Read about revolutionary reverberations in Iran. Received this from a friend? SUBSCRIBE [[link removed]] CRITICAL STATE Your weekly foreign policy fix. If you read just one thing …

… read about revolutionary reverberations in Iran.

A government can only claim to be revolutionary for so long after it has consolidated power. In Iran, the history of the struggle to overthrow the Shah and drive out his foreign backers is long, but it is also the struggle of generations ago. Today, Iran is in yet another international revolutionary wave, one that is built with the ebbing and flowing revolutionary energies from 1979, 1999, 2009, and 2019, with the protests of 2022 spilling forward. “A young lady spray-paints [[link removed]] ‘jomhuri-ye edami’ (‘execution republic’) across a neighborhood wall, a mockery of ‘jomhuri-ye eslami,’ [‘Islamic Republic’] as well as a double-edged warning that the Islamic Republic is also on the block,” writes Shervin Malekzadeh at The American Prospect [[link removed]]. The revolutionary sentiment is born of the needs of the present and met with the inadequacy of the government to adapt. Yet, what stands out is not the limits of the state but the way a permanent embrace of revolutionary rhetoric and ideology has armed protesters with a common vocabulary of unmaking the state. “That the youngest cohort of Iranians know their mantras and marks by heart is a measure of the regime’s pedagogical success, the consequences of a job well done,” writes Malekzadeh.

Yankee UXO

The wreckage of war lingers, sometimes with explosive intent. It has been 80 years since the United States and Japan fought for control of the Solomon Islands in World War II, but the spent ammunition remains, sometimes as undetonated ordnance, or UXO. The most famous of these is Guadalcanal. For the people of the Solomon Islands, cleaning up has often happened following the tragic discovery of such a weapon and then fades over time.

“Between 2011 and 2020, the Royal Solomon Island police's own disposal unit destroyed almost 42,000 items of ordnance,” notes [[link removed]] The HALO Trust, an organization focused on training locals to clear and dispose of explosives.

On Jan. 3, 2023, the HALO Trust announced [[link removed]] that it would use funding from the US State Department to clean up UXO in the islands, starting from the location of former US military bases and aided by military maps.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] piñata SEO

There is a delicate art to crafting a party display piece designed for destruction. Piñatas are a centuries-old art, one whose appeal is enduring and whose actual substance lends itself to ephemerality. In Mexico City, while traditional star-shaped piñatas are easy to find, many shops have found they can charge a premium for, ahem, a hitting trend.

“Sometimes, a piñata goes viral, and we start getting a lot of orders, like the time we built one of Donald Trump in 2016,” Dalton Javier Ramírez told Rest of World [[link removed]]. “But the orders for these trendy piñatas’ popularity never last too long.”

Many modern designs follow global media trends, like the characters from Netflix’s “ Stranger Things [[link removed]]” or player avatars from video games like “ Among Us [[link removed]].” A newer trend is the logo for various apps, with customers paying for the chance to destroy a hated distraction.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] DEEP DIVE Arctic Alternatives: Part II

In the frozen waters and still-extant ice at the top of the world, it is easy to imagine that the environment is harsh enough for humans to leave conflict behind. While the fate of the warming North Pole is relevant to the whole of the world, international cooperation in the region, in recent decades at least, has been led by the countries north of the Arctic Circle. These eight nations, the United States, Canada, Denmark (through its possession of Greenland), Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, joined the Arctic Council [[link removed]] in 1996.

The organization, which began as the Cold War ended, also consists of Indigenous Peoples as permanent participants, and has many non-member observers (like Germany and the Republic of Korea) who share a concern for the region. But following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Arctic Council has been on hiatus, and its once exceptional nature as a durable model of international cooperation is in question.

In “ Can Exceptionalism Withstand Crises? An Evaluation of the Arctic Council's Response to Climate Change and Russia's War on Ukraine [[link removed]],” Gabriella Gricius and Erin B. Fitz look at the history of the council and examine what, if any, of its fair-weather functionality is durable in crisis.

To start, the authors look at two distinct, compounding crises for the council. The first is climate change, which expands human activity in the Arctic while also imperiling the climate, life, and lifeways in the region. Second, the authors look at Russia’s war on Ukraine, an acute and entirely voluntary geopolitical crisis brought about by one of the council’s member states, and which has an impact on its ability to cooperate with all other countries, especially with the council.

