Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin had a number of reasons for invading Ukraine in February and starting the largest military conflict in Europe since World War II.  Putin sought to portray the pre-invasion crisis that Moscow created with Ukraine as a NATO-Russia dispute, but that framing does not stand up to serious scrutiny.

Putin tried hard.  In late 2021, he complained of NATO’s “rising” military threat on Russia’s western borders and demanded legal guarantees for Russia, as if the country with the world’s largest nuclear arsenal and largest army in Europe needed such guarantees.  Moscow proposed draft agreements with NATO and the United States that would have ruled out further NATO enlargement and required the Alliance to withdraw all military forces and infrastructure from members that had joined after 1997.

Washington and NATO offered to engage on other elements of the draft agreements regarding arms control and risk reduction measures, which could have made a genuine contribution to Europe’s security, including Russia.  However, U.S. and NATO officials would not foreswear further enlargement.  That became another grievance—along with false claims of neo-Nazis in Kyiv, genocide in Donbas and a Ukrainian pursuit of nuclear arms—that Putin cited in his February 24 explanation of his unjustifiable decision to launch a new invasion of Ukraine.

Some Western analysts continue to accept Putin’s argument that lays blame on NATO.  The history does not support that argument.

In July 1997, NATO invited Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic to begin accession negotiations—but only after first laying the basis for a cooperative relationship with Russia.  In May 1997, NATO and Russia concluded the Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, which set up a permanent body for consultation and coordination.

Among other things, the Founding Act reiterated that NATO had “no intention, no plan and no reason” to place nuclear weapons on the territory of new member states.  The Act also noted that NATO saw no need for the “permanent stationing of substantial combat forces” on the territory of new members.  These statements reflected the Alliance’s effort to make enlargement for Moscow as non-threatening as possible in military terms.

From 1997 to early 2014, NATO deployed virtually no combat forces on the territory of its new members.  That changed following Russia’s use of military force to seize Crimea and its involvement in the conflict in Donbas in eastern Ukraine in March and April 2014.  Even then, NATO moved to deploy, on a rotating basis, multinational battlegroups numbering 1,000-1,600 troops in each of the three Baltic states and Poland—no more than tripwire forces.

As for advancing the Alliance to Russia’s borders, five current NATO members border on Russia or the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad (this does not include Finland, which requested membership only in May 2022).  Of the five current members, the last to join the Alliance, the three Baltic states, did so in 2004.  That was 18 years ago.  Putin did not raise a fuss then.

In fact, in May 2002, Putin met NATO leaders in Rome and agreed to a joint declaration on deepening and giving a new quality to NATO-Russia relations.  In his address at that NATO-Russia summit, Putin expressed no concern about NATO enlargement, even though the Alliance planned a second summit later that year, and the Russian president had to know that NATO then would invite additional countries, quite probably including the Baltic states, to join.

Putin has in recent years played up grievances against NATO enlargement in ways that he did not when NATO was enlarging in Russia’s neighborhood.  The four countries that joined the Alliance after 2004 are all in the Balkans, quite distant from Russia’s borders.  The Russian president reacted calmly to this year’s Finnish and Swedish decisions to apply to join—even though Finland’s addition will more than double the length of Russia’s borders with NATO.

As for Moscow’s concerns about Ukraine entering NATO, Russian diplomats and spies surely understood there is little enthusiasm within the Alliance for putting Ukraine on a membership track.  With Russian troops occupying parts of Ukraine (even before the February attack), membership would invariably raise the question of allies going to war against Russia.

Ironically, Russia had a neutral Ukraine in 2013.  A 2010 Ukrainian law enshrined non-bloc status for the country, and then-Ukrainian President Victor Yanukovych showed no desire to join NATO.  He was interested in concluding an association agreement with the European Union, but he came under massive pressure from Moscow not to do so in late 2013.  He succumbed to that pressure, and the announcement that Kyiv would not sign the completed association agreement triggered protests that same evening that began the Maidan Revolution.

Putin’s decision to launch a new attack on Ukraine appears to have several motivations.  One is geopolitical, the Kremlin’s desire to have a Russian sphere of influence in the post-Soviet space and its fear that Ukraine was invariably moving away from Moscow.  This is a broader question than Ukraine’s relationship with NATO.  But nothing has done more than Russian policy and actions since 2014 to push Ukraine away from Russia and toward the West.

