foreignpolicy--2020-03-05--The U.S. Government Is Vulnerable to Virus Chaos

The U.S. Government Is Vulnerable to Virus Chaos The outbreak of the coronavirus that originated in Wuhan , China , has become both a global public health crisis and a political wild card .
A collapse in faith in government competence or inequality in access to vaccines and treatments could reshape politics rapidly and unexpectedly .
Whether the coronavirus disease , or COVID-19 , could kill a significant number of Americans is not yet clear , but it is vital that the U.S. government proceed as if the answer is yes .
Hope now hangs on a combination of both @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the outbreak or mitigate its effects—a situation that does not inspire optimism .
Of particular concern are countries that are unable to effectively collect data and respond to the outbreak , due to weak health systems or weak governance , projecting their vulnerability far beyond their borders .
The more people infected with the virus globally , the more vulnerable Americans become , both from a public health and an economic standpoint .
Our common defense is only as strong as the weakest link .
The structures and policy of the U.S. government @ @ @ @ @ @ @ problems is within the power of Congress and the administration .
Doing so is of both immediate and long-term importance .
The coronavirus emergency spending bill before Congress now is an important vehicle to correct some of these problems , but the requirements are too big to be solved with a single piece of legislation .
The White House and Congress must also get their own houses in order .
The shifting White House leadership structure for the coronavirus response is both atypical and ad hoc , leaping from an interagency health security @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NSC ) staff to a cabinet-level process then to one led by the vice president .
White House leadership of the response is critical , since no matter how dedicated and capable any one agency or department may be , it simply can not effectively coordinate across accounts , jurisdictions , missions , and personnel as required .
The interagency coordination will be led by Deborah Birx—a serious professional , as capable in interagency management and global health as anyone in government .
With no time to spare , the White House has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been all along , prior to the possibility of an outbreak .
While the leap from NSC staff to the vice president demonstrates an appropriate sense of urgency , it also reveals the gaping hole in the regular decision-making structure .
Prior to the creation of the president ’ s task force , the White House seemingly went backward on global health security , downgrading and eventually eliminating the global health senior director position at the NSC .
It sent additional signals of disinterest to Capitol Hill , reluctantly producing an interagency global @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it by law .
The leadership hole is in part due to the desire to reverse creeping NSC staff bloat—a point on which National Security Advisor Robert O ’ Brien is correct .
However , in this case , the limitation is not the number of seats at the NSC but the lack of value placed on the implications of health for U.S. national security and on the significant interagency coordination demands .
Even outside of a crisis , global health is a priority to which the U.S. government commits billions of dollars @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and departments .
This type of challenge is why the NSC was created .
Even after this crisis is resolved , the question that must be asked is how the White House will plan for the next one .
Some structural leadership problems are architectural and can not be addressed by policy course corrections alone .
In health security , the division between domestic and international affairs that is reasonable and practical in many other areas can be especially problematic .
Disease respects no borders .
Yet a decision-making framework established ahead @ @ @ @ @ @ @ thresholds for action , department and agency roles , and interagency chain of command can save precious time , money , and lives .
Critical policies and responsibilities can fall through the domestic-international divide to inattention or confusion , losing opportunities to act proactively outside the United States .
If domestic health security and global health security are not understood as two parts of the same challenge , policymakers might look to fortify only the domestic health system .
With a disease like COVID-19 , such a notion is folly , dangerously missing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the fact that those infected can by be asymptomatic yet highly contagious , defying easy detection .
The emergency supplemental funding request from the White House is a timely example , appearing to go out of its way to avoid focusing on anything other than domestic capacity .
Intentional or not , the White House is once again communicating that it does not view domestic health security and global health security as a single , continuous challenge .
The distinction in this case makes Americans more vulnerable ahead of an outbreak and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health costs during an emergency .
Congress , where fractured jurisdiction and responsibility for global health security spans at least 10 different committee and subcommittee structures across both chambers , has some housekeeping to do as well .
Nearly all have their own leadership , membership , and staff .
A comprehensive , funded global health security strategy theoretically could be considered in part by each and all—even before reaching congressional leadership and their staffs and coming to a vote .
Nothing remotely resembling that ever happens .
The problem is not that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ engaged in global health security but too few .
Divided between domestic and international , national security and public health , no committee has a clear mandate or a view of the full requirements of government .
Pathways for asserting leadership are unclear , even for dedicated individual members .
The sense of issue ownership is weak .
What can the administration and Congress do to address these problems and the vulnerabilities they create ?
First , the Trump administration should use the current White House-led response to reestablish a dedicated , permanent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NSC , led at the senior director/special assistant to the president level or higher .
This problem can be addressed substantially simply by reestablishing the structure that existed until its sudden abolition last year .
Additionally , the White House Office of Management and Budget should establish a senior staff role to ensure consistency and execution of funding and management decisions across all agencies and accounts—domestic and international—as the George W. Bush administration did effectively .
Second , House and Senate leadership should both establish separate cross-committee , bipartisan special committees or formal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health security , organized around clearly defined membership , rules , and responsibilities .
The two groups would not require their own legislative authorities or separate jurisdictions , instead providing coordination , guidance , and a shared oversight agenda for the regular committees of jurisdiction on which the members already sit .
The groups would necessarily include the appropriations committee members in order to ensure alignment of policy and funding .
Third , Congress should enact legislation to establish an international health emergency response framework requirement of the executive branch , providing necessary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ provide doctrine and a defined process to determine when , where , and on what scale the United States responds internationally , what funds would be tapped , and clarifying without a doubt for everyone in government what it is they would be called on to do , by whom , and when .
The international framework must be fully complementary of the domestic response framework in scope and detail and similarly incorporated into the national security strategy .
Such a framework is a complex undertaking , requiring constant updating and testing for @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Defense Department are tested and updated continuously .
Answers to questions about whether , how , and when to respond internationally are not likely to be clear prior to it being too late .
For the administration and Congress , a substantial amount of their homework on this topic has been done for them .
In particular , Jeremy Konyndyk ’ s excellent analysis and recommendations , based on the Obama administration ’ s experience with the West Africa Ebola crisis , is practical and accessible—effectively a playbook to approach this requirement .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ better address a market gap and related legal and funding gaps around threats where there ’ s acute need but , due to poverty or a previously unknown pathogen , almost no actual demand .
Many emerging threats in this category fall through a government agency mandate gap between the “ upstream ” role of basic research and the “ downstream ” role of health security implementation .
Addressing this global vulnerability requires using significant targeted funds to provide the market “ push ” for research and development as well as the market @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supply .
The U.S. government on its own can not create such markets in all cases of epidemic-potential threats in a cost-effective way ( if at all ) , except for a limited set of specific threats linked to U.S. domestic and war-fighter requirements .
The administration and Congress must work together expeditiously to identify the needs and barriers of the programs and international partnerships—burden sharing at its best—and address them in law and with funding .
Fifth , the coronavirus is an emergency but not really a surprise .
Prioritization of U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ preparing for and responding to an inevitable global health emergency .
Global health security now is just one of many competing priorities in foreign assistance , pitted against others in a zero-sum competition for limited funds .
This low prioritization of funding and competition among important programs harms all interests in ways that soon may be measured in lives .
In this light , the emergency funding request from the White House looks especially shortsighted for its exclusion of funding for international capacity building and response .
Congress must step up and correct @ @ @ @ @ @ @ like the coronavirus overcomes divisions and inertia in government , this is reactive and possibly too late , as proactive options have dwindled rapidly .
Crisis-driven solutions can be decisive but don ’ t necessarily guarantee durable changes .
In practice , they often lack essential qualities for success and durability , including clear objectives , leadership endowed with authorities commensurate with their responsibilities , accountability for outcomes , and laws that guarantee funding and require implementation of policies and programs .
Absent the political will to see them through , whole-of-government approaches @ @ @ @ @ @ @ real conceptual merit—become tacit admissions of policymaking failure .
Important issues are sentenced to a slow death by a thousand experts , creating a dangerous illusion of having addressed a problem .
The good news is that , should the administration and Congress provide the necessary political will , they have a remarkable , timely set of resources created for them for exactly this purpose .
These include a proactive commission with timely , actionable recommendations ; a comprehensive inventory of global health system weaknesses ; an established framework for international cooperation ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ books ready to build out , implement , and fund .
The coronavirus challenge requires that Congress and the administration move together toward shared objectives—a tough proposition in Washington these days .
If elected leaders want to be remembered for doing all within their power to protect the country , they must recognize global health security as a national security priority that , left unaddressed , neglects their basic responsibility .

The outbreak of the coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, has become both a global public health crisis and a political wild card. A collapse in faith in government competence or inequality in access to vaccines and treatments could reshape politics rapidly and unexpectedly. Whether the coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, could kill a significant number of Americans is not yet clear, but it is vital that the U.S. government proceed as if the answer is yes.
The outbreak of the coronavirus that originated in Wuhan, China, has become both a global public health crisis and a political wild card. A collapse in faith in government competence or inequality in access to vaccines and treatments could reshape politics rapidly and unexpectedly. Whether the coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, could kill a significant number of Americans is not yet clear, but it is vital that the U.S. government proceed as if the answer is yes.
Hope now hangs on a combination of both human and natural factors that might slow the outbreak or mitigate its effects—a situation that does not inspire optimism. Of particular concern are countries that are unable to effectively collect data and respond to the outbreak, due to weak health systems or weak governance, projecting their vulnerability far beyond their borders. The more people infected with the virus globally, the more vulnerable Americans become, both from a public health and an economic standpoint. Our common defense is only as strong as the weakest link.
