Nasrallah Concludes 2020 by Eliminating Lebanon

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Issue 1833, Friday, Ja nua r y1, 2020

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Nasrallah Concludes 2020

by Eliminating Lebanon Abiy Ahmed’s Crisis of Legitimacy

Hoarding Vaccines Will Prolong the Pandemic

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The Virus Is Showing Black People What They Knew All Along

Editorial

A Weekly Political News Magazine

www.majalla.com/eng During his recent Al-Mayadeen TV interview, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah spoke for four hours in an attempt to address questions and concerns by the Lebanese people and Hezbollah’s constituency. However, instead of reassuring the listeners, he raised additional concerns and insinuated that Hezbollah’s’ main priorities are regional, not Lebanese, and that the Lebanese people will have to accept the fact that Lebanon is an Iranian territory that will be used to implement the Iranian regime’s regional agenda. In this week’s cover story, Hanin Ghaddar writes that Hezbollah ended 2020 by eliminating Lebanon’s independence and sovereignty, by alienating its people, and by isolating it. She asks: How long can Hezbollah maintain this isolation and takeover of Lebanon?

For the second time in two decades, an international crisis looms over access to medicines. A small number of wealthy nations, including the United States, have spent billions of dollars locking up early supplies of the most promising novel coronavirus vaccines. By one recent estimate, nations representing just one-seventh of the world’s population have already reserved more than half of all the promising vaccine supplies. According to leaked internal documents, funding and supply concerns have placed COVAX, the global initiative to share coronavirus vaccines, at “very high” risk of failure. Thomas J. Bollyky and Chad P. Bown write that only international cooperation on the basis of shared interests can mobilize the global manufacturing, trade, and delivery response that will end this public health crisis and help build a more resilient system for the future.

In early November, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed began a military offensive against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, an estranged regional government that once dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition. Abiy’s forces swiftly captured major cities in Tigray, inflicting heavy causalities on the TPLF and sparking fears of a wider conflict that could extend well beyond the country’s borders. Now, Abiy insists that the war in Tigray is over. He claims that his forces won a decisive victory over the TPLF and that reports of a continuing insurgency are false. Nic Cheeseman writes that beyond Tigray, the war has accelerated what was already a creeping crisis of legitimacy for Abiy.

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Editor-in-Chief

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A Weekly Political News Magazine

28 Biden’s Latin American

Opportunity

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Cities Are Transforming U.S. Foreign Policy

Understanding Intimate Partner Violence 3

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The Virus Is Showing Black People What They Knew All Along

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Abiy Ahmed’s Crisis of Legitimacy

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Hoarding Vaccines Will Prolong the Pandemic

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Vaccine 19 -Should the COVID ?Figure into the Future of Flying

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A young woman poses at the 2021 sign in downtown Chisinau, Moldova, 24 December 2020. Traditionally, people from former countries of the Soviet Union, still celebrate Christmas on two occasions, on 25 December and 07 January. /EPA

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CVS and Life Care Center personnel pose for a group photo as COVID-19 vaccinations begin at Life Care Center of Kirkland, a long-term seniors care facility which was the focus of attention at the start of the U.S. coronavirus disease outbreaks in March 2020, in Kirkland, Washington, U.S. December 28, 2020. /REUTERS

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ease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) warning there could be 82,000 more deaths in the next 24 days. It’s the ninth day this month that deaths have exceeded 3,000 the first being on December 9 - with the country’s total currently at 341,505, according to The COVID Tracking Project.

By comparison, 2,977 people died in the September 11, 2001, New York City terror attack. California recorded record high fatalities with a daily count of 432, as Los Angeles County reached 10,056 overall deaths and more than 7,400 residents remain in hospital - 20 percent of whom are in ITU, according to officials.

World Takes in Muted New Year’s Eve Under Covid Shadow

helped develop vaccines in record time, and following Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna, the candidate developed by Oxford Millions of people around the world are ex- and drug firm AstraZeneca has become the periencing a New Year’s Eve like no other third to win approval in the western world.

– with lockdowns, restrictions and curfews in place in dozens of countries in an at- US Hits New Record for Deadliest tempt to stem the spread of Covid-19 be- Day Again After 3,903 Coronavirus fore vaccination drives start to take effect.

Death in 24 Hours New Year’s Eve marks one year since the World Health Organization first mentioned The US has hit another new deadliest day a mysterious pneumonia in China later record, as yesterday saw 3,903 added to identified as Covid-19, which went on in the country’s coronavirus death toll. Daily 2020 to kill more than 1.79 million people hospital admissions stood at an equally and devastate the global economy in unalarming 125,220 with the Centers for Disprecedented ways. But international efforts

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Dozens Killed in ISIS Bus Attack in Syria At least 37 people in Syria have been killed in one of the biggest attacks carried out by ISIS since the fall of the self-proclaimed caliphate last year. The assault on Wednesday reportedly targeted a convoy of Syrian regime soldiers and militiamen returning from leave to their posts in Deir ez-Zor province, a mainly desert area on the border with Iraq. The official state news agency, Sana, reported that a terrorist attack on a bus on the main highway killed 25 civilians and wounded 13. Other sources, including local residents, a military defector and the UK-based monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), put the toll higher and claimed soldiers were onboard. One source told Reuters that the men were from Bashar al-Assad’s elite Fourth Brigade.

Twenty-two Killed in Attack on Aden Airport After New Yemen Cabinet Lands At least 22 people were killed and dozens wounded in an attack on Aden airport on Wednesday, moments after a plane landed carrying a newly formed Saudi-backed cabinet for government-held parts of Yemen. Prime Minister Maeen Abdulmalik said all members of the cabinet were “fine”. But the attack underlined the difficulties facing a government intended by Saudi Arabia to unite two of its allies in the war against the Iran-aligned Houthi movement. Hours after the attack, a second explosion was heard around Aden’s Maasheq presidential palace where the cabinet members including Maeen, as well as the Saudi ambassador to Yemen, Mohammad Said al-Jaber, had been taken to safety, residents and local media said. In the airport attack, loud

The daily increase in infections is a new record, and considerably higher than Monday’s 41,385 lab-confirmed cases – the previous record since the start of the pandemic, when testing was not as comprehensive. The number of Covid-19 patients in hospital in London is now higher than levels recorded at the peak of the first wave of the virus. A total of 5,371 hospital patients were confirmed as having Covid-19 as of 8am on 29 December, according to the latest figures from NHS England. During the first wave, the number of patients in blasts and gunfire were heard shortly after London peaked at 5,201 on 9 April. the plane arrived from Riyadh, witnesses said. A local security source said three mortar shells had landed on the airport’s hall.

UK Records its Highest Number of New Covid Infections, with 53,135 Cases The UK has recorded a dramatic jump to more than 53,000 Covid-19 cases – its biggest ever daily case count, one day after it crossed 40,000 cases for the first time.

Cases have been on the rise as the fastspreading variant of the coronavirus makes its presence felt. The UK recorded 53,135 new daily infections, as well as 414 deaths.

While the high numbers may be in part due to a lag in the data that was not reported in full over the Christmas period, Public Health England said the figures were “largely a reflection of a real increase”.

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South Africa Hits 1 Million Coronavirus Cases as New Variant Spreads Rapidly South Africa’s Covid-19 surge has taken the country to more than 1 million confirmed cases as president Cyril Ramaphosa called an emergency meeting of the national coronavirus command council.

The country’s new variant of the coronavirus, 501.V2, is more contagious and has quickly become dominant in many areas of the resurgence, according to experts. The warning came as South Korea became the latest country to detect cases of the Covid variant that is believed to have originated in the UK. With South Africa’s hospitals reaching capacity and no sign of the new surge reaching a peak, Ramaphosa is expected to announce a return to restrictive measures designed to slow the spread of the disease.

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Nasrallah Concludes 2020

by Eliminating Lebanon The Question is How Long Can Hezbollah Maintain This Isolation and Takeover of Lebanon?

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Heraised additional concerns and insinuated that Hezbollah’s’ main priorities are regional, not Lebanese, and that the Lebanese people will have to accept the fact that Lebanon is an Iranian territory that will be used to implement the Iranian regime’s regional agenda.

Nasrallah tried to hide the truth about Hezbollah’s main challenges and weaknesses. For example, he said that group has now doubled the number of precision-guided missiles since last year, and that Israel has failed to stop Hezbollah from acquiring them. But he failed to mention anything about the accuracy of these missiles. The thing about the precision missiles – supposedly to be used to hit specific targets in Israel – is that they need to have a range of at least ten meters.

Lebanese men watch the head of the country›s Shiite Muslim movement Hezbollah Hassan Nasrallah during a televised speech, at a coffee shop in the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut, on August 2020 ,30, on the tenth day of the month of Muharram which marks the peak of Ashura.

(Getty)

by Hanin Ghaddar During his recent Al-Mayadeen TV interview, Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah spoke for four hours in an attempt to address questions and concerns by the Lebanese people and Hezbollah’s constituency. However, instead of reassuring the listeners, he raised additional concerns and insinuated that Hezbollah’s’ main priorities are regional, not Lebanese, and that the Lebanese people will have to accept the fact that Lebanon is an Iranian territory that will be used to implement the Iranian regime’s regional agenda.

FLEXING FALSE MUSCLES

While flexing Hezbollah’s strengths and powers,

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According to a BICOM study, Precision missiles are defined as those possessing low Circular Error probability (CEP). CEP is defined as the radius of a circle whose boundary is expected to include the landing points of 50 per cent of missiles fired.

For example, if a given missile has a CEP of 10m – a range Iran has aimed for but has not achieved – half of those fired will fall within 10m of the intended target. The lower the CEP, the fewer the missiles required to destroy a target.

Many experts believe that the 10m CEP has not been achieved by Iran and Hezbollah; therefore, producing more of these missiles – without a precision capabilities – means nothing. And Hassan Nasrallah knows that, but he cannot admit failure on TV, so instead, he preferred to disguise the truth, hoping Hezbollah’s constituency would stop doubting the group’s strength. He also failed to mention that Israel have been accurately destroying Iran’s precision missiles facilities across the region _Syria, Iraq and Lebanon – for

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many years, and have successfully weakened this specific capability.

On a different topic, Nasrallah repeated the group’s promises to avenge the US killing of Qassem Soleimani, former commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), who was killed a year ago in Iraq in a drone attack. “That revenge is coming no matter how long it takes,” he told Al-Mayadeen TV, sitting with a picture of Soleimani to his left.

This was also attempted to reassure Hezbollah’s supporters, who have been questioning Iran’s capabilities and willingness to avenge someone significant such as Soleimani. Not only Iran failed to retaliate properly, all Israeli attacks against its facilities in the region have been ignored.

Hezbollah’s old ways of valor and force seem to have disappeared.