Russian domestic politics looks like a second key factor.  For the Kremlin, a democratic, Western-oriented, economically successful Ukraine poses a nightmare, because that Ukraine would cause Russians to question why they cannot have the same political voice and democratic rights that Ukrainians do.  For the Kremlin, regime preservation is job number one.

The third factor is Putin himself.  Reading his July 2021 essay on Ukraine or his February 24 speech on Russia’s recognition of the so-called “people’s republics” in Donbas makes clear that Putin does not accept the legitimacy of a sovereign and independent Ukrainian state.  He regards most of Ukraine as part of historical Russia.

On June 9, the Russian president voiced the quiet part aloud, implicitly comparing himself to Peter the Great on “returning” historic Russian lands to Moscow’s control.  Putin said, “Apparently, it is also our lot to return [what is Russia’s] and reinforce [the country].”  He said not one word about NATO or NATO enlargement.

Case closed. 

An edited version of this opinion piece first appeared in the 14 July 2022 issue of The Jakarta Post.

How preoccupied is America with its own domestic problems? To the point of impairing the ability of President Biden’s administration to give Indonesia and Southeast Asia the foreign-policy attention they deserve?

The Group of Twenty’s meetings are now at or near the top of the Indonesian foreign ministry’s list of things to do. Foreign minister Retno Marsudi has worried, amid talk of boycotts, that Moscow-Washington animosity over Ukraine could ruin the G20 summit in Bali this November, to the embarrassment of its Indonesian host and chair. Presumably to her relief, Secretary of State Antony Blinken flew to Indonesia to attend in person the preparatory G20 foreign ministers meeting that she hosted and chaired in Bali on 7-8 July 2022, and he did so despite the participation of his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.  In addition to holding a one-on-one session with Marsudi, Blinken also met with Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi for a discussion of US-China relations that reportedly lasted five hours. Indonesia can take pride in having made that lengthy interaction possible. 

The foreign ministers’ meeting was not without drama. Twice, in response to criticism of Russia, Lavrov walked out of the room, and he left the conference altogether before it ended. Perhaps he forgot that in democracies, praise is not required.  But things in Bali could have gotten much worse, and in that sense America’s presence throughout the event helped save Indonesia’s face.

Biden’s administration has not neglected Indonesia or Southeast Asia, as recent diplomacy shows. In May he accommodated the priority on economic development favored by Indonesia and other Asian states by traveling to Japan to announce the formation of an Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF). Its 14 founding partners, including Indonesia and six other ASEAN members, account for 40 percent of global GDP. Earlier in May, in Washington, DC, Biden hosted a special summit with Indonesia and other ASEAN states. Their Joint Vision Statement with the US, as in IPEF, emphasized economic cooperation.

None of this diplomacy, however, could temper the strident political polarization that continues to disrupt America. Understandably, that frenzy of distrust and dissension has led some Indonesians to wonder how reliable a partner the US will turn out to be in years to come.    

The splitting of many Americans into rival partisan camps is in part structural. For example, compared with better-educated urban and suburban dwellers, less well-educated rural and small-town Americans are more likely to hold right-wing Republican views. The reasons why those views have become more extreme include the popularity of Donald Trump and his anti-democratic if not proto-fascistic campaign to re-install himself in the White House after losing the free and fair election of 2020.  His effort, Republican complicity in it, and the backlash against it have widened the separation of often coastal or near-coastal Democratic states from Republican ones more or less clustered in middle and southern America. Political scientist and statistician Simon Jackman goes so far as to argue that the US has not been this divided politically since the Great Depression of the 1930s—or possibly even since the 1860s Civil War.

The Vanderbilt University Project on Unity and American Democracy chooses the longer timeline. “Not since the Civil War,” it concludes, “have so many Americans held such radically opposed views not just of politics but of reality itself.” The project’s own findings, however, undermine the caricature of a country fatally hobbled by national schizophrenia and group delusions. 

The Vanderbilt Unity Index combines quarterly data from 1981 to 2021 on five variables—presidential disapproval, congressional polarization, ideological extremism, social mistrust, and civil unrest—to calculate changes in American national unity across those four decades on a 0-to-100 scale, from least to most unified. Over that period of time, the index has fluctuated in a close to middling zone between 50 and 70 on that 100-point scale. 

