordered the Fed to wind up programs to support lending to America ’ s small and medium-sized businesses , and backstop the municipal funding market .
He did so over protest from the Fed and the Chamber of Commerce , an unusual alliance for a Republican treasury secretary to find himself facing .
Unusual too was the remark made by the Chamber of Commerce that Mnuchin ’ s action would “ prematurely and unnecessarily tie the hands of the incoming administration.
” Effectively , America ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the refusal of a Republican-led Treasury to honor the basic cooperation on which the functioning of the U.S. Constitution depends .
Aggressively acting to curb the Fed ’ s ability to lend doesn ’ t just limit its ability to offset the lack of fiscal stimulus over the coming months .
It will also make it far more difficult for the Biden administration to relaunch stimulus in the new year .
There has been much talk of the Trump administration taking a scorched-earth approach to China , escalating tensions to the point at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ options .
It is alarming to see that same logic extended to economic policy .
If in foreign policy , the tactic of the outgoing Trump team is to set more fires than the Biden administration can cope with .
In economic policy , Mnuchin ’ s decisions amount to removing the fire extinguishers .
Neither is consistent with the turn-taking required by democratic turnovers .
We are fortunate that the vaccine news is good , otherwise one might expect a more violent market reaction , which the Treasury , Fed , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ If U.S. economic policy is being sucked into the Republicans ’ stop-at-nothing effort to hobble the Biden administration , in Europe the question of the rule of law is front and center in Lagarde ’ s dilemma .
The July fiscal package was feted in Europe as a breakout of the impasse that had threatened crisis in the EU .
It was immediately applauded by the markets , which sent the euro higher against the dollar .
But it required ratification from the European Parliament and national governments .
Any large-scale spending package @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what .
The European Parliament is deeply preoccupied with the increasingly aggressive deviations of Poland ’ s and Hungary ’ s governments from rule-of-law norms .
As part of the July recovery package , Poland and Hungary are set to receive grants and loans from the EU that in both cases exceed 10 percent of GDP .
The European Parliament decided to make this conditional on rule-of-law conditions—on recipient governments proving their commitment to democracy and transparency .
But those terms are unacceptable to Poland and Hungary , which have also found an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ vetoed the EU budget and the recovery funds , which also includes the EU ’ s proposed funding push for its green energy transition .
As in the United States , in the absence of political commitment and will , the current stability of European markets depends on the confidence that the ECB will step in where necessary .
Its willingness to buy bonds blocks any return to the nightmares of the eurozone crisis seems to promise a more unified and forward-looking Europe .
Unlike in the United States , the ECB does @ @ @ @ @ @ @ with .
But as 2019 revealed , the European system itself is marked by deep tensions among the central bankers , notably between a more conservative faction led by the Germans and the current ECB leadership and its allies in Southern Europe .
Though the ECB has since March engaged in substantial bond buying to stabilize sovereign debt markets , taking the risk out of Italian and Greek bonds , it is clear that this has faced criticism internally , most likely from the Bundesbank side .
Where this conflict has exploded into @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the purchases of sovereign debt but over green policy .
Despite the EU ’ s commitment to investment policy , Weidmann of Germany has come out openly against any ECB involvement in green finance .
He confines his comments to technical issues .
But in the conservative German press , led by the formidable Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , the stakes are higher .
Green interventions are not just a matter of fossil fuel financing—they are seen as an effort by the current French leadership of the ECB to widen the remit of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legitimacy no longer around price stability but around a broader range of societal objectives .
These include environmental sustainability but also , of course , the stability of the euro and the bond-buying programs that secure it .
Green finance thus becomes a proxy battlefield for the main issue , which is whether the central bank ’ s mandate should be expanded beyond the task of maintaining price stability .
Not now but some years down the line that will mean a battle over bond market support and the current elevated spending levels @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the parallels between American and European developments only go so far .
Whereas the United States is a unitary state dominated by a single partisan cleavage , the political economy of Europe is split along two axes : East-West and North-South .
Though that is more complex , it also means that the internal divisions within the European monetary system are not aligned with the conflicts with Poland and Hungary , neither of which is part of the euro .
It will likely be possible to defuse the situation by stitching up a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ may come at the expense of the rule of law , but it would relieve the ECB .