LEBANON IS A DETAIL During the four hour interview, Lebanon seemed small, and trapped between all the regional politics of Iran. Nasrallah spoke as the real ruler of Lebanon, and the one leader that connected and facilitated the coordination of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the rest of Iran’s Shia militias in Syria, Iraq and Yemen. Despite all the recent failures of Iran and Hezbollah in the region, he still pretended that victory is coming and that all the challenges Lebanon and the rest of countries Iran controls today are going through, are just temporary ones, and are not in any way linked to Iran’s policies and wars. Nasrallah – in the midst of that – positioned Lebanon in the midst of Iran’s

Nasrallah talked – for four hours, but this time around, the Lebanese people didn’t listen.

wars, and indirectly asked the Lebanese people to suffer and starve in order to protect Iran’s agenda in the region.

It is fascinating how ignorant Nasrallah is when it comes to the Lebanese people’s and his own constituency’s real concerns and pains. The gap between him and his own people has become too big for Hezbollah’s missiles and bravado to fill. He sounded like the emperor who lives in his high castle, having a feast, while his people are starving. And the worst part is that he did not seem aware of the suffering of the people outside the walls of his castle.

His priorities and Iran’s agenda are no longer the priorities of the Lebanese – including Hezbollah’s constituency and the Shia community. When “the resistance” and Iran’s regional victories mean that parents cannot provide for their children that sick people can no longer access essential medication, and that children can no longer receive proper education, Nasrallah’s words will fall on deaf ears. His attempts to highlight Hezbollah’s

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A model of a Katyusha rocket launcher erected

by Hezbollah militants is seen in the southern Lebanese village of Qalawayeh 06 July 2007. (Getty)

give an affirmative answer, saying that they – meaning Hezbollah’s leadership – are still thinking about it. The only affirmative “no” was to the American-made vaccine. Nasrallah said he will not take it because it is American, while his fighters and employees are all using Americanmade technology, medication and products.

The sad part is that many of his supporters will believe him and refuse to take the vaccine as well.

Playing with people’s lives – for Nasrallah – is permissible, and if they get the COVID virus and die, Nasrallah wouldn’t actually mind, as long as his propaganda machine continues to spread across the country.

In his end-of-the-year interview, Nasrallah asserted Hezbollah’s control over Lebanon, its decisions, economy, and security. As the region is moving ahead with peace initiatives and opening up to the world, Hezbollah closed off Lebanon and moved it to Iran’s axis of wars and confrontations.

military capabilities and alternative economy can only raise serious fears, not hopes.

The Lebanese people do not want alternative economies. They do not want Chinese, Iranian and Syrian products. They want back into the international markets. They want to be able to travel and work and learn. They do not be isolated.

And Hezbollah cannot provide all that.

Nasrallah cannot govern, and Lebanon’s economic and financial crisis are becoming too complicated to handle. Resolving the crises means that he will have to agree to fight corruption, implement reforms, and cease Hezbollah’s involvement in regional wars and internal conflicts. Nasrallah couldn’t do that, so instead he resorted to the old resistance rhetoric and bravado narrative. This is the only language he can speak and understand, but the Lebanese people prefer a different language, one that the world can comprehend and not feel threatened by.

And to make things worse, when asked about taking the COVID vaccine, Nasrallah did not

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Hezbollah ended 2020 by eliminating Lebanon’s independence and sovereignty, by alienating its people, and by isolating it. The question is how long can Hezbollah maintain this isolation and takeover of Lebanon?

Nasrallah sounded confident, but the reality is not very reassuring. Hezbollah has lost much of its own funds, due to the US sanctions on Iran.

Hezbollah has lost access to state resources due to the financial crisis hitting Lebanon.

Hezbollah is losing its allies, who have been sanctioned by the US Treasury or bashed by the Lebanese protests. Hezbollah is losing the Lebanese street and the support of the Arab world. Hezbollah is losing the resistance rhetoric as it hesitates to retaliate against Israeli attacks and assassination of its main leaders.

And eventually, Hezbollah is losing its own constituency – the Shia community – who no will longer want to sacrifice anything to protect Iran’s interests in the region, especially when these interests cannot put food on the table.

Nasrallah talked – for four hours, but this time around, the Lebanese people didn’t listen.

Hanin Ghaddar is the Friedmann Fellow at The Washington Institute’s Geduld Program on Arab Politics, where she focuses on Shia politics throughout the Levant.

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The Virus Is Showing Black People What They Knew All Along As the Death Toll Crept Up and Up, the Brutality of American Racism Became Even Clearer 14

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by Patrice Peck All skinfolk ain’t kinfolk, but as Black people in America, we still feel a connection with one another. A reciprocated smile as we pass one another on the street; a spontaneous, but still synchronized, “Swag Surfin’” dip at the club; a “Cupid Shuffle” kick at the cookout. Small moments like these reinforce the bond I feel with other Black people. But these days, as I quarantine at home, the Black faces sparking that sense of familiarity are not nodding in solidarity or swaying in unison. They stare back, frozen in photographs accompanying obituaries that announce yet another Black life lost to the coronavirus. I do not know these people. I am not even one of the 31 percent of Black people in America who personally knows someone who has died of COVID-19. But in these faces I see my loved ones. I see myself.

I thought of these obituaries last week, when the United States passed yet another grim pandemic milestone.

More than 50,000 Black Americans are now dead from COVID-19, according to data from the COVID Racial Data Tracker, a collaboration between the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic and the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research. (And even that number is likely an undercount: We don’t know the race or ethnicity of roughly 20,000 of the 319,000 Americans whose lives have been claimed by COVID-19.)

Everyone in the U.S. is at the mercy of the coronavirus; it doesn’t discriminate by race or class or gender or age.

And yet, from the very beginning of the pandemic, the virus has exposed and targeted all of the disparities that come along with being Black in America. We are dying at 1.7 times the rate of white people from this virus, which means that the toll of these disparities has never been easier to quantify: 19,000 Black people would still be alive if not for systemic racism.

Krystal Tru Edwards, a member of Black Women’s Lives Matter, hugs Ayanna Warfield after speaking during a protest and march organized by Beyond New Perspectives, which marched from City Hall Plaza to Boston Common on June ,13 2020. (Getty)

For centuries, Black people have spoken about the struggles we face, pointing to root causes like poverty, housing segregation, unemployment, and environmental degradation. And for centuries, those concerns have largely gone ignored. The same thing has happened with the pandemic.

Long before any data confirmed our worst fears, Black people knew that the coronavirus would disproportionately devastate our already vulnerable communities. Driven by that foresight, I launched a newsletter, Coronavirus News for Black Folks, in early April. As the death toll crept up and up, the brutality of American racism became even clearer. Black people with clear symptoms of COVID-19 were turned awayfrom receiving tests, sometimes on multiple occasions, only to die at home. Black families were entirely destroyed as members died within weeks and days of one another. By the end of July, twice

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Long before any data confirmed our worst fears, Black people knew that the coronavirus would disproportionately devastate our already vulnerable communities. as many Black children as white children had died of COVID-19: In Michigan, the first child to die from the virus was a 5-year-old Black girl who spent two weeks on a ventilator.

While a large swath of Americans, myself included, are able to safely stay at home, Black people are disproportionately essential workers, who have no choice but to brave the pandemic and head to work. Many have lost their lives working jobs they felt were unsafe and underpaid. “Our white executive director has not been in the office for the past six weeks, has not asked how any of us are holding up, and has not emailed us to say thank you,” a 20-something security guard told me in April. “I feel betrayed. I used to love my position and the people I work with. Now I’m resentful of the protection some people are afforded while others, like myself, are sent out to the front lines.” (The security guard was granted anonymity for fear of professional reprisal.)

As if the havoc wreaked by the virus weren’t already bad enough, the racial disparities will persist as the U.S. works its way out of the pandemic. Just as one in three Black people knows someone directly who has died from COVID-19, one in three Black people has said they will not get the vaccine, according to a recent Kaiser Family Foundation study. Clinical trials have shown that the vaccine is safe and effective, but a long-standing mistrust in America’s predominantly white medical institutions is only deepening, and so the number of Black lives lost to this virus will continue to rise, even though we now have a way to end it.

Thankfully, moments of Black kinship still emerge even during all the suffering. The same week that marked more than 50,000 Black deaths saw a horizon of hope. Sandra Lindsay, a Jamaican-born nurse in Queens, New York, became the first person to be vaccinated in the United States, after receiving the shot from Michelle Chester, also a Black woman. Even a pandemic can’t break the resilient bond of Black America.

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Abiy Ahmed’s Crisis of Legitimacy War and Ethnic Discrimination Could Be the Ethiopian Prime Minister’s Undoing

by Nic Cheeseman In early November, Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed began a military offensive against the Tigrayan People’s Liberation Front, an estranged regional government that once dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition. Abiy’s forces swiftly captured major cities in Tigray, inflicting heavy

causalities on the TPLF and sparking fears of a wider conflict that could extend well beyond the country’s borders.

Now, Abiy insists that the war in Tigray is over. He claims that his forces won a decisive victory over the TPLF and that reports of a continuing insurgency are false. The prime

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minister has even resumed his normal calendar of official events, traveling to northern Kenya earlier this month to open a new border post with Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta—and no doubt to reinforce the impression that Ethiopia has returned to business as usual.

The reality in Tigray is very different. Ethiopian forces now hold much of the region, but they do not enjoy total control, and many TPLF leaders and fighters remain at large. One of the reasons that Ethiopian forces were able to capture the regional capital of Mekelle so quickly was that the TPLF had already pulled many of its fighters back and dispersed them across the region’s rural areas and mountainous hinterlands. The TPLF came to power in 1991 by using guerilla tactics against the Derg regime of Mengistu Haile Mariam. Now, it has reverted to those practices and appears to have launched a series of smallscale attacks against Ethiopian forces, although it is impossible to know how frequent or effective these attacks have been because Addis Ababa has imposed a news blackout on the region.

Ethiopia›s Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed attends a welcome ceremony for his twoday state visit at State House in Entebbe on June 2018 ,8. (Getty)

Another sustained and bloody insurgency is impossible to rule out. A Tigrayan uprising could also prove contagious, invigorating or even fusing with rebellions in other parts of the country. And even if Ethiopian forces eventually succeed in eliminating the TPLF, deep popular resentment at the prime minister’s perceived aggression will continue to fester, giving rise to a new generation of anti-Abiy leaders who will do everything in their power to resist Addis Ababa.

Beyond Tigray, the war has accelerated what was already a creeping crisis of legitimacy for Abiy. Less than three years after embarking on democratic reforms and one year after accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the Ethiopian prime minister finds himself on a war footing and governing more through coercion than through compromise. With no unifying narrative to legitimize his authority and with international support wavering, Abiy may find the fallout from the Tigrayan war much harder to manage than the war itself.