The index shows deep plunges in unity only twice since 1981, and both of those dives were linked to the uniquely calamitous presidency of President Trump. In contrast, the average score during the first five quarters of the Biden administration has been 58, a sharp improvement from the average of 51 under Trump. Heartened by that betterment, two of the Vanderbilt scholars surmise that America’s “disharmony may be dissipating.”

That could be an overoptimistic guess. Unity is one thing, victory another. Legislative elections will be held on 8 November this year. As of the end of June, prominent forecaster Nate Silver gave the still largely Trump-beholden Republican Party an 87 percent chance — a near-certainty — of replacing Biden’s Democrats as the majority party in the House of Representatives. The race for a majority in the Senate was too close to call. But even if Republicans control only the House, they will likely use that platform to undermine Biden’s administration during his final two years in office.      

As if likely losses of legislative power were not enough for Biden to worry about, maneuvers by Republicans to stack the Supreme Court with right-wing partisans have tilted that juridical balance steeply in their favor. The court’s new reactionary 6-to-3 majority has already made two shocking decisions. They have, in effect, denied women their long-standing right to abortion and made it easier to carry a concealed gun in public. Republicans claim to support individual rights. But they and their court appointees have deleted the long-standing constitutional right of a pregnant woman to decide whether to give birth or not, thereby depriving her of assured responsibility over her physical body and personal future. 

Regarding gun violence, in barely five months from 1 January through 5 June of this year, America has experienced 246 mass shootings — incidents that kill or wound four or more people. That puts the US on track in 2022 to match or exceed its record of 692 mass shootings in 2021, more than in any year since the Gun Violence Archive began counting them. The Republican-majority court’s unconscionable impulses seem to be to make women make more babies, wanted or not, and to make murders more likely as well.

There is good news. First, a massive popular backlash against these Republican decisions has either begun or is likely. Second, a nationally televised Congressional investigation of the violent attack on the US Capitol on 6 January 2021 has displayed the complicity of Trump, and by association the Trump-infected Republican Party, in an insurrection that killed at least seven people and injured roughly 150 more. Third, although Trump may not end up where he belongs, namely, in jail, at least he faces Republican rivals for the party’s nomination to run for president in 2024. Conceivably those rivals could come to include a candidate who is politically more moderate and personally less criminal, corrupt, and narcissistic than he. 

President Joko Widodo will host the G20 leaders in Indonesia merely one week after the 8 November 2022 midterm legislative election takes place in the US. Will Biden go again to Bali? Not if at that time right-wing fanatics claiming election fraud are destabilizing America. For long-term interactions between Jakarta and Washington relations, however, what will matter is not who will attend the 2022 G20 summit in Bali. It will be the names and plans of the Indonesians and Americans who will run and win in the national elections to be held in their respective countries in 2024.

Donald K. Emmerson heads the Southeast Asia Program at Stanford University's Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center. His recent publications include an edited volume, The Deer and the Dragon: Southeast Asia and China in the 21^st Century.

Mofeed Digest (June 2022)

The following digest summarizes the most important scholarly and policy publications, reports, and articles covering the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the politics, economies, and societies of the Arab world. Mofeed Digest is produced by Mofeed Project Coordinator Serage Amatory.

[MENA | Algeria | Bahrain | Djibouti | Egypt| Iraq| Jordan| Kuwait| Lebanon| Libya| Morocco| Oman| Palestine| Qatar| Saudi Arabia| Somalia| Sudan| Syria| Tunisia| UAE| Yemen]

MENA

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Arab States: Overcoming the Fragilities of Governance Systems for Sustainable Recovery
UNDP, Date Unspecified 
This article assesses the fragility of Arab government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and provides policy recommendations. It discusses how government trust and the perception of the social contract will change due to the citizen-government interaction during the pandemic. 

COVID-19 in the MENA: An Exploration of Gender Sensitive State Responses
Middle East Political Science, Date Unspecified
This article describes how women in the formal sector of MENA economies have been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Authors focus on 3 MENA countries and explore the gendered impacts of the pandemic. 

COVID-19 Responses in the Middle East and North Africa in Global Perspective
Middle East Political Science, Date Unspecified 
This article studies the nature of the government response to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), exploring both within-region diversity and between-region variation. It concludes that while the MENA region as a whole is broadly similar to other parts of the world in its COVID response, there are substantial within-region differences in terms of how COVID policies were implemented and to what extent residents were affected by the pandemic and adopted public health behaviors. 