The structures and policy of the U.S. government contribute to this vulnerability. Addressing the problems is within the power of Congress and the administration. Doing so is of both immediate and long-term importance. The coronavirus emergency spending bill before Congress now is an important vehicle to correct some of these problems, but the requirements are too big to be solved with a single piece of legislation. The White House and Congress must also get their own houses in order.
The shifting White House leadership structure for the coronavirus response is both atypical and ad hoc, leaping from an interagency health security process run by National Security Council (NSC) staff to a cabinet-level process then to one led by the vice president. White House leadership of the response is critical, since no matter how dedicated and capable any one agency or department may be, it simply cannot effectively coordinate across accounts, jurisdictions, missions, and personnel as required. The interagency coordination will be led by Deborah Birx—a serious professional, as capable in interagency management and global health as anyone in government. With no time to spare, the White House has backed into the place it should have been all along, prior to the possibility of an outbreak.
While the leap from NSC staff to the vice president demonstrates an appropriate sense of urgency, it also reveals the gaping hole in the regular decision-making structure. Prior to the creation of the president’s task force, the White House seemingly went backward on global health security, downgrading and eventually eliminating the global health senior director position at the NSC. It sent additional signals of disinterest to Capitol Hill, reluctantly producing an interagency global health security strategy only once Congress required it by law.
The leadership hole is in part due to the desire to reverse creeping NSC staff bloat—a point on which National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien is correct. However, in this case, the limitation is not the number of seats at the NSC but the lack of value placed on the implications of health for U.S. national security and on the significant interagency coordination demands. Even outside of a crisis, global health is a priority to which the U.S. government commits billions of dollars each year across many accounts, agencies, and departments. This type of challenge is why the NSC was created.
Even after this crisis is resolved, the question that must be asked is how the White House will plan for the next one. Some structural leadership problems are architectural and cannot be addressed by policy course corrections alone. In health security, the division between domestic and international affairs that is reasonable and practical in many other areas can be especially problematic. Disease respects no borders. Yet a decision-making framework established ahead of a crisis to provide clarity on thresholds for action, department and agency roles, and interagency chain of command can save precious time, money, and lives.
Critical policies and responsibilities can fall through the domestic-international divide to inattention or confusion, losing opportunities to act proactively outside the United States. If domestic health security and global health security are not understood as two parts of the same challenge, policymakers might look to fortify only the domestic health system. With a disease like COVID-19, such a notion is folly, dangerously missing the implications of rapid, global mobility and the fact that those infected can by be asymptomatic yet highly contagious, defying easy detection.
The emergency supplemental funding request from the White House is a timely example, appearing to go out of its way to avoid focusing on anything other than domestic capacity. Intentional or not, the White House is once again communicating that it does not view domestic health security and global health security as a single, continuous challenge. The distinction in this case makes Americans more vulnerable ahead of an outbreak and can impose very steep economic and public health costs during an emergency.
Congress, where fractured jurisdiction and responsibility for global health security spans at least 10 different committee and subcommittee structures across both chambers, has some housekeeping to do as well. Nearly all have their own leadership, membership, and staff. A comprehensive, funded global health security strategy theoretically could be considered in part by each and all—even before reaching congressional leadership and their staffs and coming to a vote.
Nothing remotely resembling that ever happens. The problem is not that too many parts of Congress are actively engaged in global health security but too few. Divided between domestic and international, national security and public health, no committee has a clear mandate or a view of the full requirements of government. Pathways for asserting leadership are unclear, even for dedicated individual members. The sense of issue ownership is weak.
What can the administration and Congress do to address these problems and the vulnerabilities they create?
First, the Trump administration should use the current White House-led response to reestablish a dedicated, permanent global health security staff structure at the NSC, led at the senior director/special assistant to the president level or higher. This problem can be addressed substantially simply by reestablishing the structure that existed until its sudden abolition last year. Additionally, the White House Office of Management and Budget should establish a senior staff role to ensure consistency and execution of funding and management decisions across all agencies and accounts—domestic and international—as the George W. Bush administration did effectively.
Second, House and Senate leadership should both establish separate cross-committee, bipartisan special committees or formal working groups with continuous responsibility for global health security, organized around clearly defined membership, rules, and responsibilities. The two groups would not require their own legislative authorities or separate jurisdictions, instead providing coordination, guidance, and a shared oversight agenda for the regular committees of jurisdiction on which the members already sit. The groups would necessarily include the appropriations committee members in order to ensure alignment of policy and funding.
Third, Congress should enact legislation to establish an international health emergency response framework requirement of the executive branch, providing necessary legal authorities and funding. That would provide doctrine and a defined process to determine when, where, and on what scale the United States responds internationally, what funds would be tapped, and clarifying without a doubt for everyone in government what it is they would be called on to do, by whom, and when. The international framework must be fully complementary of the domestic response framework in scope and detail and similarly incorporated into the national security strategy.
Such a framework is a complex undertaking, requiring constant updating and testing for failure—just as war-fighting plans at the U.S. Defense Department are tested and updated continuously. Answers to questions about whether, how, and when to respond internationally are not likely to be clear prior to it being too late. For the administration and Congress, a substantial amount of their homework on this topic has been done for them. In particular, Jeremy Konyndyk’s excellent analysis and recommendations, based on the Obama administration’s experience with the West Africa Ebola crisis, is practical and accessible—effectively a playbook to approach this requirement.
Fourth, Congress and the administration must better address a market gap and related legal and funding gaps around threats where there’s acute need but, due to poverty or a previously unknown pathogen, almost no actual demand. Many emerging threats in this category fall through a government agency mandate gap between the “upstream” role of basic research and the “downstream” role of health security implementation.
Addressing this global vulnerability requires using significant targeted funds to provide the market “push” for research and development as well as the market “pull” for actual production and supply. The U.S. government on its own cannot create such markets in all cases of epidemic-potential threats in a cost-effective way (if at all), except for a limited set of specific threats linked to U.S. domestic and war-fighter requirements. The administration and Congress must work together expeditiously to identify the needs and barriers of the programs and international partnerships—burden sharing at its best—and address them in law and with funding.
Fifth, the coronavirus is an emergency but not really a surprise. Prioritization of U.S. government funding reliably ignores important aspects of preparing for and responding to an inevitable global health emergency. Global health security now is just one of many competing priorities in foreign assistance, pitted against others in a zero-sum competition for limited funds.
This low prioritization of funding and competition among important programs harms all interests in ways that soon may be measured in lives. In this light, the emergency funding request from the White House looks especially shortsighted for its exclusion of funding for international capacity building and response. Congress must step up and correct this omission.
While a true crisis like the coronavirus overcomes divisions and inertia in government, this is reactive and possibly too late, as proactive options have dwindled rapidly. Crisis-driven solutions can be decisive but don’t necessarily guarantee durable changes. In practice, they often lack essential qualities for success and durability, including clear objectives, leadership endowed with authorities commensurate with their responsibilities, accountability for outcomes, and laws that guarantee funding and require implementation of policies and programs.
Absent the political will to see them through, whole-of-government approaches, comprehensive strategies, and commissions—ideas with real conceptual merit—become tacit admissions of policymaking failure. Important issues are sentenced to a slow death by a thousand experts, creating a dangerous illusion of having addressed a problem.
The good news is that, should the administration and Congress provide the necessary political will, they have a remarkable, timely set of resources created for them for exactly this purpose. These include a proactive commission with timely, actionable recommendations; a comprehensive inventory of global health system weaknesses; an established framework for international cooperation; and even an interagency strategy on the books ready to build out, implement, and fund.
The coronavirus challenge requires that Congress and the administration move together toward shared objectives—a tough proposition in Washington these days. If elected leaders want to be remembered for doing all within their power to protect the country, they must recognize global health security as a national security priority that, left unaddressed, neglects their basic responsibility.


foreignpolicy--2020-03-05--As Harry and Meghan Arrive, Canadians Wonder if They Should Dump the Queen

As Harry and Meghan Arrive , Canadians Wonder if They Should Dump the Queen When Justin Trudeau first met Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom after he took office as prime minister of Canada , she greeted him by saying , “ Nice to see you again … but under different circumstances.
” That ’ s because Trudeau had already met the British monarch as a one-year-old infant , when his father , Pierre Trudeau , also served as prime minister of Canada .
For both men , the queen was no mere visiting dignitary , but their official @ @ @ @ @ @ @ required , by Canadian law , to swear an oath of loyalty .
“ I , Justin P.J .
Trudeau , do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second , Queen of Canada , Her Heirs and Successors .
So help me God , ” the prime minister dutifully recited in November 2015 when he first took office , and again when he was reelected last year .
Canada , although it has been fully independent in all other ways since 1982 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ royal as the official head of state .
When Elizabeth is not in her Canadian realm , her place in Canada ’ s political pecking order is taken by Julie Payette , the British governor general in Ottawa .
Though the queen ’ s powers are mostly symbolic , her face in on Canada ’ s coins , Canadian citizens are officially subjects of the queen , and the loyalty oath to Elizabeth has to be sworn not just by prime ministers , but by every immigrant wanting to become a Canadian citizen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t mind this state of affairs , a vestige of their pre-1982 history as a dominion of the British Empire .
The royals are still popular , and Trudeau has kept a good relationship with them—not least because they offer great photo-ops .
