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… read about the colonization of low orbit by private satellites.

Above the atmosphere and within Earth’s gravity exists an unusual sort of real estate. Space is vast but the useful space in space is confined to what can reliably stay in sync with the planet, and then offer something useful to the ground. Space tourism, especially that of billionaires with their own private vessels, is easily the highest profile use of space but it’s the full growing space industry, with satellite constellations like that of SpaceX’s Starlink, that promise to crowd out the viable orbits, putting one company’s specific product in a global commons until it ultimately orbits and falls back to earth. Writer for Rosa Luxemburg Foundation [[link removed]] Johannes Streeck visits the space industry of New Mexico, and the defense industry with which it is inextricably entwined. “The potential upsides of satellite internet like the kinds envisioned by Tesla’s Starlink or Amazon’s Kuiper could be tremendous,” writes Streeck. “However, this scenario relies on the assumption that these companies will be more responsible with user data and the environment in space than they are here on earth.” That is to say nothing of how conflict over space, by first companies and then nations, could wipe out the whole technical ecosystem of communications and sensors in the heavens.

the truman show

To the extent that nuclear weapons have an outsized role as a specifically political weapon, we can probably trace that to President Truman, so far the first and only head of state engaged in atomic bombing. Truman’s decisions regarding the first years of our nuclear arsenal all moved nuclear weapons out of the normal military chain of command and into that of the presidency. As other countries developed their own nuclear arsenals, and the US greatly expanded its, the political logic of holding but not using the bombs dominated, and we have lived ever since in the shadow of launches not ordered.

This month, science and technology historian Alex Wellerstein revisited the logic [[link removed]] of who is constrained by nuclear arsenals, and how.

“Even the strategists may speak coolly of the value of mutual vulnerability as a vehicle for stability, but you can see them bristle under its implications,” writes Wellerstein. “There’s a logic to deterrence, but it is always coupled, in the end, with raw terror.”

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] Green new realism

The great left turn of the United States, and with it a Rooseveltian reimagining of state capacity for the future, has yet to materialize, despite glimmers of promise and sustained activism throughout the 2010s. Into this business-as-usual world, however, has emerged a new reality: Renewable energy is a profitable business, and while not enough to kill fossil fuels outright, green capital has acted in some ways where the stagnant state has failed.

Writing for The Drift, Jake Bittle walks through [[link removed]] left debates over climate policy from 2014 to the present, all against the backdrop of investors finding profit, and reduced emissions, through funding everything from solar panels to electric cars.

“Averting global catastrophe, however, is not a binary choice, something we must either do or not do by a certain moment in time,” writes Bittle. “There is only an ever-compounding urgency, in which every day counts more than the next.”

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE Troubled geography: Part II

A gun is a material fact, embedded in an ecosystem of supporting material facts. At the moment of violence, this long supply chain is irrelevant, but without it, the gun would never arrive at the moment of violence in the first place. When someone picks up a gun to do violence, they can only do so because people before them have made the gun’s parts, ammunition, and market availability, converting metal plastic and engineering it into a machine for igniting gunpowder and hurling metal into a human body.

To talk about gun violence is to talk about the whole of that process, the creation and distribution of guns and ammunition, and how that creation puts weapons in the hands of those who mean to do harm. While the specifics of who does the harm, and for what ends, in what circumstances, can all vary and are worthy of study, the unifying factor in gun violence is the availability of guns.

The murder rate in Mexico shot upward in the mid-2000s, after decades of decline. In “ Why did Mexico become a violent country? [[link removed]],” David Perez Esparza, Shane D. Johnson, and Paul Gill look at the rise of gun violence in Mexico, and specifically examine how much of that change is downstream from changes in United States gun policy.

The US, through a series of policy changes starting in the Bush administration, has expanded both the production and the flow of guns. The Assault Weapons Ban, a 1994 measure that prohibited the sale of semi-automatic weapons, expired in 2004. The Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, a 2005 law that protected gunmakers from liability, further lowered the legal and financial risk to gunmakers. This is to say nothing of the variability of state law that in many states loosened restrictions [[link removed]] for purchasing weapons. These laws, plus the massive expansion of gun manufacturing aimed at a civilian market, created the conditions for a massive influx of guns into Mexico.

With guns easily available in US border states, the specific nature of gun-enabled crime in Mexico changed, built around the heavier and more rapid-fire weapons that came up for sale.

Write the authors, “since the mid-2000s there has been an increase in crimes that benefit from having access to an illegal firearm, such as extortion and kidnapping.” This change came alongside a change in targeting, with mayors and the Mexican Army itself subject to direct attacks from criminal enterprise in Mexico. The authors note that “organized criminal groups did not use high caliber guns until 2005,” and point to studies which “suggest that there has been a dramatic increase in mass shootings and criminal attacks on public figures (e.g., authorities, candidates, and political activists) since the mid-2000s.”

A free and open market for guns in the United States, paired with a massive upswing in production, fed well into existing criminal pathways in Mexico for smuggled weapons, legally purchased, to reshape the form and caliber of violence in the country.

It’s a reminder, too, that one country’s political expedience may cause an open wound on its neighbor.

LEARN MORE [[link removed]]

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

Beatrice Neal de Souza and Johanna Mendelson Forman discussed [[link removed]] resilient electrification in Haiti. The country, saddled with debt and forced into reparations for having the audacity to emancipate itself from French slavery, has been repeatedly improverished. As Haitans survive and adapt, they have turned to resources at hand to get by, contributing to the deforestation of the country as people look for fuel for cooking. Neal de Souza and Mendelson Forman highlight the work of Earthspark, an electricity metering system that allows Haitains to pay-as-they-go for electricity generated off a solar-powered microgrid. It is, for now, a spark.

Orla Barry reported [[link removed]] on Poland’s new “pregnancy registry,” which will exacerbate the harms to women in a nation that has already outlawed the provision of abortion care to anyone except in exceptional circumstances. At present, people in Poland can still attempt to obtain abortion pills discreetly through the mail, and even if they go to a doctor afterward are not necessarily at risk of criminal penalty for asserting control over their own body. But a database of pregnancies exacerbates the risk that even self-administered abortions will be reported to police. Klaudia Kuzdub, who saw a doctor after her self-administered abortion in March 2021, was investigated by police a month later, and is planning to leave the country over it.

Francesca Berardi listened [[link removed]] to Afghan musicians living as refugees in Portugal. Forced to hide their instruments and flee, lest they suffer harsh punishment for violating laws against public performance, it has been hard to retain their traditions while away from the home they once knew. “We are here to have a good life,” said Ahmad Naser Sarmast, [Afghanistan National Institute of Music]'s founder and director. “We came with an important mission, to preserve Afghan music for the future.” To that end, some refugees have had success, with second-hand instruments and the ability to play for others.

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

The early bird colonel [[link removed]] gets the worm.

I’m not saying it’s too hot in the desert, I’m just saying the cacti are growing legs to walk away [[link removed]].

History is written by the victors, and archeology written by people locked in a lifelong struggle with their peers [[link removed]].

It’s a wonderful grift [[link removed]].

Well, they chupacabran’t possibly [[link removed]] govern the state any worse.

Before there were cell phones, cell phones were there [[link removed]].

Fed to the kerning and I hit the ground r u n n i n g [[link removed]].

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Critical State is written by Kelsey D. Atherton 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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