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… read about rethinking reparations as a way of worldbuilding.

History is both how we got here and what is presently happening, and it’s in this second sense that Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò, author of “Reconsidering Reparations,” wants think about reparations. Interviewed by Lily Hu at Phenomenal World [[link removed]], Táíwò says, “Increasingly today people approach climate justice from the broader notions of political responsibility. This approach has several great features, but I am uneasy about it. The devil is in what you build, not in what you build on.” The case made is to see reparations not just as one party gaining absolution through charity for past crimes, but to make structures in the present that lead to better outcomes now and in the future, in the way that the violence of 15th century colonialism set in motion the present structures of the world today. “Amilcar Cabral was fighting the Portuguese Empire at the exact same time as Rawls was writing ‘A Theory of Justice.’ It was all happening simultaneously,” Táíwò says, a reminder that history was happening even as philosophers tried to imagine an alternative end state. Bringing this forward to practical matters, Táíwò highlights guilt-driven loans for claim action in the global south as further reification of the existing world, rather than a tool that can rebuild the present into something just.

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Joe Biden in January declared Latin America to be “America’s front yard,” contrasting it with the notion that it had been a closed-off, neglected backyard. At Foreign Exchanges, Alex Aviña dove into the long history of American actions in its near abroad.

Biden’s speech, however clunky, signals an attempt to change policy to a more humane one, though Aviña points to history to show how rarely such a pivot sticks, and points to Senate action aimed at undermining the right of countries in Latin America to trade with China.

“From this perspective, it matters little whether Latin America becomes Washington’s front yard or remains ever its backyard; its self-determination and sovereignty remain subsumed by and subject to US security dictates,” he writes.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] Left Unsaid

Discourse around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine among the left in the United States has struggled to match the reality on the ground, limiting traditional understandings of solidarity in the face of imperial expansion. To find perspectives honestly tackling the war as a phenomena grounded in 2022, Diyora Shadijanova spoke with four leftists from post-Soviet countries.

Focusing on the war as primarily about the US and NATO is an outdated reading of the unipolar moment, and misses the actual material realities at work.

“Something that the Ukrainian left has called for is alleviating debt; which comes under the critique of the global financial system that the western left is great at analysing. So why aren’t we amplifying those calls?,” said Severija Bielskytė.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE Managing the Aftermath: Part II

War is a fractal nightmare, a violent horror that contains within it an infinite series of smaller horrors, all intricately detailed. This week, the world is learning of the Bucha massacre, civilians shot in a Russian-occupied town outside of Kyiv and then their bodies left, according to satellite footage, to rot in the street for weeks. The massacre is public because the invading army pulled back from its position, letting Ukraine retake control of the town.

The likeliest outcome for Russia’s war on Ukraine, at this point, remains a negotiated ceasefire and settlement. But getting to that can be hard, especially in light of atrocities, like the Bucha massacre, committed against civilians during the war.

What does it mean when the surest way to prevent further atrocities is to end a war, but the atrocities themselves make it politically untenable to bring a war to a close? That’s a question at the heart of “ Negotiating Peace with Your Enemy: The Problem of Costly Concessions [[link removed]],” a paper by Valerie Sticher and published in the December 2021 Journal of Security Studies.

The article builds on the simple idea that negotiating in war is different from ordinary bargaining situations. “Conflict party members not only care about their own benefits but also want to avoid rewarding the negative behavior of their opponent,” writes Sticher.

Both parties may ultimately be served by that war’s end, but if one leader is seen as too lenient against an enemy, the leader negotiating peace may in effect be sacrificing their political future and, if the domestic opposition is great enough, possibly their life. Concessions are both essential for negotiated ends to war and also easy cudgels with which hardline opposition can bludgeon leaders.

Leaders will bring with them their own preferences for negotiating an end to the war. If a leader has built their appeal on nationalism and hatred of the outsider, they may be less inclined to settle than one who came to power on a more universalistic platform. But leaders are constrained not just by their preferences, but by those of their constituents, whether voters in a democracy, military elites, or even the cadre leaders of aligned militias not formally in the chain of command.

Whatever the constituency, to get the country on board with a ceasefire, a leader has to trust that the terms will be politically acceptable domestically in order to ensure a peace sticks and is not immediately overthrown.

“In some situations, unpopular concessions can be a bargaining tool: if leaders can credibly demonstrate that they are constrained by their constituents, the other side may consider additional concessions to reach a deal,” writes Sticher. This comes with a big caveat: “if concessions are unpopular on both sides, this will likely lead to a situation where no agreement is acceptable to the constituents of either side, and by extension not acceptable to the leaders themselves.”

Ultimately it is war itself that raises the costs of concessions, and makes it harder for parties to reach the bargaining table. Every peace may be negotiated with an enemy, but unless one party is determined to negotiate at gunpoint, terms decided before the shooting starts can be likelier to stick.

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Jake Romm theorized [[link removed]] that the makers of weapons used to kill civilians could be held accountable under international law, provided they sold those weapons to a country with a pattern of using them to kill civilians. Romm specifically pointed to Raytheon sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia, where the weapons have been used against people in Yemen. While past wars have seen convictions for selling weapons to facilitate war crimes, Romm is under no illusion that Raytheon executives will ever face trials under the Rome Statute. Instead, by bringing up the legalistic argument, Romm hopes for “a denaturalization of arms sales,” and with it the sense that the profit incentives of selling weapons no longer obscure the harms those weapons cause.

Tibisay Zea spoke [[link removed]] with Venezuelan migrants who crossed the Darién Gap from Colombia into Panama. The stretch of dense jungle, which one migrant described as a “green hell,” is the only land route from South America to the United States. For Venezuelans looking to make it into the country, the gap has become increasingly popular as a route after Mexico started requiring tourist visas for Venezuelans. “You have to climb steep hills and trudge through swamps. We would walk 12 hours a day, we saw dead bodies, we came across a 2-year old child who was abandoned. I saw the worst side of human beings,” Jose Loya told Zea.

Durrie Bouscaren listened [[link removed]] to the stories of deaf families fleeing Ukraine. The horrors of war come with auditory cues, like air raid sirens to urge shelter, or the whistling and detonating of bombs when the raid comes. For the deaf, seeking shelter meant relying on family and friends who could hear, or it meant waiting for text messages to seek shelter. Outside of Ukraine, families have encountered new challenges. Bouscaren writes “There’s been one major challenge: Ukrainian and Romanian sign languages are completely different. They’re even based on different alphabets.” Volunteers with Romania's National Association of the Deaf have helped bridge this gap, leaning on loanwords and signs from other languages.

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

This live action "Black Mirror" remake is a bit unsubtle [[link removed]].

“What are you going to do, stab me?” said 22 friends sitting down at a table full of knives [[link removed]].

If we don’t prepare to win the future how can we ensure we’ll blow up the present [[link removed]].

Turns out there’s a wrong way to eat rice [[link removed]].

All those memes will be lost in time [[link removed]], like years in the rain.

DC’s still got it [[link removed]].

I'm tired of Earth, these people. I'm tired of being caught in the tangle of their lives [[link removed]].

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Critical State is written by Sam Ratner 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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