So when Prince Harry and Meghan , the Duchess of Sussex , abdicated their royal roles and announced they ’ d live in Canada , they weren ’ t moving to an entirely foreign country , but one over which Prince Harry ’ s grandmother—technically , at least—still rules .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ s abandonment of his royal duties has rekindled an old debate over whether Canada , too , should liberate itself from genuflection before the British throne and finally become a republic .
The first wrinkle in Canadian-British royal relations was over who should pay for the duke and duchess of Sussex ’ s security detail .
In the past , their frequent visits ( Meghan lived in Toronto prior to their marriage ) came at a substantial cost to the queen ’ s Canadian subjects .
Now that the Sussexes are staying longer—they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Island—that bill looked set to rise to more than CA $ 10 million a year , about $ 7.5 million , which Canadians just didn ’ t want to pay .
In January , the Canadian Taxpayers Federation launched a petition opposing public subsidies for the couple , quickly gathering 80,000 names .
On Feb. 27 , the Royal Canadian Mounted Police , which had provided the couple ’ s security in the past , announced it would stop footing the bill in the coming weeks .
Quebec , the French-speaking province with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been a particular hotbed of republicanism .
In October 2018 , lawmakers for Québec Solidaire , a separatist , left-leaning party in the provincial legislature , refused to give the required oath to the queen in public , arguing that elected representatives genuflecting before a monarch was an undemocratic relic .
Since they couldn ’ t legally take office as legislators if they refused the oath , the lawmakers decided to do it behind closed doors .
“ Ideally , we wouldn ’ t have had to swear an oath to the queen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ member of the party in the National Assembly of Quebec .
“ But if we don ’ t , we can not exercise our democratic mandate.
” Lawmakers refused to give the oath in public , arguing that elected representatives genuflecting before a monarch was an undemocratic relic .
Québec Solidaire has now put forth a bill that would abolish the oath to the queen in the provincial legislature .
Three permanent residents in the process of becoming citizens have also challenged the constitutionality of the oath as a requirement for naturalization .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the practice .
“ The oath is secular and is not an oath to the Queen in her personal capacity but to our form of government of which the Queen is a symbol , ” the court decision read .
With its French heritage and unique brand of politics , Quebec does not completely reflect how the rest of the country feels .
The queen is still relatively popular , and the majority of Canadians oppose abolishing the monarchy .
But even at the national level , the anti-monarchists are pressing forward .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ left-of-center New Democratic Party , which is currently the fourth-largest faction in the federal Parliament , has also called for abolishing the monarchy .
“ I ’ m a republican , ” Singh said in a television interview in 2018 .
“ It sounds a bit awkward saying that given the other connotation in the [ United ] States , but I believe that we should be a [ republic ] .
I don ’ t see the relevance of [ the monarchy ] , and I don ’ t think that most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ for a republic came after an even bigger controversy over the monarchy ’ s cost to Canadian taxpayers—in this case , the British governor general ’ s lavish expenses and pension .
Figures from the past few years show taxpayers pay around 62 million Canadian dollars a year , close to $ 50 million , on the monarchy , mainly for the office of the governor general and the queen ’ s official representative in each province .
Defenders of the monarchy point out that the total bill per capita is only around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cup of Canada ’ s beloved Tim Horton ’ s coffee a year .
Tom Freda , the national director of Citizens for a Canadian Republic , has campaigned against the monarchy for years , and he hopes the other provinces will soon reach Quebec ’ s level of discontent .
The group wants Canada to replace the queen—and her representative , the governor general—with a president as the ceremonial head of state , similar to other parliamentary systems such as Germany ’ s .
Canada would follow in the footsteps of other @ @ @ @ @ @ @ monarchy and become parliamentary republics , including Mauritius in 1992 and Fiji in 1987 .
Australians voted in a 1999 referendum to retain the queen as their monarch .
Other proponents of cutting ties with the monarchy include representatives of indigenous peoples such as the Inuit , for whom the British throne stands for an oppressive history of colonization .
But even if the debate over the monarchy has lately reignited , there seems to be little urgency to fix what most Canadians don ’ t feel is broken .
“ I feel @ @ @ @ @ @ @ among politicians that abolishing [ the monarchy ] is an inevitability , ” Freda said .
“ However , nobody is making it a priority.
” Even if the debate over the monarchy has reignited , there seems to be little urgency to fix what most Canadians don ’ t feel is broken .
What ’ s more , even if Canadians agreed that the monarchy should be dropped , it would require a lengthy process of rewriting Canada ’ s constitution .
The political will to tackle these onerous requirements seems to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a former diplomat and speechwriter in the premier ’ s office under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney .
“ Even in Quebec , people do not care enough to invest the political effort to disrupt the status quo , ” Heinbecker said .
“ To drop the monarchy would require the unanimous consent of the House and Senate in Ottawa , and all 10 provincial assemblies .
If dropping the monarchy could be done readily , it would likely have been done by now.
” Many politicians also fear that any broad debate over @ @ @ @ @ @ @ slippery slope , forcing the government to also discuss power-sharing with Quebec and the indigenous First Nations , two everlasting political struggles in Canada .
For some , it ’ s now or never .
As the 93-year-old queen will pass the throne to her son Prince Charles—or her grandson Prince William—in the foreseeable future , the transition offers an opportunity to make the break , Heinbecker argued .
Canadians should therefore make haste and “ dispense with the monarchy before we are locked in again for the reign of Charles , ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bear him out : While the queen enjoys an 81 percent approval rating , 53 percent of Canadians say formal ties with the British monarchy should end with her reign , according to an Ipsos poll conducted in January .
In the end , Prince Harry and Meghan ’ s move to Canada might even have the effect of reconnecting Canadians with the monarchy .
Because the Sussexes are perceived as a “ relaxed , multicultural young couple , ” said Rafe Heydel-Mankoo , a Canadian commentator on royal affairs , they are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ society not traditionally known for their monarchist sympathies.
” Trudeau has also made it clear that he won ’ t press the issue .
“ There might come a time where a prime minister decides it ’ s a really important thing to crack open the constitution and rewrite it , ” he said in 2018 , “ I don ’ t think I ’ m going to be that prime minister.
” So if he is reelected the next time Canadians go to the polls , Trudeau will likely swear his oath @ @ @ @ @ @ @

When Justin Trudeau first met Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom after he took office as prime minister of Canada, she greeted him by saying, “Nice to see you again ... but under different circumstances.” That’s because Trudeau had already met the British monarch as a one-year-old infant, when his father, Pierre Trudeau, also served as prime minister of Canada. For both men, the queen was no mere visiting dignitary, but their official head of state—to whom they had been required, by Canadian law, to swear an oath of loyalty.
When Justin Trudeau first met Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom after he took office as prime minister of Canada, she greeted him by saying, “Nice to see you again … but under different circumstances.” That’s because Trudeau had already met the British monarch as a one-year-old infant, when his father, Pierre Trudeau, also served as prime minister of Canada. For both men, the queen was no mere visiting dignitary, but their official head of state—to whom they had been required, by Canadian law, to swear an oath of loyalty.
“I, Justin P.J. Trudeau, do swear that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth the Second, Queen of Canada, Her Heirs and Successors. So help me God,” the prime minister dutifully recited in November 2015 when he first took office, and again when he was reelected last year.
Canada, although it has been fully independent in all other ways since 1982, remains a constitutional monarchy with a British royal as the official head of state. When Elizabeth is not in her Canadian realm, her place in Canada’s political pecking order is taken by Julie Payette, the British governor general in Ottawa. Though the queen’s powers are mostly symbolic, her face is on Canada’s coins, Canadian citizens are officially subjects of the queen, and the loyalty oath to Elizabeth has to be sworn not just by prime ministers, but by every immigrant wanting to become a Canadian citizen.
The majority of Canadians don’t mind this state of affairs, a vestige of their pre-1982 history as a dominion of the British Empire. The royals are still popular, and Trudeau has kept a good relationship with them—not least because they offer great photo-ops.
So when Prince Harry and Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, abdicated their royal roles and announced they’d live in Canada, they weren’t moving to an entirely foreign country, but one over which Prince Harry’s grandmother—technically, at least—still rules. Ironically, however, Prince Harry’s abandonment of his royal duties has rekindled an old debate over whether Canada, too, should liberate itself from genuflection before the British throne and finally become a republic.
The first wrinkle in Canadian-British royal relations was over who should pay for the duke and duchess of Sussex’s security detail. In the past, their frequent visits (Meghan lived in Toronto prior to their marriage) came at a substantial cost to the queen’s Canadian subjects. Now that the Sussexes are staying longer—they have rented a sprawling mansion on Vancouver Island—that bill looked set to rise to more than CA$10 million a year, about $7.5 million, which Canadians just didn’t want to pay. In January, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation launched a petition opposing public subsidies for the couple, quickly gathering 80,000 names. On Feb. 27, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, which had provided the couple’s security in the past, announced it would stop footing the bill in the coming weeks.
Quebec, the French-speaking province with a long history of separatism, has been a particular hotbed of republicanism. In October 2018, lawmakers for Québec Solidaire, a separatist, left-leaning party in the provincial legislature, refused to give the required oath to the queen in public, arguing that elected representatives genuflecting before a monarch was an undemocratic relic. Since they couldn’t legally take office as legislators if they refused the oath, the lawmakers decided to do it behind closed doors. “Ideally, we wouldn’t have had to swear an oath to the queen,” said Sol Zanetti, a member of the party in the National Assembly of Quebec. “But if we don’t, we cannot exercise our democratic mandate.”Lawmakers refused to give the oath in public, arguing that elected representatives genuflecting before a monarch was an undemocratic relic.
