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Cambodia is one of the world's most open economies, sustaining high levels of growth in an environment of relatively weak governance. Emerging from a legacy of genocide and civil conflict, the country has sought to address human and social capital deficits across sectors, weaknesses in public finance, and corruption. Despite improvements in access to basic services, governance constraints persist and may threaten gains from economic integration. Over the 2004-10 period, the Bank's engagement on Governance and Anticorruption (GAC) issues in Cambodia was not defined by a single, overarching priority or entry point (such as core public sector management, natural resource management, or service delivery). Rather, the Bank was opportunistic, opting to support the government's GAC efforts across multiple sectors and institutions. The relevance of this opportunistic approach is judged to be moderately relevant. The Bank's objectives on public financial management (PFM) were highly relevant given Cambodia's nontransparent and weak public expenditure management and limited capacity. The Bank's response to sectoral governance weaknesses such as red tape, inefficiencies, and other forms of rent-seeking in customs is rated modest given the need for the government to implement its World Trade Organization commitments. The Bank's project level engagement is rated as moderately relevant. As a basis for reinstating suspended projects, portfolio-wide measures included the use of an Independent Procurement Agency (IPA) for the International Development Association (IDA) procurements, and the implementation of Good Governance Frameworks (GGF) for all IDA projects.

Several East Asian countries, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, are considering an expansion of their social safety net programs. In many cases, existing delivery mechanisms for social assistance in the region tend to be basic, in line with the small size of programs. In a context of coverage expansion and proliferation of new programs, the risk of creating increasingly complex systems characterized by cross-incentives is high. Lack of coordination, ambiguous criteria for identifying and selecting beneficiaries, low administrative capacity, lack of transparency and limited beneficiary participation pose risks for program effectiveness and can decrease accountability. Good governance can improve program outcomes through effective program coordination, stronger accountability arrangements, provider incentives and greater transparency and participation. This paper proposes an analytical framework to systematically identify governance risks and constraints which, if removed, could improve the outcomes of modern social assistance programs.

A recent Supreme Court ruling clarified why the Court
allowed Louisiana fall congressional elections to continue under a map declared
unconstitutional, and increased the chances this will be the only such
election this decade that will have a two majority-minority district map.

In Alexander v.
South Carolina State Conference, the Court ruled that a congressional
map that otherwise didn't violate traditional principles of reapportionment,
such as compactness and contiguity of districts, did not have to have the proportion
of M/M districts somewhat equivalent to the proportion of minority race (almost
always black, but sometimes others) residents in the state if the legislature wished
to draw districts to maximize partisan advantage even if incidentally related
to racial division in voting. This launched panic among leftist
and far
left commentators because it signaled that in reapportionment disputes the Court
no longer would permit the left's and Democrats' shadow agenda to remain in the
shadows.

That is, those forces try to gain partisan
advantage in reapportionment by equating maps that give them that as necessary
to prevent racial discrimination, made possible because for the past half-century
blacks typically have voted overwhelmingly for candidate of the left, almost
always black candidates. This has been tolerated because courts for decades had
made the presumption that racial prejudice against a minority group had to lay
behind any reapportionment decision that did not draw district majorities roughly
proportional to that group's proportion in the population, and so to do this
required satisfying certain criteria that didn't include partisan advantage as
a mitigating factor.

But with this most recent decision, not only does partisanship
become a mitigating factor, it becomes the base assumption that henceforth
challenges to maps must demonstrate doesn't apply in order to be successful;
so, now it's not a matter of the defense disproving that race influenced the map-making
process, but that the plaintiffs disprove partisanship didn't play a role. Or,
another way of looking at it, it short-circuits reliance on the Voting Rights
Act by sending claims first through the Fourteenth Amendment, which the
judiciary (after decades of dancing around the question) has determined doesn't
address partisan gerrymandering.

That well may have an impact on Callais v.
Landry, which dumped the two M/M map Louisiana had offered up to replace
the one M/M map put on preliminary hold by another district court, because that
other court said the state's population of one-third black-identifying needed
to be reflected as two M/M out of six districts. Even though that case has
declared the two M/M map enacted earlier this year as unconstitutional and
speedily enough to impose a remedy that may have been a one M/M map, citing
previous cases the Court said it was too late to switch to a one M/M map with
fall elections looming.

At the time, the left
seemed somewhat perplexed at why that invocation was done at the behest of
the six Republican-appointed Court justices and opposed by the three appointed
by Democrats; after all, this locked in a two M/M district map when a one M/M
map might have been the product of continued lower court scrutiny on a fast
track. It couldn't see, or perhaps couldn't admit publicly, that this meant the
Court would use this case over the next year to review and circumscribe the
Voting Rights Act insofar as it has been interpreted to give race a privileged
position in evaluating the legality of plans.

Now we know exactly why: the Court majority – the
same one that stayed Callais against the same minority that objected –
was days away from reconfiguring the precedence of partisanship and race in the
scheme of evaluating claims about maps. It didn't want the lower court to make
decisions without the input of Alexander or even have that opportunity,
as it has become clearer now that the Court wants to have a say in this matter.
Indeed, not only could Callais become invoked as part of a case, if not
the case, that invalidates the part of the VRA that is called upon to elevate
race above all criteria, it could (if
Assoc. Justice Clarence Thomas has his way) junk the entire law.

(The whole reliance of race as proxy for partisanship
may have had its run anyway. With Republican former Pres. Donald
Trump for this fall sloughing
off minority voters unprecedented for a Republican candidate in over six
decades, VRA arguments about black but especially Hispanic solidarity in
preferred candidacies become less convincing to elevate race's status in
reapportionment and adds fuel to Assoc. Justice Brett Kavanaugh's hint
to bring a case that results in declaring this impact of the VRA timebound.)

So, the far left has gone ballistic because it
knows it no longer can dress partisanship up as anti-racism to win rulings
favorable to increasing the number of Democrats in elective plenary offices.
Instead, it has to win elections, in order to control the institutions that
could produce partisan gerrymanders that don't lapse into racial
gerrymandering, which it increasingly has come to recognize it can't as it is
disarmed intellectually compared to conservative appeals and must sustain any success
using highly emotive appeals backstopped by institutions that attempt to filter
information so as to support leftist agendas.

Ironically, had Louisiana not ditched the 2022 single
M/M map that never had a trial over its merits it could defend much more easily
that map today and it well may have been the one in effect for this fall's
elections. In response, it at its earliest opportunity the Legislature should respond
to Callais
as it had previously in the similar situation: say the map didn't withstand
judicial scrutiny – in fact, this time as a result of a trial on the merits –
trash it, but this time produce a single M/M map based upon partisan
considerations and then dare challengers to produce a map without five
majority-white districts that doesn't also tip the scales towards electing five
Republicans, as
by Alexander.

Ignore the left's caterwauling over a decision
grounded firmly in stare decisis and logic. Forge ahead with a plan to
make Louisiana's congressional districts commonsensical given its demography –
a single M/M map – that reflects voter preferences.

