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Tag: world affairs

  • Angelina Jolie: Let Refugees Help Refugees

    Angelina Jolie: Let Refugees Help Refugees

    At the annual gathering of the United Nations General Assembly last week, when the subject was briefly Sudan, the U.S. ambassador opened her remarks by citing “compassion collapse,” defined as the human tendency to turn away from mass suffering. The suffering in Sudan is certainly on a mass scale. Eleven million people have fled their homes, pursued by men with guns and followed by famine. More than half of the country’s population of 46 million is experiencing acute hunger, and three-quarters of a million people face starvation. Sudan is the worst humanitarian situation in the world, and with the international appeal for funds short by 60 percent, governments are not rising to it.

    But people are. On the Sudanese border a few days ago, I saw volunteers doing more with next to nothing than those who have the ability to make the biggest impact. Hafiz Issak Aroun, a Chadian doctor, had resigned his job at a hospital to set up a clinic in the border town of Adré, treating refugees for free. “We are all volunteers here,” he said, “and we’re desperate for support to keep this going.”

    Neighbors bring food and volunteer farmland. In Khartoum, neighborhood mutual-aid groups known as Emergency Response Rooms operate 350 communal kitchens. They know the value of living a life of service and grace, of adding to the lives of those around you.

    Local responders do not see mass suffering but rather the needs of the person in front of them. Local volunteers, who include refugees themselves, are doing the work that the outside world says should be done, and often better than any outsider could. But they struggle to do it without the support that wealthier countries can provide—in funds free of red tape, through reliable communications, with the diplomatic pressure essential to protecting humanitarian workers, and by keeping open the portals through which aid moves.

    We need to adjust. Research shows that local groups are faster and more efficient in getting aid to those who need it. To make this happen, donors and relief agencies need to change the way they do business. The shift will need to be dramatic and draw on lessons and models for financing in sectors like global public health.

    It’s not just Sudan. In country after country, I have seen the current international system fail people in need. I could no longer tell people to look only to the international community as the answer. I wanted to learn more about what was blocking refugees and the internally displaced from helping themselves. One answer is funding; mutual aid groups this year have only received about 5% of resources allocated from the $130 million Sudan Humanitarian Pooled Fund. Eight years ago, a humanitarian ‘Grand Bargain’ set a target of directing, by 2020, at least a quarter of all international humanitarian assistance through local and national actors. In 2022, it was less than three percent.

    Behind the question of money is another question, of respect.

    I have lived a privileged life, walked in many worlds. I have worked alongside heads of state, collaborated with great artists, met with kings and queens. The people I have been most humbled by, the people I’ve learned the most from, were displaced families fleeing war and persecution. No one knows better, or has more grace, than the person who has survived the loss of family and country. They are who I hold in highest esteem. No one knows what it is to be stripped of everything and take that next step forward more than a refugee.

    On the border of Sudan, where 200 people cross every day, I found myself standing face to face with a mother who had just walked two weeks with a baby on her back and three young children at her feet. Their father had been murdered in their home, which was then looted and burnt to the ground. That mother was still smiling at her child. To give him some light in the dark. She will live every moment trying to ease her children’s suffering and yet offered to pray for my children to have health—and she meant it. I can’t tell you now how many times I’ve sat in a tent and been offered part of that very small ration a family was storing. It’s not about the food, it’s their common decency. Prayers for the health of a person’s family are among the sincerest gifts we can give one another.

    Our task must be to make that gift possible—first by funding and enabling local responders. After visiting the border, I met with The Mutual Aid Sudan Coalition, which matches funding to the needs of local aid groups, rather than asking those groups to adapt to a global relief apparatus. But they must be able to save lives without risking their own. Not long ago, the killing of humanitarian workers produced outraged headlines. It has grown almost routine because it has been allowed to; neither states nor armed groups expect to face consequences. When justice is not served equally and without exceptions, it is not justice.

    High-minded statements are just words if no one acts on them. The U.N. was founded to prevent war. When it fails at that, an international system that cannot even tend to those fleeing a conflict must, at a bare minimum, protect the local people who do step up. It’s happening not only on Chad’s overwhelmed border with Sudan, but in conflict zones across the world—anywhere that social solidarity summons the spirit Sudanese call nafeer, “collective action.” We can marvel at what they do with almost nothing. Or we can step up and make necessary changes to how we respond.

    Angelina Jolie

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  • The World Is Ignoring the Catastrophe in Sudan

    The World Is Ignoring the Catastrophe in Sudan

    Two decades ago, the world came together in an effort to “Save Darfur,” a mass mobilization of collective outrage that forced governments and multilateral institutions to act. Rallies, postcard- and letter-writing campaigns, moments of silence on college campuses, “Global Days for Darfur,” widespread support from Hollywood celebrities—all of it made Darfur and the Janjaweed, the notorious “devils on horseback,” into household names.

    “In many ways it is unfair but it is nevertheless true that this genocide will be on your watch,” George Clooney told the U.N. Security Council in 2006. “How you deal with it will be your legacy.”

    The carnage today, not only in Darfur but across Sudan, is in many ways worse than it was then.

    The bitter war launched 17 months ago between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF)—the Janjaweed rebranded—has, according to the U.N., killed 18,800 people. But that estimate is a vast undercount. No one knows the true number of dead.

    Refugees wait for a WFP food distribution point to open at a temporary camp in Adre, Chad, on April 22, 2024. Dan Kitwood—Getty Images

    Sudan’s catastrophe can now only be described in superlatives: it is the world’s largest humanitarian catastrophe, is home to the world’s largest displacement crisis, and the world’s largest hunger crisis. More than 10 million people, representing 20% of the population, have been displaced by the fighting. More than half of the population, some 26 million people, are now facing crisis levels of hunger. Famine, the F-word long avoided by the international community, has now been declared in North Darfur. A harrowing report in May from the Clingendael Institute warns that up to 2.5 million people could die from hunger by September this year.

    Twenty years ago, the SAF and RSF led a genocidal campaign against landed African ethnic groups in Darfur. Today, they are fighting each other while perpetuating serious rights violations. The RSF, in particular, has revived its genocidal campaigns against those same populations and extended it to the rest of the country. Alongside its allied Arab militias, the RSF have been accused of deliberate attacks on civilians amounting to crimes against humanity and war crimes. The International Criminal Court has opened new investigations into allegations of grave crimes committed by both the SAF and RSF in Darfur.

    El Fasher, the capital of North Darfur, is currently surrounded and under siege by the RSF, the last population center in Darfur that hasn’t fallen to the RSF. “It is unquestionable that risk factors and indicators for genocide and related crimes are present [in El Fasher], and the risks are increasing,” said Alice Wairimu Nderitu, a U.N. Special Advisor on the Prevention of Genocide.

    Sudanese military personnel stand guard in the basement of a building that had been used as an arms depot by Rapid Support Forces fighters in Omdurman, Sudan, on April 25, 2024.
    Sudanese military personnel stand guard in the basement of a building that had been used as an arms depot by Rapid Support Forces fighters in Omdurman, Sudan, on April 25, 2024. Ivor Prickett—The New York Times/Redux

    From the outset, Sudan’s war against civilians has caused devastating consequences for women and girls. As I told the U.N. Security Council on Aug. 7, widespread and systematic conflict-related sexual violence is taking place throughout the country. It is clear that the RSF and the SAF have subjected women and girls from ages nine to 60 to sexual violence, which is a war crime, and neither party has taken meaningful steps to prevent its forces from committing rape, attacking health care workers, nor investigating such crimes. The deliberate use of conflict-related sexual violence, chiefly by the RSF, aims to terrorize the population into submission.

    The time for the international community to act is now. We need to renew the call to action that gripped the world two decades ago.

    Much of the international community’s diplomatic efforts—including recent U.S.-mediated efforts to secure talks between SAF and the RSF—are focused on securing an elusive ceasefire. Neither SAF nor the RSF have shown serious commitment to one. Both calculate that leveraging external support will lead to significant military gains, particularly the RSF, who have taken over much of the country due in large part to UAE support. More energy should be placed on protection efforts that focus on vulnerable populations. The need of the hour is to prevent genocide and save lives, and three steps are crucial.

    Rem Abduli holds the wrist of her one-year-old daughter, Bara, who is suffering from severe malnutrition in the malnutrition ward of the Cap Anamur German Emergency Hospital near Kauda in the Nuba Mountains on June 15, 2024.
    Rem Abduli holds the wrist of her one-year-old daughter, Bara, who is suffering from severe malnutrition in the malnutrition ward of the Cap Anamur German Emergency Hospital near Kauda in the Nuba Mountains on June 15, 2024. Guy Peterson—AFP/Getty Images

    First, the world must come together around a call for a civilian protection force, particularly in Darfur. Civil society and rights groups have called for the African Union and the U.N. to work together to establish one that could, per Human Rights Watch, “protect civilians, monitor human rights and international humanitarian law violations, including obstruction of humanitarian aid, and facilitate the safe return of displaced people.” Such a mission could help women and girls in particular and include mobile policing units to focus on locations where people are most at risk.

    Second, the international community must demand that foreign players cease arming Sudan’s warring parties. A U.N. Panel of Experts report corroborates media reports that the UAE is sending weapons and supplies to the RSF. (The UAE has denied the allegations.) A July report from Amnesty International found that weapons and ammunition from China, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, Yemen, and the UAE are being imported in large quantities into Sudan. These arms are even flowing into Darfur—as aid is being stymied—despite a U.N. Security Council arms embargo imposed back in 2004. The decades-old initiative should be enforced and expanded to cover the whole of Sudan.