Québec Solidaire has now put forth a bill that would abolish the oath to the queen in the provincial legislature. Three permanent residents in the process of becoming citizens have also challenged the constitutionality of the oath as a requirement for naturalization. But Canada’s Supreme Court upheld the practice. “The oath is secular and is not an oath to the Queen in her personal capacity but to our form of government of which the Queen is a symbol,” the court decision read.
With its French heritage and unique brand of politics, Quebec does not completely reflect how the rest of the country feels. The queen is still relatively popular, and the majority of Canadians oppose abolishing the monarchy. But even at the national level, the anti-monarchists are pressing forward. Jagmeet Singh, the leader of the left-of-center New Democratic Party, which is currently the fourth-largest faction in the federal Parliament, has also called for abolishing the monarchy. “I’m a republican,” Singh said in a television interview in 2018. “It sounds a bit awkward saying that given the other connotation in the [United] States, but I believe that we should be a [republic]. I don’t see the relevance of [the monarchy], and I don’t think that most Canadians do.”
Singh’s push for a republic came after an even bigger controversy over the monarchy’s cost to Canadian taxpayers—in this case, the British governor general’s lavish expenses and pension. Figures from the past few years show taxpayers pay around 62 million Canadian dollars a year, close to $50 million, on the monarchy, mainly for the office of the governor general and the queen’s official representative in each province. Defenders of the monarchy point out that the total bill per capita is only around CA$1.68—the equivalent of about one cup of Canada’s beloved Tim Horton’s coffee a year.
Tom Freda, the national director of Citizens for a Canadian Republic, has campaigned against the monarchy for years, and he hopes the other provinces will soon reach Quebec’s level of discontent. The group wants Canada to replace the queen—and her representative, the governor general—with a president as the ceremonial head of state, similar to other parliamentary systems such as Germany’s. Canada would follow in the footsteps of other former British colonies that have abolished the monarchy and become parliamentary republics, including Mauritius in 1992 and Fiji in 1987. Australians voted in a 1999 referendum to retain the queen as their monarch.
Other proponents of cutting ties with the monarchy include representatives of indigenous peoples such as the Inuit, for whom the British throne stands for an oppressive history of colonization.
But even if the debate over the monarchy has lately reignited, there seems to be little urgency to fix what most Canadians don’t feel is broken. “I feel like there’s a general consensus among politicians that abolishing [the monarchy] is an inevitability,” Freda said. “However, nobody is making it a priority.”Even if the debate over the monarchy has reignited, there seems to be little urgency to fix what most Canadians don’t feel is broken.
What’s more, even if Canadians agreed that the monarchy should be dropped, it would require a lengthy process of rewriting Canada’s constitution. The political will to tackle these onerous requirements seems to be missing, said Paul Heinbecker, a former diplomat and speechwriter in the premier’s office under Prime Minister Brian Mulroney. “Even in Quebec, people do not care enough to invest the political effort to disrupt the status quo,” Heinbecker said. “To drop the monarchy would require the unanimous consent of the House and Senate in Ottawa, and all 10 provincial assemblies. If dropping the monarchy could be done readily, it would likely have been done by now.”
Many politicians also fear that any broad debate over constitutional changes could take Canada down a slippery slope, forcing the government to also discuss power-sharing with Quebec and the indigenous First Nations, two everlasting political struggles in Canada.
For some, it’s now or never. As the 93-year-old queen will pass the throne to her son Prince Charles—or her grandson Prince William—in the foreseeable future, the transition offers an opportunity to make the break, Heinbecker argued. Canadians should therefore make haste and “dispense with the monarchy before we are locked in again for the reign of Charles,” Heinbecker said. Public opinion seems to bear him out: While the queen enjoys an 81 percent approval rating, 53 percent of Canadians say formal ties with the British monarchy should end with her reign, according to an Ipsos poll conducted in January.
In the end, Prince Harry and Meghan’s move to Canada might even have the effect of reconnecting Canadians with the monarchy. Because the Sussexes are perceived as a “relaxed, multicultural young couple,” said Rafe Heydel-Mankoo, a Canadian commentator on royal affairs, they are “able to connect with segments of society not traditionally known for their monarchist sympathies.”
Trudeau has also made it clear that he won’t press the issue. “There might come a time where a prime minister decides it’s a really important thing to crack open the constitution and rewrite it,” he said in 2018, “I don’t think I’m going to be that prime minister.” So if he is reelected the next time Canadians go to the polls, Trudeau will likely swear his oath to a foreign monarch yet again.


foreignpolicy--2020-03-05--OPEC Tries to Forestall a Coronavirus Oil Collapse

As the death toll and economic carnage of the coronavirus mounts , the world ’ s big oil producers met in Vienna in a desperate bid to prevent oil prices from collapsing , tentatively agreeing to cut their total output by an additional 1.5 million barrels a day .
But the big question is still whether countries outside the OPEC exporters ’ cartel , namely Russia , will ultimately agree to the ambitious proposal , which would take the group ’ s production to the lowest level since the Iraq War .
Oil prices shrugged off the preliminary agreement , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was talking about late last month .
But OPEC saw a decisive move as necessary as the economic and human toll of the COVID-19 outbreak continues to rise , with nearly 3,300 deaths globally and now 11 in the United States , including the first in California , which declared a state of emergency .
Factories in Asia and Europe are sputtering , schools are closing , sporting events are being canceled , and airlines expect to lose more than $ 100 billion this year @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a halt .
That sudden slowdown in economic activity—in a year that was meant to mark a return to stronger growth—shows up clearly in the demand for oil .
China , where the outbreak began and where the economic hit has been hardest , has already seen a huge drop in demand for oil , with refiners using millions fewer barrels per day than usual .
Some forecasters such as IHS Markit now expect global thirst for crude in the first quarter to collapse by almost 4 million barrels a day .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been recorded , ” IHS noted in a press release .
The London-based analytics firm also expects annual oil demand to be less than it was last year , one of the few such contractions in the last four decades , and the first since the great financial crisis of 2008-09 .
Others see oil demand shrinking , or at best staying flat—very rare for a world that usually gobbles up an additional million or so barrels every year .
Antoine Halff , a former chief oil analyst at the International Energy Agency @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the wake of the virus and found refiners cutting their operations by as many as 4 million barrels a day , a sign of vanishing domestic appetite for the stuff , while they sock away the excess into storage .
“ These are massive numbers , ” said Halff , now at Columbia University ’ s Center on Global Energy Policy .
“ It ’ s important to offset that ” with production cuts , he said .
That was the backdrop for a more-contentious-than-usual meeting this week in Vienna of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , as well as Russia , which , though not a member , has been working with the oil cartel to manage global production in recent years .
Late last month , OPEC initially suggested making an additional cut of about 600,000 barrels a day to shore up crude prices—on top of the nearly 2 million barrels a day the group has already cut , and which will remain effective at least through the end of this month .
Now , seeing the scope of the demand collapse , OPEC has tentatively agreed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a day—even while maintaining those earlier cuts—conditional on Russia ’ s ultimate agreement .
Thursday ’ s agreement calls for OPEC members , led by Saudi Arabia , to cut 1 million barrels a day , while non-OPEC members—essentially Russia—would cut 500,000 barrels a day .
But it ’ s not clear if those targets include the 400,000 barrels a day that Saudi Arabia was already unilaterally holding off the market ; that could make Thursday ’ s announcement a little less ambitious than it seemed .
“ No one knows what oil @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) and so the priority now is to reassure markets ” rattled by catastrophic projects of falling global appetite for oil , said Bob McNally , the president of Rapidan Energy Group , a consultancy .
While he said he couldn ’ t rule out the tentative accord breaking down by Friday—Russia , more comfortable with lower prices , has been less eager than Saudi Arabia to cut production— “ the odds favor following through , ” he said .
Before Thursday ’ s announcement , prices for crude oil in both London @ @ @ @ @ @ @ percent this year .
Getting Russia on board for the bigger cut is important for a couple of reasons .
First , given the potential scale of the collapse in oil demand , OPEC and its partners need to produce an ambitious cut to shore up crude prices .
Second , Saudi Arabia has already shouldered the burden of most of the previous cuts , and even if it ’ s able to trim more output , it may not be willing to keep stomaching all the pain on its own .
“ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the appetite , ” Halff said .
OPEC isn ’ t just battling the fallout from the coronavirus .
It ’ s also still fighting a rearguard action against surging U.S. oil production , which keeps adding barrels to an already flooded market , keeping prices lower than they would be .
Last year as a whole , the United States set a fresh record with average production of 12.2 million barrels a day ; by late February this year , the country was pumping 13.1 million barrels a day , essentially wiping @ @ @ @ @ @ @ cuts .
The U.S. boom has both frustrated OPEC ’ s efforts to stabilize prices and complicated that very calculus .
The more that OPEC sacrifices its own output ( and revenues ) to hold prices steady or even push them higher , the bigger a favor it does for the U.S. oil patch , which is financially struggling with prices around $ 45 a barrel ; any lower than that , and nearly all U.S. shale firms would be hard-pressed to break even .
Adding to the pressure are mounting debt and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which after years of throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at shale producers with little to show for it is starting to close the financial tap .
Back in 2014 , faced with a similar flood of U.S. oil , OPEC tried to play chicken and kept pumping , sending prices into free-fall but gambling that lower prices would bankrupt many less cost-competitive shale producers .