In March 1906, U.S. forces attacked a group of Moros and killed more than 900 men, women, and children at the top of Mt. Dajo on the island of Jolo in the southern Philippines. Even though the death toll was higher than at well-known massacres committed by American soldiers at Wounded Knee and My Lai, the massacre at Bud Dajo has been all but forgotten outside the Philippines.Recovering the history of this event is the subject of an important new book by historian Kim Wagner, "Massacre in the Clouds: An American Atrocity and the Erasure of History." The book is a masterful reconstruction of the events leading up to the lopsided slaughter on the mountain, and Wagner sets the massacre in its proper historical context during the age of American overseas colonialism at the start of the 20th century. It also offers important lessons about how the dehumanization of other people leads to terrible atrocities and how imperial policies rely on the use of brutal violence.In the years leading up to the massacre, the U.S. had been extending its control over the southern Philippines after it had annexed the northern islands and defeated local pro-independence forces in the Philippine-American War (1899-1902). U.S. relations with the Sultanate of Sulu were initially regulated by the Bates Treaty of 1899, but within a few years the U.S. abrogated that treaty and sought to impose direct rule. The U.S. tossed the treaty aside on the recommendation of Gen. Leonard Wood, who was the local military governor based on Mindanao at the time.The massacre was part of a larger history of violent American expansionism, and it was the result of an imperial policy that sought to impose colonial rule on the Philippines. The U.S. effort to collect the cedula tax provoked significant resentment and opposition among the Moros. (The Moro name was the one given to the Muslim Tausugs of the Sulu archipelago by the earlier Spanish colonizers, and it was the one that the Americans continued to use.) As Wagner explains, Moro opposition to the tax was rooted in a defense of their religious identity, which they believed would be compromised and weakened if they submitted to a tax imposed by non-Muslim rulers.The Moros that sought refuge at Bud Dajo were protesting the encroachment of a new colonial power and resisting interference in their way of life. The U.S. authorities there perceived them and cast them as outlaws, and under the command of the same Gen. Wood, U.S. forces proceeded to wipe almost all of them out. As Daniel Immerwahr comments in "How to Hide an Empire," "Massacres like this weren't unknown in the United States. …Yet Bud Dajo dwarfed them all."The atrocity was initially the cause of some controversy at home, and anti-imperialist critics of American rule in the Philippines tried to use it to attack the Roosevelt administration's policies. The criticism was short-lived, and no one involved with the massacre at any level faced any penalties later. The massacre was quickly rationalized and normalized with the familiar appeals to "necessity" and an exceptionalist belief in America's expansionist mission.The similarities with crimes committed by the military against Native Americans led most Americans to justify the slaughter at Bud Dajo rather than condemn it. The similarities with crimes committed by contemporary European colonial powers didn't cause most Americans to reconsider the expansionist project, but instead it led them to retract their earlier criticisms of European atrocities. Merely exposing an atrocity abroad often has no political effect if most people at home are determined to ignore or excuse it.Wagner details how Wood and the Roosevelt administration tried to control the flow of information about the massacre, but the massacre was never a secret. There was never an attempt at a cover-up because the massacre became so widely accepted as "necessary." The officers and soldiers involved in the killing wrote letters home about what they had seen and done at Bud Dajo, and their correspondence is one of the sources that Wagner uses for reconstructing what happened on the mountain. The dehumanization of the Moros in the eyes of most Americans was so complete that the photographic evidence of the victims was turned into popular postcards for soldiers and tourists to buy.The photograph of the aftermath of the massacre taken by Aeronaut Gibbs stands out in Wagner's account. The photograph shows a trench filled with the bodies of dead Moros with a group of American soldiers posing alongside them. This is the picture that Wagner comes back to several times in the book to capture the brutality of the event and to illustrate how thoroughly the victims of the massacre had been dehumanized. The trench photo is an image of the atrocity "through the eyes of the perpetrators," as Wagner puts it, and he explains that the "image is not just evidence of a massacre—in the way that we might consider a crime-scene photo—but is itself an artifact of violence." American rule over the Philippines had been inspired by the example of European colonialism in Asia and Africa, and the American administrators of the overseas empire looked to copy the methods of European empires in suppressing local opposition by force. Today some proponents of American dominance still look back to this era of direct colonial rule as evidence of America's benevolent imperialism, but this ignores the record of brutal violence that was used to establish and maintain that rule. Bud Dajo was a shocking example of that violence, and it was the product of a system that routinely demanded and justified such violence against the people living under American rule. Though few Americans remember them, the U.S. wars in the Philippines were responsible for the deaths of up to one million people.Americans need to remember this period of U.S. history, but it is also important to recognize that many political leaders today use the same kinds of rationalizations to justify modern atrocities, whether they are committed by U.S. forces or client states acting with U.S. support.As Wagner puts it, "Whereas the actual history of US atrocities in the southern Philippines has been largely forgotten, the racialized logic that underpinned the violence of March 1906 has not." Just as the expansionists did 118 years ago, some supporters of American dominance continue to excuse war crimes by dehumanizing the victims and blaming them for their own demise.

Frantz Fanon has been making the rounds lately. The subject of a new biography by Adam Shatz and a recent New Yorker essay, the anticolonial activist is enjoying a sort of intellectual renaissance. Perhaps that's because like so many people today, he lived in a world shaped by violence.
While the formal process of post-World War II decolonization had begun to run its course by 1961, when Fanon died at the age of 36, the Global South remained a violent space. Western powers continued to extract resources from former colonies, to manipulate local economies, and to expand local civil wars by intervening in regions from Latin America to Southeast Asia.
Fanon believed that violence not only begot violence, but that it could serve to uplift peoples long suffering under the colonial system. His 1961 seminal work, The Wretched of the Earth, spared no details on this point. "At the individual level," the revolutionary political philosopher argued, "violence is a cleansing force. It rids the colonized of their inferiority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude. It emboldens them, and restores their self-confidence."
More than sixty years later, we might ask if Fanon's claims on violence still hold merit. While Fanon's writings focused entirely on anti-colonialism in his own time, broader interpretations of all violence as cleansing have entered the intellectual bloodstream. Recent conflicts in Eastern Europe and the Middle East demonstrate the fallacies of perpetually seeing violence as a "cleansing force." All of this is worth examining in context, today.
The Martinique philosopher, it should be noted, did not speak in terms of "ethnic cleansing." In no way was he following in the abominable footsteps of an Adolf Hitler or setting a precedent for Slobodan Milošević, the 1990s "Butcher of the Balkans." Instead, Fanon meant to convey the rehabilitative nature of violence for oppressed peoples still living under the thumb of their former imperial masters. Perhaps this was because, as a psychiatrist, he actually treated victims of colonial violence — and colonizers themselves — during the Algerian war for independence from France.
But war doesn't rehabilitate. It only despoils and destroys. War is not reparative. Instead, it requires costly reconstruction in the wake of what it leaves behind. Policymakers and hawkish intellectuals alike peddle falsehoods when they promise war's therapeutic cures.
If Fanon justified the use of violence as a form of anticolonial self-defense — Shatz argues "cleansing" is better translated as "de-intoxicating" — such views have been extrapolated to rationalize military force for any occasion. In restating Russia's goals in Ukraine, for instance, President Vladimir Putin spoke in cleansing terms. Peace would come, he argued, only after the "denazification, demilitarisation and a neutral status" imposed upon Ukraine. It has been nearly a year since the World Bank estimated the costs of Ukraine's reconstruction at US $411 billion. One wonders if such massive destruction truly will wash away Putin's fears of Western encroachment toward Russian borders.
If Fanon saw violence as redemptive, he also judged it to be reactive, at least for the colonized. Violence could be politically and strategically instrumental in altering power relationships between oppressor and oppressed. In other words, it is a way to contest the infliction of injury by the more powerful when peace failed to deliver.
Did similar thinking underscore Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack against Israel? As the BBC reported, the Islamic Resistance Movement justified its actions as a response to "Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people." But the orgy of violence that followed—French President Emmanuel Macron called the 7 October attacks the "biggest antisemitic massacre of our century"—hardly was cleansing.
Nor did Israel's military response shy away from a Fanonian belief in the virtues of violence. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sidestepped criticisms of the heavy death toll among Palestinian civilians inflicted by the Israeli response, reaching back to the allies' World War II bombing campaign as justification for the "legitimate actions" of a state at war. If Fanon maintained that the colonized individuals could regain their dignity through "counter-violence," a way to liberate themselves from subjugation, surely Netanyahu thought similarly for the Israeli state writ large.
Yet the right-wing Likud party has gone farther than simply opposing violence with violence, with some extremists calling for the annihilation of Gaza and the Palestinians who live there. Can this language of genocidal violence, if not its actual practice, truly lead to the liberation of which Fanon spoke?
Lest Americans think that Fanon's political philosophizing doesn't apply to them, they need look no further than the global war on terror. In the aftermath of 9/11, President George W. Bush landed on a two-pronged strategy for the Middle East that assumed a successful counterterrorism campaign would pave the way for a democratic transformation of the entire region. Turning Fanon on his head, the Bush administration saw violence as a way to bring order back to decolonized locales where disorder—and, to Bush and his supporters, violence—now reigned supreme.
Contemporary critics, of course, voiced their concerns. Not long after the national trauma of 9/11, journalist Chris Hedges contemplated American notions of war as a cleansing force that gave them meaning. Hedges wasn't convinced. He found the language of violence hollow, the implementation of it repugnant.
I think Hedges's doubts were (and are) justified, and not just for Americans. Do Israelis, for instance, who see themselves living in a besieged state consider their lives more meaningful for the violence they both support and endure? Do Palestinians judging themselves victims of a violent settler colonial project feel their world has been cleansed?
If Fanon remains relevant so long after his death in 1961, then perhaps policymakers and publics alike should question their enduring embrace of violence and war as cleansing forces. Historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt certainly did, arguing that the "most probable change [violence] will bring about is the change to a more violent world." Current events in both the Middle East and Eastern Europe seem to be bearing Arendt out.
To his credit, Fanon believed that violence leading to "pure, total brutality" could undermine the very political movements employing violence in the first place. But when policymakers and their people seek to use violence as a cleansing force, brutality itself seems to be the point.