    Third, there must be a unified and coordinated peace process involving all relevant stakeholders—with the full, equal, meaningful participation of women. Sudan’s war has been cursed with an array of peace processes over the past 16 months but the situation continues to deteriorate. Putting women at the center of peace negotiations can help chart a new way forward that prioritizes civilian, rather than military, interests. 

    Sudanese refugees arrive in Renk, South Sudan, on Feb. 13, 2024.
    Sudanese refugees arrive in Renk, South Sudan, on Feb. 13, 2024.Luis Tato—AFP/Getty Images

    Unfortunately, none of this will happen until the world begins to pay more attention to Sudan’s plight. More prominent figures should follow the lead of the American rapper Macklemore, who announced he is refusing to perform in Dubai over the UAE’s role “in the ongoing genocide and humanitarian crisis” in Sudan. Africa’s third largest country cannot be allowed to disintegrate while the world averts its gaze, with so many other crises boiling over. We must “Save Darfur,” and Save Sudan, before it is too late.

    Kholood Khair

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  • The Coming Battle Over the Arctic

    The Coming Battle Over the Arctic

    Since the end of the Cold War, the High North has been defined by the idea of “Arctic exceptionalism,” the common understanding that the region had unwritten rules, beliefs, and history that protected it from great-power rivalry. Under this shield, China emerged in recent years as a new power in the European Arctic through increased trade, investments, and scientific cooperation. But Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has disrupted this delicate status quo in profound ways. The European Arctic is fast becoming an arena in which the U.S. and its allies must compete directly with its geopolitical foes.

    To be sure, the war in Ukraine is not the only driver of increasing tensions. Retreating sea ice has led to greater interest in the region’s economic value and geopolitical importance, fueling militarization among Arctic states and engagement from traditionally non-Arctic players such as China. These economic pressures have typically centered on three areas.

    Read More: An Arctic Border Town Feels a New Chill From Russia

    First, the Arctic contains vast fossil fuel reserves, the development of which is a key priority in Russia’s Arctic strategic vision for 2035. The Russian Arctic alone is estimated to contain more than 35,700 billion cubic meters of natural gas and more than 2,300 million metric tons of oil and condensate, mainly concentrated in the Yamal and Gydan peninsulas.  

    Second, changing ice conditions caused by climate change is reshaping potential Arctic shipping routes. Russia’s development of the Northern Sea Route along its Arctic coasts, which intends to connect the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans through the Russian Arctic, is particularly noteworthy. The route is ice-free during the summer and enables ships to reduce travel time by 40% with significant fuel savings compared to transit through the Suez Canal.

    Third, the successful co-management of fisheries in the North Atlantic and Barents Sea is at danger of collapsing under mounting climate pressures. As surface air temperatures continue to rise dramatically, warming waters are causing fish stocks with marine catch potential to extend further north. Some have speculated that Russia could use commercial activities in a broader challenge to NATO. Norwegian naval intelligence has already claimed that between 50 and 100 Russian fishing vessels operating in Norwegian waters may be linked to intelligence gathering activities. The blurring distinction between commercial and military activities in the region, coupled with more military exercises there, has resulted in a heightened danger of accidents involving fishers. Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago located midway between the North Pole and Norway’s northern coast, is a particular source of tension, since Russia does not recognize Norway’s jurisdiction to inspect and arrest vessels in the island’s waters beyond 12 nautical miles.

    It’s in this context that growing Russia-China collaboration is a concern to the U.S. and its Arctic NATO allies. Even prior to the war in Ukraine, Moscow looked to its eastern neighbor to develop the Northern Sea Route, invest in Arctic energy projects and infrastructure, and enhance military cooperation. But Russia’s international isolation since Ukraine has made the Kremlin reliant on Beijing to finance its energy export infrastructure in the Arctic, where over 80% of Russia’s natural gas production and almost 20% percent of its oil production comes from.

    The West’s longstanding focus on engagement and cooperation in the European Arctic has also been instrumentalized by China to make inroads. China has pursued investments in Arctic energy and logistics infrastructure (in Greenland, Svalbard, Northern Sweden, and Northern Norway) in a long-term effort to consolidate Beijing’s energy security, sustain economic growth, and expand its global reach. But as the seven non-Russian Arctic states have grown wary of China’s strategic ambitions and coercive economic tactics, Beijing is increasingly relying on Moscow to act as a conduit to expand Chinese activities in the Arctic writ large.

    These factors could provide China with a pretense to consolidate a more substantive presence in the European Arctic, be it through joint military exercises, investments in Russian energy infrastructure, or a role in maritime law enforcement. A recent cooperation agreement between the Russian Federal Security Service and the Chinese Coast Guard may open the door for China in Arctic security affairs, since coast guard tasks entail protecting sovereign rights at sea, such as fishing resources and access to oil and gas infrastructure.

    That said, the short-term impact from increased geopolitical jostling over the Arctic should not be exaggerated. First, large-scale mineral resource extraction in the Arctic still requires significant new investments in mining infrastructure while the region remains an extremely expensive place to drill for oil. Second, overt military aggression will likely remain limited since Russia can scarcely afford to shift its attention to the High North with its objectives in Ukraine far from achieved and its ground forces depleting at an increasing rate. Likewise, a slumping domestic Chinese economy will likely keep Beijing focused on domestic policy issues and limit expansive engagement in the European Arctic in the coming years. Beijing has largely engaged selectively with Russia in the Arctic in areas that further China’s own interest, such as increased science diplomacy and purchasing heavily discounted Russian oil and gas, thus failing to meet Moscow’s lofty expectations for what its “limitless friendship” would entail.

    But that does not mean that Western governments can afford to be complacent on the Arctic. To its credit, Washington is increasingly recognizing the nuances of the Arctic’s growing geopolitical salience. The Department of Defense’s recently released Arctic strategy reflects the need to rethink U.S. engagement by emphasizing enhanced domain awareness and Arctic capabilities, closer engagement with regional allies and partners, and exercising tailored presence. 

    Increasing Russian military and grey zone activities has already illustrated the implications of a changing Arctic threat environment. Several incidents of interference with critical undersea infrastructure have highlighted the pressing threat that Russian hybrid tactics present to Northern Europe. Cooperation on undersea mapping and maritime domain awareness is thus a promising area to pursue in the short-term, and one NATO is paying attention to. Another area of emphasis should be to enhance coordination of investment screenings and the use of international scientific research and science diplomacy as a guise for China to establish a foothold in the European Arctic.

    The era of “Arctic exceptionalism” may be coming to a close. But a sensible Western approach can at least mitigate its worst impacts.

    Max Bergmann and Otto Svendsen

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  • The Coming Russian Escalation With the West

    The Coming Russian Escalation With the West

    To judge from the editorial pages and Capitol Hill currents that both shape and reflect Washington’s perceptions of the world, the doomsayers sounding alarms over the risk of direct military conflict between the U.S. and Russia over Ukraine have been proved wrong. Despite many Russian warnings and much nuclear saber-rattling, the United States has managed to supply advanced artillery systems, tanks, fighter aircraft, and extended-range missiles to Ukraine without an existential contest—or even significant Russian retaliation.

    For Washington’s hawkish chorus, the benefits of providing increasingly greater lethality to Ukraine outweigh the dangers of provoking a direct Russian attack on the West. They insist that the U.S. not allow fears of an unlikely Armageddon to block much-needed aid for Ukraine’s defense, particularly now that battlefield momentum has swung toward Russia. Hence the White House’s recent decision to green-light Ukraine’s use of American weapons to strike into internationally recognized Russian territory and its reported deliberations over putting American military contractors on the ground in Ukraine.

    Read More: Inside Ukraine’s Plan to Arm Itself

    There are several problems with this reasoning. The first is that it treats Russia’s redlines—limits that if crossed, will provoke retaliation against the U.S. or NATO—as fixed rather than moveable. In fact, where they are drawn depends on one man, Vladimir Putin. His judgments about what Russia should tolerate can vary according to his perceptions of battlefield dynamics, Western intentions, sentiment inside Russia, and likely reactions in the rest of the world.

    It is true that Putin has proved quite reluctant to strike directly at the West in response to its military aid for Ukraine. But what Putin can live with today may become a casus belli tomorrow. The world will only know where his red lines are actually drawn once they have been crossed and the U.S. finds itself having to respond to Russian retaliation.

    The second problem is that by focusing narrowly on how Moscow might react to each individual bit of American assistance to Ukraine, this approach underestimates the cumulative impact on Putin and the Kremlin’s calculations. Russian experts have become convinced that the U.S. has lost its fear of nuclear war, a fear they regard as having been central to stability for most of the Cold War, when it dissuaded both superpowers from taking actions that might threaten the other’s core interests.  

    A key question now being debated within Russia’s foreign policy elite is how to restore America’s fear of nuclear escalation while avoiding a direct military clash that might spin out of control. Some Moscow hardliners advocate using tactical nuclear weapons against wartime targets to shock the West into sobriety. More moderate experts have floated the idea of a nuclear bomb demonstration test, hoping that televised images of the signature mushroom cloud would awaken Western publics to the dangers of military confrontation. Others call for a strike on a U.S. satellite involved in providing targeting information to Ukraine or for downing an American Global Hawk reconnaissance drone monitoring Ukraine from airspace over the Black Sea. Any one of these steps could lead to an alarming crisis between Washington and Moscow.

    Underlying these internal Russian debates is a widespread consensus that unless the Kremlin draws a hard line soon, the U.S. and its NATO allies will only add more capable weapons to Ukraine’s arsenal that eventually threatens Moscow’s ability to detect and respond to strikes on its nuclear forces. Even just the perception of growing Western involvement in Ukraine could provoke a dangerous Russian reaction.

