foreignpolicy--2020-02-28--How Hackers and Spies Could Sabotage the Coronavirus Fight

How Hackers and Spies Could Sabotage the Coronavirus Fight The world is racing to contain the new coronavirus that is spreading around the globe with alarming speed .
Right now , pandemic disease experts at the World Health Organization ( WHO ) , the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) , and other public-health agencies are gathering information to learn how and where the virus is spreading .
To do so , they are using a variety of digital communications and surveillance systems .
Like much of the medical infrastructure , these systems are highly vulnerable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ should be deeply concerning .
Governments and intelligence agencies have long had an interest in manipulating health information , both in their own countries and abroad .
They might do so to prevent mass panic , avert damage to their economies , or avoid public discontent ( if officials made grave mistakes in containing an outbreak , for example ) .
Outside their borders , states might use disinformation to undermine their adversaries or disrupt an alliance between other nations .
A sudden epidemic—when countries struggle to manage not just the outbreak but @ @ @ @ @ @ @ especially tempting for interference .
In the case of coronavirus , such interference is already well underway .
That fact should not come as a surprise .
States hostile to the West have a long track record of manipulating information about health issues to sow distrust .
In the 1980s , for example , the Soviet Union spread the false story that the U.S. Department of Defense bioengineered HIV in order to kill African Americans .
This propaganda was effective : Some 20 years after the original Soviet disinformation campaign , a 2005 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Americans believed HIV was concocted in a laboratory , and 15 percent thought it was a tool of genocide aimed at their communities .
More recently , in 2018 , Russia undertook an extensive disinformation campaign to amplify the anti-vaccination movement using social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook .
Researchers have confirmed that Russian trolls and bots tweeted anti-vaccination messages at up to 22 times the rate of average users .
Exposure to these messages , other researchers found , significantly decreased vaccine uptake , endangering individual lives and public health .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ of spreading disinformation about the coronavirus in yet another coordinated campaign .
Beginning around the middle of January , thousands of Twitter , Facebook , and Instagram accounts—many of which had previously been tied to Russia—had been seen posting nearly identical messages in English , German , French , and other languages blaming the United States for the outbreak .
Some of the messages claimed that the virus is part of a U.S. effort to wage economic war on China , others that it is a biological weapon engineered by the CIA .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ hospital ’ s network could , in theory , be used to hack into the CDC ’ s entire coronavirus database .
As much as this disinformation can sow discord and undermine public trust , the far greater vulnerability lies in the United States ’ poorly protected emergency-reponse infrastructure , including the health surveillance systems used to monitor and track the epidemic .
By hacking these systems and corrupting medical data , states with formidable cybercapabilities can change and manipulate data right at the source .
Here is how it would work , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Numerous health surveillance systems are monitoring the spread of coronavirus cases , including the CDC ’ s influenza surveillance network .
Almost all testing is done at a local or regional level , with public-health agencies like the CDC only compiling and analyzing the data .
Only rarely is an actual biological sample sent to a high-level government lab .
Many of the clinics and labs providing results to the CDC no longer file reports as in the past , but have several layers of software to store and transmit the data @ @ @ @ @ @ @ legion : hackers exploiting bugs in the software , unauthorized access to a lab ’ s servers by some other route , or interference with the digital communications between the labs and the CDC .
That the software involved in disease tracking sometimes has access to electronic medical records is particularly concerning , because those records are often integrated into a clinic or hospital ’ s network of digital devices .
One such device connected to a single hospital ’ s network could , in theory , be used to hack into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In practice , hacking deep into a hospital ’ s systems can be shockingly easy .
As part of a cybersecurity study , Israeli researchers at Ben-Gurion University were able to hack into a hospital ’ s network via the public Wi-Fi system .
Once inside , they could move through most of the hospital ’ s databases and diagnostic systems .
Gaining control of the hospital ’ s unencrypted image database , the researchers inserted malware that altered healthy patients ’ CT scans to show nonexistent tumors .
Radiologists reading these images @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 60 percent of the time—and only after being alerted that some of the CTs had been manipulated .
Another study directly relevant to public-health emergencies showed that a critical U.S. biosecurity initiative , the Department of Homeland Security ’ s BioWatch program , had been left vulnerable to cyberattackers for over a decade .
This program monitors more than 30 U.S. jurisdictions and allows health officials to rapidly detect a bioweapons attack .
Hacking this program could cover up an attack , or fool authorities into believing one has occurred .
Hacking this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , or fool authorities into believing one has occurred .
Fortunately , no case of health-care sabotage by intelligence agencies or hackers has come to light ( the closest has been a series of ransomware attacks extorting money from hospitals , causing significant data breaches and interruptions in medical services ) .
But other critical infrastructure has often been a target .
The Russians have repeatedly hacked Ukraine ’ s national power grid , and have been probing U.S. power plants and grid infrastructure as well .
The United States and Israel hacked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has targeted Saudi Arabia ’ s oil infrastructure .
There is no reason to believe that public-health infrastructure is in any way off limits .
Despite these precedents and proven risks , a detailed assessment of the vulnerability of U.S. health surveillance systems to infiltration and manipulation has yet to be made .
With coronavirus on the verge of becoming a pandemic , the United States is at risk of not having trustworthy data , which in turn could cripple our country ’ s ability to respond .
Under normal conditions , there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to notice unusual patterns in the data and track down wrong information—if necessary , using the old-fashioned method of giving the lab a call .
But during an epidemic , when there are tens of thousands of cases to track and analyze , it would be easy for exhausted disease experts and public-health officials to be misled by corrupted data .
The resulting confusion could lead to misdirected resources , give false reassurance that case numbers are falling , or waste precious time as decision makers try to validate inconsistent data .
In @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , U.S. and international public-health leaders must lose no time assessing and strengthening the security of the country ’ s digital health systems .
They also have an important role to play in the broader debate over cybersecurity .
Making America ’ s health infrastructure safe requires a fundamental reorientation of cybersecurity away from offense and toward defense .
The position of many governments , including the United States ’ , that Internet infrastructure must be kept vulnerable so they can better spy on others is no longer tenable .
A digital arms @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ever more sophisticated cyberattack capabilities , only increases U.S. vulnerability in critical areas such as pandemic control .
By highlighting the importance of protecting digital health infrastructure , public-health leaders can and should call for a well-defended and peaceful Internet as a foundation for a healthy and secure world .

The world is racing to contain the new coronavirus that is spreading around the globe with alarming speed. Right now, pandemic disease experts at the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other public-health agencies are gathering information to learn how and where the virus is spreading. To do so, they are using a variety of digital communications and surveillance systems. Like much of the medical infrastructure, these systems are highly vulnerable to hacking and interference.
The world is racing to contain the new coronavirus that is spreading around the globe with alarming speed. Right now, pandemic disease experts at the World Health Organization (WHO), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and other public-health agencies are gathering information to learn how and where the virus is spreading. To do so, they are using a variety of digital communications and surveillance systems. Like much of the medical infrastructure, these systems are highly vulnerable to hacking and interference.
That vulnerability should be deeply concerning. Governments and intelligence agencies have long had an interest in manipulating health information, both in their own countries and abroad. They might do so to prevent mass panic, avert damage to their economies, or avoid public discontent (if officials made grave mistakes in containing an outbreak, for example). Outside their borders, states might use disinformation to undermine their adversaries or disrupt an alliance between other nations. A sudden epidemic—when countries struggle to manage not just the outbreak but its social, economic and political fallout—is especially tempting for interference.
In the case of coronavirus, such interference is already well underway. That fact should not come as a surprise. States hostile to the West have a long track record of manipulating information about health issues to sow distrust. In the 1980s, for example, the Soviet Union spread the false story that the U.S. Department of Defense bioengineered HIV in order to kill African Americans. This propaganda was effective: Some 20 years after the original Soviet disinformation campaign, a 2005 survey found that 48 percent of African Americans believed HIV was concocted in a laboratory, and 15 percent thought it was a tool of genocide aimed at their communities.
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More recently, in 2018, Russia undertook an extensive disinformation campaign to amplify the anti-vaccination movement using social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. Researchers have confirmed that Russian trolls and bots tweeted anti-vaccination messages at up to 22 times the rate of average users. Exposure to these messages, other researchers found, significantly decreased vaccine uptake, endangering individual lives and public health.
Last week, U.S. officials accused Russia of spreading disinformation about the coronavirus in yet another coordinated campaign. Beginning around the middle of January, thousands of Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts—many of which had previously been tied to Russia—had been seen posting nearly identical messages in English, German, French, and other languages blaming the United States for the outbreak. Some of the messages claimed that the virus is part of a U.S. effort to wage economic war on China, others that it is a biological weapon engineered by the CIA.
One such device connected to a single hospital’s network could, in theory, be used to hack into the CDC’s entire coronavirus database.
As much as this disinformation can sow discord and undermine public trust, the far greater vulnerability lies in the United States’ poorly protected emergency-reponse infrastructure, including the health surveillance systems used to monitor and track the epidemic. By hacking these systems and corrupting medical data, states with formidable cybercapabilities can change and manipulate data right at the source.
Here is how it would work, and why we should be so concerned. Numerous health surveillance systems are monitoring the spread of coronavirus cases, including the CDC’s influenza surveillance network. Almost all testing is done at a local or regional level, with public-health agencies like the CDC only compiling and analyzing the data. Only rarely is an actual biological sample sent to a high-level government lab. Many of the clinics and labs providing results to the CDC no longer file reports as in the past, but have several layers of software to store and transmit the data.
Potential vulnerabilities in these systems are legion: hackers exploiting bugs in the software, unauthorized access to a lab’s servers by some other route, or interference with the digital communications between the labs and the CDC. That the software involved in disease tracking sometimes has access to electronic medical records is particularly concerning, because those records are often integrated into a clinic or hospital’s network of digital devices. One such device connected to a single hospital’s network could, in theory, be used to hack into the CDC’s entire coronavirus database.
In practice, hacking deep into a hospital’s systems can be shockingly easy. As part of a cybersecurity study, Israeli researchers at Ben-Gurion University were able to hack into a hospital’s network via the public Wi-Fi system. Once inside, they could move through most of the hospital’s databases and diagnostic systems. Gaining control of the hospital’s unencrypted image database, the researchers inserted malware that altered healthy patients’ CT scans to show nonexistent tumors. Radiologists reading these images could only distinguish real from altered CTs 60 percent of the time—and only after being alerted that some of the CTs had been manipulated.
Another study directly relevant to public-health emergencies showed that a critical U.S. biosecurity initiative, the Department of Homeland Security’s BioWatch program, had been left vulnerable to cyberattackers for over a decade. This program monitors more than 30 U.S. jurisdictions and allows health officials to rapidly detect a bioweapons attack. Hacking this program could cover up an attack, or fool authorities into believing one has occurred.
Hacking this program could cover up a bioweapons attack, or fool authorities into believing one has occurred.
Fortunately, no case of health-care sabotage by intelligence agencies or hackers has come to light (the closest has been a series of ransomware attacks extorting money from hospitals, causing significant data breaches and interruptions in medical services). But other critical infrastructure has often been a target. The Russians have repeatedly hacked Ukraine’s national power grid, and have been probing U.S. power plants and grid infrastructure as well. The United States and Israel hacked the Iranian nuclear program, while Iran has targeted Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure. There is no reason to believe that public-health infrastructure is in any way off limits.
Despite these precedents and proven risks, a detailed assessment of the vulnerability of U.S. health surveillance systems to infiltration and manipulation has yet to be made. With coronavirus on the verge of becoming a pandemic, the United States is at risk of not having trustworthy data, which in turn could cripple our country’s ability to respond.
Under normal conditions, there is plenty of time for health officials to notice unusual patterns in the data and track down wrong information—if necessary, using the old-fashioned method of giving the lab a call. But during an epidemic, when there are tens of thousands of cases to track and analyze, it would be easy for exhausted disease experts and public-health officials to be misled by corrupted data. The resulting confusion could lead to misdirected resources, give false reassurance that case numbers are falling, or waste precious time as decision makers try to validate inconsistent data.
In the face of a possible global pandemic, U.S. and international public-health leaders must lose no time assessing and strengthening the security of the country’s digital health systems. They also have an important role to play in the broader debate over cybersecurity. Making America’s health infrastructure safe requires a fundamental reorientation of cybersecurity away from offense and toward defense. The position of many governments, including the United States’, that Internet infrastructure must be kept vulnerable so they can better spy on others is no longer tenable. A digital arms race, in which more countries acquire ever more sophisticated cyberattack capabilities, only increases U.S. vulnerability in critical areas such as pandemic control. By highlighting the importance of protecting digital health infrastructure, public-health leaders can and should call for a well-defended and peaceful Internet as a foundation for a healthy and secure world.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-28--India’s Illiberal Turn Won’t Shake Its Relationship With the United States