That gambit failed , as shale producers got much more efficient and learned the survive even with lower oil prices .
But those productivity gains of recent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , so U.S. shale producers have few tools left to squeeze out profitability if oil prices go much lower .
This week in Vienna , OPEC could have taken advantage of the coronavirus and its economic havoc to replay its 2014 strategy and try to force U.S. rivals to the wall once and for all , even if that meant swallowing lower crude prices for the near term , which would cause some pain for all .
“ At the end of the day , [ OPEC ] are the low-cost producers , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impact better than the competitors , ” Halff said .
But OPEC ’ s decision to make a deep cut to put a floor under prices , even if it means throwing a lifeline to its U.S. rivals , is a reflection of the group ’ s belief that the U.S. shale boom is running out of speed and won ’ t be as big a threat in a few years .
“ The demand effect from the virus is massive , but temporary—it ’ s unlucky , but OPEC is thinking , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prices for a year on something like this , ’ ” McNally said .
Meanwhile , U.S. shale producers expect production growth in 2020 to be less than in 2019 , as efforts to squeeze ever more barrels out of lucrative fields in Texas and North Dakota are running out of steam ; that means U.S. oil production will plateau sooner than most analysts had thought .
“ Shale is winding down .
OPEC is on fourth and goal—this is just about not fumbling the ball on the final play , ” McNally @ @

As the death toll and economic carnage of the coronavirus mounts, the world’s big oil producers met in Vienna in a desperate bid to prevent oil prices from collapsing, tentatively agreeing to cut their total output by an additional 1.5 million barrels a day.
As the death toll and economic carnage of the coronavirus mounts, the world’s big oil producers met in Vienna in a desperate bid to prevent oil prices from collapsing, tentatively agreeing to cut their total output by an additional 1.5 million barrels a day.
But the big question is still whether countries outside the OPEC exporters’ cartel, namely Russia, will ultimately agree to the ambitious proposal, which would take the group’s production to the lowest level since the Iraq War.
Oil prices shrugged off the preliminary agreement, which goes much further than the actions that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries was talking about late last month. But OPEC saw a decisive move as necessary as the economic and human toll of the COVID-19 outbreak continues to rise, with nearly 3,300 deaths globally and now 11 in the United States, including the first in California, which declared a state of emergency. Factories in Asia and Europe are sputtering, schools are closing, sporting events are being canceled, and airlines expect to lose more than $100 billion this year as business travel and tourism screech to a halt.
That sudden slowdown in economic activity—in a year that was meant to mark a return to stronger growth—shows up clearly in the demand for oil.
China, where the outbreak began and where the economic hit has been hardest, has already seen a huge drop in demand for oil, with refiners using millions fewer barrels per day than usual. Some forecasters such as IHS Markit now expect global thirst for crude in the first quarter to collapse by almost 4 million barrels a day. “Never before has such a quarterly drop been recorded,” IHS noted in a press release.
The London-based analytics firm also expects annual oil demand to be less than it was last year, one of the few such contractions in the last four decades, and the first since the great financial crisis of 2008-09. Others see oil demand shrinking, or at best staying flat—very rare for a world that usually gobbles up an additional million or so barrels every year.
Antoine Halff, a former chief oil analyst at the International Energy Agency, has analyzed the Chinese oil sector in the wake of the virus and found refiners cutting their operations by as many as 4 million barrels a day, a sign of vanishing domestic appetite for the stuff, while they sock away the excess into storage.
“These are massive numbers,” said Halff, now at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy. “It’s important to offset that” with production cuts, he said.
That was the backdrop for a more-contentious-than-usual meeting this week in Vienna of the big oil exporters that make up OPEC, as well as Russia, which, though not a member, has been working with the oil cartel to manage global production in recent years. Late last month, OPEC initially suggested making an additional cut of about 600,000 barrels a day to shore up crude prices—on top of the nearly 2 million barrels a day the group has already cut, and which will remain effective at least through the end of this month.
Now, seeing the scope of the demand collapse, OPEC has tentatively agreed to cut an additional 1.5 million barrels a day—even while maintaining those earlier cuts—conditional on Russia’s ultimate agreement. Thursday’s agreement calls for OPEC members, led by Saudi Arabia, to cut 1 million barrels a day, while non-OPEC members—essentially Russia—would cut 500,000 barrels a day.
But it’s not clear if those targets include the 400,000 barrels a day that Saudi Arabia was already unilaterally holding off the market; that could make Thursday’s announcement a little less ambitious than it seemed.
“No one knows what oil demand will do (or is doing) and so the priority now is to reassure markets” rattled by catastrophic projects of falling global appetite for oil, said Bob McNally, the president of Rapidan Energy Group, a consultancy. While he said he couldn’t rule out the tentative accord breaking down by Friday—Russia, more comfortable with lower prices, has been less eager than Saudi Arabia to cut production—“the odds favor following through,” he said.
Before Thursday’s announcement, prices for crude oil in both London and New York had fallen about 25 percent this year.
Getting Russia on board for the bigger cut is important for a couple of reasons. First, given the potential scale of the collapse in oil demand, OPEC and its partners need to produce an ambitious cut to shore up crude prices. Second, Saudi Arabia has already shouldered the burden of most of the previous cuts, and even if it’s able to trim more output, it may not be willing to keep stomaching all the pain on its own.
“I don’t think they have the appetite,” Halff said.
OPEC isn’t just battling the fallout from the coronavirus. It’s also still fighting a rearguard action against surging U.S. oil production, which keeps adding barrels to an already flooded market, keeping prices lower than they would be. Last year as a whole, the United States set a fresh record with average production of 12.2 million barrels a day; by late February this year, the country was pumping 13.1 million barrels a day, essentially wiping out much of OPEC’s prior cuts.
The U.S. boom has both frustrated OPEC’s efforts to stabilize prices and complicated that very calculus.
The more that OPEC sacrifices its own output (and revenues) to hold prices steady or even push them higher, the bigger a favor it does for the U.S. oil patch, which is financially struggling with prices around $45 a barrel; any lower than that, and nearly all U.S. shale firms would be hard-pressed to break even. Adding to the pressure are mounting debt and shrinking credit lines from Wall Street, which after years of throwing hundreds of billions of dollars at shale producers with little to show for it is starting to close the financial tap.
Back in 2014, faced with a similar flood of U.S. oil, OPEC tried to play chicken and kept pumping, sending prices into free-fall but gambling that lower prices would bankrupt many less cost-competitive shale producers. That gambit failed, as shale producers got much more efficient and learned the survive even with lower oil prices. But those productivity gains of recent years have all but run their course, so U.S. shale producers have few tools left to squeeze out profitability if oil prices go much lower.
This week in Vienna, OPEC could have taken advantage of the coronavirus and its economic havoc to replay its 2014 strategy and try to force U.S. rivals to the wall once and for all, even if that meant swallowing lower crude prices for the near term, which would cause some pain for all.
“At the end of the day, [OPEC] are the low-cost producers, they should be able to withstand the impact better than the competitors,” Halff said.
But OPEC’s decision to make a deep cut to put a floor under prices, even if it means throwing a lifeline to its U.S. rivals, is a reflection of the group’s belief that the U.S. shale boom is running out of speed and won’t be as big a threat in a few years.
“The demand effect from the virus is massive, but temporary—it’s unlucky, but OPEC is thinking, ‘let’s not burn down prices for a year on something like this,’” McNally said. Meanwhile, U.S. shale producers expect production growth in 2020 to be less than in 2019, as efforts to squeeze ever more barrels out of lucrative fields in Texas and North Dakota are running out of steam; that means U.S. oil production will plateau sooner than most analysts had thought.
“Shale is winding down. OPEC is on fourth and goal—this is just about not fumbling the ball on the final play,” McNally said.


foreignpolicy--2020-03-05--Can the Afghan Peace Deal Survive Early Setbacks?

Welcome to Foreign Policy ’ s Security Brief .
We love to hear from readers .
What ’ s on tap today : What to make of Afghanistan ’ s peace deal spoilers , how the coronavirus outbreak is derailing diplomacy , and Iran is multiplying its uranium enrichment .
If you would like to receive Security Brief in your inbox every Thursday , please sign up here .
The ink was barely dry on the peace deal signed between the United States and the Taliban when violence broke out again in Afghanistan .
On Wednesday , the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the first since a reduction of violence was implemented on Feb. 21 to facilitate the deal .
U.S. officials said the “ defensive strike ” was a response to a wave of Taliban attacks on Afghan forces in Helmand province , but said that the United States remained committed to the peace deal .
The airstrike came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the deputy leader of the Taliban , Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar , in what he described as a “ good conversation.
” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told @ @ @ @ @ @ @ leadership is “ working diligently to reduce violence ” from past levels , and the Trump administration “ still has confidence ” that the Taliban will work toward peace .
U.S. drawdown goes ahead .
Despite the rise in violence , the United States still plans to reduce its troop presence in Afghanistan .
U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday that he had given the U.S. commander in Afghanistan the green light to begin withdrawing troops .
As part of the peace deal , the United States committed to reducing its military @ @ @ @ @ @ @ within 135 days of signing the deal—and a total withdrawal after 14 months .
But Esper reiterated that the drawdown was “ conditions based , ” suggesting that if Taliban violence persists it could lead to a breakdown of the deal , a return to hostilities , and an end to the promised U.S. troop withdrawal .
The hurdles to peace .