Does COVID-19 Pandemic Spur Digital Business Transformation in the MENA Region? Evidence from Firm Level Data
Economic Research Forum, June 2022
This working paper analyzes how the outbreak of COVID-19 in the MENA region affected the accelerating digital transformation in business firms. The results demonstrate a strong association between the pandemic outbreak and digitization. They also show that the firms operating in the service sector were more likely to adopt digital solutions.

Presentation, Management, and Outcome of COVID-19 among Patients with Cancer in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.
Journal of Clinical Oncology, 2 June 2022
This article captures data on 1345 patients with cancer to assess SARS-COV-2 infection presentations, diagnosis, treatment, complications, and outcomes in 12 centers in 8 Mena region countries.

Economic and Psychosocial Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Nations of the GCC
Global Business and Economics Review, 17 June 2022
This article examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in GCC countries, especially on the economic and psychosocial level. The article investigates the impact of government support on mitigating the psychological and psychosocial impacts of the pandemic on citizens.

Algeria

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Impact of COVID-19 Crisis on Energy Consumption and Socio-Spatial Behavior of the Residential Sector in Extreme Climates. Case study Southwest of Algeria
TECHNIUM, 9 June 2022
This article examines the immediate and long-term impact of COVID-19 on various forms of energy consumption during confinement in Algeria. The authors focus on the impact of COVID 19 on the energy consumption of electricity, gas, and water in the residential sector.  

The Impact of the COVID-19 Related School Closure on the Mental Health and Well-Being of Children with SEN and Their Parents in Algeria
International Journal of Disability, Development and Education, 23 June 2022
This study studies and analyzes the experience of twenty-three parents and five children with special educational needs during complete lockdown and limited access to school support in Algeria.

Bahrain

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Post-Vaccination Outcomes in Association with Four COVID-19 Vaccines in the Kingdom of Bahrain
Scientific Reports, 2 June 2022
This study examines COVID-19 related outcomes derived from Bahraini national database where 4 vaccines were deployed, comparing the 4 vaccines through post-vaccination outcomes. 

Students’ Perception Regarding E-learning During COVID-19 at Bahrain Polytechnic
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 6 June 2022
This article presents the findings of a descriptive cross-sectional study conducted at Bahrain Polytechnic to assess students' perspectives towards e-learning during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Bahrain Ranks First in Post-Pandemic Tourism Recovery Report
National News, 15 June 2022
According to money.co.uk study, Bahrain has been given the highest ranking in tourism recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, at a 95% rate. This ranking indicated that the Gulf nation's 2021 tourist numbers bounced almost all the way back to the 2019 level of 3.8 million.

Djibouti

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Epidemiology of the First and Second Waves of COVID-19 Pandemic in Djibouti and the Vaccination Strategy Developed for the Response
BMJ Public Health, June 2022
This study examines the epidemiology of the first two covid-19 waves in Djibouti, highlighting mishaps in the National Plan for Introduction and Deployment for COVID-19 vaccines. 

Assessing the Effectiveness of the Djiboutian Government during the COVID-19: Focusing on the Djiboutian Perspective
FigShare, 30 June 2022
This study assesses the Djiboutian government’s effectiveness in combating COVID-19 through studying different indicators like citizen trust in government, government responsiveness and leadership, and COVID-19 information access and accuracy. Results conveyed a strong link between responsiveness and effectiveness. 

Egypt

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The Impact of Job Stress on Employee’s Performance at one of Private Banks in Egypt during COVID-19 Pandemic
International Business Research, Date Unspecified 
This article investigates the perception of employees of one of the private banks in Egypt and their performance in the presence of job stress in the uncertain period of the coronavirus pandemic. 

Impact of COVID-19 Pandemic on the Neurosurgical Practice in Egypt
Egyptian Journal of Neurosurgery, 7 June 2022
This article examines the impact of lockdown and restrictive measures adopted during the COVID-19 pandemic on neurosurgical cases at two university hospitals in Egypt. Results show that the number of cases has dropped by 38%.

Exenterate or Not: A Simple Proposed Management Algorithm for Mucormycosis During the Era of COVID-19 in a Tertiary Eye Care Center in Egypt
Clinical Ophthalmology, 11 June 2022
This article studies available data of 30 Egyptian patients with post COVID-19 orbital mucormycosis to construct a simple management algorithm for posed cases. 