India ’ s Illiberal Turn Won ’ t Shake Its Relationship With the United States Donald Trump ’ s two-day visit to India has come and gone .
As expected , it was a grand spectacle .
The optics of the U.S. president and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking before tens of thousands of cheering supporters in a cavernous cricket stadium won ’ t soon be forgotten .
Yet also as expected , the trip produced no major announcements ; last-ditch efforts to finalize a trade deal before Trump ’ s arrival were unsuccessful .
In fact , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the deadly religious violence that convulsed areas of New Delhi barely 10 miles from where Trump and Modi were meeting .
It was the worst communal strife the capital has seen in years .
Critics argue that the United States should not hedge its strategic bets with an increasingly authoritarian and chauvinistic Indian government , especially given that the Modi administration is aggressively carrying out Hindu-nationalist policies that discriminate against the country ’ s large Muslim minority .
This policy is playing out in an increasingly intolerant and violent political and social environment @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on stark display during Trump ’ s brief time in New Delhi , when the capital was shaken by riots for several days .
Armed Hindu mobs roamed the streets with impunity and attacked Muslims while the police—who in New Delhi report to the national government—often stood by doing nothing .
Muslim mobs staged attacks as well , and both Hindus and Muslims died .
There were also reports of mobs asking people to prove their religion .
By Feb. 27 , the death toll from the unrest was at nearly 40 people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ politician from Modi ’ s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP ) warned of consequences if police didn ’ t clear the streets of peaceful protesters , many of them Muslims opposed to the government ’ s new citizenship law , within three days .
During the height of the riots , video emerged of another local BJP politician marching through the streets flanked by supporters who were chanting Hindu nationalist slogans , using a profanity to refer to people who had attacked police , and calling for them to be shot .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ on Feb. 26 , several days after the riots began , calling for peace and unity , Modi ’ s response to the unrest—as has so often been the case following communal and political violence in recent months—was radio silence .
However , don ’ t expect this recent unrest , and New Delhi ’ s turn away from the secular and pluralistic traditions that have long undergirded Indian democracy , to have an impact on U.S. thinking on the relationship .
The U.S. government doesn ’ t use democratic principles or respect @ @ @ @ @ @ @ strategic partners ( think Israel and Saudi Arabia today , or the anti-communist dictatorships of previous years ) .
More broadly , rights and democracy concerns don ’ t drive contemporary U.S. thinking on foreign policy , especially under the Trump administration .
U.S. officials may give lip service to the importance of shared democratic values in U.S.-India relations , but at the end of the day , it ’ s the cold , hard shared strategic interests that count the most .
Unsurprisingly , while U.S. officials do express concerns privately about @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , they express no desire to rethink the relationship ( on Feb. 27 , the U.S. State Department issued a mildly worded reaction to the riots , calling on “ all parties to maintain peace , refrain from violence , and respect the right of freedom of assembly.
” ) .
In fact , Trump ’ s two days in India underscore just how robust the partnership is today .
Consider , first of all , that a notoriously transactional president averse to long-distance travel flew more than 7,000 miles for a state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ major deal .
Yes , Modi won Trump over with promises of pomp and pageantry .
But that ’ s not a tactic that the savvy Indian premier uses with just any world leader .
Modi is selective in his deployment of spectacular events .
He uses them to bolster his ties with leaders of countries that hold strategic significance for India .
Think of his splashy summits with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin , or the red carpet treatment he extends to his annual Republic Day chief guests—which @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of Brazil , South Africa , France , and the United States .
The U.S.-India relationship , messy during the Cold War when Washington was allied with India ’ s rival Pakistan and New Delhi was nonaligned , began strengthening in the early 1990s as India embraced economic liberalization .
But the relationship has really taken off since the early 2000s .
Shared strategic concerns about China ’ s rise and Pakistan-based terrorism have generated bipartisan support for deep partnership in both capitals .
Not surprisingly , in his public messaging during his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at Beijing and amplified the shared U.S.-India goal of combating terrorism .
In the Trump era , sustained high-level dialogues—from working groups on security and non-security themes to the so-called 2+2 dialogue between each country ’ s top defense and diplomatic official—have fostered additional trust and goodwill , and paved the way for a slew of bilateral achievements .
These accomplishments , comprehensively chronicled in a recent commentary by India analyst Jeff M. Smith , include military agreements that facilitate better communication ; expanded military exercises ; surges in U.S. oil exports to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and programs that entail cooperation on disaster relief , the training of international peacekeepers , and intelligence sharing on maritime traffic .
Add to that list the deliverables from Trump ’ s visit .
These include a naval helicopter deal and new U.S. financing for Indian clean energy projects .
There were also pledges to step up cooperation in areas ranging from counternarcotics and cybersecurity to ( important given coronavirus fears ) disease outbreaks .
A joint statement outlined a wide range of topics ripe for collaboration—attesting to the depth and multifaceted nature @ @ @ @ @ @ @ an impressive balance sheet for a relationship that has actually confronted ample challenges over the Trump era .
Indeed , to get a sense of the soundness of the U.S.-India relationship , it ’ s useful to take stock of all that ’ s gone wrong bilaterally in recent years—and how little it ’ s hurt the partnership overall .
First , there is the laundry list of Trump-patented tension points : his description of India as a “ tariff king , ” his gripe that India has done “ absolutely nothing ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that India doesn ’ t offer enough assistance in Afghanistan , his mocking of Modi ’ s accent , and his long silence after the fatal shootings of several Indian Americans .
There have also been problematic policies .
The Trump administration has threatened to dismantle a visa program that has disproportionately benefited Indian nationals .
It has also improved relations with Pakistan substantially .
Meanwhile , New Delhi has purchased a missile defense system from Russia , a move that could hypothetically trigger U.S. sanctions , and gave a nod to China @ @ @ @ @ @ @ network trials .
New Delhi also stopped importing oil from Iran—a considerable sacrifice for energy-starved India , given that Tehran was once a top supplier—because of U.S. sanctions .
And India ’ s actions in Kashmir have arguably provoked the loudest condemnations of Indian policy on Capitol Hill since 1998 , when New Delhi staged nuclear weapons tests .
And then there are the commercial tensions , which are not new , but have been particularly serious of late .
Last year , Washington ended India ’ s preferential trade privileges and threatened @ @ @ @ @ @ @ In January , Washington inked a trade deal with China , its top strategic rival , but has struggled for months to pull the trigger on a more modest accord with a key strategic partner .
In effect , the U.S.-India relationship has suffered through crude insults , harsh criticism , threats of punishment , dalliances with each other ’ s rivals , and failed negotiations .
And yet it hasn ’ t only survived , it has thrived—as evidenced by the recent love fest on display between Trump and Modi .
Outside @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , though , there have also been practical ones .
One of the most frequent criticisms is that New Delhi , on a purely transactional level , hasn ’ t given much to Washington .
This is a comment often made by Pakistani interlocutors , who note that Islamabad by contrast has helped the United States fight communists in Afghanistan ; given Washington use of its military bases to launch drone strikes ; allowed NATO forces in Afghanistan to use Pakistani soil as supply routes ; and most recently facilitated talks between the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ critique misses the point—and overlooks the intelligence New Delhi shares with Washington and the Indian logistical support , including refueling for naval vessels , provided to the U.S. military .
U.S. policy goals with Islamabad—at least for now—tend to be short-term and tactical , while those with India are more strategic and positioned for the long game .
Washington views New Delhi as its best strategic bet in South Asia , and aims to enlist India as a partner in efforts to counterbalance China ’ s power and presence in Asia .
This @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s size , location , strong military , and its own strategic rivalry with Beijing loom large in this calculus .
Additionally , India , like the United States , has a policy of stepped-up engagement with East Asia ( New Delhi has an Act East policy , Washington has an Indo-Pacific strategy ) , and the two capitals share the same vision of a free , open , and rules-based region .
The Trump administration has also indicated that its geographic conception of the Indo-Pacific—a senior U.S. official described it last @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kilimanjaro ” —is evolving so that it is in lockstep with India ’ s .
This isn ’ t to say the U.S-India relationship is invulnerable .
If the Modi government ’ s social agenda leads to sustained unrest and becomes too much of a distraction for New Delhi to focus on pursuing its shared strategic goals with Washington , then there could be problematic implications for bilateral relations .
Additionally , should a Democrat win the presidency later this year , expect more pushback and pressure on India about its human-rights record @ @ @ @ @ @ @ t torpedo the relationship , but it would create new strain and cause cracks to form in the relationship ’ s bipartisan armor .
Finally , Washington and New Delhi see eye to eye on the China threat , but they differ on how to tackle it .
India is still hesitant to provide the level of operational assistance ( including joint patrols ) that the United States expects from its strategic partners .
New Delhi ’ s complex relations with Beijing—they are bitter strategic rivals but close economic partners—may limit how much @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Washington to push back against Chinese power .
If these apparent disconnects tied to such a critical shared interest aren ’ t addressed , there could be problems down the road .
Still , for now , all is quite well on the U.S.-India front .
Despite many bumps , it is one of the few key U.S. bilateral relationships that has not suffered in a big way during the Trump era , a very turbulent one for U.S. foreign policy .
It ’ s not as foolproof as the soaring rhetoric during @ @ @ @ @ @ @ but it ’ s in a relatively stable place—a welcome relief for its backers , and an ugly truth for its detractors .

