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President Emmanuel Macron is pursuing an old Gaullist dream: a militarily and geopolitically autonomous Europe under the leadership of France.The present strategy by which Macron is pursuing this goal is to present France as the military vanguard of Europe in the defense of Ukraine, through the suggestion that French and other NATO troops could be sent to that country:"There is no consensus today to send ground troops in an official, accepted and endorsed manner," he declared after a summit of European leaders in February. "But in dynamics, nothing should be excluded. We will do everything necessary to ensure that Russia cannot win this war." When this idea was immediately rejected by other NATO governments, including the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany, Macron doubled down rhetorically by accusing the Germans and others of cowardice.Some have dismissed this as mere cosplay, Macron dressing up as de Gaulle, just as British politicians are incapable of resisting the temptation to pretend to be Churchill. Others have suggested that it is chiefly motivated by domestic politics. Faced with a steep rise in support for Marine Le Pen's Rassemblement National (formerly the Front National), which traditionally sympathized with Putin, Macron is hoping to damage and isolate it by emphasizing the threat from Russia.These analyses have some truth to them, but also underestimate the seriousness of Macron's aim and Europe's position. His dream has deep roots in French history and culture, and also corresponds in certain respects to the Europe's real needs,Unfortunately — and perhaps, God forbid, tragically— the strategy by which Macron is seeking to achieve his goal is to a considerable degree directly contrary to the goal itself, as well as being completely contrary to de Gaulle's own ideas. It is a military and military-industrial strategy unaccompanied by adequate armed forces, or a real military-industrial base or political strategy, not to mention domestic political support. In the words of Jean de Gliniastry, a former French ambassador to Moscow: "There is a message, a warning to the Russians, while remaining ambiguous…[But] you have to walk on both legs: the military aspect and the diplomatic aspect. And for now, I don't see the latter."Macron stated that Russia must not "win" the war; but, like all the other leaders of NATO, he has never defined what he means by this. Perhaps he means fighting Russia to a standstill followed by a compromise peace. In private conversations, however, French officials simply echo the U.S. line that only the Ukrainians can make peace — and the Ukrainian terms for peace require not a stalemate, but the complete military defeat of Russia.The need for Europe to develop a capacity for self-defense should be obvious. Having nailed themselves to the Biden administration, European governments have very belatedly woken up to the realization that the next president may well be Donald Trump, and that the U.S. commitment to Europe may radically diminish. Indeed, given U.S. problems at home and in the Middle East, plus growing tension with China, this commitment is likely to diminish in future whether or not Trump is elected.However, Macron's hope that the supposed threat from Russia will prompt Europe to unite militarily behind French leadership vastly exaggerates both French military power and European willingness to follow France's lead. After years of budget cuts, the French army is far too weak to intervene in Ukraine without full U.S. support. When in 2011 President Nicolas Sarkozy of France tried to take the lead in the "humanitarian intervention" in Libya, within a very few weeks he was begging an unwilling President Obama to take over the operation on behalf of NATO, for fear of a humiliating Anglo-French failure.In terms of appealing to other European countries, Macron's hawkish stance on Ukraine is targeting East European partners. These governments, however, are precisely the countries with the most deeply-rooted determination to oppose European strategic autonomy and maintain until the bitter end the closest possible alliance with the United States. As Macron has himself stated, long-term European strategic autonomy also depends on a huge growth of Europe's military-industrial base. This however depends on the full participation of Europe's industrial powerhouse, Germany. Quite apart from German unwillingness to accept French leadership, the German economy is faltering and even facing "deindustrialization", in part because of the end of cheap Russian energy as a result of the war and Western sanctions. If the German industrial economy steeply declines, it will wreck Europe's ability to develop an adequate military-industrial base. It is also likely to produce social and political anxiety, gravely undermining Germany's role as a pillar of the European Union and European democracy. And far from leading to support for European strategic autonomy, fear of Russia has already driven Germany into even greater dependence on the United States. When it comes to whipping up French domestic fear of Russia, the danger for Macron is that it will not work, and the danger for France, Europe, and the world is that it will. At present, polls show French public opinion opposed to direct intervention in Ukraine by a margin of almost three to one. This suggests that should Macron actually send troops to Ukraine, there will be a tremendous public backlash against him. Barring nuclear war, very few people in France feel truly under threat from Russia. The risk of course is that all of his efforts to generate fear will lead Macron to be trapped by his own propaganda. If Russia does break through the Ukrainian lines and advance rapidly, he will either have to confess his own and France's impotence in the face of a supposedly mortal Russian threat — or actually send French troops to Ukraine. Russian commentators have stated categorically that if French or any other NATO troops are deployed in Ukraine, they will be attacked. Meanwhile, a limited deployment of French troops would not stop (though they might slow down) an overwhelming Russian advance. France would then have to either accept a qualified defeat and peace on Russian terms, or beg for U.S. intervention — at which point we would be heading rapidly towards nuclear annihilation.Perhaps the oddest thing about Macron's position, and that of the French establishment, is that, while it derives from de Gaulle's dream of European leadership, it completely misunderstands — or betrays — de Gaulle's vision. The General, it may be remembered, withdrew France from NATO's military structures in protest against Washington's refusal to inform France about U.S. nuclear forces on French soil. He sought an independent French role in international affairs, and, as part of this, sought détente with the Soviet Union and spoke of Europe "from the Atlantic to The Urals."De Gaulle's hopes in this regard were frustrated by the iron constraints of the Cold War. When de Gaulle was president, Soviet tank armies were stationed in central Germany, less than 200 miles from the French border. In principle at least, the Soviet Union was dedicated to a revolutionary ideology that threatened everything de Gaulle stood for: at the time Moscow supported a large and powerful French Communist Party. Today, the nearest Russian forces are nearly a thousand miles from France's borders, and both Soviet Communism and the French Communist Party are long dead. It seems overwhelmingly probable, therefore, that instead of lining up with the U.S. against Russia, de Gaulle would have grasped the opportunity for France to take the lead in ensuring European peace by seeking compromise with Moscow. After all, when de Gaulle fought as a French soldier in the First World War, it was as an ally of the Russian Empire against Germany.Sophia Ampgkarian contributed to the research for this article.

The coming month will be crucial for determining what the Venezuelan opposition's participation will look like in the July 28 presidential election.The five-day window for candidate registry opened Thursday. But the Venezuelan opposition faces a barrage of efforts by the Nicolás Maduro government aimed at harassing and disqualifying his challengers.The National Electoral Council (CNE), controlled by President Nicolás Maduro, reaffirmed the disqualification of top opposition candidate María Corina Machado in January based on a collage of specious charges. Rumblings from Caracas had already suggested serious talks about naming a replacement candidate for Machado. However, a warrant was issued for the arrest of the most likely substitute, her campaign manager Magalli Meda, on Wednesday. Several of Machado' team were also arrested and taken away. The charges? All have been accused of taking part a violent anti-government conspiracy. Meanwhile, the CNE has also annulled the registry of a number of opposition parties, at this point leaving only two from the dominant coalition. The Venezuelan opposition faces several complex challenges in trying to channel the energy and enthusiasm expressed for Maria Corina Machado in the opposition's primary election last October into the general election in July. U.S. policy makers need to encourage opposition participation and prioritize the Venezuelan people's right to self-determination.Machado is a long-time hardline activist and politician who for years has been at odds with the dominant opposition coalition in demanding foreign intervention, suggesting that no election was possible with President Nicolas Maduro remaining in power, and insisting that dialogue with the regime was a farce. But her popularity soared over the past year as she plunged headlong into the primary process and even embraced the Norwegian-mediated negotiation process between the Maduro government and opposition coalition that has been taking place on and off again since 2019. Citizen participation in the opposition's primary surpassed all expectations and gave her over 90% support among a population desperate for change. This has essentially made her the opposition's candidate and given her a predominant voice in the coalition.However, recent polling shows that a majority of Venezuelans would support any unified opposition candidate. This contradicts the message that she and her advisors have been propagating — that she is the only viable candidate — and explains why, in recent weeks, she has taken to attacking pollsters and analysts.In a recent article, a colleague and I suggested that, despite a decade of efforts to counter Nicolás Maduro's authoritarian slide, the U.S. government's ability to impact the Maduro government is quite limited. Under three U.S. presidents, efforts have ranged from diplomacy to outright attempts at regime-change. Yet during that time, the Maduro government has become a comprehensive authoritarian state that the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights has accused of not just censorship of media and harassment of opposition politicians, but enforced disappearances and torture.Washington, however, does have significant influence with the Venezuelan opposition. At this point, the U.S. needs to be absolutely consistent that an electoral boycott is not its preferred path forward. The Venezuelan people are clear about this, as is most of the opposition, and Biden officials also seem to have heard that message. Multiple times in the past, however, the opposition has snatched dysfunction out of the jaws of consensus, with factional leaders each pulling in different directions or preferring abstention rather than letting a rival leader end up on top. This possibility should not be underestimated this year as well. While boycotting an election that does not meet international standards may seem morally and emotionally satisfying, the research is quite clear that participation in an unfair election is more effective than abstaining. Tacit U.S. approval of past boycotts should not be repeated this time around.Machado has insisted on running despite her disqualification and has taken a hard line against candidate substitution in order to maximize pressure on the regime. Her logic is that the regime will buckle to pressure and lift her ban and allow her on the ballot. This position has been embraced in Washington, especially on Capitol Hill by Republican lawmakers and even some Democrats for whom Machado's hard line may resonate with their constituents. But there is a distinct danger that Machado will pivot and get behind a substitute candidate, and lawmakers in Washington will fail to support such a move, thus complicating the opposition's participation in the elections. In the past, U.S. government inertia has dragged down an opposition that was willing to take new paths. This kind of muscle memory absolutely needs to be avoided this time around.If Machado does pivot, there are a number of reasons the gambit could still fail — from opposition dysfunction to the Maduro regime simply disqualifying or jailing the substitute candidate, or complicating the registration process. If this happens and a new opposition candidate emerges who has the potential to unify Venezuela's discontented electorate even without Machado's blessing, that process must be allowed to proceed without interference from Washington. This election is about the long-suffering Venezuelan people. It is important to realize that popular support for Machado is based largely on her being perceived as someone who can deliver change in terms of getting them to a post-Maduro future. Many of those who support her do not support her policies on major issues such as sanctions, foreign intervention, and privatization of the state oil company. Thus, a quick swing of public support to another candidate with quite different policy positions is entirely possible. It is fine for U.S. policymakers to have favorite foreign politicians and allies, but these relationships should not be allowed to interfere with Venezuelans' attempts to take new directions to unify against Maduro.Meanwhile, U.S. officials need to prepare for the likelihood that the election will not be competitive. Any truly free and fair electoral event would lead to the defeat of Maduro and his loyalists. They have a great deal to lose and they will do what they can to avoid such an outcome. Nonetheless, it is always worth making an authoritarian government play the election game because it can make mistakes, and a "stunning election" result can generate a cascade of events that leads to a transition in spite of the incumbent government's efforts. At the same time, everyone should be clear that the Maduro regime controls all of the institutions of government as well as the armed forces and the oil industry. The most likely outcome is that they maintain power with the only real doubt being how inelegantly they do so.What happens in this scenario needs to be carefully planned out ahead of time. As a result of last October's Barbados Accords that laid out the path for a democratic election, the Biden Administration issued licenses that effectively suspended the most important U.S. sanctions on the Venezuelan economy — namely, on oil and gas — for six months. Those licenses are up for review in mid-April, and snapping sanctions back in place would be a mistake. Economic sanctions on Venezuela have exacted heavy humanitarian costs, impoverishing the population and significantly impacting emigration. And since they affect the population more than the government, they have actually strengthened the regime's power over the population. Targeted sanctions on specific individuals should be maintained. While they have not proved terribly effective either, they do provide a level of international stigmatization for individuals who have violated the rights of others. If properly implemented and monitored, they can provide useful impetus for reform and democratization.The most important thing the U.S. government can do in the longer run is to robustly support a deepening and extension of dialogue and negotiation within Venezuela. Only when the shape of the conflict and nature of the game change will Chavismo be willing to let go of power. Processes of reconciliation and reconstruction of the social fabric are the only way intractable conflicts can become something else. The effort that has been led by Norwegian diplomats is well-conceived and carried out with genuine expertise. But it needs more international, and especially U.S., support if it is to succeed.