In the United States , even when the Democrats take control of the Treasury , the fundamental partisan division will remain , running across every area of policy and shifting the arena from the Treasury-Fed axis to the Senate .
Nevertheless , for all the differences in structure and divergences in their politics , in mid-November 2020 both of the big Western blocs have at least this much in common .
They do not have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the second wave of the crisis .
In both cases , basic questions of a constitutional variety are being posed .
And the firewall between politics and monetary policy has once more been breached .

In the looking-glass moment of November 2020 we should perhaps no longer be surprised to see the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, and the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, demanding more fiscal action to address the coronavirus crisis. But one does have to pinch oneself. Did we ever dream that we would see the central bank guardians of price stability taking on the role of lead cheerleaders for massive fiscal activism?
In the looking-glass moment of November 2020 we should perhaps no longer be surprised to see the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, and the head of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, demanding more fiscal action to address the coronavirus crisis. But one does have to pinch oneself. Did we ever dream that we would see the central bank guardians of price stability taking on the role of lead cheerleaders for massive fiscal activism?
Earlier in the year they hardly needed to make the case. Fiscal activism was the order of the day. Central banks were crucial in stabilizing the financial markets in March and April. But the main burden of the coronavirus response lay with fiscal policy. The pandemic has triggered a crisis of the real economy first and foremost, not a collapse of credit. The U.S. CARES Act was a prompt and massive stimulus measure. At first the European Union flailed. But then in July the Europeans agreed a quasi-constitutional settlement, with a common program of borrowing to fund the joint Recovery Pact. This would provide the fiscal backdrop to enable Europe to achieve not just a recovery, but the first steps toward its much-vaunted Green Deal. With fiscal policy taking the lead, central banks could play a supporting role, juicing financial markets with quantitative easing.
What has now driven the central bankers into action is that since the summer, on both sides of the Atlantic, the political agreement on the terms of fiscal policy has broken down. And that puts the central banks in an exposed position.
In the absence of government spending or tax cuts, the burden of sustaining the economy is inevitably left with the central bank. Under normal circumstances, politicians are happy to hand off their problems to central bankers working quietly on the margins of political life. But the partisan conflicts and disagreements that have emerged this year on both sides of the Atlantic are so deep that a more dramatic possibility has emerged: that the central banks themselves are sucked into the political fray.
2019 gave a foretaste. At the time, the world faced a mini recession brought on in part by U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war. The Fed faced vicious attacks from Trump for failing to respond with lower interest rates. Powell found himself compared by Trump to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. In Europe, the recessionary storm clouds were even darker. Berlin was standing pat on fiscal austerity. To meet the threatened deflation, then-ECB President Mario Draghi was prompted to launch a final round of quantitative easing. This was welcomed by the markets, but it unleashed a storm of protest from within conservative European central banking circles. The anti-Draghi revolt was figure-headed by Jens Weidmann of the Bundesbank.
One year on, as Europe and the United States confront the second phase of the coronavirus crisis, American politicians wrangle over the still-disputed presidential election, and Europe faces its nationalist-populist demons, we are witnessing a new cycle of politicization.
In the United States, the stimulus consensus broke down over the summer, ahead of the election. The Democrats were hoping that an electoral blue wave would give them control of Congress and the political platform for a $2 trillion stimulus. That hope came crashing down on the night of Nov. 3. Assuming the Republican Party retains control of the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell will have a deciding say in any legislation from President-elect Joe Biden and the House Democrats.
That painful prospect triggered open discussions in the Biden camp about the possible use of the remaining funds in the Fed’s emergency programs as a way of sidestepping the Republican roadblock in Congress. But the Trump administration and its allies in Congress saw that coming. On Nov. 19, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin ordered the Fed to wind up programs to support lending to America’s small and medium-sized businesses, and backstop the municipal funding market. He did so over protest from the Fed and the Chamber of Commerce, an unusual alliance for a Republican treasury secretary to find himself facing. Unusual too was the remark made by the Chamber of Commerce that Mnuchin’s action would “prematurely and unnecessarily tie the hands of the incoming administration.”
