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… read about Russia’s drones of war.

Drones buzz. That whirring of the engines, combined with rudimentary functionality, lent aerial targets in World War II to be dubbed with a moniker that has endured to the present. At Airwars, a ten-person team put together a history of “ A Year Of The Shahed [[link removed]],” an Iranian-designed drone first used by Russia in its war against Ukraine on Sept. 13, 2022. The piece opens with the sound of the Shahed’s whirring, whining engine — a sound that precedes attacks and explosions. Over 2,000 of the drones have been launched as weapons against Ukraine since the start of the war in February 2022. “Airwars' research, in partnership with Der Spiegel, found that while the Shahed first emerged as part of the Russian arsenal a year ago, the tempo and intensity of attacks across Ukraine has escalated significantly since spring 2023,” write Airwars. “The success of the Shahed has led to expectations that countries and militant groups around the world will develop equivalent systems, potentially making long-range cross border attacks far easier in conflicts worldwide.” It’s a story of the hard limits of sanctions and dual-use technology. The parts that let Shahed drones fly are hobbyist drone engines, ailerons, and navigation tools, all sourced commercially and bent into a weapon.

name and culture

On Sept. 5, 2023, President Narendra Modi sent a dinner invitation to other delegates of the G20 summit on letterhead that listed him as President of Bharat, not President of India. Modi’s country didn’t change, but the move suggested an attempt, or at least a trial balloon, to assert a different place name over the populous and multilingual nation he heads.

“The country’s three names that are in popular use — India, Bhārata, and Hindustan — have often been pushed and opposed by various competing groups,” writes Shoaib Daniyal in a thoughtful treatment at The India Fix [[link removed]].

Whether or not Bharat will stick remains to be seen. It’s the oldest name, though its modern usage dates to nationalists applying a term from the mythic past to geographic boundaries in a quintessential modern process. India, meanwhile, remains a name in wide, deep, and popular circulation. It may not be pushed by a nationalist party right now, but in a country as pluralistic as India, that may help it endure.

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Before Sept. 11 became synonymous with the attack on America — and the aggressive Global War on Terror that followed — it was the date on which Chile’s socialist President Salvador Allende was ousted and killed in a coup led by strongman Augusto Pinochet in 1973. Allende’s overthrow was emblematic of a strain of US foreign policy, which saw strongmen and reactionaries as reliable allies of American business, first against workers in their own countries and then against movements seen as Soviet proxies during the Cold War. We are 50 years beyond that now, and while relations between the United States and its Southern neighbors have thawed, there is much work to be done.

“You might not know it by the relatively scant news coverage, but the US congressional delegation, led by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, that visited [[link removed]] Brazil, Chile, and Colombia in August marked a big step forward in the development of a new US approach to Latin America and highlighted the important role that the US progressive left has to play in it,” writes Matt Duss for Foreign Policy [[link removed]].

To build on this step, Duss argues, the United States must embrace Latin America where it is at, with avenues for cooperation open on massive environmental work, green transition, and international cooperation. In other words, trying to repeat a Cold War playbook, motivated by fears of China, will lead nowhere productive.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE Something Coherent: Part I

The history of the car bomb is a story of cross-pollination between ideological extremists. As historian Mike Davis documented in Buda’s Wagon [[link removed]], car bombs as a weapon and a tactic were adopted by a range of forces with little political coherence. The Stern Gang’s use of car bombs against British forces in Mandate Palestine and Timothy McVeigh’s use of a car bomb against the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City are hardly part of the same cause, but they share a fundamental appreciation for the same kind of weapon.

In “ White Jihad: How White Supremacists Adopt Jihadi Narratives, Aesthetics, and Tactics [[link removed]],” Ariel Koch, Karine Nahon, and Assaf Moghadam examine how, decades into the US-led Global War on Terror, ostensible ideological foes in white supremacist and jihadist circles have forged connections online, and adopted shared terminology and aesthetics, if not exactly a direct alliance.

“The appropriation of militant Islamist content, language, aesthetics, and repertoires of action allows militant Islamists to utilize new, previously untapped resources and networks,” write the authors. “The ability to influence right-wing extremists offers Jihadism new avenues to propagate ideology, encourage conversion to a militant interpretation of Islam, and offer additional incentives and justification for already violent-prone individuals to carry out acts of terrorism or join militant movements.”

