Biden’s Room for Manoeuvre to Revive the Iran Nuclear Deal is Limited

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Issue 1828- November- 27/11/2020

Egyptian Actor Mohammed Ramadan Faces Court Case Over Photos with Israelis

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On US President-elect Joe Biden’s lenghthy to do list is a pledge to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal - the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), - one of the signature, if hotly debated, achievements of Donald Trump’s predecessor in the White House, Barack Obama. In this week’s cover story, we discuss why after three years of “maximum pressure” and rapidly deteriorating in U.S.-Iran relations, that may be a lot harder than it sounds.

On Monday, AstraZeneca said its Covid-19 vaccine was “highly effective.” This comes after similarly positive vaccine news from drug companies Pfizer, which last week applied for emergency use, and Moderna. The long-awaited coronavirus vaccine, like many immunisations, is proving controversial with growing concerns about its safety and whether the vaccine will be mandatory.

Yasmine El-Geressi attemps to answer some of the questions being raised about whether the vaccine will work effectively and if it is safe to inject a brand-new scientific discovery into our bodies.

The world is not getting safer, for the United States or for U.S. interests. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the 2017 National Defense Strategy described an international environment of increased global disorder, long-term strategic competition, rapid dispersion of technologies, and eroding U.S. military advantages. Protecting the United States requires a strategy of defense in depth—that is, of identifying and dealing with global problems where they occur rather than waiting for threats to reach American shores. Kori Schake, Jim Mattis, Jim Ellis, Joe Felter discuss why U.S. security depends on alliances—now more than ever.

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

Is the Covid - 19 Vaccine Safe and

14 Will it be Mandated ?

Issue 1828- November- 27/11/2020

24 Moral Virtue in the Time of Cholera

18 Defense In Depth

28 China Has Made Drone Warfare Global

42 Take a Soak for Your Health

The Pandemic Clarified Who 46 the Kardashians Really Are 3

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The End of the Pandemic Is Now in Sight

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A woman shouts slogans as Trump Supporters gather during a car rally named as “Stop the Steal� on November 22, 2020 in Long Valley, New Jersey. / AFP

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A woman places flowers at a memorial dedicated to people who died in clashes with security forces, at the Independent Square (Maidan) in Kyiv, Ukraine, Saturday, Nov. 21, 2020, marking the seventh anniversary of the beginning of the protests.

People gathered to commemorate the Maidan protest movement and the events which took place in late Feb. 2014 that led to the departure of former Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovich and the formation of a new government. /AP 6

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America Celebrates Scaled-back Thanksgiving as COVID-19 Surges Americans awoke on Thursday to celebrate a Thanksgiving Day transformed by the coronavirus pandemic, with the traditional Macy’s parade limited to a television-only event and many families resigned to meeting on video for turkey dinner. Thanksgiving, normally a day for family and friends to gather in large numbers to feast and remember life’s blessings, has been upended by the pandemic, with infections and deaths surging in recent weeks as cooler temperatures push people indoors where the virus spreads more easily. U.S. hospitalizations for COVID-19 reached a record of more than 89,000 on Wednesday, and experts warn that

Thanksgiving could significantly boost a death toll that has exceeded 260,000 nationwide.

Despite advice from the Centers for Disease Control to stay home for the holiday, nearly 6 million Americans traveled by air from Friday to Wednesday, according to the U.S. Transportation Security Administration, although that is less than half the figure during the same period last year.

in power, the top U.S. envoy on Iran said on Wednesday, as he urged President-elect Joe Biden to use the leverage to press for a deal that reduces the regional and nuclear threats posed by the Islamic republic. U.S. Special Envoy for Iran Elliott Abrams, praising Biden’s National Security Adviser and nominee for Secretary of State as “terrific people”, cautioned against repeating what he saw as former President Barack Obama’s mistakes in negotiating the 2015 nuclear deal. President Donald Trump left that deal unilaterally two years ago.

Biden, set to take office on Jan. 20, has said he will return the United States to the Obama-era deal if Iran resumes compliance. Abrams, at a virtual Beirut Institute event, said the Trump administration plans further pressure on Tehran, with sanctions related to arms, weapons of mass destruction and human rights.

U.S. Envoy to Iran Says More Sanctions Coming, Urges Biden to Maintain Leverage The Trump administration plans to tighten sanctions on Tehran during its final months

Soccer World Mourns as Argentina Great Maradona Dies Aged 60 Diego Maradona, widely regarded as one of the greatest soccer players of all time before drug and alcohol addiction marred his career, died on Wednesday at his home in Argentina after suffering a heart attack, his lawyer said.

He was 60. Beloved in his homeland after leading Argentina to World Cup glory in 1986 and adored in Italy for taking Napoli to two Serie A titles, Maradona was a uniquely gifted player who rose from the tough streets of Buenos Aires to reach the pinnacle of his sport. He died four years to the day after one of his political heroes, former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, and 15 years to the day after another troubled but talented football folk hero, George Best, whom Maradona cited as one of his boyhood

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the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the local ruling party. By evening on Thursday, there were no reports of any attacks on the city though federal forces are believed to be within artillery range and have launched repeated airstrikes across Tigray

Kylie Moore-Gilbert Released From Iran Jail in Prisoner Exchange inspirations. Maradona had recently battled health issues and underwent emergency surgery for a subdural haematoma several weeks ago. He suffered a heart attack at his home on the outskirts of Buenos Aires on Wednesday, acquaintances of the former player said. His death was confirmed by his lawyer.

Manufacturing Error Clouds Oxford’s Covid-19 Vaccine Study Results Oxford University and AstraZeneca on Wednesday acknowledged a manufacturing error that is raising questions about preliminary results of their experimental Covid-19 vaccine.

A statement describing the error came days after the company and the university described the shots as “highly effective” and made no mention of why some study participants did not receive as much vaccine in the first of two shots as expected. In a surprise finding, the group of volunteers that got a lower dose seemed to be much better protected than the volunteers who got two full doses. In the lowdose group, AstraZeneca said, the vaccine appeared to be 90 per cent effective. In the group that got two full doses, the vaccine appeared to

be 62 per cent effective. Combined, the drugmakers said the vaccine appeared to be 70 per cent effective, but the way in which the results were arrived at and reported by the companies has led to pointed questions from experts.

Ethiopia’s Military to Begin ‘Final Offensive’ Against Tigray Capital Ethiopia’s prime minister has ordered federal military forces to launch a “final offensive” on the capital of the restive Tigray region after his 72-hour ultimatum for dissident local leaders to surrender expired. In a statement posted on social media, Abiy Ahmed said great care would be taken to protect innocent civilians from harm and said efforts would be made by government troops to ensure the city of Mekelle, which has a population of 500,000, was not “severely damaged”. “We call on the people of Mekelle and its environs to disarm, stay at home and stay away from military targets [and] to do their part in reducing damages to be sustained because of a handful of criminal elements,” Ahmed said. Earlier this week, military officials warned of “no mercy” if residents of Mekelle did not distance themselves from

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Kylie Moore-Gilbert, the Australian-British academic detained by Iran on espionage charges, has been released in a prisoner exchange for three Iranians. In what will be seen as a victory for Iranian state hostagetaking by some and a humanitarian move

by others, Moore-Gilbert was released on Wednesday morning. The move also raises hopes for the fate of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe and Anoosheh Ashoori, dual UKIranian nationals who have been held since 2016 and 2017 respectively. Leaving Iran after 804 days in prison, Moore-Gilbert praised the people of Iran. “I have nothing but respect, love and admiration for the great nation of Iran and its warm-hearted, generous and brave people,” she said. “It is with bittersweet feelings that I depart your country, despite the injustices which I have been subjected to. “I came to Iran as a friend and with friendly intentions, and depart Iran with those sentiments not only still intact, but strengthened.” Moore-Gilbert thanked the Australian government, and in particular, diplomats in Australia’s embassy in Tehran “who have been working tirelessly these past two years and three months to secure my release.

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Biden’s Room for Manoeuvre to Revive the Iran Nuclear Deal is Limited Despite European Efforts to Salvage the JCPOA, the President Elect Faces a Complicated Web of Diplomacy 10

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Majalla - London On US President-elect Joe Biden’s lenghthy to do list is a pledge to rejoin the 2015 Iran nuclear deal - the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), - one of the signature, if hotly debated, achievements of Donald Trump›s predecessor in the White House, Barack Obama.

Since withdrawing from the agreement in 2018, the Trump administration’ has been doing his utmost to demolish it. However, the other parties to the 2015 pact—especially Britain, France, and Germany (the so-called E3), as well as the European Union (EU)— have kept the JCPOA alive with the hope of bridging the diplomatic gap until Biden’s inauguration on January 2021 ,20. At talks in Berlin this week, European politicians outlined plans to secure an agreement from Tehran to reduce Iran’s enriched uranium stockpile size to below the limit allowed under the deal. The three nations are hoping Tehran can reach an agreement under which the US would lift its crippling sanctions in return for Iran ending its non-compliance with the 2015 agreement constraining its nuclear activities.

U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden (L) listens as U.S. President Barack Obama speaks during an announcement on gun reform in the Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House December 2012 ,19 in Washington, DC.

But after three years of “maximum pressure” and rapidly deteriorating in U.S.-Iran relations, that may be a lot harder than it sounds.

BIDEN’S ROOM FOR MANOEUVER IS LIMITED The window for rolling back Iran’s expansion of its nuclear program during the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign in exchange for Iran’s full return to the deal’s nuclear limits is short and

Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain - have recently signed normalisation agreements sponsored and heavily promoted by the Trump administration will make their mutual interests much harder to ignore. engagement president Hassan Rouhani cannot run again. If Iran›s next president is more conservative and more skeptical of international engagement, this could doom any chance of breathing life into the deal.

Therefore, any diplomatic effort will have to move swiftly during Biden›s first few months in office.

Secondly, Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU) has grown to twelve times the JCPOA’s 300 kilogram limit, according to the latest International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report. It had also started enriching uranium to higher purity than the %3.67 allowed under the deal. Low-enriched uranium is used for many civilian nuclearrelated purposes - but at its highest state of purification (which Iran is nowhere near, nor known to be pursuing) it can be used in a nuclear bomb, hence the concern. Nuclear experts say that Iran›s «breakout time» to secure enough weapons-grade material for an atomic bomb has dropped from 12 months when the agreement came into force to about three to four months.

Thirdly, the Biden administration would have to decide whether it would lift other Firstly, Iran is due to hold presidential sanctions that were imposed by Trump after elections in June 2021, in which “hard the agreement came into effect, including hardliners,” as former lead U.S. nuclear those that targeted Iran›s central bank. negotiator Wendy Sherman calls them, Many of the sanctions are not related to are likely to prevail, and in which Iran’s Iran›s nuclear activity but refer to ballistic current second-term, relatively pro- missiles, human rights and Iran›s support for

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proxy forces in the region like Hezbollah and Hamas.

