foreignpolicy--2020-09-11--What to Do When Predicting Pandemics

What to Do When Predicting Pandemics

In January 2017 , incoming Trump administration officials were briefed on a novel strain of the flu overwhelming healthcare systems in Asia .
Victims showed respiratory symptoms , governments restricted travel , and hospitals were running out of antivirals , ventilators , and personal protective equipment ( PPE ) for healthcare workers .
The briefing was a part of a simulation , a tabletop exercise conducted during the presidential transition .
It was followed in 2019 by a series of exercises called “ Crimson Contagion.
” Several think tanks and universities held similarly frightening and prophetic wargames , which Bill @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” These simulations could have galvanized investments in pandemic preparedness and primed policymakers for crisis .
Yet in March 2020 , as the coronavirus spread around the world and throughout the United States , James Lawler , an infectious disease expert and advisor to both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama , lamented : “ We are making every misstep leaders initially made in table-tops …We have thrown 15 years of institutional learning out the window.
” Meanwhile , the press reported a frustrating incapacity to learn from pandemic wargames and war @ @ @ @ @ @ @ importance of rapid , not reactionary , responses to a fast-moving disease : early social distancing ; timely data capture , testing , and contact tracing ; surge production of antivirals , medical equipment , and PPE ; clear and authoritative public communication ; and international coordination .
At almost every turn , the federal government lagged .
This is not the first time that prescient simulations have been overlooked .
Yet wargames are also more popular than ever .
In both government and academia , they have been undergoing a renaissance , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Defense .
The decision-makers demanding this growing number of wargames seem to think they are effective—but in what way ?
Are we doomed like Cassandra to foresee our inevitable fate , yet remain incapable of heeding its lessons ?
Understanding the potential , and the limits , of wargames and simulations in Washington requires understanding their long and ambivalent history .
The games were nevertheless slow to influence strategic thought .
At the time that NWC was conducting its wargames , the United States military was wrestling with a novel commitment to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ miles from the west coast of the United States and 5,400 miles from Hawaii .
In the event of war with Japan , the existing strategy for the Philippines consisted of a daring rescue mission .
The U.S. fleet was to rush to Manila , regroup , and seek out the Japanese fleet for one decisive engagement .
NWC wargames had impressed upon the Navy the risks of the strategy , especially after a 1922 treaty ruled out fortifying a naval base west of Hawaii .
Simulations consistently revealed that a weary and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ devastating Japanese air and torpedo attacks .
Yet die-hard defenders of the Philippines , including Governor General Leonard Wood , refused to let joint planners abandon the immediate trans-Pacific defense of Manila , and appealed directly to the Secretary of War .
Plans for the dangerous rescue mission endured until mere days after Wood ’ s death in 1927 .
And it would still take another decade to fully develop the alternative “ island hopping ” campaign plans .
Aside from such motivated biases , War Plan Orange continued to suffer from interservice @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Philippines could not actually be immediately defended , the Navy was readily convinced to defend it because of the resources and status that accompanied an offensive mission in the western Pacific .
Change had to come from generational transition .
Throughout the 1920s , historians have found , older naval officers were drawn to the boldness of the planned sprint across the Pacific .
Younger officers , who had been engaged in wargames and brought their lessons to fleet exercises , were more cautious .
By 1941 , almost all of the Navy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ NWC wargames .
As a result , the war plans with which the United States entered the Pacific War had dropped the suicidal thrust in favor of “ island hopping ” to victory .
The games , the records of which are now available in archives , were based on a methodology developed by Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ) researchers and were innovative for their time .
Dozens of military and civilian officials assigned to represent color-coded governments ( e.g .
U.S. Blue , Soviet Red , South Vietnamese @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Cong Black , as was designated in SIGMA I-66 , played in September 1966 ) , huddled in separate rooms and presented with the same hypothetical scenarios , debated and selected courses of action to achieve their political aims .
A moderator “ Control ” team would then assess the moves , determine the probable outcome of their combination , and update the scenario to reveal the intended or unintended consequences of each team ’ s strategy .
These immersive games often lasted several hours a day , for three or four days @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rounds .
They concluded with a debrief and player discussion .
SIGMA players confronted several quagmires ahead of their time—a dearth of public support for the Vietnam war effort , an asymmetry of commitment to prolonged conflict , the futility of coercive bombing , and a lack of leverage to negotiate peace .
Records from the Kennedy and Johnson Presidential Archives confirm the resulting forecast .
A 1962 game found that “ if U.S. troops are introduced into such a situation , they will be there for some time.
” In a 1964 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ran out of “ profitable targets ” for bombing and lamented that “ the [ Vietnamese ] people ’ s rage … turned against the American murderers .
Not against any of their own leaders.
” And yet , the national security establishment ignored the lessons of the SIGMA wargames .
A scouring of the U.S. Department of State ’ s Foreign Relations of the United States document series reveals that the game results did not travel far in interagency dialogues .
In President Lyndon Johnson ’ s White House , the SIGMA-sponsoring @ @ @ @ @ @ @ policy advising process .
And even in the few instances when results did spread , decisionmakers discounted them .
In March 1964 , academic and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy dismissed any lessons because the games were “ dealing with higher levels of escalation.
” Soon , the real world would be too .
At the end of May 1964 , Undersecretary of State George Ball asked : “ Why are we contemplating an air action against the North in the face of a recently played war game that demonstrated the ineffectiveness of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ finer point on the unfolding tragedy in a footnote , he wrote , “ Are we proposing action against the North because we are reasonably confident it will , in fact , work , or merely because we are becoming reasonably confident that the present course of action will not work and we are not able to think of anything else to do ?
” The policy that actually followed that question would needlessly take tens of thousands of American and millions of Vietnamese , Cambodian , and Laotian lives .
By contrast @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into the interagency policy process might have pushed the SIGMA results onto the agenda of an all-important Tuesday Luncheon with the president .
Concerns about the applicability of their lessons might then have been fed back to game designers , who could have been challenged to replicate their results under conditions envisioned by decisionmakers .
Perhaps the games could then have revealed some motivated biases of policymakers—and prevented unnecessary tragedy in Vietnam .
Yet simulations can have an important impact over time and through the people exposed to them .
Games can sensitize @ @ @ @ @ @ @ choices they go on to make in the real world .
In a survey of players who took part in MIT wargames held between 1958 and 1964 , 56 percent of those “ engaged in policy planning , formulation , or implementation ” could recall an instance in which their wargame experience had been of practical value in their job .
One player and Chief Scientist of the U.S. Navy ’ s Special Projects Office , John Craven , even reported that MIT ’ s 1964 DETEX II wargame was a “ significant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hundred million dollars on an improved communications system ” for Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles .
And Robert F. Kennedy so valued his participation in a 1963 wargame centered on a South America crisis that he discussed plans for President Kennedy to attend a simulation ( JFK was assassinated before taking part ) .
While contemporary data is scarcer , some players have recalled profound effects .
Condoleezza Rice , for instance , reported that as Secretary of State on September 11 , 2001 , she thought to notify Moscow of U.S. military alerts @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ that the United States has not been decapitated ” based on her experience with misperception and escalation during Cold War crisis simulations .
Did Trump administration players learn from their experiences playing so-called germ games during the transition ?
The answer is likely in the affirmative .
But almost two-thirds of those players left government between the transition and the onset of the COVID-19 crisis .
They included senior leaders , Secretaries Rex Tillerson , John F. Kelly , and Rick Perry .
Moreover , the 2019 Crimson Contagion simulations appear to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ SIGMA Vietnam games .
Crimson Contagion ’ s “ planning and thinking happened many layers down in the bureaucracy , ” the New York Times reported .
The powerful tools of simulation and gaming were sidelined .
Too few games were played and too few participants remained in leadership roles .
It is frustrating , to be sure , but also eye-opening about the impact that wargames can have through consistent iteration and player education .
Going forward , we can learn from this history .
First , game results should be compared @ @ @ @ @ @ @ instance , the Department of Defense is reinvesting in gaming to help adapt to an age of strategic uncertainty .
Operational games already inform the Joint Operation Planning Process ( JOPP ) , stress test military plans , and reveal unanticipated contingencies .
Within the Pentagon , a new repository tracks and stores wargame reports .
Nevertheless , contributing to such a repository can become just another checked box .
To synthesize their results , an office must be tasked with meta-analysis of searchable reports aimed at distilling lessons from comparable games and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ best of these analyses will borrow research methods from the social sciences .
Games can not force leaders to listen ; they need bureaucratic champions .
Second , iterative wargaming is part of a healthy policy process .
Good simulations are not about coming up with a solution to put on a shelf .
At best , they inform a continuing process .
The more robust the process , the more likely plans are to be useful .
No particular games should be expected to predict the future , and policymakers may pay @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lessons can also be learned incrementally and assimilated over time , especially as players rise in the ranks of their organizations .
Third , wargames empower people .
Players develop crisis decision-making sensibilities .
They can experiment and make mistakes in exercises .
The lessons should linger in their minds .
Players , moreover , need to be diverse .
Game organizers should not just engage subject-matter experts who can be expected to behave in a realistic fashion .
They should also invite those who might bring new perspectives , future analysts and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be sensitized to the vicissitudes of crisis response .
They might include junior officials , legislative staff , as well as state and local representatives .
State and local officials , who have ended up bearing more than their fair burden of the United States ’ federalized COVID-19 response , are more commonly included in regional natural disaster preparedness exercises than in DC-driven national security crisis simulations .
Finally , games need to be played frequently as new leaders emerge .
At the same time , as busy as senior policymakers are , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Rather than seeing a “ hypothetical ” exercise as taking time away from pressing real-world obligations , they should consider the overlap—for instance , how simulating an acute crisis in the South China Sea can help one to better manage a chronic dispute in the area today .
Simulation designers can leverage technology to help immerse such players quickly or remotely in a scenario and potentially shorten the time commitment .
To be sure , wargames with embedded video , augmented- , or virtual-reality experiences would still be simplifications of reality with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ compressed decision timelines .
Yet scholars have found that “ synthetic experiences ” and immersive fictions or videos can trigger cognitive processes akin to real-world decisionmaking .
Deploying such immersive technology , an uncommon practice today , may also help researchers iterate games more quickly and capture better data on player behavior , instead of relying on frequently incomplete post-hoc reporting .
Inspired by the unfortunate lessons of the pandemic germ games , wargaming should also continue its renaissance .
Some offices should clearly continue to focus on potential crises in the western @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Baltics and the Middle East .
Enterprising wargamers should continue as well to study the effects of nuclear terrorism , cyber-attacks on financial systems and electricity grids , climate migrations , and natural disasters .
And the method can be applied further afield to simulate peacetime alliance coordination , trade or arms control negotiations , election legitimacy crises , or governmental transitions .
Even if previous experience with games has sometimes come up short , there is nothing preventing us from adapting a powerful instrument to empower future leaders to cope with new @ @