Donald Trump’s two-day visit to India has come and gone. As expected, it was a grand spectacle. The optics of the U.S. president and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking before tens of thousands of cheering supporters in a cavernous cricket stadium won’t soon be forgotten. Yet also as expected, the trip produced no major announcements; last-ditch efforts to finalize a trade deal before Trump’s arrival were unsuccessful.
Donald Trump’s two-day visit to India has come and gone. As expected, it was a grand spectacle. The optics of the U.S. president and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaking before tens of thousands of cheering supporters in a cavernous cricket stadium won’t soon be forgotten. Yet also as expected, the trip produced no major announcements; last-ditch efforts to finalize a trade deal before Trump’s arrival were unsuccessful.
In fact, the biggest headline generated during the trip was the deadly religious violence that convulsed areas of New Delhi barely 10 miles from where Trump and Modi were meeting. It was the worst communal strife the capital has seen in years.
Critics argue that the United States should not hedge its strategic bets with an increasingly authoritarian and chauvinistic Indian government, especially given that the Modi administration is aggressively carrying out Hindu-nationalist policies that discriminate against the country’s large Muslim minority. This policy is playing out in an increasingly intolerant and violent political and social environment.
This volatile state of affairs was on stark display during Trump’s brief time in New Delhi, when the capital was shaken by riots for several days. Armed Hindu mobs roamed the streets with impunity and attacked Muslims while the police—who in New Delhi report to the national government—often stood by doing nothing. Muslim mobs staged attacks as well, and both Hindus and Muslims died. There were also reports of mobs asking people to prove their religion. By Feb. 27, the death toll from the unrest was at nearly 40 people.
The unrest began soon after a politician from Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) warned of consequences if police didn’t clear the streets of peaceful protesters, many of them Muslims opposed to the government’s new citizenship law, within three days. During the height of the riots, video emerged of another local BJP politician marching through the streets flanked by supporters who were chanting Hindu nationalist slogans, using a profanity to refer to people who had attacked police, and calling for them to be shot. Until issuing a brief statement on Twitter on Feb. 26, several days after the riots began, calling for peace and unity, Modi’s response to the unrest—as has so often been the case following communal and political violence in recent months—was radio silence.
However, don’t expect this recent unrest, and New Delhi’s turn away from the secular and pluralistic traditions that have long undergirded Indian democracy, to have an impact on U.S. thinking on the relationship. The U.S. government doesn’t use democratic principles or respect for human rights as criteria for its strategic partners (think Israel and Saudi Arabia today, or the anti-communist dictatorships of previous years). More broadly, rights and democracy concerns don’t drive contemporary U.S. thinking on foreign policy, especially under the Trump administration.
U.S. officials may give lip service to the importance of shared democratic values in U.S.-India relations, but at the end of the day, it’s the cold, hard shared strategic interests that count the most. Unsurprisingly, while U.S. officials do express concerns privately about what is playing out domestically in India, they express no desire to rethink the relationship (on Feb. 27, the U.S. State Department issued a mildly worded reaction to the riots, calling on “all parties to maintain peace, refrain from violence, and respect the right of freedom of assembly.”).
In fact, Trump’s two days in India underscore just how robust the partnership is today.
Consider, first of all, that a notoriously transactional president averse to long-distance travel flew more than 7,000 miles for a state visit that didn’t include a major deal. Yes, Modi won Trump over with promises of pomp and pageantry. But that’s not a tactic that the savvy Indian premier uses with just any world leader. Modi is selective in his deployment of spectacular events. He uses them to bolster his ties with leaders of countries that hold strategic significance for India. Think of his splashy summits with Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin, or the red carpet treatment he extends to his annual Republic Day chief guests—which in recent years have included the presidents of Brazil, South Africa, France, and the United States.
The U.S.-India relationship, messy during the Cold War when Washington was allied with India’s rival Pakistan and New Delhi was nonaligned, began strengthening in the early 1990s as India embraced economic liberalization. But the relationship has really taken off since the early 2000s. Shared strategic concerns about China’s rise and Pakistan-based terrorism have generated bipartisan support for deep partnership in both capitals. Not surprisingly, in his public messaging during his trip, Trump took some subtle swipes at Beijing and amplified the shared U.S.-India goal of combating terrorism.
In the Trump era, sustained high-level dialogues—from working groups on security and non-security themes to the so-called 2+2 dialogue between each country’s top defense and diplomatic official—have fostered additional trust and goodwill, and paved the way for a slew of bilateral achievements. These accomplishments, comprehensively chronicled in a recent commentary by India analyst Jeff M. Smith, include military agreements that facilitate better communication; expanded military exercises; surges in U.S. oil exports to India; a parliamentary exchange program; and programs that entail cooperation on disaster relief, the training of international peacekeepers, and intelligence sharing on maritime traffic.
Add to that list the deliverables from Trump’s visit. These include a naval helicopter deal and new U.S. financing for Indian clean energy projects. There were also pledges to step up cooperation in areas ranging from counternarcotics and cybersecurity to (important given coronavirus fears) disease outbreaks. A joint statement outlined a wide range of topics ripe for collaboration—attesting to the depth and multifaceted nature of U.S.-India relations.
This all constitutes an impressive balance sheet for a relationship that has actually confronted ample challenges over the Trump era. Indeed, to get a sense of the soundness of the U.S.-India relationship, it’s useful to take stock of all that’s gone wrong bilaterally in recent years—and how little it’s hurt the partnership overall.
First, there is the laundry list of Trump-patented tension points: his description of India as a “tariff king,” his gripe that India has done “absolutely nothing” to mitigate climate change, his complaint that India doesn’t offer enough assistance in Afghanistan, his mocking of Modi’s accent, and his long silence after the fatal shootings of several Indian Americans.
There have also been problematic policies. The Trump administration has threatened to dismantle a visa program that has disproportionately benefited Indian nationals. It has also improved relations with Pakistan substantially. Meanwhile, New Delhi has purchased a missile defense system from Russia, a move that could hypothetically trigger U.S. sanctions, and gave a nod to China’s Huawei to participate in 5G network trials. New Delhi also stopped importing oil from Iran—a considerable sacrifice for energy-starved India, given that Tehran was once a top supplier—because of U.S. sanctions. And India’s actions in Kashmir have arguably provoked the loudest condemnations of Indian policy on Capitol Hill since 1998, when New Delhi staged nuclear weapons tests.
And then there are the commercial tensions, which are not new, but have been particularly serious of late. Last year, Washington ended India’s preferential trade privileges and threatened an investigation of its trade practices. In January, Washington inked a trade deal with China, its top strategic rival, but has struggled for months to pull the trigger on a more modest accord with a key strategic partner.
In effect, the U.S.-India relationship has suffered through crude insults, harsh criticism, threats of punishment, dalliances with each other’s rivals, and failed negotiations. And yet it hasn’t only survived, it has thrived—as evidenced by the recent love fest on display between Trump and Modi.
Outside of the moral concerns about U.S.-India relations, though, there have also been practical ones. One of the most frequent criticisms is that New Delhi, on a purely transactional level, hasn’t given much to Washington. This is a comment often made by Pakistani interlocutors, who note that Islamabad by contrast has helped the United States fight communists in Afghanistan; given Washington use of its military bases to launch drone strikes; allowed NATO forces in Afghanistan to use Pakistani soil as supply routes; and most recently facilitated talks between the United States and the Taliban.
This critique misses the point—and overlooks the intelligence New Delhi shares with Washington and the Indian logistical support, including refueling for naval vessels, provided to the U.S. military. U.S. policy goals with Islamabad—at least for now—tend to be short-term and tactical, while those with India are more strategic and positioned for the long game. Washington views New Delhi as its best strategic bet in South Asia, and aims to enlist India as a partner in efforts to counterbalance China’s power and presence in Asia.
This makes sense for many reasons. India’s size, location, strong military, and its own strategic rivalry with Beijing loom large in this calculus. Additionally, India, like the United States, has a policy of stepped-up engagement with East Asia (New Delhi has an Act East policy, Washington has an Indo-Pacific strategy), and the two capitals share the same vision of a free, open, and rules-based region. The Trump administration has also indicated that its geographic conception of the Indo-Pacific—a senior U.S. official described it last month as stretching from “California to Kilimanjaro”—is evolving so that it is in lockstep with India’s.
This isn’t to say the U.S-India relationship is invulnerable. If the Modi government’s social agenda leads to sustained unrest and becomes too much of a distraction for New Delhi to focus on pursuing its shared strategic goals with Washington, then there could be problematic implications for bilateral relations.
Additionally, should a Democrat win the presidency later this year, expect more pushback and pressure on India about its human-rights record and domestic policies. This wouldn’t torpedo the relationship, but it would create new strain and cause cracks to form in the relationship’s bipartisan armor.
Finally, Washington and New Delhi see eye to eye on the China threat, but they differ on how to tackle it. India is still hesitant to provide the level of operational assistance (including joint patrols) that the United States expects from its strategic partners. New Delhi’s complex relations with Beijing—they are bitter strategic rivals but close economic partners—may limit how much it’s willing to work with Washington to push back against Chinese power. If these apparent disconnects tied to such a critical shared interest aren’t addressed, there could be problems down the road.
Still, for now, all is quite well on the U.S.-India front. Despite many bumps, it is one of the few key U.S. bilateral relationships that has not suffered in a big way during the Trump era, a very turbulent one for U.S. foreign policy. It’s not as foolproof as the soaring rhetoric during Trump’s visit would suggest, but it’s in a relatively stable place—a welcome relief for its backers, and an ugly truth for its detractors.