While the history of violent extremism has long had cross-pollination in tools and tactics, the post-9/11 and especially mid-2010s adoption of language and ideology could pose a unique risk.

“Up to this point in time, far-right terrorists have carried out most of their attacks using tactics such as shootings, stabbings, and bombings,” write the authors. “There are growing signs, however, that some of the methods that have hitherto been associated primarily with jihadists are entering the terrorist discourse of the far right. Two tactics are especially noteworthy in this regard: suicide bombings and vehicular attacks.”

Vehicular attacks, in particular, have seen distinct growth by far-right movements and actors in the United States, especially targeting [[link removed]] Black Lives Matter and other protests. Here the white supremacists and jihadis align in tactics and targets as they seek violence against LGBTQ+ communities and see democratic governments as decadent and complicit in protecting them.

The authors argue that elements within the white supremacist and jihadist movements share core values, such as “enmity toward progressive democratic and liberal trends such as women’s and LGBTQ+ rights, as well as perceptions of common enemies, including Jews, the West, the United States, Israel, and any combination thereof. Adoption of such terms as Zionist Occupation Government (ZOG) or the Zio-Crusader Alliance exemplify such mutually held views.”

Threats of violence from Islamic or white supremacist far-right would endure without the other. But the convergence of language reflects new worldviews, with martyrdom as a concept that is "now openly embraced by neo-fascist accelerationists, some of whom laud white terrorists as ‘saints’ that must be followed.”

Almost three decades after the Oklahoma City bombing and 22 years after 9/11, the worst people on earth are mirroring shared pantheons of monsters.

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Alan Ruiz Terol listened [[link removed]] to fans of Villano Antillano, Puerto Rican rapper and reggaeton trailblazer, who has cut a path for herself as a trans woman in the genre. “Women are taught we cannot express our sexuality, but seeing her doing it so openly, regardless of what people say, inspires you to do the same,” Amanda Soliván, a fan from Puerto Rico, told Alan Ruiz Terol. Queer artists like Antillano finding success in the reggaeton genre hearkens back to the sound’s original rebellious origins. “Her experiences as a trans person were also shaped by the political status of Puerto Rico, which she denounces as a colony ‘sequestered’ by the United States,” wrote Terol.

Orlando Bell reminded [[link removed]] readers of the human fallibility at the heart of nuclear command and control. While the past is riddled with nuclear accidents survived more by luck than design, it is the failure to learn from the past that has Bell’s attention. “Our leaders, those with their fingers over the button, are corruptible, proud, short-sighted, and determined. In short, they are human. That is why they should not be unquestioningly trusted with this capability,” wrote Bell. The August 2023 firing of two top nuclear commanders in China by President Xi Jinping is a reminder of the fallible humans placed in charge of engines of Armageddon.

Sara Hassan ventured [[link removed]] to Iraq’s annual Arbaeen walk. The annual pilgrimage, tied to the Islamic calendar, commemorates the death of Muhammad’s grandson Husayn in the year 680. The pilgrimage, while not an obligation in the same way as the hajj to Mecca, is undertaken annually by millions, with 28 million expected in 2023. “Every year, I provide all of the services to welcome the pilgrims visiting Imam Husayn and provide hospitality in the form of food and drink, and also showers and bathrooms, and I also put out mattresses here for them to sleep on,” Shaykh Hassan al-Mas’udi, a local Iraqi tribe leader, told Hassan.

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And here I thought there was no victory in the war on terror [[link removed]].

The Space Force has a targeting squadron [[link removed]]! Targeting…what, exactly?

Artificial Intelligence is just another word for hidden, exploited labor [[link removed]].

Even when AI is AI, it drinks more water per query [[link removed]] than people do.

Can’t believe the electrocution tools company [[link removed]] has a bad work culture.

If I co-authored a paper on climate action and then said I fabricated data to get it published, I might expect my co-authors to be furious and my ideologically convenient narrative to be disproven in moments [[link removed]].

Never a bad time to brush up on recent history [[link removed]], especially as it gets misremembered online.

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Critical State is written by Kelsey D. Atherton with Inkstick Media.

The World is a weekday public radio show and podcast on global issues, news and insights from PRX and GBH.

With an online magazine and podcast featuring a diversity of expert voices, Inkstick Media is “foreign policy for the rest of us.”

Critical State is made possible in part by the Carnegie Corporation of New York.

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