Muhammad Zia Mehmood is a PhD candidate in the Business and Public Policy Program at the Haas School of Business, UC Berkeley. In his job market paper, Zia studies the demand for and potential of business trainings provided over text messages to impact outcomes for micro-entrepreneurs in Kenya. This study was supported by CEGA's Development Economics Challenge initiative. This blog post was originally published on the Econ That Really Matters blog.A small business welder at work. Credit: Adobe StockIntroductionSmall businesses form the economic backbone of low-income countries and strengthening these enterprises is fundamental to alleviating poverty. Poor management practices is a major factor constraining firm productivity in these contexts, and over $1 billion is spent annually to address this constraint by providing business trainings to entrepreneurs. However, most of these are conventional, in-person, classroom-style trainings, which are expensive and hard to scale, and can exclude those who are unable to participate in person. Due to their low costs, scalability, and reach, phone-based trainings are gaining popularity as a potential solution, but there is limited evidence on whether remotely provided trainings are effective for micro-entrepreneurs in low-income settings.In my job market paper, I study the demand for and potential of text message-based business trainings using a field experiment in Kenya, in which access to an SMS-based training was randomized across 4,700 micro-entrepreneurs. I estimate short- and longer-run impacts using phone-based surveys conducted three months (Midline: 307 observations) and twelve months (Endline: 2,780 observations) after the intervention. I also elicit ex ante predictions for 12-month treatment effects from researchers through the Social Science Predictions Platform (SSPP), to assess whether the main findings depart from existing priors. Finally, I measure demand for the trainings through Take-It-Or-Leave-It (TIOLI) offers and the Becker-DeGroot-Marschak (BDM) willingness-to-pay elicitation method for a subset of the sample.Context and InterventionAccording to a 2016 nationwide survey of small businesses in Kenya, 90 percent of micro-entrepreneurs had never received any type of business training. This was reflected in their business practices: More than three-fourths did not advertise any of their products, over two-thirds didn't keep any business records, and less than a tenth accounted for prices set by their competitors when choosing their own prices.I partnered with a local firm specializing in digital content development and dissemination to implement an SMS-based training aimed at addressing these management gaps and others. Available in English and Swahili, the training modules covered best practices, including marketing, advertising, pricing, record-keeping, and stock management. The content was structured around stories about the decisions of hypothetical micro-entrepreneurs in different scenarios. Users accessed the trainings through self-paced engagement with an interactive chat-bot, which sent bite-sized chunks spanning about 150 text messages. The entire training could be completed in five to seven hours, and all content was retained indefinitely on users' phones. Weekly text reminders were sent to those who stopped engaging, and these reminders stopped if engagement was resumed or after two consecutive months of inactivity.The primary sample for the study was sourced from a list of micro-entrepreneurs compiled by my implementation partner and a local microfinance institution. Half of the study sample consists of female micro-entrepreneurs, and roughly 45 percent is based in rural areas. The average individual was about 35 years old, and had completed almost twelve years of education (high school level).Figure 1: Screenshots of user engagement with the chatbot. Note: This figure shows screenshots of interactions with the SMS-based chatbot as it pushes out content to users. In this context, most micro-entrepreneurs set prices just based on their buying costs, without accounting for prices of their competitors, so the content pushes them to change their pricing strategy. Credit: Muhammad Zia MehmoodResultsThree months after the intervention, I find that the SMS training increased knowledge and adoption of best practices by 0.20 and 0.33 standard deviations, respectively. I also find large positive, but statistically insignificant, effects on business performance in the overall sample, and significant positive effects for younger (below-median) micro-entrepreneurs on sales (109 percent increase), profits (38 percent increase), and business survival (11.6 percentage points increase). These positive effects for younger entrepreneurs are driven by higher engagement with the content, and larger effects on time spent on business, and loan amounts applied for and received.However, these positive results dissipate in the longer run; twelve months after the intervention, I see no effects on knowledge and adoption of best practices, as well as business sales, profits and survival. Additionally, the positive effects on business outcomes observed for younger entrepreneurs at three months disappear after twelve months. The lack of long-term impact was likely driven by micro-entrepreneurs abandoning all interactions with the content within the first few months of the intervention. The survival curve in Figure 2 shows how all cumulative aggregate engagement with the platform ended by May 2022 — five months into the intervention.Figure 2: Survival curve of interactions with chatbot. Note: This figure illustrates how interactions with the chatbot were distributed throughout the study period. The plot shows reverse cumulative engagement over time; for example, it shows that 80% of all the interactions with the chat-bot throughout the course of the study, had ended by 4/1/2022. The shaded areas represent the time-spans during which the Midline and Endline surveys were conducted. Credit: Muhammad Zia MehmoodFigure 3: Predictions vs observed treatment effects. Note: This figure shows how predicted treatment effects for the Endline compare with observed Midline and Endline effects. Error bars represent 90% confidence intervals. Credit: Muhammad Zia MehmoodFigure 3 illustrates how these results compare with predictions for 12-month treatment effects elicited ex ante through the SSPP. I find that SSPP researchers overestimated the engagement levels, both in terms of the proportion of the treatment group that would start engaging with the content (50 percent vs 30 percent) and how much training content the average user would complete after twelve months (40 percent vs 7 percent). Furthermore, predictions for the 12-month treatment effects on knowledge and adoption of best practices are somewhat similar to observed effects at three months, but significantly overestimated in light of observed 12-month treatment effects. Effects on business performance offer a similar story: SSPP predictions for the 12-month treatment effects on sales and profits are similar in magnitude to effects observed at three months (albeit statistically insignificant), but they grossly overestimate the effects at twelve months.Additionally, notwithstanding the low engagement and lack of longer-run effects, I find positive demand for SMS-based trainings among micro-entrepreneurs; both methods of elicitation — the TIOLI offers and the BDM exercise — reveal that individuals are willing to pay a small amount for an additional SMS-based training, suggesting that they value access to the content.Policy ImplicationsThese results indicate that SMS-based trainings are unlikely to improve outcomes for micro-entrepreneurs in the long run, despite their growing popularity in low-income and less accessible settings. These findings also highlight the lack of engagement with trainings as a major challenge that limits the potential of remotely-provided information-based support.Further, the forecasting exercise reveals that social science researchers overestimate the potential of SMS-based trainings to improve outcomes for micro-entrepreneurs, and the findings from this study are thus contrary to priors. Updating these priors is important because policymakers and practitioners often rely on social science experts to make decisions about how to invest in remote, information-based support programs.Lastly, the results on willingness to pay suggest that engagement with the content might not reflect the actual demand for SMS-based trainings, pointing towards possible behavioral drivers constraining engagement. To capitalize on the full potential of digital content delivery in low-income settings, further research is needed to shed light on how to encourage engagement with remotely provided content.Short Messages Fall Short for Micro-Entrepreneurs: Experimental Evidence from Kenya was originally published in CEGA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Published in partnership with The Intercept.Sen. Robert Mendendez (D-N.J.) is fighting charges that he accepted money in exchange for assisting foreign governments. That legal defense is being paid in part by donors with links to a former terrorist organization, a sign of the senator's need for fast cash.In September, federal prosecutors hit Menendez and his wife with a raft of bribery charges and, more recently, obstruction of justice. (Menendez and his wife pleaded not guilty to the charges.) With a trial scheduled for May, Menendez stands to rack up staggering legal fees. His legal defense fund, according to public disclosures, had already spent $373,223 as of the end of January.Much of the cash in the fund — he has raised over $400,000 — comes from sources one might anticipate. New Jersey and New York donors with various business and political interests in his home state, including the real estate firm led by Jared Kushner's family, have given the fund money. There are, however, many lesser-known donors. One is Ahmad Moeinimanesh, an electronic engineer from Northern California. Another is Hossein Afshari, also from California.At first blush, these smaller contributions to Menendez Legal Defense Fund might appear to come from a smattering of individual donors. An analysis of the donor rolls by Responsible Statecraft and The Intercept, however, shows that about 15 percent of the people who gave to Menendez — including Moeinimanesh and Afshari — are linked to an Iranian exile group called the Mojahedin e-Khalq, or MEK.Menendez and the MEK have a relationship going back a decade. Shortly after the group was removed from a State Department list of "foreign terror organizations," Menendez advocated for the MEK following an attack on its members by the Iraqi government.Menendez's elevation of the group as a viable alternative to the Islamic Republic continued since then. The senator met with its leader, Maryam Rajavi, last May and heaped praise on the National Council of Resistance of Iran, a so-called political wing indistinguishable from the MEK, at a 2022 Capitol Hill event organized by the Organization of Iranian American Communities, a group allied with the MEK."Let me start off by thanking the Organization of Iranian Communities for putting together today's event on Capitol Hill," said Menendez. "I'm thrilled to see so many Iranian Americans from across the country, and I'd like to thank and recognize the National Council of Resistance of Iran for their commitment to elevating your voices, the voices of Iranians inside of Iran and constantly advocating for the freedom of the Iranian people."Moeinimanesh, the chair of OIAC's California chapter, who contributed $2,500, was one of a dozen Iranian Americans with links to the MEK or its affiliates that gave to Menendez's fund. (Neither Moeinimanesh nor OIAC responded to a request for comment.) Afshari gave $1,000. "Giving money to people I think are nice is not illegal," Afshari told Responsible Statecraft and The Intercept, of his contributions to Menendez's legal fund. "He is a man with principle and integrity and I don't believe all of the negative things some media put out."In total, MEK-affiliated individuals made up approximately 5 percent of the total funds raised, over $20,000, by the end of January. (Seven other donors, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, the OIAC, and Menendez's office did not respond to requests for comment.)Responsible Statecraft and The Intercept established links between the MEK and most of these donors by cross-referencing their names with signatories on OIAC and National Council of Resistance of Iran letters and affiliations. Court records linked Afshari to the MEK.Menendez and the MEKMenendez's perch atop the Senate Foreign Relations Committee made him one of the most influential Democrats on foreign policy. He was an attractive friend for Egypt, one of the two foreign governments now accused of bribing him for political favors. The dramatic federal indictment claimed cash, gold, and expensive gifts from Egypt were linked to a weapons sale and the release of a hold on $300 million in aid to Cairo. An updated indictment in January alleged that Menendez also accepted Formula One tickets and other gifts from Qatar in exchange for favors.The sway Menendez held in Washington — and his hawkish stances on Iran — also made him a valuable ally for the MEK. The group had made an arduous journey from its early days as a student-run radical Marxist group in the late 1960s. Anti-monarchists, the MEK fought on the winning side of the 1979 Iranian Revolution but faced a crackdown as the young Islamic Republic consolidated power. Forced into exile, the MEK fought on the Iraqi side of the Iran–Iraq War in the 1980s, giving rise to antipathy against the group inside its home country.The exile in Iraq also brought an inward turn, leading the Rand Corporation to conclude that the MEK, due to its aggrandizement of its late-leader Massoud Rajavi and his wife, Maryam, was a "cult." Human Rights Watch, Rand, and The Intercept have reported that MEK leaders abused group members' human rights.In 1997, the MEK was placed on the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations for, among other things, its role in the killing of six Americans in Iran in the 1970s and an attempted attack on the Iranian mission to the United Nations in 1992. The designation would last for a decade and a half. Following a successful lobbying campaign by its supporters in the U.S., the group won a major victory when it was removed from the American terror rolls in 2012.The shift in the U.S. stance meant American politicians, including Menendez, could grow close to the militant outfit without controversy about the terror label. Prominent figures were more regularly seen speaking at the group's annual conference outside Paris, casting the MEK and Maryam Rajavi as a viable political force within Iran if the Islamic Republic were overthrown. The appearances were often well remunerated; former Vice President Mike Pence, for example, received $430,000 from the MEK following the end of the Trump administration.Though he had been quiet on the MEK while it was designated as a terror organization, once it was delisted Menendez consistently expressed concern for the group and its members. In 2013, the MEK began a frantic lobbying push in Washington after its encampment in Iraq — the former base from which it mounted military attacks — came under attack from Iranian-backed groups; the Iraqi government, which was close to Iran, was unwilling or unable to guarantee MEK members' security.Menendez, a top recipient of campaign contributions from donors with ties to the MEK, stepped in. A month after the attack, he held up a sale of Apache helicopters to Iraq that were meant to be part of efforts to push back the Islamic State group. Speaking at a 2014 MEK rally in Paris, Menendez said, "I told Prime Minister Maliki" — Nouri al-Maliki, of Iraq — "in person last year that his commitment to the safety and security of the MEK members at Camp Liberty is a critical factor in my future support for any assistance to Iraq."Menendez has continued to address MEK convenings and speaks about the group in terms hinting at accepting its self-image as a government-in-exile. And he is quick to point out that he is a friend to the MEK. In a video message to the OIAC in 2021, Menendez wished the group a happy Nowruz, the Persian New Year, and reiterated his support for their work. "You know, that you have friends in Congress and throughout the U.S. government, as well as a host of international NGOs who will continue to shine a light on these abuses" — by the Iranian government — "and continue to press for accountability," Menendez said. "We will continue highlighting the plight of Iran's people at the regime's expense."Now, Menendez also appears to have friends among the MEK who are willing to help him with his plight — at their own expense.