    These concerns undoubtedly played a part in Putin’s decision to visit North Korea and resurrect the mutual defense treaty that was in force from 1962 until the Soviet Union’s demise. “They supply weapons to Ukraine, saying: We are not in control here, so the way Ukraine uses them is none of our business. Why cannot we adopt the same position and say that we supply something to somebody but have no control over what happens afterwards? Let them think about it,” Putin told journalists after the trip.

    Last week, following a Ukrainian strike on the Crimean port of Sevastopol that resulted in American-supplied cluster munitions killing at least five Russian beachgoers and wounding more than 100, Russian officials insisted that such an attack was only possible with U.S. satellite guidance aiding Ukraine. The Foreign Ministry summoned the U.S. ambassador in Moscow to charge formally that the U.S. “has become a party to the conflict,” vowing that “retaliatory measures will definitely follow.” The Kremlin spokesperson announced that “the involvement of the United States, the direct involvement, as a result of which Russian civilians are killed, cannot be without consequences.”

    Are the Russians bluffing, or are they approaching a point where they fear the consequences of not drawing a hard line outweighs the dangers of precipitating a direct military confrontation? To argue that we cannot know, and therefore should proceed with deploying American military contractors or French trainers in Ukraine until the Russians’ actions match their bellicose words, is to ignore the very real problems we would face in managing a bilateral crisis.  

    Unlike in 1962, when President John F. Kennedy and his Russian counterpart Nikita Khrushchev famously went “eyeball to eyeball” during the Cuban missile crisis, neither Washington nor Moscow is well positioned to cope with a similarly alarming prospect today. At the time, the Soviet ambassador was a regular guest in the Oval Office and could conduct a backchannel dialogue with Bobby Kennedy beyond the gaze of internet sleuths and cable television. Today, Russia’s ambassador in Washington is a tightly monitored pariah. Crisis diplomacy would require intense engagement between a contemptuous Putin and an aging Biden, already burdened with containing a crisis in Gaza and conducting an election campaign whose dynamics discourage any search for compromise with Russia. Levels of mutual U.S.-Russian distrust have gone off the charts. Under the circumstances, mistakes and misperception could prove fatal even if—as is likely—neither side desires a confrontation.

    Pivotal moments in history often become clear only in hindsight, after a series of developments produce a definitive outcome. Discerning such turning points while events are in motion, and we still have some ability to affect their course, can be maddeningly difficult. We may well be stumbling toward such a moment today.

    George Beebe

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  • The Tragedy of Mexico’s Election

    The Tragedy of Mexico’s Election

    That it is a foregone conclusion that Claudia Sheinbaum will be Mexico’s next President is a tragedy for Mexican democracy. Sheinbaum is Mexico’s presidential frontrunner and the anointed successor of the country’s powerful President, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. She leads most polls with a large double-digit margin that has remained virtually static for the entire campaign.

    The tragedy isn’t that she is likely to win—a large majority of Mexicans will happily and democratically cast their ballots on June 2 for what will be the country’s first woman President (and the first of Jewish descent). It is how easily this triumph has been handed to her, even after campaigning on a platform of continuity in a country ravaged by violence, lawlessness, and twin fiscal and environmental crises.

    Sheinbaum’s allies rebut this criticism by pointing to the positive impact the current Morena government has had through its more progressive policies—salaries have gone up and the economy is growing. They add that the numbers speak for themselves: the President has a 66% approval rating. But that figure is misleading; López Obrador’s approval rating falls within the average of virtually every President from the past 30 years.

    Most Mexicans don’t necessarily adore the current government. They simply have not been given a decent alternative to vote for. And the opposition is in disarray in ways that will have a profound impact on the country’s future.

    President López Obrador swept into power in 2018 on a promise that he would cleanse Mexico of the corruption, violence, and stagnation that plagued it. His triumph smashed the old two-party system that dominated Mexican politics for decades. One was the PRI, which ruled Mexico for most of the 20th century, ideologically swinging from left to right for convenience and repressing the democratic will through rigged elections, clientelism, and corruption. Then there’s the right-wing PAN, which took the presidency from the PRI in 2000 only to unleash the cartel violence that still haunts Mexico.

    Sheinbaum receives the baton of command from Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, President of Mexico, at the facilities of the Porrua bookstore in Mexico City on Sept. 07, 2023.Gerardo Vieyra—NurPhoto/Getty Images

    Six years have passed but many of Mexico’s issues remain or have worsened. The old rivals of PAN and PRI have since joined forces, nominating the relatively unaffiliated Xóchitl Gálvez as their “citizen candidate.” Gálvez’s selection by the Alliance for Mexico, as this pact is known, was a tacit acknowledgement that neither on their own can command considerable support given their past failures.

    The campaign was therefore designed as an anti-López Obrador alliance and its strategy has been to try to point out how badly Morena has run Mexico. But, throughout the campaign, Gálvez’s and the Alliance for Mexico have seemed set to show that anything they accuse the government of would be far worse in their hands.

    The Alliance accuses Morena of cronyism. Yet it was jarring when, in the final presidential debate, Gálvez attacked Sheinbaum for giving ambassadorships to corrupt politicians. The only problem was that the politicians in question were former PRI governors.

    The Alliance accuses Morena of corruption, only for the leader of the PAN to voluntarily tweet out how the Alliance was auctioning off political and administrative posts. It was a form of cronyism so normalized by these old parties that their leaders didn’t even realize that what they were publishing was illegal. 

    The Alliance, which is only united in their opposition to López Obrador, has predictably not been able to produce a coherent platform. This has reinforced the view that they are only running for the sake of remaining in office. 

    Claudia Sheinbaum during a news conference in Mexico City on June 11, 2023.
    Claudia Sheinbaum during a news conference in Mexico City on June 11, 2023. Luis Antonio Rojas—Bloomberg/Getty Images

    This is not necessarily far from the truth. Gálvez’s folksy charisma and personal honesty made her a contender early in the campaign. But, once it became apparent she was struggling to take off in the polls, PAN and PRI have focused on down ballot races. Money that was meant to go toward her presidential run was instead spent on the campaign’s of old political grandees looking to preserve any inkling of their past power.

    Mexicans clearly want answers to their country’s ills. In the final days of the campaign, Citizen’s Movement (MC), a minor party with a progressive platform, has seen steady growth in the polls at the expense of Sheinbaum’s considerable lead. An MC win looks incredibly unlikely—their poll numbers have only gone from 7 to 12% in the past days—but its steady draw on voters shows how open this election truly was. 

    More likely is a win for Sheinbaum and a majority in Congress for Morena and its allies. They will be faced with a crumbling opposition.

    The checks and balances that make up Mexico’s democracy cannot function without a working opposition. Many of Sheinbaum’s policies are set to continue down the disastrous path of militarization and the undermining of Mexico’s institutions. 

    The Alliance’s clumsy campaign stands in stark contrast with the serious accusations it has made about López Obrador’s Morena government, mainly that the Supreme Court and the electoral commission (INE) will be stripped of their autonomy. Unhelpfully, the Alliance has adopted the INE’s branding and colors. The tactic has made it seem to many that one of the country’s most respected independent democratic institutions is somehow aligned against the government, making it easier for Sheinbaum and her allies to claim bias and foul play.

    Even if Morena weren’t to gain a majority, members of the opposition—particularly the PRI—have had a track record of voting with the government anyway. Many have simply switched to Morena after being elected for another party—one of the PRI’s leaders defected to the Sheinbaum camp a week before the election.

    Ironically, Morena has done so well so quickly by pragmatically opening its doors to anyone that would defect from PAN and PRI. The result may be that Mexico might soon begin to see an opposition from within the party. 

    The internal opponents to a Sheinbaum presidency will come from many flanks. Some will stem from ideologues who have felt the party has veered too far from its original left-wing vision. Others will simply resent not being given a desired post. Still others will spot an opportunity to undermine a future President Sheinbaum who does not have the iron grip on the party that López Obrador has.

    It would be a return to the bad old days prior to 2000 in which Mexican politics was conducted within a single party. Yet, this single party rule wouldn’t have come about by the conniving of the ruling party, but by the ineptitude of the opposition. If and when they lose, they will only have themselves to blame—while the rest of Mexico pays for their folly.

    Alex González Ormerod

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  • The GOP Has Crossed an Ominous Threshold on Foreign Policy

    The GOP Has Crossed an Ominous Threshold on Foreign Policy

    The long decline of the Republican Party’s internationalist wing may have reached a tipping point.

    Since Donald Trump emerged as the GOP’s dominant figure in 2016, he has championed an isolationist and nationalist agenda that is dubious of international alliances, scornful of free trade, and hostile to not only illegal but also legal immigration. His four years in the White House marked a shift in the party’s internal balance of power away from the internationalist perspective that had dominated every Republican presidency from Dwight Eisenhower through George W. Bush.

    But even so, during Trump’s four years in office, a substantial remnant of traditionally internationalist Republicans in Congress and in the key national-security positions of his own administration resisted his efforts to unravel America’s traditional alliances.

    Now though, evidence is rapidly accumulating on multiple fronts that the internal GOP resistance is crumbling to Trump’s determination to steer America away from its traditional role as a global leader.

    In Congress, that shift was evident in last week’s widespread Senate and House Republican opposition to continued aid for Ukraine. The same movement is occurring among Republican voters, as a new Chicago Council on Global Affairs study demonstrates.

    The study used the council’s annual national surveys of American attitudes about foreign affairs to examine the evolution of thinking within the GOP on key international issues. It divided Republicans into two roughly equal groups: those who said they held a very favorable view of Trump and the slightly larger group that viewed him either only somewhat favorably or unfavorably.

    The analysis found that skepticism of international engagement—and in particular resistance to supporting Ukraine in its grueling war against Russia—is growing across the GOP. But it also found that the Republicans most sympathetic to Trump have moved most sharply away from support for an engaged American role. Now a clear majority of those Trump-favorable Republicans reject an active American role in world affairs, the study found.

