Nukes N' Queers
The world went Gaga | #TC79
Welcome to Third Cultured, a reading of international relations focused on the American Empire’s great power competition with China and Russia, and the global state of LGBTQ+ rights. — written by yours truly, Kyle Borland.
I apologize for the unannounced hiatus! Between the state of the world and personal stress, I found it hard to concentrate on anything in June or July. For my personal mental health, I changed a few things about Third Cultured’s format. My goal is to create a community that cares about foreign affairs while understanding the unique role Queer people play in the United States and the world-at-large.
I hope you’ll enjoy it and let me know your thoughts along the way!
Thanks for reading. This newsletter is free but – if you’d like to support it or me – please subscribe below, heart this post, or support my Patreon.
Stay safe and healthy, beautiful people. And, thanks for reading.
xoxo,
Kyle (@kgborland)
PS – Rest in love, Naya and Lady Red Couture. We did not deserve either of your lights.
1) “This Ain't a Scene, It's an Arms Race”
Like most around the world, my thoughts have been with Beirut and the Lebanese people this week. Tuesday’s port explosions could not have come at a worse time. As GZERO described:
In recent weeks, Lebanon, one of the world's most indebted countries, has spiraled into chaos after decades of economic mismanagement.
Crime is spiking as desperate Lebanese seek scarce basics like food and medicine, while others are turning to a swarming online barter economy to survive — clothes for baby formula? The deepening economic crisis recently pushed at least 500,000 children in Beirut into poverty, an aid group warned in July.
International observers, meanwhile, have questioned whether Lebanon has already breached the "failed state" threshold.
Unfortunately, the Lebanese people cannot access $11 billion in international financing because of the vice-grip Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Shiite group, has over the nation’s politics. For two years, they’ve refused to make called-for reforms and now Lebanon’s systemic corruption took hundreds of lives because of sheer incompetence. Things are so bad, French President Macron walked the streets of Beirut thronged by residents asking him to fix things. Given Lebanon is a former French Protectorate, it’s astonishing to hear Macron’s reply, “I will propose a new political pact in Lebanon, and I will be back in September, and if they can't do it, I'll take my political responsibility.” (Guess we’ll see what that means…)
The details of the Beirut blasts will become clear in the coming weeks, with a death toll anywhere from 200–500, but the parallels of a mushroom cloud appearing over a populated city during the week of the 75th anniversary of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were too potent to ignore. Social media made the comparisons immediately based on the videos alone and Beirut’s government invoked both Japanese cities explicitly.
However, a mushroom cloud is all Tuesday’s explosions had in common with a nuclear weapon.
“Little Boy,” the smaller bomb dropped on Hiroshima, was 50x the force of Beirut.
If a modern bomb were to drop over Frankfurt, Germany, it would kill 500,000 people.
Nothing compares to the devastation of a nuclear weapon. The distance from the Cold War and the following ahistorical period of unipolar hegemony fogged our minds to the desolation these weapons can wreak on humanity. Worse yet, there’s a single, lone restraint on the arsenals of Russia and the United States and it expires on February 5 (since Trump withdrew the US from the Open Skies and Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces treaties due to Russian violations).
Currently, both nuclear superpowers are limited to deploying 1,550 under New START. Should either party choose not to extend by the February deadline (the treaty has a built-in five-year extension if agreed upon) than both are free to ramp up production after "the modernization of their nuclear arsenals,” which Russia has completed. These new arsenals specialize in smaller-yield nukes that could lower the threshold for use on a battlefield. (Graphic: Statista)
It’s important to not let the last thread of arms control snap but the White House is determined to bring China into the negotiations. Beijing has signaled it won’t do so before the February deadline or without France and the UK’s participation. Given the vast difference in arsenal sizes between Russia, the US, and everyone else, China’s reluctance makes perfect sense.
It’s not only Great Powers the US needs to worry about either.