Relations among the European backers of Ukraine have been roiled by recent battlefield developments indicating momentum may have passed to Russia amid stalled American funding for military support to Ukraine.The Franco-German "tandem," which has underpinned European integration for decades, has been disturbed by obvious disagreements between French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. The recent friction comes from the continued refusal by Scholz to consider providing long-range Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine and from Macron's highly contested declaration on February 26 that the deployment of NATO forces in Ukraine should not be excluded. The next day, Scholz categorically ruled out any deployment of German or NATO forces in Ukraine.Over the past two years of war, Germany has surprised critics by rising to second place behind the U.S. as a supplier of weapons for Ukraine. In recent weeks, however, Germany has returned to whipping-boy status, as Scholz has refused to grant Ukraine's long-standing request for Taurus missiles. This seems to be a replay of the 2022 debate over supplying German Leopard tanks, but the then-hopeful prospects for eventual Ukrainian victory have faded considerably. Scholz's objection to providing the Taurus missile is contested within his governing coalition (which includes the Greens and the liberal Free Democrats, as well as his own Social Democrats). He has stated, most recently on March 4, that his main reservation is that the Taurus missile could not be used by Ukraine except with the help and presence on Ukrainian soil of some German military personnel. A public opinion poll published on February 27 showed that 56% of Germans opposed sending the Taurus missile to Ukraine. A plurality of SPD supporters opposed the deployment (46% versus 41%), while a plurality of FDP supported it (48% to 46%). Among the governing parties, the Greens were the only party supporters who favored sending the missiles by a majority (52% to 34%). Surprisingly, more respondents who identified with the main center-right opposition Christian Democrats opposed the deployment than supported it (48% versus 45%), despite the support of their parliamentary delegation for providing the missiles. Finally, a huge majority (87%) who identified with the populist far-right AfD opposed the proposed deployment.Russian leak of air force officers on Taurus deploymentA conversation of Luftwaffe chief General Ingo Gerwartz and three other senior German air force officers on February 19 was intercepted and published online on March 1. The conversation dealt extensively with how Taurus missiles could be deployed without having German military personnel on-site. The officers were preparing a briefing for Defense Minister Boris Pistorius addressing the feasibility, timing, and practicalities of the deployment, but not clearly endorsing or opposing it.
The officers discussed how Taurus missiles could be used to destroy the Kerch Bridge, but did not themselves advocate the selection of this target. Their discussion reached no conclusion about how Germany could deploy the missiles effectively without breaching the political red line about a German military presence in Ukraine.
Moreover, Gerwartz indicated that the destruction of the Kerch Bridge, while technically achievable, was unlikely to change the course of the war. The transcript of this conversation was published by the Russian state broadcaster RT and is presumed to have been intercepted by Russian intelligence. The Russian official press has falsely characterized the officers' conversation as amounting to a plot being hatched to ensure the missiles are deployed, and to force the hand of the chancellor.
Pistorius has called the release of the transcript a case of Russian information warfare intended to sow discord among the Western supporters of Ukraine. The German domestic debate on this scandal has mainly focused on assigning responsibility for the egregious failure of communications security. Advocates of deploying the Taurus have used the incident to redouble their efforts to force Scholz to change his mind.
Since the release of the conversation, Scholz has reiterated that the problem of providing Taurus missiles boils down to the insuperable problem of how to ensure effective use of the Taurus missiles without itself becoming a party to the conflict. The leaked conversation alluded to the alleged presence and involvement of UK and French military personnel in the operation of the Storm Shadow and Scalp cruise missiles provided to Ukraine by Britain and France, respectively. Both countries have expressed outrage at the lax security that permitted the conversation's interception.Macron rises to the occasion?With Germany locked in its characteristic caution, French President Macron launched an effort to mobilize a united European drive to re-vitalize support for Ukraine by convening a hastily organized meeting of European leaders on the defense of Ukraine in Paris on February 26.
This followed on the heels of the fairly downbeat mood about the prospects of reviving Ukraine's military fortunes that prevailed at the annual Munich Security Conference the previous week. At the closing press conference of the Paris meeting, Macron made his surprising assertion that the deployment of NATO troops should not be ruled out, though he acknowledged that "no consensus" had yet formed around this idea. Macron seems to have in mind the deployment of French or NATO troops in non-combatant roles, such as de-mining. This idea has nevertheless come under fire from much of the political opposition in France.
The leaders at the conference decided to pursue a Czech proposal to increase European bilateral funding to buy 800,000 artillery shells for Ukraine from non-EU countries to make up for the inadequate supplies of shells in Europe. Macron traveled to Prague on March 5 to explore this idea further and insisted that eventual deployment of NATO forces should not be ruled out, and that allies should not be "cowardly." Germany's Pistorius quickly called this language unhelpful.It is galling to Germans that France, which has given far less military support to Ukraine than Germany, should chide others for being timid. The Ukraine Support Tracker at the Kiel Institute in Germany (last updated on January 15) puts German military aid commitments at $17.7 billion and the U.S. at $42.2 billion, with France well down the list at $0.6 billion. Paris has challenged Kiel's methodology.Why it mattersThe New York Times' Roger Cohen recently noted that, without any obvious attempt to build advance support for his initiative, Macron sought to reinject confidence among European supporters of Ukraine and produce "strategic ambiguity" to shake Russian confidence. Instead, he laid bare the divisions among allies about how far they are willing to go in defense of Ukraine and provoked an open breach with Germany. Macron's own twisted path toward his latest hawkish incarnation limits his credibility to mobilize Europe behind him.
German resistance to providing Taurus missiles is directly related to its alarm at what it sees as Macron's reckless stance on eventual NATO deployments in Ukraine. Germany apparently remains determined not to cross the line between assisting Ukraine in its self-defense and becoming a party to the conflict. The opposition to deploying the Taurus from the German public across the political spectrum (with the Greens as the noteworthy exception) bolsters Scholz's stance.
Even if Macron's initiative seems to have divided rather than mobilized a united European front to defend Ukraine, his activism demonstrates the dawning awareness that Europe will have more responsibility for arming Ukraine due to the stalled American aid package and the approaching U.S. elections.
The unfortunate upshot of these recent developments is to hobble the Franco-German tandem that has been crucial to the effective functioning of the EU for decades. This open rift is unwelcome when the EU as a whole is groping toward a more unified, coordinated, and generously funded rearmament, in which Berlin and Paris must be leading players.

