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… read about fighting election misinformation in Brazil.

When it comes to counting votes, time is the essence of democracy. Regarding ensuring the integrity of elections in Brazil, the country’s Superior Electoral Court worked on two major fronts. The first was constraining the flow of misinformation by temporarily suspending messaging apps, like Telegram, used to circulate rumors. But another part was ensuring that not only were all votes counted quickly but that the outcome was announced across races, making it hard for defeated President Jair Bolsonaro to mobilize a coalition against respecting the election’s outcome. Writes Lauri Tähtinen [[link removed]], “Within 24 hours of the announcement of the official results, Bolsonaro’s key allies in Congress and state governments, all of whom had won their own races, promptly declared the election results sound. Within 48 hours of the polls closing, Bolsonaro, who had for months insisted he would only leave office under duress, held a press conference affirming the election results were within the four lines of Brazil’s constitution, within which he would also remain.” The centralized and speedy counting in Brazil eroded the time delay common to the United States, in which even well-meaning news broadcasts speculated [[link removed]] about the impact of various batches of counted votes.

reimagined community

A nation is an argument backed by force. For Ukraine, the question of what is the Ukrainian nation means wrestling with a collection of compromised figures from the past in service of trying to exist under a national image that encompasses all or, at least, enough Ukrainians to count. Writing for Stranger’s Guide, David Klion looks at Ukrainian national identity [[link removed]], which is presently shaped by the crucible of war. Says Klion, “Somehow, a nation that reveres the legacy of the Cossacks has become identified around the world with Western democratic values. How that pairing became possible, and whether it’s sustainable, could help determine whether Ukraine prevails in its war with Russia — and more fundamentally, whether pluralism and nationalism can coexist anywhere.”

This reading of wartime Ukraine as especially driven by civic nationalism, thanks to Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is gently contested by Volodymyr Ishchenko [[link removed]], who argues the force of war has merely animated a “ negative coalition [[link removed]]” against President Vladimir Putin.

Klion writes about these tensions, noting that: “In championing Zelenskyy’s Ukraine, Western liberals believe they are backing a country that shares their values — one in which patriotic Jewish volunteers serve proudly alongside the Azov Regiment.” What remains to be seen, in conduct in war and after, is if the national identity sold to the West matches the constrained political universe Zelenskyy has shaped in the country. When the dust settles, will the West see a peer state or a new border principality, an armed barrier whose violence is justified against the East?

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] cruise missive

How weapons work shapes how nations can threaten and misunderstand one another. This is never more clear than with nuclear weapons and delivery systems, which are at once designed to be inevitable and undetectable, known and hard to place, coolly held in reserve, and ready to fire at any moment. The development of a nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile, which Congress may fund in 2023, complicates the existing delicate balance of nuclear arsenals.

“These weapons look pretty much like conventional missiles, which are carried by US naval assets around the world. Neither our allies nor our adversaries will be able to tell whether any random ship or submarine is armed with a nuclear weapon. And whenever a ship or a submarine fires a missile, everyone will be left wondering if it’s a nuke or not,” writes [[link removed]] Yint Hmu of Win Without War.

That ambiguity in payload constrains the United States, making every cruise missile fired a potential nuclear launch, with the contents only revealed too late on impact. President Barack Obama canceled a similar program in 2013, and Yint argues President Joe Biden and Congress could do the same again.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE Insult to Injury: Part I

What does it mean when a leviathan turns to schoolyard taunts? States, as superstructures made of people, are subject to actions taken by those individuals. Diplomacy is adults talking with permission to set terms. So, why might a state, or its representatives, choose to insult another state?

That’s the central question at the heart of ““ Filthy Lapdogs,” “Jerks,” and “Hitler”: Making Sense of Insults in International Relations [[link removed]],” in which Elise Rousseau and Stephane J. Baele examine the function of undiplomatic language.

“Our central contention is indeed that international insults constitute both at once tactical tools used to achieve interests by disrupting an interaction and modifying the payoffs associated with it and linguistic artifacts constructing and sharpening self- and other identities,” write the authors.