The revolutionary violence that swept Kyiv's Maidan Square on the night of February 21, 2014 unleashed the forces of Ukrainian nationalism and, ultimately, Russian revanchism, and resulted in, among other things, the first full-scale land war in Europe since 1945.President Volodymyr Zelensky has called the Maidan the "first victory" in Ukraine's fight for independence from Russia. Yet too often lost in the tributes to Ukraine's 'Revolution of Dignity' are two simple, though ramifying, questions: What was the Maidan really about? And did things have to turn out this way?Revisiting the events of that time may help us more fully understand how we arrived at this fateful moment in world affairs.So, what precipitated the Maidan Revolution?In November 2013, Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych rejected the terms of the European Union Association Agreement in favor of a $15 billion credit agreement offered by the Russian Federation. Many in the western part of Ukraine had supported the EU deal, as it would have, in their view, secured Ukraine's future within Europe.But, as the Europeans, Americans, Ukrainians and Russians knew full well, the association agreement with Brussels wasn't merely a trade deal. Section 2.3 of the EU-Ukraine association agenda would have required the signatories to:"...take measures to foster military cooperation and cooperation of technical character between the EU and Ukraine [and] encourage and facilitate direct cooperation on concrete activities, jointly identified by both sides, between relevant Ukrainian institutions and CFSP/CSDP agencies and bodies such as the European Defence Agency, the European Union Institute for Security Studies, the European Union Satellite Centre and the European Security and Defence College."In other words, the trade deal also included the encouragement of military interoperability with forces viewed, rightly or wrongly, by the Russian government as a threat to Russian national security.In addition, the EU association agenda required Ukraine to put up barriers to trade with Russia. An alternative proposal put forward by Romano Prodi (former Italian Prime Minister and EU Commission president) would have allowed Ukraine to trade with both Russia and the EU but was rejected by Brussels.Yanukovych's rejection of the EU agreement brought thousands of protesters to Kyiv's Independence (Maidan) Square. Yet policy disagreements over issues of trade and national security can and are routinely adjudicated via democratic procedures, as they are in the U.S. and Europe. And such an adjudication was eminently possible, even as late as the morning of February 21, 2014, when a deal brokered by Russia and the EU was struck between Yanukovych and the Ukrainian opposition that included a revision of Ukraine's constitution, the creation of a unity government, and an early presidential election to be held 10 months later in December 2014.But on the night of February 21, Yanukovych fled, and a new government was installed by voluntarist rather than democratic means. The immediate post-Maidan government included the far-right Svoboda Party, whose members, according to a contemporaneous Reuters report, held "five senior roles in Ukraine's new government including the post of deputy prime minister."Edmund Wilson once wrote that "it is all too easy to idealize a social upheaval which takes place in some other country than one's own." And that was a trap into which the Obama administration — along with almost the entirety of the American media, intelligentsia and think tank world — fell in the immediate aftermath of the Maidan.It would be fair of critics of this view (and there are many) to ask: What were their alternatives to the Obama administration's support for the Maidan and Kyiv's post-revolutionary government?Mr. Obama might have said "A deal was struck. Stick to it." This would have required a degree of statesmanship unusual to any American president. But, as Eurasia Group president Ian Bremmer observed only a month later, "...there was a deal that was cut with the European foreign ministers. That deal was abrogated and the Americans were very happy to jump on that immediately in ways that would have been completely unacceptable to anyone in the U.S. administration if we had been on the other side."And so, the U.S. lent its support to the post-Maidan government (and the Anti-Terrorist Operation, or ATO, launched in April 2014) against the largely, but of course far from entirely, indigenous uprising in the Donbas. Thus began the first phase of the war, which lasted until the evening of February 24, 2022 and cost 14,000 dead and 1.5 million refugees.In addition to the ATO, Kyiv also pursued a policy of decommunization in the east (later cited by Putin as among his many grievances with post-Maidan Kyiv) and repeatedly refused to implement the Minsk Accords. As a former U.S. Ambassador to the USSR, Jack F. Matlock, noted in Responsible Statecraft, "The war might have been prevented — probably would have been prevented — if Ukraine had been willing to abide by the Minsk agreement, recognize the Donbas as an autonomous entity within Ukraine, avoid NATO military advisors, and pledge not to enter NATO."The second phase of the war opened on the evening of February 24, 2022, as some 190,000 Russian troops invaded Ukraine. The costs to Ukraine have been staggering.The World Economic Forum recently estimated that the cost of Ukrainian reconstruction will reach $1 trillion. Still more, "Approximately 20% of the country's farmland has been wrecked and 30% of land either littered with landmines or unexploded ordnance." Casualty estimates are known to be among the most closely held state secrets during wartime, but some, like former Ukraine prosecutor general Yuriy Lutsenko, have estimated Ukraine suffered a combined 500,000 dead and wounded in its war with Russia. Meanwhile, the population of Ukraine has plummeted from 45.5 million in 2013 to an estimated 37 million today.Looking back, the warnings issued by a small minority in the winter of 2014, including, but not limited to: the present authors; Professor Stephen F. Cohen; The Quincy Institute's Anatol Lieven; Ambassador Jack Matlock; Professor John J. Mearsheimer; and others were dismissed by the Obama administration, policymakers, the media and the most influential think tanks in Washington. Yet the effort to wrest Ukraine into the West's orbit via revolutionary violence, despite the objections of fully a third of that country, has been nothing short of catastrophic.

Explosive assassination claims made over seven weeks ago by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have thrust India-Canada relations into crisis. Despite the two countries' shared position on the Israel-Hamas war and caution by Canada's key allies, the downward spiral between Ottawa and New Delhi has continued unabated.Trudeau accused the Indian government in September of complicity in the killing of prominent Sikh leader Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil. Nijjar, an outspoken proponent of the Khalistan separatist movement for the establishment of an independent state in India's northern Punjab region, was previously labeled a "terrorist" by Indian authorities. The government of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi denounced Trudeau's allegations as "absurd and motivated," reiterating its long-standing grievances over what it describes as Canada's continued sheltering of Khalistani terrorists and extremists.The bombshell allegations have brought the India-Canada relationship to what experts have described as its lowest point ever. A massive trade deal that both sides hoped would be inked by the end of 2023 has been frozen indefinitely. Canada responded by expelling Indian diplomat Pavan Kumar Rai, prompting India's expulsion of a Canadian diplomat in a mirror response. New Delhi took the diplomatic tit-for-tat game to a new level in October, reportedly ordering Canada to recall over half —41 of 62 — of its diplomats in India. Trudeau neither confirmed the expulsions nor suggested that Canada is planning a proportionate response. "Obviously, we are going through an extremely challenging time with India right now, but that's why it is so important for us to have diplomats on the ground working with the Indian government and there to support Canadians and Canadian families," he said, according to AP. Trudeau's recent attempts to contain, if not to dial down, tensions with India come amid growing apprehensions by Canada's key allies. The Biden administration has made it a foreign policy priority to court India as a critical regional counterweight to China. The White House reportedly privately believes Canada's assassination claims, but worries that the dispute may spill over into a more serious confrontation with deleterious consequences for its Indo-Pacific strategy. "When Washington has to decide between New Delhi and Ottawa, given the current global geopolitical situation, it's going to side with New Delhi," Andrew Latham, Professor of International Relations and Political Theory at Macalester College in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy, told RS. The Trudeau government faces substantial domestic pressure as it navigates the Nijjar incident, Latham observed. "I think, in one sense, both sides would like this to go away because the largest diaspora in Canada is Indian. The Trudeau government is no position to alienate the large Sikh community in and around Vancouver and in and around Toronto," he said, highlighting the salience of electoral politics to Trudeau's thinking. "And then you factor into that the fact that right now, it [Trudeau's Liberal Party] is in a coalition government, more or less, with the New Democratic Party which is headed by Jagmeet Singh, who is also a Sikh. You can see that there is some partisan electoral dynamic at work here which is pushing the Trudeau government not to let this issue go away," Latham added.Singh, who was denied a visa by India in 2013 reportedly over his statements on the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India, has taken a more strident stance on the Nijjar killing than Trudeau himself. "I will leave no stone unturned in the pursuit of justice, including holding Narendra Modi accountable," he wrote on social media.The Nijjar scandal was quickly overtaken, at least in international media headlines, by the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war after October 7. A vast swathe of the global south has either criticized Israel or offered equivocal messages lamenting the loss of life and urging an end to hostilities. Modi, by stark contrast, has taken a robust pro-Israel position much closer to the views of Canadian and most Western leaders. "Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour," the Indian Prime Minister wrote on the X social media platform X following the October 7 Hamas attacks. India also abstained from a Oct. 27 vote in the UN General Assembly which called for a " humanitarian truce" in Gaza. The measure was opposed by the U.S. and Israel and 12 other countries. The Modi government took such a stance partly because it believes it is confronted with similar types of threats on its homeland, experts say. India "faces a number of secessionist threats and the prospect of, broadly framed, Islamic terrorism, which it likens to what Israel is facing. India and Israel have had a good relationship for a while and this is a continuation of it," Latham noted. Yet their shared pro-Israel position has proven not to be a mitigating factor in the cratering relations between Ottawa and New Delhi. "The old adage, the enemy of my enemy is my friend, actually doesn't work here. I don't think their common antipathy towards Hamas is sufficient to bridge the differences," said Latham. "Think about what's at stake for the Canadian government: some foreign government, if this is all true, sent their agents into Canada to assassinate a Canadian citizen expressing views that are protected under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And on the Modi side, here is the parallel: Israel has a long history of assassinating people beyond [Israel's borders] who are enemies of the state of Israel, Modi is simply doing that," Latham said. "I think that, over time, this will abate, but in the short to medium term, it's just too raw at the moment, and not even this common position around Israel is sufficient to calm tempers."Though there are no signs of reconciliation anywhere on the horizon, both sides — as well as the deeply influential external stakeholder that is the Biden administration — have at least an implicit interest in ensuring that the Canada-India confrontation does not careen down the path of uncontrollable escalation.Time will tell if that will be enough to prevent lasting damage to the bilateral relationship.