AN UPHILL BATTLE Abiy was quick to claim that the people of Tigray celebrated their “liberation” by Ethiopian troops. In fact, the military offensive humiliated the TPLF and in doing so, stoked Tigrayan nationalism. For 28 years before Abiy came to power, the TPLF had dominated Ethiopia’s ruling coalition, known as the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front(EPRDF), while fiercely defending Tigrayan autonomy. Abiy’s selection as prime minister in 2018 broke the TPLF’s hold on power and stripped

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When the dust begins to settle, increasing pressure on the international community to rethink its support for Abiy and to open an independent investigation into whether his forces have committed crimes against humanity. away many of its privileges. As a result, Abiy’s attempts to subdue Tigray militarily and to bring its government under his control have engendered deep antipathy toward the central government.

Abiy’s regime made matters worse with a campaign of systematic discrimination. While its forces were storming Tigray, Addis Ababa set about removing Tigrayan officials from embassies, from the African Union peacekeeping mission in Somalia, and even from the national airline.

According to Human Rights Watch, Tigrayans living outside of Tigray are increasingly being harassed, including through arbitrary raids on their homes by the security forces.

Even Ethiopia’s own Human Rights Commission has said that it is “gravely concerned” about the ethnic profiling of Tigrayans, “manifested in forced leave from work and in stopping people from traveling overseas including on work missions, for medical treatment or studies.”

The perception that Addis Ababa is punishing Tigrayans around the country will no doubt fuel the insurgency. But the TPLF faces an uphill battle against the Ethiopian state.

TPLF fighters became experts at guerilla warfare during the conflict that toppled the Derg, but Abiy’s government is a much stronger opponent—and the international environment is much less favorable to Tigray than it was in the 1980s. Back then, the TPLF had the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front as an ally. Now, Eritrea is an independent country that sees the TPLF as an enemy. Tigrayan leaders also find themselves sandwiched between Eritrea and Sudan, with no easy access to an international border through which to secure access to weapons and supplies.

These constraints do not mean the TPLF’s efforts are doomed, but they do mean that an insurrection is likely to be low grade and prolonged—and that its effectiveness will partly depend on the TPLF’s ability to form alliances with other insurgent groups in order to stretch thin the Ethiopian army. And Tigrayan resistance is likely to extend beyond the battlefield. Regardless of whether the TPLF can sustain

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a potent insurgency, Abiy’s military campaign and his regime’s discrimination against Tigrayans will solidify political resistance to federal government control in Tigray for at least a generation. In the absence of consent, Addis Ababa will have to rule through repression.

REPRESSION OR REFORM The Ethiopian government’s discrimination against Tigrayans and its efforts to centralize power threaten Abiy’s legitimacy throughout the country. The EPRDF professed to respect the autonomy of each of Ethiopia’s major ethnic groups, going so far as to enshrine the groups’ rights to self-determination in the constitution. The EPRDF often failed to live up to that promise, as protests in Oromia and elsewhere demonstrated in recent years. But along with impressive state-led development, the principle of ethnic federalism gave the government a powerful narrative to sell both at home and abroad.

Abiy disbanded the EPRDF in favor of a new political vehicle, the Prosperity Party, whose first act was to suppress a region demanding greater autonomy. The prime minister sought to bolster support for that offensive by holding mass rallies that played on popular anger at the TPLF’s years of ascendancy in the EPRDF. At times, the TPLF has inadvertently aided Abiy’s campaign of vilification, most notably when it fired rockets into the nearby Amhara region. But Abiy’s government also worked assiduously to stoke anti-Tigrayan sentiment in order to justify its military incursion into the northern region.

Those tactics will complicate any effort the prime minister makes to resurrect the legitimizing principle of ethnic self-determination. Abiy could still attempt to revive his reform agenda and hold democratic elections that have been much delayed due to the pandemic—and perhaps due to Abiy’s concern that they might return unfavorable

Ethiopian forces now hold much of the region, but they do not enjoy total control, and many TPLF leaders and fighters remain at large.

results. Western donors and some of Ethiopia’s ethnic groups would welcome such a move. But Abiy will have a hard time credibly reclaiming a narrative of democratic reform given that his military assault on the TPLF came just months after his security forces were accused of committing widespread human rights abuses during security operations in the Amhara and Oromia regions.

Moreover, continued reform—and the reduction in central government control that would entail—would leave Abiy vulnerable to additional challenges from rebel groups and opposition parties.

Abiy could therefore choose instead to reassert the dominance of the central state and expand the security forces to stamp out resistance. He would be able to draw on his anti-TPLF narrative to legitimize such an approach— this time arguing that no group should ever be allowed to act as if it is more important than the collective and labeling those that do so terrorists. Many of Abiy’s critics believe that deep down, he wishes to centralize power but knows that doing so would explode the bargain that has held the country together for the last three decades, triggering new insurrections and exacerbating existing conflicts.

Even outside Tigray, it is already clear that Abiy has failed to establish effective control over Ethiopia’s vast territory.

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Amhara militia men, that combat alongside federal and regional forces against northern region of Tigray, receive training in the outskirts of the village of Addis Zemen, north of Bahir Dar, Ethiopia, on November 2020 ,10.

(Getty)

to mediate a cease-fire between the TPLF and the Ethiopian government. And in what appears to be a bid to gain additional leverage, Sudanese troops have reportedly moved into the Al Fashaga Triangle, a disputed territory between Sudan and Ethiopia.

Continued Ethiopian military action in Tigray (and tolerance for Eritrean interference there) would also complicate relations with Western donors who have invested around 5$ billion in Ethiopia since 2018.

Although the United States and European countries have historically overlooked Ethiopia’s human rights violations because of its developmental success and its support for U.S. counterterrorism efforts in the region, the high-profile nature of the Tigray conflict has given some donors pause.

The European Union recently decided to delay releasing budgetary aid to Addis Ababa—in part because of mounting frustration over Abiy’s refusal to allow aid agencies to respond effectively to the growing humanitarian crisis in Tigray. The current U.S. administration remains staunchly behind Abiy, but the next one may be more circumspect, since President-elect Joe Biden has pledged to place greater emphasis on human rights and could be more concerned with Eritrea’s role in the conflict.

Despite hailing from the Oromia region, the prime minister has failed to quell the unrest there or in the regions of Western Wolega and Benishangul-Gumuz. Along with the continued fighting in Tigray, long-running rebellions and regular clashes between rival ethnic groups in these regions offer an important reminder of the difficulty of maintaining political stability in Ethiopia—and of the fact that every government that has sought to maintain power through force alone has eventually been overthrown.

ROCK AND A HARD PLACE Whatever Abiy chooses to do, he will come under additional pressure from beyond Ethiopia’s borders.

Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki provided military support for Abiy’s offensive in Tigray and expects to be rewarded. Afwerki harbors deep personal hostility toward TPLF leaders and will likely seek to dissuade Abiy from pursuing a negotiated settlement with them.

But if Abiy decides to keep Afwerki happy by continuing to keep his foot on the throat of the Tigray region, hounding the TPLF militarily and preventing aid from reaching those in need, the exodus of refugees into neighboring Sudan will exacerbate tensions with that country. Already, Sudanese Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok has attempted

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Ethiopia is too strategically important for Western nations to consider completely cutting off aid. But even a modest reduction in international assistance would be a significant blow in the context of the pandemic and the attendant economic downturn. For all the country’s vaunted progress over the last two decades, Ethiopia remains heavily dependent on aid, with overseas development assistance covering more than half the central government’s expenditures.

To date, the government news blackout has prevented a full picture of the events in Tigray from reaching the outside world. Those reports that have trickled out, from journalists who have interviewed refugees and corroborated their stories, indicate that both sides have committed widespread human rights violations. When the dust begins to settle, the trickle of bad news is likely to become a flood, increasing pressure on the international community to rethink its support for Abiy and to open an independent investigation into whether his forces have committed crimes against humanity. Should such an investigation lead to significant reductions in foreign aid, private investors could begin to scale back their involvement in Ethiopia as well. That loss, in turn, would deepen Abiy’s crisis of legitimacy, potentially threatening his grip on power regardless of whether he responds with repression or reform.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Indonesia’s Nonalignment Problem Neutrality Won’t Protect Jakarta From Beijing’s Aggression

by Nithin Coca Indonesia is the world’s fourth most populous country and its seventh-largest economy. Yet the Southeast Asian country has historically played an undersized role in global affairs. Its traditional policy of neutrality in international relations has made it a bit player in Asiaand rendered it mostly invisible in international forums such as the United Nations. But China’s ascent, and its escalating incursions into waters that Indonesia claims, has inflamed anti-China sentiment in the archipelago and called into question the wisdom of nonalignment. Now, after decades of punching below its weight, Jakarta may be about to assert itself on the international stage.

In recent years, Indonesian leaders have sought to chart a middle path toward China, at once pandering to popular distrust of China while seeking Chinese investment. But that balancing act has done little to dissuade Beijing from harassing Indonesia as it does its other Southeast Asian and Pacific neighbors. President Joko Widodo, also known as Jokowi, largely eschews opportunities to speak on the international stage. His ambiguous messaging on China is becoming increasingly unsustainable as the regional security landscape changes.

Other regional powers have already begun to mobilize as a counterweight to Beijing. Australia, India, and Japan—all

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large democracies—have tightened their cooperation with the United States in the Indo-Pacific under the rubric of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad. The Quad aims to check China’s growing assertiveness in the South China Seaand, more broadly, to prevent China from attaining a hegemonic position in the region. To date, Indonesia has remained a bystander in this competition, strengthening China’s position. To begin to counter Chinese encroachment on its borders—and act its size—Indonesia should consider cooperating more closely with the Quad.

THE RISING HEGEMON Indonesia’s traditional policy of nonalignment was initially a form of assertiveness on the international stage. The post-independence years under President Sukarno saw the country take a leading role in the nonaligned movement, hosting the Asia-Africa conference in 1955 that sought to create an alternative bloc to those aligned with the Soviet Union and with the United States. That internationalist posture changed in 1965; a CIA-supported coup overthrew Sukarno and brought the country within the anti-Soviet, U.S. bloc. The coup unleashed waves of violence against leftists and ethnic Chinese people and led to the severing of relations with China for a quarter century.

Indonesias President Joko Widodo after delivers his state of the nation address ahead of the countrys Independence Day at the Parliament building in Jakarta, Indonesia on August 16, 2019. /Getty

The two countries reestablished diplomatic ties in 1990, choosing to put aside past grievances in the interest of economic convenience. Their trade and investment ties have grown immensely since then. China is now Indonesia’s largest trading partner, and Beijinghas made several commitments to Indonesia as part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s vast infrastructure investment program. But tensions have overshadowed that cooperation, most notably in what Indonesia calls the Natuna Sea, at the southern end of the South China Sea. China’s aggressive maritime claims overlap with Indonesia’s exclusive economic zone in those waters, causing friction and confrontation. China has repeatedly intruded into waters Indonesia claims, bullying fishermen and prompting outrage in Jakarta.

Recent events have also damaged China’s reputation in Indonesia. The mistreatment of Indonesian migrant workers on Chinese boats has won widespread attention since May. At least six Indonesian sailors have died while working in a Chinese fishing fleet this year; the Chinese fleet also stranded hundreds of Indonesian sailors in Senegal, leaving them to be repatriated by the Indonesian government.