foreignpolicy--2020-03-01--The End of Eastern Europe’s Great Liberal Hope

A little less than a year ago , the environmental lawyer and feminist Zuzana Čaputová of the newly formed Progressive Slovakia party burst out of obscurity to capture the Slovakian presidency in a thumping victory .
Many observers , in Slovakia and abroad , hoped that Čaputová—the country ’ s first female president and the youngest-ever too at 45 years of age—together with her upstart party , were harbingers of a new political future for Central Europe .
Slovakia had previously been no exception to the region ’ s corrupt status quo .
The country hasn ’ t gone the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ outright right-wing populism by indulging in ethnic chauvinism or assaults on judicial independence .
But its governing party SMER , in power now for the better part of a decade and a half , has long practiced a version of strong-arm , crony-capitalist rule , while cynically joining in the disparaging of migrants and Roma .
But while Čaputová ’ s popularity has endured since the 2019 election , her Progressive Slovakia party has struggled .
As one of over two dozen contesting the parliamentary election on Saturday , Progressive Slovakia failed even @ @ @ @ @ @ @ tickets carrying more than one party .
( For the vote , Progressive Slovakia had teamed up with a like-minded Party , Spolu . )
Slovakia ’ s opposition parties , many of them steeped in the anti-corruption drive , routed the establishment parties .
The surprise victor was Ordinary People party ( Olano ) , an unpredictable center-right party with a rabble-rouser of a leader , the publishing mogul Igor Matovic , which took nearly 25 % of the vote .
SMER , hurt badly by the corruption and clientelism rampant in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , taking only about 18 percent of the vote .
The election scenario that had most worried liberals , namely that Slovakia would produce a government on the same page with Hungary ’ s Viktor Orban and Poland ’ s Peace and Justice government , is now highly unlikely .
The far-right People ’ s Party Our Slovakia ( LSNS ) scored much more poorly than feared , with just 8 percent of the vote .
The SMER era is thus finally over – a relief indeed for many Slovaks .
But this @ @ @ @ @ @ @ usher in a new era of green-tinged civic democracy .
Čaputová will have to deal with an ungainly government coalition likely led by the enigmatic Matovic and his Olano party , which calls upon a quirky conservative populism of its own stripe .
All of this , though , raises the question : what exactly stalled Čaputová ’ s progressive movement ’ s momentum ?
Progressive Slovakia ’ s fall can not be laid at Čaputová ’ s feet .
Slovakia ’ s presidency is largely a ceremonial post , but Čaputová has @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bratislava ’ s presidential palace she has touted a “ positive patriotism ” that prizes government transparency , the protection of Slovakia ’ s natural landscape , liberal values , and diversity .
Čaputová has promoted evidence-based discussion about Slovakia ’ s most pressing issues – corruption , poverty , and weak institutions , among others – as an antidote to the fear-mongering and conspiracy theorizing of the region ’ s demagogues .
And she went head-to-head with SMER boss Robert Fico over a biased election law , which the constitutional court eventually @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Čaputová ’ s election triumph seemed to confirm the ascendance of Slovakian liberals that had started the previous year , when street protests put the mafia murder of investigative journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancée on the national agenda .
The 27-year-old Kuciak had been writing about graft in Slovakia and ties between the country ’ s shadowy business moguls and the SMER elite , as well as to Italian organized crime .
On the evening of 1 February 2018 , a hitman allegedly hired by oligarch Marián Kočner , who Kuciak @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s home and shot the couple point blank .
The killings sparked sustained demonstrations of tens of thousands across the country , aimed not just at receiving justice for the murders but also the rampant corruption of Slovakia ’ s political class .
Tapes and files in Kočner ’ s possession , presumably material he stockpiled to blackmail politicos and judges , became public , further inciting protest and stirring public rancor .
The demonstrations prompted a wave of resignations across the state , including that of the SMER prime minister Fico ; @ @ @ @ @ @ @ figures in the police and judiciary .
The gunman , a former soldier , has been tried and sentenced for the assassinations , while Kočner is behind bars awaiting trial on charges of fraud and conspiracy to murder .
The protests fuelled the rise of Progressive Slovakia , founded in 2018 by the NGOs and civic activists at the front of the anti-corruption movement .
And less than a year later its candidate Matúš Vallo , an architect and urban campaigner , won the mayorship of Bratislava .
Čaputová went on to mount @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and fixing health care .
And in May 2019 , Progressive Slovakia ran away with the European Parliament elections , besting even SMER .
“ I was very optimistic , ” says political scientist Aneta Vilagi of the Comenius University in Bratislava .
“ This was the first time in Slovakia that the total of the democratic parties outweighed that of the nationalists .
The majority reflected pro-EU values.
” But the consensus did not hold .
Progressive Slovakia ’ s numbers began to dwindle after the EU vote , not least because @ @ @ @ @ @ @ protests , some of which claimed middle ground that made Progressive Slovakia seem further left by comparison .
“ Čaputová rode a wave of energy from the street protests into office , ” says Zuzana Kepplová , columnist at the Slovak newspaper , SME .
“ But she didn ’ t win because she was so liberal or because voters agreed with her all of her positions.
” Kepplová says Čaputová ’ s equanimity , communication skills , and positive demeanor were crucial to her victory .
“ Progressive Slovakia has suffered a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ other democratic parties have bashed them for ’ extreme liberalism ’ , ” Kepplova told Foreign Policy .
Olano , among others , took aim at Progressive Slovakia ’ s pro-EU position on migration , namely its advocacy for a quota system to relocate asylum seekers among member states .
( Čaputová wisely chose to avoid embracing this position in her own presidential campaign . )
Even though the country granted political asylum to only five refugees in 2018 , the topic of migration remains a third rail of Slovakian politics .
On @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Slovakia ’ s current leader , Michal Truban , an anti-corruption activist and digital democracy advocate , isn ’ t nearly as charismatic as Caputova .
Čaputová , for her part , succeeded in keeping the wild campaign on the tracks , even if her own party failed to build on its own momentum .
Her calm voice of reason will be more critical than ever as the coalition building for the new government is certain to test Slovakia ’ s democratic credentials in new ways .