Back in 2019, when the current European Commission assumed its term, its president, German conservative Ursula von der Leyen, proclaimed the ambition to build a "geopolitical Commission," or to bolster the EU's ability to act collectively in shaping the international order on a par with such players as the United States and China.The crisis in Gaza, sparked by the horrific atrocities perpetrated by the terrorist organization Hamas, and concerns about the extent to which the Israeli response would conform to international law, has shattered that ambition, giving way to cacophony and an image of deep divisions within the EU.That, perhaps, was inevitable given how divisive the Israel-Palestine issue is in the EU — unlike the Russian war in Ukraine that elicited a remarkably unified response from the bloc. The divisions run through the EU's 27 member states reflecting their different historical experiences and public opinion sensitivities, with Ireland and Spain seen as traditionally most sympathetic towards the Palestinian cause, while Germany, Austria and eastern European states, like Hungary and the Czech Republic, leaning towards Israel.There are also divisions between the EU institutions themselves, such as Von der Leyen's Commission, the European Council chaired by the former Belgian prime minister Charles Michel and the European External Action Service, the EU's fledgling diplomatic service led by the veteran Spanish politician Josep Borrell. To make matters even more complicated, the Gaza crisis revealed divisions within the Commission itself. And the political color of EU member state governments matters too. For example, Sweden, ruled for a better part of the last century by social-democrats, was traditionally seen as supportive of the Palestinian cause, but flipped to a more "pro-Israeli" side under the current right-wing government (which enjoys parliamentary support from a party with neo-Nazi roots).These structural weaknesses were compounded by some ill-judged moves from influential EU quarters. Fresh from the shock of Hamas's attack, Hungarian Oliver Varhelyi the EU commissioner responsible for close regional relations — which includes Israel and Palestinian autonomy — announced a freeze in EU development funding for Palestine worth 300 million euros annually. Varhelyi, an ally of the country's prime minister Victor Orban, who in turn, enjoys close relations with his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu, apparently acted without a consent of other EU bodies, or even the Commission itself. However, he may have been forgiven for acting on an assumption that his boss, Commission President Von der Leyen, would back such a move. In her immediate reaction to the terrorist attack on Israel, she declared her unqualified support for Israel's right to self-defense "today and in the days to come." Many in the EU interpreted the absence of any reference to international law as going beyond the indispensable expression of sympathy to Israel, essentially amounting to giving a blank check for any sort of retaliation.Von der Leyen promptly visited Israel in a show of support. A number of EU member states — Ireland, Spain, Belgium, Luxembourg, Slovenia, and Denmark — resented what they saw as Von der Leyen's usurpation of the EU foreign policy prerogatives which are reserved for the Council. In a highly unusual move, the EU foreign policy chief Borrell rebuked her as not speaking on behalf of the EU. Varhelyi's attempt to freeze aid to Palestinians was shut down, with the EU instead committing to a review to ensure that the aid does not inadvertently fund terrorism.In a move resembling the activation of the "dissent channel" in the U.S. State Department, 842 EU civil servants issued an open letter in which they strongly criticized Von der Leyen's perceived pro-Israeli tilt. The officials, having condemned in the strongest terms the Hamas terrorism, stated that they "hardly recognize the values of the EU in the seeming indifference demonstrated over the past few days by our Institution (Commission) toward the ongoing massacre of civilians in the Gaza strip."They also deplored what they called "the patent show of double standards which considers the blockade of water and fuel operated by Russia on the Ukrainian people as an act of terror whilst the identical act by Israel against the Gazan people is completely ignored."Nathalie Tocci, director of the Italian Institute for Foreign Affairs and one of Europe's foremost foreign policy thinkers, took Von der Leyen to task for failing to see how the failure to mention the imperative that Israel respects international humanitarian law "seriously undermines European credibility, starting with our support for Ukraine."With this backdrop, Borrell moved towards proposing a humanitarian pause to facilitate aid to Palestinians trapped in Gaza. However, even that proposal does not enjoy the unanimous support among EU member states — while some heavyweights like France favor it, others, like Germany, reportedly do not.It certainly doesn't help that even those EU leaders who try to perform a balancing act between support for Israel's right to defend itself and Palestinian aspirations to statehood, like the French president Emmanuel Macron, carelessly throw out ideas that could only lead to a broader regional conflagration they profess to want to avoid. During the visit to Israel on October 24, Macron suggested that the international coalition against ISIS could rally against Hamas too.The inconvenient truth is that Iran and its partners — the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria — were also a de-facto part of that coalition. It is a well-known fact that in Iraq, the U.S. and pro-Iranian forces coordinated their actions against ISIS. If, however, the anti-ISIS template is applied in the war against Hamas, it would have Iran and its formidable network of regional allies and proxies on the other side of the equation. That would make Western assets in the region vulnerable to their attacks.Indeed, since the start of the Gaza war there has already been an uptick in attacks against U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq. The Russian factor should also be taken into account given the current enmity between the U.S. and EU on the one hand, and Russia on the other, and Russia's increasing reliance on Iran in Ukraine, a broader war in the Middle East could also draw in Russia against the U.S. and EU.The lack of a unified, coherent, and realistic response by the EU to the war in Gaza has clearly exposed a glaring gap between its leaders' geopolitical rhetoric and their capabilities to shape outcomes on the ground.