The authors sought to understand the perception of the council’s stability. To do so, they conducted a literature review of scholarly articles about the Arctic Council. One finding was notable specifically for what was absent.

“Although the publications included in our review largely failed to mention actual geopolitical crises, Russia's 2014 annexation of Crimea had an unequivocal impact on global and Arctic politics,” the authors write. Much of the work of the council continued, even as Russia did not participate in “annual meetings of the Chiefs of the Armed Forces of Arctic States, an independent cooperative institution from the Arctic Council.”

The course of action was normal enough that Russia could assume its role as council chair in 2021 [[link removed]], though any expectations at preceding normally were lost with the invasion.

“Although it is likely that Arctic Council activities would have halted in response to the 2022 Russia-Ukraine war regardless of who held the chairmanship, the fact that the Council did not shut down during previous crises suggests that the other seven Arctic states viewed this conflict as a more significant, state-driven stimulus,” the authors write. While the cooperation among other states and partners is beneficial, it suggests that the institution's previous decades of smooth operation hinge largely on the absence of geopolitical headwinds. At best, they conclude, it’s the lack of dispute that has made the Arctic Council durable, rather than the council ensuring a lack of disputes.

LEARN MORE [[link removed]]

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

Gerry Hadden rose [[link removed]] with the French bakers, worried that multiple crises may soon have them turning off their ovens and leaving the nation bereft of baguettes. “My electricity bill has gone up four-fold in the last eight months,” French baker Phillipe Mendez told Hadden. “That’s besides the price hikes for my basic ingredients. The situation is becoming very complicated.” The diminished agricultural production in Ukraine, brought about by Russia’s invasion, is compounded by the energy crisis the invasion induced in Europe. The government of France has offered relief, allowing bakers to apply for aid while acknowledging that the ovens may get colder before they warm up again.

Jon Letman spoke [[link removed]] with the Ukraine War Environmental Consequences (UWEC) work group, which is documenting the harm done to the natural environment by the war. Some of these harms can be traced back to the 2014 invasion of Ukraine by Russia, but many have expanded greatly since the February 2022 invasion. Eugene Simonov, a Russian-born environmental activist that co-founded the UWEC, “wonders how Ukraine’s agriculture sector can recover with an estimated roughly one-third [[link removed]] of the country mined or bombed and infrastructure weaponized [[link removed]].” While the war remains live, even peace will have risks, as rebuilding is expected to further strain forests and threaten damaged habitats.

ish Mafundikwa separated [[link removed]] the wheat from the chaff in reporting on moves away from maize in Zimbabwe. The popular crop, introduced to Africa by Europeans centuries ago, is a popular staple. The country is trying to encourage a shift in farming patterns to grow the small grains sorghum and millet instead, as they’re better adapted to drought; though protecting those crops from birds, as well as using threshers, is labor intensive. Still, as farmer Gilbert Butau told Mafundikwa, “In the past, if I planted 10 kilograms of maize seed, I would get at least 2 tons, but now we get 150 kilograms from the same amount of seed.”

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

Model United Nations took a turn for the exciting [[link removed]] once it was ruled hostile amendments could be added if the sponsor won the best of three matches.

In the Magritty battlefields [[link removed]] of the present, there is only endless debate about what is and isn’t a tank [[link removed]].

The House of Representatives still woefully lags behind other democracies in terms of literal pyrotechnics [[link removed]].

Clearing the spirits [[link removed]] of past administrations from a governing body is sage advice.

His supporters' putsch may have failed, but Jair Bolsonaro [[link removed]] is still suffering a revolt [[link removed]] of his own body politic [[link removed]].

It is better to be feared than loved, but even more than that, it is better to roll critical hits [[link removed]].

The Rio Grande Irony [[link removed]] of the Republic.

FORWARD TO A FRIEND [[link removed]] Follow The World: DONATE TO THE WORLD [[link removed]] Follow Inkstick: DONATE TO INKSTICK [[link removed]]

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.

Preferences [link removed] | Web Version [link removed] Unsubscribe [link removed]