In January 2017, incoming Trump administration officials were briefed on a novel strain of the flu overwhelming healthcare systems in Asia. Victims showed respiratory symptoms, governments restricted travel, and hospitals were running out of antivirals, ventilators, and personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers. The briefing was a part of a simulation, a tabletop exercise conducted during the presidential transition. It was followed in 2019 by a series of exercises called “Crimson Contagion.” Several think tanks and universities held similarly frightening and prophetic wargames , which Bill Gates had earlier dubbed “germ games.”
In January 2017, incoming Trump administration officials were briefed on a novel strain of the flu overwhelming healthcare systems in Asia. Victims showed respiratory symptoms, governments restricted travel, and hospitals were running out of antivirals, ventilators, and personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers. The briefing was a part of a simulation, a tabletop exercise conducted during the presidential transition. It was followed in 2019 by a series of exercises called “Crimson Contagion.” Several think tanks and universities held similarly frightening and prophetic wargames, which Bill Gates had earlier dubbed “germ games.”
These simulations could have galvanized investments in pandemic preparedness and primed policymakers for crisis. Yet in March 2020, as the coronavirus spread around the world and throughout the United States, James Lawler, an infectious disease expert and advisor to both Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, lamented: “We are making every misstep leaders initially made in table-tops …We have thrown 15 years of institutional learning out the window.” Meanwhile, the press reported a frustrating incapacity to learn from pandemic wargames and war game-like exercises, which had shown the importance of rapid, not reactionary, responses to a fast-moving disease: early social distancing; timely data capture, testing, and contact tracing; surge production of antivirals, medical equipment, and PPE; clear and authoritative public communication; and international coordination. At almost every turn, the federal government lagged.
This is not the first time that prescient simulations have been overlooked. Yet wargames are also more popular than ever. In both government and academia, they have been undergoing a renaissance, spurred in part by the Department of Defense. The decision-makers demanding this growing number of wargames seem to think they are effective—but in what way? Are we doomed like Cassandra to foresee our inevitable fate, yet remain incapable of heeding its lessons? Understanding the potential, and the limits, of wargames and simulations in Washington requires understanding their long and ambivalent history.
A map from Edward S. Miller's book "War Plan Orange."
Wargames put human players in hypothetical scenarios and task them to make strategic choices. As players advance through multiple rounds or moves, they are forced to live with and learn from the consequences of their decisions. While simulations of combat and crises go back millennia, games first appeared in professional military training in 19th-century Prussia. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. Naval War College (NWC) introduced wargaming to the United States military. NWC officers pioneered innovative tactical and operational naval wargames throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Their efforts informed War Plan Orange, a prescient hypothetical confrontation with Japan that began 35 years before Pearl Harbor. More generally, NWC wargames were extraordinary sources of tactical and doctrinal innovation in the run-up to World War II. Officers anticipated the requirements of air power during amphibious landings and developed new tactics for aircraft carrier operations, mobile basing, and replenishing the fleet.
The games were nevertheless slow to influence strategic thought. At the time that NWC was conducting its wargames, the United States military was wrestling with a novel commitment to the defense of the Philippines—7,600 islands, 5,400 miles from the west coast of the United States and 5,400 miles from Hawaii. In the event of war with Japan, the existing strategy for the Philippines consisted of a daring rescue mission. The U.S. fleet was to rush to Manila, regroup, and seek out the Japanese fleet for one decisive engagement.
NWC wargames had impressed upon the Navy the risks of the strategy, especially after a 1922 treaty ruled out fortifying a naval base west of Hawaii. Simulations consistently revealed that a weary and spread-out American armada would be vulnerable to devastating Japanese air and torpedo attacks.
Yet die-hard defenders of the Philippines, including Governor General Leonard Wood, refused to let joint planners abandon the immediate trans-Pacific defense of Manila, and appealed directly to the Secretary of War. Plans for the dangerous rescue mission endured until mere days after Wood’s death in 1927. And it would still take another decade to fully develop the alternative “island hopping” campaign plans.
Aside from such motivated biases, War Plan Orange continued to suffer from interservice backscratching. While games concluded that the Philippines could not actually be immediately defended, the Navy was readily convinced to defend it because of the resources and status that accompanied an offensive mission in the western Pacific.
Change had to come from generational transition. Throughout the 1920s, historians have found, older naval officers were drawn to the boldness of the planned sprint across the Pacific. Younger officers, who had been engaged in wargames and brought their lessons to fleet exercises, were more cautious. By 1941, almost all of the Navy’s flag officers had played in NWC wargames. As a result, the war plans with which the United States entered the Pacific War had dropped the suicidal thrust in favor of “island hopping” to victory.
U.S. National Security Advisor Walt Rostow shows President Lyndon Johnson options for a military attack on a site in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from the Situation Room at the White House in 1968.
Decades later, in the Vietnam era, bureaucratic interests again stymied the healthy translation of simulation lessons into strategic change. The SIGMA series of political-military wargames, conducted by the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) from 1962 to 1967, infamously captured the reality of Vietnam and correctly forecast the frustrations that would unfold for policymakers and legislators over the subsequent decade. In his book diagnosing the failures of the Vietnam War, Dereliction of Duty, H.R. McMaster dubbed the SIGMA wargames “eerily prophetic.” In The Best and the Brightest, David Halberstam called them “a dry run for the actual thing.”
The games, the records of which are now available in archives, were based on a methodology developed by Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers and were innovative for their time. Dozens of military and civilian officials assigned to represent color-coded governments (e.g. U.S. Blue, Soviet Red, South Vietnamese Green, North Vietnamese Brown, Viet Cong Black, as was designated in SIGMA I-66, played in September 1966), huddled in separate rooms and presented with the same hypothetical scenarios, debated and selected courses of action to achieve their political aims. A moderator “Control” team would then assess the moves, determine the probable outcome of their combination, and update the scenario to reveal the intended or unintended consequences of each team’s strategy. These immersive games often lasted several hours a day, for three or four days, and consisted of three to six rounds. They concluded with a debrief and player discussion.
SIGMA players confronted several quagmires ahead of their time—a dearth of public support for the Vietnam war effort, an asymmetry of commitment to prolonged conflict, the futility of coercive bombing, and a lack of leverage to negotiate peace. Records from the Kennedy and Johnson Presidential Archives confirm the resulting forecast. A 1962 game found that “if U.S. troops are introduced into such a situation, they will be there for some time.” In a 1964 version of the game, players rapidly ran out of “profitable targets” for bombing and lamented that “the [Vietnamese] people’s rage … turned against the American murderers. Not against any of their own leaders.”
And yet, the national security establishment ignored the lessons of the SIGMA wargames. A scouring of the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Relations of the United States document series reveals that the game results did not travel far in interagency dialogues. In President Lyndon Johnson’s White House, the SIGMA-sponsoring JCS was out of favor in the policy advising process. And even in the few instances when results did spread, decisionmakers discounted them. In March 1964, academic and National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy dismissed any lessons because the games were “dealing with higher levels of escalation.” Soon, the real world would be too.
At the end of May 1964, Undersecretary of State George Ball asked: “Why are we contemplating an air action against the North in the face of a recently played war game that demonstrated the ineffectiveness of such a tactic?” Putting a finer point on the unfolding tragedy in a footnote, he wrote, “Are we proposing action against the North because we are reasonably confident it will, in fact, work, or merely because we are becoming reasonably confident that the present course of action will not work and we are not able to think of anything else to do?” The policy that actually followed that question would needlessly take tens of thousands of American and millions of Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian lives.
By contrast, a healthy integration of these wargames into the interagency policy process might have pushed the SIGMA results onto the agenda of an all-important Tuesday Luncheon with the president. Concerns about the applicability of their lessons might then have been fed back to game designers, who could have been challenged to replicate their results under conditions envisioned by decisionmakers. Perhaps the games could then have revealed some motivated biases of policymakers—and prevented unnecessary tragedy in Vietnam.
Naval Postgraduate School students participate in analytic wargames they designed to explore solutions for the Department of Defense’s national security concerns in 2018.
During the lead-up to the Vietnam War and the development of War Plan Orange, simulations exposed the weaknesses of strategic plans. But, as demonstrated, these wargames did not of their own accord change policy. When results came up against entrenched interests, they were ignored. Existing plans had to work.
Yet simulations can have an important impact over time and through the people exposed to them. Games can sensitize players to crisis decisionmaking and influence the choices they go on to make in the real world. In a survey of players who took part in MIT wargames held between 1958 and 1964, 56 percent of those “engaged in policy planning, formulation, or implementation” could recall an instance in which their wargame experience had been of practical value in their job. One player and Chief Scientist of the U.S. Navy’s Special Projects Office, John Craven, even reported that MIT’s 1964 DETEX II wargame was a “significant factor in the decision to spend several hundred million dollars on an improved communications system” for Polaris submarine-launched ballistic missiles. And Robert F. Kennedy so valued his participation in a 1963 wargame centered on a South America crisis that he discussed plans for President Kennedy to attend a simulation (JFK was assassinated before taking part). While contemporary data is scarcer, some players have recalled profound effects. Condoleezza Rice, for instance, reported that as Secretary of State on September 11, 2001, she thought to notify Moscow of U.S. military alerts and explain to friends and foes alike “that the United States has not been decapitated” based on her experience with misperception and escalation during Cold War crisis simulations.
Did Trump administration players learn from their experiences playing so-called germ games during the transition? The answer is likely in the affirmative. But almost two-thirds of those players left government between the transition and the onset of the COVID-19 crisis. They included senior leaders, Secretaries Rex Tillerson, John F. Kelly, and Rick Perry. Moreover, the 2019 Crimson Contagion simulations appear to have suffered the same fate as the SIGMA Vietnam games. Crimson Contagion’s “planning and thinking happened many layers down in the bureaucracy,” the New York Times reported. The powerful tools of simulation and gaming were sidelined. Too few games were played and too few participants remained in leadership roles. It is frustrating, to be sure, but also eye-opening about the impact that wargames can have through consistent iteration and player education. Going forward, we can learn from this history.
First, game results should be compared and distributed widely. Today, for instance, the Department of Defense is reinvesting in gaming to help adapt to an age of strategic uncertainty. Operational games already inform the Joint Operation Planning Process (JOPP), stress test military plans, and reveal unanticipated contingencies. Within the Pentagon, a new repository tracks and stores wargame reports. Nevertheless, contributing to such a repository can become just another checked box. To synthesize their results, an office must be tasked with meta-analysis of searchable reports aimed at distilling lessons from comparable games and actively briefing findings to planners. The best of these analyses will borrow research methods from the social sciences. Games cannot force leaders to listen; they need bureaucratic champions.
Second, iterative wargaming is part of a healthy policy process. Good simulations are not about coming up with a solution to put on a shelf. At best, they inform a continuing process. The more robust the process, the more likely plans are to be useful. No particular games should be expected to predict the future, and policymakers may pay closer attention to replicated findings. Repeated lessons can also be learned incrementally and assimilated over time, especially as players rise in the ranks of their organizations.
A person playing the role of a patient is checked during a two-day flu pandemic simulation at Tan Tock Seng hospital in Singapore on July 21, 2006, part of a large-scale exercise involving Singapore's international airport, a border crossing to Malaysia, and several hospitals.
Third, wargames empower people. Players develop crisis decision-making sensibilities. They can experiment and make mistakes in exercises. The lessons should linger in their minds. Players, moreover, need to be diverse. Game organizers should not just engage subject-matter experts who can be expected to behave in a realistic fashion. They should also invite those who might bring new perspectives, future analysts and leaders who in any case need to be sensitized to the vicissitudes of crisis response. They might include junior officials, legislative staff, as well as state and local representatives. State and local officials, who have ended up bearing more than their fair burden of the United States’ federalized COVID-19 response, are more commonly included in regional natural disaster preparedness exercises than in DC-driven national security crisis simulations.
Wargames empower people. Players develop crisis decision-making sensibilities.
Finally, games need to be played frequently as new leaders emerge. At the same time, as busy as senior policymakers are, they need to make time for simulations. Rather than seeing a “hypothetical” exercise as taking time away from pressing real-world obligations, they should consider the overlap—for instance, how simulating an acute crisis in the South China Sea can help one to better manage a chronic dispute in the area today.
Simulation designers can leverage technology to help immerse such players quickly or remotely in a scenario and potentially shorten the time commitment. To be sure, wargames with embedded video, augmented-, or virtual-reality experiences would still be simplifications of reality with lower stakes, incomplete information, and compressed decision timelines. Yet scholars have found that “synthetic experiences” and immersive fictions or videos can trigger cognitive processes akin to real-world decisionmaking. Deploying such immersive technology, an uncommon practice today, may also help researchers iterate games more quickly and capture better data on player behavior, instead of relying on frequently incomplete post-hoc reporting.
Inspired by the unfortunate lessons of the pandemic germ games, wargaming should also continue its renaissance. Some offices should clearly continue to focus on potential crises in the western Pacific, as well as in the Baltics and the Middle East. Enterprising wargamers should continue as well to study the effects of nuclear terrorism, cyber-attacks on financial systems and electricity grids, climate migrations, and natural disasters. And the method can be applied further afield to simulate peacetime alliance coordination, trade or arms control negotiations, election legitimacy crises, or governmental transitions. Even if previous experience with games has sometimes come up short, there is nothing preventing us from adapting a powerful instrument to empower future leaders to cope with new challenges.


