FP This Week: Why Sri Lanka’s Unrest Is an Omen

Plus, U.S. President Joe Biden is in the Middle East. [Foreign Policy This Week]( July 11, 2022 | [View in browser]( To access all the benefits of an FP subscription, [sign in]( or [subscribe](. Thanks for reading. One year ago today, thousands of people took to the streets across Cuba to protest the skyrocketing prices of essential goods. It was the largest event of civil unrest on the island since the 1990s—and as journalist Lillian Perlmutter [writes]( in a riveting dispatch, a disproportionate number of those arrested in an ensuing crackdown on dissent came from Havana’s poorest enclaves. Perlmutter reports that new laws passed by the Cuban National Assembly of People’s Power in May threaten citizens’ civil liberties further, criminalizing any participation in an unauthorized demonstration of two or more people, punishable by four to 10 years in prison. Over the weekend, electric images from the other side of the world in Sri Lanka showed protesters inside the president’s house: swimming in his pool, watching his TV, and even showering. Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa’s family has dominated Sri Lankan politics for two decades now, and its populist regime has been widely criticized for economic mismanagement, corruption, and the brutal way it ended the nation’s civil war in 2009. But as Mark Malloch-Brown reminds us, Sri Lanka is an omen. “While Sri Lanka’s woes are as much of its own making as fueled by global trends,” the president of the Open Society Foundations [writes]( “they are an ominous marker of what’s to come in a world that seems able to handle just one crisis at a time—and often not even that.” U.S. President Joe Biden is set for a busy week of confronting many crises all at once. He will be in Israel on Wednesday and Thursday and then in Saudi Arabia over the weekend. International affairs experts Aaron David Miller and Steven Simon provide a [rundown]( on everything you need to know ahead of Biden’s Middle East trip. Miller and Simon are skeptical of the U.S. president’s ability to make much of a difference. “Israel and the Arabs will take what the U.S. president has to give, but they are acutely aware of his diminishing political currency and have begun to look past him toward the return of former U.S. President Donald Trump or his avatar,” they write. –The editors --------------------------------------------------------------- New and Noteworthy - In Memoriam: Tobias Harris, a senior fellow for Asia at the Center for American Progress, underscores assassinated former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s [complex legacy](. For more on Abe, read Sunday’s edition of Flash Points [here]( - FP Live: Join FP editor in chief Ravi Agrawal for an in-depth conversation with Fiona Hill, a former top advisor on Russia at the U.S. National Security Council during the Trump administration on July 13 at 12 p.m. Last week, U.S. ambassador to NATO Julianne Smith gave subscribers an insider’s look at NATO’s future and American priorities within it. Register for this week’s discussion or catch up on past conversations with experts at [foreignpolicy.com/live]( - Intervention or Restraint: Will the Kaliningrad crisis lead to war? In the [latest edition]( of It’s Debatable, our experts disagree about how Lithuania’s muscular move to enforce European Union sanctions by blocking Russian rail cargo could risk escalating the Russia-NATO conflict. --------------------------------------------------------------- Comment of the Week FP Subscriber Glenn F. If “expected inflation” is a major driver for eventual inflation, how can anyone predict future inflation? FP Contributor Adam Tooze: One of the things that was learned in the 1970s is that if you are managing inflation, what matters even more is managing what economists call “actors.” In other words, businesses, trade unions, people who make decisions in the economy, what they expect the future to be. Because depending on that, they will raise their prices or attempt to raise their wages. If you anticipate inflation and then you fail to raise your wages, you’re basically writing a big L on your forehead and saying, “I’m going to be a loser.” So when central bankers say they are in the business of controlling inflation, it’s literally true that the most important thing they are in the business of is controlling inflationary expectations. And one of the reasons why I think this is a “keep calm and carry on” kind of moment is that we haven’t seen a panic in the bond markets. If people in the bond markets thought there was a real risk of us returning to the 1970s, bonds would be priced very differently from the way they are right now. But what we haven’t seen is the sort of tremor that suggests 5 to 10 percent inflation for the next 10 years. It’s just not there. Thanks to all subscribers who [submitted questions]( to FP columnist and Columbia University professor Adam Tooze. The FP Live conversation is now available [on demand](. Hear Tooze discuss the current economic moment (Is it really a crisis?), where the Biden administration has failed, and why you really should be keeping an eye on copper. A lightly edited transcript of this conversation is also available on [foreignpolicy.com]( --------------------------------------------------------------- In Case You Missed It Here’s what FP subscribers read last week: - “[Putin’s War Was Never About NATO]( by Natalia Antonova - “[Why America’s Far Right and Far Left Have Aligned Against Helping Ukraine]( by Jan Dutkiewicz and Dominik Stecuła - “[How to Equip Ukraine to Break the Black Sea Blockade]( by Bryan Clark and Peter Rough - “[Vladimir Putin Often Backs Down]( by Maria Snegovaya and Brian Whitmore --------------------------------------------------------------- From Around FP - All Things Adam Tooze: In his [top-rated podcast](, FP economics columnist Adam Tooze looks at two data points that explain the world: one drawn from the week’s headlines and the other from just about anywhere else Tooze takes us. Last week, in an [in-depth interview]( with FP editor in chief Ravi Agrawal, Tooze shared his insights on how to manage an overheated economy. For more from Tooze, read the Atlantic’s featured story, “[A Crisis Historian Has Some Bad News For Us](.” - Global Reboot: A new season of [Global Reboot]( is coming to you tomorrow, July 12. On this partner podcast, produced with support from Doha Forum, FP editor in chief Ravi Agrawal is joined by some of the smartest thinkers and policymakers of our time to identify solutions to the world’s biggest challenges. You can listen to Global Reboot on [Apple Podcasts](, [Spotify](, [Google Podcasts](, or wherever you get your podcasts. - Uniting Against Corruption: As global crises, including conflict and COVID-19, create new opportunities for exploitation and authoritarian abuse, democratic defenders around the world are citing corruption as one of the key issues plaguing modern democracy. Join FP, in partnership with the National Democratic Institute, for a [conversation]( with global experts, civic leaders, and officials addressing how collective steps can combat these illicit influences in the lead-up to the U.S. Summit for Democracy. [Click here]( for event details and registration. July 21, 10 to 11 a.m. EDT. Are you interested in learning more about FP Analytics’ cutting-edge research services, hosting an FP Virtual Dialogue event, or building a podcast with FP Studios? [Explore partnership opportunities](. Would you like to enable organization-wide access to Foreign Policy to maximize your savings? [Find out]( if a group subscription is right for your team. Image Credit: Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP Via Getty Images --------------------------------------------------------------- [Now Available: The Back to the Future Issue.]( Our Summer 2022 magazine tries to find ways to make sense of current affairs by delving into the past. 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