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 information nationalism.

On the back of the Trump administration’s attempts to ban TikTok in the US, Sarah Jeong has a new essay [[link removed]] that offers an analytical framework for thinking about why the US, China, and other countries create international incidents in order to manage their domestic digital environments. Jeong proposes the idea of “information nationalism,” in which nationalist leaders seek to limit discussion of their own country’s human rights abuses because they see the discussion as a sign of weakness, while also publicizing human rights abuses in other countries. It’s a framework that views Chinese efforts to suppress discussion of Tiananmen Square and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s attacks on the 1619 Project [[link removed]] as arising from similar impulses. They both seek to turn the internet, which once promised to be a home for unfettered transnational information flows, into a battleground where disclosures of basic historical fact can help one country at the expense of another.

Computers hate masks

Since the pandemic began, have you had the experience of seeing someone in a mask who has kind of familiar eyes, but you can’t quite tell if you know them without being able to see the rest of their face? Yeah? Well, you and our dystopian surveillance apparatus both [[link removed]]. A new study finds that face masks increase errors by facial recognition algorithms by up to 50%.

The study was conducted by the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which evaluates facial recognition products used by Customs and Border Patrol and other agencies.

There are some facial recognition algorithms that are specifically designed to identify people wearing masks, but it is unclear how effective they are. NIST plans to test them later this summer.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] secure the oil (contract)

Notionally, American firms are banned from getting into the Syrian oil business, due to numerous sanctions directed at the Assad government. Yet a 20-month-old company headed by a former Republican political appointee, a former Delta Force officer, and a former British oil executive, recently got the go-ahead [[link removed]] to begin operating oil rigs in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria.

The deal offers some economic support for Syrian Kurds, who have been key allies to the US in the fight against ISIS and are now under threat from both Syrian and Turkish government forces.

Yet, given the sanctions and the fact that US troops and their Kurdish allies will be guarding the oil fields, the deal amounts to a lucrative no-bid contract awarded to a firm with no track record.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE LEGISLATING PEACE AND SECURITY: PART I

One of the sub-themes in American security discourse in the Trump years has been the potential for reassertion of legislative power. After decades of ever-expanding executive control over everything from wars abroad to policing at home, many in Congress have sought to get themselves back at the table as a co-equal branch of government and play a bigger role in important security policy decisions. This week and next, we’ll use Deep Dive to look at recent research on what might happen if those efforts succeed. How might legislative responses to today’s concerns differ from executive responses?

In a forthcoming paper [[link removed]] in the British Journal of Political Science, University of California San Diego political scientist LaGina Gause develops a formal model to explain why legislative bodies are more responsive to some protests than to others. Given how politics usually go, it would be reasonable to think that the kinds of people who enjoy societal advantages — that is, rich people with privileged racial and gender identities — would be more likely to be heard in the halls of power when they take to the streets. Instead, Gause argues, some forms of protest are more effective at driving legislative action when less privileged people do it.

Protests can send a lot of messages to a lot of different audiences at once, but to legislators they say one thing: the subject of these protests matters to the protesters and it should matter to you, too. For legislators, who may have differing priorities and policy preferences but still want to keep their jobs in the next election, the question is how much it matters. Is this protest a sign that inaction on a given issue is a political death knell, or will the issue actually blow over well before the next time voters go to the polls? As Gause points out, the main way legislators can gauge how serious the protesters are is the cost they incur by protesting. All other things being equal, a person willing to be arrested for a cause likely cares more about that cause than someone who is only willing to black out their Instagram.

Of course, very few things are equal, and some people have to give up more to protest than others. For people who have fewer resources at their disposal, marching in the streets is much more costly relative to the cost for people who have savings, can take time off from work and have less reason to fear police violence if they march. In Gause’s model, therefore, legislators place more value on protests by under-resourced people than by others because their protests demonstrate a commitment to the issue that is harder to discern among those with more cushion.

Gause found evidence for her model in data from the US Congress. Looking at votes on civil rights issues in the early 1990s, Gause was able to track whether protests made a difference in legislative action, and whether the identity of protesters made a difference. Her less surprising finding is that collective action got the goods — Congress was more likely to act on an issue if people protested about it than if they just told pollsters that they cared about it. More surprising, but confirming her theory, Gause found that legislators valued protests by low-income people and racial and ethnic minorities higher than protests by richer, whiter groups. When people put it all on the line in the street, Congress was much more willing to listen.

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

The World spoke [[link removed]] to Zimbabwean author Tsitsi Dangarembga about the ongoing protests in her country against President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s economic management and response to COVID-19. Dangarembga was arrested at a protest in Harare, and was released on bail. She told The World that “the future of Zimbabwe looks troubled” but that she has hope because now “I have a sense that Zimbabweans are willing to take some risks — not huge risks, because we know how repressive reactions from the government can be. But I do feel that Zimbabweans are becoming bolder at talking about the issues and the repression.”

Jonathan Hunt marked [[link removed]] the 75th anniversary of the United States’ nuclear attack on Hiroshima, Japan, by recounting the story of Red Cross official Fritz Bilfinger, who was sent to Hiroshima shortly after the bombing to determine if the US had committed a war crime by unleashing a new, horrific weapon on a city full of civilians. Bilfinger described the scenes he found as “surpassing all imagination,” with ground zero a wasteland and hospitals struggling to treat irradiated patients. Decades later, The Red Cross finally adopted Bilfinger’s recommendation that the organization support a total ban on nuclear weapons.

Rupa Shenoy reported [[link removed]] on the case of Ding Jaixi, a Chinese pro-democracy activist who has been held incommunicado by the Chinese government since December. Ding is a longtime activist — he protested at Tiananmen Square in 1989 — and is a leader in the Citizens Movement, a Chinese reformist organization. He was collecting signatures on a petition urging government officials to disclose family assets when he was arrested by plainclothes officers. Other detained Citizens Movement organizers have been released since, but Ding has not even been allowed to see a lawyer. His family has not heard from him and does not know where he is being held.

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

The home base [[link removed]] of Ice-IS.

When John Bolton took the National Security Adviser job in the Trump administration, there was speculation that he would shave his iconic mustache that his new boss famously hated [[link removed]] so much. He kept it, and now we know why: He had a secret deal with the Iranian publishing industry to make advances [[link removed]] in bar code-based humor.

United States Marine Corps: Join the Marines, and you can fight [[link removed]] a lava monster with a sword.

Ukranian Army: Join the Ukranian Army, and you can be a case study [[link removed]] in a Carol Cohn [[link removed]] book.

United States Marine Corps: Actually that’s us too.

It is with heavy hearts that, for the second week in a row, we bring you good Thucydides Trap content [[link removed]].

Critical State is your number one source for bad military choreography [[link removed]].

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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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