Read about why you never want to have worked for the last crown prince. Received this from a friend? SUBSCRIBE [[link removed]] CRITICAL STATE Your weekly foreign policy fix. If you read just one thing…

...read about the characters who make digital crime possible.

There are other parts of this story [[link removed]] that are more relevant to international security questions (details on how encrypted phone systems favored by criminal networks function; police barely able to hide their glee at having bugged a cybercriminal’s bunker server farm; the legal reasons why central Europe is such a hub for the physical infrastructure of the dark web), but let’s fast-forward to the real reason to read it: it features an Irish drug-importing kingpin who walks with a distinctive waddle and is known as The Penguin. Life imitates art!

Aftermath of a coup

The story of Bolivia’s 2019 political crisis keeps getting worse. A new Harvard Law School report [[link removed]] documents horrifying human rights abuses by the government of interim president Jeanine Áñez, who took over the country after former president Evo Morales resigned in the face of election fraud allegations. Those allegations have since been challenged [[link removed]] by independent experts.

The report concludes that state security forces killed 23 Indigenous Bolivian civilians and injured over 230 in attacks following Morales’ ouster. Bolivia’s Indigenous community formed Morales’ political base, and has long been targeted for persecution by right-wing political parties.

Among the methods the government used to hide their actions was falsifying autopsies. One family that was able to watch the autopsy of a loved one who had been killed by government troops saw doctors replace a large caliber bullet they found in the wound with a smaller bullet in an attempt to turn suspicion away from government weapons.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] The death of news in Kashmir

A new issue [[link removed]] of Adi Magazine covers the conflict in Jammu and Kashmir, and includes reporting [[link removed]] on the state of the media in the no-longer-autonomous region of northwest India. A year ago, the Indian government repealed parts of the Indian constitution that allowed Jammu and Kashmir to operate independently of India, and then immediately deployed soldiers to prevent dissent. Media freedom has, predictably, suffered.

Kashmir’s largest newspapers have been censored beyond recognition since the removal of regional autonomy. The papers often run without editorials or opinion pieces, and in Greater Kashmir, the largest English-language daily, the only opinion piece to discuss India’s assertion of control was by a former member of India’s information department.

Today, some Kashmiri newspapers are filling column inches with text from random websites or classic literature. A good editor, however, never loses their sense of irony: one of the sources of filler text is Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.”

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE NOT EVEN PAST: PART I

Last week, we looked at how wartime traumas shape the political lives of civilians who suffer them for decades after. This week, we’ll turn to new evidence on the effect of conflict on civilian consumer behavior among people living long after the conflict ended.

A recent paper by social scientists Vasiliki Fouka and Hans-Joachim Voth tracks the relationship between resentment among Greek consumers toward German carmakers during the Greek sovereign debt crisis of 2009-2014, and the actions of the German military during its World War II occupation of Greece. In contrast to last week’s paper [[link removed]], which was interested in how particular people who suffered state violence reacted to the trauma, and how their families absorbed and recreated those reactions, Fouka and Voth focus on what they call the “institutionalization of collective memory” as the throughline that keeps the wounds of the 1940s fresh enough to reopen in the 21st century.

First, the data. Fouka and Voth tracked down a record of car registrations in Greece during the debt crisis that allowed them to figure out the company that produced each car bought by a Greek in that time frame. Then they used a survey of press mentions to measure the overall level of tension between Greece and Germany at various points during the crisis. Germany, Europe’s most stable economy in the crisis period, held a great deal of leverage over Greece and other less stable economies, which it used to demand austerity policies that many Greeks deeply resented.

Finally, the researchers used historical sources to pinpoint Greek towns where, during the occupation, German soldiers had victimized civilians as reprisals for attacks by Greek partisans. Within that list of 396 towns that experienced reprisals, some have been designated by the Greek government as “martyr towns” because they suffered so much during the war. Fouka and Voth used the martyr town designation, as well as other public monuments to civilian victimization during the war, to identify areas where awareness of wartime traumas are particularly high.

