scandale.

Human stories from a world in conflict. No Images? [Click here]( March 8, 2019 Editor’s note: We are trying some new features this week in our Global Security newsletter and would like to know what you think. Please [take our survey](. Introducing Critical State (Beta), a partnership between The World and Inkstick Media. If you read just one thing ... In February, the world watched as Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó, along with American officials, tried to bring a shipment of humanitarian aid into Venezuela from Colombia. Dramatic scenes unfolded as Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro rejected the aid, blocking its entry by barricading the bridge connecting the two countries. We learned this week that it was [very nearly]( much more dramatic than that. Two hundred exiled Venezuelans soldiers, under the command of retired general Cliver Alcalá, stood ready to clear a path for the aid by force, only to be called off at the last moment by the Colombian government, which reportedly feared violence. Colombia may have also been uneasy about empowering Alcalá, who was [sanctioned]( by the United States in 2011 for establishing “an arms-for-drugs route with the FARC,” the rebel movement at war with the Colombian government at the time. ## ... if you read more than one thing 'We don’t soften policy by adding estrogen.' The New America Foundation [report]( on women’s roles in America’s nuclear security establishment is filled with both dynamite quotes and compelling insight into how gender politics have shaped nuclear policy. The report details an environment in nuclear Washington where sexist discrimination is “so endemic that the whole town would fall down if people actually reported their experiences at this point,” but also points to areas where gender equality progress has produced improved policy outcomes. For example, a network of women in government figured out an unorthodox approach for the removal of Syrian chemical weapons by destroying them in the sea. - The report describes a familiar disconnect in nuclear policy circles — the arms control/nonproliferation community is “more welcoming to women, diverse perspectives, and innovative ideas,” whereas the conservative deterrence/nuclear posture community is “more closed-off and hierarchical.” - Source interviews underline the sexual undertones that dominate thinking on nuclear weapons — undertones that most ignored until feminist scholars like Carol Cohn [pointed them out](. As one source noted, “Lectures [on nuclear policy] were filled with discussion of vertical erector launchers, thrust-to-weight ratios, soft laydowns, deep penetration, and the comparative advantages of protracted versus spasm attacks — what one military adviser to the National Security Council has called 'releasing 70 to 80 percent of our megatonnage in one orgasmic whump.'” I always thought that panda looked threatening An investigation shows that the World Wildlife Fund for Nature has been [operating]( as a kind of pro-animal warlord in at least six countries in Asia and Africa. Anti-poaching units funded and supported by the WWF have threatened, tortured, and killed suspected poachers and innocent civilians near wildlife parks, often with the explicit knowledge and implicit support of the WWF. - The group hit rock bottom in the Central African Republic, where the WWF tried to buy AK-47s for park rangers from the national army — which has been [cited]( by the United Nations for human rights abuses. In an example of the organization’s degeneration, ex-staffers noted that they had been specifically recruited to hide the arms deal from funders. To make matters worse, in an internal e-mail thread labeled “scandale." (with a period for emphasis), WWF country director Jean-Bernard Yarissem admitted that the army had embezzled WWF money during the deal. - WWF has commissioned an independent inquiry into the allegations, but the future of that inquiry has raised eyebrows, given that a 2015 internal [investigation]( into similar allegations in Cameroon apparently produced no real change in the organization’s approach. ## Midnight Oil This week’s Midnight Oil guest is Sarah Percy, an associate professor of international relations at [The University of Queensland]( in Australia. Her research focuses on maritime security issues, nonstate combatants, and international law. In a recent [essay]( for The Interpreter, she cautioned the Australian government against offering major contracts to private security contractors, after a $423 million no-bid security contract caused a [scandal]( in Canberra. What is the hardest problem you work on? I’m interested in the relationship between norms and conflict, and in particular figuring out when constraints prevent proscribed actions in conflict and when they don’t. For example, I’ve written about why states in the past failed to use mercenaries when they might have done so. I’m also interested in when these constraints change — in my latest article, I’ve written about how and why it took so long for women to participate in active combat. One of the main challenges in this kind of work is moving beyond the notion of strict compliance to figure out whether or not states and other actors actually feel constrained by rules or laws. Compliance is comparatively easy to measure, and it’s tempting to rely on it because it’s subject to all sorts of quantitative assessment. But compliance itself can tell us very little about constraint. Sometimes an actor follows