Fourthly, officials say the removal of sanctions won›t be enough. The Iranian foreign minister. Javad Zarif, last week suggested Iran might need guarantees before letting the US rejoin the old JCPOA. Iran expects to be compensated for two-anda-half years of crippling economic damage.

Iran’s economy has contracted on average %6 each year since Trump unilaterally withdrew from the multicountry deal, the country›s currency has plunged in value, inflation is rampant and its oil exports — Iran›s main source of revenue — have dropped dramatically.

Fifthly, Support for the JCPOA in the US has largely broken along partisan lines, with Republicans mostly opposed. The results of Georgia›s two Senate run-offs in January will determine the balance of power in Washington and, possibly, the incoming administration›s freedom to act.

Even in London, Paris and Berlin, there›s

Iran is due to hold presidential elections in June 2021, in which “hard hardliners,” are likely to prevail, and in which Iran’s current second-term, relatively pro-engagement president Hassan Rouhani cannot run again.

a recognition that the world has moved on and that a simple return to the original deal is unlikely.

Moreover, the fact that some of the regional states which opposed the JCPOA - Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain - have recently signed normalisation agreements sponsored and heavily promoted by the Trump administration will make their

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An Iranian technician works at the control room of the Isfahan Uranium Conversion Facilities (UCF), 420 kms south of Tehran, 03 February 2007.

(Getty)

mutual interests much harder to ignore. «If we›re going to negotiate the security of our part of the world, we should be there,» the UAE›s ambassador in Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, told the audience at a recent seminar organised by Tel Aviv University›s Institute for National Security Studies. The ambassador›s determination was echoed by his Israeli interlocutor, the institute›s director, Amos Yadlin. «Israel also wants to be at the

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table,» Mr Yadlin said, «with our allies in the Middle East.» For his part, Saudi Arabia›s King Salman has called for «a decisive stance from the international community against Iran». Reviving the JCPOA while simultaneously accommodating the views and interests of those who view Iran as their biggest threat to their national and regional security represents a complicated web of diplomacy for Joe Biden.

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Is the Covid - 19 Vaccine Safe and Will it be Mandated?

Questions Have Been Raised About Whether the Vaccine Will Work Effectively and if it is Safe to Inject a Brand-new Scientific Discovery

by Yasmine El-Geressi

WILL THE COVID VACCINE BE SAFE

On Monday, AstraZeneca said its Covid19- vaccine was «highly effective.» This comes after similarly positive vaccine news from drug companies Pfizer, which last week applied for emergency use, and Moderna. The longawaited coronavirus vaccine, like many immunisations, is proving controversial with growing concerns about its safety and whether the vaccine will be mandatory.

For many people injecting a brand-new scientific discovery into their body doesn’t sit well. Many are asking questions such as: Has the speed of developing and testing the vaccines compromised their scientific integrity? How do regulators decide what an acceptable side effect is? And what would happen if someone did have a serious reaction to the COVID vaccine after it was released?

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While the government may not mandate the vaccine, it does have some ways to get people to vaccinate, imposing it as a condition of getting a passport, for example, or using freedom passes, immunity passports or vaccination certificates, as a nudge towards the process.

While the Covid vaccine trials have happened at breakneck speed, they haven›t skipped any of these steps. The Oxford/AstraZeneca Covid vaccine trial was voluntarily put on hold at one stage to investigate why one participant - out of many thousands - had died. It restarted once it was clear it was not related to the vaccine.

In a White House Task Force briefing, Dr. Anthony Fauci tried to settle concerns about the safety of the first two vaccines for which early Phase 3 clinical trial results have been reported.

“The process of the speed did not compromise at all safety nor did it compromise scientific integrity,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said. “It was a reflection of the extraordinary scientific advances in these types of vaccines which allow us to do things in months that took us years before.”

Safety trials begin in the lab, with tests and research on cells and animals, before moving on to human studies. The principle is to start small and only ever move on to the next stage of testing if there are no outstanding safety concerns. As long as the safety data from the labs is good, scientists can check that the vaccine or treatment is effective too. That involves tests on large numbers of volunteers. All of the work and findings are checked and verified independently.

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Vaccines are licensed on the basis of data from clinical trials, which aim to assess their short-term safety, ability to generate an immune response, and their ability to prevent disease in hundreds, and then thousands of volunteers. It is also important to note that most adverse events occur shortly after receiving a vaccine, rather than after many months or years. Approval will only be given for a vaccine if the government regulator is happy that it›s both safe and effective.

After approval, checks continue to make sure there are no further side effects or long-term risks. Crucially, health workers are trained to report any adverse event that they are concerned about, regardless of whether they think the vaccine triggered it. And they are told to be particularly vigilant in the case of newly introduced vaccines. If an

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adverse event is reported, the healthcare regulatory agency will carefully investigate whether it is likely to be a coincidence or a result of the vaccine, and intervene where necessary, e.g. by issuing warnings not to give the vaccine to certain groups, or even withdrawing the vaccine in rare circumstances.

?WILL VACCINES BE MANDATORY Acceptance of a vaccine, mandatory or not, is similarly challenged. A Gallup poll in November found that 58 percent of Americans say they would get a Covid19vaccine, up from a low of 50 percent in September.

But lots of people opting out would delay herd immunity, so some officials support compulsory immunisations. In August, Australia’s prime minister suggested the vaccine would be mandatory in his country, but later backtracked on those comments. In November, the New York State Bar Association recommended the state consider making it mandatory for all residents to get the shot, except those exempted by doctors.

Dr. Anthony Fauci said he would “definitely not” support a nationwide mandate of the COVID19- vaccine. “You don›t want to mandate and try and force anyone to take the vaccine. We›ve never done that. You can mandate for certain groups of people like health workers, but for the general population you cannot,” Fauci said in August. “We don›t want to be mandating from the federal government to the general population. It would be unenforceable and not appropriate.”

While the government may not mandate the vaccine, it does have some ways to get people to vaccinate, imposing

A Gallup poll in November found that 58 percent of Americans say they would get a Covid19- vaccine, up from a low of 50 percent in September.

it as a condition of getting a passport, for example, or using freedom passes, immunity passports or vaccination certificates, as a nudge towards the process.

A paper published in The Lancet last month acknowledges that some consider immunity passports “unethical and impractical”, but argues that “a strong presumption should be in favour of preserving people’s free movement if at all feasible”. A return to normality would bring both “individual and social benefits”, the authors add.

Some members of the UK Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) are backing the idea too. “I think a vaccine passport does make sense, at least initially,” Janet

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A protester with a model Covid 19 vaccine syringe is detained by police officers at a demonstration against a Covid 19 vaccine education event taking place in the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation European HQ outside in London, United Kingdom on November 2020 ,24.

(Getty)

Lord, a professor of immune cell biology at the University of Birmingham, told The Times.

Airlines are also mulling over mandatory COVID19vaccines for international passengers. In Australia, the boss of Qantas, the country’s largest airline, said once a virus vaccine becomes widely available, his carrier will likely require passengers to use it before they can travel abroad or land in Australia. South Korea’s largest airline has a similar message. Jill Chung, a spokesperson for Korean Air, said on Tuesday there is a real possibility that airlines will require that passengers be vaccinated.

She said that is because governments are likely to require vaccinations as a condition for lifting quarantine

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requirements for new arrivals.

Other industries are also weighing whether they should simply encourage people to get vaccinated or make it mandatory. Health workers are the classic example. Hospitals often require some staff to get a flu or hepatitis B vaccine. Universities may mandate students, faculty and staff to be immunized for certain diseases before coming on campus. Schools may have the same requirements for children. Employers are also weighing up the idea, but While it may be legal for employers to compel their workers to get the COVID19- vaccine, doing so would be a huge, difficult undertaking,

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Defense In Depth Why U.S. Security Depends on Alliances - Now More Than Ever

by Kori Schake, Jim Mattis, Jim Ellis, Joe Felter The world is not getting safer, for the United States or for U.S. interests. Even before the coronavirus pandemic, the 2017 National Defense Strategy described an international environment of increased global disorder, long-term strategic competition,

rapid dispersion of technologies, and eroding U.S. military advantages. Protecting the United States requires a strategy of defense in depth—that is, of identifying and dealing with global problems where they occur rather than waiting for threats to reach American shores.

To achieve defense in depth, simply strengthen-

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The best strategy for ensuring safety and prosperity is to buttress American military strength with enhanced civilian tools and a restored network of solid alliances- both necessary to achieving defense in depth. rather than waiting for them to assume proportions that ultimately make them much costlier and more dangerous to defeat. Defeating emerging threats in particular puts a premium on having visibility far from the homeland to allow for early warning and rapid adaptation to unanticipated developments.

As capable as the U.S. military is, the United States’ principal adversaries are more constrained by its network of alliances than by its military might. But continued failure to adequately invest in relationships with allies and partners and to cooperate with them to shape the international environment risks the erosion of this network—allowing a long-tended garden to become choked with weeds. Even worse, it could result in the emergence of other, competing networks, presaging an international order from which the United Statesis excluded, unable to influence outcomes because it is simply not present.

US Marines board a C130-J Super Hercules transport aircraft headed to Kandahar as British and US forces withdraw from the Camp BastionLeatherneck complex at Lashkar Gah in Helmand province on October ,27 2014. (Getty)

ing the U.S. military is not enough; nor the even more urgent task of strengthening U.S. diplomacy and other civilian elements of national power. Enhancing national security must start with the fundamental truth that the United States cannot protect itself or its interests without the help of others. International engagement allows the United States to see and act at a distance, as threats are gathering,

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The United States today is undermining the foundations of an international order manifestly advantageous to U.S. interests, reflecting a basic ignorance of the extent to which both robust alliances and international institutions provide vital strategic depth.

In practice, “America first” has meant “America alone.” That has damaged the country’s ability to address problems before they reach U.S. territory and has thus compounded the danger emergent threats pose.

THE DANGERS OF AMERICA ALONE Advocates of the current administration’s approach seem to believe that other countries will have no choice but to accede to the United States’ wishes and cooperate on its terms. This is delusion. Sovereign countries always have choices: to compromise

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with aggressors, take actions opposed to U.S. interests, opt out of assistance when the United States needs it, or cooperate with one another on activities from which the United States is excluded. Assuming otherwise has the result of emboldening adversaries and encouraging tests of the strength of U.S. commitments.