Favors that one country gives to another imply leverage that the former can exert on the latter. Withholding, or even threatening to withhold, such largesse, focuses minds within the recipient country's government and can influence its policies.The favors that the United States has given to Israel have been enormous, as reflected in $318 billion, adjusted for inflation, in foreign aid through 2022 — far more than the United States has given to any other country since World War II. Thus, the leverage the United States has available to use on Israel is large. But it has used almost none of it.Even when Israeli policies fly in the face of U.S. preferences, the result is nothing more than a verbal slap on the wrist. Examples include the countless times that construction of more Israeli settlements in occupied territory are followed by timid official U.S. statements but no action — such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken saying last month that he was "disappointed" by Israel's latest announcement of new settlement construction in the West Bank.When the subject of employing the leverage is raised, voices in response usually say something similar to what retired general David Petraeus said recently, which was that the United States is "committed" to Israeli security, that we tend to "overestimate the leverage," and that Israel is currently in a "life and death situation."In fact, the days of Israel being a beleaguered, vulnerable state surrounded by strong, hostile neighbors are long gone. Israel has the most potent military in the Middle East — even just at the conventional level, let alone when considering nuclear weapons. Israel's military offsets any numerical inferiority in raw numbers of troops with advanced technology that far surpasses what any other state in the region enjoys. Despite frequently heard rhetoric that attributes to some regime or group a supposed dedication to "destroying" Israel, no enemy of Israel has anything close to the capability of doing so.One might argue that this secure Israeli position is thanks in part to all that U.S. assistance, and thus is a reason to continue the aid. But Israel is a wealthy country. It is in the richest 20 percent or even 10 percent of nations in the world, depending on how one measures GDP per capita. Israel can pay by itself for that potent military. The voluminous U.S. aid is a subsidy by American taxpayers to Israeli taxpayers.Therefore, reduction or termination of the aid would not endanger Israeli security, no matter how much the United States considers itself committed to that security. Israel would spend what it must to meet its own conception of security. But interruption of the voluminous no-strings-attached American subsidy would certainly get the attention of Israeli politicians and thus can have considerable influence on Israeli policy.In many respects, spending on, and use of, the Israel Defense Forces does not enhance Israeli security and may even detract from it. In recent years, the IDF has been largely occupied with keeping down a subjugated and thus discontented Palestinian population in the occupied territories and protecting Israeli settlements there. This is not a matter of securing Israel but instead of incurring the costs of choosing to cling to conquered territory and sustaining an illegal occupation.The full range of costs of this use of the IDF was underscored by the lethal Hamas attack on southern Israel last October. One reason Hamas was able to perpetrate its atrocity so easily was that Israel had moved forces from the area in question to the West Bank.Today, any munitions that the United States provides to Israel or finances are most likely to be used in further devastation of the Gaza Strip. That raises important issues, in addition to questions of leverage and influence, about possible U.S. complicity in war crimes. But for present purposes, one point to note is that because the Israeli assault has gone far beyond what can be construed as defense, any U.S. curtailment of the means for continuing the assault would be reducing devastation in Gaza, not Israeli security.In fact, continuation of the assault, and any logistical or financial facilitation of the assault, is likely to decrease rather than increase the future security of Israelis. The suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza is breeding an entire angry generation that will be determined to strike back against Israel, including with terrorist violence. As journalist Peter Beinart observes, even if Israel could achieve the probably unachievable objective of "destroying Hamas," we should expect that "Palestinians will create another organization based on trying to fight back, indeed using violence, given the extreme unimaginable violence that Palestinians have now suffered."Another relevant point about the current carnage in Gaza is that the U.S. has leverage that can curb the worst aspects of Israeli policies not only by influencing Israeli policymakers but also by directly inhibiting the execution of those policies. Although Israel will eventually make or obtain elsewhere the munitions it wants to use, at least in the short run the fewer bombs the U.S. provides that can flatten civilian neighborhoods, the fewer neighborhoods are likely to be flattened.U.S. largesse toward Israel and the leverage that goes along with it extend far beyond military aid. The diplomatic cover that the United States has routinely provided Israel, shielding it from consequences of Israel's own actions, are unquestionably of high importance to Israeli policymakers. Of the 89 vetoes the United States has cast in the history of the United Nations Security Council, more than half have been on resolutions criticizing Israel, mostly for its occupation of Palestinian territory and treatment of the Palestinians. The Biden administration has continued this pattern, vetoing multiple resolutions calling for a cease-fire in Gaza.Even just abstentions on such resolutions would jolt Israeli decisionmakers into having to think more seriously about changing their most damaging policies. Votes in favor would have even more of an effect, underscoring for Israel that it could no longer count on its superpower patron standing in the way of worldwide outrage over Israeli actions.The Biden administration could take other non-military measures to exercise its considerable political and diplomatic leverage with Israel. It could reverse some of the all-in-with-Israel actions of the Trump administration, such as by re-establishing the consulate in East Jerusalem that had served as a principal channel of communications with the Palestinians. It could even join the 139 nations that have formally recognized the State of Palestine.None of these diplomatic measures would jeopardize in the slightest the security of Israel or any U.S. commitment to that security. Nor would they entail international political or diplomatic costs to the United States. To the contrary, they would improve the U.S. global standing by making the United States less of an outlier from an international consensus.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu projects, at least as much as other Israeli leaders, the image of someone determined to go his own way regardless of what the United States wants or says. But that self-assurance is based on the now decades-old pattern of the United States not using its leverage with Israel. "I know what America is," Netanyahu once said. "America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won't get in the way."If America were to stop being moved so easily and started getting in the way of objectionable Israeli conduct, Netanyahu and other Israeli leaders would change their tune.The default U.S. policy toward Israel through multiple administrations has been to lavish unqualified support and hope that the United States can gain some influence through the very closeness of the relationship. The Biden administration has continued this approach with its influence-through-hugging notion. Clearly, the approach has not worked. It is past time to exercise the leverage the United States has had all along.

Following Houthi missile attacks aimed at Israel and third-country-flagged vessels in the Red Sea, the Biden administration is reportedly considering targeting northern Yemen while creating a new international maritime alliance to try to ensure secure transit. As a result of the Houthi attacks, international merchant shipping is being rerouted with inflationary consequences for vital global supplies. Washington is weighing whether military strikes would either deter or incite further Houthi action and risk undermining desirable attempts by Saudi Arabia at ending its conflict with the Houthis following Yemen's stalled but unresolved civil war. The Houthis' Red Sea military intervention is attempting to combine ideologically-driven anger at Israel's military campaign in Gaza with leverage for funding the long-unpaid salaries of northern Yemenis under Houthi control. However, oil revenue, in part limited due to Houthi missile attacks on southern Yemeni oil and related facilities, is managed by the internationally recognized Yemen government based in Aden in southern Yemen. For the so-called "Legitimacy Government," or LG, to give the Houthi money to pay northern "civil servants" — who include armed fighters — U.S. pressure and Saudi and Emirati backing are needed. But this is highly unlikely. In southern Yemen, the Southern Transitional Council (STC), founded in 2017 with the backing of the UAE, is preparing to lead the formation of a new state by secession from what it considers a failed, and northern-dominated, Republic of Yemen, or RoY. The STC hopes to exploit what they see as the Houthis shooting themselves in the foot by destabilizing the Red Sea area. After all, the Houthis have, despite a 20-month formal ceasefire, been waging an economically motivated war against the south designed to deprive the LG of revenues and boost the appeal of the Red Sea port of Hodeidah. For the STC to reemphasize southern ports and oil facilities as an alternative to Houthi-controlled Hodeidah, it needs to somehow secure the whole southern Yemeni coast and to incentivize more inbound shipping. The Houthis' relationship to Iran makes it easy for the STC to label it a Tehran proxy. Despite membership in Iran's "Axis of Resistance," and Iran's aid in extending their missile technology's literal reach, the Houthis have their own motivations. The STC is seizing on the Houthi threat to Red Sea security to underline the prospective role of its own "shadow state" in boosting international maritime stability. In this context, this southern state-in-waiting is willing to uphold western security interests and is thus presenting itself as a proactive partner in securing the Red Sea's Bab Al-Mandab strait and the Gulf of Aden against Houthi attacks. The STC argues that the proven Houthi threat to Red Sea security is a cynical exploitation of popular Yemeni anger over Israel's actions against Gaza. A recent STC press conference, headed by the self-styled president of the south, Maj-Gen Aidaroos Zubaidi, called on those seeking to secure the area to beef up the STC's "naval forces."The STC, however, does not actually have its own navy or any regular armed forces. In fact, it is debatable if it has any armed units that can be properly described as under Zubaidi's command. Southern Yemen exists in an almost parallel universe. Zubaidi enjoys recognition, as does the STC he leads, by virtue of his position as vice-president of the Saudi-backed eight-man Presidential Leadership Council, or PLC, heading the version of the RoY that sits in Aden. The PLC includes Zubaidi's STC deputy, the former governor of the huge southern governorate of Hadramawt, Maj-Gen. Faraj Bahsani. Yet another military figure in a leading STC political role, Bahsani previously headed the RoY's 2nd Military Division.But neither Zubaidi nor Bahsani can offer an armed underpinning to the STC's claims to be an all-inclusive movement for southern independence. These men, like other LG members, enjoy their international recognition via the LG, a Yemeni government that is neither a state nor one in waiting. While the LG enjoys the loose loyalty of some RoY military remnants in the south and in some parts of the north, its armed capacity is uncoordinated and riven by unreliable tribal components. And the LG itself lacks popular political support. By contrast, the STC, based on much anecdotal evidence, enjoys some popular support in Aden and in the other southwestern governorates: Abyan, Lahej and Dhale, and in coastal Hadramawt. In the Wadi area of Hadramawt, however, local saadah (descendants of the Prophet Mohammed) and tribal leaders are more circumspect. What the STC lacks, even in its Aden base where leading STC figure Ahmed Lamlas is governor, is direct control of armed forces. The Emirati-trained and -backed "police," the Hizam Al Amni ("Security Belt") operating in Aden, are formally speaking STC-aligned but are not in practice directly controlled by Gen. Aidaroos, the nominal supreme commander of "the Southern Armed Forces." The Amaliqa ("Giants Brigade"), another Emirati-formed force which in 2022 played a decisive role in pushing Houthi fighters out of the energy-rich southern governorate of Shabwa, are only loosely connected to the STC. A rival, Emirati-founded army, the Nokba ("Elite Forces"), was in operation in Shabwa but was displaced by "Shabwa Defense," which is associated more closely with Saudi Arabia. In Aden, the STC is busy creating parallel bodies to those of the governorate. It does not see this as unnecessary duplication but rather as trying to fill the vacuum in services provision in a formal governorate structure that it ostensibly runs. The STC is intent on a similar "shadow state" project in Mahra (the governorate that borders Saudi Arabia to its north and Oman to its east). However, the STC is doing this in far less auspicious circumstances than in Aden. In Mahra, "northern" political and security influence, including that of Al-Islah (Yemen's Muslim Brotherhood) is profound, due in part to demographic realities created by the large numbers of people who have fled Houthi advances and security services that are seen by critics as RoY loyalists. The Mahran version of Amn Al-Watan ("National Security") struggles to communicate with its notional "National Security" partner in neighboring Hadramawt. Oil and other essentials carried by road from southwest to southeast Yemen are not protected for their safe arrival in Mahra by any coordination with supposed parallel security bodies in other southern governorates. To be a plausible partner state of the U.S. and the other western powers who are now moving to protect Israel and Red Sea shipping from the Houthis, the south needs a single unified form of control of the different military and security services that, at best, operate on a governorate basis only. But the south's main external sources of support, the Emiratis and the Saudis (the latter having formed separate "National Shield" forces in Aden and Hadramawt), are not interested in promoting an integrated southern security body. One reason is that these two Gulf states have competing interests in different parts of southern Yemen, and a common unwillingness to push for a sovereign southern stateSouthern Yemen under the STC's would-be leadership is seeking to burnish its western-friendly security and political credentials. However, southern Yemen remains a would-be nation made up of different countries only partly united in opposition to perceptibly northern rulers. For the time being, it looks as if the role of any southern Yemeni state in Arabian Peninsula security will remain rhetorical.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chair Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) recently sent a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken urging him to get tougher on Azerbaijan for its "brazen campaign of ethnic cleansing in Nagorno-Karabakh." This follows an earlier statement from Cardin, shortly after Azerbaijan's September "lightning offensive" against Nagorno-Karabakh, that called for the U.S. to "halt security assistance to Azerbaijan," and increase humanitarian support for the 100,000 ethnic Armenians who fled en masse from Nagorno-Karabakh. As of this writing, neither of those things has occurred and the Biden administration has done little to address Azerbaijan's military aggression. While there are undoubtedly myriad reasons for the U.S. government's lukewarm response, one possible explanation is one of Washington's oldest pastimes: lobbying. For years, the Azerbaijan government has been financing a well connected lobbying and influence operation in the U.S. that has worked diligently to keep U.S. military assistance flowing and to ensure that policymakers turn a blind-eye to the country's consistent human rights violations.As documented in a just released Quincy Institute brief, The Lobbying Battle for Nagorno-Karabakh, the government of Azerbaijan has spent millions of dollars on registered lobbyists and much more on illicit influence operations that have helped foster and maintain support for Baku across Europe and the U.S.The End of Nagorno-Karabakh"The United States will not countenance any action or effort – short-term or long-term – to ethnically cleanse or commit other atrocities against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh," was an assurance from then-Acting Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Yuri Kim in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on September 14.