The deterioration of nuclear arms treaties, especially within the context of the war in Ukraine, presents worrying trends not seen in generations as Washington and Moscow are one step away from direct conflict. The Doomsday Clock "now stands at 90 seconds to midnight–the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been," according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.The Russian Duma has advanced plans to withdraw ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test Ban Treaty, citing the need to restore parity with the U.S. which has yet to ratify the decades-old treaty. While the decision to withdraw ratification will not be as damaging as America's unilateral withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty in 2002 and 2019, respectively, it serves as another reminder that attention must be directed towards addressing an increased nuclear threat, especially as war rages in Ukraine. The U.S. must lead by example — like ratifying the CTBT — when it comes to international treaties it expects other countries to abide by. Unsurprisingly, following Russian President Vladimir Putin's comments on the subject earlier this month at the Valdai International Discussion Club, the legislative process for de-ratification began at pace. Officials have clarified that, at present, Moscow does not see a need to resume nuclear tests even if Russia were to withdraw.The CTBT, adopted in 1996 by the United Nations General Assembly and ratified by 174 countries, prohibits nuclear weapon tests or explosions anywhere in the world. The treaty has never officially entered into force as several states have not yet signed on or completed the process of ratification, including China, India, Pakistan, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Israel, and the U.S. Nevertheless, "the CTBT is one of the most successful agreements in the long history of nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. Without the option to conduct nuclear tests, it is more difficult, although not impossible, for states to develop, prove, and field new warhead designs," notes Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director of the Arms Control Association.In part due to Russia's war in Ukraine, Moscow has increased reliance on its nuclear arsenal in an attempt to deter escalation as its conventional forces have encountered stiff resistance by Ukrainian fighters heavily backed by American and European financial and military support.Indeed, there have been several warnings (and even threats) from the Kremlin and the Russian security establishment, some more subtle than others, about Moscow's willingness to defend what it views as its existential interests in Ukraine, ultimately with nuclear force if necessary. Not to be outdone by their Russian colleagues, commentators in the U.S. and Europe appear comfortable calling Moscow's bluff and encouraging an array of options for the intensification of the conflict. The Biden administration, however, has generally approached the introduction of new weapon systems into the conflict with a healthy dose of moderation, so as to assess the reaction from the Kremlin. This deliberative process, even if opposed by many in the transatlantic community, is critical. Nevertheless, and as bitter as it is to accept, the uncertainty over "how much is too much" for Moscow does implicitly impose restraints on Kyiv's backers.While American and European commentators have proven right thus far, and no nuclear escalation has occurred, the greatest tragedy is that the day after they are proven wrong there will be nobody left to tell.Following the near apocalyptic episode remembered as the Cuban Missile Crisis, leaders from the U.S. and the Soviet Union sought to establish mechanisms to prevent once again from being on the doorstep of nuclear annihilation. These began in 1963 with the Limited Test Ban Treaty and by 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan jointly stated that "a nuclear war can never be won and must never be fought." The two leaders eventually went on to sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which represented the first time the U.S. and the U.S.S.R agreed to reduce the actual number of nuclear arms. As strategic stability between the two most heavily equipped nuclear states on Earth continues to deteriorate and the deplorable state of diplomatic relations does not bode well for the return of nuclear treaties, China, Britain and others are seeking to modernize and enhance their nuclear capabilities. It's also possible that more states may resort to developing their own nuclear arsenals, viewing the possession of such weapons as the only real means of self-defense in an increasingly disorderly world.For its part, the U.S. is in the process of a $2 trillion, three decades-long initiative to upgrade its nuclear triad and accompanying infrastructure. A recently published report by the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States paints an alarmist picture of the strategic threat the U.S. faces in the world today, and offers recommendations that will likely produce further instability. As the Quincy Institute's Bill Hartung recently wrote, "Astoundingly, the commission argues that these investments are not enough, and that the U.S. should consider building and deploying more nuclear weapons, even as it endorses dangerous and destabilizing steps like returning to the days of multi-warhead land-based missiles while placing nuclear-armed missiles in East Asia. These steps would only introduce more uncertainty into the calculations of China and Russia, making a nuclear confrontation more likely."The exorbitant expense that the maintenance and modernization of nuclear arsenals require, not to mention the otherworldly destruction that their usage entails, ought to be reason enough for the leading nuclear nations of the 21st century to work towards managing relations so as to eschew a new nuclear arms race.Unfortunately, a return of serious strategic stability discussions in the short-term appears to be more wishful thinking. Nevertheless, these conversations will prove essential once the acute phase of the war in Ukraine is over and amidst a changing international context where responsible statecraft will be foundational to collective humanity's survival. The environmental degradation that occurred when unrestricted nuclear testing was the norm following World War II is still visible in parts of the world today. While today a de facto ban on nuclear testing has long been followed by the vast majority of states, even those not ascribed to the test-ban treaty, a return to previous levels of testing — when the global climate is already suffering severe challenges — must be averted.

How might Ukraine's war effort go bankrupt? Developments over the past few weeks recall the words of Ernest Hemingway: "Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly."Should that prove true, it will spell bad news not only for those insisting on an unconditional Ukrainian victory, but also for those pressing for a diplomatic settlement of the conflict. The gradual part is already well underway. The U.S. Congress's decision to pass a "clean" stopgap spending bill over the weekend to fund our government for another 45 days — bowing to pressure from some GOP members to strip Ukraine aid from the bill — is the latest sign of how quickly the political tide has begun to turn. Such a vote would have been unthinkable last December, when Ukrainian President Zelensky addressed a televised joint session of Congress to fawning media reviews, and ceremoniously presented a flag signed by the determined defenders of the besieged city of Bakhmut. Ten months later, Bakhmut has fallen. Ukraine's counteroffensive has sputtered. A series of opinion polls has indicated that most Americans now oppose additional aid to Kyiv. When he arrived in Washington last month, Zelensky was treated more as an interloper than as an inspiring hero. House Speaker McCarthy blocked Zelensky from addressing a joint session of Congress, claiming that there was insufficient time. Signs of "Ukraine fatigue" are appearing in Europe, too. Amid a row over Ukrainian agricultural exports that hurt EU farmers, Polish President Duda compared Ukraine to a drowning victim submerging its would-be rescuers. Hungarian President Orban has said his country will no longer provide any support to Ukraine. Slovakia was the first country to deliver fighter jets to Ukraine after Russia's invasion, but in last weekend's parliamentary elections, its voters opted for the party of ex-prime minister Robert Fico, who had campaigned on ending aid. Meanwhile, the far-right Alternative for Deutschland party, long opposed to breaking with Russia over the Ukraine war, has climbed to second place in German polls. These trends raise the prospect of a vicious circle of mutual intensification. Ukraine's stagnation on the battlefield prompts more Americans to wonder whether billions in aid are being wasted on an unwinnable war. Growing skepticism in Europe reinforces concerns in Washington that our NATO partners will not share the burden of supporting Ukraine. In Washington, the White House's failure to articulate an exit strategy feeds fears of yet another American "forever war," this time a proxy battle against a nuclear power. Worries over Western support undermine Ukraine's military morale and political resolve, leading to further erosion of its position on the battlefield. The combination could produce a tipping point at which the gradual erosion of Western support for Ukraine spills into an abrupt reduction or collapse. What might follow? It is unlikely that this would result, as many claim, in Russia's conquering all Ukrainian territory, incorporating it into the Russian Federation, and turning a resuscitated Russian military toward Poland and the Baltic States. The Kremlin almost certainly recognizes that attempting to conquer and govern the bulk of Ukraine, dominated by a well-armed and anti-Russian populace, would be a self-defeating ambition. Moreover, Russia has demonstrated neither the capability nor the desire to fight a war of choice with the NATO alliance. Rather, Moscow would be far more likely to turn Ukraine into a failed rump state. It would aim to capture the rest of the Donbass and perhaps the Ukrainian Black Sea coast. After creating an extended no-man's land separating Russian forces from Ukraine-controlled territory, it would then declare a unilateral cease-fire and build extensive fortifications against new attacks. Should Kyiv sue for peace under such duress, it could threaten Zelensky's rule. Should it refuse, it could destroy the Ukrainian state. In either case, funding and governing what remains of Ukraine would become the West's problem, not Russia's. Absent an agreed settlement of the war with Russia, few donors would contribute the hundreds of billions of dollars necessary for Ukraine's reconstruction. Prospects for democracy and the rule of law in Ukraine would diminish. Refugee flows into Europe would intensify, fueling more divisions within NATO and the EU. Washington would be racked by debate over who lost Ukraine. In these circumstances, Putin would have few incentives to seek compromise with either Ukraine or the West, leaving the broader East-West relationship in a dangerously unstable state of confrontation, lacking the arms control and conflict-management mechanisms that helped prevent the Cold War from turning hot. Europe would have to contend not with a new Iron Curtain, but rather with a gaping, Libya-like wound that could infect the West for years to come. Russian military cooperation with China, Iran, and North Korea would advance. All this is of course far from inevitable. But those tempted to believe that the United States could end the war by simply ending its aid to Ukraine should think hard about these possibilities. And those insisting that the West can simply double down on delivering aid to Ukraine should recognize that present trends bode ill for the Biden administration's "as long as it takes" strategy, either for winning the war outright or for turning Ukraine into a thriving fortress state, capable of holding off the Russians for many years to come. Avoiding such sobering possibilities will require compromise. The White House will have to compromise with domestic opponents of aid by making clear — at least behind closed doors — its plans for marrying military aid to a viable exit strategy. Opponents of aid will have to compromise with proponents to ensure that Ukraine does not collapse altogether, with all the attendant implications for the West and the world. The West and Russia will each have to compromise – not necessarily over territory, but certainly over the broader architecture of European security and Ukraine's place in it. Compromise is seldom possible unless both sides have cards to play in negotiations. The United States should not remove cards from its hand by ending aid to Ukraine unilaterally or playing them prematurely. But unless it moves quickly to complement aid with diplomacy, it may find that the opportunity to play its cards has suddenly disappeared.