Not even the United States is strong enough to protect itself on its own. Fundamentally, it needs help to preserve its way of life. Cooperating with likeminded nations to sustain an international order of mutual security and prosperity is a cost-effective way of securing that help. But doing so means resisting the temptation to maximize U.S. gains at the expense of countries that share its objectives and instead utilizing the powers of influence and inspiration to enlarge the group of countries that work with the United States to a common purpose.

Those alliance relationships also require a forward strategy—the presence of U.S. diplomats and military forces in Asia, Europe, and the Middle East— to give credence to U.S. commitments. Together, that presence and the relationships it secures create a bulwark against threats, a shock absorber and an early warning system that gives time and space to meet dangers when they arise. To dismiss U.S. involvement today in Afghanistan, Iraq, and elsewhere as “endless” or “forever” wars—as both President Donald Trump and President-elect Joe Biden do—rather than as support to friendly governments struggling to exert control over their own territory misses the point. It is in the United States’ interests to build the capacity of such governments to deal with the threats that concern Americans; that work isn’t quick or linear, but it is an investment in both greater security and stronger relationships and preferable to the United States’ indefinitely having to take care of threats on its own.

Allies also supplement U.S. military strength. The 2017 National Defense Strategy was built on the assumption of three to five percent real annual increases in defense spending. This assumption has not been borne out by political realities, but a renewed focus on partnerships—on approaching security as a team sport—can reduce what is demanded of U.S. forces. That requires substantial investment

to help build capable and willing allies, to negotiate and collectively enforce international rules and practices that restrain adversaries, and to sustain an industrial base that can provide for the defense needs of the United States and help meet those of its most essential allies. In time, such investment will more than pay off, since it enables allies to share more of the burden.

Defense resources cannot substitute for the many nonmilitary elements that go into national security: diplomats at the State Department, economists at the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve, trade negotiators at the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, public health experts at the Centers for Disease Control, lawyers at the International Court of Arbitration, development finance experts at the Export-Import Bankand the United States Agency

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Bahraini soldiers take part in the International Mine Countermeasures Exercise (IMCMEX) organised by the US Navy at its Naval Support Activity base, the 5th Fleet command center, in the Bahraini capital Manama on April 2016 ,9. (Getty)

for International Development, and technologists at the Federal Communications Commission.

There are many good reasons to invest in such tools. The military becomes both less capable and less legitimate as it moves outward from its essential functions. The Defense Department can serve to strengthen diplomats abroad and support civil authorities at home by providing assistance in areas such as logistics, the handling of biohazardous chemicals, or emergency contracting, but it should remain the supporting rather than the supported organization—and it should actively avoid the perception of being politicized, as was the case in last June’s Lafayette Square incident with Trump. Balancing the U.S. security portfolio in this way will naturally diminish the prominence of military elements without weakening U.S. defense by provid-

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ing more diverse and effective contributions from nonmilitary sources. It will also prevent an excessive reliance on the military from eroding the United States’ traditions of civic governance and the advantages of a free society.

Such a rebalancing of the U.S. approach to national security is also necessary, however, when it comes to maintaining the country’s network of alliances and partnerships. Militarizing U.S. national security can dim the attractiveness of the American model, the appeal of which makes it easier for other countries to support U.S. policies. It also fosters an unhealthy division of labor among allies, with the United States taking on a disproportionate share of risk for military outcomes while its allies focus their contributions on development assistance or governance.

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THE END OF AMERICA FIRST The principal external threat the United States faces today is an aggressive and revisionist China—the only challenger that could potentially undermine the American way of life. The United States’ goal, however, should not only be to deter great-power war but to seek great-power peace and cooperation in advancing shared interests. For that, the United States’ alliances and partnerships are especially crucial.

Credibly sustaining the United States’ forward military strategy in Asia will require changes and improvements on a number of fronts: more effective nuclear deterrence, enhanced capabilities in space and cyberspace, dramatic improvements in the ability to project military power, and a renewed willingness to shift resources from lesser priorities.

Since China is utilizing asymmetric strategies and technological innovation, the United States also needs a comprehensive approach to restoring what should be, and typically have been, its comparative advantages. The nature of competition has changed dramatically since the Cold War: earlier struggles for technological dominance played out in secretive national labs and other classified, government-sponsored domains, but today, state-of-the-art technology with military applications is being developed largely in the commercial sector with advances driven by consumer demand rather than government directive. Such technologies must be rapidly integrated into weapons systems and other defense platforms to empower new operational concepts and doctrines.

It will also be imperative to maintain robust al-

The principal external threat the United States faces today is an aggressive and revisionist China—the only challenger that could potentially undermine the American way of life.

liances in Asia, especially with Australia, Japan, and South Korea; to strengthen relationships with partners such as India, Indonesia, and Vietnam that share an interest in maintaining a free and open region; and to participate more fully in and work to improve international organizations so that China cannot manipulate them to the United States’ disadvantage. Those partnerships are also important when it comes to strengthening and diversifying critical supply chains and reducing the country’s dependence on China for critical goods and materials (particularly for rare-earth materials), which the pandemic has highlighted in alarming ways.

Crucially, the United States should not press countries to choose outright between the two powers. A “with us or against us” approach plays to China’s advantage, because the economic prosperity of U.S. allies and partners hinges on strong trade and investment relationships with Beijing. Rather than treating countries as pawns in a great-power competition, a better approach would emphasize common codes of behavior and encourage states to publicly promulgate a vision for their country’s sovereign future and the types of partnerships they need to pursue it. It would also expand the cooperative space in which all countries supporting a rules-based order can work together to advance shared interests. Cooperation across different ideological systems is difficult but necessary, and there should be opportunities to cooperate with China in areas of overlapping interests, such as pandemic response, climate change, and nuclear security.

In January, when President Joe Biden and his national security team begin to reevaluate U.S. foreign policy, we hope they will quickly revise the national security strategy to eliminate “America first” from its contents, restoring in its place the commitment to cooperative security that has served the United States so well for decades. The best strategy for ensuring safety and prosperity is to buttress American military strength with enhanced civilian tools and a restored network of solid alliances—both necessary to achieving defense in depth. The pandemic should serve as a reminder of what grief ensues when we wait for problems to come to us.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Moral Virtue in the Time of Cholera

How an Epidemic Revealed the Gulf Between Britain and the United States

by David Rosner In April, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson became one of the first high-profile world leaders to contract the novel coronavirus. He was hospitalized for about a week, including several nervous days in an intensive care unit where, according to

Johnson, “things could have gone either way.” The prime minister recovered and used the occasion of his eventual release from the hospital to praise the National Health Service—the United Kingdom’s government-run health-care system. “The NHS has saved my life, no question,” Johnson said. Although successive Conservative governments have sought to privatize

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parts of the NHS, the system has remained deeply popular and a source of national pride. Johnson piously insisted that the United Kingdom would fend off the COVID-19 pandemic “because our NHS is the beating heart of the country. It is the best of this country. It is unconquerable.

It is powered by love.”

U.S. President Donald Trump struck a rather different note when he became sick with COVID-19. Unlike Johnson, his stint in the hospital did not fill him with great reverence for social institutions or public health infrastructure but rather an admiration for himself. “I think I would have done it fine without drugs,” he told Fox News after receiving a cocktail of sophisticated medications and steroids.

“You don’t really need drugs.” The president reportedly told advisers that he wanted to emerge from the hospital wearing a Superman shirt to show Americans that he had, through the force of his own indomitable strength, conquered the disease.

U.S. President Donald Trump removes his mask upon return to the White House from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center on October 05, 2020 in Washington, DC. / Getty

Johnson’s and Trump’s opposite responses to recovering from COVID-19 are indicative of two different personalities, but they also reflect an ingrained difference between the United Kingdom and the United States.

Johnson affirmed the notion that combating disease is the task of a whole society, while Trump viewed his fight with the coronavirus as an individual struggle.

That difference manifests most powerfully today in the countries’ disparate modes of health care. British citizens enjoy universal health care mostly free at the point of service, whereas the United States predominantly has a byzantine system of private insurance pegged to employment. Johnson and Trump may both be right-wing populist leaders, but they rule countries with contrary understandings of the role of the state and the individual in health care.

The divide between the British and the U.S. approaches to public health was apparent as long ago as the nineteenth century, when another pandemic, cholera, ravaged urban populations around the world. British thinkers, journalists, and medical professionals connected the disease to troubling social conditions and came to the conclusion that curbing the pandemic required a broader societal response.

Their American contemporaries, on the other hand, saw the disease in large part as a moral failing and the responsibility of individuals.

These different responses in the 1830s did not entirely determine either country’s system of health care or approach to public health, but they did trace the trajectories the two countries would take in delineating the responsibilities of the government and the individual regarding health care.

Britons and Americans still live with the choices their countries made during that time.

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As Trump and his acolytes dismiss the recommendations of public health officials as infringements on their personal liberties, they echo an earlier time, when Britons and Americans grappled with epidemics and came to very different conclusions.

CHOLERA AND THE SATANIC MILLS In 1831, cholera moved quickly from Central Asia through Europe and then to the United States. Newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic followed its deadly course in grisly detail. The pandemic was truly horrific: people who were seemingly healthy in the daytime would be dead by nightfall. In the United Kingdom, cholera swept away thousands in just hours. Desiccated bodies—the disease causes severe dehydration—lay strewn in the streets.

The British public linked the appearance of cholera to other crises overtaking the country. Beginning in the 1780s, hundreds of thousands of people left the countryside for booming industrial textile towns, such as Leeds and Manchester, where they lived in slums and worked for near-starvation wages. While they suffered, their labor produced great wealth for some in the expanding British economy—the merchants, factory owners, importers, and bankers.

The development of factories displaced and shattered rural communities and funneled people into truly unsanitary environments. The “dark satanic mills” that William Blakedescribed in the preface to his 1810 poem, “Milton,” loomed large in the British imagination in the years before the cholera pandemic. Throughout the nineteenth century, Conservative and Whig politicians, political philosophers such as Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, and writers such as Charles Dickens debated the merits of and the destruction wrought by Britain’s sprawling new landscape of power looms, cotton gins, and steam- and water-powered factories, all built on the backs of laborers who lived and died in horrendous conditions.

The health of the worker became a poignant symbol of the excesses of capitalism. As Frederich Engels, himself an heir to a Manchester textile factory, wrote in his classic 1845

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book, The Condition of the Working Class in England, it was “self-evident that a social class which live under the conditions that we have described and is so poorly supplied with the most indispensable necessities of existence can enjoy neither good health nor a normal expectation of life.” The ravages of cholera in London, Manchester, and other industrial centers alerted the public to the depths of a social crisis in which the industrial economy and its malign distribution of wealth enabled the spread of disease.