So far, no Chinese individuals or companies have been held responsible for these actions, fueling the impression that Chinese authorities are indifferent to or even disdainful of Indonesians. Many Indonesians also blame Beijing

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The swiftest and most effective way to do so would be to work more closely with the Quad, allying with powers with which it shares profound trade and geopolitical interest. for the COVID-19 pandemic, which originated in China but has hit Indonesiaharder than any other country in East or Southeast Asia. Approval of China among Indonesians had already sunk from 66 percent in 2014 to just 36 percent last year; that figure will likely be even lower now.

But while China grows increasingly unpopular in Indonesia, Indonesian leaders are reluctant to prick the giant. Until recently, authorities haven’t been proactive in defending maritime rights in the Natuna Sea, expanding the Indonesian military presence there only after Chinese incursions became too frequent and brazen to ignore. Similarly, Indonesiaraised the cases of migrant deaths with Beijing only after significant domestic pressure. Other times, Jakarta takes its cues from Beijing. In October, Indonesia deported three Uighur Muslim asylum seekers to China and has refused to take a position on the Uighur human rights crisis, despite the mounting clamor of Indonesian activists and Indonesia’s status as the largest Muslim-majority country in the world.

At the regional level, China’s growing strength has stymied the work of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the regional bloc of countries that observers once hoped would grow into an integrated entity akin to the European Union. Some ASEAN members, most notably Cambodia and Laos, often act on behalf of Beijing—for instance by preventing the association from addressing China’s incursions into member states’ territorial waters in the South China Sea. Both countries have become such naked proxies for China that the prominent Singaporean former diplomat Bilahari Kausikan recently suggested at a public event that the ten-member body might feel compelled “to cut loose the two to save the eight.” For their part, Indonesian officials have done little to push back on Chinese influence over ASEAN, even though Indonesia hosts the bloc’s organizational headquarters in Jakarta.

There are signs, however, that the recent Natuna Sea incidents are prompting Indonesia to consider adopting a

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tougher stance toward China. When U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo visited Indonesia in late October, he reiterated U.S. support for Indonesia’s claims in the Natuna Sea and urged the country to increase military cooperation with the United States and to take a stronger stand on China’s treatment of the Muslim-minority Uighurs. Australia and Indonesia have also been strengthening security ties since 2016—partly because of fears of the Trump administration’s erratic foreign policy. Jokowi notably described Australia as Indonesia’s “closest friend” in a speech in early 2020, when Indonesia was grappling with the problem of Chinese incursion into the Natuna Sea. Indonesia could, and should, play a stronger role within the region, especially in standing up to countries that toe Beijing’s line and in working with Quad members on a coordinated regional reaction to China’s buildup of military infrastructure in the South China Sea. This includes accepting the U.S. request for land and refuel rights for its P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft and joining future naval exercises such as the one that India, Japan, and the United States staged in November in the Bay of Bengal. Timidity has only hurt Indonesia and emboldened Beijing to send its forces into the Natuna Sea. What use is Indonesia’s selfprofessed “free and independent” foreign policy if it allows an aggressor, in this case China, to actively encroach on the territorial waters of its neighbors or start politically motivated trade wars to punish neighbors? The “delicate equilibrium,” as Indonesia’s China policy has been called in the past, is not truly an equilibrium anymore.

TURNING TIDES Indonesia is a large archipelago nation situated on the hinge of the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Its strategic loca-

Jakarta cannot stand alone in the face of China’s increasing assertiveness and expanding military presence. It is time for Indonesia to claim a global role befitting its size.

tion and the fact that it is, at least nominally, a pluralist democracy would make it a natural fit with the other Quad powers. Those countries are also important Indonesian trading partners: Japan, the United States, and India are Indonesia’s next three largest trading partners after China.

Add Australia, and the Quad accounts for a larger percentage of Indonesia’s trade than does China.

Indonesia has the room to maneuver to resist Chinese pressure. It possesses a degree of leverage over China in its economic relations. Indonesian exports to China include raw materials, such as nickel and bauxite, for which there aren’t major alternative sources. Numerous Chinese trade routes to Africa and the Middle East also move through waters close to Indonesia. Chinese President Xi Jinping traveled to Indonesia in 2013 to announce the maritime arm of the BRI—known as the Maritime Silk Road— which envisions a network of ports and trading routes connecting China to the Mediterranean through Indonesian waters.

BRI commitments to Indonesia have not amounted to much, inspiring both derision and resentment in the archipelago. The flagship project, a high-speed rail line connecting the capital of Jakarta to the city of Bandung, has been plagued by delays and mismanagement. That failure

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Indonesian President Joko Widodo on board a naval ship in the waters of the Natuna Islands, Indonesia, June 2016./ Reuters

China to Southeast Asia, most notably to another potential Quad ally, Vietnam.

ACTING ITS SIZE Indonesian leaders might be inching in the direction of closer alignment with Quad countries. Indonesia has already begun helping Australia offset lost demand from China for its agricultural products after the enactment of a free trade agreement in July. Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto has met with officials from India, Japan, and the United Statesin the past few months. Details of these meetings aren’t available to the public, but it is likely that Prabowo raised concerns about China. The defense minister ran for president in 2014 on a platform that was far more hostile toward China than that of his opponent (and now boss), Jokowi. On the campaign trail, he warned that Indonesia was becoming too dependent on China and promised to review Chinese investment in the country.

He believes that China’s potential domination of Asia is a serious security risk to Indonesia, and the more forceful Indonesian military response to the Natuna Sea incursions began after he became defense minister in late 2019.

stands in stark contrast to Japanese-funded projects such as the Jakarta Mass Rapid Transit and the Surabaya–Jakarta medium-speed line, both of which have stayed on schedule and remained within their budgets. Courting more Japanese, Korean, or even Indian investment may be a better way for Jokowi—the self-proclaimed “infrastructure president”—to meet his lofty goals than depending on Chinese support.

A hardening of Indonesia’s position toward China would follow a trend among neighboring powers. It wasn’t long ago that Australia and Japan were as wary of upsetting China as Indonesia seems to be. As recently as last year, Australia remained largely beholden to Beijing, its economy dependent on China’s demand for Australian iron ore, coal, and agricultural exports. But Australia’s call for an independent international inquiry into the outbreak of COVID-19 quickly turned into a trade war with China; Beijing has imposed punitive restrictions on Australian trade.

Japan has long tried to balance its relations with China and with the United States to maintain access to both markets.

But as China has grown more aggressive under Xi—and as U.S. policy in the region has become more chaotic under President Donald Trump—Tokyo has recalibrated its stance and even started providing Japanese companies with financial incentives to move operations away from

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Despite his hostility toward China, Prabowo actually poses an obstacle to Indonesia’s participation in the Quad. Until earlier this year, he was on a U.S. travel blacklist for his part in the violence in East Timor in the 1990s, when he was a general in the armed forces. The legacy of the Suharto era, in which the military perpetuated brutal human rights abuses, still hangs over Indonesia. The country has failed to hold perpetrators accountable for war crimes and has even allowed some of them, including Prabowo, to attain high office. U.S.congressional restrictions limit military assistance, training, and arms sales between the two countries until Indonesia addresses its record of war crimes. Jakarta and Washington will have to iron out these differences should Indonesia choose to tighten its cooperation with the Quad.

Future Indonesian policy toward China could reflect the convictions of figures such as Prabowo more than those of the more reticent Jokowi. Jakarta cannot stand alone in the face of China’s increasing assertiveness and expanding military presence. It is time for Indonesia to claim a global role befitting its size. The swiftest and most effective way to do so would be to work more closely with the Quad, allying with powers with which it shares profound trade and geopolitical interests. Jakarta could strengthen a robust alliance that would prevent Southeast Asia from falling irrevocably into China’s sphere of influence.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Cities Are Transforming U.S. Foreign Policy Biden Would Do Well to Work with Them

by Nina Hachigian For the first time in history, the majority of all humans—including four out of five Americans—live in cities. Throughout much of the world, these urban centers are linked, with

leaders actively discussing and collaborating on solutions to pressing challenges. Yet most American cities have lagged behind their foreign counterparts when it comes to global cooperation, a critical tool for addressing the issues that affect their constituents.

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But they are catching up. In response to the often destructive and divisive foreign policy of the Trump administration and a growing awareness that global forces shape the health, safety, and prosperity of their residents, the mayors of major U.S. cities have set about developing foreign policies of their own, focused on safeguarding the well-being of their constituents and doing their part to solve global challenges such as climate change.

This new era of subnational diplomacy has significant implications not just for cities but for the United States as a whole. Although local governments do not command troops or negotiate binding trade agreements, they work with international partners every day to bring benefits to their communities and advance U.S. values and priorities—in ways that both shape and guide American foreign policy more broadly. Over the next four years, U.S.President-elect Joe Biden will have a new opportunity: to make cities and states his partners in foreign as well as domestic policy.

BUILDING BRIDGES

Downtown Los Angeles, California.

Subnational foreign policy seeks to influence global policymaking and build pragmatic links between local governments both within and between countries. Over the past three years alone, we in Los Angeles have held bilateral meetings with the prime ministers and presidents of Armenia, Canada, Germany, Ireland, Israel, South Korea, Spain, and Vietnam, not to mention His Holiness Pope Francis.

One reason cities and states develop these connections abroad is to boost local economies, just as the U.S. Department of Commerce and other agencies do at the national level. Local leaders design policies to attract foreign direct investment, promote tourism, and prepare for events such as the Olympic and Paralympic Games (which are set to be held in Los Angeles in 2028).

In Los Angeles, we’re working with the British government on solutions to major urban transportation challenges. As part of our efforts to develop sustainable freight and delivery services, we have promoted each other’s innovations, helped Los Angeles–based firms expand to British markets (and vice versa), and taken part in startup exchanges. We are also collaborating with the Japanese government and that country’s private sector to implement cutting-edge “green hydrogen” technology that, in a few short years, will deliver zero-carbon energy to Los Angeles’s electrical grid.

City leaders also support exports from local businesses and sponsor trade missions. In 2018, we led a delegation of Los Angeles business leaders on a trip to Asia, including Vietnam. As part of our discussions with Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, we invited Vietnamese airlines to ini-

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To rebuild a foreign policy consensus in the United States, leaders need to make diplomacy and international engagement more relevant to the daily challenges that Americans face.

Cities, as the bridge between the local and the global, are the right place to start. tiate nonstop service between Hanoi or Ho Chi Minh City and LAX—a move that would generate economic benefits for both sides and help the United Statesstrengthen diplomatic ties with an important regional power. Simultaneously, because we carry our values with us, we also raised the importance of human rights.