Just five days later, the U.S. did exactly what Kim said it would not, standing idly by on September 19 as Azerbaijan launched an "anti-terrorist" operation against what remained of Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh, leading to the ethnic cleansing of over 100,000 of its residents as they fled to the neighboring Republic of Armenia.
The territorial dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh — the mountainous breakaway region internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but self-governed by Armenians — now appears over as the de facto officials announced that all institutions will be dissolved on January 1, 2024. These developments followed what had been a year of Azerbaijani escalation against Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia proper, including an Azerbaijani blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh which lasted almost 10 months and saw the territory's food, medical, and energy supplies all but run out. When Baku launched its military assault, Washington and Brussels were only able to muster strongly worded statements, but no meaningful reaction.The Azerbaijan LobbyDon't count out Azerbaijan's influence operations in Washington for helping to thwart what should have been a stronger response on Capitol Hill and in the White House. The government of Azerbaijan has spent over $7 million on lobbying and public relations firms registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) since 2015, according to OpenSecrets. Chief among the Azerbaijan lobby's hired guns is BGR Government Affairs, one of Washington's top lobbying firms, which is contracted to serve as a liaison for the Azerbaijan Embassy in the U.S.
FARA filings reveal that the firm contacted congressional offices more than 1,000 times on Azerbaijan's behalf in just the first half of 2023, and that their work included efforts "to ensure there were no negative Azerbaijan amendments on the National Defense Authorization Act" and "fair language for Azerbaijan" in the appropriations process. More generally, BGR "educated policymakers in Congress about the important role Azerbaijan plays as a key security partner of the United States."
In 2018, BGR signed an agreement with another lobbying firm — Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell, and Berkowitz — to aid its efforts on behalf of the Azerbaijan Embassy. An analysis of that firm's FARA filings shows that they've been laser focused on the State, Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House Committee on Appropriations, which is responsible for, among many other issues, determining how much U.S. military assistance flows to Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Overall, it would seem both firms have been successful at allowing Azerbaijan to dodge criticism and continue to receive millions of dollars in security assistance every year.
Most notably in 2023,the Azerbaijan Embassy hired The Friedlander Group, whose namesake Ezra Friedlander has been a prominent American-Israeli lobbyist for years, rubbing shoulders with a number of top policymakers, including former President Donald Trump. When he was hired by Azerbaijan he immediately put his connections to work, according to his firm's FARA filing, securing meetings with dozens of congressional offices, including even a face-to-face meeting with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
This is just the tip of the iceberg for Azerbaijan's influence operations in the U.S. As documented by the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the Azerbaijan government has a history of laundering its influence in Europe and the U.S. The "Azerbaijani Laundromat," as described by the OCCRP, was "a complex money-laundering operation and slush fund that handled $2.9 billion over a two-year period through four shell companies." This 2012-2014 scheme which involved funneling government funds through shell companies, included payments to several pro-Azeri Americans, one of whom later pleaded guilty to concealing the fact that a congressional trip to Azerbaijan he'd helped organize was secretly funded by the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic (SOCAR).
Azerbaijan's often illicit influence operations in Europe have dubbed it "caviar diplomacy," given the country's repeated attempts to bribe European officials with all manner of luxury goods, including caviar. At least one investigation resulted in FBI agents raiding the home of the co-chair of the Congressional Azerbaijan Caucus, Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), in January 2022.Armenian Influence in the USArmenians have also sought to influence the U.S. public debate surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh. However, this has been done at a significantly smaller scale than their Azerbaijani counterparts, and the main actors of Armenian lobbying efforts in the U.S. have been the estimated one to two million diaspora Armenians in the U.S.In the early 1990s, during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War, the Armenian diaspora in the U.S. achieved its first major political victory via Section 907 of the 1992 Freedom Support Act, which explicitly prohibited the vast majority of U.S. assistance from the Act to post-Soviet Azerbaijan until Baku "cease[es] all blockades and other offensive uses of force against Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh." However, in 2002, as the "Global War on Terror" was heating up, Azerbaijan was granted a waiver for Section 907 that has allowed over $160 million of U.S. security assistance to flow to the country ever since. Nevertheless, during the war in 2020, Armenians boycotted lobbying and PR firms working for Azerbaijan and, in 2021, President Joe Biden recognized the systemic mass killings of Armenians during World War I as genocide, a long-standing priority of the Armenian diaspora in the U.S. More recently the Senate unanimously passed the "Armenian Protection Act," that would cut off aid to Azerbaijan for at least two years. For Armenians, these developments are viewed as too little too late, however, as Azerbaijan has already achieved what it wanted in Nagorno-Karabakh with little international pushback. This result is likely due in no small part to Azerbaijan's concerted influence operations in the U.S. For years, the lobbyists on Azerbaijan's payroll have worked to keep U.S. military assistance flowing to the country and to tip the scales of U.S. support in their favor. While they may not have "won" this influence battle they have no doubt done enough to keep the U.S. on the sidelines of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Editor's Note: Artin Dersimonian was an intern at the Armenian Embassy in Washington in 2018. The Terjenian-Thomas Assembly Internship Program at the Armenian Assembly — which is mentioned in the QI brief on which this article is based — facilitated Dersimonian's internship with the embassy.

After a prolonged period of speculation, conjecture, and anticipation, the contours of a Blue-White coalition poised to challenge the incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taiwan's 2024 presidential election began to crystallize late last month.
In a joint press conference following private negotiations, Eric Chu, the chairman of the Kuomintang (KMT), and Ko Wen-je, the 2024 presidential candidate and chairman of the Taiwan People's Party (TPP) unveiled a united front committing to championing the "third wave of democratic reform" in Taiwan, a clear repudiation of the entrenched winner-takes-all "democratic dictatorship" political culture. Encouragingly for coalition supporters, the KMT and TPP have also confirmed their commitment to collaborate in the legislative elections, with a shared objective of breaking the DPP's legislative majority since 2016.
This alliance signifies a robust intent to not only overhaul Taiwan's electoral system but more importantly, also dismantle the nearly decade-long dominance of the DPP over Taiwan's politics.
The journey toward forming the Blue-White Coalition has been tumultuous, marked by clear ideological and political disparities between the KMT and the TPP. Although the glue of a strong shared discontent with the governance of DPP has been holding the KMT and TPP together in the prolonged negotiation of joining forces, the delicate dance of ambition and pragmatism underscores the different realities faced by both parties.
The storied over-a-century-old KMT desires to retake the presidency, reverse its decline of a decade, and channel its deep-rooted legacy to rekindle its past preeminence. Meanwhile, the four-year-young TPP is striving to expand its influence and establish itself as a revolutionary "third force" that enthralls the younger electorate with pledges to disrupt the entrenched KMT-DPP dominance, thereby necessitating some level of strategic neutrality from close cooperation with KMT.
For the young TPP, being able to gain the current popularity is already a remarkable victory; for the KMT, anything short of securing the presidential palace next January would be a failure. As a result, despite both Eric Chu and the KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih have been lobbying for Ko to accept a vice-presidential slot beside Hou, forming a joint president ticket that is led by KMT, with polling continuing to place Ko and Hou neck and neck, Ko is loath to settle for second. For a star politician that is trending upward like Ko, assuming the vice presidency might be valued less than holding on to the "third force" value, which might eventually promise a better chance to win the presidency in future elections.
The situation has led observers to continue casting doubts on the likelihood of a Hou-Ko joint ticket, despite the recent breakthrough of negotiations.
Terry Gou, founder of the world's largest contract electronics maker Foxconn, has been pursuing his campaign despite being marginalized a bit by the recent progress of the Blue-White coalition. Gou's recent submission of over a million petition signatures — triple the threshold of 289,667 signatures for an independent presidential candidacy — signals some positive momentum that Gou possessed.
However, faced with a storm of scrutiny consisting of Foxconn's politically charged tax probe by Beijing — a move seen as China's strategic ploy to express disapproval of Gou's campaign — and the bribery allegations tied to his petitioning process, Terry Gou's resolve to stay in this presidential race is being tested. This situation adds layers of complexity yet flexibility to the potential Blue-White coalition. The difficulty for the KMT and TPP to align in the presidential ticket could pivot the political chessboard toward alternative alliances, such as a Terry Gou endorsement of Ko or Hou after a possible withdrawal from the race. While such scenarios could certainly present a challenge to the DPP candidate Lai Ching-te's presidential bid, the polls suggest they would not be as formidable as a united KMT-TPP ticket with Hou-Ko or Ko-Hou, which according to polls, would achieve an easy victory.
If unable to negotiate a joint ticket before the imminent November 24 candidate registration deadline, KMT, TPP, and Terry Gou would likely not be able to thwart Lai's presidential bid, as he continues to outpace each contender.
In light of these unfolding developments in Taiwan, it becomes imperative for Washington to fully grasp the ramifications of a potential Taiwanese Blue-White coalition government on the delicate dynamics of the Washington-Beijing-Taipei triangle. A thorough analysis and strategic foresight are required to determine the most appropriate U.S. policy approach in the event of a coalition government materializing in 2024.
Given the intricate situations in Ukraine and Israel demanding Washington's attention, the prospect of a Blue-White coalition government in Taiwan could provide a welcome respite to Washington, as both parties have demonstrated a clear willingness to jointly improve cross-strait dialogues after the election.
Interestingly, Bonnie Glaser and Joel Wuthnow, eminent U.S. experts on cross-strait relations and China's military affairs, have recently argued that Xi Jinping is not prepared to attack Taiwan due to the political and economic hardships that Xi is facing. Taking cues from their expert analyses, a transition to a Blue-White government in Taiwan in 2024 could indeed also provide a breather for Xi, as it would mitigate the need for Xi to grapple with the challenging decision of military engagement, especially in light of the potential for his adopting a more confrontational stance toward Beijing by Lai Ching-te, a self-claimed "political worker of Taiwan Independence."
Amid the current global turmoil, the emergence of a Blue-White coalition in Taiwan could present a unique opportunity for both Washington and Beijing to steer clear of conflict in the Taiwan Strait at least for the next four years.
However, the most prominent challenge for a possible Blue-White coalition government to regional security lies precisely in the transition period that it would require. The lack of a historical precedent in Taiwan raises questions about the stability of such coalition governance. Besides, if the KMT and TPP cannot even align smoothly in the election period, how can they cooperate well in a coalition government?
In the delicate transition phase, the nascent coalition would need to navigate internal tensions and differing policy priorities, potentially leading to a period of weakened governance. This fragility could inadvertently create openings for Beijing to amplify its influence and infiltration into Taiwanese society, and may well leverage its close ties with the KMT or Ko Wen-je to exploit any discernible fractures that might emerge within the coalition.
In light of these unfolding events, it becomes imperative for Washington to deepen its engagement and understanding of both Ko Wen-je and Hou Yu-ih to come to a more reliable judgment on the prospective mutual trust and ideological alignment of a potential Blue-White coalition. The recent visit by Laura Rosenberger, Chairwoman of the American Institute in Taiwan, to Taiwan, where she engaged with leading candidates Lai, Ko, and Hou, underscores this necessity. It is reasonable to believe that the potential of a Blue-White coalition would be a topic of discussion in her confidential conversations with Ko and Hou.
Sustaining and intensifying such diplomatic interactions is crucial, as it will reinforce its preparedness for the challenges brought by a Blue-White coalition government. In terms of the ongoing electoral campaign, prudence dictates that Washington should continue to adopt a stance of measured restraint and uphold a balanced posture. This is essential as both potential outcomes — a continuation of the DPP government or the advent of a KMT-TPP coalition — present their distinct sets of pros and cons from the vantage point of U.S. interests in the region.