Despite Engels’s outrage, the suffering of the poor did not result in the overthrow of capitalism—but it did lead to a discussion about the responsibilities of the state in shaping the environment in which people lived and the services they received. In the wake of the cholera epidemic in the 1830s, social reformers such as Edwin Chadwick took note of the disintegrating health and well-being of large swaths of Manchester’s working class and began pressing for new housing laws and major investments in sewer systems, street cleaning, and water supplies.

In 1842, Chadwick published a 536-page report called The Sanitary Condition of the Labouring Population of Great Britain, which would inspire enormous infrastructural investments in British cities in the coming decades. Chadwick refused the narrow definition of sanitation—sewers, water supply, and garbage collection—in favor of a broad survey of the underlying conditions affecting housing, nutrition, and labor. His report suggested that the factors contributing to the diseases that killed the urban poor included such things as the construction of homes, the conditions in factories, and air quality. “These many subjects,” he wrote, “cannot be . . . overlooked in any report on the sources of disease among the laboring classes.”

In linking disease, the environment, and social policy, Chadwick set the stage for rethinking the role of government and public health in people’s lives. By the middle of the nineteenth century, doctors such as John Snow would realize that changing the environment—for instance, by taking the handles off water pumps and disabling them in streets served by polluted stretches of the Thames River— was the most effective way to address disease. Chadwick’s efforts helped convince many Britons that matters of health were embedded in social conditions, leading in the twentieth century not only to the NHSbut also to public health services that were integrated into a broader social welfare system.

MEETING CALAMITY WITH SERENITY The cholera epidemic did not prompt a comparable medita-

tion on the responsibilities of the state on the other side of the Atlantic. U.S. newspapers reported the progress of cholera across Europe, detailing the rising number of deaths in London, Paris, and other European cities, but Americans remained largely untroubled by the prospect of the disease’s arrival. “Whether pestilence assails us in its most appalling form or whether under the favor of the Almighty, we escape altogether, or if peradventure in should please Divine Providence to bring calamity home to our doors, we and our fellows citizens will meet it with serenity,” the New York City Board of Health, a temporary body established for but a few months in the summer of 1832, gently reassured the population.

The epidemic soon spread. Religious leaders, state and local politicians, and even President Andrew Jackson called on the nation to observe “a day of fasting, humiliation, and prayer” and to go to church to ask God’s forgiveness as the means of ending the epidemic. As the weather grew colder, contemporaries believed their prayers were “answered” as the epidemic receded.

Boards of health around the country told “their fellow citizens, that they consider the Health . . . so far reestablished as to render the further continuance of their daily reports unnecessary.” Officials who were worried about the persistence of the disease generally took solace in the belief that it really affected only “the dissolute and intemperate” or that in smaller communities, such as Oyster Bay in Long Island, victims of cholera were “all Blacks.” Personal frailty and racism helped

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A Court for King‘ Cholera’, 1852. A scene typical of the crowded, unsanitary conditions in London slums. )(Getty

explain away the threat of the disease and assuage the fears of white citizens.

But by the middle decades of the nineteenth century, the toll of cholera and other epidemics in the United States had become undeniable. Cholera, typhoid, and yellow fever swept through cities along the East Coast and along the trade routes up and down Mississippi River towns from New Orleans to Minneapolis. As many as 48 people died for every 1,000 residents in New York City during these epidemics and thousands more, both infants and adults, Black and white, died in the rural South and Midwest. Scholars such as John Griscom in New York and Lemuel Shattuck in Boston surveyed their cities and found some of the same conditions that Chadwick identified across the ocean. Griscom wrote The Sanitary Condition of the Laboring Population of New York in 1844, two years after Chadwick produced the similarly titled report in the United Kingdom. Griscom celebrated Chadwick’s approach but gave it a special and telling American slant.

He emphasized to his American readers that improving the social conditions of the poor would uplift their moral standing; the purpose of fighting disease, he argued, was in large part to make a more virtuous society. Would not education, for example, instruct the poor to avoid filthy habits and therefore disease? “Teach them how to live, so as to avoid diseases and be more comfortable,” he wrote. Although he recognized that social circumstances influenced health outcomes, Griscom still saw the poor and their habits as the root of the problem. Unlike in the United Kingdom, where disease was being cast as a social problem whose reach might extend across classes, in the United States, disease was still perceived as trouble for those deemed the “unworthy poor.” Those of high moral character and the wealthy were generally not thought to be at risk.

THE WORTH OF THE INDIVIDUAL The United States adopted stratified systems of care informed, in part, by the notion that poor health signaled personal moral failing: private health insurance served the wealthy and the fully employed; Social Security and Medicare helped the aged and others who might have suffered through no fault of their own; and welfare and Medicaid tended to the so-called unworthy. Americans tied the provision of health care to the moral and social worth of the individual. Dwight Moody, perhaps the most popular and influential revivalist preacher in the United States in the 1870s, spoke to enormous, largely middleclass audiences in Boston, Chicago, and New York City and explained to them that there was so much “great misery and suffering” in their cities because “the sufferers have become lost from the Shepherd’s care”—not because millions were being squeezed into crowded tenements or

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Johnson’s and Trump’s opposite responses to recovering from COVID19- are indicative of two different personalities, but they also reflect an ingrained difference between the United Kingdom and the United States. because of the wider consequences of the inequalities of an emerging urban, industrialized society. In the following century, American charity workers, social policy experts, hospital administrators and trustees, and others in the middle-class professions and the political elites would distinguish between those people who had become dependent and sick because of circumstances beyond their control—the so-called worthy or deserving poor (or the “truly needy” in President Ronald Reagan’s words)—and those who brought suffering upon themselves through their own moral failings—the unworthy or undeserving.

As a result, many American institutions, including hospitals and social services, tend to perceive suffering in highly individualized terms. In the United Kingdom, by contrast, from fierce debates among reformers, radicals, Conservatives, Whigs, and workers arose a new social welfare state that treats health and economic inequality as fundamentally linked and tasks the government with a major redistributive role.

The social and health crises of the nineteenth century thus created disparate futures for the United Kingdom and the United States. Today, as Trump and his acolytes dismiss the recommendations of public health officials as infringements on their personal liberties, they echo an earlier time, when Britons and Americans grappled with epidemics and came to very different conclusions. The United Kingdom’s success in reckoning with COVID-19 now depends on the marshaling of the resources and authority of the state to protect individuals—the collective enterprise that Johnson recognized after he left the hospital. In the United States, on the other hand, over 70 million Americans voted for a president who tried to convince them—in the face of all evidence—that his own virtuous conquest of the disease was proof that they had little to worry about.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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China Has Made Drone Warfare Global

The United States Must Join the Market or Be Left Behind

by Michael C. Horowitz, Joshua A. Schwartz, Matthew Fuhrmann

such as al Qaeda to the operation last January that killed Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani. Turkey has employed armed drones domestically against Drone warfare is one of the most important interna- the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, Nigeria against Boko tional security developments of the twenty-first cen- Haram, and Iraq against ISIS. In just the last few tury. The United States has conducted thousands of weeks, Azerbaijan has used armed drones, arguably drone strikes, ranging from attacks on nonstate actors to great effect, in the war with Armenia, especially

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against tanks and artillery.

Armed drones are proliferating rapidly, and drone warfare is thus likely to become even more prevalent in coming years. Our research shows that 18 countries obtained armed drones from 2011 to 2019. By contrast, prior to 2011 just three countries had armed drones: the United States, the United Kingdom, and Israel.

The rapid rise in drone deployment has coincided with China’s emergence as a major supplier. From 2011 to 2019, 11 of those 18 countries we tracked bought armed drones from China. By contrast, during the same period, the United States exported armed drones to just one country: France. As armed drones spread and a new administration takes the reins in Washington, the United States will need to answer some hard questions about whether, and to whom, it is willing to sell its sophisticated drone technology.

THE OLD REGIME

An MQ9- Reaper remotely piloted aircraft (RPA) is parked in an aircraft shelter at Creech Air Force Base on November 2015 ,17 in Indian Springs, Nevada. (Getty)

The United States has the most advanced drones in the world and plenty of interested buyers—but a voluntary export control regime created in 1987 severely restricts its ability to sell armed drones. The Missile Technology Control Regime was established during the Cold War to prevent the spread of missiles that could carry weapons of mass destruction. Under this regime, the United States is obligated, in most circumstances, to avoid exporting Category I systems— defined as those that can travel more than 300 kilometers and carry a payload of more than 500 kilograms.

Our research shows that 18 countries obtained armed drones from 2011 to 11 .2019 of those 18 countries we tracked bought armed drones from China. affected the types of countries able to acquire armed drones. China claims its exportable systems fall just below guidelines in Category I of the 1987 regime.

Moreover, although China says it follows those guidelines, it is not a formal member and therefore is freer to choose markets for its drone exports. Few of these are in democracies. Of the 11 countries that purchased armed drones from China, nine were nondemocratic in the first year of acquisition. More broadly, nondemocracies were more than eight times as likely as democracies to acquire armed drones between 2011 and 2019, according to our research.

One reason nondemocracies became more likely to acquire armed drones during this period is that compared with the United States, China imposes relatively fewer restrictions on how buyers use the weapons they import. Buyers therefore have the freedom to use the weapons as they see fit, even if doing so violates international law and human rights. As Xu Guangyu, a retired major general in the People’s Liberation Army, has said, one of China’s major advantages in selling arms is that it does not “make demands over The regime was meant to regulate one-way missiles other governments’ status and internal policies.” By and not aircraft, but in 1987 drones were considered comparison, the United States’ 2015 drone export more akin to the former than the latter because they policy—which clarified conditions for U.S. drone were primarily designed for one-way missions to test exports given the 1987 guidelines and other convenmissile accuracy or for very short-range surveillance tional arms transfer policies—required recipients to missions. Modern drones much more closely resem- “use these systems in accordance with international ble aircraft since they can stay in the air for hours or law, including international humanitarian law and indays at a time and then return to base. Yet they cur- ternational human rights law,” and to not “use milirently remain subject to restrictions under the 1987 tary UA[Vs] to conduct unlawful surveillance or use regime. Therefore, for much of the last decade, while unlawful force against their domestic populations.”

China and others began exporting armed drones, the Even France, a close American ally, needed the perUnited States was slower to enter the market. mission of the United States government to deploy armed MQ-9 Reaper drones at one point. The United WINNERS AND LOSERS States retains the leverage to cut off the supply of replacement parts and ammunition to countries that fail American restraint has unintentionally but strongly to comply with its rules.

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For these reasons, drones have proliferated in far greater numbers from China than from the United States, and the lopsidedness of this pattern has had consequences. U.S.restrictions on drone exports have not prevented the weapons from spreading. Rather, they have left the United States’ democratic allies at a disadvantage relative to nondemocracies when it comes to acquiring armed drones. China, meanwhile, has used drone exports to build defense relationships with countries around the world¬¬, including with U.S. partners.