Peace in Afghanistan requires the Afghan government to navigate a web of disputes—and the Taliban to hold together amid its own internal divisions .
Already Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Abdullah , can not agree the negotiating team for talks with the Taliban , scheduled to begin in Oslo , Norway , on March 10 .
Ghani has also rejected the Taliban ’ s demand that Afghanistan free 5,000 of Taliban prisoners ahead of the talks .
To some U.S. officials , the spate of Taliban attacks shows the group is not a monolith and has its own divisions over the peace deal .
“ Keeping that group of people on board is a challenge .
They ’ ve got their range of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re wrestling with that too , I think , ” Esper told a Senate panel on Wednesday .
Coronavirus derails diplomacy .
High-level diplomatic meetings are being canceled or postponed amid growing fears over the global spread of the coronavirus .
The United States postponed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations ( ASEAN ) leaders ’ meeting set to be held in Las Vegas on March 14 , U.S. officials tell Foreign Policy .
Chinese President Xi Jinping has also delayed a trip to Japan—a visit the Japanese foreign minister , Toshimitsu Motegi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” Meanwhile , the World Bank has scrapped its 2020 Fragility Forum set to take place this week , and the United Nations pared down a planned two-week conference on women ’ s issues to just one day .
Iran triples uranium enrichment .
The U.N. watchdog overseeing Iran ’ s commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal reported this week that Tehran has tripled its supply of enriched uranium since last November and will not answer questions regarding three possible nuclear sites .
This puts Iran within reach of having enough enriched uranium @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it denies that is its intention .
Iran began broaching the limits of the 2015 nuclear deal , including on enrichment , after the Trump administration pulled out and reimposed sanctions in 2018 .
Russia ’ s new weapons .
Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted this week that Russia has acquired a new range of offensive weapons aimed at maintaining “ strategic balance ” with other world powers .
He claimed that his country was now leading the world in hypersonic weapons systems—missiles that can fly 27 times the speed of sound—and that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Russian military had increased from six percent to 70 percent over the course of his 20 years in power .
New espionage case .
A Pentagon linguist was charged with exchanging classified information with a foreign national with links to a terror group , the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday .
Mariam Taha Thompson allegedly sent classified information , including identities of “ active human assets ” to someone linked to Hezbollah , the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon .
The Justice Department said she had romantic ties to the alleged co-conspirator @ @ @ @ @ @ @ bipartisan group of lawmakers is moving to check the Pentagon ’ s potential plans to slash U.S. troop numbers in Africa as terrorist groups gain ground in the Sahel and East Africa , FP ’ s Robbie Gramer scoops .
Intel shake-up continues .
Trump continues to install political loyalists to top intelligence posts .
Michael Ellis , a former counsel to the House Intelligence Committee , was recently named senior director of intelligence for the National Security Council .
The post provides a key link between the intelligence agencies and the White @ @ @ @ @ @ @ goes to Trump .
White House loyalist to State .
A top White House aide has moved to a senior post at the State Department ’ s bureau overseeing international organizations , FP ’ s Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer scoop .
Sean Doocey will join a troubled bureau that was beset by accusations of mismanagement and politically motivated retaliation .
Pentagon nominations .
Trump this week formally nominated Kenneth Braithwaite , the current ambassador to Norway , to be the next U.S. Navy secretary .
( Trump dramatically ousted the last one @ @ @ @ @ @ @ nominated James Anderson to be deputy under-secretary of defense for policy and Victor Mercado to be assistant secretary of defense for strategy , plans , and capabilities .
More impeachment fallout .
The White House has withdrawn its nomination of Elaine McCusker as the Pentagon comptroller after she reportedly questioned the legality of the administration ’ s decision to freeze aid to Ukraine .
The decision appears to be part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to remove high-ranking officials it deems insufficiently loyal to the president .
A former ambassador @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and one of the central figures in the Trump impeachment hearings , is taking up a post as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace .
National security advisor speaks .
Robert O ’ Brien , Trump ’ s national security advisor , will give a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on March 11 .
The livestream will be available on the day at the thinktank ’ s website .
Just in case .
An Australian newspaper known for its humor is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ use as toilet paper in a bind–bracing for shortages amid the coronavirus outbreak , the Guardian reports .
Australian toilet paper manufacturers have already boosted production to keep up with panic buying , but it never hurts to have a back-up plan .
For more from FP , subscribe here or sign up for our other newsletters .
Send your tips , comments , questions , or typos to securitybrief @ foreignpolicy.com .

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Security Brief. We love to hear from readers. What’s on tap today: What to make of Afghanistan’s peace deal spoilers , how the coronavirus outbreak is derailing diplomacy, and Iran is multiplying its uranium enrichment.
Welcome to Foreign Policy’s Security Brief. We love to hear from readers. What’s on tap today: What to make of Afghanistan’s peace deal spoilers, how the coronavirus outbreak is derailing diplomacy, and Iran is multiplying its uranium enrichment.
If you would like to receive Security Brief in your inbox every Thursday, please sign up here.
The Afghan Peace Deal Looks Fragile
The ink was barely dry on the peace deal signed between the United States and the Taliban when violence broke out again in Afghanistan. On Wednesday, the United States launched an airstrike against Taliban targets, the first since a reduction of violence was implemented on Feb. 21 to facilitate the deal. U.S. officials said the “defensive strike” was a response to a wave of Taliban attacks on Afghan forces in Helmand province, but said that the United States remained committed to the peace deal.
The airstrike came hours after U.S. President Donald Trump spoke with the deputy leader of the Taliban, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in what he described as a “good conversation.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters on Thursday that the senior Taliban leadership is “working diligently to reduce violence” from past levels, and the Trump administration “still has confidence” that the Taliban will work toward peace.
U.S. drawdown goes ahead. Despite the rise in violence, the United States still plans to reduce its troop presence in Afghanistan. U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday that he had given the U.S. commander in Afghanistan the green light to begin withdrawing troops. As part of the peace deal, the United States committed to reducing its military presence from around 13,000 troops to 8,600 within 135 days of signing the deal—and a total withdrawal after 14 months.
But Esper reiterated that the drawdown was “conditions based,” suggesting that if Taliban violence persists it could lead to a breakdown of the deal, a return to hostilities, and an end to the promised U.S. troop withdrawal.
The hurdles to peace. Peace in Afghanistan requires the Afghan government to navigate a web of disputes—and the Taliban to hold together amid its own internal divisions. Already Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his chief political rival, Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, cannot agree the negotiating team for talks with the Taliban, scheduled to begin in Oslo, Norway, on March 10. Ghani has also rejected the Taliban’s demand that Afghanistan free 5,000 of Taliban prisoners ahead of the talks.
To some U.S. officials, the spate of Taliban attacks shows the group is not a monolith and has its own divisions over the peace deal. “Keeping that group of people on board is a challenge. They’ve got their range of hard-liners and soft-liners and so they’re wrestling with that too, I think,” Esper told a Senate panel on Wednesday.
What We’re Watching
Coronavirus derails diplomacy. High-level diplomatic meetings are being canceled or postponed amid growing fears over the global spread of the coronavirus. The United States postponed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders’ meeting set to be held in Las Vegas on March 14, U.S. officials tell Foreign Policy. Chinese President Xi Jinping has also delayed a trip to Japan—a visit the Japanese foreign minister, Toshimitsu Motegi, has called a “once-in-a-decade event.”
Meanwhile, the World Bank has scrapped its 2020 Fragility Forum set to take place this week, and the United Nations pared down a planned two-week conference on women’s issues to just one day.
Iran triples uranium enrichment. The U.N. watchdog overseeing Iran’s commitment to the 2015 nuclear deal reported this week that Tehran has tripled its supply of enriched uranium since last November and will not answer questions regarding three possible nuclear sites. This puts Iran within reach of having enough enriched uranium to produce a nuclear weapon, though it denies that is its intention. Iran began broaching the limits of the 2015 nuclear deal, including on enrichment, after the Trump administration pulled out and reimposed sanctions in 2018.
Russia’s new weapons. Russian President Vladimir Putin boasted this week that Russia has acquired a new range of offensive weapons aimed at maintaining “strategic balance” with other world powers. He claimed that his country was now leading the world in hypersonic weapons systems—missiles that can fly 27 times the speed of sound—and that the share of modern equipment in the Russian military had increased from six percent to 70 percent over the course of his 20 years in power.
New espionage case. A Pentagon linguist was charged with exchanging classified information with a foreign national with links to a terror group, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday. Mariam Taha Thompson allegedly sent classified information, including identities of “active human assets” to someone linked to Hezbollah, the Iran-backed militant group in Lebanon. The Justice Department said she had romantic ties to the alleged co-conspirator.
Blowback on AFRICOM cutbacks. A bipartisan group of lawmakers is moving to check the Pentagon’s potential plans to slash U.S. troop numbers in Africa as terrorist groups gain ground in the Sahel and East Africa, FP’s Robbie Gramer scoops.
Movers and Shakers
Intel shake-up continues. Trump continues to install political loyalists to top intelligence posts. Michael Ellis, a former counsel to the House Intelligence Committee, was recently named senior director of intelligence for the National Security Council. The post provides a key link between the intelligence agencies and the White House, with Ellis deciding which information goes to Trump.
White House loyalist to State. A top White House aide has moved to a senior post at the State Department’s bureau overseeing international organizations, FP’s Colum Lynch and Robbie Gramer scoop. Sean Doocey will join a troubled bureau that was beset by accusations of mismanagement and politically motivated retaliation.
