I write my newsletter In My Opinion on Substack, a blogging platform that’s been around since 2017. I’m not alone – tens of thousands of writers create content for Substack, and the platform’s readers amount to millions. Newsletters are published in 27 categories, and virtually everyone can find something they’re interested in on the platform. Many newsletters offer a “paid” option that offers the reader more content, although less than 10% of readers pay anything for what they are reading.
For 2023, I decided I was going to write about foreign policy/international relations on Thursdays. Today I’m going to focus on one newsletter – Foreign Exchanges by Derek Davidson, a student of Islamic affairs and American Foreign Policy. He and his co-writers produce a great deal of content (much of it for paid subscribers only, as is his right). I’ve upgraded to “paid” status -- $5.00 per month – so I can access more of what he writes. It’s worth it. Here’s the link to the post I’ll be talking about today. The author asks paid subscribers not to share his daily content, but that sharing “judiciously” is okay. I’ve decided that giving you this link one time and including the content from today’s newsletter edition fits the definition of “judicious.” After this, you can decide where to subscribe for yourself.
Today I’m going to focus on his World Round-Up for January 13, 2023. He focuses on 12 countries across the globe – in the Middle East, East Asia, Africa, Europe, and both North and South America. His stories are not long, but each story provides links that allow readers to go deeper into the story if they’re interested. All of what follows is taken from his newsletter, although I have not included the hyperlinks.
Syria:
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met with the Russian government’s Syria envoy on Thursday, after which according to Syrian media he offered some thoughts about a potential summit with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Specifically, Assad suggested that any such meeting would need to “produce tangible results sought by Syria,” which means it would need to discuss Turkey ending its support for Syrian rebels and ending its occupation of much of northern Syria. For their part, the Turks would at a minimum want assurances that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces militia would give up its positions near the border and that the Syrian government will not do anything to those rebels that could create another wave of refugees
Turkey:
At World Politics Review, Cornell University’s Sarah Kreps looks at the ups and downs (more the latter than the former) of Turkey’s rise to prominence in the drone market:
Unfortunately, they may do so at a cost. Turkey’s TB-2 is clearly a more affordable and accessible alternative to the U.S.-made Reaper. The reason the U.S. maintains a relatively high bar for most arms exports, however, is to balance strengthening the U.S. industrial base with concerns about the potentially destabilizing effects of lethal weapons in the hands of countries that might misuse them. At the front end of any proposed arms sale, for example, the U.S. State Department conducts a review to evaluate the recipient country’s human rights record. At the back end, the Arms Export Control Act requires Washington to ensure that recipients of U.S.-made weapons comply with a slew of international legal agreements. This helps explain why only six countries now operate the MQ-9 Reaper.
If the 27 countries that have purchased the TB-2—located everywhere from Africa and Asia to Europe and the Middle East—are any indication, Turkey imposes few such end-user agreements, or else the constraints they impose are low if it does. During the Ethiopian government’s two-year war against the Tigray region, for instance, Ethiopia’s armed forces used imported TB-2s to target a camp for displaced civilians, killing 59 people.
As Bayraktar’s chief technology officer unabashedly said, “The whole world is a customer.” This comparatively promiscuous approach to drone exports has raised eyebrows, at least in the United States. While Washington cannot exercise control over the recipients of Turkish drones, some lawmakers have endorsed restricting exports of U.S. parts that could be used in the manufacture of Turkish drones, which allegedly include missile batteries, fuel pumps, and antennas made in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.
Pakistan:
Pakistan’s foreign currency reserves have dropped to a scant $4.3 billion, which coupled with the $5.8 billion the country’s commercial banks are reportedly holding means this nation of somewhere around 230 million people has a bit over $10 billion in cash lying around. While that is objectively a lot of money it’s not all that much relative to Pakistan’s perspective, considering it’s staring at around $20 billion in required debt payments over the next two years.