foreignpolicy--2020-09-11--Mali Looks for Path Back to Democracy After Coup

Mali Looks for Path Back to Democracy After Coup Welcome to While You Weren ’ t Looking , Foreign Policy ’ s weekly newsletter focused on non-coronavirus news .
Here ’ s what we ’ re watching this week : a national consultation in Mali grappling with plans to transition back to civilian rule , the alleged forcible disappearance of the man who inspired the film Hotel Rwanda , and how Trump helped to bring down the Robert Mueller of Latin America .
While You Weren ’ t Looking is taking a break next week .
If you would like @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Looking in your inbox on Fridays , please sign up here .
Hours after the Aug. 18 coup , military leaders vowed to return the country to civilian leadership and hold elections in a “ reasonable ” time frame .
The recommendations , which have not yet been approved , suggest that the new interim president be a “ civil or military personality.
” The selection of a military-linked figure would fuel concerns that the military will be slow to hand power back to civilian leaders .
The raft of measures were announced @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a “ national consultation ” between political parties , unions , and representatives of civil society which seeks to forge a way forward in the wake of the coup .
International pressure .
Both the African Union and the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States ( ECOWAS ) condemned the coup and suspended Mali ’ s membership .
Seeking to pressure the country ’ s military leaders to hand over power , ECOWAS set a deadline of Sept. 15 for the junta , which calls itself the National Committee for the Salvation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ civilian to lead a transitional government .
It ’ s unclear what steps will be taken if the demand is not met .
The bloc imposed sanctions on Mali in the wake of the coup , closing borders and banning trade , and called for elections to be held within 12 months .
Political instability in Mali could jeopardize international efforts to curb rising violence in the Sahel , where intercommunal violence , organized crime , and extremist groups have forced more than 3 million people to flee their homes in one of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , according to the United Nations .
In March , more than 150 people from the Fulani ethnic group were massacred in Ogossagou , a village in central Mali , by culprits believed to be hunters from the Dogon community .
It wasn ’ t always like this .
Mali was once a beacon of democracy and stability in Africa .
To understand where things went wrong and what could come next , read Foreign Policy ’ s guide to Mali by Kathryn Salam , which gathers some of our best reads on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ arrest of a Rwandan government critic who was the inspiration for the movie Hotel Rwanda was a forced disappearance , Human Rights Watch said this week .
Paul Rusesabagina , who sheltered more than 1,200 people in a hotel he managed during the Rwandan genocide in 1994 , is believed to have been detained on Aug. 27 while traveling in Dubai .
Rusesabagina later emerged in police custody in the Rwandan capital , Kigali , where he is accused of murder , terrorism , and financing rebels .
“ The fact that Rwanda @ @ @ @ @ @ @ proceedings suggests the authorities do not believe their evidence or fair trial guarantees would stand up to scrutiny before an independent tribunal , and so opted to circumvent the rule of law , ” said Lewis Mudge , Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch .
Rusesabagina , a U.S. permanent resident , had not set foot in Rwanda for decades after fleeing the country in the wake of the genocide .
He has been a vocal critic of the country ’ s strongman president , Paul Kagame , and in 2016 launched @ @ @ @ @ @ @ from power .
Chinese student visas .
The United States this week revoked the visas of more than 1,000 students and researchers viewed as a risk to U.S. national security because of their supposed ties to the Chinese military .
The acting head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security , Chad Wolf , said earlier that the move was intended “ to prevent them from stealing and otherwise appropriating sensitive research.
” A State Department spokeswoman described those affected as “ high-risk graduate students and research scholars , ” but a spreadsheet @ @ @ @ @ @ @ students and others who seem to have tenuous connections to the Chinese military .
“ One of the things about the Chinese university system is that it ’ s not uncommon for people to graduate from , like … the Jiangxi Military Studies University with a degree in forestry or English literature .
The military element is legacy in a *lot* of cases , ” wrote Foreign Policy ’ s James Palmer on Twitter .
A mining blowup .
The CEO of Rio Tinto , the world ’ s second-largest metals and mining @ @ @ @ @ @ @ investors after the company destroyed a 46,000-year-old network of caves in Australia considered sacred by Aboriginal Australians .
The Juukan Gorge caves , which sat atop large iron ore reserves , were blown up in May after a seven-year legal battle with the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples .
The caves had previously yielded artifacts that testified to tens of thousands of years of continuous human inhabitation .
In August Rio Tinto announced that it would cut the bonuses of three executives—CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques , head of iron ore operations Chris Salisbury @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the decision .
All three are now set to resign , a testament to the growing clout of the global movement for racial justice .
Unrest in Colombia .
At least nine people have been killed in Colombia after the police killing of a taxi driver sparked riots in the capital , Bogotá , that quickly spread to other cities .
Footage of Javier Ordoñez , who was accused of violating coronavirus social distancing rules , being pinned to the ground while police officers repeatedly fired a stun gun at him quickly went @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in hospital .
Clashes in Bogotá between law enforcement and protesters overnight on Wednesday left more than 170 civilians and nearly 150 police officers injured .
Last year Colombia was rocked by some of the largest anti-government protests in decades .
Violence this week , which comes as the country was emerging from a six-month coronavirus lockdown , threatens to reignite social tensions .
The Qatar blockade .
The United States ’ top diplomat for middle eastern affairs , David Schenker , struck an optimistic tone on Wednesday when he told a virtual @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a breakthrough in negotiations to end a three-year blockade on Qatar was possible in a “ matter of weeks.
” “ There ’ s not been a fundamental shift that … we ’ re going to push the door open right now .
But in our talks we ’ re detecting a little bit more flexibility , so we ’ re hoping we can bring the sides closer together and end this … distraction , ” Schenker said .
The United Arab Emirates , Saudi Arabia , Bahrain , and Egypt imposed a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ diplomatic and transport ties , accusing the Persian Gulf state of supporting terrorism , and demanding it align itself behind the Saudi bloc and close its Al Jazeera television station .
Qatar has denied the allegations .
Concerned that the rift has undermined the United States ’ effort to build a united front against Iran , Washington has mediated negotiations to end the blockade , alongside Kuwait .
Ethiopia ’ s defiant election .
Ethiopia ’ s restive northern region of Tigray held regional elections on Wednesday , in defiance of Prime Minister @ @ @ @ @ @ @ year because of the coronavirus pandemic .
Abiy , who described the vote as “ unconstitutional ” and “ illegal , ” ruled out a military intervention , but any punitive action taken by the federal government could escalate tensions with the regional officials who accused Abiy of a power grab after he pushed a general election , set to be held in August , back to 2021 .
Tigrayans account for a small percentage of Ethiopia ’ s multiethnic population of 110 million , but for almost three decades had an outsized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
When reform-minded Abiy came to power in 2018 , he promised to distribute power more evenly , diminishing the influence of the Tigrayans .
An anti-corruption and security crackdown which began in 2018 and saw dozens of officials arrested , many of them Tigrayan , sparked fears of an ethnically motivated crackdown .
How Donald Trump took down the Robert Mueller of Latin America .
In 2013 Iván Velásquez , a Colombian jurist , took the helm of a groundbreaking International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala , an independent body established in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the country after decades of civil war and military rule .
The United States threw its clout and cash behind the body in the hopes that by addressing the root causes of instability in Central America , it would reduce the number of migrants and asylum seekers who head to the United States That was , until Donald Trump was elected U.S. president .
Political appointees within the Trump administration have worked to undermine the commission , which was delving into the dealings of Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales and his family .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Morales is alleged to have offered Guatemala ’ s support for policies key to Trump ’ s reelection bid .
The Reveal podcast from the Center for Investigative Reporting takes you from the United States to Guatemala as it unspools the gripping tale of Trump ’ s other quid pro quo .
Listen here and on all major podcasting apps .
That ’ s it for this week .
For more from Foreign Policy , visit foreignpolicy.com , subscribe here , or sign up for our other newsletters .
Send your tips , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ newsletters @ foreignpolicy.com .

Welcome to While You Weren’t Looking, Foreign Policy’s weekly newsletter focused on non-coronavirus news.