Hawkish critics of the Biden administration have been constantly agitating for escalation over Ukraine for the last year and a half.Whatever Biden has done in support of Ukraine, hawks complain that he has been too slow and too stinting in what the U.S. provides, and they have often urged Washington to intensify or widen the war. Fortunately for the U.S. and Europe, Biden has ignored their most aggressive demands and slow-walked the rest. The latest proposal from a prominent Biden critic, however, promises to repeat some of the worst mistakes of the Cold War while having little or no effect on the fighting in Europe.Wall Street Journal columnist Walter Russell Mead thinks that the right way to wear down Russia in a war of attrition is by attacking Russian interests in far-flung, peripheral areas around the world. Mead claims that "we operate in a target-rich environment" for bringing the "cost of war home to the Kremlin," and he lays out a series of policies that are either unworkable, counterproductive or useless. Among other things, he calls for the U.S. to "roll up" the Wagner Group in the Sahel, work with Turkey and others to "make Mr. Putin's presence in Syria ruinously expensive," bring pressure to bear on Russian forces in Moldova, and "target Mr. Putin's Latin American allies."Even assuming that it was practical and wise for the U.S. to do any of these things, it is hard to see how they would significantly impair Russia's war effort or aid Ukraine in a war of attrition. If the U.S. managed to make things difficult enough for Russian forces and mercenaries in other parts of the world that it was no longer worth it for Moscow to keep them there, that would just lead to additional resources and manpower being redirected to fighting in Ukraine. It isn't clear why Mead believes that the U.S. and "its allies in Europe and the Gulf" have the capabilities to eliminate Russian influence in the Sahel. French influence is in retreat in many countries, U.S. partners keep losing control in military coups, and so-called "allies" from the Gulf are not reliably on the same side as the U.S. in political and military crises across Africa. The problem wasn't that the U.S. and its allies were "standing passively by" but that they were actively pursuing militarized policies that have repeatedly blown up in their faces. Russia has managed to exploit some of the resulting upheaval to its advantage.While he doesn't spell out exactly how the U.S. would go about "rolling up" Russian mercenaries, it would presumably involve a larger military footprint and an even more interventionist policy than the one the U.S. already has. How the U.S. is supposed to operate in countries governed by juntas that work with Russia is also conveniently left out. Is Washington supposed to "roll up" these junta regimes, too? Good luck to the U.S. officials that would have to explain why more American troops are being sent into harm's way in West Africa for the sake of a dubious effort to bleed Russia. Mead never explains why Turkey and unnamed "neighboring states" would want to take part in his anti-Russia coalition in Syria. Neither does he explain why inflicting losses on Russia in Syria wouldn't prompt Russian-backed reprisals against U.S. forces there and elsewhere in the Middle East. He ascribes virtually unlimited power to the U.S. and its allies to cause serious harm to Russia without considering potential costs or thinking through what would happen next. Mead's recommendations would be effective in antagonizing Moscow and inviting retaliation, but they would do virtually nothing to aid Ukraine. Striking at mercenaries in Mali and soldiers in Syria isn't going to help Ukraine overcome its disadvantage in manpower or eliminate Russian defenses.The proposal for Latin American states may be the most far-fetched of the bunch. The U.S. already punishes several regional countries with close ties to Moscow with devastating sanctions, and this has caused those states to rely more on Russia. Mead doesn't specify what he means when he says that the U.S. should "target" these countries, but it isn't hard to imagine that he might be suggesting some effort at regime change. There aren't many things that would damage the reputation of the United States in Latin America more than reverting to the bad old days of sponsoring coups to force neighboring countries to toe Washington's line.If the U.S. took "a concerted approach toward pushing Russia out of the Western hemisphere," it would undermine its relations with many of our neighbors and possibly even drive some fence-sitting states closer to Moscow. Far from weakening Russian influence, heavy-handed attempts at bullying Latin American countries would be a propaganda coup for Moscow and they would make a mockery of Washington's claim that every country can choose its own partners and allies.The last thing the U.S. should be doing is escalating its rivalry with Russia in other regions. It would threaten to hurt U.S. interests in the targeted areas, and it would expose U.S. forces already there to additional risks while putting more of those forces into dangerous situations. It could also create additional enemies and alienate potential partners as Washington makes clear that its policy in Ukraine takes precedence over everything else. The U.S. has a hard enough time making the case for its support for Ukraine in many parts of the world, and it would face even more skepticism if it decided to start bringing the war to other continents by striking at Russian interests.Mead bills these absurd proposals as "smarter and politically more sustainable ways" to aid Ukraine against Russia, but there is nothing smart about further stoking instability in the Sahel and Syria in the name of hurting Moscow. This puts a rivalry with Russia ahead of the lives and interests of people in the affected countries. It repeats the Cold War error of treating these countries as nothing more than battlegrounds to be contested and then abandoned when the rivals lose interest. None of this would help Ukraine in the slightest, but it would likely increase costs for the United States and for the nations that would be affected by these foolish proposals.Instead of trying to widen the conflict to other corners of the globe, the U.S. should focus its efforts on trying to find a way to halt the fighting in Ukraine through a ceasefire that can become the basis for a more lasting armistice.

Nicholas Anthony


Despite evidence that only a small fraction of cryptocurrency activity is associated with illicit activity and that cryptocurrency was not a chief source of sanctions evasion when the war in Ukraine started, a group of senators introduced the Crypto Asset National Security Enhancement (CANSEE) Act. Among other problems, this bill would continue the erosion of financial privacy that has occurred in the United States over time. The bill broadly defines terms to create sweeping surveillance, potentially violates the First Amendment, and gives the Treasury the authority to effectively prohibit cryptocurrency use in the United States.
Although the senators based some of their concerns on a money laundering risk assessment from the Department of the Treasury (Treasury), Sarah Roth‐​Gaudette, executive director at Fight for the Future, was quick to point out that the senators seemingly "missed where [the report] says that 'the use of virtual assets for money laundering remains far below that of fiat currency and more traditional methods'"—an issue my colleague Jack Solowey pointed out as well. In fact, the Treasury has stressed this finding in other reports too. Rather than double down on the existing financial surveillance regime, policymakers should be working to craft a better future based on protecting financial privacy.
With that said, let's consider some of the worst parts of the CANSEE Act to understand why it is the wrong approach.
Walking Through the Bill
The bill begins by recognizing that the decentralized nature of cryptocurrency poses an interesting challenge for lawmakers seeking broad surveillance. For in the absence of a third‐​party intermediary, officials cannot invoke the third‐​party doctrine as an end run around the Fourth Amendment. Unfortunately, however, the senators respond to this challenge by simply defining the term "control" as broadly as possible to essentially create third parties where they do not exist.
The term "control", with respect to a digital asset protocol, includes the power, directly or indirectly, to direct a change in the computer code or other terms governing the operation of the protocol, as determined by the Secretary of the Treasury. Such power may be exercised through ownership of governance tokens, administrator privileges, ability to alter or upgrade computer code, or otherwise. [Emphasis added.]