THE UNITED STATES RETALIATES In response to these unfavorable dynamics, the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump decided in July 2020 to “reinterpret” the 1987 regime. Drones that travel at speeds under 800 kilometers per hour, like General Atomics’ Predator and Reaper, will now be classified as Category II systems, making them easier to export. Since the policy change, the Trump administration has notified Congress that it has approved armed drone sales to Taiwan and the UAE, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and then Secretary of Defense Mark Esper have pressured India to purchase armed drones from the United States.

potential suppliers—such as Turkey—have also increased sales in recent years and will contribute to broader drone proliferation. For example, Azerbaijan used Turkish-made drones to conduct airstrikes in its war with Armenia.

American willingness to export armed drones is likeIMPACT OF NEW DRONES ly to erode the advantage nondemocracies have had over democracies in the drone marketplace. And the Although the frequency of drone attacks will likely overall pace of proliferation will likely grow. Other increase in the near future as more countries—and nonstate actors—acquire armed drones, the overall severity of the threat they pose remains relatively low, at least for now.

China, meanwhile, has used drone exports to build defense relationships with countries around the world¬¬, including with U.S. partners.

If detected, current-generation drones are relatively easy to shoot down compared with inhabited aircraft, as they are slower, less maneuverable, and typically unable to defend themselves. Iran, Syria, and the Houthis have shot down U.S. drones. Current-generation drones therefore have limited utility in contested airspace and may not be all that valuable in a conflict between sophisticated military powers. However, many militaries are vulnerable to drone strikes, as

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An UAV is shown during the military parade for the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic of China on October ,01 2019 in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China.

(Getty)

Armenia has learned from the Azerbaijani attacks on its Soviet-era air defense systems. Technology that enables drones to defend themselves or swarm and overwhelm enemy defenses could also make these weapons even more effective in the future.

Some research even suggests that the use of drones could contribute to stability in some cases. Experimental war games have demonstrated that military decision-makers are more likely to favor aggressive military responses to the downing of an inhabited aircraft than they are to that of an uninhabited drone.

For a real-world example, consider President Trump’s decision on June 19 to back down from launching airstrikes against Iran after it downed a $130 million RQ-4 Global Hawk surveillance drone. To justify his decision, Trump tweeted that retaliating with airstrikes was “not proportionate to shooting down an unmanned drone.�

Armed drones are proliferating rapidly, and drone warfare is thus likely to become even more prevalent in coming years.

Big questions about drone proliferation thus loom for an incoming Biden administration. A President Joe Biden could restore Obama-era restrictions on U.S. drone exports, once again ceding the market to China.

A Biden administration might, conversely, decide there is no turning back, as drones become a more regular feature of warfare. Or it could chart a middle path, restoring a somewhat higher level of scrutiny for drone exports while making them more accessible to close allies, especially democracies.

While the long-term impact of this military technology is not yet known, it is clear that the genie is out of This article was originally published on ForeignAfthe bottle, and armed drones are proliferating rapidly. fairs.com.

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Somalia Must Learn to Stand Alone Before It Can Stand Together With the Rest of the Horn of Africa

by Hassan Sheikh Mohamud In March 1977, Ethiopia and Somalia edged toward war over the region of Ogaden, which both claimed.

Cuba’s revolutionary President Fidel Castro made a desperate dash to the Horn of Africa with a bold

plan to keep the peace: with the backing of the Soviet Union, he proposed to combine Ethiopia, Somalia, South Yemen, and the soon-to-be-independent French Territory of the Afars and the Issas (now Djibouti) into a Marxist-Leninist superstate that would control the Red Sea and the all-important entrance to the Suez

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Canal. Not only would the merger resolve the longstanding rivalry between Ethiopia and Somalia, it would unleash the region’s economic potential. Even more important to the Kremlin, it would consolidate recent communist gains and make the Soviets the dominant external power in the Horn of Africa.

Castro’s shuttle diplomacy failed to win support from regional leaders, most notably Somali military leader Siad Barre, and soon Somalia and Ethiopia were locked in a vicious war. Yet the idea of an integrated Horn of Africa never died. More than four decades after the Ogaden War, the goal of greater political and economic integration lives on—particularly in Ethiopia, the regional hegemon, which is landlocked and depends on its neighbors for access to the sea.

Regional organizations such as the Intergovernmental Authority on Development have also sought to foster integration, as has the United States, which sees deeper trade ties and political cooperation as bulwarks against instability and extremism.

A Somali soldier holds a machine gun at Sanguuni military base, where an American special operations soldier was killed by a mortar attack on June 8, about 450 km south of Mogadishu, Somalia, on June 2018 ,13.

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Since he came to power in 2018, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has accelerated the regional integration project. He has forged closer ties with Somalia and with Ethiopia’s erstwhile archenemy Eritrea, even signing a tripartite agreement with the leaders of both countries that established a framework for political, economic, and security cooperation. More ominous, Abiy has publicly suggested that economic integration could be a prelude to political integration and ultimately to a single unified government and military in the Horn of Africa.

Efforts at political integration that come at the expense of sovereignty are bound to provoke conflict and end in failure. But even economic integration efforts that should in times of peace and stability benefit all parties could backfire under the current conditions.

In theory, the free movement of people and goods between Ethiopia and Somalia should ease historical tensions, strengthen economic ties, and foster shared growth and prosperity. But in practice, allowing such movement could deepen the mutual suspicion and chronic insecurity that have crippled Somalia’s democratic development.

Simply put, neither Ethiopia nor Somalia is ready for deeper integration. Ethiopia is sliding toward instability and preoccupied with both internal ethnic conflicts and

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Before Somalia can begin to think about deepening ties with neighbors and allowing freer movement across its borders, it will need to consolidate control over those borders and over other regions currently controlled by al Shabab. border disputes with Somalia and Eritrea. Somalia, for its part, is too politically fragmented, fragile, and imperiled by extremists to benefit much from regional integration right now. And because Somalia’s current leaders have embraced Ethiopia’s integration agenda without much input from civil society or the public, further implementing that agenda could deepen divisions rather than heal them. Before seeking greater interdependence with its neighbors, therefore, Somalia’s government should focus on turning the tide against the extremist insurgent group al Shabab, strengthening weak and divided governance structures at home, and building on the democratic gains that have been made over the last 20 years.

SQUANDERED PROGRESS Somalia has been chronically unstable for nearly 30 years. Its civil war began in 1991, when Barre’s authoritarian regime collapsed and gave way to clan conflicts that ultimately created large swaths of ungoverned territory. This territory proved to be the perfect breeding ground for terrorists, many of whom had trained abroad in Afghanistan and other countries, who eventually established al Shabab, al Qaeda’s most dangerous franchise in Africa.

By the time I was sworn in as president in September 2012, al Shabab controlled large portions of Somalia’s major cities. But with the support of the United States, my government was able to arm and train the Somali security forces to more effectively participate in the fight against al Shabab alongside African Union peacekeepers. Together, we created a special forces

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battalion modeled after the U.S. Army Rangers.

Called the “Danab,” or Lightning Brigade, it pursued al Shabab behind enemy lines, disrupted terror plots, and eliminated important terrorists from the battlefield.

But the military pressure has eased off of al Shabab in recent years. The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has ramped up airstrikes in Somalia, and more U.S.military personnel are now stationed in Somalia than in any African country aside from Djibouti and Niger. In the final weeks of his administration, however, Trump is reportedly considering withdrawing nearly all of these troops.

Moreover, the Somali government and its African Union military partners have slowed the pace of their operations against al Shabab and even lost control of strategic areas such as the Shabelle Valley and towns along the border with Ethiopia. At the same time, al Shabab has carried out hundreds of attacks in Somalia and in neighboring countries. In January 2020, for instance, the group attacked the Manda Bay Airfield in the coastal Kenyan town of Lamu, killing several Kenyan and American troops.

Al Shabab continues to administer a parallel system of government in parts of Mogadishu, the capital, and in southern Somalia, including along stretches of the borders with Kenya and Ethiopia. Before Somalia can begin to think about deepening ties with neighbors and allowing freer movement across its borders, it will need to consolidate control over those borders and over other regions currently controlled by al Shabab.

The fates of Somalis and Americans are interlinked. As a result, Washington has a vested interest in supporting the long-term stability of Somalia and of the greater Horn of Africa region.

To that end, the Somali government and its African Union partners will need to go back on the offensive against the terrorist group—not just to liberate al Shabab–controlled areas but to hold them permanently so the government can win back hearts and minds.

Governance at both state and federal levels will also need to improve before regional integration can proceed. During my presidency, Somalia began a complicated federation process through which four regional states were formed. Much progress was made initially toward state building and toward reconciliation of clan and regional conflicts. But soon after coming to power in 2017, the current administration of President Mohamed Abdullahi Mohamed dissolved the leadership of the nascent federal states and installed its allies in their place, weakening the federalization process and triggering conflict with the regional governments.

In the absence of a strong working relationship with regional governments, the federal government has often relied on Ethiopian troops operating outside of

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Somali security forces patrol along the coast of Qaw, in Puntland, northeastern Somalia on December, 2016 ,18.

(Getty)

unilaterally. To begin to repair and eventually fortify its democratic institutions, the federal government will need to restore this consultative tradition.

LINKED FATES, SHARED FUTURES Taken together, Somalia’s problems with security and governance do not augur well for regional integration.

But with progress against al Shabab, on governance, and toward democracy, the country might be able to reap the rewards of deeper trade and economic ties with its neighbors in the future. Somalia’s international partners, particularly those from outside the immediate region, can help move Somalia in that direction.

the African Unionchain of command to advance its political interests in the regional states. In December 2018, for instance, it ordered Ethiopian troops to arrest a former al Shabab spokesman who was running for parliament in the newly formed South West regional state. The arrest sparked days of protests in South West state, to which federal security forces later responded with a violent crackdown. Such transgressions only deepen the Somali public’s suspicion of and antipathy toward Ethiopia, making future aboveboard cooperation more difficult.

In addition to improving governance, Somalia must strengthen its democratic institutions before it seeks closer ties with its neighbors. One reason the current government’s embrace of regional integration efforts has proved so contentious is that ordinary Somalis have had very little say in the matter.

While previous governments have often consulted closely with parliament and the regional states on important national issues, the current government has upended that political tradition by making decisions

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During my presidency, the United States supported Somalia’s government not just militarily but with state building, reconciliation, and democratic governance.