A little less than a year ago, the environmental lawyer and feminist Zuzana Caputova of the Progressive Slovakia party burst out of obscurity to capture the Slovak presidency in a thumping victory. Many observers, in Slovakia and abroad, hoped that Caputova—the country’s first female president and the youngest-ever too at 45—together with her upstart party, were harbingers of a new political future for Central Europe.
A little less than a year ago, the environmental lawyer and feminist Zuzana Caputova of the Progressive Slovakia party burst out of obscurity to capture the Slovak presidency in a thumping victory. Many observers, in Slovakia and abroad, hoped that Caputova—the country’s first female president and the youngest-ever too at 45—together with her upstart party, were harbingers of a new political future for Central Europe.
Slovakia had previously been no exception to the region’s corrupt status quo. The country hasn’t gone the path of Hungary or Poland in embracing outright right-wing populism by indulging in ethnic chauvinism or assaults on judicial independence. But its governing Smer party, in power now for the better part of a decade and a half, has long practiced a version of strong-arm, crony-capitalist rule while cynically joining in the disparaging of migrants and Roma.
But while Caputova’s popularity has endured since the 2019 election, her Progressive Slovakia party has struggled. As one of over two dozen parties contesting the parliamentary election on Saturday, Progressive Slovakia failed even to breach the 7 percent hurdle for tickets carrying more than one party. (For the vote, Progressive Slovakia had teamed up with a like-minded party, Spolu.)
Slovakia’s opposition parties, many of them steeped in the anti-corruption drive, routed the establishment parties. The surprise victor was Ordinary People and Independent Personalities party (Olano), an unpredictable center-right party with a rabble-rouser of a leader, the publishing mogul Igor Matovic, which took nearly 25 percent of the vote. Smer, hurt badly by the corruption and clientelism rampant in its ranks, suffered a resounding defeat, taking only about 18 percent of the vote. The election scenario that had most worried liberals, namely that Slovakia would produce a government on the same page with Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Poland’s Law and Justice government, is now highly unlikely. The far-right People’s Party Our Slovakia scored much more poorly than feared, with just 8 percent of the vote.
The Smer era is thus finally over—a relief indeed for many Slovaks. But this storming of the Bastille won’t usher in a new era of green-tinged civic democracy. Caputova will have to deal with an ungainly government coalition likely led by the enigmatic Matovic and his Olano party, which calls on a quirky conservative populism of its own stripe.
All of this, though, raises the question: What exactly stalled the momentum of Caputova’s progressive movement?
Progressive Slovakia’s fall cannot be laid at Caputova’s feet. Slovakia’s presidency is largely a ceremonial post, but Caputova has made the most of it. From Bratislava’s presidential palace, she has touted a “positive patriotism” that prizes government transparency, the protection of Slovakia’s natural landscape, liberal values, and diversity. Caputova has promoted evidence-based discussion about Slovakia’s most pressing issues—corruption, poverty, and weak institutions, among others—as an antidote to the fearmongering and conspiracy theorizing of the region’s demagogues. And she went head-to-head with Smer boss Robert Fico over a biased election law, which the constitutional court eventually struck down—a victory for Caputova.
Caputova’s election triumph seemed to confirm the ascendance of Slovak liberals that had started the previous year, when street protests put the mafia murder of the investigative journalist Jan Kuciak and his fiancée on the national agenda. The 27-year-old Kuciak had been writing about graft in Slovakia and ties between the country’s shadowy business moguls and the Smer elite, as well as to Italian organized crime. On the evening of Feb. 21, 2018, a hitman allegedly hired by the oligarch Marian Kocner, whom Kuciak had been investigating, entered Kuciak’s home and shot the couple point blank.
The killings sparked sustained demonstrations of tens of thousands of people across the country, aimed not just at receiving justice for the murders but also the rampant corruption of Slovakia’s political class. Tapes and files in Kocner’s possession, presumably material he stockpiled to blackmail politicos and judges, became public, further inciting protest and stirring public rancor. The demonstrations prompted a wave of resignations across the state, including that of the Smer prime minister, Fico; his entire cabinet; and many high-ranking figures in the police and judiciary. The gunman, a former soldier, has been tried and sentenced for the assassinations, while Kocner is behind bars awaiting trial on charges of fraud and conspiracy to murder.
The protests fueled the rise of Progressive Slovakia, founded in 2018 by the NGOs and civic activists at the front of the anti-corruption movement. And a year later, its candidate, Matus Vallo, an architect and urban campaigner, won the mayorship of Bratislava. Caputova went on to mount a grassroots campaign focused on fighting corruption and fixing health care.
And in May 2019, Progressive Slovakia ran away with the European Parliament elections, besting even Smer. “I was very optimistic,” said Aneta Vilagi, a political scientist at Comenius University in Bratislava. “This was the first time in Slovakia that the total of the democratic parties outweighed that of the nationalists. The majority reflected pro-EU values.”
But the consensus did not hold. Progressive Slovakia’s numbers began to dwindle after the EU vote, not least because yet more new parties emerged from the protests, some of which claimed middle ground that made Progressive Slovakia seem further left by comparison. “Caputova rode a wave of energy from the street protests into office,” said Zuzana Kepplova, a columnist at the Slovak newspaper SME. “But she didn’t win because she was so liberal or because voters agreed with all of her positions.” Kepplova said Caputova’s equanimity, communication skills, and positive demeanor were crucial to her victory.
“Progressive Slovakia has suffered a considerable ‘anti-campaign’ as even the other democratic parties have bashed them for ‘extreme liberalism,’” Kepplova said. Olano, among others, took aim at Progressive Slovakia’s pro-EU position on migration, namely its advocacy for a quota system to relocate asylum-seekers among member states. (Caputova wisely chose to avoid embracing this position in her own presidential campaign.) Even though the country granted political asylum to only five refugees in 2018, the topic of migration remains a third rail of Slovak politics. On top of all of this, Progressive Slovakia’s current leader, Michal Truban, an anti-corruption activist and digital democracy advocate, isn’t nearly as charismatic as Caputova.
Caputova, for her part, succeeded in keeping the wild campaign on the tracks, even if her own party failed to build on its own momentum. Her calm voice of reason will be more critical than ever as the coalition building for the new government is certain to test Slovakia’s democratic credentials in new ways.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-29--The Age of the Airship May Be Dawning Again

You might think that the tragic end of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 marked a clear end to the airship era .
The famous footage of the German airship plunging in flames became the overwhelming image of a seemingly doomed technology .
You would be wrong .
For decades , the Goodyear fleet of blimps have been the only working airships most people had a chance of seeing in real life .
But a handful of companies are looking to bring back the spectacular dirigibles .
The government of Quebec will be pitching 30 million Canadian dollars ( 23 million @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a French company , to start building its massive zeppelins .
The company has only been around since 2012 , and it hasn ’ t gotten any of its airships off the ground—yet .
The plan has been derided by opposition parties , not as a flying whale but as a white elephant .
But cargo airships may actually make a tremendous amount of sense .
They are relatively cheap , they can carry enormous amounts of material , and they emit significantly less greenhouse gas than other modes of transportation .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ these airships in a class of technology , with nuclear power and lunar colonization , that is experiencing an unexpected modern renaissance .
Flying Whales ’ LCA60T model , according to the company , will be able to carry up to 60 metric tons of goods , travel up to 62 miles per hour , and serve remote areas with ease .
If all goes according to plan , the company hopes to get the first airship off the ground in 2022 .
There ’ s still a healthy dose of skepticism around @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Its main backers , prior to Quebec ’ s financial endorsement , have been the French National Forest Agency and the Chinese government .
Flying Whales ’ website is enigmatic , and the section of the site explaining the airships ’ structure isn ’ t particularly helpful—the description of its structure reads “ what else… – Hi George : ) ” while if you ’ re looking for details on their “ safe lifting gas ” it reads , somewhat snarkily , “ helium obviously.
” It ’ s that last point that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : There might just not be enough helium left .
While the most famous airship may be the Hindenburg , it was hardly the first—nor was it the last .
For a time in the first half of the 20th century , airships were fashionable , practical , and futuristic .
But their calamitous track record ultimately soured the public .
Less remembered , perhaps because its downing was never immortalized on an album cover , was the English airship R101 .
The dirigible was dubbed the “ socialist airship , ” as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ United Kingdom ’ s state aviation department .
The R101 was constructed as part of a state-sponsored competition , pitting government engineers against private-sector workers .
The “ capitalist airship , ” the R100 , was designed and constructed by a scrappy engineering team on a remote airbase in Yorkshire .
The opulent socialist airship was rushed to flight , even amid a variety of problems .
It took off , en route to British India , just as its capitalist competitor set off for Canada .
The government airship sagged and crashed @ @ @ @ @ @ @ into its voyage , killing 48 of the 54 onboard—including the aviation minister—while the private airship conducted a celebrated tour of Montreal and Toronto before heading back to London .
( “ , ” goes the chorus of a song from the iconic francophone Canadian folk singer La Bolduc . )
Most airships of the day took off using the highly flammable hydrogen—thanks mostly to an American monopoly on helium , its nonflammable alternative .
Washington had banned the export of the gas , in part over fears of the military uses of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the world ’ s first air raids on London during World War I .
The helium-buoyant American ships weren ’ t always safe , either .
The USS Akron carried out several successful flights across the continent , but it was ultimately pushed down by strong winds in 1933 and crashed into the Atlantic , killing 73 people on board and two rescuers .
As U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt remarked after the Akron went down , “ ships can be replaced , but the Nation can ill afford to lose such @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the ships .
But it was the 1937 Hindenburg disaster , made famous by the newsreel footage of the zeppelin bursting into a ball of flames as it tried to dock at the Lakehurst air base in New Jersey , that really scuttled the industry .
The United States ’ decision to lift its helium ban after the crash did little to revive faith in airships .
The U.S. Navy used its small fleet for anti-submarine warfare and reconnaissance in World War II , but the airship industry was effectively dead .
It @ @ @ @ @ @ @ limited way , some decades later , when Goodyear opted for nonrigid airships—blimps—for its advertising campaigns .
Airship Industries came around in the 1980s , promising a return of the dirigible .
Its ships , like Goodyear ’ s ships , had no rigid structure inside , meaning they could carry only limited cargo and no more than 14 passengers .
The airships of earlier in the century had immense metal structures inside , allowing them to carry more .
These new nonrigid ships were made famous by Bond villains , Pink Floyd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ supporters .
Fame aside , the blimps had little use for commercial air travel or cargo transport .
The niche purpose of the blimps meant Airship Industries was hemorrhaging money , and it shut down by the end of the decade .
As with many other commercially nonviable products , airships later found a home in the U.S. military .
There was a hope that the dirigibles , which are capable of taking off and staying aloft for prolonged periods of time , would be ideal for persistent aerial surveillance .
The contractor @ @ @ @ @ @ @ million contract to build a surveillance airship in 2010 , and it managed to build a successful prototype in 2012 .
The contract was axed a year later .
Raytheon was awarded nearly $ 3 billion for its model , which tethered the airship to a mooring and allowed for constant surveillance of a wide area for a month at a time .
One of Raytheon ’ s spy blimps was tested in Maryland , where it hung eerily in the sky above suburban homes .
In 2015 , it broke loose from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , trailed by fighter jets , before crashing in a field .
Raytheon ’ s hopes of building more surveillance dirigibles crashed with it .
A similar program in Afghanistan , which became notorious among Kabul residents , saw even worse results .
The tethers that kept the Big Brother balloons in place were notorious for snaring helicopter blades— one incident killed five American and British service members .
The market for military airships and commercial blimps remained limited thanks to past failures , though not dead entirely .
The cruise company OceanSky @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a passenger airship to the Arctic , using a ship originally designed under the U.S. military ’ s surveillance program , with a planned voyage in 2023 .
Image of the planned OceanSky airship , courtesy of Hybrid Air Vehicles Ltd and Design Q Many are banking that the real future of airships , however , is in cargo .
In the vast expanses of the Canadian north , there has long been a need for reliable transportation .
Many communities are only accessible by road when winter rolls around and the ground @ @ @ @ @ @ @ on , if they are accessible by road at all .
That means basic goods need to be stockpiled when the weather is cold or flown in by cargo plane—never mind supplies to build long-term infrastructure .
Many of these remote communities are reliant on gas generators and are facing shortages of reliable housing stock .
The airships also promise to be a boon for economic development , if they work .
In 2016 , a junior mining company in Quebec inked an agreement with U.K.-based Straightline Aviation to use a design being @ @ @ @ @ @ @ earth minerals from a remote open-pit mine—the road that was initially planned would have cut across a caribou migration path .
That plan went belly-up when the minerals company went bankrupt , although Straightline is forging ahead with plans to offer commercial and tourism flights .
Stranded resources and communities are a policy concern in Canada , Alaska , Greenland , Russia , and elsewhere .
Flights are expensive and carbon dioxide-intensive , and they require airport infrastructure .
Shipping is more viable as Arctic ice melts , but that often requires deep-water @ @ @ @ @ @ @ marine life .
It ’ s part of why people keep coming back to airships .
That ’ s the niche Quebec Premier François Legault is hoping Flying Whale can fill in the province ’ s remote north .
It ’ s why the French forestry sector is interested in the ships as well .
The promise of lifting lumber from far-off places earned the company praise from French President Emmanuel Macron as one of the “ industries of the future.
” The opportunity is also caveated with an array of risks and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the airships will even fly in the frigid north—Le Journal de Quebec reported that the airships will need a significant amount of water , which may be hard to come by amid Arctic temperatures .
“ If we don ’ t take risks , we go nowhere , ” Legault told reporters earlier in February .
Quebec ’ s investment earned it a 25 percent stake in the project , which in turn brought derision from opposition politicians—one questioned whether the government was inhaling helium when it made the decision .
The money @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the project—Beijing put in $ 4.9 million for its 24.9 percent stake , through the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China General and the Ministry of Science and Technology .
China has plenty of Arctic ambitions itself—and vast distances to cover in its underpopulated west .
There ’ s one massive drawback for the airship industry : The world is almost out of helium .
In recent years , helium prices have skyrocketed as supply has dwindled .
Far from just being used in party balloons and blimps , the gas is necessary @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Stockpiles of helium often escape , and are wasted , during other extractive projects .
While there have been shortages before , helium is a nonrenewable resource and can take an enormously long time to generate—estimates suggest the earth ’ s supply could be gone this century If the world runs out of helium , it ’ s not clear that there ’ s a good alternative .
The dangers of hydrogen are well established , and the gas behind the Hindenburg disaster is unlikely to make an air travel comeback .
Hypothetically @ @ @ @ @ @ @ by a vacuum—that is , by material that can contain nothing at all inside but withstand the atmospheric pressure from the outside .
It is , at this point , science fiction , although NASA has posited that some kind of vacuum airship could eventually be used to explore the surface of Mars .
Airship companies seem satisfied with helium for the time being .
OceanSky cruises has a reassuring FAQ on its website , telling those looking to join them on an airship trip to the North Pole that 600 of their @ @ @ @ @ @ @ 1 % of annual helium consumption ” and that each ship “ stays filled with the same helium as from its inception , less a tiny annual leakage.
” If these airships can take off despite carrying a century of failed projects , a lack of its necessary resource , and economic justifications that still seem more wishful thinking than reality—it might just be the return of the zeppelin .