Key Takeaways from the Africa Evidence Summit CIDR PanelAt the 2023 Africa Evidence Summit, panelists Jeanine Condo (Chief Executive Officer, The Centre for Impact, Innovation and Capacity building for Health Information Systems and Nutrition), Rose Oronje (Director of Public Policy and Knowledge Translation, and Head of Kenya Office, AFIDEP), Aurelia Munene (Founder of Eider Africa), and Constantine Manda (Assistant Professor of Political Science, UC Irvine) joined moderator Daniel Posner (Professor of International Development, UCLA) to explore the varied incentives for African scholars to publish. Amy Shipow (Project Manager, CEGA Global Networks) and Maya Ranganath (Associate Director, CEGA Global Networks and Inclusion) synthesize the discussion to shed light on the publication gap and generate insights on how barriers can be alleviated to allow African scholars to participate fully in scholarly publication.Jeanine Condo speaks on the panel at the 2023 Africa Evidence Summit | Luft Ventures"The research infrastructure on the [African] continent remains very low. Few publications are a reflection of the limited investments governments are putting into research […] There are biases in journals. As a PhD student studying in the US, I was told that I should have my Western professor as a co-author to get published." — Rose Oronje, Director of Public Policy and Knowledge Translation, and Head of Kenya Office, AFIDEP.The Collaboration for Inclusive Development Research (CIDR), co-led by CEGA and the Network for Impact Evaluation Researchers in Africa (NIERA), aims to shift norms in global development research towards a more inclusive ecosystem. At the 2023 Africa Evidence Summit in Nairobi, we organized a panel to discuss how differing incentives and resources contribute to publishing disparities between researchers from high income countries (HIC) and those from low- and -middle-income countries (LMICs). The panel also probed the role of journals, universities, and researchers in HICs in exacerbating (or mitigating) this problem.We present the major themes of the discussion below, which shed light on the barriers and opportunities that African scholars face along the education to evidence-use pipeline.Co-authorship with scholars from HICs can serve as a helpful career stepping stone; however, it is only a small step in changing the research ecosystem to produce more African scholarship.Dr. Condo shared that working with and publishing together with CEGA affiliated professor Paul Gertler was an important lever for her career. Yet, African scholars often face internalized pressure (due to external biases) towards co-authoring with scholars from HICs. When Dr. Oronje asked the nearly 500 Summit attendees, "How many African scholars here are first authors when you submit a publication?," hardly anyone raised their hand, leading her to share that not even she submits academic publications as a first author.Panelists shared the structural obstacles African researchers face to conduct their own rigorous social science research.Since most African universities are "teaching" institutions and prioritize this over research, scholars are left with limited time to pursue their own research agendas. Moreover, faculty are rarely trained to mentor or share resources with their students — challenges that are further exacerbated by the significant time constraints they face. Access to scholars with experience publishing at top-tier universities is also privileged for HIC students, who can more easily build subject-matter expertise simply by attending office hours and speaking with other students and faculty. Without this similar exposure to the most relevant literature and resources, African students instead spend more self-directed time finding, reading, and engaging with a variety of potentially less relevant work."Last year, I was challenging the Vice Chancellor of the University of Rwanda — I am breastfeeding but I am expected to publish three papers. How can I have more space and time to be an equal competitor?" — Jeanine CondoFemale scholars face additional barriers to publishing, even at the highest levels of academia.Dr. Condo recently published a paper on gender inequities in publishing, which outlined that in papers from sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), men comprised 61% of first authors, 65% of last authors, and 66% of single authors. A recent survey of over 200 alumni of SSA STEM PhD programs confirmed that women obtain less university and external funding for graduate studies than their male counterparts. Female panelists shared that they had to push back against senior leadership with regard to career expectations in the face of reproductive and domestic responsibilities; they are expected to achieve the same results as their male counterparts but are constrained by additional, invisibilized labor.Given these constraints to African-led authorship, what are the potential solutions to incentivize and support publishing?"Money is the problem and the solution," Dr. Manda shared. Existing funds should be leveraged to support and nurture African researchers so that journals will be eager to publish their work. Dr. Condo recently wrote a grant to research the effects of providing monetary incentives for researchers to publish, instead of accepting small consultancies, where their contributions were less likely to be recognized by name. Preliminary results suggest that this is an effective incentive for SSA researchers. Similarly, panelists cited the dedicated research and pilot funding that CEGA provides to African scholars helps them pursue their own research interests.Investing in the quality of African journals is essential, and can be accomplished through different mechanisms.Panelists urged researchers to publish important work in African journals, which can signal the quality of the journal, can make findings more accessible, and uphold the ethical responsibility to share results with the communities of study. Dr. Oronje also emphasized the need for African scholars to sit on the editorial boards of such journals.Concurrently, HIC journals are making strides to improve geographic equity; for example, PLOS recently announced a policy that authors conducting research outside of their country of origin will be asked to complete a questionnaire that details the ethical, cultural, and scientific considerations taken to uphold inclusivity in their research, including if local authors are included among the authorship list. Making journals open access was another solution proposed by the panel. Initiatives like the Northwestern Research Feedback Project provides LMIC scholars, who have a desk-rejected paper from the Journal of Development Economics (JDE), the opportunity to be matched with a HIC scholar for feedback. While the author is not reconsidered for JDE, it is hoped that the paper can be improved for other submissions.Both Africa-based and HIC-based non-governmental organizations can complement African universities by offering dedicated mentorship to African scholars.Through her work as the founder of Eider Africa, panelist Aurelia Munene is striving to decrease the sense of isolation researchers experience, especially among recent graduates looking to publish. Her organization offers mentorship on essential research and writing skills as well as supports enhancing curricula at African universities. Additionally, panelists mentioned the importance of identifying resources (such as Afrobarometer, the Harvard Dataverse, or datasets of published papers) and training students to use them.While the panel began with discussion about differing incentives to publish, the conversation evolved to mirror CIDR's fundamental goals: how can we best support African researchers so that journals will actively seek out African scholars to publish their research and policymakers will hasten to apply their results?If you are working in this space, we invite you to let us know what you think! We will soon launch an online survey for students, faculty, research professionals, journal editors, and funders to share their thoughts on the current state of inclusion in the evidence ecosystem and ways to improve it. Please watch for the official announcement of this online survey later this month. The results of the survey and other CIDR research will be released in 2024.It Takes a Village to Raise a Researcher was originally published in CEGA on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

October 3, 2023 marks the 30th anniversary of the Battle of Mogadishu, when American forces engaged in a pitched battle with a Somali militia in a densely populated residential neighborhood in Mogadishu, Somalia. This battle has become popularly known as "Black Hawk Down" in reference to the several UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters shot down during the battle, leading to the deaths of 18 U.S. soldiers and at least 300 Somali casualties, including militia and civilians. Much has been written about how this event, and the wider U.S. military intervention in Somalia, was a watershed moment heralding a new "world order" led by the U.S. in the aftermath of the Cold War. However, one of the most consequential impacts of U.S. interventions in Somalia has been the hindrance of local socio-political processes that might have, with time, provided an exit from the condition of permanent conflict. In so doing, these interventions have contributed to the continuation of conflict and historical paralysis in Somalia. The Battle of Mogadishu was the culmination of a U.S.-led UN intervention in Somalia which went through several iterations that progressively became more militarized. It began in April 1992 with United Nations Operations in Somalia I (UNOSOM I), which was mandated to monitor a ceasefire agreement between the warring parties in Mogadishu following the fall of the Somali state in early 1991. The ceasefire, however, never took hold, gravely hampering the delivery of humanitarian aid in the midst of an appalling famine. The harrowing images of starving children broadcasted across the globe partly informed the U.S. decision to offer to organize and lead a multinational force, United Task Force (UNITAF). The UN accepted the offer and UNITAF forces arrived in Somalia in December 1992 with the objective and mandate to provide security and facilitate humanitarian relief efforts. UNITAF was succeeded by UNOSOM II in March 1995 with a force of about 30,000 from 27 countries. The U.S. contributed a little over 1,000 personnel to this force, but exercised significant control over the operations. UNOSOM II not only took over the mandate of UNITAF in terms of securing and facilitating aid delivery, but was further tasked with nation-building, including forcible disarmament. This led to a confrontation between UNOSOM II and one of the militias, Somali National Alliance (SNA) led by General Mohamed Farah Aidid. U.S. forces led this confrontation carrying out raids against SNA militia and Aidid. After a series of increasingly violent reprisal attacks, U.S. forces raided a hotel in Mogadishu October 3, 1993 to capture high ranking SNA personnel. The disastrous result of the raid ultimately led the Clinton administration to change course and withdraw U.S. forces from Somalia in the spring of 1994. The U.N. followed suit and was out of Somalia by early 1995. There has been widespread criticism of various aspects of the U.S./UN intervention: the militarization of the intervention with the inevitably high civilian casualties, the racist violence and abuse of Somali civilians, the caricature and reduction of the crisis to images of starving children and drug-crazed militias, the UN's insistence that its failure to act quickly to avert the famine was entirely due to security concerns and not bureaucratic inertia, and the claim that 80% of food supplies meant for famine victims were being looted. Despite the criticism of the intervention, many also felt that the withdrawal of U.S. forces and the termination of UNOSOM II would lead to a resumption of violence and upsurge in the suffering of the population. The fact that this did not happen is a testament to the dynamics of the conflict and social processes that worked to overcome the conflict. Subsequent to the U.S. and UN withdrawal in early 1995, Somalia not only did not return to a cycle of violence, but experienced relative stability in what one commentator referred to as "governance without government." This period lasting about a decade, 1995-2004/05, was characterized by the formation of various self-governance arrangements based on locality and kinship relations as well as the emergence of conflict adjudication/arbitration centers in urban settings like Mogadishu.The best examples of the autonomous and semi-autonomous local administrations that emerged are Somaliland and Puntland in the north and northeast of the country. While no similarly successful administration emerged in the central and southern regions of the country, large-scale conflicts dissipated there as well as conflicts became localized. With the localization of conflicts, it became easier for communities to find locally-grounded solutions led by a mixture of traditional elders, business people, and civic groups. In some urban centers, meanwhile, there emerged adjudication/arbitration centers that utilized a mixture of sharia and Somali customs (heer) to resolve disputes. The most well-known and successful of these are the sharia courts of Mogadishu. These courts emerged within a year of the disintegration of the central government in 1991 as an expression of neighborhood residents' desire to address the disorder and anarchy. Given the centrality of sharia to the very idea of justice and law in Somali society, the centers began to be referred to as sharia courts. The sharia courts of Mogadishu brought a certain level of security to some neighborhoods in Mogadishu throughout the 90s and early 2000s despite the opposition of warlords and militias. The return of large-scale violence to Somalia coincided with the next U.S. intervention. The sharia courts of Mogadishu attracted the attention of American officials in Nairobi starting in the early 2000s because of a suspicion that individuals associated with some of the sharia courts might be harboring suspects in the 1998 U.S. East African embassy bombings. To help find and capture these suspects, the CIA started funneling money to warlords in Mogadishu. This strategy backfired as the sharia courts, with the massive support of Mogadishu residents, defeated the warlords. Whether perpetrators of the bombings were in Mogadishu or not, it was short-sighted to enlist the support of the warlords and target the sharia courts, as the State Department's political officer for Somalia pointed out at the time, because the courts were not a homogenous entity. They were an assortment of independent adjudication centers reflecting the entire spectrum of Islamist views in Somalia. Moreover, the warlords had a terrible reputation and were disliked by the people. When the warlords failed, the U.S. then supported an Ethiopian invasion of Mogadishu in mid-2006 that eventually disbanded the sharia courts. This invasion also backfired because it conferred legitimacy to the most radical elements within the sharia courts, thus, setting the stage for the rise of al-Shabaab and transformation of Somalia into a frontline state in the global war on terror. These American interventions in Somalia can be critiqued from many angles, but what is often overlooked and more damaging in the long run is the impact they had on local historical processes that might have led to Somalia overcoming its protracted conflict. Every time the U.S. intervenes directly or indirectly, through local or regional proxies, it reshuffles the decks, putting an end to organic political and social processes, thus contributing to the perpetuation of the Somali conflict that is now over three decades old. This is not to suggest that local processes of adaptation and governance will necessarily lead to a centralized government or a liberal democracy. But the presumption that this is the only way for Somalia to exit from conflict is part of the problem.