Regrettably, during the past three and a half years, the focus of the two countries’ relationship has shifted from a partnership centered on democratization and state building to one centered almost exclusively on security cooperation. As a result, the United States has ignored serious violations of human rights and democratic norms in Mogadishu—including harassment of opposition figures and a vicious war against Somalia’s free press. These violations have caused relations between the federal government and some of the federal member states to break down, impeding security cooperation and allowing al Shabab to regroup and even expand its reach. The United States should think twice before withdrawing its troops from Somalia, which would only embolden the terrorist group. But it should also revive the vital nonsecurity aspects of its relationship with Somalia, without which the country’s democracy will continue to atrophy.

The fates of Somalis and Americans are interlinked, as evidenced by the thriving Somali diaspora in the United States. As a result, Washington has a vested interest in supporting the long-term stability of Somalia and of the greater Horn of Africa region. That stability cannot be achieved without security, democracy, and the rule of law—precisely the preconditions that are necessary to transform the regional integration project from a dream into a reality.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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The End of the Pandemic Is Now in Sight Two Vaccines Look Like They Will Work, and More Should Follow

by Sarah Zhang For all that scientists have done to tame the biological world, there are still things that lie outside the realm of human knowledge. The coronavirus was one such alarming reminder, when it emerged with murky origins in late 2019

and found naive, unwitting hosts in the human body. Even as science began to unravel many of the virus’s mysteries— how it spreads, how it tricks its way into cells, how it kills—a fundamental unknown about vaccines hung over the pandemic and our collective human fate: Vaccines can stop many, but not all, viruses. Could they stop this one?

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The answer, we now know, is yes. A resounding yes.

Pfizer and Moderna have separately released preliminary data that suggest their vaccines are both more than 90 percent effective, far more than many scientists expected.

Neither company has publicly shared the full scope of their data, but independent clinical-trial monitoring boards have reviewed the results, and the FDA will soon scrutinize the vaccines for emergency use authorization. Unless the data take an unexpected turn, initial doses should be available in December.

The tasks that lie ahead—manufacturing vaccines at scale, distributing them via a cold or even ultracold chain, and persuading wary Americans to take them—are not trivial, but they are all within the realm of human knowledge. The most tenuous moment is over: The scientific uncertainty at the heart of COVID19- vaccines is resolved. Vaccines work. And for that, we can breathe a collective sigh of relief. “It makes it now clear that vaccines will be our way out of this pandemic,” says Kanta Subbarao, a virologist at the Doherty Institute, who has studied emerging viruses.

The invention of vaccines against a virus identified only 10 months ago is an extraordinary scientific achievement.

They are the fastest vaccines ever developed, by a margin of years. From virtually the day Chinese scientists shared the genetic sequence of a new coronavirus in January, researchers began designing vaccines that might train the immune system to recognize the still-unnamed virus. They needed to identify a suitable piece of the virus to turn into a vaccine, and one promising target was the spike-shaped proteins that decorate the new virus’s outer shell. Pfizer and Moderna’s vaccines both rely on the spike protein, as do many vaccine candidates still in development. These initial successes suggest this strategy works; several more COVID19- vaccines may soon cross the finish line. To vaccinate billions of people across the globe and bring the pandemic to a timely end, we will need all the vaccines we can get.

But it is no accident or surprise that Moderna and Pfizer are first out of the gate. They both bet on a new and hitherto unproven idea of using mRNA, which has the longpromised advantage of speed. This idea has now survived a trial by pandemic and emerged likely triumphant. If mRNA vaccines help end the pandemic and restore normal life, they may also usher in a new era for vaccine development.

The human immune system is awesome in its power, but an untrained one does not know how to aim its fire. That’s where vaccines come in. They present a harmless snapshot of a pathogen, a “wanted” poster, if you will, that primes the immune system to recognize the real virus when it comes along. Traditionally, this snapshot could be in the form of a weakened virus or an inactivated virus or a particularly

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The vaccine by itself cannot slow the dangerous trajectory of COVID19- hospitalizations this fall or save the many people who may die by Christmas.

But it can give us hope that the pandemic will end. distinctive viral molecule. But those approaches require vaccine makers to manufacture viruses and their molecules, which takes time and expertise. Both are lacking during a pandemic caused by a novel virus. mRNA vaccines offer a clever shortcut. We humans don’t need to intellectually work out how to make viruses; our bodies are already very, very good at incubating them.

When the coronavirus infects us, it hijacks our cellular machinery, turning our cells into miniature factories that churn out infectious viruses. The mRNA vaccine makes this vulnerability into a strength. What if we can trick our own cells into making just one individually harmless, though very recognizable, viral protein? The coronavirus’s spike protein fits this description, and the instructions for making it can be encoded into genetic material called mRNA. Both vaccines, from Moderna and from Pfizer’s collaboration with the smaller German company BioNTech, package slightly modified spike-protein mRNA inside a tiny protective bubble of fat. Human cells take up this bubble and simply follow the directions to make spike protein. The cells then display these spike proteins, presenting them as strange baubles to the immune system.

Recognizing these viral proteins as foreign, the immune system begins building an arsenal to prepare for the moment a virus bearing this spike protein appears.

This overall process mimics the steps of infection better than some traditional vaccines, which suggests that mRNA vaccines may provoke a better immune response for certain diseases. When you inject vaccines made of inactivated viruses or viral pieces, they can’t get inside the cell, and the cell can’t present those viral pieces to the immune system. Those vaccines can still elicit proteins called antibodies, which neutralize the virus, but they have a harder time stimulating T cells, which make up another important part of the immune response.

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(Weakened viruses used in vaccines can get inside cells, but risk causing an actual infection if something goes awry. mRNA vaccines cannot cause infection because they do not contain the whole virus.) Moreover, inactivated viruses or viral pieces tend to disappear from the body within a day, but mRNA vaccines can continue to produce spike protein for two weeks, says Drew Weissman, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania, whose mRNA vaccine research has been licensed by both BioNTech and Moderna. The longer the spike protein is around, the better for an immune response.

All of this is how mRNA vaccines should work in theory.

But no one on Earth, until last week, knew whether mRNA vaccines actually do work in humans for COVID19-.

Although scientists had prototyped other mRNA vaccines before the pandemic, the technology was still new. None had been put through the paces of a large clinical trial.

And the human immune system is notoriously complicated and unpredictable. Immunology is, as my colleague Ed Yong has written, where intuition goes to die. Vaccines can even make diseases more severe, rather than less. The data from these large clinical trials from Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna are the first, real-world proof that mRNA vaccines protect against disease as expected. The hope, in the many years when mRNA vaccine research flew under the radar, was that the technology would deliver results quickly in a pandemic. And now it has.

“What a relief,” says Barney Graham, a virologist at the National Institutes of Health, who helped design the spike protein for the Moderna vaccine. “You can make thousands of decisions, and thousands of things have to go right for this to actually come out and work. You’re just worried that you have made some wrong turns along the way.”

The vaccine is a scientific triumph, but the past eight months have made clear how much pandemic preparedness is not only about scientific research.

For Graham, this vaccine is a culmination of years of such decisions, long predating the discovery of the coronavirus that causes COVID19-. He and his collaborators had homed in on the importance of spike protein in another virus, called respiratory syncytial virus, and figured out how to make the protein more stable and thus suitable for vaccines. This modificationappears in both Pfizer/ BioNTech’s and Moderna’s vaccines, as well as other leading vaccine candidates.

The spectacular efficacy of these vaccines, should the preliminary data hold, likely also has to do with the choice of spike protein as vaccine target. On one hand, scientists were prepared for the spike protein, thanks to research like Graham’s. On the other hand, the coronavirus’s spike protein offered an opening. Three separate components of the immune system—antibodies, helper cells, and killer T cells—all respond to the spike protein, which isn’t the case with most viruses.

In this, we were lucky. “It’s the three punches,” says Alessandro Sette. Working with Shane Crotty, his fellow immunologist at the La Jolla Institute, Sette found that COVID19- patients whose immune systems can marshal

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A health worker administers a dose of Sinovac Biotech potential vaccine against the COVID19- to Doctor Cem Gun (L) during the 3rd phase trials at the Acibadem Hospital in Istanbul, on October 2020 ,9.

clinical trials too. They rely on a suite of different vaccine technologies, including weakened viruses, inactivated viruses, viral proteins, and another fairly new concept called DNA vaccines. Never before have companies tested so many different types of vaccines against the same virus, which might end up revealing something new about vaccines in general. You now have the same spike protein delivered in many different ways, Sette points out.

How will the vaccines behave differently? Will they each stimulate different parts of the immune system? And which parts are best for protecting against the coronavirus? The pandemic is an opportunity to compare different types of vaccines head-on.

If the two mRNA vaccines continue to be as good as they initially seem, their success will likely crack open a whole new world of mRNA vaccines. Scientists are already testing them against currently un-vaccinable viruses such as Zika and cytomegalovirus and trying to make improved versions of existing vaccines, such as for the flu. Another possibility lies in personalized mRNA vaccines that can stimulate the immune system to fight cancer.

all three responses against the spike protein tend to fare the best. The fact that most people can recover from COVID19was always encouraging news; it meant a vaccine simply needed to jump-start the immune system, which could then take on the virus itself. But no definitive piece of evidence existed that proved COVID19- vaccines would be a slam dunk. “There’s nothing like a Phase 3 clinical trial,” Crotty says. “You don’t know what’s gonna happen with a vaccine until it happens, because the virus is complicated and the immune system is complicated.”

Experts anticipate that the ongoing trials will clarify stillunanswered questions about the COVID19- vaccines.

For example, Ruth Karron, the director of the Center for Immunization Research at Johns Hopkins University, asks, does the vaccine prevent only a patient’s symptoms? Or does it keep them from spreading the virus? How long will immunity last? How well does it protect the elderly, many of whom have a weaker response to the flu vaccine? So far, Pfizer has noted that its vaccine seems to protect the elderly just as well, which is good news because they are especially vulnerable to COVID19-.

Several more vaccines using the spike protein are in

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But the next few months will be a test of one potential downside of mRNA vaccines: their extreme fragility. mRNA is an inherently unstable molecule, which is why it needs that protective bubble of fat, called a lipid nanoparticle. But the lipid nanoparticle itself is exquisitely sensitive to temperature. For longer-term storage, Pfizer/BioNTech’s vaccine has to be stored at –70 degrees Celsius and Moderna’s at –20 Celsius, though they can be kept at higher temperatures for a shorter amount of time. Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna have said they can collectively supply enough doses for 22.5 million people in the United Statesby the end of the year.

Distributing the limited vaccines fairly and smoothly will be a massive political and logistical challenge, especially as it begins during a bitter transition of power in Washington.

The vaccine is a scientific triumph, but the past eight months have made clear how much pandemic preparedness is not only about scientific research. Ensuring adequate supplies of tests and personal protective equipment, providing economic relief, and communicating the known risks of COVID19- transmission are all well within the realm of human knowledge.