Pakistani finances are in dire straits due in no small part to the devastating floods the country suffered last year, which among other things are estimated to have cost some $30 billion. Donors pledged more than $10 billion in relief aid for Pakistan at an international conference earlier this week, so that should help, assuming those pledges are fulfilled. As far as the foreign reserve problem, Islamabad is hoping for an injection of cash from the International Monetary Fund though the IMF is demanding its usual austerity package and that seems to be a sticking point for Pakistani leaders given the state of post-flood reconstruction. So they’re turning to the Persian Gulf for help—Saudi Arabia has injected money into the Pakistani central bank and may inject more, and the UAE earlier this week agreed to roll over some $2 billion in loans and to extend Pakistan an additional $1 billion loan to boot.
Myanmar:
Two Myanmar humanitarian agencies, the Karen Women’s Organization and the Free Burma Rangers, are reporting that five people were killed on Thursday in military airstrikes on two villages in eastern Myanmar’s Karen state. The National Unity Government, which is opposed to Myanmar’s ruling military junta, says that over 460 civilians have been killed in airstrikes since the junta seized power in February 2021. Additionally, earlier this week the Myanmar military reportedly attacked sites in Chin state, killing at least five members of the Chin National Front militia.
Japan
Japanese Prime Minister Kishida Fumio headed to Washington on Friday for a chat with US President Joe Biden. Nothing substantive appears to have come from this other than the usual “we’re all pals here” boilerplate rhetoric, but the session caps off a week-long foreign excursion for the embattled Japanese PM that has seemed more geared toward boosting his domestic standing than achieving anything notable on the international front. It remains to be seen whether it will have any effect.
Ethiopia:
Reports that Amharan special forces have withdrawn from the northern Tigrayan city of Shire may have been premature, as an anonymous “humanitarian worker” has apparently told Reuters that Amharan personnel are still there in “significant numbers.” It’s possible they are in the process of withdrawing, but a statement from the Ethiopian military made Thursday evening says they’d “withdrawn,” not that they were “withdrawing.” The continued presence of Amhara forces in Tigray threatens to impede progress on the peace deal the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front reached in November.
Somalia:
Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud held a rally in Mogadishu on Friday to urge Somalis to “flush out” members of al-Shabab. Comparing the jihadists to “bedbugs,” Mohamud opined that “they are in your houses, they are your neighbors, in cars that pass you by.” The great thing is that telling people they’re surrounded by sub-human enemies never backfires in dangerous and unpredictable ways. Leaving those considerations aside, though, Mohamud appears to be going wide on the plan his government is currently following in Hirshabelle state, whereby local residents and militias take the lead in driving al-Shabab fighters out of their territory with support from national forces. In fairness, that approach does seem to be working.
Lithuania:
A major gas pipeline exploded in Lithuania’s Panevėžys county on Friday, causing significant damage but no apparent casualties. There doesn’t seem to be any immediate indication of foul play but under the circumstances I figured I should at least mention the incident.
Ukraine:
The Russian government declared on Friday that its forces had taken control of the town of Soledar in Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast, finally backing a claim that the Wagner Group first made a couple of days ago. The Ukrainian government insists that there are still Ukrainian units in Soledar who are continuing to fight, but whether or not that’s actually true it’s clear the town either is or soon will be in Russian hands. They will presumably use it as a staging point to attack the nearby city of Bakhmut, which has been the focus of Russian offensive efforts for months now.
Poland:
The Polish Sejm voted on Friday to adopt a judicial reform bill that’s intended to satisfy European Union concerns about judicial independence and the rule of law, and thereby unfreeze Poland’s share of EU COVID recovery funding. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen made it clear following the vote that those funds are only going to be released once the EU has had a chance to see how the reform is implemented, which could take a while as there’s no guarantee yet that the bill will pass the Polish Senate in its current form and President Andrzej Duda hasn’t committed yet to signing it into law.
Brazil:
The Brazilian government is giving former Justice Minister Anderson Torres three days to return from Florida to face charges related to his alleged role in the January 8 riot in Brasília. If he doesn’t, it’s planning to ask the US government to arrest and extradite him. Torres is of course not the only Brazilian national currently enjoying the Florida weather. Former President Jair Bolsonaro, the focus of Sunday’s riot, is now officially under investigation regarding his potential role in the incident. Specifically, Brazilian prosecutors will assess whether the repeated statements Bolsonaro made about alleged fraud in last year’s election contributed to a belief on the part of his supporters that the election was fraudulent. It’s a real mystery.