Here’s what we’re watching this week: a national consultation in Mali grappling with plans to transition back to civilian rule, the alleged forcible disappearance of the man who inspired the film Hotel Rwanda, and how Trump helped to bring down the Robert Mueller of Latin America.
While You Weren’t Looking is taking a break next week. If you would like to receive While You Weren’t Looking in your inbox on Fridays, please sign up here.
Mali Seeks a Way Forward following Last Month’s Military Coup A group of constitutional experts appointed by Mali’s junta have proposed that the country form a two-year transitional government led by a president chosen by the soldiers behind a military coup which toppled the country’s embattled President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita last month. Keita was ousted following months of street protests in Mali against unemployment, rising inequality, and the government’s inability to quash a spiraling Islamist insurgency.
Hours after the Aug. 18 coup, military leaders vowed to return the country to civilian leadership and hold elections in a “reasonable” time frame. The recommendations, which have not yet been approved, suggest that the new interim president be a “civil or military personality.” The selection of a military-linked figure would fuel concerns that the military will be slow to hand power back to civilian leaders.
The raft of measures were announced Friday, on the second day of a “national consultation” between political parties, unions, and representatives of civil society which seeks to forge a way forward in the wake of the coup.
International pressure. Both the African Union and the 15-nation Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) condemned the coup and suspended Mali’s membership. Seeking to pressure the country’s military leaders to hand over power, ECOWAS set a deadline of Sept. 15 for the junta, which calls itself the National Committee for the Salvation of the People, to appoint a civilian to lead a transitional government. It’s unclear what steps will be taken if the demand is not met. The bloc imposed sanctions on Mali in the wake of the coup, closing borders and banning trade, and called for elections to be held within 12 months.
Political instability in Mali could jeopardize international efforts to curb rising violence in the Sahel, where intercommunal violence, organized crime, and extremist groups have forced more than 3 million people to flee their homes in one of the fastest-growing displacement crises in the world, according to the United Nations. In March, more than 150 people from the Fulani ethnic group were massacred in Ogossagou, a village in central Mali, by culprits believed to be hunters from the Dogon community.
It wasn’t always like this. Mali was once a beacon of democracy and stability in Africa. To understand where things went wrong and what could come next, read Foreign Policy’s guide to Mali by Kathryn Salam, which gathers some of our best reads on the country.
What We’re Following
Hotel Rwanda. The arrest of a Rwandan government critic who was the inspiration for the movie Hotel Rwanda was a forced disappearance, Human Rights Watch said this week. Paul Rusesabagina, who sheltered more than 1,200 people in a hotel he managed during the Rwandan genocide in 1994, is believed to have been detained on Aug. 27 while traveling in Dubai. Rusesabagina later emerged in police custody in the Rwandan capital, Kigali, where he is accused of murder, terrorism, and financing rebels. “The fact that Rwanda did not pursue Rusesabagina through lawful extradition proceedings suggests the authorities do not believe their evidence or fair trial guarantees would stand up to scrutiny before an independent tribunal, and so opted to circumvent the rule of law,” said Lewis Mudge, Central Africa director at Human Rights Watch. Rusesabagina, a U.S. permanent resident, had not set foot in Rwanda for decades after fleeing the country in the wake of the genocide. He has been a vocal critic of the country’s strongman president, Paul Kagame, and in 2016 launched a campaign to try to oust him from power.
Chinese student visas. The United States this week revoked the visas of more than 1,000 students and researchers viewed as a risk to U.S. national security because of their supposed ties to the Chinese military. The acting head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Chad Wolf, said earlier that the move was intended “to prevent them from stealing and otherwise appropriating sensitive research.” A State Department spokeswoman described those affected as “high-risk graduate students and research scholars,” but a spreadsheet circulated by students online includes some undergraduate students and others who seem to have tenuous connections to the Chinese military. “One of the things about the Chinese university system is that it’s not uncommon for people to graduate from, like … the Jiangxi Military Studies University with a degree in forestry or English literature. The military element is legacy in a *lot* of cases,” wrote Foreign Policy’s James Palmer on Twitter.
A mining blowup. The CEO of Rio Tinto, the world’s second-largest metals and mining company, has resigned under pressure from investors after the company destroyed a 46,000-year-old network of caves in Australia considered sacred by Aboriginal Australians. The Juukan Gorge caves, which sat atop large iron ore reserves, were blown up in May after a seven-year legal battle with the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura peoples. The caves had previously yielded artifacts that testified to tens of thousands of years of continuous human inhabitation. In August Rio Tinto announced that it would cut the bonuses of three executives—CEO Jean-Sébastien Jacques, head of iron ore operations Chris Salisbury, and corporate relations executive Simone Niven—over the decision. All three are now set to resign, a testament to the growing clout of the global movement for racial justice.
Keep an Eye On
Unrest in Colombia. At least nine people have been killed in Colombia after the police killing of a taxi driver sparked riots in the capital, Bogotá, that quickly spread to other cities. Footage of Javier Ordoñez, who was accused of violating coronavirus social distancing rules, being pinned to the ground while police officers repeatedly fired a stun gun at him quickly went viral. He was later pronounced dead in hospital. Clashes in Bogotá between law enforcement and protesters overnight on Wednesday left more than 170 civilians and nearly 150 police officers injured. Last year Colombia was rocked by some of the largest anti-government protests in decades. Violence this week, which comes as the country was emerging from a six-month coronavirus lockdown, threatens to reignite social tensions.
The Qatar blockade. The United States’ top diplomat for middle eastern affairs, David Schenker, struck an optimistic tone on Wednesday when he told a virtual event hosted by the Brookings Institution that a breakthrough in negotiations to end a three-year blockade on Qatar was possible in a “matter of weeks.” “There’s not been a fundamental shift that … we’re going to push the door open right now. But in our talks we’re detecting a little bit more flexibility, so we’re hoping we can bring the sides closer together and end this … distraction,” Schenker said. The United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Egypt imposed a boycott on Qatar in 2017, severing diplomatic and transport ties, accusing the Persian Gulf state of supporting terrorism, and demanding it align itself behind the Saudi bloc and close its Al Jazeera television station. Qatar has denied the allegations. Concerned that the rift has undermined the United States’ effort to build a united front against Iran, Washington has mediated negotiations to end the blockade, alongside Kuwait.
Ethiopia’s defiant election. Ethiopia’s restive northern region of Tigray held regional elections on Wednesday, in defiance of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, who postponed elections this year because of the coronavirus pandemic. Abiy, who described the vote as “unconstitutional” and “illegal,” ruled out a military intervention, but any punitive action taken by the federal government could escalate tensions with the regional officials who accused Abiy of a power grab after he pushed a general election, set to be held in August, back to 2021. Tigrayans account for a small percentage of Ethiopia’s multiethnic population of 110 million, but for almost three decades had an outsized influence on the country’s politics. When reform-minded Abiy came to power in 2018, he promised to distribute power more evenly, diminishing the influence of the Tigrayans. An anti-corruption and security crackdown which began in 2018 and saw dozens of officials arrested, many of them Tigrayan, sparked fears of an ethnically motivated crackdown.
Foreign Policy Recommends
How Donald Trump took down the Robert Mueller of Latin America. In 2013 Iván Velásquez, a Colombian jurist, took the helm of a groundbreaking International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, an independent body established in 2006 to root out crime and corruption in the country after decades of civil war and military rule. The United States threw its clout and cash behind the body in the hopes that by addressing the root causes of instability in Central America, it would reduce the number of migrants and asylum seekers who head to the United States
That was, until Donald Trump was elected U.S. president. Political appointees within the Trump administration have worked to undermine the commission, which was delving into the dealings of Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales and his family. In return, according to Velásquez, Morales is alleged to have offered Guatemala’s support for policies key to Trump’s reelection bid.
The Reveal podcast from the Center for Investigative Reporting takes you from the United States to Guatemala as it unspools the gripping tale of Trump’s other quid pro quo. Listen here and on all major podcasting apps.
That’s it for this week.
For more from Foreign Policy, visit foreignpolicy.com, subscribe here, or sign up for our other newsletters. Send your tips, comments, questions, or corrections to newsletters@foreignpolicy.com.