Egypt Loses $23 Billion from COVID-19, Ukraine Conflict
Egyptian Streets, 21 June 2022
Egypt's Minister of Finance declared during his proposed budget speech that the country had lost 440 EGP, about 23.4 billion dollars due to the Russian-Ukrainian war and the COVID-19 pandemic over the span of the last two years. 

Recovering from COVID-19 Learning Losses
UNICEF, 23 June 2022
This UNICEF article delineates the various challenges that the pandemic has posed for children and their learning in Egypt. The article focuses on marginalized children of color or refugee status and recognizes that despite the progress achieved in the education sector in Egypt, marginalized children are still far behind expectations for their age in literacy. [ARABIC]

Acceptance Rate of COVID-19 Vaccination and Its Predictors in Egypt: An Online Survey
The Journal of Infection in Developing Countries, 30 June 2022
This article presents the findings of a self-administered study conducted on random participants from six different Egyptian governorates to assess the acceptance rate of COVID-19 vaccination among the Egyptian adult population. 

Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccination among Maintenance Hemodialysis Patients: an Egyptian Survey Study
Tropical Medicine and Health, 30 June 2022
This article presents a study conducted in 2 Maintenance Hemodialysis centers in Egypt to investigate the level of vaccine acceptance among Egyptian patients with MHD.

Iraq

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Acceptance of COVID-19 Vaccine Among Nursing Students of Mosul University, Iraq
Rawal Medical Journal, Date Unspecified 
This article uses a quantitative cross-sectional study to assess the acceptance of COVID-19 vaccination among nursing students in Mosul city in Iraq.

The Relationship between COVID-19 Fear and Anxiety with the Quality of Life of Students in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq
Novelty in Clinical Medicine, June 2022
This article examines the link between the fear and anxiety students experience during the pandemic with online learning, and their quality of life. According to intention to be vaccinated, the patients were divided into vaccine acceptant (VA), hesitant (VH), and resistant (VR) groups who comprised 58.3%, 26.5%, and 15.2%, respectively.

Misdiagnosis of COVID-19 Infection before Molecular Confirmation in Sulaimaniyah City, Iraq
European Journal of Medical Research, 3 June 2022
This article utilizes a detailed questionnaire to assess the misdiagnosis and mismanagement of COVID-19 cases in Northern Iraq, Kurdistan region. Regarding the false diagnosis of cases, 92% were made by non-physician healthcare workers, and only 8% were made by physicians.

The Role of Influenza Vaccination in the COVID-19 Infection: Impact on Incidence and Severity in Iraq
Journal of Applied Pharmaceutical Science, 21 June 2022
This article investigates the extent to which influenza vaccinations can mitigate the severity and decrease the frequency of incidence of COVID-19 infections in Iraq. 

Predictors of Mental Health Symptomatology among Kurdish Patients Who Recovered from COVID-19 in Iraq
Discover Psychology, 27 June 2022
This article seeks to determine the mental health symptomatology and its associated factors among Kurdish Iraqis who recovered from COVID-19. It was found that 31.6% of the participating recovered patients with COVID-19 met the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and 21.05% were classified with probable depression.

Menstrual Changes Following COVID-19 Infection: A Cross-Sectional Study from Jordan and Iraq
Plos One, 29 June 2022
This study aimed to investigate and to evaluate menstrual changes in females following COVID-19 infection, and to evaluate female perception about the effect of COVID-19 on their menstrual cycles. Authors conducted the study on 483 women from Jordan and Iraq. 

Postmortem Lung Biopsy for COVID-19 Patients in Iraq
Research Square, 30 June 2022
This article studies the pathophysiological changes that happen to lung tissues in COVID-19 affected individuals and to accurately specify the cause(s) of death. Authors utilized a case series of post-mortem lung histopathology examinations of deceased COVID-19 positive patients in Iraq.

Jordan

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User Experience Assessment of a COVID-19 Tracking Mobile Application (AMAN) in Jordan
Indonesian Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, Date Unspecified 
This article examines the user experience of a COVID-19 tracking application in Jordan by getting feedback from users and identifying UX (user experience) based on user interaction.

Short-Term Side Effects of COVID-19 Vaccines: A Cross-Sectional Study in Jordan
Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics, 27 June 2022
This article presents the findings of a cross-sectional study of the short-term side effects of the COVID-19 vaccine to clarify the expected outcome of getting vaccinated and reduce vaccine hesitancy.