Pentagon nominations. Trump this week formally nominated Kenneth Braithwaite, the current ambassador to Norway, to be the next U.S. Navy secretary. (Trump dramatically ousted the last one in November.) The president also nominated James Anderson to be deputy under-secretary of defense for policy and Victor Mercado to be assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans, and capabilities.
More impeachment fallout. The White House has withdrawn its nomination of Elaine McCusker as the Pentagon comptroller after she reportedly questioned the legality of the administration’s decision to freeze aid to Ukraine. The decision appears to be part of a broader effort by the Trump administration to remove high-ranking officials it deems insufficiently loyal to the president.
A former ambassador’s new digs. Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine and one of the central figures in the Trump impeachment hearings, is taking up a post as a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for Peace.
The Week Ahead
National security advisor speaks. Robert O’Brien, Trump’s national security advisor, will give a speech at the Heritage Foundation in Washington on March 11. The livestream will be available on the day at the thinktank’s website.
Odds and Ends
Just in case. An Australian newspaper known for its humor is printing extra pages for its readers to use as toilet paper in a bind–bracing for shortages amid the coronavirus outbreak, the Guardian reports. Australian toilet paper manufacturers have already boosted production to keep up with panic buying, but it never hurts to have a back-up plan.
That’s it for today.
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foreignpolicy--2020-03-05--Modi’s India Is Racing to a Point of No Return

Modi ’ s India Is Racing to a Point of No Return The sectarian carnage that ravaged Delhi for three days last week did not erupt in a void .
It flared out of a relentless campaign to draw blood .
The Indian capital looked besieged long before a stone was hurled or a house torched .
Since last December , Delhi has been the center of a national uprising to reclaim the country from Prime Minister Narendra Modi ’ s Hindu-first politics .
The demonstrations emerged as a response to the government ’ s amendment of existing legislation to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ three neighboring countries—Afghanistan , Bangladesh , and Pakistan—where Islam is the state religion .
The exclusion of Muslims from the law ’ s purview introduced by stealth a religious test of citizenship in a constitutionally secular republic , even though the law does not on its own threaten the citizenship of Indians .
But what really lit the fuse under accumulating fears and resentments were the pledges by Amit Shah—India ’ s home minister and Modi ’ s closest confidant—to compile a National Register of Citizens ( NRC ) that could compel all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ evidence of their nationality .
If and when the NRC is activated , those unable to be entered into it can—so long as they are Buddhists , Christians , Hindus , Jains , Sikhs , or Zoroastrians who arrived in the country before 2015—evade the detention camps currently under construction by invoking the amended citizenship law to apply for formal citizenship .
Only Muslims , the sole major Indian religious community omitted from the citizenship law , would be faced with the ordeal of internment and statelessness for failing to produce the paperwork @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In the countrywide protests provoked by Modi and Shah , a small sit-in by burqa-clad women in a Muslim neighborhood of Delhi ornamented with Indian flags and portraits of Mahatma Gandhi and Bhimrao Ambedkar , the chief drafter of India ’ s constitution , became the nucleus of the most sustained interfaith challenge to their authority .
But the government did not dismantle the protest site , because its presence was seen to be as working to the government ’ s advantage .
Campaigning for local elections last month in Delhi , Modi @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ) attempted to mobilize voters by casting dissenters as traitors .
One fevered December evening in the run-up to the vote , the Delhi police , which reports directly to Shah , stormed the library of Jamia Millia Islamia—a university co-founded by Zakir Husain , a Muslim freedom fighter who rose to become the third president of independent India—and beat up student protesters sheltering there .
Another afternoon , a minister in Modi ’ s government whipped up a rally with a grisly chant that culminated in “ shoot the traitors.
” The @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was about to be reduced to a powder keg .
The match was tossed by a recently defeated BJP politician who vowed , in the presence of a police officer , to clear out peaceful Muslim protesters massed in northeast Delhi the evening before U.S. President Donald Trump landed in India for a whirlwind 36-hour state visit .
Nobody knows who flung the first stone .
But blood began spilling that night .
And over the next three days , outlying areas of India ’ s capital collapsed under the worst Muslim-Hindu violence @ @ @ @ @ @ @ neighborhoods , torching houses , vandalizing places of worship , lobbing Molotov cocktails into homes , and slaughtering people for belonging to the wrong religion .
The number of dead currently stands at 48 .
But the savagery was by no means symmetrical .
Muslims , in a city where they constitute a tiny minority , outnumber Hindu fatalities by three to one .
There were courageous exceptions , but there is footage showing uniformed agents of the state openly abetting Hindus against Muslims .
In one neighborhood , an elderly Muslim woman @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set on fire .
In another , a Muslim man was burned alive in front of his family .
The Hindu dead—one stabbed to death hundreds of times and dumped in a drain—are now paraded as exhibits in a propaganda campaign by the prime minister ’ s ideological fellow travelers that seeks to paint the slaughter as a jihad hatched by seditious Muslims and their secular conspirators.What happened in Delhi was the preamble to a full-blown pogrom of Muslims .
But what happened in Delhi was the preamble to a full-blown pogrom of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were lost in it : Trust built up over decades between communities also went up in smoke .
The detritus will be cleared and the houses rebuilt , but many who until recently had lived cheek by jowl will for generations regard each other with hostility and suspicion .
For ordinary people , this is the upshot of the schismatic politics purveyed by India ’ s current rulers .
Although Modi has personally eschewed explicitly divisive rhetoric since being lofted into the prime minister ’ s office , surrogates in his party adopting @ @ @ @ @ @ @ political glory are only following in the footsteps of their leader .
Back in 2007 , when he was still persona non grata in much of the world for presiding over the slaughter of nearly a thousand Muslims in 2002 as the chief minister of Gujarat , Modi roused a crowd of wealthy Hindu voters by ridiculing liberal protests against the extrajudicial execution of a Muslim prisoner on his watch .
“ If AK-57 [ sic ] rifles are found at the residence of a person , ” he told the crowd , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do : should I not kill them ?
” The audience yelled back in unison : “ Kill them !
Kill them !
” As he plotted his ascent to national power , Modi ’ s reputation was deodorized by India ’ s biggest tycoons , who , in return for expedited clearances for their projects , anointed him the savior of the country .
Modi ’ s reign as prime minister is a reprise , on a larger scale , of his rule as chief minister of Gujarat .
Instead of development @ @ @ @ @ @ @ development .
The so-called smart cities he conjured up in his speeches are nowhere to be seen , and the man who hypnotized young voters in 2014 with the promise to create 10 million jobs now oversees the worst unemployment crisis in 45 years .
Independent institutions—from the media to the courts—have been subverted .
India now has a surfeit of jobless young men permanently on edge , a state machinery that is imploding under the authoritarian weight of the prime minister , and a craven judiciary that refuses to rein him in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ popular leader in India , it is because he has stoked and weaponized Hindu rage .
Survey the past , for a moment , from the perspective of newly politically conscious Hindus .
Their land is repeatedly invaded for centuries .
Their liturgical heritage is methodically razed .
And their sacred geography is ultimately amputated to accommodate the demands of Muslim nationalism in the form of Pakistan—a state where Hindus , like all other minorities , have been accorded the status of second-tier citizens in law and are often forcibly converted to Islam @ @ @ @ @ @ @ aside , or censored , or dismissed with scholarly putdowns that deny the historical memory and experience of a people .
History demands resolution .
Yet that resolution can not come from fights on the streets , and a wound that clamors for the blood of fellow citizens to heal itself deserves to be cauterized , not nursed .
India can not survive if it degenerates into a platform for the periodic airing of homicidal Hindu self-pity.If Modi remains the most popular leader in India , it is because he has stoked and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ course , has endured other episodes of communal bloodletting in its history .
For much of the 1980s , a government led by the nominally secular Indian National Congress party brutalized Sikhs in Punjab .
Today , Punjab is ruled by a Congress government headed by a Sikh chief minister .
India has a tremendous gift for recovery .
But this quality is often mistaken for a limitless capacity to absorb horrors .
Muslims are not Sikhs , who make up just 2 percent of the Indian population : There are 200 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ repeated humiliation and slurs has been to drape themselves in the national flag and pledge renewed allegiance to the constitution of India .
But barbarity , as recent events show , appears to be their reward for discarding religious idiom and demanding the equality and dignity promised in the constitution .
The videos currently circulating on Hindu groups on WhatsApp—the most potent disseminator of vicious misinformation—depict them as marauding aliens .
A substantial segment of Hindus have been conditioned to genuinely believe that they are the victims and Muslims the perpetrators of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ distinguish between the provocations of Pakistan and the democratic demands of Indian Muslims—descendants of people who actually rejected Pakistan and remained in India at great personal risk—is now lost on a large section of the Hindu community .
Muslim families , meanwhile , are fleeing their homes in the charred slums of Delhi to other parts of the country .
Some observers have been moved by the violence to suggest that India is reliving the history of Germany under the Nazis .
The lesson that is more applicable is the experience of Yugoslavia @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the old guard in that diverse federation—often described by Indira Gandhi , the most powerful Indian prime minister before Modi , as the nation that most resembled India in the world—gave rise to a demagogue who sought to attain and tighten his grip on the country by exploiting the sense of historical injury harbored by one ethno-religious community against others .
Yugoslavia ’ s Slobodan Milosevic proclaimed the cancellation of the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina as the beginning of a phase of greatness in his nation ’ s journey .