In many cases, the relationships cultivated by city governments are with specific foreign partners that play an outsize role in local affairs. At the nadir of the Trump administration’s contentious relationship with Mexico, for example, Los Angeles worked with the Mexican foreign ministry to set up MEXLA, a first-of-its-kind binational citizens’ commission, with a mandate to deepen cross-border connections in science, clean energy, culture, sports, equity, and more. A few months later, Mexico convened a gathering of Mexican and U.S.mayors to build U.S. support for the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement trade deal. (The meeting was so consequential that newly elected Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador decided to attend).

More recently, when war broke out between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Los Angeles city government joined with other U.S. mayors to call on the Trump administration to intervene to stop the bloodshed—spurred on by our large Armenian diaspora.

Some city-to-city relationships have a multilateral component. Los Angeles is a founding member of the Urban 20 (U20), which pushes G-20 leaders to advance progressive priorities such as a green and just recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic—a valuable counterweight to increasingly nationalistic politics at the federal level in the United States.

In 2018, at the U20’s first meeting, Los Angeles leaders told assembled officials from Buenos Aires, Paris, Seoul, Tokyo, and many other cities that despite what they were

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hearing from the White House, American cities remained open to the world, valued foreign partners, and cherished democratic ideals. In November 2020, Los Angeles—together with Barcelona, Freetown, London, Mexico City, and Tokyo—launched the first international city network to promote gender equity, as mayors have considerable power to improve the lives of women and girls, including in public safety, education, hiring, and public transit design. Finally, Los Angeles works closely with more than 20 international cities to accelerate local action on the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

CITIES AND SECURITY The growth of subnational diplomacy underscores the inseparability of foreign and domestic policy. In an era of transnational threats, American cities are themselves frontline actors in national security—especially when the federal government fails to respond effectively to imminent threats.

The pandemic has offered a clear example of this. In the early days of the crisis, Los Angeles organized a vast testing infrastructure using firefighters and volunteers, including the largest drive-through testing site in the world. We enlisted the executive director of the Port of Los Angeles (the busiest container port in the Americas) to source protective equipment for local hospitals, brought thousands of unsheltered residents and domestic violence victims into safe beds, set up childcare for frontline workers, and mandated mask wearing in public. We provided direct cash assistance to our hardest-hit households regardless of immigration status.

As we took action locally, Los Angeles also traded lessons with other cities around the world. We held regular calls with dozens of mayors at a time, from Mexico City to Mi-

Over the next four years, U.S. President-elect Joe Biden will have a new opportunity: to make cities and states his partners in foreign as well as domestic policy.

lan, and shared insights on everything from how to test for COVID-19 at elder-care facilities to the proper criteria for reopening our economies. Some cities passed these lessons on to their national governments—many of which were not as nimble in exchanging best practices.

Climate change is another national security challenge that mayors and other local leaders face daily. More than any other actor, city governments are tasked with protecting people from extreme weather and taking steps to blunt the impact of a warming planet. Although cities consume over 75 percent of the world’s energy and emit 70 percent of energy-related carbon emissions, they also oversee some of the most important levers for reducing emissions: building codes, transportation systems, utilities, ports, and waste and water systems. Los Angeles has its own Green New Deal based on the “Five Zeroes” pledge: that by 2050 or earlier, Los Angeles will have a zero-carbon electrical grid, transportation system, and building infrastructure; will send zero waste to landfills; and will waste zero water. That pledge has been accompanied by investments in green technology that have created tens of thousands of sustainable jobs in the past five years, including in our Black and brown

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Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden celebrates with his supporters after declaring victory at an election-night rally at the University of South Carolina Volleyball Center on February 29, 2020 in Columbia, South Carolina. (Getty)

nor the only tool of conflict resolution. Los Angeles has spent decades reforming its police department, but we have accelerated that process over the last several months in the wake of the United States’ national conversation on systemic racism. The federal government needs to internalize a similar lesson. Without addressing the imbalance between spending on defense and diplomacy, the United States will continue to use military force when other less costly and more effective interventions could be more successful.

The same is true when it comes to understanding the value of partners. If you want to solve a problem at city hall, whether it is a teachers’ strike or locating a new park, all stakeholders need a seat at the table. The last thing a local leader would do is push away long-standing allies, as the Trump administration has done again and again. Tapping into a broad coalition strengthens a project’s mission and the city’s ability to deliver results, whether it is housing the unsheltered, growing exports, or planting 90,000 trees.

This principle holds even for countries or groups that may not be immediate or intuitive allies.

communities and those with the lowest median incomes.

These jobs include solar panel installation and public transit opportunities as well as construction jobs dedicated to expanding the city’s electrical grid infrastructure to incorporate more renewable energy. Los Angeles does not do this work alone. Instead, it works with nearly 100 other cities through the C40, a powerful network of cities that holds its members accountable to aggressive zero-carbon plans.

THE RIGHT EXAMPLE The relevance of subnational diplomacy extends beyond cities themselves. City agreements can be critical building blocks for international action. A 2015 climate agreement inked at a forum of U.S. and Chinese cities hosted in Los Angeles paved the way for a national U.S.-Chinese agreement that enabled the Paris climate accord. The on-theground experience of mayors, whether on issues of climate change, immigration, gender, racial equity, COVID-19, or beyond, can help inform more effective and just national policies. The Biden administration should take note.

Mayors know, for instance, that force should not be the first

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Finally, just as in local politics, our diplomatic strategies need to embrace new and innovative ideas even if they come from outside government or the United States. As the saying goes, “Good mayors borrow ideas, but great mayors steal them.” Taipei’s highly successful COVID-19 strategy includes ideas that every city should adopt. Mexico City had an early earthquake warning system that inspired Los Angeles to establish its own. And the increasingly popular notion of “guaranteed income” is an import from Finland.

We need U.S.diplomats and aid workers to offer solutions abroad but also to bring them home from unexpected places.

Under the Trump administration, many Americans were left wondering what their country stood for and where it was headed. So did many others around the world. But by looking at cities across the country where a majority of Americans live, those values remained clear. Cities stood up for climate action, gender equity, racial justice, and so many other defining issues—and it is time that the federal government recognize and build on that strength.

To rebuild a foreign policy consensus in the United States, leaders need to make diplomacy and international engagement more relevant to the daily challenges that Americans face. Cities, as the bridge between the local and the global, are the right place to start. We in Los Angeles and leaders in other global cities are ready and willing to partner with the Biden administration to unite the country around a foreign policy that works for Americans and for the world.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Biden’s Latin American Opportunity Why the Western Hemisphere Is More Important Than Ever

by Michael J. Camilleri For eight years as vice president, Joe Biden served as the United States’ principal emissary to Latin America and the Caribbean. He took a total of 16 trips to the

region, the last of which—to the Colombian city of Cartagena in December 2016—was a victory lap of sorts: Biden congratulated Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on his government’s hard-won peace deal with the Marxist-Leninist insurgency known as

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the FARC, or the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

In Cartagena, Biden would have been justified in feeling hopeful about the future of the region. The Colombian peace accord had ended the hemisphere’s longest-running insurgency, and a historic U.S. opening to Cuba had put the Cold War to bed in Latin America and thrown the calcified Cuban regime off balance. Even in Central America’s Northern Triangle, the source of a migration crisis in 2014, Biden had succeeded in putting in place a promising strategy to address the violence, poverty, and failing institutions causing people to flee.

But there were already signs of trouble on the horizon. Latin America’s economies were stagnant.

Satisfaction with democracy was falling. In his meeting with Santos, Biden conveyed concerns about political polarization around the peace accord and the resurgence of narcotrafficking. Major corruption scandals would soon rock the region, deepening public indignation. Donald Trump’s election as president of the United Statesseemingly expanded the bounds of the politically possible. And soon enough, Latin Americaexperienced its own bout of antiestablishment fervor, with nationalist populists sweeping into office in Brazil and Mexico in 2018. The following year saw huge waves of social protest even in countries that had appeared to be comparatively stable, such as Chile, Colombia, and Peru.

US Vice President Joe Biden (R) and his wife Jill wave upon arrival at the Catam Military airport, in Bogota, on May 26, 2013. (Getty)

Then the pandemic hit. For Latin American countries with anemic growth, deep inequalities, and weak social contracts, the novel coronavirus struck a cruel blow. The region is now on track for a sharper economic contraction than any outside the eurozone.

Job losses and hunger are surging. Two decades of progress against poverty may be lost. If history is any guide, political turbulence, popular agitation, and the potential for democratic backsliding will likely accompany the economic hangover from the pandemic.

President-elect Biden will bring to the Oval Office a greater knowledge of hemispheric relations than any of his recent predecessors. But he will also confront a Latin Americabuffeted by political, economic, and health crises—and by the legacy of the Trump administration’s sporadic and politically driven engagement. The Biden administration will need to expect the unexpected and plan for multiple contingencies, whether migration surges, natural disasters, or constitutional crises. At the same time, it has the opportunity to lay the foundations for a new

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Enhanced coordination with Latin America and the Caribbean on vital issues such as climate change, human rights, and a rules-based trading system beckons as a strategic opportunity. hemispheric vision that recognizes and leverages the strategic importance of Latin America and the Caribbean.

COOPERATIVE CRISIS MANAGEMENT Many Latin Americans welcomed Biden’s election as a reprieve from the Trump administration’s insults, bullying, and propensity to view the region through the lens of electoral politics. Biden has criticized Trump for abdicating U.S leadership in the region and called for a return to shared responsibility, respect, and partnership. The president-elect’s repudiation of Trump’s “America first” philosophy and his pledge to revitalize the multilateral system will resonate powerfully in the region. Biden’s strong track record in Latin Americaand the Caribbean—and the simple fact that he is not Donald Trump—will serve him well in the endeavor to restore U.S. leadership in the hemisphere, as will the expressed humility of his secretary of state designate, Antony Blinken.

Not everyone in Latin America will be relieved to see Trump go, however. More than a few governments in the region came to appreciate his administration’s narrow transactionalism and its hands-off approach to issues such as the rule of law and the environment.

Among them were not only Trump’s ideological bedfellow, President Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, but also Mexico’s leftist leader, Andrés Manuel López Obrador—both of whom dragged their feet for weeks before acknowledging Biden’s victory. These leaders’ apprehensions are not hard to explain.

Biden has pledged a foreign policy imbued with such American values as defending democracy, combating corruption, and addressing the “existential threat” of a warming planet. Although numerous Latin Americans embrace this agenda, many of their leaders do not.

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Biden will need to build cooperative relationships with even the most recalcitrant Latin American leaders in order to manage the crises that are likely to require his immediate attention. Chief among them is the possibility of a surge in migration to the United States, driven by poverty, violence, and corruption in the Northern Triangle and by the pandemic and recent hurricanes. The president-elect has pledged to end many of Trump’s “irresponsible and inhumane” immigration policies and to invest 4$ billion to address the root causes of migration. That strategy is right for the long term. But in the near term, the Biden administration will have to find a more humanitarian approach than his predecessor’s without inviting a cross-border surge that overwhelms the U.S. immigration system. In so doing, he will need to cooperate with regional leaders, especially López Obrador of Mexico. Biden’s top officials have already begun a public diplomacy offensive designed to deter potential migrants, but convincing the Mexican government to control its southern border while respecting international protections for asylum seekers will be an important early test for the administration.