Menstrual Changes Following COVID-19 Infection: A Cross-Sectional Study from Jordan and Iraq
Plos One, 29 June 2022
This study aimed to investigate and to evaluate menstrual changes in females following COVID-19 infection, and to evaluate female perception about the effect of COVID-19 on their menstrual cycles. Authors conducted the study on 483 women from Jordan and Iraq. 

Exploring the Role of Superspreading Events in SARS-CoV-2 Outbreaks
medRxiv, 29 June 2022
This article presents a study that formulates a Markov chain model to investigate the influence of superspreading events on SARS-COV-2 outbreak dynamics.

Kuwait

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The Effects of COVID-19 School Disruptions Will Last Decades
World Bank, 20 June 2022 
This World Bank blog-post discusses the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on schools and learning in Kuwait. It states the long-term life long losses to their earning, males being affected more tragically than females. [Arabic here]

Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 Reinfection in a Paediatric Cohort in Kuwait
BMJ Open, 28 June 2022
This article reports the findings of a population-level retrospective cohort study to describe the clinical characteristics and dynamics of SARS-COV-2 reinfection in children in Kuwait. Results show that reinfection is uncommon in children. 

Pandemic Price Controls Experiment Goes Seriously Awry in Kuwait
Bloomberg, 29 June 2022 
This Bloomberg article reports on the indiscriminate economic havoc that has risen in Kuwait two years after price control was applied to freeze food costs during the first wave of the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Lebanon

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Evaluating the Governance and Preparedness of the Lebanese Health System for the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Qualitative Study
BMJ Open, 1 June 2022
This article reports on a qualitative study held in Lebanon aiming to assess the capacity and governance of Lebanon's health system throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The health workforce showed high resilience despite the inadequate training and staff shortages. 

Genomic Surveillance of SARS CoV2 in COVID-19 vaccinated healthcare workers in Lebanon
BioRxiv, 6 June 2022 
This article reports on the findings of a national SARS-COV-2 genomic surveillance among healthcare workers in Lebanon. 

Experience of Field Testing in Lebanon during the COVID-19 Pandemic, January to August 2021
BMJ Global Health, 7 June 2022
This article presents data related to COVID-19 cases after field testing in Lebanon. The article also reflects on challenges faced and lessons learned. 

Risk Markers of COVID-19, a Study from South-Lebanon
MDPI, 27 June 2022
This article aims to assess the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 among suspected COVID-19 patients in South Lebanon as well as the risk markers for COVID-19 associated with ABO blood group, Rhesus factor, and patient’s address during the past year.

Libya

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Knowledge, Attitude, Perception and Psychological Status of Healthcare Workers During COVID-19 Outbreak in Libya: A Cross Sectional Study
Journal of Pure and Applied Microbiology, 1 June 2022
This article studies and evaluates levels of knowledge, attitude, perception, and psychological effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on Libyan citizens. 

Morocco 

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Dataset to Explore Factors Affecting COVID-19 Vaccination Intention. Evidence from Morocco
Data in Brief, 9 June 2022 
This article identifies the various factors that influenced Moroccan citizens to get the COVID-19 vaccine.  The data were collected using an online questionnaire. 

Depression and Eating Disorders among Health Care Professionals in Morocco during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Electronic Journal of General Medicine, 8 June 2022
This article reports on the findings of an online anonymous self-administered questionnaire that was conducted on Moroccan healthcare workers to screen for depression and eating disorders during the coronavirus pandemic.

Oman

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Assessing COVID-19 Vaccine’s Acceptability Amongst Health Care Workers in Oman: A Cross-Sectional Study
Journal of Infection and Public Health, 16 June 2022
This article assesses the acceptability of COVID-19 vaccines among health care workers in Oman. A cross-sectional study using a self- administered questionnaire was conducted among the HCWs in December 2020.

Audit Fees under the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Oman
Journal of Accounting in Emerging Economies, 28 June 2022
This article reports on the findings of a study examining the effect of COVID-19 on audit fees after its huge impact on companies' financial statements in Oman. 

Pulmonary Barotrauma in COVID-19 Patients: Experience From a Secondary Care Hospital in Oman
Cureus, 29 June 2022
This article discusses the findings of a retrospective study identifying patients with pulmonary barotrauma and recording their medical data at an Intensive Care Unit in Oman.