foreignpolicy--2020-09-11--Trump Extends Arab Push to Normalize Ties With Israel

When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Sudan last month , the first top-level U.S. visit in 15 years , the main item on his agenda wasn ’ t Sudan , sanctions , or the country ’ s transition to democracy after decades of dictatorship .
It was Israel , according to an account by three people briefed on the visit .
During a private meeting to hammer out details of a deal to remove Sudan from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror , Pompeo abruptly prodded Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to place a call to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the normalization of relations between the two countries .
The gesture , Pompeo said , would make it easier for him to convince Congress to remove Sudan from the terror list .
“ Everybody on the Sudanese side ’ s mouths just dropped to the floor , ” said one person familiar with the meeting .
Hamdok , in a precarious position at the helm of a fragile transitional government , declined , explaining that he didn ’ t have the mandate for such a momentous move—and at any rate , already had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the terror designation .
Pompeo later tried again with Sudan ’ s top military officer , who also refused , according to people familiar with the matter .
Pompeo ’ s stop in Khartoum was one of several visits to Arab capitals last month meant to bolster support for what has become one of the few tangible foreign policy success stories for the Trump administration : the normalization of relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel .
That diplomatic rapprochement will be finalized at a White House ceremony Tuesday—and won ’ t @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , President Donald Trump tweeted that Bahrain has also agreed to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel , marking a one-two breakthrough a quarter-century after the last Arab country normalized its relations with Israel .
The move marks a reversal for the tiny Gulf kingdom , home to the U.S. Navy ’ s Fifth Fleet , when Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Salman al-Khalifa said after a meeting with Pompeo last month that the country was still calling for Israel to withdraw completely from the Palestinian terrorities in exchange for its recognition of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these pacts have become inextricably linked to the president ’ s reelection campaign .
They constitute a tangible foreign-policy success after the administration ’ s other big foreign-policy efforts—whether a doomed Middle East peace plan , curtailing North Korea ’ s nuclear ambitions , changing China ’ s predatory behavior , or containing Iran ’ s nuclear program—have all foundered .
“ Trump can argue that his transactional , personalized diplomacy achieved what ‘ you stupid professionals couldn ’ t do , ’ ” said Hussein Ibish , senior resident scholar at the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ think tank which receives some funding from the UAE .
“ And it ’ s true .
It has worked in this case .
It hasn ’ t worked anywhere else.
” Israel has become an adjunct to U.S. diplomacy—and not just in the region—part of the administration ’ s effort to reinforce its electoral appeal to U.S. evangelicals ahead of a tightly contested election .
The Trump administration ’ s efforts to broker negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo included a provision where Belgrade would move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv @ @ @ @ @ @ @ did , though reports indicate Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic will not make the move if Israel recognizes Kosovo .
Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has also become an unlikely ally behind the White House ’ s push for Israeli normalization , declaring his commitment for the “ peaceful coexistence ” of Israel and Palestine in a joint U.S.-Brazilian statement in March , with the president ’ s son committing to move the nation ’ s embassy to Jerusalem in 2020 .
“ The driver is the base , ” said Nimrod Novik , a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Peres who currently serves as Israel Fellow at the Israel Policy Forum , a New York City-based non-profit that promotes a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict .
“ Whatever the motivation , I ’ m delighted he is doing it .
It ’ s great for Israel .
It just ratifies what has been going on under the table , but it ’ s a major psychological breakthrough.
” There are still several big outstanding questions about the UAE-Israeli deal .
When the United States , Israel , and UAE first issued @ @ @ @ @ @ @ August , it included an an Israeli commitment to hold off annexing the West Bank in exchange for the normalization of diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi , the first Arab government to formally open diplomatic relations with Israel since Jordan signed a peace past with Israel in 1994 .
Abu Dhabi was also seeking a firmer commitment from Israel that it wouldn ’ t simply resume its push for annexation during the next Israeli election cycle .
And there are other issues .
Under the terms of the deal , the United States @ @ @ @ @ @ @ sale of advanced F-35 fighter jets , raising the question for Israel of how it will maintain its traditional military edge over Arab neighbors .
The Trump administration , meanwhile , has been pressing to include a provision in the final statement endorsing the U.S. president ’ s Middle East plan , a detail that may prove hard to swallow for Israel , which publicly praised the plan but which privately expressed reservations over certain provisions .
And while Bahrain has jumped onboard—almost certainly with Saudi acquiescence—that doesn ’ t necessarily mean that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arabia , will be next to recognize Israel .
Trump , in announcing Bahrain ’ s move on Friday , suggested Riyadh would not be far behind .
Saudi Arabia , increasingly threatened by Iran , has made under-the-radar overtures to Israel in recent years .
“ We think ultimately we will have most countries join and you ’ re going to have the Palestianians in a very good position , ” Trump said in brief Oval Office remarks on Friday after tweeting out the joint statement .
“ They ’ re going @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of their friends are in , ” he added , referring to other Arab nations and the Palestinians recognizing Israel .
But the chances of the Saudis following the UAE ’ s lead and recognizing Israel in the near-term are “ slim to none , ” said Barbara Leaf , a diplomat who served as ambassador to the UAE from 2014 to 2018 .
Saudi Arabia ’ s King Salman presided over the Arab Peace Initiative , which pledged “ full diplomatic and normal relations ” between Arab governments and Israel only in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” with the Palestinians , which has yet to materialize .
“ As long as King Salman is calling the shots , it ’ s not going to happen , ” said Novik , who said the UAE decision to normalize relations with Israel “ has deviated from the purity of the Arab Peace Initiative .
Normalization is no longer the trophy at the end of a peace process .
The UAE has jumped the gun.
” “ Saudi greenlit this , ” tweeted Aaron David Miller , a former State Department analyst @ @ @ @ @ @ @ “ Arab consensus on Palestine—if there ever was one—is breaking apart .
Arab states will nominally stick to the 2002 peace initiative while some will make their own arrangements with Israel.
” But the successive decisions to recognize Israel sparked immediate anger from the Palestinian side that already felt left out of U.S.-led Middle East peace talks .
On Friday , the Palestinian Authority called Bahrain ’ s normalization of relations with Israel a “ betrayal of Jerusalem , Al-Aqsa Mosque , and the Palestinian issue , ” and withdrew their ambassador from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would remove their envoy from the UAE .
Diplomatic observers say the latest move by the two Gulf States reflects a cold , hard reality of Middle East diplomacy : The Arab commitment to the Palestinian cause was always secondary to their own national interests .
“ The Arab States have always used the Palestinian issue as an instrument for their own national objectives , ” Gérard Araud , France ’ s former ambassador to Washington and Israel tweeted .
“ Obviously , they have reached the conclusion that it is not useful @ @ @ @ @ @ @ While Trump and his administration are keen to tout the deal between Israel and the UAE as a breakthrough for peace , the two countries have never fought a war—in contrast to Israel ’ s two prior peace agreements , with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994 .
“ To state the obvious , the ‘ peace in the Middle East ’ theme touted by Trump and Kushner re .
UAE-Israel agreement is disconnected from reality given that the 2 countries never fought a war and the agreement does nothing to end @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Hawthorne , deputy director for research at Project on Middle East Democracy , a Washington think tank , tweeted .
The deal even raises questions about the centrality of Egypt ’ s place in Middle East diplomacy .
Since the 1979 political agreements known as the Camp David Accords , Egypt has been able to parlay its pioneering diplomatic stance into outsized regional influence—until perhaps now .
“ What does it mean for Egypt ’ s standing in the region ?
” Novik asked .
“ One component of Egypt ’ s being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the liaison between Israel and the Arab world .
The center of gravity is moving from Egypt to the Gulf .
Egypt is losing another asset in its exceptionalism.
” Many Muslim countries are still treading carefully .
The leaders of Bahrain and the UAE will not attend the Washington signing ceremony .
Sudan is still demurring .
Oman is still holding off normalizing relations with Israel .
Historic as it may be , the deal between the UAE and Israel is just the start of what could be a long diplomatic dance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Arab countries are hesitant because they want to see what happens with the UAE , ” said Ibish .
“ Everyone has good reasons to see how it goes for the UAE .
”