The continuing meltdown in Venezuela will require coordination with Latin American partners, as well. The cataclysmic economic mismanagement of the de facto regime of Nicolás Maduro has been surpassed only by its systematic dismantling of the country’s democratic institutions. The result is not just a humanitarian emergency inside Venezuelabut the largest refugee crisis in Latin America’s history.

Trump, in a departure from his usual affection for autocrats, got it right when he called Maduro a dictator and human rights abuser. But he miscalculated in presuming that economic strangulation and threats of force would cause the Maduro regime to collapse or

For Latin American countries with anemic growth, deep inequalities, and weak social contracts, the novel coronavirus struck a cruel blow.

negotiate itself out of power.

Biden is clear-eyed about Maduro’s brutality, and he will likely preserve elements of Trump’s approach.

But he will need a strategy that trades bellicose rhetoric and wishful thinking for hard-nosed diplomacy that effectively leverages tools such as sanctions. Tighter coordination with like-minded partners in Latin America and Europe can produce a more robust humanitarian response and a more coherent set of carrots and sticks, although any political solution to restore democracy may eventually require direct engagement with Maduro’s allies, as well.

A TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY VISION Ultimately, the restoration of U.S. leadership in Latin America will require more than short-term crisis management. Washington needs a long-term vision that acknowledges the Western Hemisphere’s

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An aerial view of a nearly empty Saara region, a large shopping area in the center of the city during a lockdown aimed at stopping the spread of the (COVID19-) coronavirus pandemic on March 2020 ,24 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

(Getty)

when Bolsonaro stands for reelection in 2022. And at their core, the hemisphere’s countries generally embrace versions of Western liberalism and a rulesbased international order. Broadening the aperture of regional conversations to include issues of twentyfirst-century global governance—from cyber norms to illegal fishing to climate refugees—may yield new common ground.

strategic importance to the United States. In the twentieth century, the transatlantic alliance was the bedrock of the U.S.-led international order. In the twenty-first century, however, the United States will need a broader set of partners to sustain the norms and institutions governing international conduct.

The countries of Latin America and the Caribbean are diverse and often entangled in parochial squabbles with one another, not to mention with the United States.

The region today is ideologically divided, inwardly focused, and suffering a once-in-a-century economic crisis. Moreover, the current crop of Latin American leaders does not include any obvious statesmen (and yes, they are all men). But the region’s politics are likely to evolve over the course of Biden’s first term partly, though not primarily, in response to the shift in Washington. Already, Brazilian presidential hopefuls are looking to Biden’s campaign as a model as they seek to break their own country’s populist fever

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The president-elect has a unique opportunity to reposition the United States for leadership and to lay the foundations for a long-term hemispheric strategy when he hosts the 2021 Summit of the Americas, a triennial leaders’ meeting expected to take place next fall. In a region where views of the United States plummeted under Trump, Biden can credibly assert that the United States views its proximity to Latin America as a reason to invest in common success, not to construct a pricey border wall. The presidentelect can also offer his victorious brand of principled, solutions-driven politics as a model for defending democracy from the digital age caudillos stalking the region. The more difficult task will be conveying a vision that speaks to common challenges among a diverse set of partners. Here, the economic wreckage from the pandemic looms largest, and Biden should turn for inspiration to his domestic “Build Back Better” agenda. In the short run, countries in Latin America need support acquiring and administering a coronavirus vaccine. In the longer term, they will need to accelerate economic recovery while addressing citizen demands for greater equity, transparency, and sustainability. In all these areas, Biden should stress that the United States will be a steadfast partner.

Advancing these goals will require resources, of course, and the United States will not beat China at its own game of deep-pocketed state-sponsored finance. But strategic investments—such as Biden’s plan to invest 4$ billion in Central America or a bipartisan proposal to dedicate 35 percent of the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation’s budget to Latin America and the Caribbean—can begin to demonstrate that the Biden administration’s commitment to the hemisphere is more than rhetorical.

As the Biden administration prepares to restore U.S. leadership on the global stage, enhanced coordination with Latin America and the Caribbean on vital issues such as climate change, human rights, and a rules-based trading system beckons as a strategic opportunity. The president-elect, more than any recent occupant of White House, is well placed to seize it.

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Should the COVID- 19 Vaccine Figure into the Future of Flying?

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by Catharine Hamm The vaccine for COVID19- might be the beginning of the end of the pandemic, but for airlines, it’s the beginning of the discussion about how and whether a vaccine will factor into the future of flying.

The discussion gained momentum after Alan Joyce, chief executive of Qantas Airways, said in November that the Australian airline will require passengers for international flights to receive the COVID19- vaccine.

“Whether you’ll need that domestically, we’ll have to see what happens with COVID19- and the market, but certainly for international visitors coming out and people leaving the country, we think that’s a necessity,” Joyce said, according to CBS News.

Soon after his remark, this turned up on the Qantas website: “While the Australian Government strongly supports immunisation and will run a strong campaign to encourage vaccination, it is not mandatory, and individuals may choose not to vaccinate. There may, however, be circumstances where the Australian Government and other governments may introduce border entry or reentry requirements that are conditional on proof of vaccination.

“It’s likely that other countries — and possibly airlines— will require vaccination against Covid19- before allowing entry. This already happens with yellow fever and polio in some parts of the world.”

Perhaps Joyce overreached, but other airlines could back that play.

Getting vaccinated is the key to reclaiming your freedom and lifting your spirits by letting you do what you love, which is travel.

Q. Could airlines require a vaccine?

A. They could, said Sharona Hoffman, a professor in the department of bioethics and co-director of the Law-Medicine Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland. That doesn’t mean airlines will.

Because there is no federal mandate for mask wearing, each airline was left to establish its own mandate. As private businesses, they can do so. It could be the same regarding the vaccine, Hoffman said.

There would be exceptions — “carve-outs,” she said — to take into account already established protections, including the Americans With Disabilities Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

To that add the Air Carriers Access Act and Department of Transportation regulations, Mario R. Bordogna of the Clark Hill law firm wrote in an email. “There are certain nondiscrimination provisions in that act and (in the) regulations.

Some of those provisions are similar to the ADA, in that passengers may present a medical basis to be exempt from any vaccine requirement to fly, which airlines have to examine as a private employer would.”

The questions become these: Could U.S. airlines require a vaccine? Would the airlines do that?

How would they do that? Should the public just submit and hang the ramifications?

Q. Would the airlines require a vaccine?

The answer to each of those questions: a definite maybe.

First, anti-vaxxers. Their numbers appear to be growing, a Lancet article reported. The medical journal cited figures from the Center for Countering Digital Hate that showed that people who don’t believe in vaccines have an increased

Here are factors to consider as the vaccine begins its rollout.

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A. A vaccine may be a bullet, but it is not necessarily the silver bullet. Why?

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presence on social media, including the “31 million people (who) follow anti-vaccine groups on Facebook, with 17 million people subscribing to similar accounts on YouTube.”

Next, general skepticism among Americans.

About %58 of respondents to a November Gallup poll said they would take the shots, an increase from previous numbers in September that said only half of Americans would. The country remains worried about the rapidity with which the vaccines were developed, which may not have been helped by its “Operation Warp Speed” project name.

Instead, said Roger Dow, chief executive of the U.S. Travel Association, consider the vaccine just one part of a multipronged effort to stamp out the virus. The U.S. addressed the threat of terrorism using a multilayered approach, and the country should consider the same for this issue.

“We’ve got to get to a situation where it’s the vaccine, it’s testing, it’s protocols at hotels, it’s travelers doing all things,” he said as part of a panel early this month on the World Travel and Tourism Council’s “One Voice: to Recovery and Beyond” webinar.

And finally, and perhaps most important, is “potential customer backlash airlines face, financially and reputationally, if they do institute a vaccine requirement,” Bordogna said. “These practicalities sometimes dictate what happens a lot more in the first instance than the law does.”

Because there is no federal mandate for mask wearing, each airline was left to establish its own mandate.

Q. How would airlines monitor whether a traveler has had the vaccine?

A. Several apps are in the works, including the Travel Pass from the International Air Transport Association, and CommonPass, in conjunction with the Commons Project and the World Economic Forum. These apps will tell you whether

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The vaccine for COVID19- prompts questions for airlines, and easy answers are hard to come by. (Los Angeles Times)

your records are in line with requirements at your destination. They can be used for vaccination and testing information. Both say your information will remain private.

Q. Should the public take the vaccine?

A. That’s a personal choice. If you’re desperate to travel and the vaccines prevent COVID19-, yes — assuming the immunizations are safe (allergic reactions were reported among some of

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the first recipients in the United Kingdom) and that proving you have been vaccinated is easy and preserves your right to privacy.

In the end, it’s about your freedom, oddly enough.

Having to take a vaccine, like wearing a mask, impinges on your freedom, some people believe.

For others, getting vaccinated is the key to reclaiming your freedom and lifting your spirits by letting you do what you love, which is travel.

Now that’s a shot in the arm.

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Hoarding Vaccines Will Prolong the Pandemic A Global Problem Calls for Collective Action

by Thomas J. Bollyky, Chad P. Bown For the second time in two decades, an international crisis looms over access to medicines. A small number of wealthy nations, including the United States, have spent billions of dollars locking up early supplies of the most promising novel coronavirus vaccines. If the United States exercises its option to buy 500 million more doses of the Pfizer and BioNTech vaccine, 94 percent of the projected supply of the

first immunization authorized for public use will be spoken for through the end of 2021. By one recent estimate, nations representing just one-seventh of the world’s population have already reserved more than half of all the promising vaccine supplies. According to leaked internal documents, funding and supply concerns have placed COVAX, the global initiative to share coronavirus vaccines, at “very high� risk of failure.

A fight over coronavirus vaccines would hardly be the first

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to rise from unequal access to medical treatments. Not too long ago, AIDS ravaged poor nations that were priced out of the market for lifesaving medications. The resolution to that crisis transformed global health, pumping billions of aid dollars into researching and developing treatments for the world’s poor and creating new donor-funded institutions to deliver those treatments. That restructuring, however, helped seed this latest battle over coronavirus vaccines—a collective action problem that aid dollars and public-private partnerships cannot resolve on their own.

A PHILANTHROPIC MODEL Pharmaceutical treatments saved millions of lives and changed the course of the HIV/AIDS epidemic in wealthy countries during the 1990s. But the companies that made these drugs, concerned about undercutting their markets in high-income countries, adopted internationally consistent prices for them, effectively placing them out of reach for people with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa and other poor nations. In 1998, antiretroviral drugs cost more in South Africa, on a per capita GDP-adjusted basis, than in Sweden or in the United States—beyond the means of almost all the millions of South Africans with HIV/AIDS.