Jerry Brito, executive director of Coin Center, described the problem well shortly after the bill's introduction when he explained that "The bill gives virtually unbounded discretion to the Treasury Secretary to decide what it would take to designate one as having "control" of a protocol. … Indeed, the Senators' deference to the executive branch is breathtaking, allowing the Secretary to define the scope of their power without any public process whatsoever."
It gets worse.
Turning to sanctions violations, the bill would amend existing penalties to also include violations with cryptocurrency. A key problem here is that these penalties would apply to "digital asset protocol backers" and "digital asset transaction facilitators." A "digital asset protocol backer" is defined as someone that invests over $25 million in a project. In their press release, the senators said that this definition is an attempt to effectively centralize decentralized services: "If nobody controls a DeFi service, then—as a backstop—anyone who invests more than $25 million in developing the project will be responsible for [facilitating a sanctions violation.]"
A "digital asset transaction facilitator," however, is any person that "makes available an application designed to facilitate transactions using a digital asset protocol." In other words, the bill would apply these sanctions penalties to anyone that merely publishes software code if that code is later used to violate sanctions by someone else. Given the arguments that publishing software code is a form of protected expression, Brito wrote that the CANSEE Act "would clearly violate the First Amendment" and Roth‐​Gaudette echoed the same.
The bill then seeks to make a relatively subtle change by amending 31 U.S.C. Section 5312 to include "digital asset protocol backers" and "digital asset transaction facilitators" as "financial institutions." While not exactly eye catching at first glance, this change would effectively force said backers and facilitators to comply with the reporting requirements of the Bank Secrecy Act (e.g., currency transaction reports, suspicious activity reports, know your customer rules, etc.)—essentially doubling down on the mistakes of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021.
Speaking of mistakes from the past, the bill also includes a familiar attempt to expand the Treasury's special measures authority (31 U.S.C. Section 5318A) to allow the Treasury to prohibit transactions involving anyone outside the United States if there is a "money laundering concern." To give context, the government considers anyone that moves more than $10,000 in one day to be a money laundering concern. As I warned last year, the Treasury could use this authority to prohibit U.S. banks from being involved with cryptocurrency since the borderless technology allows transactions to be validated by miners located outside of the United States.
The bill closes with a section on cryptocurrency ATMs that closely mirrors what Senator Warren proposed last year in the Digital Asset Anti‐​Money Laundering Act of 2022. Unfortunately, perhaps in the pursuit of brevity, the section proposed here is worse because it defines a cryptocurrency ATM as "a stand‐​alone machine that facilitates a virtual currency transfer." Taken plainly, this could mean anything from a cryptocurrency ATM you might see in a convenience store to someone's smartphone that has a cryptocurrency wallet app downloaded. This broad definition is so troubling because the bill would have operators of these "machines" verify and record the name and physical address of both parties before a transfer can take place.
Conclusion
It is unfortunate that policymakers seem to be gearing up to expand U.S. financial surveillance. There is much to say against this approach, but it might be best to simply remind policymakers of a community letter organized by Fight for the Future at the start of the 118th Congress. The letter warned: "Should cybercriminals successfully tempt the United States to abandon the human right to privacy and the U.S. Constitution, everyone will lose."
Combatting the financial crimes of the Lazarus group, scammers, and the like does pose a challenge. But sacrificing the foundations that the United States was built upon is no solution.

Ottaen huomioon Maailmanpankin taloudellista kehitystä edistävä globaalin koulutuspolitiikan ohjelma, jotkut Afrikan maat ovat kokeneet vuodesta 1981 lähtien monenlaisia haasteita koulutus- ja kehitysapupolitiikassaan yrittäessään saavuttaa niissä asetetut tavoitteet. Tämän tutkimuksen tavoitteena on edistää tutkimusta ja keskustelua tietotalouden ja yrittäjämäisen yliopiston politiikkatavoitteista, joilla pyritään edistämään Kamerunin taloudellista kehitystä. Tutkimus tarkasteli erityisesti Buean yliopiston tietotalouden ja yrittäjämäisen yliopiston politiikkatavoitteisiin liittyviä prosesseja, joilla tavoiteltiin Kamerunin taloudellista kehitystä vuosina 1993–2016. Näin tehdessään tutkimus kiinnitti huomiota relevantteihin tutkimuskirjallisuudessa oleviin aukkoihin ja tarkasteli julkisten menojen paikkaa näissä koulutuspolitiikan ohjeistoissa. Kansainvälisen regiimiteorian ja institutionaalisen teorian lisäksi keskustelu uusliberalistisista ja globaaleista koulutuspolitiikan kysymyksistä, liittyen kumpaankin politiikkatavoitteeseen, asetti puitteet Buean yliopistossa toteutetulle empiiriselle tutkimukselle. Anti-positivistinen (post-positivistinen) filosofinen/teoreettinen lähestymistapa – kriittinen realismi ja historismi – tutkijan subjektiivisuus ja kontekstin merkitys ohjasivat tutkimusta. Tutkimuksessa sovellettiin tapaustutkimuksen strategiaa sisältäen politiikkatavoitteiden empiirisen tutkimuksen Buean yliopistossa. Buean yliopisto valittiin harkinnanvaraista otantaa käyttäen, jotta ilmiön kompleksisuus Kamerunin julkisissa yliopistoissa pystyttiin ottamaan haltuun asianmukaisella tavalla. Aineistoina käytettiin puolistrukturoituja haastatteluja, dokumentteja ja muita julkaisuja. Haastateltaviksi valittiin yliopiston opettajia ja tutkijoita, ylintä johtoa sekä hallinnollista tukihenkilöstöä. Haastattelut toteutettiin helmi-maaliskuussa 2016 ja ne käsittelivät ensi sijassa rahoitusta, tutkimusta, yhteistyötä, yleisiä johtamisen prosesseja ja toimintoja, jotka liittyivät tutkittaviin politiikkatavoitteisiin. Aineiston analyysissä käytettiin sekä deduktiivista että induktiivista temaattista analyysiä. Tutkimustulokset osoittivat, että vähentynyt ja epäsäännöllinen julkinen rahoitus Buean yliopistolle on heikentänyt sen kykyä toimia tehokkaasti tietotalouden ja yrittäjämäisen yliopiston politiikkaideoiden kehyksessä. Yliopiston vaikea taloudellinen tilanne on vaikuttanut olennaisesti siihen, ettei yliopistolla ole ollut kapasiteettia tiedon tuottamiseen ja sen valorisointiin, levittämiseen ja soveltamiseen. Se on yhtä lailla vastuussa siitä, että useat yliopiston institutionaaliset prosessit on alistettu järjestelmätason korkeakoulupolitiikan vaikutuksen alaiseksi hallintorakenteessa, jossa yliopiston keskushallinto, tiedekunnat ja akateemiset laitokset ovat korkeakouluministeriön täyden kontrollin alla – johtaen rajoitteisiin yliopiston yhteistyöpyrkimyksissä. Tämän seurauksena yliopiston sitoutuminen korkeakouluministeriöön perustuu poliittiseen riippuvuussuhteeseen julkisesta rahoituksesta. Yliopiston kumppanuudet ja yhteistyö ulkoisten sidosryhmien kanssa perustuu riippuvuuteen apurahoista ja muusta tuesta sen toiminnoille. Tutkimuksen johtopäätöksenä on, että globaalin koulutuspolitiikan strategiat talouden kehittämiseksi voivat olla mahdollinen ohjauksen muutoksen ja hämmennyksen lähde vastaanottajamaiden koulutusjärjestelmissä. Tietotalouden ja yrittäjämäisen yliopiston politiikkatavoitteet ovat tuoneet kompleksin suhteen Kamerunin korkeakouluministeriön ja julkisten yliopistojen välille, saaden aikaan uusia ja hämmennystä aiheuttavia ulottuvuuksia maan julkisten yliopistojen ominaisuuksissa. Järjestelmätason politiikan sekaantuminen Buean yliopiston johtamisprosesseihin – esimerkiksi Maailmanpankin politiikkatavoitteiden pohjalta – on heikentänyt yliopiston johtamisprosesseja ja missiota (yliopiston autonomian puitteissa), jotka tavoittelevat sen vision saavuttamista. Tämä tutkimus loi mahdollisuuden tutkia uudelleen julkisen yliopiston johtamisen ja korkeakoulutuksen hallintorakenteen välisen suhteen luonnetta taloudelliseen kehitykseen tähtäävien politiikkavalintojen ja institutionaalisten prosessien suhteen. Tutkimus myös ehdottaa, että Buean yliopiston tulisi vahvistaa tahtoaan saavuttaa sisäistä organisatorista tehokkuutta, sisäisiä ja ulkoisia olosuhteitaan painottaen, pyrkiessään saavuttamaan visiotaan ja tavoitteitaan. ; Given the World Bank's global education policy agenda for economic development, some African countries have, since 1981, experienced a wide range of challenges in their education and development aid policies aiming to reach the set goals. This study sought to contribute to the research and debate on knowledge economy and entrepreneurial university policy objectives aimed towards the economic development of Cameroon. Specifically, it examined the responses, that is, the processes of the University of Buea in relation to knowledge economy and entrepreneurial university policy objectives aimed towards the economic development of Cameroon from 1993 to 2016. In doing so, the study paid attention to relevant gaps in the existing literature and examined the place of public expenditure in these education policy prescriptions. In addition to international regime and institutional theories, a discussion on neoliberalism and global education policy issues, in relation to both policy prescriptions, set the scene for the empirical inquiry conducted at the University of Buea. Generally, a non-positivist (post-positivist) philosophical/theoretical approach—critical realism and historicism—subjectivity of the researcher and significance of context, informed the study. A case study design was applied, involving empirical inquiry of the policy objectives at the University of Buea, which was purposively selected in order to adequately capture the complexity of both phenomena at public universities in Cameroon. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews as well as reviews of documents and other publications. The interviews were conducted with identified respondents, including academics, top management and administrative support staff at the university. They focused primarily on funding, research, collaboration and general management processes and activities that are in line with the policy objectives under study. The exercise took place in the months of February and March of 2016. Data collected for the study were analysed through the use of both deductive and inductive thematic analytic approaches. The research revealed that reduced and irregular public expenditure for the University of Buea has weakened its ability to effectively function within the framework of knowledge economy and entrepreneurial university policy ideas. The university's difficult financial situation has been fundamental for its lack of effective capacity for knowledge production and its valorisation, dissemination and application. It is equally responsible for submitting much of its institutional processes under great influence of system-wide higher education policies enabled by a governance structure that has submerged its central administration, faculties and academic departments under the full control of the Ministry of Higher Education— leading to a constrain on its collaborative endeavours. Consequently, its engagement with the government is premised on a political dependency relationship for public expenditure. With external stakeholders, its partnership and collaborative endeavours are based on dependency for grants and other forms of support for its activities. The study concludes that global education policy strategies for economic development could be a potential source of diversion and confusion in the national education systems of recipient countries. Knowledge economy and entrepreneurial university policy prescriptions have introduced a complex type of relationship between Cameroon's higher education governance structure and its public universities, giving rise to new and confusing dimensions in the character of the public university in the country. The interference of system-wide policies in the management processes of the University of Buea—on the basis of policy prescriptions of the World Bank, for example—have undermined the university's management processes and mission objectives (within the framework of its autonomy) aimed towards achieving its vision. Hence, this study creates an opportunity for re-examining the nature of the relationship between the public university management and the higher education governance structure regarding policy choices and institutional processes aimed towards economic development. It also suggests the need for the University of Buea to develop the desire to achieve internal organisational efficiency, with a focus on its internal and external circumstances, while striving to reach its specific vision and goals.