Bolivia:
Supporters of detained Santa Cruz Governor Luis Fernando Camacho are blockading a major highway outside the town of San Carlos in an effort to force Bolivian authorities to release him. Camacho was arrested last month over his role in the 2019 protests-turned-coup that ousted then-President Evo Morales from power. He’s accused of having organized the protests with the goal of seeing Morales off. Camacho finished third in the 2020 presidential election that restored democratic governance to Bolivia but was elected governor of the conservative Santa Cruz province in 2021 and has established himself as the de facto leader of the opposition to President Luis Arce. The blockade appears to be having an economic impact. Santa Cruz is the engine of the Bolivian economy so he and his supporters are well-positioned to pressure the national government with these sorts of tactics.
Peru:
Thousands of people demonstrated in Lima on Thursday calling for the resignation of interim President Dina Boluarte. While protests stemming from the ouster of former President Pedro Castillo have continued raging, sometimes violently, in southern Peru, they’d quieted in other parts of the country over the holiday season. This was the first major public demonstration in Lima in the new year. It appears to have gone peacefully.
The United States:
Finally, TomDispatch’s Andrea Mazzarino looks at just how little of the Pentagon’s massive and ever-expanding budget trickles down to the soldiers who fight Washington’s wars:
By any standard, the money the United States government pours into its military is simply overwhelming. Take the $858-billion defense spending authorization that President Biden signed into law last month. Not only did that bill pass in an otherwise riven Senate by a bipartisan majority of 83-11, but this year’s budget increase of 4.3% is the second highest in inflation-adjusted terms since World War II. Indeed, the Pentagon has been granted more money than the next 10 largest cabinet agencies combined. And that doesn’t even take into account funding for homeland security or the growing costs of caring for the veterans of this country’s post-9/11 wars. That legislation also includes the largest pay raise in 20 years for active-duty and reserve forces and an expansion of a supplemental “basic needs allowance” to support military families with incomes near the poverty line.
And yet, despite those changes and a Pentagon budget that’s gone through the roof, many U.S. troops and military families will continue to struggle to make ends meet. Take one basic indicator of welfare: whether or not you have enough to eat. Tens of thousands of service members remain “food insecure” or hungry. Put another way, during the past year, members of those families either worried that their food would run out or actually did run out of food.
As a military spouse myself and co-founder of the Costs of War Project, I recently interviewed Tech Sergeant Daniel Faust, a full-time Air Force reserve member responsible for training other airmen. He’s a married father of four who has found himself on the brink of homelessness four times between 2012 and 2019 because he had to choose between necessities like groceries and paying the rent. He managed to make ends meet by seeking assistance from local charities. And sadly enough, that airman has been in all-too-good company for a while now. In 2019, an estimated one in eight military families were considered food insecure. In 2020, at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, that figure rose to nearly a quarter of them. More recently, one in six military families experienced food insecurity, according to the advocacy group Military Family Advisory Network.
The majority of members of the military largely come from middle-class neighborhoods and, not surprisingly perhaps, their struggles mirror those faced by so many other Americans. Spurred by a multitude of factors, including pandemic-related supply-chain problems and — you guessed it — war, inflation in the U.S. rose by more than 9% in 2022. On average, American wages grew by about 4.5% last year and so failed to keep up with the cost of living. This was no less true in the military.
Here's what I plan to do with each day’s newsletter:
Skim the content of the newsletter.
Click on at least one hyperlink in each story
Find the country on a map – and I mean “really” find it, not just acknowledge that it’s in South America or the Middle East somewhere. I want to look at the bordering countries, identify geographic features like rivers and mountain systems, and find the major cities.
Think about connections among the stories.
I don’t know if I’ll stick to this plan. But a plan is the best place to start.
Thanks for the info on Derek Davidson. 😎