One of the first South African Oxford vaccine trialists looks on as a medical worker injects him with the clinical trial for a potential vaccine against the COVID-19 coronavirus at the Baragwanath hospital in Soweto, South Africa, on June 24 ,2020. (Getty)

The South African government sought cheaper, generic versions of AIDS drugs from abroad—and 39 pharmaceutical companies sued it, citing patent laws and international trade rules, and naming Nelson Mandela, the president of South Africa, as the lead defendant. The Clinton administration and many European governments backed the companies.

Protests erupted outside international AIDS conferences and the 1999 World Trade Organization negotiations in Seattle.

At the kickoff events for Al Gore’s presidential campaign, activists unfurled banners that read: “Gore’s Greed Kills: AIDS Drugs for Africa.”

The crisis over access to AIDS treatment dominated international news headlines at the end of the Clinton era.

The White House withdrew its support for the lawsuit and, in April 2001, so did all 39 pharmaceutical companies.

Chastened, the companies began donating their AIDS drugs, charging rock-bottom prices for them in poor countries and allowing local firms to make generic versions of those and other infectious disease drugs for which there was little demand in wealthy markets.

The crisis brought about deep and lasting changes. The United States, other wealthy nations, and philanthropies, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, spent billions of dollars to research, develop, and distribute treatments to the world’s most impoverished people. Global health aid nearly tripled over the next decade, from 10.8$ billion in 2001 to 28.2$ billion in 2010. The nexus of international leadership shifted away from the World Health Organization and toward donor

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Only international cooperation on the basis of shared interests can mobilize the global manufacturing, trade, and delivery response that will end this public health crisis and help build a more resilient system for the future. nations, philanthropies, and new institutions, such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

A COLLECTIVE ACTION PROBLEM The new era in global health has brought antiviral drugs, insecticide-treated mosquito nets, and pediatric vaccines to millions of people in poor nations and has saved many lives.

But it has also shifted the focus of global health away from cooperation among nations, rich and poor alike, on common threats to health and toward aid-driven initiatives and public-private partnerships to solve the problems of other people—mostly in low-income countries.

The shortcomings of this approach have long been evident in the failure of global health institutions to mobilize effectively against many of the collective action problems that constitute the world’s biggest health threats. Over the last two decades, no more than one percent of annual global health aid has ever been devoted to preparing for pandemic threats like the coronavirus. Even less aid goes to reduce smoking and the other lifestyle factors that have helped make heart disease, cancers, and other chronic diseases the leading killers of people under age 60 worldwide. Pollution and climate change also rate low on the global health agenda, despite daily evidence of their devastating health effects, from the brown skies of Delhi to the record wildfires on the West Coast of the United States to the floods in Dhaka.

The emerging crisis over access to vaccines against the coronavirus is the latest example of a collective action problem that aid and public-private partnerships are ill equipped to solve on their own. Distributing scarce early vaccine supplies to the settings and populations where they can do the most good is the most efficient way to bring this pandemic under control. Doing so would also speed the global economic recovery and avoid unnecessary

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geopolitical conflict. Yet with all governments expecting their counterparts to act as nationalists and hoard early supplies of vaccines, no one has had an incentive to buck the trend. In this environment, ensuring equitable access to early doses of vaccines globally has been treated as a charitable matter—a second order issue to political leaders more concerned about potential opposition at home than outrage abroad.

FULL CIRCLE Manufacturing a vaccine is a more expensive and intricate process than making the antiretroviral drugs used to attack HIV/AIDS. Currently, only around a dozen countries have the capacity to produce the COVID19- vaccines. Unless that changes, global access to early doses will primarily depend on whether producing and wealthy nations agree to distribute the vials based on public health need, rather than on the size of a country’s purse. Current signs are not encouraging.

Wealthy nations have made large advance purchases of multiple vaccines, stockpiling a volume of potential doses that is disproportionate with their coronavirus cases and population. Australia, Canada, and Japan have less than one percent of the world’s coronavirus cases, but they have locked up more doses of potential vaccines than all of Latin America and the Caribbean—a region with more than 17 percent of global coronavirus cases. Canada has reserved enough potential doses to vaccinate its population more than four times over. Australia, the European Union, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States likewise purchased more potential vaccine doses than they may need.

No one expects governments with early access to forgo vaccinating vulnerable members of their populations first.

These include frontline health-care workers, residents and staff of long-term care facilities, and essential workers. But the current signs suggest that wealthy nations will seek to vaccinate their entire populations, even low-risk individuals, before sharing their vaccine supplies with others.

Nations may be slow to donate surplus doses until more is known about the durability of their protection. Some vaccines, such as the one for measles, provide lifelong protection. But the immunity induced by others, such as the seasonal influenza vaccine, dissipates in a matter months and requires revaccination annually. When nations finally do share their excess doses, there are indications that they may opt to donate vaccine labeled “Team Europe” or the USA

equivalent bilaterally to allies and strategic partners rather than pursue a public health driven distribution through the multilateral initiative, COVAX. Hoarding vaccines is a mistake. No nation is likely to end its epidemic with a vaccine alone. Roughly 70 percent of the population would need to be immunized to achieve herd immunity, an objective that remains unrealistic in the near term. In the past decade, the United States has never managed to vaccinate more than half of adults for seasonal influenza in any single year, and adult vaccination rates in the last pandemic, H1N1, were even lower. Most of the potential coronavirus vaccines have not been tested for authorized use in children under the age of 16, which means approximately 75 million American kids are likely to go unvaccinated until late in 2021. Under these circumstances, having the coronavirus spread unabated abroad may be a greater threat to Americans than having low-risk members of the U.S. population wait a bit longer to be vaccinated.

If competition continues to trump cooperation, many nations, including some wealthy ones, will be left waiting months or longer for proven vaccines. In the interim, health-care workers and people at high risk in those countries will go unprotected. Desperate governments may turn to unproven

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A woman receives the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine against the coronavirus disease at the Cardarelli hospital in Naples, Italy, December 27, 2020.

REUTERS/Ciro De Luca

vaccines by working with pharmaceutical companies in an initiative called Operation Warp Speed. The project pulled in contract manufacturers from the United Statesand Europe, and it required creating complex, international supply chains to import crucial raw materials and equipment. A single missing piece could bring the entire edifice crashing down.

Logistics experts from the U.S. Army collaborated with the companies to ensure that production ran safely and smoothly and that supplies of vials, syringes, and other ancillary materials remained adequate. Yet even this all-out approach has run into hiccups: in November, temporary shortfalls in raw materials forced Pfizer to halve 2020 production targets for its vaccine.

A similar policy effort is needed in emerging economies.

Despite billions of dollars and high-level prioritization in the United States and Europe, rich countries alone are unlikely to swiftly meet global needs for the vaccines.

Some pharmaceutical companies, such as AstraZeneca and Novovax, have already engaged global contract manufacturers, such as the Serum Institute of India, in emerging economies. But emerging economies have more production capacity to tap, and scaling up vaccine manufacturing in this and future pandemics will require its use.

vaccines, putting their citizens at further risk. The legacy of resentment against vaccine-hoarding nations will be intense, imperiling the future international cooperation needed to prevent the next pandemic. A -20year era in global health, once famously described as “an Age of Miracles,” will have come full circle.

A GLOBAL VACCINE EFFORT The failure of COVAX is by no means certain. The initiative remains committed to its goal of delivering two billion vaccine doses by the end of 2021 and is working hard to line them up if and when the supplies and funds to purchase them become available. But COVAX needs help. Under the incoming Biden administration, the United States should work with like-minded countries to build the resilient infrastructure needed to scale up global vaccine manufacturing capacity in this and future pandemics—an exigency that all nations share.

Quickly scaling up vaccine manufacturing during a pandemic requires policy support, as the American experience has shown. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, together with the Department of Defense, helped fund and coordinate the manufacturing of potential

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At the same time, policymakers should prod pharmaceutical companies globally to reallocate critical materials among themselves. With so many coronavirus vaccine candidates in development, some are destined to fail. Companies must be convinced to allow sponsors of the successful vaccines to use the manufacturing capacity, glass vials, and other ancillary materials that had originally been reserved for projects that did not pan out. Likewise, national governments that are likely to have excess vaccine doses must immediately begin setting up the regulatory and distribution infrastructure that will help them to reallocate those doses to the nations where they can do the most good.

The United States is well placed to take on a leadership role in establishing this global vaccination infrastructure.

It could bring the positive lessons from Operation Warp Speed to other members of the Group of 20 and work with vaccine manufacturers in those countries to ramp up global supplies. The Ottawa Group recently proposed volun¬tarily licensing technology and know-how to emerging economies in order to increase the manufacture of COVID19- vaccines.

A new U.S. administration could build upon this Trade and Health Initiative and develop it further. These efforts should promote flexible manufacturing, so that if one vaccine candidate fails or a more effective option supersedes it, regional producers and supply chains can reconfigure and quickly shift to producing the preferred vaccine. A flexible, geographically distributed vaccine manufacturing capacity and a diversity of suppliers can also respond more quickly

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to future pandemic threats.

Efficient production and distribution of vaccines requires trust, transparency, and extraordinary access to information—not only among policymakers but also among vaccine manufacturers and their suppliers. A decade ago, a combination of high fuel and fertilizer costs, as well as extreme weather events, caused food prices to spike. Governments misread the seriousness of the shortages, panicked, and made matters worse by hoarding foodstuffs with export bans. In response, the G20- created the Agricultural Market Information System (AMIS) to improve food market transparency and coordinate policy in the event of sudden scarcity. That system generated information and trust that arguably helped calm markets during the early days of the COVID19- pandemic, when

According to leaked internal documents, funding and supply concerns have placed COVAX, the global initiative to share coronavirus vaccines, at “very high” risk of failure.

concerns over potential food shortages led some countries to temporarily ban agricultural exports. Many of those policies were reversed once it became and remained clear that there was no shortage.

A similar effort is needed at the G20- on essential medical provisions, including vaccines and ancillary supplies. During the first four months of the current pandemic, more than 70 countries plus the European Union imposed export bans or limits on personal protective equipment, ventilators, and medicines. Without more transparency into the availability of quality vaccine-related materials, as well as into where and when vaccines are to be delivered globally, such disruptions are likely to recur. Even the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, considered by many to be the gold standard for international drug regulation, reports being unable to ascertain how much of the active pharmaceutical ingredient is available and through what supply chain.

Aid-driven institutions and partnerships have done enormous good in delivering food, cash, and AIDS drugs to the world’s poor. These charitable initiatives are well worth preserving, but they are not the answer to all the unsolved collective action problems that plague global health. One of these problems is vaccine nationalism. Only international cooperation on the basis of shared interests can mobilize the global manufacturing, trade, and delivery response that will end this public health crisis and help build a more resilient system for the future.

This article was originally published on ForeignAffairs.com.