You might think that the tragic end of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 marked a clear end to the airship era. The famous footage of the German airship plunging in flames became the overwhelming image of a seemingly doomed technology.
You might think that the tragic end of the Hindenburg disaster in 1937 marked a clear end to the airship era. The famous footage of the German airship plunging in flames became the overwhelming image of a seemingly doomed technology.
You would be wrong.
For decades, the Goodyear fleet of blimps have been the only working airships most people had a chance of seeing in real life. But a handful of companies are looking to bring back the spectacular dirigibles.
The government of Quebec will be pitching 30 million Canadian dollars (23 million in U.S. dollars) to Flying Whales, a French company, to start building its massive zeppelins. The company has only been around since 2012, and it hasn’t gotten any of its airships off the ground—yet. The plan has been derided by opposition parties, not as a flying whale but as a white elephant.
But cargo airships may actually make a tremendous amount of sense. They are relatively cheap, they can carry enormous amounts of material, and they emit significantly less greenhouse gas than other modes of transportation.
The compelling arguments for dirigible travel put these airships in a class of technology, with nuclear power and lunar colonization, that is experiencing an unexpected modern renaissance.
Flying Whales’ LCA60T model, according to the company, will be able to carry up to 60 metric tons of goods, travel up to 62 miles per hour, and serve remote areas with ease. If all goes according to plan, the company hopes to get the first airship off the ground in 2022.
There’s still a healthy dose of skepticism around the company’s lofty promises. Its main backers, prior to Quebec’s financial endorsement, have been the French National Forest Agency and the Chinese government.
Flying Whales’ website is enigmatic, and the section of the site explaining the airships’ structure isn’t particularly helpful—the description of its structure reads “what else… – Hi George :)” while if you’re looking for details on their “safe lifting gas” it reads, somewhat snarkily, “helium obviously.”
It’s that last point that might make the whole idea completely untenable: There might just not be enough helium left.
The R-100 airship, circa 1920.
A slow, steady return
While the most famous airship may be the Hindenburg, it was hardly the first—nor was it the last.
For a time in the first half of the 20th century, airships were fashionable, practical, and futuristic. But their calamitous track record ultimately soured the public.
Less remembered, perhaps because its downing was never immortalized on an album cover, was the English airship R101. The dirigible was dubbed the “socialist airship,” as it was designed and built by the United Kingdom’s state aviation department. The R101 was constructed as part of a state-sponsored competition, pitting government engineers against private-sector workers. The “capitalist airship,” the R100, was designed and constructed by a scrappy engineering team on a remote airbase in Yorkshire.
The opulent socialist airship was rushed to flight, even amid a variety of problems. It took off, en route to British India, just as its capitalist competitor set off for Canada. The government airship sagged and crashed into the French countryside just a day into its voyage, killing 48 of the 54 onboard—including the aviation minister—while the private airship conducted a celebrated tour of Montreal and Toronto before heading back to London. (“Everybody’s talking about the R100,” goes the chorus of a song from the iconic francophone Canadian folk singer La Bolduc.)
Most airships of the day took off using the highly flammable hydrogen—thanks mostly to an American monopoly on helium, its nonflammable alternative. Washington had banned the export of the gas, in part over fears of the military uses of the airships, which had been used in the world’s first air raids on London during World War I.
The helium-buoyant American ships weren’t always safe, either. The USS Akron carried out several successful flights across the continent, but it was ultimately pushed down by strong winds in 1933 and crashed into the Atlantic, killing 73 people on board and two rescuers.
As U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt remarked after the Akron went down, “ships can be replaced, but the Nation can ill afford to lose such men.” Eventually, governments stopped replacing the ships.
The USS Akron over New York City in the early 1930s.
But it was the 1937 Hindenburg disaster, made famous by the newsreel footage of the zeppelin bursting into a ball of flames as it tried to dock at the Lakehurst air base in New Jersey, that really scuttled the industry. The United States’ decision to lift its helium ban after the crash did little to revive faith in airships. The U.S. Navy used its small fleet for anti-submarine warfare and reconnaissance in World War II, but the airship industry was effectively dead.
It would stage a comeback, in a limited way, some decades later, when Goodyear opted for nonrigid airships—blimps—for its advertising campaigns. Airship Industries came around in the 1980s, promising a return of the dirigible. Its ships, like Goodyear’s ships, had no rigid structure inside, meaning they could carry only limited cargo and no more than 14 passengers. The airships of earlier in the century had immense metal structures inside, allowing them to carry more. These new nonrigid ships were made famous by Bond villains, Pink Floyd, and, later, by Ron Paul supporters.
Fame aside, the blimps had little use for commercial air travel or cargo transport. The niche purpose of the blimps meant Airship Industries was hemorrhaging money, and it shut down by the end of the decade.
As with many other commercially nonviable products, airships later found a home in the U.S. military. There was a hope that the dirigibles, which are capable of taking off and staying aloft for prolonged periods of time, would be ideal for persistent aerial surveillance.
The contractor Northrop Grumman was awarded a $517 million contract to build a surveillance airship in 2010, and it managed to build a successful prototype in 2012. The contract was axed a year later. Raytheon was awarded nearly $3 billion for its model, which tethered the airship to a mooring and allowed for constant surveillance of a wide area for a month at a time.
One of Raytheon’s spy blimps was tested in Maryland, where it hung eerily in the sky above suburban homes. In 2015, it broke loose from its mooring and drifted haplessly through Pennsylvania, trailed by fighter jets, before crashing in a field. Raytheon’s hopes of building more surveillance dirigibles crashed with it.
A similar program in Afghanistan, which became notorious among Kabul residents, saw even worse results. The tethers that kept the Big Brother balloons in place were notorious for snaring helicopter blades—one incident killed five American and British service members.
An aereal visualization of the Ocean Sky airship.
A commercial appeal?
The market for military airships and commercial blimps remained limited thanks to past failures, though not dead entirely.
The cruise company OceanSky is forging ahead with plans to send a passenger airship to the Arctic, using a ship originally designed under the U.S. military’s surveillance program, with a planned voyage in 2023.
Many are banking that the real future of airships, however, is in cargo.
In the vast expanses of the Canadian north, there has long been a need for reliable transportation. Many communities are only accessible by road when winter rolls around and the ground and lakes are solid enough to drive on, if they are accessible by road at all. That means basic goods need to be stockpiled when the weather is cold or flown in by cargo plane—never mind supplies to build long-term infrastructure. Many of these remote communities are reliant on gas generators and are facing shortages of reliable housing stock.
The airships also promise to be a boon for economic development, if they work.
In 2016, a junior mining company in Quebec inked an agreement with U.K.-based Straightline Aviation to use a design being developed by Lockheed Martin to haul rare earth minerals from a remote open-pit mine—the road that was initially planned would have cut across a caribou migration path. That plan went belly-up when the minerals company went bankrupt, although Straightline is forging ahead with plans to offer commercial and tourism flights.
The interior of the Ocean Sky airship.
Stranded resources and communities are a policy concern in Canada, Alaska, Greenland, Russia, and elsewhere. Flights are expensive and carbon dioxide-intensive, and they require airport infrastructure. Shipping is more viable as Arctic ice melts, but that often requires deep-water ports and can have damaging impacts on marine life. It’s part of why people keep coming back to airships.
That’s the niche Quebec Premier François Legault is hoping Flying Whale can fill in the province’s remote north.
It’s why the French forestry sector is interested in the ships as well. The promise of lifting lumber from far-off places earned the company praise from French President Emmanuel Macron as one of the “industries of the future.”
The opportunity is also caveated with an array of risks and problems. There is no guarantee that the airships will even fly in the frigid north—Le Journal de Quebec reported that the airships will need a significant amount of water, which may be hard to come by amid Arctic temperatures.
Quebec seems unphased.
“If we don’t take risks, we go nowhere,” Legault told reporters earlier in February. Quebec’s investment earned it a 25 percent stake in the project, which in turn brought derision from opposition politicians—one questioned whether the government was inhaling helium when it made the decision.
The money puts Quebec on par with China in the project—Beijing put in $4.9 million for its 24.9 percent stake, through the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China General and the Ministry of Science and Technology. China has plenty of Arctic ambitions itself—and vast distances to cover in its underpopulated west.
The Hindenburg disaster in Lakehurst, New Jersey, on May 6, 1937.
A lack of lift
There’s one massive drawback for the airship industry: The world is almost out of helium.
In recent years, helium prices have skyrocketed as supply has dwindled. Far from just being used in party balloons and blimps, the gas is necessary for MRI scanners and rocket engines. Stockpiles of helium often escape, and are wasted, during other extractive projects. While there have been shortages before, helium is a nonrenewable resource and can take an enormously long time to generate—estimates suggest the earth’s supply could be gone this century.
If the world runs out of helium, it’s not clear that there’s a good alternative. The dangers of hydrogen are well established, and the gas behind the Hindenburg disaster is unlikely to make an air travel comeback.
Hypothetically, there could be an airship lifted by a vacuum—that is, by material that can contain nothing at all inside but withstand the atmospheric pressure from the outside. It is, at this point, science fiction, although NASA has posited that some kind of vacuum airship could eventually be used to explore the surface of Mars.
Airship companies seem satisfied with helium for the time being. OceanSky cruises has a reassuring FAQ on its website, telling those looking to join them on an airship trip to the North Pole that 600 of their cruise ships “would account for just 1% of annual helium consumption” and that each ship “stays filled with the same helium as from its inception, less a tiny annual leakage.”
If these airships can take off despite carrying a century of failed projects, a lack of its necessary resource, and economic justifications that still seem more wishful thinking than reality—it might just be the return of the zeppelin.


