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...read about some non-COVID-19 bad news for a change.

Over the weekend, The Guardian reported [[link removed]] that the Trump administration intends to pull the United States out of the Open Skies Treaty, the agreement that allows the US and Russia to conduct surveillance flights over each others’ territory. A major arms control confidence-building measure, the treaty is meant to ensure that the world’s two most armed nuclear powers can’t spring surprises on one another. As with almost all aspects of the US-Russia relationship, the treaty has been under strain recently, with Russia imposing minor limitations on US and allied overflights. Even with the limitations, however, the US still uses the flights for strategically important missions, like the 2018 flight over Ukraine as Russian forces massed on the Ukrainian border. The administration has trumpeted the cost savings associated with leaving the treaty, but the $41.5 million slated to be spent on new reconnaissance planes to be used in overflights is a rounding error in overall defense spending.

How COVID-19 leaves even less-affected countries scrambling

COVID-19 is what happened to countries when they were busy making other plans. In Sudan’s case, those plans included [[link removed]] raising $5 billion in international donations to tide over the transitional government that took over the country after a coup displaced former dictator Omar al-Bashir. With that money now unlikely to be available, Sudan faces huge challenges despite currently having only 12 confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The previous regime left Sudan’s public health infrastructure in shambles, with few doctors and most patients having to pay for all aspects of their own care.

The Sudanese government’s ability to correct shortcomings in the public health sector is constrained by a lack of foreign currency in the country, which is largely a function of US sanctions left over from the Bashir regime that the Trump administration has declined to rescind.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] Women in combat roles

In 2015, the US military lifted its ban on women serving in combat arms roles. Last week, the Center for a New American Security released a report [[link removed]] tracking how women have integrated into combat units over the past five years.

Women are entering into pipelines for combat jobs — 1,055 in the Army alone, as of last October — but attrition rates in training for women are still much higher than for men. For example, 49% of women soldiers who train for the infantry drop out during training, while 18% of men do the same.

Service Academy nominations, which are controlled by individual members of Congress, have remained heavily skewed toward men (the Coast Guard Academy leads in gender equity, with 34% women in the class of 2023), but the Air Force Academy reported a jump in women applicants after the release of Captain Marvel.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE When the international meets the local

The main conceit of most multilateral, international organizations is that they deal primarily with their members — that is, states. In practice, though, when those organizations want to actually change facts on the ground, they often have to engage with regional and local stakeholders. Those interactions, between institutions like the United Nations and smaller-scale organizations — say, local militias in a conflict zone — are understudied, but that is beginning to change. In the next two editions of Deep Dive, we’ll look at new research on what happens when the international comes to the local.

In the most recent issue of the Journal of Peace Research, political scientist Hannah Smidt has an article [[link removed]] about United Nations peacekeepers’ efforts to encourage dialogue between local leaders of various ethnic groups in Ivory Coast (Côte d’Ivoire). Between 2004 and 2017, the United Nations Operation in Côte d’Ivoire (UNOCI) conducted peacekeeping in the country in an attempt to keep a lid on the ethnic tensions that boiled over into the Ivorian civil war of 2002-2004. As part of that mission, UNOCI facilitated formal dialogues between ethnic groups in areas where conflict had occurred already or where peacekeepers felt it might occur.

The dialogues focused on two goals: reducing negative feelings between local members of competing ethnic groups, and increasing coordination within communities so that grievances could be dealt with before they grew into violence. Sometimes, the dialogues resulted in communities creating ad hoc committees, with representatives from a range of stakeholders, to prevent outbreaks of violence. Other times, the meetings simply functioned as a way for communities to reaffirm peaceful norms in a public setting, in an effort to reduce tension.

There were a lot of these dialogues. In the period Smidt studied — October 2011 to May 2016 — UNOCI facilitated 777 meetings in towns and villages throughout Ivory Coast. In that same time, collective violence — both by civilians and by local militias — was still a major feature of Ivorian political life. To test whether the dialogues actually helped lessen violence in the communities they targeted, Smidt measured the likelihood of local collective violence in areas that held dialogues and compared it to the experience of similar areas that did not hold dialogues.

The meetings, it seems, had a major effect, at least in the short term. Smidt found that communities which held dialogues were about 20% less likely than other communities to face riots, local militia attacks, or other forms of localized ethnic violence in the three months following a dialogue.

UNOCI partnered with the Ivorian national government on some of the dialogues, but many took place through local civil society partners and others. Smidt’s article is strong evidence that, in the right circumstances, direct engagement between international organizations and local actors can produce positive results.

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María Elena Romero reported [[link removed]] on Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro’s extreme reluctance to take the COVID-19 threat seriously. Bolsonaro has repeatedly sought to relax quarantine and social distancing guidelines put in place by regional officials, claiming that COVID-19 is only a “little cold.” He has tried to justify his position by saying that social distancing will be a drag on the Brazilian economy, but his actions have provoked widespread protest. In the absence of federal leadership on the issue, local governance structures, including street gangs, have taken up enforcing quarantines in their jurisdictions.

Emma Ashford took a swing [[link removed]] at projecting some of the geopolitical ramifications of COVID-19. Among her predictions was the possibility that the virus, a real threat to all Americans, will put the minuscule threat that international terrorism poses to most people into enough perspective to finally end the War on Terror. Another possibility she noted was the further erosion of the European Union as a result of the low level of aid Italy has been provided by fellow EU members in its effort to control its COVID-19 outbreak.

Jason Strother tracked [[link removed]] a new mini-wave of COVID-19 cases in South Korea. After the first cases hit, South Korea was remarkably successful in containing the COVID-19’s spread, but now Koreans returning home from abroad are providing a new vector for the virus. As of Friday, South Korea’sCOVID-19 cases mostly originated outside the country. Travelers entering South Korea are checked for symptoms and required to report their health status for 14 days after they arrive, but some have called for closing ports of entry altogether.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] WELL PLAYED

Everyone is getting in on the rush to sell quack treatments for COVID-19, and the marketing options are endless [[link removed]].

This [[link removed]] is almost as satisfying as it is horrifying.

One weird side effect of the COVID-19 crisis is that local news is now optimized [[link removed]] for people working from home.

Want to be part of a study on how effective face masks are in preventing the spread of viruses? Great, just sneeze into this thing [[link removed]].

Bitmoji Leviathan [[link removed]] is now the official mascot of constructivism — we don’t make the rules, we just enforce them. Well, we do make the rules, in the sense that we all make the rules to a certain extent, but you get it.

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Critical State is written by Sam Ratner and is a collaboration between The World and Inkstick Media.

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

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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