Fouka and Voth found that, as political tensions between Greece and Germany rose, Greeks in general were less likely to buy German cars. More interestingly, they found that most of the decline in demand for German automotive engineering came from areas that had experienced German atrocities during the war. It didn’t matter whether the car buyers were suffering more or less from the economic crisis — the sudden move away from German cars took place regardless of buyers’ financial situation.

In addition, if you were a Volkswagen dealer in a town with a martyr designation, you were especially out of luck. In those towns, the backlash against German cars was even greater than in areas that had suffered reprisals during the war but had not been designated. You might argue that the difference comes not from the public recognition but from the fact that martyr towns suffered particularly horribly during the war, making the trauma more durable. That may be true in part, but when Fouka and Voth expanded their data to look at non-martyr towns with public memorials or remembrance rituals commemorating German atrocities, those towns also saw significant drops in German car demand.

In all, the more public awareness there was of German atrocities in a town the 1940s, the less likely those town’s residents were to buy German cars in the 2010s. Memory of conflict, it seems, can drive broad consumer behavior for generations, so long as resources are dedicated to keeping the memory of the conflict alive. Even beyond the victims of wartime atrocities and their direct descendants, the traumas of war remain long after peace ostensibly arrives.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] SHOW US THE RECEIPTS

Shirin Jaafari spoke [[link removed]] to the family of Ameneh Sharifi, a baby who nearly died when unidentified gunmen attacked the maternity ward of the Kabul hospital where she was born. Her mother, Nazia, was killed in the attack, and Ameneh had to undergo several surgeries after suffering a bullet wound. Her family wants justice, but no one has yet claimed credit for the attack and the Afghan government claims that its investigation is ongoing. Observers, however, worry that there will never be any clarity about who perpetrated the attack, because similar incidents often get lost in the shuffle of an ongoing war.

Connor Akiyama took aim [[link removed]] at the Trump administration’s recent effort to expand US drone exports. The administration has unilaterally reinterpreted the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), which regulates the international sale of drones, to allow for less regulation of what kinds of armed, unpiloted systems American companies can sell abroad. The problem, Akiyama pointed out, is that the administration’s move weakens the MTCR, which also constrains other drone exporters like China and Israel. Undermining international drone regulation, Akiyama argued, “does not ensure the United States technological supremacy and will instead spark a far larger arms race than currently exists.”

Joyce Hackel reported [[link removed]] on the spread of protests against police violence to Cuba. Cuba’s COVID-19 response has been impressive, with medical workers going door-to-door to take peoples’ temperature and identify COVID-19 cases before they can spread. But the virus response, which includes a strict mask law, is also being used as an excuse for police to crack down on people who are often the target of state violence. Cuban police were filmed shooting a Black man, Hernández Galiano, in the back, allegedly as part of a dispute about Galiano not wearing a mask. The video has gone viral, sparking protests and leading some to call Galiano’s death Cuba’s “George Floyd moment.”

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

Even talking about Thucydides is the ultimate Thucydides Trap [[link removed]], but this [[link removed]] is the one exception.

Another entry [[link removed]] in the visual lexicon of brinksmanship between North and South Korea, this time featuring a whole last supper tableau with mannequins.

Brings whole new meaning [[link removed]] to the term “Velvet Revolution”! Also, here’s some bonus content [[link removed]] in the same vein, except that this book is arguably an improvement on the buyer’s intended purchase.

If Marine Corps Aviation is America’s Navy’s Army’s Air Force, then what is Space Force’s horse [[link removed]]?

Shoutout to rich people for, in the year two thousand and twenty, wanting to add [[link removed]] more confusion to their lives.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] LISTEN TO 'THINGS THAT GO BOOM'

Great Power Competition is: “I think we should really look at it through the lens of uh… competition." — a real life security expert.

Worried yet? Listen and subscribe now on Apple Podcasts [[link removed]], Stitcher [[link removed]], Spotify [[link removed]], Pocket Casts [[link removed]], or wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every two weeks.

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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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