foreignpolicy--2020-02-29--Our Top Weekend Reads

Our Top Weekend Reads

If Bernie Sanders wins the U.S. presidential election , it could signal a dramatic shift in U.S. policy toward Israel .
Meanwhile , as part of an effort not to provoke China , the World Health Organization is trying to keep Taiwan from taking a lead role in fighting the coronavirus .
And as Slovak voters prepare to go to the polls , the election is shaping up to be a battle between the country ’ s liberal and fascist forces .
1 .
How America ’ s First Jewish President Could Be Tougher on Israel Than His Predecessors Bernie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in more than 40 years to declare Israel ’ s construction of Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands illegal , Foreign Policy ’ s Colum Lynch reports .
French President Emmanuel Macron ’ s willingness to target Islamism is part of a larger effort by European leaders to combat the nonviolent tendencies of the ideology , Lorenzo Vidino writes .
3 .
Taiwan Wants to Help Fight the Coronavirus .
WHO Won ’ t Let it .
Taiwan is favorably positioned to curb the spread of the coronavirus .
But WHO is trying to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s geopolitical dispute with Taiwan , Stanley Kao writes .
A Slovak oligarch faces a life sentence over ordering the murder of an investigative journalist .
The shock of the murder has revived both liberal forces and the specter of fascism on the eve of a key election in the country , Tim Gosling writes .
5 .
The West Is About to Fail the Coronavirus Test Member states won ’ t pay to strengthen WHO ’ s emergency response capacity , damaging its ability to truly lead the global fight against the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ write .

If Bernie Sanders wins the U.S. presidential election, it could signal a dramatic shift in U.S. policy toward Israel.
If Bernie Sanders wins the U.S. presidential election, it could signal a dramatic shift in U.S. policy toward Israel.
Meanwhile, as part of an effort not to provoke China, the World Health Organization is trying to keep Taiwan from taking a lead role in fighting the coronavirus.
And as Slovak voters prepare to go to the polls, the election is shaping up to be a battle between the country’s liberal and fascist forces.
Here are Foreign Policy’s top weekend reads.
Sen. Bernie Sanders speaks to the media following a closed-door briefing on Iran at the U.S. Capitol in Washington on May 21, 2019.
Bernie Sanders could become the first U.S. president in more than 40 years to declare Israel’s construction of Jewish settlements on Palestinian lands illegal, Foreign Policy’s Colum Lynch reports.
French President Emmanuel Macron meets police officers during a visit to Mulhouse, in eastern France, on Feb. 18.
French President Emmanuel Macron’s willingness to target Islamism is part of a larger effort by European leaders to combat the nonviolent tendencies of the ideology, Lorenzo Vidino writes.
A man points to a webpage promoting prevention of the deadly coronavirus from Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs Facebook account in Taipei on Feb. 14.
Taiwan is favorably positioned to curb the spread of the coronavirus. But WHO is trying to limit these efforts due to China’s geopolitical dispute with Taiwan, Stanley Kao writes.
Slovak Prime Minister Peter Pellegrini, the Ordinary People party leader Igor Matovic, and the far-right People's Party-Our Slovakia leader Marian Kotleba await the start of the parliamentary election TV debate in Bratislava, Slovakia, on Feb. 20.
A Slovak oligarch faces a life sentence over ordering the murder of an investigative journalist. The shock of the murder has revived both liberal forces and the specter of fascism on the eve of a key election in the country, Tim Gosling writes.
A rescue worker wearing a protective suit checks on a driver at a roadblock near Milan, Italy, on Feb. 24.
Member states won’t pay to strengthen WHO’s emergency response capacity, damaging its ability to truly lead the global fight against the coronavirus, Melissa Chan and Ethan Guillén write.