    “Trumpism is the dominant tendency in Republican foreign policy and it’s isolationist, it’s unilateralist, it’s amoral,” Richard Haass, a former president of the Council on Foreign Relations and the director of policy planning at the State Department under George W. Bush, told me a few months ago.

    That dynamic has big implications for a second Trump term. The growing tendency of Republican voters and elected officials alike to embrace Trump’s nationalist vision means that a reelected Trump would face much less internal opposition than he did in his first term if he moves to actually extract America from NATO, reduce the presence of U.S. troops in Europe and Asia, coddle Russian President Vladimir Putin, or impose sweeping tariffs on imports.

    During Trump’s first term, “the party was not yet prepared to abandon internationalism and therefore opposed him,” Ivo Daalder, the chief executive officer of the Chicago Council, told me. “On Russia sanctions, on NATO, on other issues, he had people in the government who undermined him consistently. That won’t happen in a second term. In a second term, his views are clear: He will only appoint people who agree with them, and he has cowed the entire Republican Party.”

    Read: Trump is coming for Obamacare again

    The erosion of GOP resistance to Trump’s approach has been dramatically underscored in just the past few days. Most Senate Republicans last week voted against the $95 billion aid package to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. After that bill passed the Senate anyway, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said that he would not bring it to a vote. All of this unfolded as an array of GOP leaders defended Trump for his remarks at a rally in South Carolina last weekend when he again expressed disdain for NATO and said he would encourage Russia to do “whatever the hell they want” to members of the alliance who don’t spend enough on their own defense.

    Many of the 22 GOP Republicans who voted for the aid package for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan were veteran senators whose views about America’s international role were shaped under the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, or George W. Bush, long before Trump and his “America First” movement loomed so large in conservative politics. It was telling that Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, who was first elected to the Senate while Reagan was president in 1984, was the aid package’s most ardent GOP supporter.

    By contrast, many of the 26 Republican senators who voted no were newer members, elected since Trump became the party’s leading man. Republican Senator J. D. Vance of Ohio, one of Trump’s most ardent acolytes, delivered an impassioned speech, in which he portrayed the aid to Ukraine as the latest in a long series of catastrophic missteps by the internationalist forces in both parties that included the wars in Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Iraq.

    Soon after the bill passed, first-term Republican Senator Eric Schmitt of Missouri noted a stark generational contrast in the vote. “Nearly every Republican Senator under the age of 55 voted NO on this America Last bill,” Schmitt posted on social media. “15 out of 17 elected since 2018 voted NO[.] Things are changing just not fast enough.”

    Just as revealing of the changing current in the party was the vote against the package by two GOP senators considered pillars of the party’s internationalist wing: Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida. Both also unequivocally defended Trump against criticism over his remarks at the South Carolina rally. That seemed to encourage Putin to attack NATO countries that have not met the alliance’s guidelines for spending on their own defense.

    To many observers, the retreat on Ukraine from Rubio and Graham suggests that even many GOP officials who don’t share Trump’s neo-isolationist views have concluded that they must accommodate his perspective to survive in a party firmly under his thumb. “Lindsey Graham is a poster child for the hold that Donald Trump has over the Republican Party,” Wendy Sherman, the former deputy secretary of state under President Joe Biden, told me.

    Republican elected officials still demonstrate flickers of resistance to Trump’s vision. In December, the Senate and the Republican-controlled House quietly included in the massive defense-authorization legislation a provision requiring any president to obtain congressional approval before withdrawing from NATO. The problem with that legislation is that a reelected Trump can undermine NATO without formally leaving it, said Daalder, who served as the U.S. ambassador to NATO under President Barack Obama.

    “You destroy NATO not by walking out but by just not doing anything,” Daalder told me. “If you go around saying ‘If you get attacked, we’ll send [only] a mine sweeper,’ Congress can’t do anything. Congress can declare war, but it can’t force the commander in chief to go to war.”

    Nikki Haley, Trump’s former UN ambassador and his last remaining rival for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, has stoutly defended the traditional Reaganite view that America must provide global leadership to resist authoritarianism. She has denounced Trump’s comments on NATO, and she criticized him Friday for his repeated remarks over the years praising Putin following the reports that Alexei Navalny, the Russian leader’s chief domestic opponent, had died in prison. On Saturday, in a social-media post, she blamed Putin for Navalny’s death and pointedly challenged Trump to say whether he agreed.

    Yet Haley has struggled to attract more than about one-third of the GOP electorate against Trump. Her foreign-policy agenda isn’t the principal reason for that ceiling. But Trump’s dominance in the race is evidence that, for most GOP voters, his praise for Putin and hostility to NATO are not disqualifying.

    The Chicago Council study released helps explain why. Just since 2017, the share of Republicans most favorable toward Trump who say the U.S. should play an active role in global affairs has fallen in the council’s polling from about 70 percent to 40 percent. Likewise, only 40 percent of Trump Republicans support continued military aid to Ukraine, the study found. Only about that many of the Trump Republicans, the Council found, would support sending U.S. troops to fulfill the NATO treaty obligation to defend the Baltic countries if they were invaded by Russia.

    Read: Trump’s ‘knock on the door’

    By contrast, among the part of the GOP less favorable to Trump, majorities still support an active U.S. role in global affairs, sending troops to the Baltics if Russia invades, and continued military and economic aid to Ukraine. The “less-Trump” side of the GOP was also much less likely to agree that the U.S. should reduce its commitment to NATO or withdraw entirely.

    Conversely, Trump Republicans were much more likely to say that they want the United States to be the dominant world leader, while two-thirds of the non-Trump Republicans wanted the U.S. to share leadership with other countries, the traditional internationalist view.

    “Rather than the Biden administration’s heavily alliance-focused approach to U.S. foreign policy,” the report concludes, “Trump Republicans seem to prefer a United States role that is more independent, less cooperative, and more inclined to use military force to deal with the threats they see as the most pressing, such as China, Iran, and migration across the United States-Mexico border.”

    The Chicago Council study found that the most significant demographic difference between these two groups was that the portion of the GOP more supportive of robust U.S. engagement with the world was much more likely to hold a four-year college degree. That suggests these foreign-policy concerns could join cultural disputes such as abortion and book bans as some of the issues Democrats use to try to pry away ordinarily Republican-leaning white-collar voters from Trump if he’s the GOP nominee.

    Jeremy Rosner, a Democratic political consultant who worked on public outreach for the National Security Council under Bill Clinton, told me it’s highly unlikely that Trump’s specific views on NATO or maintaining the U.S. alliances with Japan or South Korea will become a decisive issue for many voters. More likely, Rosner said, is that Trump’s growingly militant language about NATO and other foreign-policy issues will reinforce voter concerns that a second Trump term would trigger too much chaos and disorder on many fronts.

    “People don’t like crazy in foreign policy, and there’s a point at which the willingness to stand up to conventional wisdom or international pressure crosses the line from charmingly bold to frighteningly wacko,” Rosner told me. “To the extent he’s espousing things in the international realm that are way over the line, it will add to that mosaic picture [among voters] that he’s beyond the pale.”

    Perhaps aware of that risk, many Republican elected officials supporting Trump have gone to great lengths to downplay the implications of his remarks criticizing NATO or praising Putin and China’s Xi Jinping. Rubio, for instance, insisted last week that he had “zero concern” that Trump would try to withdraw from NATO, because he did not do so as president.

    Those assurances contrast with the repeated warnings from former national-security officials in both parties that Trump, having worn down the resistance in his party, is likely to do exactly what he says if reelected, at great risk to global stability. “He doesn’t understand the importance of the [NATO] alliance and how it’s critical to our security as well,” Trump’s former Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on CNN last week. “I think it’s realistic that [if] he gets back in office, one of the first things he’ll do is cut off assistance to Ukraine if it isn’t already cut off, and then begin trying to withdraw troops and ultimately withdraw from NATO.”

    A return to power for Trump would likely end the dominance of the internationalist wing that has held the upper hand in the GOP since Dwight Eisenhower. The bigger question is whether a second Trump term would also mean the effective end for the American-led system of alliances and international institutions that has underpinned the global order since World War II.

    Ronald Brownstein

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  • What International Law Can—and Can’t Achieve—in Gaza

    What International Law Can—and Can’t Achieve—in Gaza

    International law should restrain military aggression, help punish wrongdoers, and provide some guidance to conducting warfare ethically. In Ukraine and Gaza, international law seems to be doing none of these things. And yet these conflicts still underscore that international law is what we have and, more than ever, strengthening it must be a moral and political priority.

    International law is omnipresent in public discussions of Russia’s war in Ukraine and Israel’s war in Gaza. Everyone—from world leaders to the press to ordinary people on social media—speak about a state’s right to self-defense, the need to ensure war crimes are not committed, and to guarantee the jurisdictional reach of international courts when they are. Given how much international law is discussed in the context of war, we expect it to constrain its reality. But, for three reasons, the wars in Ukraine and Gaza appear to demonstrate the weakness of international law.

    First, these wars have caused unimaginable horrors but world leaders have co-opted the language of law to defend them. Russia has offered legal justifications for what is evidently a war of aggression, which threatened Ukraine’s survival and has killed tens of thousands of Ukrainians, wounding and displacing many more. Israel, in contrast to Russia, has a plausible claim to be acting in self-defense. But it continues to violate the laws of war in its response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack that left 1,200 people dead. Israel’s military maintains the legality of attacks that destroy hospitals, schools, and places of worship—attacks that have killed at least 25,000 people, most of them women and children. Military operations that are causing catastrophic starvation are argued to meet the rules of conducting warfare. The reality of these wars seems to suggest that international law legitimizes rather than limits violence.

