This week on Deep Dive, we continue to look at how information technology shapes modern statecraft. Specifically, we’re interested in what happens when states get their hands on the keys to the depression factory and start producing content for Twitter dot com.

An June 2018 article by Oxford social scientists Corneliu Bjola and Ilan Manor takes us back to an earlier age, now decades past, when governments used social media to promote international agreements. Writing in the Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Bjola and Manor focus on the Obama administration’s efforts to promote the Iran nuclear deal by establishing a Twitter account for it: @TheIranDeal. After the deal was announced, and immediately became the target of harsh denunciations from congressional Republicans, the Obama team created the account to have a dedicated channel for public engagement about the deal. The account would play an important messaging role as the administrations shepherded the deal through a 60-day congressional review period that could have scuttled the agreement.

To Bjola and Manor, @TheIranDeal is most notable as an example of new, 21st century rules for Robert Putnam’s two-level game. Putnam, an Americanist political scientist most famous for “Bowling Alone,” his book on social capital in America, casually dipped his toe into international relations waters in 1988, and published one of the most-cited IR papers ever: "Diplomacy and Domestic Politics: The Logic of Two-Level Games." The gist of Putnam’s argument is that when national governments interact with each other, they are constantly aware of, and being checked by, political pressures within their own countries. Therefore, national politics play a huge role in shaping international relations, and governments who hope to act on the international level must play, as the title suggests, a two-level game: negotiating both with international players and with domestic constituencies. Any agreement that doesn’t produce wins at both levels is almost certain to fail.

Bjola and Manor found that the primary purpose of @TheIranDeal was to expand what Putnam called the government’s “win set” —  the set of outcomes acceptable to the stakeholders at each level —  with domestic audiences. To do that, the channel was used for both broadcasting and listening. It sent out the administration’s initial arguments for the deal, as you might expect, but Bjola and Manor also found that the kinds of arguments the account pushed changed over time in response to the amount of engagement different tweets received. The ability to measure response in real time and to adjust messaging accordingly is a new factor in the two-level game and, Bjola and Manor argue, is likely to grow in importance to international diplomacy in the future.

Rupa Shenoy surveyed terrorism experts on Joe Biden’s claim during the most recent Democratic presidential debate that ISIS fighters who escaped jails in Syria as a result of American troops withdrawing are “going to come here” and attack the US. Views were mixed as to the actual threat posed by the escapees, but experts agreed that President Donald Trump’s decision to pull troops from Syria took the counterterrorism policy community by surprise.

Sara Kutchesfahani and Critical State’s own Laicie Heeley recalled the discrimination they faced early in their careers as both women and young people in national security fields. They both now lead organizations that work to ease the path for a new, more diverse generation of security policy wonks, but, as they wrote, the security community as a whole still has a long way to go to open itself to the new voices and ideas that will bring progress to the world’s most intractable problems.

Megan Janetsky profiled the Silla Todoterreno, a new wheelchair designed in Colombia to aid survivors of the country’s civil war who are living with disabilities in rural areas where accessibility by traditional wheelchairs is severely limited. The chair, made of lightweight magnesium and featuring highly durable wheels, is built to navigate mountainous regions where paved roads are few and far between. Colombia’s civil war left nearly 200,000 citizens with disabilities and securing mobility for those who reside in rural areas is a key part of achieving the rural development goals set out in the recent peace accord between the Colombian government and FARC rebels.

We could easily do an entire section on President Donald Trump’s letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, but we’re trying not to be fools. Call us later. (If you missed it, though, here’s a good summary).

There are, of course, downsides to online government engagement, like when you accidentally engage militaries that are shelling you in real life.

A little-known connection between the late Soundcloud rap icon Lil Peep and the original late Soundcloud rap icon, Vladimir Lenin.

This joke is wretched (of the earth).

The past was gross, but this thread is good. Don’t drink mercury, kids, even if royals of yore thought it was cool.

If, at the end of this newsletter, you’re in the market for yet more longreads, check out the new special issue of Energy Strategy Reviews focused on the geopolitics of transitioning to renewable energy. It’s an excellent roundup of a topic that doesn’t get enough attention.