Palestine

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COVID-19 Vaccine Uptake and Its Associated Factors among Palestinian Healthcare Workers: Expectations Beaten by Reality
Vaccine, 9 June 2022
This article presents a cross-sectional study conducted in Palestine to examine the level of vaccination among healthcare workers and its determinants. Key findings show that almost two thirds of Palestinian healthcare workers have already received their vaccine. 

Health Consequences of University Employees Post COVID-19 Vaccination at Palestinian University
Research Square, 14 June 2022
This article examines health consequences of Palestinian university workers receiving their COVID-19 vaccination, aiming to decrease vaccination hesitancy and provide more adequate input on its side effects.

Vaccine Apartheid and Settler Colonial Sovereign Violence: From Palestine to the Colonial Global Economy
Distinktion Journal of Social Theory, 14 June 2022
This article adopts a decolonial lens to assess the distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine in Palestine and globally. It challenges the underlying premise being that the advanced, wealthy, and capable nation-states have endogenously earned the position of power and prosperity and that the world’s poor nation-states are posited as the recipients of charity from these rich states only after the latter have sufficiently inoculated themselves.

The Impact of the Corona Pandemic on the Performance of Palestinian Commercial Banks Listed on the Palestine Stock Exchange
Lecture Notes in Networks and Systems, 30 June 2022
This article studies a sample of 6 companies from the banking sector in Palestine to shed light on the Palestinian stock exchange before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Qatar

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Predictive Ability of Factors in diagnosing COVID-19: Experiences from Qatar's Primary Care Settings
International Journal of Infectious Diseases, June 2022 
This article aims to establish the predictive ability of demographic and clinical factors in diagnosing Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Qatar's publicly funded primary care settings.

Duration of mRNA Vaccine Protection against SARS-CoV-2 Omicron BA.1 and BA.2 Subvariants in Qatar
Nature Communications, 2 June 2022
This article investigates the duration of protection of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines after the second dose and after the third/booster dose, against symptomatic COVID-19 infections in Qatar.

Qatar: Challenges and Successes in COVID-19 Pandemic Response
Rand Blog, 9 June 2022
This article presents an overview of the Qatari experience in combating the coronavirus pandemic. It references Qatar's strict contact tracking and tracing policy, the launching of a vaccination campaign in December 2020, and media campaigns that promote awareness of the importance of taking preventive measures and getting the vaccine as important steps in the state’s pandemic response.

Qatar Airways Bounces Back from Pandemic with Record Revenues and Profits
Forbes, 16 June 2022
This Forbes article discusses the efforts, resilience and trajectory of Qatar Airways in emerging from the coronavirus pandemic. It references a sharp uptick in annual revenues to QR52.3 billion ($14.4 billion).  

COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy and Acceptance among the Public in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries: A Review of the Literature
Human Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics, 29 June 2022
This article aims to provide an up-to-date evaluation of COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among the public in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries.

Saudi Arabia

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Factors Related to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy in Saudi Arabia
Public Health in Practice, June 2022
This article presents the findings of a cross-sectional study aiming to assess the amount of vaccine hesitancy and its determinants in relation to various demographic, social, and personal characteristics among the Saudi population.

A Nationwide Survey to Assess COVID-19’s Impact on Health and Lifestyle in Saudi Arabia
European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Science, June 2022 
This article aims to assess the COVID-19 related knowledge and its socio-demographic correlates in individuals from different parts of Saudi Arabia and to evaluate the health-related impact and lifestyle changes in the Saudi population because of the COVID-19 pandemic. It also determines the perceived importance of future preparedness among residents. 

Characteristics of Mechanically Ventilated COVID-19 Patients in the Al-Ahsa Region of Saudi Arabia: A Retrospective Study with Survival Analysis
Annals of Saudi Medicine, 2 June 2022
This article seeks to identify the characteristics and risk factors for mortality in mechanically ventilated COVID-19 patients in Al-Ahsa region in Saudi Arabia. 

Psychological Distress Reported by Healthcare Workers in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study
PLOS ONE, 3 June 2022
This article estimates the prevalence and severity of psychological distress and studies predisposing risk factors among healthcare workers in KSA during the COVID-19 pandemic. Authors conducted a cross-sectional online survey of 1,985 HCWs from 6 hospitals across the country designated with caring for COVID-19 patients.