    Second, the International Criminal Court (ICC)—created in 1998 to hold to account those who committ war crimes, crimes against humanity, or genocide—prominently investigates but has not punished wrongdoing in these conflicts. The second anniversary of the Bucha massacre—which saw hundreds of Ukrainian civilians tortured, raped, and killed—is approaching but none of the perpetrators been brought to justice. The ICC’s unprecedented step of issuing an arrest warrant against a sitting head of state that is a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council has barely inconvenienced Vladimir Putin. The ICC’s Prosecutor Karim Khan has spoken out against Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack as well as Israel’s use of force in Gaza. Yet the prospect of arrest warrants has not prevented indiscriminate attacks against Israel nor by it. Israel has moreover failed to meet its obligation to allow humanitarian relief into besieged Gaza. Hamas has failed to release the hostages. All of this has fueled a belief that international law is impotent.

    Finally, across these two conflicts, the discussion of international law is inconsistent and in tension with common-sense ethical judgements. Despite the obvious differences between the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the Biden Administration has equated sending arms to both Ukraine and Israel as part of a global struggle between democracy and autocracy. The head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has condemned Russian attacks against civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, almost in the same breath as expressing steadfast support for Israel as it destroys the last working power plants in Gaza and renders the Strip almost uninhabitable. Uncritical support for Israel fuels the charge, widespread in the Global South, that the West invokes international law only to constrain “the rest.”

    When legal arguments follow political rather than ethical considerations, as the Biden Administration and European allies are doing, can law still help us make sense of the world? Ukraine and Gaza have created a crisis of confidence in the project to constrain war with international law, but dismissing it outright would be a grave mistake.

    For starters, it is crucial for us to understand the purpose and scope of international law. International law does not prohibit all actions that we rightly consider abhorrent. It can’t because war cannot be waged without morally unjustified violence. If law prohibited all morally unjustified violence, it would make waging war impossible, and war would revert to being a much more dangerous law-free zone. Neither can international law “end impunity” in war, as the creators of the ICC unwisely promised. Wrongdoing pervades war, war pervades geopolitics, courts must be selective, and punishing people for violations takes time. Crucially, in domestic societies, we think of legal accountability as worthwhile even if it does not deter wrongdoing in the first place and criminals are not brought to justice. The first remedy to the crisis of confidence in international law is a more realistic understanding of what law can do in war. Law cannot turn war into anything other than a violent moral catastrophe. But international law can and does make war less awful than it would otherwise be.

    That is certainly the hope many had for South Africa’s case with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) accusing Israel of violating the genocide convention in Gaza. While the ICJ fell short of ordering a ceasefire in its preliminary ruling on Friday, it did determine that the charge of genocide was not implausible and ordered Israel to provide aid to Gazans. Whatever one makes of the ICJ ruling, it is a mistake to forgo law’s ability to prevent some morally unjustified violence because it fails to prevent all or even most of it.

    A realistic understanding of international law’s limits and an appreciation for its achievements are not enough to overcome this crisis of confidence. International law needs to be strengthened. That means making international law a political priority in wartime and ensuring aid and diplomatic support are contingent on compliance, regardless of which state is skirting their obligations. Moreover, when bad actors co-opt the language of international law, they need to be called out more forcefully, whether friend or foe. When countries abuse law to justify illegal conduct, the appropriate reaction is not to dismiss the law, but to point out its misuse.

    It is becoming more obvious to everyone that international law cannot fulfil all the roles most would expect of it. But the growing interest in international law also indicates an area of rare agreement: Law is relevant in war. We must build on this agreement because war without law is no alternative at all.

    Janina Dill

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  • 5 Shock Events to the World That Are Already in Sight

    5 Shock Events to the World That Are Already in Sight

    In 2023, we have witnessed plenty of shock events: consider, for instance, Hamas’ attack on Israel and Israel’s subsequent siege on Gaza, Chinese “spy balloons,” the assassination of Wagner chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, and even UFOs that may be extraterrestrial. Shock events are risks—or threats to stability—that, while they are in the realm of possibility, are very hard to predict. That said, attempting to determine what they are can serve as a useful tool to help decision makers, from policymakers and investors to businesses and nonprofits, prepare for unexpected challenges in the future.

    Based on a four-year research project with graduate students in international relations at New York University where I teach and experts at consultancy Wikistrat where I’m a lead analyst, we leveraged open source information and our collective work expertise to crowdsource geopolitical, political, economic, and social shock events that may rock our post-pandemic world by 2025.

    Here are five to consider:

    A billionaire “hacks” the planet

    2022’s COP27 reminded us that we will fail to meet our 1.5C target, and in truth, not much changed at COP28 in December 2023. Indeed, the Loss and Damage Fund—an emergency program announced in 2022 to help countries prepare for the impacts of climate change—was “historic.” But the commitments are not where we need them to be: only 700 million was pledged this year when an estimated 400 billion a year is needed.

    Leaders at COP28 called for a just “transition away” from fossil fuels by 2050—yet governments continue to spend billions to support that industry. Countries also might need 300 billion a year in adaptation financing, according to the UN, which wasn’t given sufficient attention at COP28. All signs point to the fact that we should expect more fossil fuel usage, climate events, and community displacement in the years to come.

    Read More: Was COP28 a Success or Flop? Depends Who You Ask

    Without sufficient climate action, the potentiality of a private actor, particularly a billionaire, to take matters into their own hands by “hacking” the planet is rising. One such strategy is solar geoengineering. U.S.-based startup Make Sunsets, for instance, has already started this in a minor way, with reflective clouds released into the stratosphere that reflect the sun’s rays and cool the planet. But it would be worth it, then, for us to keep an eye out for a sole private investor to back this type of initiative or even another cooling approach in a major way. George Soros, for one, has already endorsed a similar cause in the Arctic.

    Solar geoengineering is controversial (the U.S. and EU are already considering regulation of the practice) and could even lead to conflict, if, for instance, one country attempts it and it has a spillover effect on its neighbor—or even the world. Yet, billionaire-backed climate tech like solar geoengineering seems plausible by 2025 and inevitable this decade.

    Eco-terrorism makes an ugly comeback

    Another high probability risk if governments fail to stop fossil fuels is more climate action—but not just in terms of protests. It might become more violent in nature. Of course, we can expect more youth-driven activist protests against governments and oil firms, as well as more pushback against ESG investing and more activist investors in boardrooms pressuring companies to go green. We will also see more lawsuits against local governments (similarly to what a group of young people did this August when they sued Montana for their climate impacts) and oil companies for climate damages (like California and the UN attempted to do in May).

    The shock event here, however, would be if people so devastated by a massive climate event form a violent uprising against climate-inactive governments or oil companies. Yes, eco-terrorism has some historical precedent with groups like the Earth Liberation Front. But it’s plausible that a new form of militant activism emerges as citizen frustration grows. This could also create a dangerous cycle of violence as climate deniers and eco-terrorists clash, while legitimate activists may be scapegoated and targeted by governments.

    The U.S. dollar is replaced in international trade

    The dollar is a key marker (and weapon) of American hegemonic power. While it’s unlikely to be replaced as the global reserve currency, its role in international trade is definitely under attack. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, there were recurrent discussions of a new currency proposed by intergovernmental organization BRICS, and calls by China to use its own currency in more trade. Yet it had limited traction.

    This sentiment has come back with a vengeance in our post-pandemic world. At South Africa’s 2023 BRICS Summit, discussions of a new currency resurfaced as this China-driven, anti-Western initiative found enthusiastic new members like Argentina, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and Saudi Arabia. More oil trade has already moved away from the dollar, with China and India leveraging their own currencies. But now non-oil trade is also looking beyond the dollar: for instance, the UAE and Sri Lanka are exploring rupee transactions with India.

    Regional currencies may still be perceived as a pipe dream, but the momentum for them is also building in Latin America, South East Asia, and Africa; and there’s always a chance that cryptocurrencies make a comeback or central bank digital currencies finally cement their status in international finance. As a result, the shock would come when more trade is done in other currencies relative to the U.S. dollar; 2025 is likely too soon but this trend will evolve this decade, eroding U.S. financial power by 2030.

    AI sparks more conflict

    We’ve all heard the shocking predictions from tech leaders like Sam Altman and intellectuals like Yuval Noah Harari: AI, if not regulated, has the potential to destroy humanity. But while it’s certainly not possible by 2025, there is legitimate concern about AI tools triggering war.

    It could be a deep fake video that accelerates tensions between two longtime rival countries, or cyberattacks that ensure a presidential run, or simply the use of AI weapons that many researchers and industry leaders have warned could lead to World War 3. This is why technologists like Inflection’s Mustafa Suleyman are calling for regulation now—before negative actors find a way to leverage it for their cause.

    Read More: How We Can Have AI Progress Without Sacrificing Safety or Democracy

    We also may see conflict within societies. The reality is that much of the population will lose our jobs to automation, generative AI, and whatever AI trend is next. It’s estimated that 85 million jobs will be lost to AI worldwide by 2025, according to a 2020 World Economic Forum report. It’s fair to assume that governments will fail to prepare all of us to immediately fit into this new AI-driven economy—at least not by 2025. As a result, many may lose our occupational identity.

    We must look for more unexpected outbursts of anti-tech activity. It could be anti-tech protests that are destabilizing for our societies, but it could also be direct attacks on tech firms or tech leaders themselves, who are so public about the change that is upon us but simply can’t save everyone from unemployment.

    Trump returns to the U.S. presidency

    In November 2023, most prediction markets still envisioned an incumbent President Joe Biden win, but they are currently favoring former President Donald Trump’s return—though so far it’s too close to tell, according to some polls. A lot can happen between now and November 2024 and polls can be wrong. But at this stage, it is impossible to ignore the fact that President Biden’s poll numbers are weakening, Trump has raised millions for his campaign, his indictments appear to have made him more popular among his voters and his party. In fact, a November 2023 New York Times/Siena College poll reveals he has the edge in five battleground states.