But @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to believe that their unity is divinely ordained .
This is a self-defeating myth .
India ’ s culture is ancient .
But its unity is rare and recent .
The inclusive Indian nationalism crafted by the republic ’ s secular founders succeeded because it recognized a fundamental truth : that human beings are repositories of multiple identities .
The attraction of Indian identity has always been that it allows an individual to be many things at the same time .
Modi , forged in an ideology that seeks to boil people down @ @ @ @ @ @ @ seeds of disunion in the world ’ s most diverse democratic union .
The threads that bind India are not nearly as formidable as many believe them to be , and they can not forever bear the burdens of bigotry imposed upon them .
India is racing to a point of no return .
The obligation to rescue it falls to all patriotic citizens—no matter their faith .

The sectarian carnage that ravaged Delhi for three days last week did not erupt in a void. It flared out of a relentless campaign to draw blood.
The Indian capital looked besieged long before a stone was hurled or a house torched. Since last December, Delhi has been the center of a national uprising to reclaim the country from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu-first politics. The demonstrations emerged as a response to the government’s amendment of existing legislation to grant expedited citizenship to religious minorities from three neighboring countries—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Pakistan—where Islam is the state religion. The exclusion of Muslims from the law’s purview introduced by stealth a religious test of citizenship in a constitutionally secular republic, even though the law does not on its own threaten the citizenship of Indians.
But what really lit the fuse under accumulating fears and resentments were the pledges by Amit Shah—India’s home minister and Modi’s closest confidant—to compile a National Register of Citizens (NRC) that could compel all inhabitants of the country to furnish documentary evidence of their nationality. If and when the NRC is activated, those unable to be entered into it can—so long as they are Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, or Zoroastrians who arrived in the country before 2015—evade the detention camps currently under construction by invoking the amended citizenship law to apply for formal citizenship. Only Muslims, the sole major Indian religious community omitted from the citizenship law, would be faced with the ordeal of internment and statelessness for failing to produce the paperwork necessary for inclusion in the NRC.
In the countrywide protests provoked by Modi and Shah, a small sit-in by burqa-clad women in a Muslim neighborhood of Delhi ornamented with Indian flags and portraits of Mahatma Gandhi and Bhimrao Ambedkar, the chief drafter of India’s constitution, became the nucleus of the most sustained interfaith challenge to their authority. But the government did not dismantle the protest site, because its presence was seen to be as working to the government’s advantage. Campaigning for local elections last month in Delhi, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) attempted to mobilize voters by casting dissenters as traitors. One fevered December evening in the run-up to the vote, the Delhi police, which reports directly to Shah, stormed the library of Jamia Millia Islamia—a university co-founded by Zakir Husain, a Muslim freedom fighter who rose to become the third president of independent India—and beat up student protesters sheltering there. Another afternoon, a minister in Modi’s government whipped up a rally with a grisly chant that culminated in “shoot the traitors.”
The BJP lost the election. But Delhi was about to be reduced to a powder keg. The match was tossed by a recently defeated BJP politician who vowed, in the presence of a police officer, to clear out peaceful Muslim protesters massed in northeast Delhi the evening before U.S. President Donald Trump landed in India for a whirlwind 36-hour state visit. Nobody knows who flung the first stone. But blood began spilling that night. And over the next three days, outlying areas of India’s capital collapsed under the worst Muslim-Hindu violence in decades as mobs rampaged through mixed neighborhoods, torching houses, vandalizing places of worship, lobbing Molotov cocktails into homes, and slaughtering people for belonging to the wrong religion.
The number of dead currently stands at 48. But the savagery was by no means symmetrical. Muslims, in a city where they constitute a tiny minority, outnumber Hindu fatalities by three to one. There were courageous exceptions, but there is footage showing uniformed agents of the state openly abetting Hindus against Muslims. In one neighborhood, an elderly Muslim woman choked to death when her house was set on fire. In another, a Muslim man was burned alive in front of his family. The Hindu dead—one stabbed to death hundreds of times and dumped in a drain—are now paraded as exhibits in a propaganda campaign by the prime minister’s ideological fellow travelers that seeks to paint the slaughter as a jihad hatched by seditious Muslims and their secular conspirators.What happened in Delhi was the preamble to a full-blown pogrom of Muslims.
But what happened in Delhi was the preamble to a full-blown pogrom of Muslims. And more than human lives were lost in it: Trust built up over decades between communities also went up in smoke. The detritus will be cleared and the houses rebuilt, but many who until recently had lived cheek by jowl will for generations regard each other with hostility and suspicion. For ordinary people, this is the upshot of the schismatic politics purveyed by India’s current rulers.
Although Modi has personally eschewed explicitly divisive rhetoric since being lofted into the prime minister’s office, surrogates in his party adopting poisonous speeches as the route to instant political glory are only following in the footsteps of their leader. Back in 2007, when he was still persona non grata in much of the world for presiding over the slaughter of nearly a thousand Muslims in 2002 as the chief minister of Gujarat, Modi roused a crowd of wealthy Hindu voters by ridiculing liberal protests against the extrajudicial execution of a Muslim prisoner on his watch. “If AK-57 [sic] rifles are found at the residence of a person,” he told the crowd, “you tell me what I should do: should I not kill them?” The audience yelled back in unison: “Kill them! Kill them!”
As he plotted his ascent to national power, Modi’s reputation was deodorized by India’s biggest tycoons, who, in return for expedited clearances for their projects, anointed him the savior of the country. Modi’s reign as prime minister is a reprise, on a larger scale, of his rule as chief minister of Gujarat. Instead of development, there is only the mirage of development. The so-called smart cities he conjured up in his speeches are nowhere to be seen, and the man who hypnotized young voters in 2014 with the promise to create 10 million jobs now oversees the worst unemployment crisis in 45 years. Independent institutions—from the media to the courts—have been subverted. India now has a surfeit of jobless young men permanently on edge, a state machinery that is imploding under the authoritarian weight of the prime minister, and a craven judiciary that refuses to rein him in.
Yet if Modi remains the most popular leader in India, it is because he has stoked and weaponized Hindu rage. Survey the past, for a moment, from the perspective of newly politically conscious Hindus. Their land is repeatedly invaded for centuries. Their liturgical heritage is methodically razed. And their sacred geography is ultimately amputated to accommodate the demands of Muslim nationalism in the form of Pakistan—a state where Hindus, like all other minorities, have been accorded the status of second-tier citizens in law and are often forcibly converted to Islam. These grievances cannot be brushed aside, or censored, or dismissed with scholarly putdowns that deny the historical memory and experience of a people. History demands resolution. Yet that resolution cannot come from fights on the streets, and a wound that clamors for the blood of fellow citizens to heal itself deserves to be cauterized, not nursed. India cannot survive if it degenerates into a platform for the periodic airing of homicidal Hindu self-pity.If Modi remains the most popular leader in India, it is because he has stoked and weaponized Hindu rage.
India, of course, has endured other episodes of communal bloodletting in its history. For much of the 1980s, a government led by the nominally secular Indian National Congress party brutalized Sikhs in Punjab. Today, Punjab is ruled by a Congress government headed by a Sikh chief minister. India has a tremendous gift for recovery. But this quality is often mistaken for a limitless capacity to absorb horrors. Muslims are not Sikhs, who make up just 2 percent of the Indian population: There are 200 million Muslims in India.
Their answer to repeated humiliation and slurs has been to drape themselves in the national flag and pledge renewed allegiance to the constitution of India. But barbarity, as recent events show, appears to be their reward for discarding religious idiom and demanding the equality and dignity promised in the constitution. The videos currently circulating on Hindu groups on WhatsApp—the most potent disseminator of vicious misinformation—depict them as marauding aliens. A substantial segment of Hindus have been conditioned to genuinely believe that they are the victims and Muslims the perpetrators of the atrocities in Delhi. The ability to distinguish between the provocations of Pakistan and the democratic demands of Indian Muslims—descendants of people who actually rejected Pakistan and remained in India at great personal risk—is now lost on a large section of the Hindu community. Muslim families, meanwhile, are fleeing their homes in the charred slums of Delhi to other parts of the country.
Some observers have been moved by the violence to suggest that India is reliving the history of Germany under the Nazis. The lesson that is more applicable is the experience of Yugoslavia in the late 1980s. The collapse of the old guard in that diverse federation—often described by Indira Gandhi, the most powerful Indian prime minister before Modi, as the nation that most resembled India in the world—gave rise to a demagogue who sought to attain and tighten his grip on the country by exploiting the sense of historical injury harbored by one ethno-religious community against others. Yugoslavia’s Slobodan Milosevic proclaimed the cancellation of the autonomy of Kosovo and Vojvodina as the beginning of a phase of greatness in his nation’s journey. But Serbian nationalism destroyed Yugoslavia. Indians tend to believe that their unity is divinely ordained. This is a self-defeating myth. India’s culture is ancient. But its unity is rare and recent. The inclusive Indian nationalism crafted by the republic’s secular founders succeeded because it recognized a fundamental truth: that human beings are repositories of multiple identities. The attraction of Indian identity has always been that it allows an individual to be many things at the same time. Modi, forged in an ideology that seeks to boil people down to one identity, is scattering the seeds of disunion in the world’s most diverse democratic union. The threads that bind India are not nearly as formidable as many believe them to be, and they cannot forever bear the burdens of bigotry imposed upon them. India is racing to a point of no return. The obligation to rescue it falls to all patriotic citizens—no matter their faith.