a rule because they don’t care about it; sometimes they follow a rule because they believe it to be right; sometimes compliance is costly, and sometimes it isn’t. If actors stop complying with a law the moment it becomes costly to do so, then probably the law wasn’t accomplishing much in the first place. How do you go about trying to solve this problem? … Figuring out what causes actors to be constrained in war requires lots of interdisciplinary research. I use literature from military history and international law, among other fields, to provide a broader picture of what’s happening. Also, in some cases, interviews can provide a really interesting perspective on why actors themselves felt constrained. For example, when I was trying to [figure out]( what made it possible for navies conducting counterpiracy to transcend enmity (naval counterpiracy involved states as diverse as China, the US and other NATO countries, Australia) I interviewed Simon Ancona, who was then a Commodore in the Royal Navy. He was able to clarify exactly that the real issue with counterpiracy is practical rather than normative: Different navies must be able to communicate easily, but that’s hard if they are not allies. Pirates can listen to open communications, and navies like the US and China can’t share secure communications. So navies adapted an instant messenger system called Mercury Chat so that they could speak to each other easily. Show me the receipts [Abortion politics are isolating the US at the United Nations]( Sarah Harper [explained]( how the Trump administration’s determination to oppose abortion rights at every turn is isolating the US on a range of issues at the United Nations. In the human rights bodies that handle questions of reproductive rights at the UN, the US is often acting alone or with a small group of repressive regimes to water down resolutions that mention or allude to abortion rights. In December, Harper notes, an American effort to remove abortion-related language in a resolution about preventing violence against women and girls resulted in exactly zero votes from other nations in favor of the US amendment. [Learn more >]( [A Pershing II battlefield support missile is fired through the middle of Henri Matisse's "Dance (I)."] With no Carnival, Haiti’s musicians lose more than their stage Tania Karas [reported]( from Port-au-Prince on the cost Haitian musicians are paying for political activism, as the government has canceled Carnival this year after months of protests against mismanagement of public funds turned violent. Carnival songs are a key aspect of Carnival, offering both a platform for political speech — all 600 Carnival songs this year mention the PetroCaribe scandal that has rocked Haiti over the past eight months — and a launchpad for ambitious musicians seeking a wider audience. [Learn more >]( Chávez’s revolutionaries caught between legacy and change in Venezuela José González Vargas [spoke]( to Venezuelans who participated in the Bolivarian Revolution, which saw Hugo Chávez’s rise to power in 1998, about the current political crisis. Vargas found a divided revolution, with some completely disillusioned by Venezuela’s economic disaster and others fiercely defending Chávez’s successor, Nicolás Maduro, living by the motto "Always loyal, traitor never." For those caught in the middle, who still believe in the leftist ideals of the Bolivarian Revolution but have lost faith in Maduro, there is no clear political home. [Learn more >]( Well played Midnight Oil alumna Meredith Loken published an [article]( with Kanisha Bond, Kate Cronin-Furman, Milli Lake, Sarah Parkinson, and Anna Zelenz calling out sexist rhetoric about women involved in ISIS. It’s a great article, but there was one problem: they got [scooped]( on the topic by [The Onion](. As America’s Finest News Source put it, mere hours before the Loken et al. article dropped, "You shouldn’t refer to [a woman in ISIS] as a 'female terrorist' ... because the countless hours she’s allegedly spent online calling for the death of Americans makes her just as much of a terrorist as anyone else." ## Speaking in Iowa on Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo borrowed a phrase from an unlikely source, endorsing a market approach to problem-solving by [saying]( "we should let a thousand flowers bloom." Who coined that phrase? Let’s go to the big board — that’s … well, that’s [Mao Zedong](. ## In sad news for nerds of every stripe, Jeopardy! host Alex Trebek announced this week that he has been diagnosed with cancer. Critical State wishes Trebek, an all-time great game show host and [a master of the short-form insult](, the best. Thanks for reading. [Please let us know what you think]( of this new approach to the Global Security newsletter. Public Radio International (PRI) is a global nonprofit media company focused on the intersection of journalism and engagement to effect positive change in people’s lives. We create a more informed, empathetic and connected world by sharing powerful stories, encouraging exploration, connecting people and cultures, and creating opportunities to help people take informed action on stories that inspire them. Its mission is to serve audiences as a distinctive content source for information, insights and cultural experiences essential to living in our diverse, interconnected world. [Support PRI]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Website]( PRI Public Radio International Hear a Different Voice [Forward]( [Preferences]( | [Unsubscribe](