The vaccine by itself cannot slow the dangerous trajectory of COVID19- hospitalizations this fall or save the many people who may die by Christmas. But it can give us hope that the pandemic will end. Every infection we prevent now—through masking and social distancing—is an infection that can, eventually, be prevented forever through vaccines.

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Egyptian Actor Mohammed Ramadan Faces Court Case Over Photos with Israelis

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Take a Soak for Your Health Bathing regularly can help ease pain and potentially benefit your heart Harvard Health You know that sinking into a warm bath at the end of a long day can help you relax and unwind, but did you know it might also be good for your health? Research shows that using baths as a form of medical therapy, sometimes referred to as balneotherapy (see ÂŤBalneotherapy, or bath

therapyÂť), can bring health benefits -- among them, easing certain types of chronic pain, helping your skin, and potentially even improving heart health.

BALNEOTHERAPY, OR BATH THERAPY

The name balneotherapy is derived from the Latin word balneum, or bath. Today, balneotherapy

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A study published in May 2020 found that middle-aged people in Japan who took a daily bath in either warm or hot water had a %28 lower risk of heart and blood vessel disease than people who didn›t bathe in the tub more than twice a week. people with this chronic pain condition reported significant improvement in their symptoms after soaking in hot water, says Dr. Donald Levy, medical director at the Osher Clinical Center for Integrative Medicine at Brigham and Women›s Hospital and assistant clinical professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

While the overall body of evidence is mixed when it comes to fibromyalgia pain and baths (some studies show an improvement in pain levels; others don›t), it›s safe to say that some people benefit from this simple intervention, says Dr. Levy.

It›s reasonable to take a hot bath (°96 to °100 F) using mineral salts five days a week to see if it helps, he says.

may refer to the use of a typical bath (warm or cold) as a treatment for an illness or condition.

However, the term historically and sometimes still refers to mineral baths or mineral-rich mud packs to coat the body. Some medical professionals also consider saunas or steam baths as balneotherapy.

RELIEVING PAIN One of the conditions that may benefit from balneotherapy is fibromyalgia. In studies,

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There is also some evidence that warm baths may help to ease pain related to osteoarthritis, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health(NCCIH). However, there aren›t enough high-quality studies to say for sure.

But because baths are low risk, it›s worth a shot to see if it helps.

HEALTHY SKIN

Baths may also help to soothe your skin -particularly if it›s dry or itchy. While excessive bathing in hot water can dry your skin if you›re not careful, with the right technique, soaking in warm water can help eliminate dryness, says Dr. Kenneth Arndt, a dermatologist and prior medical

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editor of the Harvard Special Health Report Skin Care and Repair.

«If a heavy cream or ointment is put on the skin immediately after drying off, the water that the skin has soaked up will stay in the skin for a prolonged time, and will be helpful for dry skin problems,» he says.

Soaking in warm water can also help soften and loosen scaly skin or crusty patches so they can be removed by gently rubbing them, avoiding more abrasive techniques. Itchy skin may be soothed by a tub bath with colloidal oatmeal added to the water. And taking a warm bath before applying a topical medication can help your skin absorb it more effectively, which means it will work better, says Dr. Arndt.

In addition, according to the NCCIH, a specialized form of balneotherapy may help if you have psoriasis, a condition in which skin cells grow abnormally fast, leading to a scaly or red rash on the skin. Called Dead Sea climatotherapy, this form of therapy involves bathing in the Dead Sea itself. light therapy, may also help.

But if you›re not up for the plane ride, a substitute form, called artificial climatotherapy, which simulates the salty, mineral-filled Dead Sea water by adding a magnesium-rich salt solution to the bath water in conjunction with a special form of

Soaking in warm water can also help soften and loosen scaly skin or crusty patches so they can be removed by gently rubbing them, avoiding more abrasive techniques.

AVOID BUBBLE TROUBLE For the most part, baths are very safe. But there are some cautions you should be aware of before you settle into your tub.

Slips and falls. «Bath oils really don›t add anything to hydrating the skin. They may be pleasant, but they may also make the tub slippery, so one has to be careful about getting in or out,» says Dr. Kenneth Arndt, a dermatologist and prior medical editor of the Harvard Special Health Report Skin Care and Repair. The same is true of colloidal oatmeal or other treatments you may add to the bath water.

Skin irritation and yeast infections. Be careful when it comes to using certain soaps in your bath or adding bubbles or salts. Certain products may

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cause skin irritation or may increase the likelihood of developing a yeast infection if you don›t dry off carefully. Some soaps may also cause irritation to the genital area.

Dizziness. If your blood pressure is already low, a bath may cause it to dip further, which can make you feel dizzy or lightheaded, particularly if you quickly stand up after a long, hot bath. This could lead to a fall, so be certain to use caution, says Dr. Adolph Hutter, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School.

HEART BENEFITS Balneotherapy may also help your heart. The warmth of the water dilates your blood vessels, which lowers your blood pressure, says Dr. Adolph Hutter, professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. The water pressure around your

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body also increases the flow of blood back to your heart and increases cardiac output.

A study published in May 2020 in the journal Heart found that middle-aged people in Japan who took a daily bath in either warm or hot water had a %28 lower risk of heart and blood vessel disease than people who didn›t bathe in the tub more than twice a week. It also found that the daily bathers had a %26 lower risk of stroke than those who bathed in a tub less frequently.

It›s a good study that adds to the evidence in this area, says Dr. Hutter. But it›s important to note that this study was observational and relied on people to accurately report how often they bathed.

It›s also possible that other factors could explain the differences. For example, bathers might have had other healthy habits such as more frequent exercise or a healthier diet, factors that are known to reduce risk of heart disease.

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The Pandemic Clarified Who the Kardashians Really Are The Family of Influencers Have Lost its Capacity to Balance Relatability and Spectacle

by Spencer Kornhaber Kim Kardashian West’s original vision for her 40th birthday was to fly all of her friends to Wyoming for a “wild, wild Miss West” party, where, one presumes,

her signature taupe shapewear would complement the rocky vistas. But, as Kim said in a recent episode of Keeping Up With the Kardashians, “with COVID, I just don’t honestly feel like now is the time to celebrate anything.” Bummer—but not too big a bummer, because

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her family still organized an elaborate surprise bash at a studio in Los Angeles. Ponies, like the ones she rode for her first birthday, stood at the venue’s entrance, where attendees were made to take coronavirus tests. Sundaes were served at a mocked-up version of the diner Kim had partied at as an -8year-old. The nightclub Tao, that hot 2000s palace of Patrón and EDM, was recreated in miniature. “All my favorite people were there—all my best friends and family,” Kim told E!’s cameras after smizing her way through this pop-up museum of her life.

“And that’s really all that I needed.”

It was, however, clearly not all she needed. By now the internet is well aware that Kim also rang in her 40th year by flying dozens of people to a private tropical island. Attendees were not told where they were going, but they were told to quarantine beforehand and pack for sunny fun, as well as for three fancy dinners. In late October, when about 220,000 Americans had died from the coronavirus and 11 million were unemployed, Kim spammed social media with photos of beach banquets and boat rides. “I surprised my closest inner circle with a trip to a private island where we could pretend things were normal just for a brief moment in time,” she wrote.

“I realize that for most people, this is something that is so far out of reach right now, so in moments like these, I am humbly reminded of how privileged my life is.”

Kim Kardashian with her sisters at her 40th surprise birthday party. /Instagram

The public quickly went into rage-LOL mode. Socialmedia users paired Kardashian’s photo captions with images of cursed paradises: the Fyre Festival, a Game of Thrones wedding hall, a Midsommar ceremony, Hieronymus Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights. Other responses to Kardashian’s vacation pics simply expressed white-hot offense. One tweet with 4,300 likes: “You know what would have felt normal for me, Kim? Not having to say goodbye to my mother over FaceTime as she was dying of COVID … Rubbing in this in our faces is cruel & clueless.” Another tweet (from the rocker Peter Frampton, who has surely done some reckless partying in his time): “Are you that insensitive you don’t realise this is not what the majority of people during the worst covid spike yet want to hear? People are going to food banks not private islands.”

The kerfuffle was, as with so many Kardashian-related things, a minor mess that also seemed to point to something profound in our culture. Less than a week after Kim posted her pictures, her sister Kendall Jenner faced backlash for throwing herself a Halloweenbirthday bash with 100 people in a West Hollywood bar. In a video, you can see Kendall blow out candles on a cake held by a masked server who appears to move his head away from her outflow of droplets. Soon after that, Kourtney Kardashian endorsed a baseless theory that

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Kim clearly believed that her family’s old formula still worked and that she could find a way to balance conscientiousness and abandon, just-like-youness and not-at-all-likeyouness, with her party pictures. surgical masks—a cheap and effective means of curbing COVID19-—cause cancer. The impression had been cemented: The Kardashians were proving that a certain kind of celebrity is ill-suited for—and might even become obsolete during—the coronavirus era.

The reckoning couldn’t happen to a more fitting family at a more fitting time. When E! announced earlier this year that Keeping Up With the Kardashians’s 20th season, airing in 2021, would be the show’s last, it seemed to promise the end of an era. Ever since the reality series premiered in 2007, the Kardashians have pioneered the archetype of the influencer, their show serving as the flagship for a multimedia empire fueled by marital intrigue and skincare products. Today, the way that millions of people dress, tweet, and shop has been somehow influenced by the Kardashians’ innovations in beauty and self-promotion.

Yet the family might insist that its empire isn’t built simply on voyeurism and consumption. All along, the Kardashians have maintained a patina of relatability by broadcasting their banal sibling squabbles and romantic travails. Kim, in particular, has publicly lived out an AllAmerican, arguably feminist story of transformation: from humble stylist and ogled sex-tape object into formidable entrepreneur and effective criminal-justice activist. Other members of the Kardashian diaspora have become mascots for shifting social currents— whether the example is Caitlyn Jenner’s transition, or Kanye West’s political ungluing in the Trump era.

Unsurprisingly, the current season of Keeping Up With the Kardashians portrays the Calabasas clan as huddling from and subdued by the coronavirus pandemic. But their pandemic partying shows the truth about Kardashian culture’s sway, and its limits.

The first time the Kardashian family discusses the coronavirus on Keeping Up With the Kardashians, it’s during an early 2020 dinner at Nobu, the famous sushi

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restaurant offering 80$ truffle-lobster plates and a bottlesin-the-club vibe. Kim and her sister Kylie Jenner first negotiate who will get a lychee martini and who will get a mango martini. Kim then proposes that the family all go to Paris Fashion Week to see Kanye West’s runway show. There’s general acclamation for the idea, but Kris, the matriarch of the family, has a question: “Wait, have you guys heard about this new virus?”