The failure of successive U.S. administrations to distinguish between core and peripheral national security interests lies at the heart of much of the trouble that we now face.
Nowhere is this failure of discernment clearer than in the Biden administration's 2022 National Security Strategy, which laid out an ambitious two front Cold War strategy that seeks to simultaneously staunch China's rise in the East while countering Russian revanchism in the West. It defines the emerging world order as one in which "Democracies and autocracies are engaged in a contest to show which system of governance can best deliver for their people and the world."
Close observers of U.S. foreign policy over the past three years might be forgiven for wondering whether the administration has succeeded in achieving any of the particular goals it has set for itself. But in fairness to the Biden administration, such failures have become commonplace over the past 30 years.
The journalist and editor Lewis Lapham noted as far back as 2002 that, "The makers of America's foreign policy over the course of the previous fifty years have embraced a dream of power almost as vainglorious as the one that rallied the disciples of Osama bin Laden to the banner of jihad."
In the 20 years since Lapham wrote those words, the U.S. has stumbled into multiple foreign policy disasters, including but not limited to the needless and counterproductive regime change operations in Libya and Syria, the failed nation-building enterprises in Afghanistan and Iraq, and the current NATO-Russia standoff in Ukraine.
Surely then, the time has arrived for a policy of retrenchment and a shift toward an approach based on a hemispheric conception of U.S. national security.
The old way of doing business has failed: Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, the U.S. has nearly 800 military bases and outposts spanning the globe; an annual national security budget of over $1 trillion; and formal bilateral defense commitments to 69 countries.
Still more, the U.S. has seemingly committed itself to the security and prosperity of countries to which it is not treaty bound, such as Israel and Ukraine.
The dangers of American overextension and Washington's desire to remake the world in its self-image have been apparent for decades.
For generations, revered analysts and thinkers across a wide range of the political spectrum — including George F. Kennan, George Ball, William Pfaff, Reinhold Niebuhr, Walter Lippmann, Ronald Steel, Jack Matlock, Chas Freeman and John Mearsheimer — have been sounding the alarm.
Yet our professional political class has been unwilling or unable to consider common-sense alternatives to the so-called "grand strategy" of American global hegemony laid out by Paul Wolfowitz in 1992.
It was then, as under secretary for policy at the Pentagon, that Wolfowitz authored the Defense Planning Guidance, which posited that "If necessary, the United States must be prepared to take unilateral action" in order "to prevent the re-emergence of a new rival."
The new defense strategy, wrote Wolfowitz,
"….requires that we endeavor to prevent any hostile power from dominating a region whose resources would, under consolidated control, be sufficient to generate global power. These regions include Western Europe, East Asia, the territory of the former Soviet Union, and Southwest Asia."
In a curious twist of history, though Wolfowitz's doctrine was savaged by the press and publicly disavowed by the administration at the time, in the years that followed, little by little (under Bill Clinton) and then all at once (under George W. Bush) his vision became the cornerstone of U.S. national security policy. In the same way that George Kennan's Long Telegram set the template for U.S. policy during the 40-year Cold War, Wolfowitz's doctrine of global primacy set the agenda for the post-Cold War world.
Thirty years of Wolfowitz has been more than enough, thank you.
As the world continues to evolve and the center of gravity moves from the North Atlantic to Eurasia and the Global South, Washington would surely be better served if it abandoned its global pretensions and focused on securing its own neighborhood in the Western Hemisphere.
The U.S. can and should pursue a national security policy that abjures the costly strategy of U.S. military forward presence and brings American troops home. After all, as the decorated US Army Colonel (ret.) Douglas Macgregor has pointed out, "Forward presence actually discourages 'allies' and 'partners' from taking full responsibility for their own defense. In an age dominated by precision guided intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance-strike systems any forward presence force — aerospace, maritime, or ground — risks annihilation in the opening phase of any peer or near-peer enemy attack."
As has been said many times over, Europe is plenty capable of looking after itself both economically and militarily. Eighty years after the end of the Second World War, the U.S. should finally cede guardianship over matters relating to European security. Recall that as far back as 1958, President Dwight D. Eisenhower expressed his frustration with Europe's stubborn unwillingness to look after itself. According to the historian William R. Keylor, Eisenhower believed it was high time to to "wean" the Allies from their excessive dependence on the U.S. "and encourage them to make better efforts of their own."
The benefits of a less Euro-centric security policy are only too clear in light of current events. Given the emerging geopolitical realities in Asia, the U.S. might usefully rethink its posture in Europe. One way to signal to the Europeans that the time has come for them to stand on their own would be to open for the first time in NATO's history the position of Supreme Allied Commander in Europe (SACEUR) to non-Americans. While a full withdrawal from the alliance seems highly unlikely in the near to medium term, other options remain, such as drawing down the number of U.S. military personnel in Europe, currently estimated at 100,000. Such a shift would perhaps allay Russia's fears (and belligerence) regarding the North Atlantic alliance, and could provide an opening for the Europeans to at long last craft a new, comprehensive security architecture that takes into account the security interests of all of Europe.
Indeed, such a shift would allow the U.S. to deploy its resources to the Western Hemisphere. One way to do so would be to use the 2020 U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) as a framework to implement mutual defense provisions between the three nations - with an eye toward expanding it to other strategically relevant countries, such as Panama and Colombia.
A hemispheric alliance stretching from the Arctic to the Panama Canal might reasonably be coupled with a New Marshall Plan for Latin America in order to win hearts and minds and to help address the scourge of drug and human trafficking that has long afflicted the region. After all, shouldn't securing the American border take priority over securing Ukraine's?
There is little doubt that proposals such as these will give rise to accusations of promoting isolationism — or worse. So be it.
The fact is that U.S. national security strategy has too often left us at the mercy of client states from Taiwan to Ukraine to Georgia to Israel: States that are all too eager to leverage, with the relentless agitation of their large and well-funded domestic lobbies, American largess and military might in disputes that have little if anything to do with the actual security of the United States.
A hemispheric posture would allow the U.S. to finally, three decades after the end of the Cold War, redirect our sorely needed resources back to where they belong: the American people.

 Photos from the Ameriguns by Gabriele GalimbertiIf one wanted to find a text to confirm Louis Althusser's thesis that the writings of the young Marx were not yet Marx, and thus best left to the dustbin, one could perhaps find not better contender than "On the Jewish Question." Much of the essay is a response to Bauer, and part of a long forgotten debate. When Marx breaks free of this debate in the final paragraphs it is to engage in horrible stereotypes of Jewish materialism and greed that many have considered to be not only anti-semitic, but symptoms of self loathing. I am not entering into these debates here, but will say that I have regretted every time I taught the text. If there is one argument for considering to read the essay, as well as to teach it, however, it has to do with the reading and analysis that Marx puts forward of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.One could even argue, using Althusser's own concepts and terminology, that Marx offers a symptomatic reading of the Declaration. He reads the various rights bestowed by the articles of Declaration to demonstrate that property is not only the central right, the one that all of the rights such as security are marshaled to defend, but as central right it effectively undoes all of the rest, placing the private man of civil society above the citizen, and subordinating political society to civil society. As Marx writes, "None of the so-called rights of man, therefore, go beyond egoistic man, beyond man as a member of civil society – that is, an individual withdrawn into himself, into the confines of his private interests and private caprice, and separated from the community. In the rights of man, he is far from being conceived as a species-being; on the contrary, species-life itself, society, appears as a framework external to the individuals, as a restriction of their original independence. The sole bond holding them together is natural necessity, need and private interest, the preservation of their property and their egoistic selves.It is puzzling enough that a people which is just beginning to liberate itself, to tear down all the barriers between its various sections, and to establish a political community, that such a people solemnly proclaims (Declaration of 1791) the rights of egoistic man separated from his fellow men and from the community, and that indeed it repeats this proclamation at a moment when only the most heroic devotion can save the nation, and is therefore imperatively called for, at a moment when the sacrifice of all the interest of civil society must be the order of the day, and egoism must be punished as a crime. (Declaration of the Rights of Man, etc., of 1793) This fact becomes still more puzzling when we see that the political emancipators go so far as to reduce citizenship, and the political community, to a mere means for maintaining these so-called rights of man, that, therefore, the citoyen is declared to be the servant of egotistic homme, that the sphere in which man acts as a communal being is degraded to a level below the sphere in which he acts as a partial being, and that, finally, it is not man as citoyen, but man as private individual [bourgeois] who is considered to be the essential and true man."This can be considered an inversion of the symptomatic reading Marx performs of political economy in Capital. In that text Marx examined a question that political economy could not pose, as to why value appeared in the form of commodities. That unasked question leads to the fundamental mystification of the difference between labor and labor power, of the fact that labor power is unlike all of the commodities in that it is a potential, a capability, and not an actuality, its use is thus inseparable from domination. In Marx's reading of the Declaration, however, it is not a matter of a question not asked but of a conclusion not seen. Property is fundamentally different from other rights in that it is subject to a zero sum game. What I possess you cannot. This makes it fundamentally different from the equaliberty that underlies all other rights, the way in which the recognition of my right hinges on my recognition of your and vice versa. Even the right of privacy, to be outside of political and social considerations, only functions if it is recognized by others as a paradoxical political limit of politics. Property is different from the other rights not just in its form, but in its content. Property belongs not to the political, the state, but to the economy. It is the economic limitation of politics. From the Ameriguns by Gabriele GalimbertyAll of this is a very long preamble to the issue at hand, which is guns. Last weekend Megyn Kelly of Fox News tweeted a rant that argued that the issue of gun control had lost. In its place she suggested measures such as protecting "soft-targets" and ultimately locking people up. As people commented on twitter an elsewhere this would effectively be a matter of trashing the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment in order to save the Second. In effect Kelly proposed her own symptomatic reading not of the text of the Bill of Rights, but its current interpretation in American society. In the second, the right to bear arms, is seen as the foundation of all others, guns protect us against tyrants ostensibly securing our freedoms. However, in some sense despite herself, Kelly suggested that a society that is dedicated to protecting the right to guns above everything and anything, include the protection of children, ultimately ends up undermining all of those other rights in order to protect the right to arms. Given a choice between getting rid of guns and locking people up it is better to lock people up. One could add the First Amendment to the list of collateral damage of the second. I am reminded that when Texas passed a law allowing people to carry concealed guns on campus several campuses responded by recommending that professors "avoid sensitive topics" in the classroom. Contrary to the claim that an armed society is a civil society, guns have a corrosive effect on civilization itself. Even knocking on a stranger's door, or turning around in a driveway, can become a death sentence. As with property in Marx's reading, the right to have a gun tends towards a particular zero sum game. It is a right that is all the more effective if one has exclusive claim to it. As much as we hear about "good guys and bad guys with guns," the model of gun violence seems to be an armed person against an unarmed person. This is the scenario that is referred to in all of the bumper stickers that mention reaching for a gun rather than calling police, and it is also the scenario that played out with George Zimmerman, Kyle Rittenhouse, etc. One could track here an inverted trajectory to the one Marx traced, from content to form. The Second Amendment is not just the dominant right, the one that calls others into question in practice, it is also how the other amendments are interpreted. The so-called defenders of free speech against "cancel culture" are really defending the exclusive right to free speech against anyone who would question or criticize their position. The pundit class misses the day when they had almost exclusive control of the means of intellectual production and dissemination and they could say whatever they wanted without having to dodge the potshots made possible by social media.One could situate these two symptomatic readings historically, arguing that a society founded on private property ultimately disintegrates into guns, but it makes more sense to argue that these two things intersect and reinforce each other, the obsession with guns is itself the logical culmination of the atomization and destruction of political society that Marx warned us about. 