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Relatives of a deceased person wearing protective masks mourn during a mass burial of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic victims at the Parque Taruma cemetery on May 19, 2020 in Manaus, Brazil. (Getty

A Weekly Political News Magazine

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Soul Is Another Cerebral Winner from Pixar www.majalla.com

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Understanding Intimate Partner Violence The Pandemic May Be Making Life Harder for Those in Abusive Relationships, but Help is Available 44

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Harvard Health A woman experiencing abuse at the hands of an intimate partner often feels isolated and alone. But the truth is, she has a lot of company. As many as one in three women in the United States has experienced intimate partner violence (IPV), which is violence involving a current or former spouse, partner, significant other, boyfriend or girlfriend, says Eve M. Valera, an associate professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. This number includes women from all different ages and backgrounds.

Those who experience IPV may be left with lingering health effects, including mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, or post-traumatic stress disorder. IPV is also linked to a number of physical symptoms and conditions, according to the federal Office on Women›s Health, such as digestive problems, migraine headaches, arthritis, asthma, chronic pain, sexual problems, and heart problems.

Another area of growing concern for many researchers is the potential for cognitive changes caused by traumatic brain injuries linked to abuse, says Valera.

WHAT IS INTIMATE PARTNER ?VIOLENCE Intimate partner violence is defined by the CDC as physical or sexual violence, psychological harm, or stalking by a current or former partner or spouse. The term is sometimes used interchangeably with domestic violence.

But while domestic violence may include elder abuse, or child abuse, intimate partner violence typically involves a past or current romantic partner, says Eve M. Valera, an associate professor in psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. It does not need to occur in the home. Intimate partner violence affects both ¬genders and can occur in heterosexual and same-sex relationships.

A TIME FOR CONCERN The pandemic has made IPV worse for some women. Many people who were already experiencing IPV saw their problems

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Those who experience IPV may be left with lingering health effects, including mental health disorders such as anxiety, depression, or posttraumatic stress disorder. compounded when the pandemic hit, says Valera. Experts say that intimate partner violence often escalates in times of high stress.

«Anytime people are facing financial strain or financial uncertainty, family stress rises, as does the risk of intimate partner violence,» says Valera. Incidents also may spike when families spend more time together.

The pandemic checked both of those boxes.

But while experts anticipated a spike in calls related to intimate partner violence during the pandemic, in some instances the opposite has been true. Some advocacy organizations saw a drop in the number of calls -- something that many saw as even more concerning, says Valera. «The fact that these calls were going down was a cause for alarm. This meant that women either aren›t able to call, or were too afraid to do so. Women may have been unable to be away from their abusive partners for long enough to safely call, or afraid of contracting the virus if they went to a shelter,» says Valera. In addition, many courts were closed, so people were unable to seek restraining orders to help protect them from their abusers.

Data show that while calls in some places did drop, the women who did reach out for help with IPV were experiencing injuries that were much more severe than seen during more typical times. Also on the rise were cases of women murdered by their partners, says Valera.

HELPING OTHERS While things are still not back to normal as the

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pandemic continues, resources are available if you or someone you know is experiencing IPV. If you suspect a friend or family member is in an abusive situation, use the pandemic as an opportunity. Try saying «I›ve been learning that relationships are really strained right now for many people. How are you guys doing?

Do you feel safe?» says Valera. Something as simple as saying that, and then just letting the person talk, can help. «If she does reveal something, don›t feel like you have to come to a solution. Sometimes just being an ear is super helpful,» she says. It›s often not helpful to insist someone take action to leave the situation. There are many real and valid reasons why women are reluctant to leave. «I think people don›t realize the reality of the situation for many women and some of the horrific things that some of these women have had to endure. Some people say, ‹Why doesn›t she just leave?› I can give you 20 reasons why they don›t leave,» says Valera.

But while you shouldn›t push someone to do something she›s not ready to do, you should let her know that you are available to help, and outline any assistance you are willing to provide -- a temporary place to stay, financial assistance, or child care, for instance.

REACHING OUT FOR ASSISTANCE If you are experiencing intimate partner violence there are some things you should

The domestic violence hotlines can connect you to resources in your local area and offer tools, such as how to help you make a plan to leave a bad situation.

know and actions you can take to help improve your situation.

Recognize you›re not alone. Intimate partner violence is common. «I think there is a stigma about talking about intimate partner violence,» says Valera. Some people may even blame the victim, «how could you let this happen to you?» But women shouldn›t feel this way. «The abuser should be ashamed of the behavior, not the victim,» she says. Keeping quiet helps the abuser and gives the abuser power, she says. Don›t be ashamed to reach out for help to see what your options are.

Have a plan. The domestic violence hotlines can connect you to resources in your local area and offer tools, such as how to help you

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make a plan to leave a bad situation. This plan might include keeping crucial documents at the ready and knowing where you would go if you did leave. It›s far easier to leave the situation if you map out the process of doing so ahead of time, says Valera. It can be difficult to think clearly when an emergency situation arises, so knowing what to do is crucial. If children and pets are involved, making a change can be very complex, but it can be done, she says.

Seek treatment for injuries. If possible, seek treatment for your injuries, particularly if you experience head trauma. Receiving proper treatment can help your brain heal.

Symptoms of a concussion can go away over time with proper medical care and

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advice. Also, whenever possible, try to avoid getting another concussion. This might be as simple as learning how to protect your head in the midst of an attack, says Valera. Also, be aware of how a history of head injuries might affect your current health. «I›ve had a number of women reach out to me in their late 40s or 50s,» says Valera. «They survived abusive relationships, and while they are in stable relationships now, they›re struggling.»

They are experiencing depression, memory problems, or other cognitive changes. While most of the evidence related to traumatic brain injuries and IPV is anecdotal, it›s an area that has been receiving more focus lately, says Valera. «It›s something women should be mindful of if they›ve been out of the relationship for a while,» she says.

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Soul Is Another Cerebral Winner from Pixar

The New Film from the Director of Up and Inside Out has the Aesthetics of a Whimsical Adventure, But its Themes are Very Raw

by David Sims If Disney’s animated-movie formula relies on tales of heroes and princesses, of villains destroyed and personal freedom achieved, then Pixar’s formula is far more mundane.

For decades, the computer-animation studio has made movies that portray transcendent feelings and experiences as the products of ordinary jobs, performed diligently by strange little beings behind the scenes.

Monsters, Inc., in 2001, revealed that our fears were created by cuddly, blue-collar creatures. Inside Out, in 2015, personified our emotions as brightly colored sprites pressing buttons and pulling levers. Now, Soul imagines how our personalities are created at a cartoony summer camp, where smiley blobs and squiggles convene to generate human souls.

All three of these movies were directed by Pete Docter, the man who is also behind Up. One of Pixar’s foremost auteurs, the filmmaker is enamored of using animation to conjure worlds rooted in abstract metaphor.

Soul, which debuts today on Disney+, is his most conceptual film yet, largely set in a realm known as “the Great Before,” a cloudy land where human personalities are created and zapped into our bodies upon birth.

The ambition of Docter’s world building is laudable. And the smaller, human narrative he tries to tell within that universe—about a jazz pianist who finds himself stuck in the Great Before after a near-death experience— is sweet and charming. But given its vast canvas, Soul sometimes struggles to focus on that more intimate story.

Joe Gardner (voiced by Jamie Foxx), the

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musician who launches the plot of Soul after he falls into a manhole, is the first Black protagonist of a Pixar movie. Beyond that, he’s an adult with fairly ordinary problems, a far cry from the many Pixar heroes who are animals, robots, superheroes, and the like. A passionate musician, Joe teaches band at a middle school while waiting for the big break that might never come. Just as he’s invited to play with an all-star jazz act, a seemingly fatal mishap jolts his soul out of his body, and he spends much of the rest of the movie as a fuzzy blue creature, trapped in the Great Before and looking for a way back to his (comatose) human form.

Soul has the aesthetics of a whimsical adventure, but its themes are very raw.

In death, Joe is tangling with the thought that he’s left his life incomplete, without fulfilling the artistic obsession that always drove him.

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Compared to Pixar’s recent spate of sequels to past hits, Soul is a loftier project—a messy but expansive story worthy of its director’s grand ambitions.

Docter has wrestled with “grown-up” themes before and managed to cram them into an easy-to-understand story arc. Up began with the emotional hammer blow of an aging character losing his wife before he embarked on a new adventure. Soul sets an even tougher challenge for itself by apparently killing its lead character within minutes. But Docter finds clever ways to travel between the heavens and Earth, using

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the odd, nonphysical world Joe finds himself in to teach valuable lessons about finding joy in life even as it disappoints us.

In the Great Before, Joe befriends 22 (Tina Fey), a soul in line to receive a human form who has a dim view of Earth, preferring to wait for eternity rather than enter our mortal coil. It’s the opposite existential crisis of Joe’s—he’s worried he didn’t do enough on Earth, while she’s disinterested in doing anything there at all. But despite strong vocal performances from both Foxx and Fey, their characters’ comedic interplay never quite hits the mark. Joe is so focused on trying to get out of the Great Before, and 22 is so exhausted by the mechanics of their spiritual way station, that the movie doesn’t take much time to enjoy the universe Docter designed.

before their one-way trip to Earth. While the -3D animation of Pixar films often feels samey and bland, Docter plays with the medium to lend a sense of genuine chaos and unpredictability. On top of the more grounded animation of the real world, the abstract fluffiness of the Great Before, and the wiggling doodle forms of Jerry and company, Soul also portrays the afterlife as a giant inkblot, a mysterious void that the dead enter and never return from.

Docter’s vision is staggering to consider, even if it’s arguably too much for a -100minute movie aimed at children. Soul eventually turns away from the boundless possibilities of its celestial concepts and tries to focus on Joe, who needs to learn the value of existence beyond achieving his wildest hopes. The film flits back to Earth on occasion and engineers plenty of magical antics (for a chunk of the That unusual world has the vibe of a hippie movie, Joe’s mind is stuck in the body of an retreat from the 1980s, where encouraging, obnoxiously furry cat), and there are lovely anything-goes affirmations about mental moments of real profundity as he realizes, wellness and balance have been merged It’s a Wonderful Life–style, how much he with a vaguely corporate business structure. meant to people even without being a jazz The Great Before is administered by two- superstar. dimensional scribbles with names like Jerry (Richard Ayoade) and Terry (Rachel House), At times, I struggled to understand the unfinished-looking motivational beings message of Soul and its metaphysical goading soul blobs into self-actualization conception of our emotional genesis. We are all born with dreams, Docter seems to be saying, bubbling with ideas and personalities that are created even before we come into the world, but Joe’s story proves that there is more to life than that. Essentially, Docter has made a Pixar film for kids that tries to run at the nature-versus-nurture question and ends up splitting the difference. Compared to Pixar’s recent spate of sequels to past hits, Soul is a loftier project—a messy but expansive story worthy of its director’s grand ambitions.

Essentially, Docter has made a Pixar film for kids that tries to run at the nature-versus-nurture question and ends up splitting the difference.

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