North Korea achieved nuclear power status, along with developing miniaturized nuclear devices to fit into the warheads of its ballistic missiles, and Iran’s program is only temporarily crippled (with time ticking on the international arms embargo) after targeted Israeli-American operations, but still only a year or two away from a bomb. China is reportedly assisting Saudi Arabia to develop its own nuclear program, leading many to worry that the kingdom hopes to acquire the weapons of its own that it always wanted. India and Pakistan are similarly investing in lower-yield nukes and even Turkey is making noise about wanting nuclear weapons of its own.
It seems we’ve learned nothing. Despite our efforts, the world is in a new arms race.
Discussion: Should the US let New START expire in hopes of forcing China to the table post-2021 or extend the current treaty until 2026 with Russia?
2) We Are the World (of Queers)
When you’re too much of a bigot for the Trump administration to keep around, you may need to seek professional help. USAID fired now-former deputy White House liaison Merritt Corrigan on Monday hours after publishing derogatory tweets about LGBTQ+ people. To the surprise of no one, Ms. Corrigan did not go quietly into the good night. She promised a press conference on Thursday Jacob Wohl, a far-right Internet personality, to give us all the juicy details on our “homo empire.” But, to what I’m sure is our loss, it doesn’t look like it occurred.
To be fair, we do have 843 openly LGBTQ+ electeds across all levels of government, up from 417 in June 2016, and another record 850 openly LGBTQ+ running for elected office this year. But, the US still has plenty of problems. California State Senator Scott Wiener of San Francisco received death threats just this week for proposing a law to reform California’s sex offender registry that would provide LGBTQ+ people the same discretion as cis, straight individuals.
However, in contrast to other parts of the world, having one out-and-proud LGBTQ+ elected official – let alone 843 – would be a social revolution.
In Europe, Poland and Hungary’s anti-LGBTQ+ obsession has gone hand-in-hand with each nation’s general slide away from democracy and liberal values as a whole. In order to save the Eurozone, Brussels was forced to kick the can down the road on both country’s steps toward autocracy but the bloc is in for a nasty fight once it gets away from COVID.
Mohamad al-Bokari, a Yemeni man who was living in Saudi Arabia, was sentenced to 10 months in prison, a 10,000 Saudi Riyals fine, and deportation after he posted a video expressing support for LGBTQ+ rights onto Snapchat.
Russia passed amendments that defined marriage as “only between a man and a woman” and enshrined Orthodox Christianity into the constitution.
This isn’t to say that all Queer news is bad news. On the contrary, we’ve never seen more progress as a global community. However, we’re all too familiar with how easy it is for societies to regress on LGBTQ+ progress to score political wins or to distract for instability. How a nation treats LGBTQ+ people and our rights is a canary in the coal mine to the rest of the world. Surprisingly, the Trump administration seems to know it, or at least the “Deep State” does.
Maybe that’s the “homo empire” Corrigan is worried about?
“All these years after the Civil War, are we still just a union of states — or have we become a nation of people?”
– Dr. Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, an associate professor of history at Loyola University Chicago. She views the years since 1968 as a cycle of recessions and widening inequality, debt and disenfranchisement that is only now becoming apparent to broader America — white America, moneyed America — because the pandemic and social media have made it impossible to ignore. Institutions have been deteriorating and failing us for generations, she says, but we rigged workarounds with our own social networks and mutual-aid groups. We made do. Then the pandemic scattered us, isolated us, exposed us for what we really are.
Hot Links
–36% and –33%: The EU and the US are officially in recessions after the largest quarterly contractions in either’s history. Welcome to the Pandemic Depression.
2020 Census: The Census Bureau is ending all counting efforts by September 30, a month earlier than originally planned even as 4 in 10 US households – or 60 million Americans overwhelmingly people of color, immigrants, renters, and rural residents – have yet to respond. Any inaccuracies will skew the allotment of trillions of dollars in federal funding until 2030. If you haven’t yet, respond today!