Executive Summary 1 This report analyzes the US Refugee Admissions Program (USRAP), leveraging data from a national survey of resettlement stakeholders conducted in 2020. 2 The survey examined USRAP from the time that refugees arrive in the United States. Its design and questionnaire were informed by three community gatherings organized by Refugee Council USA in the fall and winter of 2019, extensive input from an expert advisory group, and a literature review. This study finds that USRAP serves important purposes, enjoys extensive community support, and offers a variety of effective services. Overall, the survey finds a high degree of consensus on the US resettlement program's strengths and objectives, and close alignment between its services and the needs of refugees at different stages of their settlement and integration. Because its infrastructure and community-based resettlement networks have been decimated in recent years, the main challenges of subsequent administrations, Congresses, and USRAP stakeholders will be to rebuild, revitalize, and regain broad and bipartisan support for the program. This article also recommends specific ways that USRAP's programs and services can be strengthened. Among the study's findings: 3 Most refugee respondents identified USRAP's main purpose(s) as giving refugees new opportunities, helping them to integrate, offering hope to refugees living in difficult circumstances abroad, and saving lives. High percentages of refugees reported that the program allowed them to support themselves soon after arrival (92 percent), helped them to integrate (77 percent), and has a positive economic impact on local communities (71 percent). Refugee respondents also reported that the program encourages them to work in jobs that do not match their skills and credentials (56 percent), does not provide enough integration support after three months (54 percent), does not offer sufficient financial help during their first three months (49 percent), and reunites families too slowly (47 percent). Respondents identified the following main false ideas about the program: refugees pose a security risk (84 percent), use too many benefits and drain public finances (83 percent), and take the jobs of the native-born (74 percent). Refugee respondents reported using public benefits to meet basic needs, such as medical care, food, and housing. Non-refugee survey respondents believed at high rates that former refugees (69 percent) and refugee community advocate groups (64 percent) should be afforded a voice in the resettlement process. Non-refugee respondents indicated at high rates that the program's employment requirements limit the time needed for refugees to learn English (65 percent) and limit their ability to pursue higher education (59 percent). Eighty-six percent of non-refugee respondents indicated that the Reception and Placement program is much too short (56 percent) or a little too short (30 percent). Respondents identified a wide range of persons and institutions as being very helpful to refugees in settling into their new communities: these included resettlement staff, friends, and acquaintances from refugees' country of origin, members of places of worship, community organizations led by refugees or former refugees, and family members. Refugee respondents identified finding medical care (61 percent), housing (52 percent), and a job (49 percent) as the most helpful services in their first three months in the country. Refugees reported that the biggest challenge in their first year was to find employment that matched their educational or skill levels or backgrounds. The needs of refugees and the main obstacles to their successful integration differ by gender, reflecting at least in part the greater childcare responsibilities borne by refugee women. Refugee men reported needing assistance during their first three months in finding employment (68 percent), English Language Learning (ELL) courses (59 percent), and orientation services (56 percent), while refugee women reported needing orientation services (81 percent) and assistance in securing childcare (64 percent), finding ELL courses (53 percent), and enrolling children in school (49 percent). To open-response questions, non-refugee respondents identified as obstacles to the integration of men: digital literacy, (lack of) anti–domestic violence training, the need for more training to improve their jobs, the new public benefit rule, transportation to work, low wages, the need for more mental health services, cultural role adjustment, and lack of motivation. Non-refugee respondents identified as obstacles to the integration of women: lack of childcare and affordable housing, the different cultural roles of women in the United States, lack of affordable driver's education classes, a shortage of ELL classes for those with low literacy or the illiterate, digital literacy challenges, difficulty navigating their children's education and school systems, transportation problems, poorly paying jobs, and lack of friendships with US residents. Non-refugee respondents report that refugee children also face unique obstacles to integration, including limited funding or capacity to engage refugee parents in their children's education, difficulties communicating with refugee families, and the unfamiliarity of teachers and school staff with the cultures and backgrounds of refugee children and families. LGBTQ refugees have many of the same basic needs as other refugees — education, housing, employment, transportation, psychosocial, and others — but face unique challenges in meeting these needs due to possible rejection by refugees and immigrants from their own countries and by other residents of their new communities. Since 2017, the number of resettlement agencies has fallen sharply, and large numbers of staff at the remaining agencies have been laid off. As a result, the program has suffered a loss in expertise, institutional knowledge, language diversity, and resettlement capacity. Resettlement agencies and community-based organizations (CBOs) reported at high rates that to accommodate pre-2017 numbers of refugees, they would need higher staffing levels in employment services (66 percent), general integration and adjustment services (62 percent), mental health care (44 percent) and medical case management (44 percent). Resettlement agencies indicated that they face immense operational and financial challenges, some of them longstanding (like per capita funding and secondary migration), and some related to the Trump administration's hostility to the program. Section I introduces the article and provides historic context on the US refugee program. Section II outlines the resettlement process and its constituent programs. Section III describes the CMS Refugee Resettlement Survey: 2020. Section IV sets forth the study's main findings, with subsections covering USRAP's purpose and overall strengths and weaknesses; critiques of the program; the importance of receiving communities to resettlement and integration; the effectiveness of select USRAP programs and services; integration metrics; and obstacles to integration. The article ends with a series of recommendations to rebuild and strengthen this program.