ABSTRAKKinerja yang baik adalah kinerja yang optimal, efisien dan efektif yaitu kinerja yang sesuai standar organisasi dan mendukung tercapainya tujuan organisasi. Kinerja karyawan dipengaruhi oleh beberapa faktor diantaranya ialah Penempatan dan Work From Home. Penempatan kerja adalah proses menempatkan seseorang ke posisi pekerjaan yang tepat, seberapa baik seorang karyawan cocok dengan pekerjaannya, maka akan mempengaruhi jumlah dan kualitas pekerjaan dan Work From Home (WFH) adalah suatu istilah bekerja dari jarak jauh, lebih tepatnya bekerja dari rumah, jadi pekerja tidak perlu lagi datang ke kantor atau sekolah maupun universitas untuk tatap muka bertemu dengan rekan lainnya.Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menguji dan menganalisis pengaruh penempatan dan work from home terhadap kinerja sumber daya manusia Inspektorat Kota Pontianak Provinsi Kalimantan Barat. Populasi dalam penelitian ini adalah seluruh pegawai pada Inspektorat Kota Pontianak Provinsi Kalimatan Barat. Sampel dalam penelitian ini adalah 50 responden. Model analisis data yang digunakan adalah Analisis Regresi Linier Berganda. Berdasarkan hasil penelitian menunjukkan bahwa penempatan dan work from home bisa memprediksi atau menjelaskan pengaruhnya terhadap kinerja sumber daya manusia. Hasil penelitian uji t dari variabel penempatan dan work from home berpengaruh signifikan terhadap kinerja sumber daya manusia. Kata kunci : penempatan kerja, WFH, dan kinerja SDM. DAFTAR PUSTAKAAndi, D. (2020). The effect of Training and Placement of Employees on Employee Performance in PT. Bank Danamon tbk, Kuningan-Jakarta. Jurnal Ad'ministrare, 6(2), 207-216.Ahrul Tsani, F. (2013). Pengaruh Kompetensi, Penempatan Kerja Danmotivasi Terhadap Kinerja Pegawai Sekretariat Jenderal Kementerian Luar Negeri. Jurnal MIX, 3(1).Ashal, R. A. (2020). Pengaruh Work From Home terhadap Kinerja Aparatur Sipil Negara di Kantor Imigrasi Kelas I Khusus TPI Medan. Jurnal Ilmiah Kebijakan Hukum, 14(2), 223-242.Bahri, S. 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La surreprésentation des hommes autochtones au sein des services correctionnels canadiens a pris une envergure alarmante et cette situation tend à se dégrader au fil du temps. En vue de mieux répondre aux besoins des détenus et de diminuer leur croissante surreprésentation, des pavillons de ressourcement ont été créés, soit des établissements où les personnes autochtones peuvent être transférées afin de poursuivre une démarche de guérison. Si nombre d'études ont été menées, d'une part, pour comprendre la guérison autochtone et, d'autre part, pour explorer les causes de la surreprésentation carcérale ou encore l'efficacité des programmes correctionnels axés sur la spiritualité, très peu de recherches s'attardent à l'expérience des principaux acteurs engagés, à savoir les hommes autochtones. De plus, alors que le rétablissement et la réinsertion sociale ont fait l'objet d'une attention soutenue dans les écrits scientifiques et dans les pratiques d'intervention sociale, la guérison autochtone demeure très peu explorée. Cette recherche qualitative vise à mieux comprendre les démarches de guérison d'hommes autochtones ayant séjourné au sein d'un pavillon de ressourcement au Canada (Waseskun, Québec; Stan Daniels et Pê Sâkâstêw, Alberta; Kwìkwèxwelhp, Colombie-Britannique) et étant actuellement en liberté totale. Plus particulièrement, les objectifs visés sont de: 1) dégager le sens que les hommes autochtones donnent à la notion de guérison; 2) comprendre l'expérience des hommes autochtones quant à leur démarche de guérison entamée ou poursuivie au sein d'un pavillon de ressourcement; 3) comprendre comment se poursuit la démarche de guérison des hommes autochtones depuis leur sortie du pavillon (facteurs facilitants et défis rencontrés) et enfin, 4) contraster l'expérience de la guérison vécue par les hommes autochtones à la conception correctionnelle de la guérison. Pour recueillir les données, 14 hommes autochtones ont été rencontrés lors d'entretiens narratifs en profondeur. Au total, 20 entrevues ont été réalisées. Une analyse documentaire a également été entreprise, regroupant 20 écrits qui reflètent la conception correctionnelle de la guérison (recherche financée par le SCC ou par les pavillons de ressourcement; publications entourant les politiques et les pratiques correctionnelles ainsi que la littérature « grise »). Une démarche constructiviste et phénoménologique des récits des hommes autochtones a permis de jeter un éclairage nouveau sur leurs expériences et sur les éléments qui facilitent ou entravent leur guérison, à l'intérieur des institutions correctionnelles comme à l'extérieur, une fois qu'ils sont libérés. Les multiples traumatismes et les blessures intérieures, conjugués au cumul de problèmes familiaux, socio-économiques et structurels, sont évoqués afin de comprendre la complexité et la globalité du contexte dans lequel s'inscrivent leurs démarches de guérison. Les résultats soutiennent que la guérison signifie, pour plusieurs hommes, de marcher sur un chemin vers l'équilibre, de travailler sur soi et de s'éloigner des mauvaises habitudes. Le retour aux valeurs autochtones (respect, partage, courage, humilité, honnêteté, responsabilité) est au cœur de la guérison telle qu'entrevue par les hommes. Les résultats indiquent également que la guérison est une démarche individuelle, mais également relationnelle. Plusieurs répondants affirment que les pavillons de ressourcement ont contribué à transformer leur vision d'eux-mêmes et de leur identité, mais également les rapports qu'ils entretiennent avec les autres. Cela s'explique par l'accès à des programmes axés sur la culture et la spiritualité ainsi qu'une reconnaissance de ces pavillons quant aux manières autochtones d'être, de penser et de comprendre le monde. Toutefois, les résultats indiquent que les éléments culturels et spirituels sont très peu mobilisés lors de la libération conditionnelle, à la sortie des pavillons de ressourcement. Ils révèlent également que la communauté et le maintien d'un réseau social et familial peuvent tantôt être des facteurs de protection, tantôt des facteurs qui entravent le parcours de guérison des hommes. Le manque de services formels destinés aux hommes autochtones est également une problématique soulevée lors des entretiens. Enfin, l'analyse documentaire a permis d'entrevoir que pour le Service correctionnel du Canada (SCC), la guérison repose sur une responsabilisation individuelle liée à des changements observables dans les comportements ainsi qu'au désistement du crime. Elle est conçue comme un moyen défini et mesurable de parvenir à la réinsertion sociale. Les résultats soutiennent que la guérison est souvent évaluée en fonction de données quantitatives liées directement aux comportements délictuels et au niveau de violence, ce qui a pour effet d'occulter les aspects subjectifs et expérientiels de la guérison vécue par les hommes. ; The over-representation of Indigenous men in Canadian correctional systems has grown alarmingly and this situation tends to deteriorate over time. In an effort to better meet the needs of offenders and reduce their growing over-representation, Healing Lodges (HL) have been created, facilities to which Indigenous offenders can be transferred in order to pursue a healing journey. While several studies have been conducted to understand Indigenous healing and, on the other hand, to explore the causes of prison over-representation or the effectiveness of spiritually-based correctional programs, very little research has focused on the experience of the primary actors involved, namely Indigenous men. Moreover, while recovery and reintegration have received sustained attention in the scientific literature and in social intervention practices, Indigenous healing remains largely unexplored. This qualitative research aims to better understand the healing journeys of Indigenous men who have stayed in a Healing Lodge in Canada (Waseskun, Quebec; Stan Daniels and Pê Sâkâstêw, Alberta; Kwìkwèxwelhp, British Columbia) and are currently in full freedom (after the Warrant Expiry Date (WED). More specifically, the objectives of this thesis are to: 1) identify the meanings that Indigenous men give to the notion of healing; 2) understand the experiences of Indigenous men with respect to their healing journey, initiated or pursued in a HL; 3) understand how the healing journey of Indigenous men has continued since leaving the lodge (facilitating factors and challenges encountered); and 4) contrast the Indigenous men's experience of healing with the correctional conception of healing. To collect the data, 14 Indigenous men were interviewed in in-depth narrative interviews. A total of 20 interviews were conducted. A documentary analysis was also completed, bringing together 20 pieces of literature that reflect the correctional conception of healing (research funded by CSC or by Healing Lodges; publications regarding correctional policies and practices as well as grey literature). A constructivist and phenomenological approach to Indigenous men's narratives has shed new light on their experiences and on the elements that facilitate or impede their healing journeys, both inside and outside correctional institutions, once they are released. The multiple traumas and inner wounds, combined with the accumulation of family, socio-economic and structural problems, are evoked in order to understand the complexity and the globality of the context in which the healing efforts of Indigenous men take place. The results show that for many men, healing means: walking a path towards balance, working on one self and stepping away from bad habits. The return to Indigenous values (respect, sharing, courage, humility, honesty, responsibility) is at the heart of healing as seen by men. The results also indicate that healing is not only an individual journey but also a relational one. Several respondents revealed that Healing Lodges have contributed to transforming their vision of themselves and their identity, but also the relationships they have with others. This is due to the access to culturally and spiritually oriented programs as well as the recognition of Indigenous ways of being, thinking and understanding the world that the Lodges provide. However, the results show that cultural and spiritual elements are very little mobilized during parole (when men have left HL). They also reveal that community and the maintenance of a social and family network can sometimes be protective factors and sometimes factors that hinder the men's healing. The lack of formal services for Indigenous men is also an issue raised in the interviews. Finally, the documentary analysis revealed that for the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), healing is seen as an individual empowerment linked to observable changes in behavior as well as desistance from crime. It is conceived as a defined and measurable means to achieve social reintegration. The results show that healing is often assessed based on quantitative data directly related to offending behavior and the violence level, thereby obscuring both subjective and experiential aspects of men's healing.