12,000 troops: Trump ordered thousands of troops out of Germany, but Biden promised to “review the action” should he win in November. Uncle Joe will likely overturn it since the German states of Baden-Wuerttemberg, Rhineland-Palatinate, Hesse, and Bavaria pleaded with the US to keep its forces in place, but a plurality of German citizens approve of the decision. Some are jumping up and down for the extra troops, including an offer from Poland to pay all of the costs to deploy them within its borders.
$1.84 trillion: Apple’s market value surpassed Saudi Aramco’s to become to world’s most valuable company after the tech giant reported its strongest Q3 ever. Apple and Amazon are now in a race to see which can have the first $100 billion quarter. However, some want a $1.34B bite of the fruit, as Chinese AI company Xiao-i is suing Apple for infringing upon its patents when it developed Siri.
“A Clean Network” and a TikTok update: Microsoft and the video startup have until September 15 to avoid a US ban. Beijing called the move a “smash and grab, “open robbery” and said, “President Trump is turning the once great America into a rogue country.” Another shot in the tech war, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the administration’s new “Clean Network” guidance aimed at isolating all Chinese tech, not just TikTok, including WeChat, Huawei, Tencent, Alibaba, and Baidu. India already implemented a more sweeping ban and Japan is considering doing the same. Twitter even started labeling Chinese and Russian state media companies, but it also blocked Trump’s campaign account from tweeting until it deleted a tweet containing misinformation (Facebook did the same). We now have three internets: the EU’s privacy-focused network, China’s government-run Great Firewall, and the US “clean network” dominated by Silicon Valley firms.
Clean Carrier: The U.S. government is "working to ensure that untrusted Chinese telecoms" can't provide or interfere with U.S. communications.
Clean Store: "We want to see untrusted Chinese apps removed from U.S. app stores."
Clean Apps: Pompeo said he wants to keep Huawei and other Chinese manufacturers from preinstalling or even making available popular U.S. apps.
Clean Cloud: Making sure Americans' data is protected, and can't be accessed by cloud systems from Alibaba, China Telecom, Tencent and others.
Clean Cable: Keeping undersea cables secure, particularly from Huawei.
American Exceptionalism? The United States saw a 141% increase in domestic terrorism from 2015-2019—despite a 50% decline worldwide.
COVID: 19,025,580 global cases, 713,845 global deaths \ 5,032,179 US cases, 162,804 US deaths \ WHO found, from analyzing 6 million infections between Feb. 24 and July 12, that the share of people aged 15-24 years tripled to 15% from 4.5% in five months. \ UN’s Secretary-General warned of a “generational catastrophe” for education around the world. \ COVID-19 Medical Countermeasure Portfolio
Fun find: Archaeologists discovered the source of Stonehenge's giant stones.
Great Power Expansion: Russia is attempting to establish military bases in six African countries: Egypt, the Central African Republic, Eritrea, Madagascar, Mozambique, and Sudan.
ISIS: Islamic State fighters freed hundreds of prisoners in a siege of an Afghanistan prison in the eastern city of Jalalabad. More than 300 escaped prisoners remain at-large and official casualties stand at 29. The Taliban denies any and all involvement.
Lord Ram: As Prime Minister Narendra Modi blessed the start of construction of a grand Hindu temple to the deity Ram, he said, “Today centuries of waiting are over.” The site is believed to be the birthplace of Lord Ram but was also the site of a 16th-century mosque that was violently destroyed by a Hindu mob in 1992, which remains a point of contention between India’s Muslims and Hindus to this day. The ceremony was held on the one-year anniversary of the abrogation of Kashmir, when India revoked the Muslim-majority state’s autonomy, doubling the significance of the moment to Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) goal of Hindu dominance.
Taiwan: Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar will travel to Taiwan to coordinate closer on COVID relief given the island’s global health leadership. To the shock of no one, China is pissed and claiming the US is “endangering peace.”