    Short of him being convicted before the election, being disqualified from more ballots, or another Republican (or independent) candidate rising to the occasion, it is hard to see his momentum slowing down. The concern about Biden’s health (and polls reaffirming this) further support a Republican win. Trump’s return seems the most plausible of these shocks by 2025—and the most dangerous. It will mean a resurgence in domestic and global instability. For instance, in the U.S., hate crimes have the potential to surge as far right extremists become emboldened by Trump, who recently said he would expel pro-Hamas immigrants at a rally.

    Globally, major risks like climate change would be put on the back burner such that climate disasters would become more frequent, creating more climate refugees and conflict. He would stop aid to Ukraine, which would dramatically change the outcome of the Ukrainian-Russian war; he would battle it out with China over Taiwan; he would reject Gazan refugees in support of Israel, and so on. Another Trump presidency would further destabilize our world order.

    It’s clear that our post-pandemic world is ultimately being shaped by wars, climate challenges, and new technologies—and yet it may increasingly be driven by such unexpected shock events, too. Why is this the case? One possible, overarching reason is that we have moved on from a post-Cold War era that is no longer exclusively shaped by enduring global leadership, democratic ideals, globalization, and liberal values. Instead, it is shaped by the lack of consensus about our world order more than anything else.

    Maha Hosain Aziz

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  • How the West Can Make Russian Sanctions Bite Again

    How the West Can Make Russian Sanctions Bite Again

    Western sanctions against Russia in the wake of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 came hard and fast. Moscow lost access to a staggering $300 billion of its foreign exchange reserves held by G7 countries overnight, the ruble sank almost a quarter of its value against the U.S. dollar, and Russia’s industrial base was crippled.

    Put together by the U.S., E.U., G-7 governments, and others, the sanctions, which started in 2014 after Putin annexed Crimea, were ramped up in 2022. They hit most major Russian banks and included punishing export restrictions on microchips and other key military technologies; sanctions against Putin’s inner circle and Russian oligarchs; and an innovative price cap that penalized Russian oil sales while avoiding a big oil price jump.

    These sanctions had bite but they are wearing off as Russia adjusts and learns to evade them. The Russian economy has started to grow again, amid ramped up military spending that has reached 10% of GDP, compared with 3-4% before the full-scale invasion. There are a lot of reports of goods, including banned ones, making their way to Russia via third countries (for example, there have been huge jumps in German exports to Kyrgyzstan, with a lot of those products moving swiftly to Russia). And Russia is using a “shadow fleet” of oil tankers and fraudulent bookkeeping to undermine the oil price cap.

    While the biggest Russian banks have been cut off from the international financial system, especially the SWIFT clearing mechanism, smaller ones and Gasprombank, the big energy bank, remain in the international SWIFT system. This has weakened the financial pressure.

    Critics say that sanctions have failed. Some even say that sanctions are useless in any case. As the former U.S. State Department Coordinator for Sanctions, I helped put together the initial ones targeting Russia in 2014. They were significant and what came after 2022 even more so.

    Just look at the state of Russia’s economy. The IMF still assesses the country’s economic outlook as “dim.” Massive defense spending has artificially jacked up Russian GDP. Capital controls that force Russian firms to sell their hard foreign currency to the state have inflated the value of an otherwise weak ruble. Yet these dramatic measures cannot fully make up for the impact of economic pressure. The West can also tighten the screws by intensifying sanctions and enforcement. With Ukraine’s stalling counteroffensive, this is the time to lean into economic pressure on Russia, not let up.

    Read More: Inside Volodymyr Zelensky’s Struggle to Keep Ukraine in the Fight

    The U.S. and Europe have plenty of options to do this. They can toughen export controls on niche technologies that Russia needs for its war-footing. They can close gaps in the oil price cap by going after Russia’s “ghost fleet” of tankers and oil brokers that falsify invoices to skirt the restrictions. They can take the $300 or so billion in frozen Russian assets and use them to help Ukraine—a bit of poetic justice that U.S. and European taxpayers might appreciate. They can extend the financial sanctions to all Russian banks (with exemptions for food, medicine, and non-military transactions) to deepen Russia’s isolation. They can clamp down on exports to places like Kyrgyzstan that are actually bound for Russia. The U.S., E.U., and the U.K. are already taking some of these steps and Washington announced new sanctions on Dec. 12. They can do more.

    In the short-term, advancing economic pressure on Russia can show that Putin cannot, as he hopes, wait out the West and grind Ukraine into submission. As the West learned during the Cold War, economic pressure can work.

    After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the imposition of martial law in Poland in the early 1980s to crush the country’s democratic movement, the U.S. tried to impose economic pressure on the USSR. Those efforts were seen at the time as inconsistent, contentious, and a failure. In retrospect, we see that they worked: they deprived the Soviet economy of key injections of Western investment and technology. In the 1980s, the Soviet economy sputtered and sank. In a few years more, the Soviet empire collapsed.

    The Putinist economy is similarly rigid, with little room for entrepreneurship amid the top-to-bottom corruption and cronyism. Russia’s massive military expenses and lack of investment will increase pressure on Russia’s economy by starving the rest of the economy of resources, just as happened with the Soviet economy. China and Russia’s other friends cannot fully make up for its economic vulnerabilities.

    Contending with Putin’s Russia will be a long-term challenge. The U.S. and its allies have economic tools to wield. We should use them. And mean it.

    More Must-Reads From TIME

    Contact us at letters@time.com.

    Daniel Fried

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  • Sudan's Dangerous Descent Into Warlordism

    Sudan's Dangerous Descent Into Warlordism

    Like millions of people from Sudan, we have seen our families suffer in the wake of a devastating war that began in April. No one in Sudan has been spared.

    Both of us are lucky to have escaped with our lives but we have relatives who were killed in the fighting, kidnapped at gunpoint, and whose homes were destroyed. We receive WhatsApp messages from family members who are internally displaced, stuck at the borders or, for those able to leave Sudan, living precarious lives in neighboring countries without rights or legal status. 

    For the past nine months, the vicious war being fought in our country has been far from the attention of a distracted world. Well before the current Israel-Hamas war came to dominate headlines, the conflict between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) was a mere footnote on the international agenda. And yet Sudan stands on the edge of an abyss.

    UNISFA peacekeepers bring wounded Misseriya people and their families from north Abyei for treatment at the Ameth Bek Hospital, August, 2023.Sean Sutton—Panos Pictures/Redux

    Rival bids for power between Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, the SAF leader, and RSF counterpart Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, widely known as Hemedti, underpins the war. Sudan had been run by a council of generals, including these two erstwhile allies, after a 2021 coup brought an end to civilian rule in the wake of the 2019 pro-democracy movement that deposed longtime dictator Omar al-Bashir. Tensions came to a head on April 15 when fighting broke out in our home city of Khartoum, and it quickly spread to other regions of the country.

    Some 10,000 people have since been killed, almost certainly a vast undercount. With at least 6 million people already driven from their homes, Sudan has the world’s largest displaced population, and the number is growing by the day as fighting intensifies.

    In Darfur in particular, the situation is alarming. The RSF—which evolved from the Janjaweed militia that earned worldwide infamy during the Darfur crisis of two decades ago—has conducted a brutal campaign that is on the verge of securing full control of the region.

    Rampaging across Darfur on motorcycles, horses, or pick-up trucks, the RSF and allied Arab militias have been accused of ethnically motivated killings against the Massalit and other non-Arab communities; indiscriminate and deliberate attacks against civilians; and widespread sexual violence and rape. (The U.S. government recently determined that both the SAF and RSF have committed war crimes, and that the RSF has committed crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing.) In early November, the RSF and its allies reportedly killed at least 800 people in an attack on just one town—Ardamata in West Darfur province.

    A senior U.N. official in Sudan, Clementine Nkweta-Salami, wasn’t exaggerating when she said, “What is happening is verging on pure evil.” A group of U.N. experts called “on both parties to the conflict to end violations of humanitarian and human rights law,” but they expressed “specific concern” with the RSF’s “brutal and widespread use of rape and other forms of sexual violence.”

    Sudanese Refugees Fleeing War Receive Aid And Shelter Across Border In Chad
    Mariam Hassam, 20, takes a shower using water from a hole in the dry valley on Sept. 20, 2023 in Metche, Chad. More than 420,000 Sudanese refugees have fled to neighboring Chad.Abdulmonam Eassa—Getty Images
    Fleeing Sudanese seek refuge in Chad
    An aerial view of makeshift shelters of Sudanese, who fled the conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, in Adre, Chad, July 20, 2023. Zohra Bensemra—Reuters

    Sudan is a large country, strategically located, and its speedy disintegration is already having spillover effects throughout the Horn of Africa, Sahel, and Red Sea regions. Major refugee flows into neighboring countries such as Chad, South Sudan, Egypt, and Ethiopia are ongoing, while the fighting in Darfur is causing fallout across the border in Chad.

    Peace talks that concluded last month in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia—convened by the U.S., Saudi Arabia, and a bloc of East African nations—might have seemed like a positive step toward peace. But it has mostly provided the warring parties with cover for further violence as the U.N. remains gridlocked. The Security Council has not passed a substantive resolution on Sudan since the war began.

    Meanwhile, regional powers have picked sides. Egypt, Iran, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia support the SAF while the UAE, a U.N. Security Council member, backs the RSF in seeming violation of the body’s own arms embargo on Darfur, first enacted in 2004 and just renewed (with a yes vote from the UAE) in March 2023. (The UAE has denied supplying weapons or ammunition to the RSF.)