Robbie Gramer, Colum Lynch and Jack Detsch

When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Sudan last month, the first top-level U.S. visit in 15 years, the main item on his agenda wasn’t Sudan, sanctions, or the country’s transition to democracy after decades of dictatorship. It was Israel, according to an account by three people briefed on the visit.
When Secretary of State Mike Pompeo went to Sudan last month, the first top-level U.S. visit in 15 years, the main item on his agenda wasn’t Sudan, sanctions, or the country’s transition to democracy after decades of dictatorship. It was Israel, according to an account by three people briefed on the visit.
During a private meeting to hammer out details of a deal to remove Sudan from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terror, Pompeo abruptly prodded Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok to place a call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and kickstart the normalization of relations between the two countries. The gesture, Pompeo said, would make it easier for him to convince Congress to remove Sudan from the terror list. “Everybody on the Sudanese side’s mouths just dropped to the floor,” said one person familiar with the meeting.
Hamdok, in a precarious position at the helm of a fragile transitional government, declined, explaining that he didn’t have the mandate for such a momentous move—and at any rate, already had a preliminary U.S. commitment to to lift the terror designation. Pompeo later tried again with Sudan’s top military officer, who also refused, according to people familiar with the matter.
Pompeo’s stop in Khartoum was one of several visits to Arab capitals last month meant to bolster support for what has become one of the few tangible foreign policy success stories for the Trump administration: the normalization of relations between the United Arab Emirates and Israel. That diplomatic rapprochement will be finalized at a White House ceremony Tuesday—and won’t be the only one.
On Friday, President Donald Trump tweeted that Bahrain has also agreed to establish full diplomatic relations with Israel, marking a one-two breakthrough a quarter-century after the last Arab country normalized its relations with Israel. The move marks a reversal for the tiny Gulf kingdom, home to the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, when Bahraini King Hamad bin Isa Salman al-Khalifa said after a meeting with Pompeo last month that the country was still calling for Israel to withdraw completely from the Palestinian terrorities in exchange for its recognition of Israel.
For the Trump administration, these pacts have become inextricably linked to the president’s reelection campaign. They constitute a tangible foreign-policy success after the administration’s other big foreign-policy efforts—whether a doomed Middle East peace plan, curtailing North Korea’s nuclear ambitions, changing China’s predatory behavior, or containing Iran’s nuclear program—have all foundered.
“Trump can argue that his transactional, personalized diplomacy achieved what ‘you stupid professionals couldn’t do,’” said Hussein Ibish, senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute, a Washington-based think tank which receives some funding from the UAE. “And it’s true. It has worked in this case. It hasn’t worked anywhere else.”
Israel has become an adjunct to U.S. diplomacy—and not just in the region—part of the administration’s effort to reinforce its electoral appeal to U.S. evangelicals ahead of a tightly contested election. The Trump administration’s efforts to broker negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo included a provision where Belgrade would move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, as the United States did, though reports indicate Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic will not make the move if Israel recognizes Kosovo. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has also become an unlikely ally behind the White House’s push for Israeli normalization, declaring his commitment for the “peaceful coexistence” of Israel and Palestine in a joint U.S.-Brazilian statement in March, with the president’s son committing to move the nation’s embassy to Jerusalem in 2020.
“The driver is the base,” said Nimrod Novik, a foreign-policy advisor to former Israeli President Shimon Peres who currently serves as Israel Fellow at the Israel Policy Forum, a New York City-based non-profit that promotes a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “Whatever the motivation, I’m delighted he is doing it. It’s great for Israel. It just ratifies what has been going on under the table, but it’s a major psychological breakthrough.”
There are still several big outstanding questions about the UAE-Israeli deal. When the United States, Israel, and UAE first issued a joint statement on the deal in August, it included an an Israeli commitment to hold off annexing the West Bank in exchange for the normalization of diplomatic ties with Abu Dhabi, the first Arab government to formally open diplomatic relations with Israel since Jordan signed a peace past with Israel in 1994. Abu Dhabi was also seeking a firmer commitment from Israel that it wouldn’t simply resume its push for annexation during the next Israeli election cycle.
And there are other issues. Under the terms of the deal, the United States pledged to reward the UAE with the sale of advanced F-35 fighter jets, raising the question for Israel of how it will maintain its traditional military edge over Arab neighbors. The Trump administration, meanwhile, has been pressing to include a provision in the final statement endorsing the U.S. president’s Middle East plan, a detail that may prove hard to swallow for Israel, which publicly praised the plan but which privately expressed reservations over certain provisions.
And while Bahrain has jumped onboard—almost certainly with Saudi acquiescence—that doesn’t necessarily mean that the biggest prize of all, Saudi Arabia, will be next to recognize Israel. Trump, in announcing Bahrain’s move on Friday, suggested Riyadh would not be far behind. Saudi Arabia, increasingly threatened by Iran, has made under-the-radar overtures to Israel in recent years.
“We think ultimately we will have most countries join and you’re going to have the Palestianians in a very good position,” Trump said in brief Oval Office remarks on Friday after tweeting out the joint statement. “They’re going to want to come in because all of their friends are in,” he added, referring to other Arab nations and the Palestinians recognizing Israel.
But the chances of the Saudis following the UAE’s lead and recognizing Israel in the near-term are “slim to none,” said Barbara Leaf, a diplomat who served as ambassador to the UAE from 2014 to 2018. Saudi Arabia’s King Salman presided over the Arab Peace Initiative, which pledged “full diplomatic and normal relations” between Arab governments and Israel only in exchange for a “comprehensive peace agreement” with the Palestinians, which has yet to materialize.
“As long as King Salman is calling the shots, it’s not going to happen,” said Novik, who said the UAE decision to normalize relations with Israel “has deviated from the purity of the Arab Peace Initiative. Normalization is no longer the trophy at the end of a peace process. The UAE has jumped the gun.”
Other Middle East experts suggest otherwise.
“Saudi greenlit this,” tweeted Aaron David Miller, a former State Department analyst on the Middle East peace process. “Arab consensus on Palestine—if there ever was one—is breaking apart. Arab states will nominally stick to the 2002 peace initiative while some will make their own arrangements with Israel.”
But the successive decisions to recognize Israel sparked immediate anger from the Palestinian side that already felt left out of U.S.-led Middle East peace talks. On Friday, the Palestinian Authority called Bahrain’s normalization of relations with Israel a “betrayal of Jerusalem, Al-Aqsa Mosque, and the Palestinian issue,” and withdrew their ambassador from Manama, after previously announcing that they would remove their envoy from the UAE.
Diplomatic observers say the latest move by the two Gulf States reflects a cold, hard reality of Middle East diplomacy: The Arab commitment to the Palestinian cause was always secondary to their own national interests.
“The Arab States have always used the Palestinian issue as an instrument for their own national objectives,” Gérard Araud, France’s former ambassador to Washington and Israel tweeted. “Obviously, they have reached the conclusion that it is not useful anymore. They have dumped it.”
While Trump and his administration are keen to tout the deal between Israel and the UAE as a breakthrough for peace, the two countries have never fought a war—in contrast to Israel’s two prior peace agreements, with Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994.
“To state the obvious, the ‘peace in the Middle East’ theme touted by Trump and Kushner re. UAE-Israel agreement is disconnected from reality given that the 2 countries never fought a war and the agreement does nothing to end the Middle East wars,” Amy Hawthorne, deputy director for research at Project on Middle East Democracy, a Washington think tank, tweeted.
The deal even raises questions about the centrality of Egypt’s place in Middle East diplomacy. Since the 1979 political agreements known as the Camp David Accords, Egypt has been able to parlay its pioneering diplomatic stance into outsized regional influence—until perhaps now.
“What does it mean for Egypt’s standing in the region?” Novik asked. “One component of Egypt’s being the center of gravity was its being the liaison between Israel and the Arab world. The center of gravity is moving from Egypt to the Gulf. Egypt is losing another asset in its exceptionalism.”
Many Muslim countries are still treading carefully. The leaders of Bahrain and the UAE will not attend the Washington signing ceremony. Sudan is still demurring. Oman is still holding off normalizing relations with Israel. Historic as it may be, the deal between the UAE and Israel is just the start of what could be a long diplomatic dance.
“I think a lot of Arab countries are hesitant because they want to see what happens with the UAE,” said Ibish. “Everyone has good reasons to see how it goes for the UAE.”