The paper was published in the fall of 2020, and the presence of President Donald Trump lingers heavily over the entire draft, though the authors take lengths to show his approach is hardly singular in the history of world politics. Twenty-first century leaders like Britain’s Boris Johnson and Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez feature, as do giants of the 20th century like President Richard Nixon and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. There are even prior examples, such as a 19th century letter used to nudge President William McKinely toward the Spanish-American war or the 1870 telegram edited by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, used to spark the Franco-Prussian War.

Insults have a long history in international relations, sometimes with bloody consequences. Instead of treating these insults as irrational behavior, Rousseau and Baele instead look for the instrumental function behind name-calling.

“In the pragmatic literature, insults are considered ‘successful’ when they destabilize the target and, in so doing, create a new social situation. Therefore, insults are understood in opposition to the intuitive idea that they tend to be irrational outbursts of aggressiveness,” write the authors. “On the contrary, they are conceptualized as potentially advantageous linguistic devices that can be used tactically by individuals conducting their social interactions with broader strategic goals in mind.”

States and their agents use insults to disrupt and challenge the existing polite theater of diplomatic norms. Earlier this year, Critical State wrote about the Trump administration’s diplomacy as specifically following the beats of professional wrestling.

“The international insults used to qualify the EU in the wake of the Brexit vote were also used instrumentally in a bid to shift UK national identity, and yet they tabled on much broader background discursive formations that preceded the vote,” write the authors.

These insults have both international and domestic audiences, and they can sharpen divisions while bolstering the in-group appeal of the speaker’s followers. It’s a tool in the diplomats' toolkit, though, as the authors note, when insults become a habit for world leaders, they are much easier to ignore than when they are carefully chosen and used rarely.

“In an international environment where actors seek to preserve face and material interests alike, insults are a potentially powerful linguistic instrument to gain advantages, to destabilize a rival and force him/her into a reaction, to disrupt cooperation or secure connivance, or even to alter the structure of the system,” the authors conclude.

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Sushmita Pathak documented [[link removed]] the role of family planning in India, which will soon be the most populous nation on earth, even as its birth rate continues a long and radial decline. At present, much of this decline is a burden shifted on women, who opt for sterilizations after two or three or sometimes more children. Vasectomies, which are an outpatient procedure, have taken far less hold, with female sterilization at 38% while male sterilization is just 0.3%, according to government data. But, writes Pathak, “In the coming years, Vajpeyi said India needs to do more to encourage men to take part in family planning, through targeted social and behavioral change communication campaigns.”

Christy Crouse and Nathan Hosler called [[link removed]] upon Congress to block the sale of drones and other weapons until monitoring is a legal requirement for those weapons sales. The advent of remote control and autonomous technologies especially used to facilitate counterinsurgency warfare by the United States and other countries with US weapons is subject to voluntary restriction by presidential directive. But, as the transition from Obama to Trump showed, voluntary opt-in rules are not enough to protect civilians from misuse of the technology. The authors, responding to a leak of Biden’s drone strategy, note that while its limits are a good start, “tighter requirements for targeted killings with drones are sorely needed.”

Tibisay Zea reported [[link removed]] on the tension between green energy and lithium extraction in Chile’s Atacama desert. The desert is the world’s driest, but beneath the sands exists salty, brackish, and briney water rich in lithium. This water is brought to the service, where it is evaporated out in giant pools, the sun removing the water from the mineral, before the mines further process and produce useful lithium, which goes into batteries. This extraction can also disrupt the life patterns of Indigenous people that irrigate the desert and could disrupt bird habitats. It’s a tradeoff aimed at meeting the demand for stores of renewable power, one that warrants further study.

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

Freedom isn’t free; it’s a collectible available in booster packs [[link removed]].

It’s simple: thanks to the Treaty of Westphalia [[link removed]], retoots are retweets but tweets are not toots.

Emerald Island sorely lacking in quality green [[link removed]].

The World Cup runneth empty [[link removed]].

A work visa is just a promise to capital [[link removed]] that some workers will never abandon the ship of industry, even as it collapses in flames.

Geocities Intelligence Agency [[link removed]].

S.P.E.C.T.R.E. hydrofoiled again [[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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