    Mother holds a newly born child in an ambulance outside the Gongoi IDP camp.
    Awar is sent to hospital in an ambulance from Gongoi IDP camp where she had twins the previous night. She is feeling very weak and unwell and has lost a lot of blood and is still bleeding. August, 2023.Sean Sutton—Panos Pictures/Redux

    In the wake of last month’s failed peace talks in Jeddah, the international community needs to step in and prioritize genuine peace talks, a durable ceasefire, increased humanitarian access, and a surge of resources for aid and protection efforts. The U.N.’s Sudan response plan requires $2.6 billion; it is about a third funded.

    We, like so many Sudanese, have been forced to flee our country, leaving behind the land and people that we love. The Khartoum that we called home and know is gone. Bodies are piling up in the streets, in some cases eaten by stray dogs. Those who are too sick or weak to move await death as heavy shelling surrounds them.

    But our nation is worth saving. There are everyday Sudanese at the forefront of the humanitarian response working to keep communities safe and weaving back the social fabric that this war has torn asunder. We, and they, need the world to join the struggle to end this war before it is too late.

    Kholood Khair and Asmahan Akam

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  • Why India Is Targeting Sikhs At Home and Around the World

    Why India Is Targeting Sikhs At Home and Around the World

    Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that it had foiled an alleged plot by an Indian official to murder a Sikh activist and American citizen in New York City. The DOJ’s press release discloses that Czech authorities detained and extradited the alleged assassin this past June.

    This announcement comes on the heels of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s public accusation that the Government of India was complicit in the June 18 murder of Sikh Canadian leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar. Gunmen shot dead Mr. Nijjar, a Canadian citizen, outside a Sikh place of worship in Surrey, British Columbia. (The Indian Government has denied any involvement in Nijjar’s murder.)

    Trudeau’s rebuke garnered the attention of world leaders, and the story dominated headlines internationally. Most commentary has focused on India’s descent to authoritarianism. Some analysis has rightly placed Nijjar’s extra-judicial killing within the larger pattern of escalating state-sponsored minority persecution in Modi’s India, causing Genocide Watch to issue an alert that India is at the organization stage of genocide.   

    What’s absent from this reporting, however, is a discussion of the context undergirding these tensions. To see the picture more holistically, we must examine the questions: What are the Sikh community’s grievances against India, and what roots their calls for political sovereignty? And why does Modi’s government feel so threatened by calls for Sikh self-determination that they would risk relations with world superpowers like the U.S. and Canada?

    The story of Sikh sovereignty begins with its founder, Guru Nanak (d. 1539 CE), who observed the injustices around him and offered another way. He revealed a new concept, ik oankar, which announced the oneness of all beings, and which insisted that all people are equally divine and inherently sovereign. Guru Nanak taught that a Sikh’s goal in this world is to attain their own liberation while also ensuring that all people have the opportunity to live freely, too—and that when political leaders impinge on people’s rights and freedoms, it is a Sikh’s responsibility to resist that repression.

    This ethos has manifested itself in the Sikh polity in various ways since it was first revealed centuries ago, from resistance poetry, to an organized army, to political autonomy. The early 1800s saw the rise of the Sikh Empire, led by the charismatic and pluralistic Maharaja Ranjit Singh. The British East India Company conquered Punjab in 1849, the last area in South Asia to fall, bringing the region into colonial rule for nearly a century.

    As the sun began to set on the British Empire, colonial leadership created new nation-states carved out primarily on the basis of religious identity. Discussions at the time included the potential for different countries for different religious communities, including Hindustan (India) for the Hindus, Pakistan for the Muslims, and Khalistan or Sikhistan for the Sikhs. The Sikh political leaders ultimately declined to pursue a separate homeland and chose instead to align themselves with the idea of a new secular, pluralistic democracy, along with the assurance that, as a minority community in the new Indian nation, Sikh rights would be protected.

    In August of 1947, the homeland of the Sikhs—Punjab—was divided into two nearly equal parts; the western half would form part of Pakistan, and the eastern half would become part of India. What ensued following the formal partition of Punjab were the largest and deadliest mass migrations in human history: scholars estimate between 200,000 to 2 million people died in the communal violence, and that up to 20 million were displaced.

    Countless Sikhs abandoned their homes and migrated east, including members of our families. Those who survived started life all over, leaving behind their property, businesses, and places of worship. They even left behind the birthplace of their beloved founder, Guru Nanak, which now fell in Pakistan. Indeed, a significant portion of Sikh heritage now lies on the Pakistani side of Punjab.

    India began its nation-building project, bringing the immense challenge of forging a common identity among large and religiously, linguistically, and culturally diverse populations. What a majority of the total population shared, though, was a Hindu identity, and this religion became the center around which political leaders decided to coalesce Indian national identity, much to the dismay of India’s minority populations.

    Indian leadership came to see religious minorities as a threat to their nation-building project, viewing Sikhs with particular suspicion and disdain, recognizing they catalyzed anti-colonial efforts and played a leading role in them. They were also aware that Sikhs still had recent memories of political autonomy in Punjab. Indian elites worried about Punjab becoming a majority Sikh state that would gain in political power and threaten the stability of young India. This led Indian leadership to deny Punjab and its Sikhs consequential rights that were afforded to other states, including official language status for Punjabi and its own state capital. India also weakened Punjab’s political power by carving out territory from it for other states, such as Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. Moreover, contravening riparian law, an international norm, India diverted Punjab’s river waters to other states and regions, a massive economic blow to the state long-known as the breadbasket of India, and a threat to the livelihood of Punjab’s agrarian society.  

    Punjabi Sikhs soon began agitating against the Indian government, protesting the erosion of its cultural, economic, and political rights. In 1978, Sikh leadership drafted the Anandpur Sahib Resolution, which laid out a list of demands to safeguard the rights of Sikhs in Punjab and other minorities around India.

    A charismatic Sikh leader from a religious seminary emerged during this period, Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, whose ascent caught the eye of the Indian government. Bhindranwale spoke adamantly against the infringements of the Indian state, which by this stage had escalated to include gross human rights violations. He called on Sikhs and minorities everywhere to stand up against oppression. Citing him as an anti-national who threatened India’s stability, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi launched a military assault  against him and his followers at the Golden Temple of Amritsar—the most significant site for Sikhs—on a major religious holiday. Bhindranwale was killed in the assault, along with thousands of other Sikh pilgrims who were worshipping there.

    The global Sikh community was furious about the government’s attack and demanded justice. In this moment, the movement for a separate Sikh homeland was reborn. Bhindranwale had stated openly that he neither supported nor rejected the idea of Khalistan – but that if the Indian government ever invaded the Golden Temple complex, the foundation for an independent Sikh homeland would be laid.

    Later that year, Ms. Gandhi was assassinated by her Sikh bodyguards, presumably to avenge her assault on the Golden Temple. In the days that followed, the ruling Congress Party, utilizing state agencies and infrastructure, organized violent anti-Sikh pogroms across North India, focused primarily on the Indian capital of New Delhi. The pogroms left thousands of Sikhs dead, thousands more displaced, and all Sikhs wondering if they could ever have a home in India.

    Bhindranwale’s prediction came true. The anti-Sikh violence of 1984 made many Sikhs feel like the pattern of abuses under Indian leadership would not end, and it fueled a new movement for Sikh self-determination. In July of 1984, Sikhs gathered in Madison Garden in New York City and announced their commitment “to support the struggle of Sikhs in the Punjab for self-determination and the preservation of their distinct and religious identity.” Less than two years later, thousands of Sikhs gathered at the Golden Temple in their political tradition of Sarbat Khalsa and announced a resolution to recognize Khalistan.

    From the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, Punjab was enmeshed in a violent struggle. A segment of the Sikh population took up armed resistance, with the aim of winning an independent Sikh state, free from the tyranny of India. This period of insurgency is often what westerners mean when they are referring to the Khalistan Movement.

    While India accused militants of targeting politicians and civilians, Indian security forces employed widespread and systematic abuses for over a decade, including torture, murder, and enforced disappearances, targeting anyone it suspected of being involved in the insurgency or political movement for self-determination. In the years since, human rights defenders and researchers have uncovered the extent of India’s atrocity crimes. In 1995, human rights defender Jaswant Singh Khalra released official records demonstrating Punjab Police had abducted, killed and secretly cremated thousands of Punjabi Sikhs. Punjab Police subsequently abducted, tortured, and killed Khalra for refusing to retract his findings. In 2017, new evidence demonstrated more than 8,000 additional extra-judicial killings, bringing total estimates to 25,000. 

    Although the violent conflict subsided by the mid-1990s, the culture of impunity for gross human rights violations and extra-judicial violence continues to grip Punjab. None of the chief architects of the crimes against humanity have been brought to account, nor have survivors and their communities been given reparations. Moreover, the government continues to use the specter of terrorism to target its critics, and the central issue of the denuding of Punjab’s river waters serves as a continuing flashpoint.  

    This tension was evident over the last couple of years, when India attacked Sikhs during the 2022 Farmers Protests by calling the protestors “Khalistanis and “Anti-nationals.” The accusations fell on deaf ears, with global recognition that Sikhs and others were organizing to protect their agrarian livelihoods. The government used these same tactics this past spring during their manhunt for Sikh leader Amritpal Singh—again, using the threat of national security to violate human rights, targeting journalists and community organizers in dragnet operations. Sikhs have become desensitized to these spurious accusations, well accustomed to the cynical nationalist playbook: demonize minorities to galvanize the Hindu majority. That this strategy is being deployed in the midst of an election year is no coincidence. Modi and his BJP regime have used this program diligently for two decades.