foreignpolicy--2020-09-11--Don’t Let Health Hold Women Back

Don’t Let Health Hold Women Back

Even in a year as bad as this one , there are still a few things worth celebrating .
August marked the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in the United States .
September is also the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration on the status of women , a global plan for women ’ s equality under the auspices of the United Nations .
And no less remarkable will be the 20th anniversary in October of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325 , which calls for all actors to raise the profile of women and gender perspectives @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1325—as well as the related U.S. Women , Peace , and Security Act of 2017—have moved the ball forward significantly in ensuring that women have equal participation in public life .
However , barriers to women ’ s full participation still abound .
Among these challenges is the fact that women are disproportionately affected by infectious diseases—from COVID-19 to AIDS , tuberculosis , and malaria—which holds them back from advancing in society .
In large part , this higher disease burden is due to a lack of access to health care , including @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and malaria , as well as for Ebola and COVID-19 .
By promoting access , then , health aid helps support women ’ s equality .
And by empowering women , such aid can shore up regional stability , improve economic outcomes , and ensure access to enablers of prosperity such as education .
Women are key to developing solutions to gender-based health inequality .
Afghanistan is instructive .
Women there are making slow gains in challenging existing norms about their role in public life , particularly the Taliban ’ s resistance to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and the inclusion of women ’ s issues in the parameters of an agreement .
In a 2019 survey of Afghanistan , the Asia Foundation found that “ while gender equity is enshrined in the Afghan constitution , this year ’ s talks have exposed the distance between what was promised and what has been done .
Women have been present in peace talks only twice since 2005.
” At the same time , limited access to quality health care , coupled with poor security , has prevented women ’ s empowerment—economically and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , tuberculosis cases in Afghanistan had been on the rise , with more than 70,000 new cases in 2018 , of which more than half were in women .
HIV is also a problem in Afghanistan , where only about 14 percent of people living with the virus have access to antiretroviral medication .
Of those with access to treatment , only 34 percent are women or children .
Those who want long-term stability and peace in Afghanistan must prioritize health as a way to ensure that women are able to fully participate @ @ @ @ @ @ @ concerned with women ’ s health , there is a virtuous loop to look forward to as well : More women in leadership can lead to improved health outcomes for the women—and men—they represent .
A healthier public is also more economically productive and able to access the benefits of improved governance .
Women ’ s participation as community leaders can also create real progress in highlighting the health needs of women , including preventing gender-based violence .
South Sudan is a good case study .
It has a dramatically high rate of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of all women having experienced some form of it .
Forced sex , limited safe-sex practices , and heightened risk-taking behavior has led to higher rates of infection of HIV in women : The infection rate among young women is nearly double that of young men .
The spread of HIV is unlikely to slow without addressing the underlying issues affecting women .
Institutions in South Sudan are making efforts to tackle the core problems .
The U.N. Mission in South Sudan , in collaboration with the South Sudanese police , has run @ @ @ @ @ @ @ gender-based violence in their communities .
These women , in turn , are able to educate their broader communities to counter gender-based violence .
Since only 9.8 percent of South Sudanese women 15 to 24 years old are able to correctly identify ways to prevent transmission of HIV , education is key to stemming the tide of the epidemic .
Just as conflict and health challenges compound one another , increased access to health care leads to broader empowerment for women .
In Mali , women are taking leadership roles in the fight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Malaria Initiative , launched by the United States in 2005 , is working with the Africa Indoor Residual Spraying ( AIRS ) project to encourage women to participate on teams that go from house to house to spray for mosquitoes and to highlight women in leadership positions on existing teams .
AIRS hopes that women will see these projects as valuable to the health and safety of their communities , as well as opportunities for economic advancement .
While AIRS ’ projects have largely been put on hold or modified to prevent the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ run , initiatives like these empower women to address health risks and access all aspects of public life .
Increasing access to health care must be a key component in any agenda for supporting women .
Fundamentally , healthy women are more able to participate fully in their communities and advocate for their needs in political life .
In the United States , this means that Congress and policymakers of all stripes should ensure that foreign aid programs include a focus on women .
If reinforced by prioritization from donor countries , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ stopping the spread of COVID-19 and ensuring better health outcomes for all .
And that will mean a more stable , better-off world .

Even in a year as bad as this one, there are still a few things worth celebrating. August marked the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in the United States. September is also the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration on the status of women, a global plan for women’s equality under the auspices of the United Nations. And no less remarkable will be the 20th anniversary in October of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325 , which calls for all actors to raise the profile of women and gender perspectives in security and peace processes. Resolution 1325 —as well as the related U.S. Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017—have moved the ball forward significantly in ensuring that women have equal participation in public life.
Even in a year as bad as this one, there are still a few things worth celebrating. August marked the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote in the United States. September is also the 25th anniversary of the Beijing Declaration on the status of women, a global plan for women’s equality under the auspices of the United Nations. And no less remarkable will be the 20th anniversary in October of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1325, which calls for all actors to raise the profile of women and gender perspectives in security and peace processes. Resolution 1325—as well as the related U.S. Women, Peace, and Security Act of 2017—have moved the ball forward significantly in ensuring that women have equal participation in public life.
However, barriers to women’s full participation still abound. Among these challenges is the fact that women are disproportionately affected by infectious diseases—from COVID-19 to AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria—which holds them back from advancing in society. In large part, this higher disease burden is due to a lack of access to health care, including to treatments for AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria, as well as for Ebola and COVID-19. By promoting access, then, health aid helps support women’s equality. And by empowering women, such aid can shore up regional stability, improve economic outcomes, and ensure access to enablers of prosperity such as education.
Women are key to developing solutions to gender-based health inequality. Afghanistan is instructive. Women there are making slow gains in challenging existing norms about their role in public life, particularly the Taliban’s resistance to the inclusion of women in peace talks and the inclusion of women’s issues in the parameters of an agreement. In a 2019 survey of Afghanistan, the Asia Foundation found that “while gender equity is enshrined in the Afghan constitution, this year’s talks have exposed the distance between what was promised and what has been done. Women have been present in peace talks only twice since 2005.”
At the same time, limited access to quality health care, coupled with poor security, has prevented women’s empowerment—economically and politically. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, tuberculosis cases in Afghanistan had been on the rise, with more than 70,000 new cases in 2018, of which more than half were in women. HIV is also a problem in Afghanistan, where only about 14 percent of people living with the virus have access to antiretroviral medication. Of those with access to treatment, only 34 percent are women or children. Those who want long-term stability and peace in Afghanistan must prioritize health as a way to ensure that women are able to fully participate in the public sphere.
For policymakers concerned with women’s health, there is a virtuous loop to look forward to as well: More women in leadership can lead to improved health outcomes for the women—and men—they represent. A healthier public is also more economically productive and able to access the benefits of improved governance.
Women’s participation as community leaders can also create real progress in highlighting the health needs of women, including preventing gender-based violence. South Sudan is a good case study. It has a dramatically high rate of domestic violence, with more than half of all women having experienced some form of it. Forced sex, limited safe-sex practices, and heightened risk-taking behavior has led to higher rates of infection of HIV in women: The infection rate among young women is nearly double that of young men. The spread of HIV is unlikely to slow without addressing the underlying issues affecting women.
Institutions in South Sudan are making efforts to tackle the core problems. The U.N. Mission in South Sudan, in collaboration with the South Sudanese police, has run workshops designed to train women to combat gender-based violence in their communities. These women, in turn, are able to educate their broader communities to counter gender-based violence. Since only 9.8 percent of South Sudanese women 15 to 24 years old are able to correctly identify ways to prevent transmission of HIV, education is key to stemming the tide of the epidemic.
Just as conflict and health challenges compound one another, increased access to health care leads to broader empowerment for women. In Mali, women are taking leadership roles in the fight against malaria. The President’s Malaria Initiative, launched by the United States in 2005, is working with the Africa Indoor Residual Spraying (AIRS) project to encourage women to participate on teams that go from house to house to spray for mosquitoes and to highlight women in leadership positions on existing teams. AIRS hopes that women will see these projects as valuable to the health and safety of their communities, as well as opportunities for economic advancement. While AIRS’ projects have largely been put on hold or modified to prevent the spread of COVID-19, in the long run, initiatives like these empower women to address health risks and access all aspects of public life.
Increasing access to health care must be a key component in any agenda for supporting women. Fundamentally, healthy women are more able to participate fully in their communities and advocate for their needs in political life. In the United States, this means that Congress and policymakers of all stripes should ensure that foreign aid programs include a focus on women. If reinforced by prioritization from donor countries, the role of women will be crucial in stopping the spread of COVID-19 and ensuring better health outcomes for all. And that will mean a more stable, better-off world.