Effectively, America’s most prominent business lobby is condemning the refusal of a Republican-led Treasury to honor the basic cooperation on which the functioning of the U.S. Constitution depends. Aggressively acting to curb the Fed’s ability to lend doesn’t just limit its ability to offset the lack of fiscal stimulus over the coming months. It will also make it far more difficult for the Biden administration to relaunch stimulus in the new year.
There has been much talk of the Trump administration taking a scorched-earth approach to China, escalating tensions to the point at which the Biden administration is deprived of options. It is alarming to see that same logic extended to economic policy. If in foreign policy, the tactic of the outgoing Trump team is to set more fires than the Biden administration can cope with. In economic policy, Mnuchin’s decisions amount to removing the fire extinguishers. Neither is consistent with the turn-taking required by democratic turnovers. We are fortunate that the vaccine news is good, otherwise one might expect a more violent market reaction, which the Treasury, Fed, and Congress would find difficult to quell.
If U.S. economic policy is being sucked into the Republicans’ stop-at-nothing effort to hobble the Biden administration, in Europe the question of the rule of law is front and center in Lagarde’s dilemma. The July fiscal package was feted in Europe as a breakout of the impasse that had threatened crisis in the EU. It was immediately applauded by the markets, which sent the euro higher against the dollar.
But it required ratification from the European Parliament and national governments. Any large-scale spending package raises the question of who will receive what. The European Parliament is deeply preoccupied with the increasingly aggressive deviations of Poland’s and Hungary’s governments from rule-of-law norms. As part of the July recovery package, Poland and Hungary are set to receive grants and loans from the EU that in both cases exceed 10 percent of GDP. The European Parliament decided to make this conditional on rule-of-law conditions—on recipient governments proving their commitment to democracy and transparency. But those terms are unacceptable to Poland and Hungary, which have also found an ally in Slovenia. Together they have vetoed the EU budget and the recovery funds, which also includes the EU’s proposed funding push for its green energy transition.
As in the United States, in the absence of political commitment and will, the current stability of European markets depends on the confidence that the ECB will step in where necessary. Its willingness to buy bonds blocks any return to the nightmares of the eurozone crisis seems to promise a more unified and forward-looking Europe. Unlike in the United States, the ECB does not have a partisan Treasury to deal with. But as 2019 revealed, the European system itself is marked by deep tensions among the central bankers, notably between a more conservative faction led by the Germans and the current ECB leadership and its allies in Southern Europe. Though the ECB has since March engaged in substantial bond buying to stabilize sovereign debt markets, taking the risk out of Italian and Greek bonds, it is clear that this has faced criticism internally, most likely from the Bundesbank side.
Where this conflict has exploded into the open is so far not over the purchases of sovereign debt but over green policy. Despite the EU’s commitment to investment policy, Weidmann of Germany has come out openly against any ECB involvement in green finance. He confines his comments to technical issues. But in the conservative German press, led by the formidable Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, the stakes are higher. Green interventions are not just a matter of fossil fuel financing—they are seen as an effort by the current French leadership of the ECB to widen the remit of the central bank and redefine its source of legitimacy no longer around price stability but around a broader range of societal objectives. These include environmental sustainability but also, of course, the stability of the euro and the bond-buying programs that secure it. Green finance thus becomes a proxy battlefield for the main issue, which is whether the central bank’s mandate should be expanded beyond the task of maintaining price stability. Not now but some years down the line that will mean a battle over bond market support and the current elevated spending levels by national governments.
Of course, the parallels between American and European developments only go so far. Whereas the United States is a unitary state dominated by a single partisan cleavage, the political economy of Europe is split along two axes: East-West and North-South. Though that is more complex, it also means that the internal divisions within the European monetary system are not aligned with the conflicts with Poland and Hungary, neither of which is part of the euro. It will likely be possible to defuse the situation by stitching up a compromise with Warsaw and Budapest. This may come at the expense of the rule of law, but it would relieve the ECB. In the United States, even when the Democrats take control of the Treasury, the fundamental partisan division will remain, running across every area of policy and shifting the arena from the Treasury-Fed axis to the Senate.
Nevertheless, for all the differences in structure and divergences in their politics, in mid-November 2020 both of the big Western blocs have at least this much in common. They do not have in place a coherent fiscal policy response to the second wave of the crisis. In both cases, basic questions of a constitutional variety are being posed. And the firewall between politics and monetary policy has once more been breached.