    And yet, the Indian government’s alleged attempts to kill foreign nationals on foreign soil indicate a shifting approach. Modi’s India is now willing to engage transnational repression and murder of his critics, joining the ranks of China, Russia, and Saudi Arabia with these practices.

    As India continues its slide from democracy to authoritarianism, Sikhs in India and around the world have been reminded that this devolution is not just Modi’s India. It is India as they have always experienced it. The latest assassination attempt in New York City and the murder of Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil fall into a long history of abuses, underscoring why Sikhs do not feel secure and vindicating their long-held belief that India poses the greatest threat to its own national security.

    Simran Jeet Singh and Gunisha Kaur

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  • Argentina Faces a Bleak Election

    Argentina Faces a Bleak Election

    Argentines head to the polls this Sunday, Nov. 19 for the second round of the most divisive presidential election in decades. The choice couldn’t be more stark—between an establishment Minister of Economy who has presided over an inflation rate that stands at a staggering 140% and a firebrand libertarian that is making international markets jittery.

    The establishment candidate, Sergio Massa, is part of the Peronist government of President Alberto Fernández. Javier Milei, a relative political outsider and self-described anarcho-capitalist, is the upstart promising to abolish Argentina’s peso and central bank as part of a campaign to radically reduce the Argentine state and its role in the economy.

    Polls suggest a surprisingly tight race. If you’re asking how an incumbent economy minister in a country that is in an economic tailspin stands a good chance of becoming President on Sunday, you have not grasped the extent to which Peronists have dominated Argentina’s politics for the past seven decades and the outrageousness of his competitor, Milei.

    The Peronists that Massa represents is no average party and was formed by Juan Perón in the 1940s by fusing right-wing elements of the military with a unified labor movement. That personalist, top-down movement has since evolved into the heterogenous political machine of labor unions, crony capitalists, neoliberal reformers, traditional leftists, and a vast network of neighborhood political bosses. This ideological flexibility—critics would say cynicism—and party machinery has been key to Peronism’s electoral successes.

    Massa has remained a pragmatist who has served in several past Peronist governments of different ideological leanings, especially the leftist-populist governments of Néstor Kirchner (2003-2007) and his wife Cristina Fernández de Kirchner (2007-2015). A recent and massive tax reduction for the working classes and a cash give-away program for pensioners ahead of the Oct. 19 first-round presidential election have helped Massa’s chances. But it is his image as the status quo candidate—despite the government’s track record—that has helped him most among non-Peronist voters.

    Milei, a TV personality who made his reputation trashing Argentina’s political class and state-centric economic model, has captured popular anger over the country’s chronic boom-bust economy. Argentines love to remind outsiders that at the turn of the 20th century, their country was richer than Italy and Spain, and on par with the U.S., Australia, and Canada. This historical slide, particularly in the past 20 years, stings for many Argentines. 

    So, when Milei rails against the establishment it resonates with voters. This is particularly true for Argentina’s under 30s, many of whom have known little but a peso in free fall and dimming job prospects. It’s no surprise then that younger voters form a strong core of support for the moppy-haired outsider who used to be part of a Rolling Stones tribute band.

    Given Argentina’s chronic inflationary troubles, stemming from political leaders’ inability to curtail profligate public spending by printing more money, some of Milei’s radical ideas make sense on the surface. Dollarization would eliminate the government’s currency printing presses and tie macroeconomic policy to a more stable U.S. monetary policy. But the Argentine central bank lacks sufficient U.S. dollar reserves to make it a national currency. It may be tempting to take monetary policy out of the hands of Argentina’s infamously spendthrift politicians and place it in the hands of the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve. Yet that would limit the scope and agency of a diverse, $630 billion economy to set its own policies domestically and internationally. A simpler and much-less disruptive approach would be to once and for all ensure the independence of Argentina’s central bank from political influence.

    Milei’s pledge to cut public spending by 15% of GDP is, however, more sensible. But it would be painful to millions of Argentines who depend on subsidies on energy—which this year will total $8 billion alone—and on public transport. Slashing the state budget will directly reduce the standard of living for a large segment of Argentina’s population.

    Milei’s radical agenda would of course face major obstacles considering that his Libertarian Party only occupies a handful of seats in the country’s Congress. But there are also concerns that a President Milei would test the fragile checks and balances of Argentina’s democracy given the lack of tolerance he has expressed toward opponents and the political system generally. The chainsaw he famously waves around at rallies to symbolize his slashing of the state is a not-so-subtle indication of his political temperament.

    That’s not to say a Massa win will comfort voters. For one, it remains unclear what Massa will do beyond what he has already tried. The inflation rate has gone from 79% when he became economy minister in August 2022 to 140% today. He would also still need to contend with a diverse party that includes Cristina Fernández de Kirchner and her allies as well as the party’s labor wing that will contest many of the necessary efforts to reduce expenditures and tackle market distortions. Nevertheless, both Massa and the Peronist movement have shown a historical capacity to adapt and negotiate. It’s not a sense one gets from Milei.

    Whoever wins this Sunday will inherit a complex economic crisis in which there are no easy answers. Argentina’s historic economic fragility is bound up in decades of inefficient—even corrupt—public policy and the lack of checks and balances on fiscal and monetary policy. But a majority of Argentines have come to depend on unsustainable state largesse that fuels market inefficiencies, public debt, and inflation.

    The best that can be hoped for is a broad centrist coalition to brace the country for the difficult choices it needs to make. While Massa has detractors, a Peronist insider like him may be best positioned to fashion that support. This is one consideration that millions of voters will weigh up as Argentina braces for one of its most consequential elections yet. But the most important one is broad frustration—even anger—over the dire state of affairs.

    Christopher Sabatini

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  • How India Became Pro-Israel

    How India Became Pro-Israel

    When Hamas launched its unprecedented attack against Israel on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, like most world leaders, condemned Hamas’s horrific actions and expressed “solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour.” But the Modi government’s approach in the days and weeks that followed have set it apart from many non-Western peers. That divergence notably includes India abstaining from a U.N. resolution on Oct. 27 that called for a “humanitarian truce” (120 countries voted in favor).

    India’s approach has surprised many observers for various reasons. First, the Indian government’s relative quiet about the plight of Palestinians in Gaza as the death toll tops 11,000 marks a departure from its consistent support for Palestinians since 1948. Even in the recent past, as India and Israel developed defense and commercial ties, New Delhi’s support for Israel was tempered by its historical ties. Second, through its presidency of the G-20 in 2023, India signaled its ambition to represent the voice of the Global South and ensure the developing world’s concerns get heard.

    Historically, India has had a very different relationship with Israelis and Palestinians. During India’s struggle for independence from the British, the Indian anti-colonial movement supported Palestinian nationalists and India proposed a plan in 1947 to create an independent federal state of Palestine (with constitutional safeguards for the Jewish minority). The reasons were complex, stemming in part from the unease of India’s post-colonial, nationalist elites about the wisdom of creating what they perceived to be a settler state in the erstwhile British Mandate for Palestine. Consequently, when the U.N. General Assembly passed a resolution in 1947 that recommended establishing the State of Israel alongside a Palestinian one, a newly independent India was one of the few non-Arab countries that voted against the measure.

    Pragmatic considerations shaped India’s position. Indian leaders felt that they could not endorse a state that was founded on religious grounds, especially coming so soon after the violent Partition of India in 1947 that led to Pakistan’s creation, an outcome that they had staunchly opposed.

    India formally recognized Israel in 1950. But Indo-Israeli contacts were limited given Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s fear of stirring opposition, particularly from Indian Muslims. At the time, India also wanted to present itself as a standard-bearer against colonialism and to demonstrate its solidarity with newly decolonized Arab states, which were being courted by Pakistan. In 1974, India became the first non-Arab country to recognize the Palestine Liberation Organization as the “sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.” India again claimed another first when it became the first non-Arab country to recognize the State of Palestine when the PLO proclaimed it in 1988.

    It was not until 1992 that India granted full diplomatic recognition to Israel, including the opening of the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi. With the Cold War over and the impending Oslo Accords—which sought rapprochement between Israel and the Palestinians—India chose to end its policy of keeping Israel at a calculated distance. Since then, the Indo-Israeli relationship has developed steadily, especially when it comes to defense cooperation. A turning point came in 1999 when India went to war with Pakistan over the disputed Kashmir region and Israel demonstrated its willingness to provide arms and ammunition. In recent years, India has purchased about $2 billion worth of weapons annually from Israel. India has bought missiles, drones, bombs, and border-security equipment, and is now the Israeli defense industry’s biggest foreign customer.

    Modi’s election in 2014 put the Indo-Israeli rapprochement into higher gear. While previous governments had made sure to keep their dealings with Israel largely silent, the Modi government has been public in its engagement with Israel. Modi was the first Indian Prime Minister to visit Israel in 2017, which was reciprocated when Netanyahu traveled to Delhi in 2018. The ideological alignment between the two right-wing leaders has certainly been more apparent than with previous governments. Members of Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party have long regarded Israel as a model religious-nationalist state to potentially build on, in contrast to India’s founding as a secular and multi-religious one.

    Still, India has reaffirmed its support for the Palestinian cause in recent years. Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister in 2018 to visit Ramallah in the occupied West Bank. India has also increased its donations to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. These various gestures were meant to remind both internal and external audiences of India’s complicated stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

    India’s tilt toward Israel encompasses growing trade and defense cooperation, ideological and leadership affinities, and a focus on counter-terrorism cooperation. But India is aware of potential diplomatic costs and Modi has spoken to various Arab Gulf leaders to coordinate positions; earlier this month, India voted in favor of a U.N. General Assembly resolution that condemned Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Golan Heights.

    The challenge for India ahead is maintaining the strategic defense and commercial ties with Israel while navigating its role as a Global South leader. It is a tight rope to walk.

    Nicolas Blarel

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