foreignpolicy--2020-09-11--Mozambique Can’t Contain Its Insurgency Alone

Mozambique Can ’ t Contain Its Insurgency Alone On Aug. 11 , militants with links to the Islamic State captured the port of Mocímboa da Praia in Mozambique ’ s Cabo Delgado province .
The extremists have so far managed to hold the port city , signaling that the national government may have lost control over the conflict in its resource-rich north that began with a few attacks in 2017 .
The capture of Mocímboa da Praia , the gateway to a $ 20 billion offshore liquified natural gas project led by the French multinational Total , shows that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , mutating into a force that may be difficult to contain .
Mozambique ’ s security forces are ill equipped to deal with the militants .
Many soldiers sent to Cabo Delgado are inexperienced in combat , poorly trained , and suffer from low morale .
During the initial battle in Mocímboa da Praia , government troops reportedly ran out of ammunition .
Mozambique needs urgent assistance from its neighbors to stop the extremist insurgency in Cabo Delgado .
President Filipe Nyusi has solicited the support of the Southern African Development Community ( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ over which Mozambique assumed chairmanship in August .
But the SADC still appears apathetic regarding the conflict , which has killed an estimated 1,495 people since October 2017 .
Despite increasing concern that the violence could spread to other countries in the region , a virtual SADC summit on Aug. 17—barely a week after the capture of Mocímboa da Praia—concluded with no practical resolution .
The SADC drew up a regional counterterrorism strategy in 2015 , but it has yet to apply it to the growing insurgency in northern Mozambique .
Instead , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ haphazard approach to the conflict on its own .
Given the poor showing of its military , its lack of financial resources , and its ill-defined strategy , The odds appear stacked against Mozambique .
the odds appear stacked against Mozambique .
The absence of coordinated external assistance has given the insurgency the opportunity to take Mocímboa da Praia and perhaps to spread into southern Africa .
The government long denied the existence of extremists in Cabo Delgado , only publicly acknowledging the insurgency in April after the violence spiked .
If it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ could have possibly curtailed the insurgency .
Likewise , after the seizure of Mocímboa da Praia , the government confirmed the attacks but initially denied that the militants controlled the port .
While deploying ineffective military force against the extremist militants , Mozambique ’ s government has used heavy-handed tactics against its citizens , including arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings .
Finally , Mozambique has not addressed the poverty and marginalization of Cabo Delgado province that have in part fueled the insurgency there , preventing a long-term solution to the conflict .
Martin @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies , recently argued that Mozambique needs a better national strategy to counter radicalization , violent extremism , and transnational organized crime .
“ Along with security and justice interventions , combating extremism also requires inclusive approaches to improving governance , democracy , development and education , ” Ewi and Louw-Vaudran wrote .
While Mozambique has now realized that it can not contain Islamist extremism by itself , the SADC seems content to sit on the sidelines as the conflict in Cabo Delgado intensifies .
Mozambican Defense Minister @ @ @ @ @ @ @ had requested surveillance at its borders to prevent more insurgents from entering its territory from neighboring states .
But so far only Tanzania has agreed to help by coordinating efforts to stop border incursions .
( Zimbabwe has refused to offer bilateral support . )
In the face of this regional paralysis , Mozambique relies mostly on private international support to fight the militants—particularly the Wagner Group , the Russian military security contractor , and the Dyck Advisory Group , a South African security company .
If the quick capture of Mocímboa da @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by , the use of mercenaries has proved to be little more than an added expense .
Nonmilitary solutions , such as negotiating with the militants or investing in socioeconomic development in Cabo Delgado , have remained largely unexplored .
In a rare shift , Nyusi said in August that the response to the violence in Cabo Delgado could not be a purely a military one , highlighting government efforts to promote youth employment in northern Mozambique .
Without regional military support , it does not appear that Mozambique can end the conflict @ @ @ @ @ @ @ journalist , argues that the seemingly random nature of the government response has led people to believe that it does not have a clear strategy .
“ Most of the soldiers are hardly combat-ready … many of the soldiers are trained for just six months and then shipped to Cabo Delgado , ” he said .
Without regional military support , it does not appear that Mozambique can end the conflict in Cabo Delgado , at least not in the immediate future .
Between January and June , the country ’ s defense @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , largely on fighting the insurgency .
The lack of remaining resources will compromise any future military response .
Furthermore , the port attack could jeopardize foreign investment in the region .
To protect its $ 20 billion project , Total signed a security agreement with the Mozambican government on Aug. 24 .
Under the agreement , Total will provide logistical support to a newly established joint task force to guarantee the protection of its planned onshore liquified natural gas project .
Meanwhile , the SADC does not appear to have a coordinated @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
But the longer Mozambique struggles on its own , the more likely it becomes that extremism will spread beyond its borders .

On Aug. 11, militants with links to the Islamic State captured the port of Mocímboa da Praia in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province. The extremists have so far managed to hold the port city, signaling that the national government may have lost control over the conflict in its resource-rich north that began with a few attacks in 2017.
On Aug. 11, militants with links to the Islamic State captured the port of Mocímboa da Praia in Mozambique’s Cabo Delgado province. The extremists have so far managed to hold the port city, signaling that the national government may have lost control over the conflict in its resource-rich north that began with a few attacks in 2017.
The capture of Mocímboa da Praia, the gateway to a $20 billion offshore liquified natural gas project led by the French multinational Total, shows that the insurgency is growing in size and sophistication, mutating into a force that may be difficult to contain. Mozambique’s security forces are ill equipped to deal with the militants. Many soldiers sent to Cabo Delgado are inexperienced in combat, poorly trained, and suffer from low morale. During the initial battle in Mocímboa da Praia, government troops reportedly ran out of ammunition.
Mozambique needs urgent assistance from its neighbors to stop the extremist insurgency in Cabo Delgado. President Filipe Nyusi has solicited the support of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), the 16-member regional organization over which Mozambique assumed chairmanship in August. But the SADC still appears apathetic regarding the conflict, which has killed an estimated 1,495 people since October 2017.
Despite increasing concern that the violence could spread to other countries in the region, a virtual SADC summit on Aug. 17—barely a week after the capture of Mocímboa da Praia—concluded with no practical resolution. The SADC drew up a regional counterterrorism strategy in 2015, but it has yet to apply it to the growing insurgency in northern Mozambique.
Instead, Mozambique’s government has taken a haphazard approach to the conflict on its own. Given the poor showing of its military, its lack of financial resources, and its ill-defined strategy, The odds appear stacked against Mozambique. the odds appear stacked against Mozambique. The absence of coordinated external assistance has given the insurgency the opportunity to take Mocímboa da Praia and perhaps to spread into southern Africa.
The government long denied the existence of extremists in Cabo Delgado, only publicly acknowledging the insurgency in April after the violence spiked. If it had sought regional assistance earlier, Mozambique could have possibly curtailed the insurgency. Likewise, after the seizure of Mocímboa da Praia, the government confirmed the attacks but initially denied that the militants controlled the port.
While deploying ineffective military force against the extremist militants, Mozambique’s government has used heavy-handed tactics against its citizens, including arbitrary detention and extrajudicial killings.
Finally, Mozambique has not addressed the poverty and marginalization of Cabo Delgado province that have in part fueled the insurgency there, preventing a long-term solution to the conflict. Martin Ewi and Liesl Louw-Vaudran, with the South Africa-based Institute for Security Studies, recently argued that Mozambique needs a better national strategy to counter radicalization, violent extremism, and transnational organized crime.
“Along with security and justice interventions, combating extremism also requires inclusive approaches to improving governance, democracy, development and education,” Ewi and Louw-Vaudran wrote.
While Mozambique has now realized that it cannot contain Islamist extremism by itself, the SADC seems content to sit on the sidelines as the conflict in Cabo Delgado intensifies. Mozambican Defense Minister Jaime Neto said in August that Mozambique had requested surveillance at its borders to prevent more insurgents from entering its territory from neighboring states. But so far only Tanzania has agreed to help by coordinating efforts to stop border incursions. (Zimbabwe has refused to offer bilateral support.)
In the face of this regional paralysis, Mozambique relies mostly on private international support to fight the militants—particularly the Wagner Group, the Russian military security contractor, and the Dyck Advisory Group, a South African security company. If the quick capture of Mocímboa da Praia by militants is anything to go by, the use of mercenaries has proved to be little more than an added expense.
Nonmilitary solutions, such as negotiating with the militants or investing in socioeconomic development in Cabo Delgado, have remained largely unexplored. In a rare shift, Nyusi said in August that the response to the violence in Cabo Delgado could not be a purely a military one, highlighting government efforts to promote youth employment in northern Mozambique.
Without regional military support, it does not appear that Mozambique can end the conflict in Cabo Delgado.Bayano Valy, a Mozambican journalist, argues that the seemingly random nature of the government response has led people to believe that it does not have a clear strategy. “Most of the soldiers are hardly combat-ready … many of the soldiers are trained for just six months and then shipped to Cabo Delgado,” he said.
Without regional military support, it does not appear that Mozambique can end the conflict in Cabo Delgado, at least not in the immediate future. Between January and June, the country’s defense sector spent 95.5 percent of its budget, largely on fighting the insurgency. The lack of remaining resources will compromise any future military response.
Furthermore, the port attack could jeopardize foreign investment in the region. To protect its $20 billion project, Total signed a security agreement with the Mozambican government on Aug. 24. Under the agreement, Total will provide logistical support to a newly established joint task force to guarantee the protection of its planned onshore liquified natural gas project.
Meanwhile, the SADC does not appear to have a coordinated response to the insurgency in Cabo Delgado. But the longer Mozambique struggles on its own, the more likely it becomes that extremism will spread beyond its borders.