Keeping Up With the Kardashian’s 19th season unfolds from there as a perfectly dopey document of the pandemic seeping into the lives of the rich and famous. Most of the Kardashians do go to Paris, but as their family friend Fajer Fahad puts it, “the vibe” is “off,” thanks to the global pandemic. At home in Calabasas, Kourtney Kardashian’s ex, Scott Disick, starts to feel fatigued and worries that the virus is to blame. After a six-hour wellness treatment and consultations with specialists, the diagnosis is that he’s just low on testosterone and should eat more pumpkin seeds. Two episodes later, Kris is disturbed to see Khloé walking around in a face mask.

“What is happening with our family?” Kris says. “We’re falling apart!” Khloé shoots back, “It’s not our family; it’s the world!”

Indeed, the show does seem somewhat committed to the idea that the Kardashians are Just Like Us when it comes to quarantine.“This is going to be tough for a lot of people,” Disick says after reading through some pandemic news coverage, causing Kim to flick her eyes to the side in an expression of either fear or distraction.

The show’s timeline eventually catches up to mid-March, when California implemented a mandatory stay-at-home order, and E!’s camera people disappear, as do any visible cooks or maids. The Kardashians are left to film their life with iPhones, and the vibe becomes tepid. They

What are these celebrities for if not to flaunt luxury and impunity? The answer—which may not be shocking but is now definitive—appears to be that they’re for nothing at all.

peer listlessly into video calls and get confused about the Zoom interface. They run low on hand sanitizer and Cheetos. They take coronavirus tests and are horrified that the results may not arrive for 10 days.

Lockdown, in a way, suits the modern Kardashian aesthetic. In the show’s early days, the family’s closets and decor flaunted the logo-encrusted, ticky-tacky trends of the late Bush era. Plotwise, the show thrived on the chaos of breakups, makeups, drinking, cheating, and fights. But by Season 19, many of the principal

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Kim Kardashian at her 40th Birthday party Instagram/

characters have settled into parenthood, the family’s fashions have trended toward maximum minimalism, and the producers seem to want to leave the hunt for juiciness and humiliation to the Real Housewives franchises. Keeping Up With the Kardashians now plays as a sparsely populated fish tank you can enjoy with one eye on your phone. The Kardashians fritter away a huge amount of time, in fact, playing harmless pranks on one another. “If we all got quarantined, we would have a lot of fun,” Kris says in the Nobu episode. Disick replies that they’re basically quarantined already.

Plenty of viewers may have also sarcastically cheered the thought of being confined to domestic hijinks in the early days of the pandemic. But any giddiness quickly turned into terror-laden tedium. So it was for Khloé, who tested positive for the coronavirus and then spent more than two weeks in her bedroom. That bedroom is enormous, and whatever her kimonos cost could probably pay for a truckload of PPE. But as she coughs in bed and talks about missing her young daughter—who’s being tended to by her ex on the other side of her bedroom door—you do feel that the show has captured part of this pandemic’s particular nastiness.

Kim’s pandemic storyline is about struggling to care for her four kids while Kanye, himself infected with the coronavirus, is quarantined. The young Wests barge in while their mom tries to film makeup tutorials, and Kim’s patience runs thin. More alarming, while Kim videochats with a group of students about her prisonreform work, her toddler Chicago bolts toward the pool, and Kim has to rush to grab him. “You guys, I’m actually going to die if you don’t leave me alone,” she says at one point. Though Kim’s brand of stardom was never about respectability, it’s still remarkable to see her risk seeming like a cruel or careless mother on camera. Of course, the satisfaction of watching the manufactured reality of the Kardashians has always been in guessing why the cast members have chosen to show you something, and in this case, the intention isn’t hard to discern. Child care has been an excruciating challenge for so many parents during stay-at-home orders. If the Kardashians want you to know that the pandemic has been hard for them, they also want you to know that they know it’s been harder for you.

That message was, incidentally, also what Kim attempted to convey when she released her island pics. She went out of her way to acknowledge her “privilege” in getting to plan a celebration that is “for most people … so far out of reach.” Yet her efforts to hedge and justify herself seemed to only enrage followers more. Yes, the partygoers took safety measures; yes, Kim has given money to pandemic relief. But on a fundamental level,

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the island voyage—which hasn’t made it onto Keeping Up With the Kardashians yet—undermined the “we’re all in this together” narrative that the family had been trying to broadcast. The episode about Kim’s surprise party was predicated on the idea that it wouldn’t be, as she put it, “right” for her to throw the getaway celebration of her dreams during a global health crisis. What changed?

That Kim couldn’t resist this vacation, and certainly couldn’t resist posting about it, suggests how well she understands what her family’s appeal has been all along.

That appeal is not really in the things the E! series has often stressed: the interpersonal dynamics, the individual personalities, the dusting of social awareness, the cute kids. On TV, the pandemic turns the Kardashians into bored normies, and the resulting ratings are as low as they’ve ever been. What’s more engaging—if enraging— to the general population is the news, via Kim’s party pics, that this family can, in fact, buy its way out of the pandemic. The allure of the celeb-glam circuit has always been the otherworldly and outrageous: the unrelatable, not the relatable.

The critical theorist Guy Debord once argued that spectacle can be defined as “capital to such a degree of accumulation that it becomes an image.” Kim herself, my colleague Megan Garber has written, has “a dolllike quality,” with “the airbrushed cheeks and the synthetic lashes and the lips glossed in paradoxical shades of Nude.” She is a living spectacle, a person made superhuman by money. Spectacle is a break from the norm; it often implies a reprieve from laws of nature and society. It’s fitting that on the private island, Kanye showed a holographic rendition of Kim’s father, Robert Kardashian, who died in 2003. On Instagram, you now can watch this figure tell his daughter how proud he is of her while wearing a mostly neutral expression. Kim says she was deeply moved by the display. From the outside, though, it is a trophy of money’s strange powers.

Popular culture has always rewarded Kardashian-style spectacle, perhaps because that spectacle has been leavened with the striving, bickering banality showcased on reality TV. Kim clearly believed that her family’s old formula still worked and that she could find a way to balance conscientiousness and abandon, just-like-youness and not-at-all-like-youness, with her party pictures. But the ensuing scorn shows that her calculation was off: The pandemic has been so deeply and universally disruptive that flaunting one’s escape from it triggers more disgust than fascination. This leaves the Kardashian class stranded for now.cWhat are these celebrities for if not to flaunt luxury and impunity? The answer—which may not be shocking but is now definitive—appears to be that they’re for nothing at all.

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Egyptian Actor Mohammed Ramadan Faces Court Case Over Photos with Israelis Majalla – London Mohamed Ramadan, widely popular Egyptian actor and rapper, boasting millions of followers on social media, came under fire over the weekend after posing for a photograph with two Israeli celebrities at a party in Dubai. The 32-year-old, who is a close friend of Morocco’s King Mohammed VI and won the 2019 All Africa Music Awards prize, Now faces a court hearing in Egypt next month.

An Emirati journalist Hamad Al Mazrouei tweeted a photo of the star embracing Israeli singer Omer Adam during a trip to the United Arab Emirates.

He captioned the shot: “The most famous artist in Egypt with the most famous artist in Israel, Dubai brings us together.” However, he later deleted the picture as outrage grew. But before he could take it down, the official Arabic Facebook and Twitter pages of the State of Israel shared a photo of Ramadan with Adam at the rooftop bar in Dubai.

The image was credited to the Emirati journalist and captioned: “Art always brings us together.”

also shared a video of him posing with a Palestinian man at what appeared to be the same venue in Dubai, in which he said he had extended “my greetings to the brotherly Palestinian people”.

Ramadan’s defence of his actions did not stop Egyptian lawyer Tareq Mahmoud filing a lawsuit accusing Mohamed Ramadan of “insulting the Egyptian people” with the images, which were condemned by many Arabs online after Israel’s government shared them.

The Union of Artistic Syndicates also said on Facebook that it was suspending Ramadan’s membership until he was questioned “at the latest in the first week of December”. Under the suspension, Ramadan is banned from acting and singing until the probe is complete.

In response, Ramadan said he “respected” the union’s decision, stressing that if he had known Omer Adam was Israeli he “would have rejected taking a picture with him”.

A soap opera featuring Ramadan was also reportedly cancelled.

Another post featured a photo of Ramadan with Israeli footballer Diaa Saba and a short video clip also circulated online appearing to show people dancing to the Jewish folk song Hava Nagila at the party attended by Ramadan.

The photos also sparked outrage on social media, with many accusing him of “betraying” the Palestinians. The hashtag “Mohamed Ramadan is a Zionist” trended on Twitter.

The actor insisted he had not known the celebrities’ nationalities. “I don’t ask which country the person who wants to take a photo with me comes from unless they say themselves,” he wrote. He

Egyptian journalist and MP Mustafa Bakry tweeted: “Mohamed Ramadan, the Upper Egyptian artist, is hugging a Zionist singer and [thereby] losing his genuine Arab audience. What a loss.”

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Addressing Ramadan, he added: “Did you not know that there is an Arab population that was displaced from their lands and that their lands were occupied and their sanctities desecrated.”

Ahmed Moussa, a well-known TV presenter slammed Ramadan’s action as “a full-fledged crime.” He called for the union to take “deterrence measures” to stop further interactions with Israelis.

Palestinian representative to the Arab League, Mohannad Aklouk, who had previously urged people on Instagram to start a hashtag against normalisation with Israel, expressed satisfaction at Ramadan’s suspension from the union.

Outrage over Ramadan’s photograph with Israeli personalities came after three Arab countries - the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Sudan - signed US-sponsored normalisation deals with Israel in recent months.

Last month, Israel’s official Twitter account caused another controversy when it reported that Adam - the singer with whom Ramadan was photographed - had received a personal invitation from the royal family of the United Arab Emirates and visited a synagogue in Dubai during celebrations for the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah. In a video clip posted on the Twitter account at the time, the Israeli singer performed religious rituals in Hebrew at the Jewish temple in Dubai.

Egypt itself became the first Arab country to make

peace with Israel in 1979, and the two governments work closely together on security issues.

Egypt and Israel closely coordinate on security issues, particularly those having to do with the Sinai Peninsula, a mostly desert area that borders Israel

and whose northern part is torn by a years-long insurgency waged by Islamic militants. But most Egyptians associate Israel with the four wars the countries fought against each other from 1948 to 1973 and are still deeply opposed to what they call

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“popular normalisation� with Israel.

The UAE agreed earlier this year to establish full diplomatic ties with Israel, followed shortly after

by Bahrain and Sudan in US-brokered normalisation deals known as the Abraham Accords.