foreignpolicy--2020-03-02--Israel Holds Third Election in a Year

Israel Holds Third Election in a Year

Here is today ’ s Foreign Policy brief : Israel holds another election—the third in less than a year , Greek police clash with migrants at the Turkish border , and what to watch in the world this week .
We welcome your feedback at morningbrief @ foreignpolicy.com .
Israeli voters are headed to the polls today for the third time in less than a year , after inconclusive elections in April and September 2019—leading to months of political deadlock .
It doesn ’ t seem like this time around will be much different : Opinion polls show that neither @ @ @ @ @ @ @ party nor the centrist Blue and White party have enough support to form a majority coalition in parliament .
Like the previous two , today ’ s election is seen as a referendum on Netanyahu , who is running for re-election despite facing a corruption trial in just two weeks .
The voters , meanwhile , seem tired of the deadlock and turnout of certain groups , including the Arab minority , could decide the election .
But fatigue and coronavirus fears could keep people away from the polls .
( The latter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a contagion scare in an Israeli mall . )
What ’ s next ?
The situation could be resolved if Likud and the Blue and White party agreed to rule in coalition , but opposition leader Benny Gantz says that ’ s only possible if Netanyahu resigns .
If the parties fail to break the deadlock , Israel will quickly face a fourth election .
But the country ’ s 2020 budget hasn ’ t yet been approved : The longer the stalemate goes on , it could take a toll on the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ system .
Can the system be fixed ?
The ongoing political limbo is unprecedented in Israel ’ s 71-year history , and it ’ s complicated by Netanyahu ’ s looming trial as well as identity-based politics .
That makes it difficult for Israel ’ s proportional system to reach a decisive outcome .
Reforms to the premiership could mitigate the problem , Joshua Mitnick reports—and two simple fixes could help end the impasse , as Yohanan Plesner of the Israel Democracy Institute argued in FP in June .
Countries tighten restrictions as @ @ @ @ @ @ @ are taking action to slow the spread of the coronavirus .
Schools in northern Italy remain closed for a second consecutive week .
France has temporarily banned large public gatherings—including closing the Louvre Museum in Paris .
The United States , meanwhile , has stepped up travel restrictions , increasing screening procedures for travelers from Italy and South Korea .
The efforts came as the first death was reported , in Washington state .
( Travel has not been restricted between U.S .
states . )
The virus outbreak increasingly looks like an @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and supply-chain disruptions threatening business activity and profits .
Global stock markets are likely to decline further this week—the knock-on effects of China grinding to a halt .
U.S. officials have downplayed the market effects , seeking to calm panic .
Europe reacts to Turkey ’ s open gates .
Greece and Bulgaria have sent troops to their borders with Turkey , where hundreds of refugees have gathered after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that he would not stop migrants from entering Europe .
On Sunday , Greek police fired tear gas @ @ @ @ @ @ @ border , as the government said it was suspending asylum applications—a move that breaks with EU law .
EU officials have called for emergency meetings to respond to the situation .
Erdogan ’ s decision comes amid an ongoing Syrian government offensive that has killed dozens of Turkish soldiers and displaced around 1 million people in northwestern Syria .
Pompeo predicts Afghan talks to begin this week .
After the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement over the weekend , U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday expressed hope that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ would begin negotiations in the coming days .
Still , Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has rejected a Taliban condition for the talks : the demand that Afghanistan release 5,000 Taliban prisoners .
“ It is not in the authority of the United States to decide , they are only a facilitator , ” Ghani said .
U.K. and EU negotiators meet in Brussels today for the first round of talks over the future of their post-Brexit trade and security relationship .
The atmosphere is already tense ; U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson summarily @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to certain European standards .
The two sides technically have until the end of the year to reach an agreement .
This round of talks concludes on Thursday .
On Super Tuesday , more than a dozen U.S. states hold Democratic primaries .
Around one-third of delegates are up for grabs , meaning that the results are likely to further narrow the field of candidates .
( Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and businessman Tom Steyer have now dropped out . )
Former Vice President Joe Biden enters Super Tuesday with momentum after a @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Sen. Bernie Sanders still leads the delegate count .
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries ( OPEC ) and its allies begin a two-day meeting on Thursday in Vienna , as oil prices fall amid fears that the coronavirus outbreak will cause a drop in demand .
Several OPEC members , including Saudi Arabia , are weighing further production cuts based on recent data .
Iraq ’ s political crisis .
Mohammed Allawi , designated to be Iraq ’ s prime minister , withdrew his candidacy on Sunday after a parliamentary vote @ @ @ @ @ @ @ delayed amid political disagreements .
The president will try to choose a new candidate within 15 days .
In the meantime , Iraq could be without a prime minister if Adel Abdul Mahdi—serving in a caretaker capacity since he stepped down amid mass protests last year—also quits today .
France ’ s pension reforms .
French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe has announced that the government plans to use a decree to push through its controversial changes to the pension system , avoiding a vote in parliament .
Opposition parties had filed 41,000 amendments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it .
The reforms have fueled mass protests and public sector strikes since they were announced late last year .
FP Conference Call—Please join us for a timely FP Insider conference call on Tuesday at 1 p.m. EST on the preliminary Afghan peace deal .
What does the agreement mean for the future of the region ?
FP editor in chief Jonathan Tepperman and experts Peter Bergen , a national security analyst and vice president at the New America Foundation , and Husain Haqqani , senior fellow and director for South and Central @ @ @ @ @ @ @ your questions .
Reserve your spot now .
Can the blimp make a comeback ?
Despite some skepticism , a handful of companies are looking to bring back blimps , Justin Ling writes in FP .
Using airships for cargo may make a lot of sense : They are relatively cheap , can store a lot of material , and emit less greenhouse gases than other modes of transportation .
There is one drawback : Helium prices are skyrocketing as supply dwindles .
For more from FP , visit foreignpolicy.com , subscribe here @ @ @ @ @ @ @ newsletters .
Send your tips , comments , questions , or corrections to morningbrief @ foreignpolicy.com .

Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: Israel holds another election —the third in less than a year, Greek police clash with migrants at the Turkish border , and what to watch in the world this week .
Here is today’s Foreign Policy brief: Israel holds another election—the third in less than a year, Greek police clash with migrants at the Turkish border, and what to watch in the world this week.
If you would like to receive Morning Brief in your inbox every weekday, please sign up here.
Will a Third Try Break Israel’s Deadlock?
Israeli voters are headed to the polls today for the third time in less than a year, after inconclusive elections in April and September 2019—leading to months of political deadlock. It doesn’t seem like this time around will be much different: Opinion polls show that neither Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party nor the centrist Blue and White party have enough support to form a majority coalition in parliament.
Like the previous two, today’s election is seen as a referendum on Netanyahu, who is running for re-election despite facing a corruption trial in just two weeks. The voters, meanwhile, seem tired of the deadlock and turnout of certain groups, including the Arab minority, could decide the election. But fatigue and coronavirus fears could keep people away from the polls. (The latter became late-breaking election issue on Sunday after a contagion scare in an Israeli mall.)
What’s next? The situation could be resolved if Likud and the Blue and White party agreed to rule in coalition, but opposition leader Benny Gantz says that’s only possible if Netanyahu resigns. If the parties fail to break the deadlock, Israel will quickly face a fourth election. But the country’s 2020 budget hasn’t yet been approved: The longer the stalemate goes on, it could take a toll on the country’s economy and social welfare system.
Can the system be fixed? The ongoing political limbo is unprecedented in Israel’s 71-year history, and it’s complicated by Netanyahu’s looming trial as well as identity-based politics. That makes it difficult for Israel’s proportional system to reach a decisive outcome. Reforms to the premiership could mitigate the problem, Joshua Mitnick reports—and two simple fixes could help end the impasse, as Yohanan Plesner of the Israel Democracy Institute argued in FP in June.
What We’re Following Today
Countries tighten restrictions as coronavirus spreads. Governments around the world are taking action to slow the spread of the coronavirus. Schools in northern Italy remain closed for a second consecutive week. France has temporarily banned large public gatherings—including closing the Louvre Museum in Paris. The United States, meanwhile, has stepped up travel restrictions, increasing screening procedures for travelers from Italy and South Korea. The efforts came as the first death was reported, in Washington state. (Travel has not been restricted between U.S. states.)
The virus outbreak increasingly looks like an economic crisis, with global markets suffering and supply-chain disruptions threatening business activity and profits. Global stock markets are likely to decline further this week—the knock-on effects of China grinding to a halt. U.S. officials have downplayed the market effects, seeking to calm panic.
Europe reacts to Turkey’s open gates. Greece and Bulgaria have sent troops to their borders with Turkey, where hundreds of refugees have gathered after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that he would not stop migrants from entering Europe. On Sunday, Greek police fired tear gas at migrants trying to push across the border, as the government said it was suspending asylum applications—a move that breaks with EU law. EU officials have called for emergency meetings to respond to the situation. Erdogan’s decision comes amid an ongoing Syrian government offensive that has killed dozens of Turkish soldiers and displaced around 1 million people in northwestern Syria.
Pompeo predicts Afghan talks to begin this week. After the United States and the Taliban signed an agreement over the weekend, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Sunday expressed hope that the militant group and the Afghan government would begin negotiations in the coming days. Still, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has rejected a Taliban condition for the talks: the demand that Afghanistan release 5,000 Taliban prisoners. “It is not in the authority of the United States to decide, they are only a facilitator,” Ghani said.
The World This Week
U.K. and EU negotiators meet in Brussels today for the first round of talks over the future of their post-Brexit trade and security relationship. The atmosphere is already tense; U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson summarily rejected an EU demand that Britain stick to certain European standards. The two sides technically have until the end of the year to reach an agreement. This round of talks concludes on Thursday.
On Super Tuesday, more than a dozen U.S. states hold Democratic primaries. Around one-third of delegates are up for grabs, meaning that the results are likely to further narrow the field of candidates. (Former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and businessman Tom Steyer have now dropped out.) Former Vice President Joe Biden enters Super Tuesday with momentum after a convincing win in South Carolina, while Sen. Bernie Sanders still leads the delegate count.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies begin a two-day meeting on Thursday in Vienna, as oil prices fall amid fears that the coronavirus outbreak will cause a drop in demand. Several OPEC members, including Saudi Arabia, are weighing further production cuts based on recent data.
Keep an Eye On
Iraq’s political crisis. Mohammed Allawi, designated to be Iraq’s prime minister, withdrew his candidacy on Sunday after a parliamentary vote of confidence in his cabinet was twice delayed amid political disagreements. The president will try to choose a new candidate within 15 days. In the meantime, Iraq could be without a prime minister if Adel Abdul Mahdi—serving in a caretaker capacity since he stepped down amid mass protests last year—also quits today.
France’s pension reforms. French Prime Minister Édouard Philippe has announced that the government plans to use a decree to push through its controversial changes to the pension system, avoiding a vote in parliament. Opposition parties had filed 41,000 amendments to the law to try to stall it. The reforms have fueled mass protests and public sector strikes since they were announced late last year.
FP Conference Call—Please join us for a timely FP Insider conference call on Tuesday at 1 p.m. EST on the preliminary Afghan peace deal. What does the agreement mean for the future of the region? FP editor in chief Jonathan Tepperman and experts Peter Bergen, a national security analyst and vice president at the New America Foundation, and Husain Haqqani, senior fellow and director for South and Central Asia at the Hudson Institute, take your questions. Reserve your spot now.
Odds and Ends
Can the blimp make a comeback? Despite some skepticism, a handful of companies are looking to bring back blimps, Justin Ling writes in FP. Using airships for cargo may make a lot of sense: They are relatively cheap, can store a lot of material, and emit less greenhouse gases than other modes of transportation. There is one drawback: Helium prices are skyrocketing as supply dwindles.
That’s it for today.
For more from FP, visit foreignpolicy.com, subscribe here, or sign up for our other newsletters. Send your tips, comments, questions, or corrections to morningbrief@foreignpolicy.com.