Side Effects and Perceptions of COVID-19 Vaccination in Saudi Arabia: A Cross-Sectional Study
Frontiers in Medicine, 7 June 2022
This article assesses the side effects and perceptions about COVID-19 vaccines among adults following vaccination in Saudi Arabia.

Factors Affecting Online Learning, Stress and Anxiety during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Saudi Arabia
International Journal of Human Rights in Healthcare, 10 June 2022
This article reports the findings of a study investigating the factors affecting online learning (OL) and stress and anxiety (SaA) during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia.

Voluntary Testing for COVID-19: Perceptions and Utilization among the Inhabitants of Saudi Arabia
Osong Public Health and Research Perspectives, 10 June 2022
This article investigates the perceptions and utilization of Voluntary Testing services for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) among the inhabitants of Saudi Arabia. In total, 3,510 adult participants from all provinces of Saudi Arabia were recruited via a national online survey.

Types of Variants Among Increased Cases of COVID-19 in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia in June 2021
Cureus, 16 June 2022
This article seeks to identify the types and distribution of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) variants causing cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the western region in Saudi Arabia in June 2021.

Assessment of Risk Factors Associated with COVID-19 Illness Outcomes in a Tertiary Hospital in Saudi Arabia
International Journal of General Medicine, 27 June 2022
This article reports the findings of a retrospective study that presents the demographic, epidemiological, clinical, laboratory, and imaging characteristics of patients at a tertiary hospital in Saudi Arabia and determines risk factors contributing to their COVID-19 outcome.

Somalia

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Pumping Oxygen into Somalia’s Health System as Part of COVID-19 Response
World Bank, 6 June 2022
This article reviews the response of Somalia to the coronavirus pandemic in the light of the amalgamation of crises facing the country. The article acknowledges that unlike many countries, Somalia was dealing with multiple threats of crises: locusts, drought, flooding, COVID-19 in addition to the country’s fragility, after decades of war and political instability.

Sudan

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Mental Health Status of High School Students in Khartoum State, Sudan During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study
BJPsych Open, 20 June 2022 
This article aims to assess the mental health status of high school students in Khartoum State, to evaluate the participants’ adherence to COVID-19 preventive measures and to identify factors associated with commitment to COVID-19 guidelines and mental health status during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Syria

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Syndromic Surveillance of Respiratory Infections during Protracted Conflict: Experiences from Northern Syria 2016-2021
International Journal of Infectious Diseases, June 2022 
This article investigates the trends of Early Warning and Response Network (EWARN) reported ILI (influenza-like illness) and SARI (severe acute respiratory illness) in northern Syria between 2016 and 2021 and the potential impact of SARS-CoV-2.

Addressing the Impacts of COVID-19 on Refugee Health
PLOS Medicine, 27 June 2022
This article discusses the disparity in the experience of the pandemic between refugees and citizens and focuses on Syrian refugees.  It acknowledges that refugees are often blamed by governments and members of the public for infectious disease epidemics and states that they may experience elevated risks of infectious diseases like COVID-19 through no fault of their own.

Tunisia

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Students’ perceptions of distance education during a Covid-19 pandemic in Tunisia
International Journal of Educational and Psychological Studies, June 2022
This article uncovers the perceptions of university students regarding the use of distant learning tools and techniques during the spread of COVID-19, by exploring their experiences during containment. 

COVID-19’s Impact on Tunisia
The Borgen Project, 1 June 2022
This article discusses the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Tunisia, exploring different indicators such as GDP, tourism, retail and agriculture. 

COVID-19 and Gender-Based Violence: Pandemic Response and Impact on Civil Society in Tunisia
Project on Middle East Political Science, 16 June 2022
This working paper argues that CSOs made progress in combatting violence during the first year of the pandemic due to political openness, a culture of coalitions, and bipartisan support for eliminating violence against women. However, the President’s power grab and subsequent political instability led to a breakdown in coalition culture and a stifling of civil society, making it harder for feminist organizations to advocate for GBV protections. The paper draws on pre-pandemic ethnographic data and international and Tunisian news articles, polling data, statistics, and reporting during the pandemic.

UAE

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Association between Quality of Sleep and Screen Time during the COVID-19 Outbreak among Adolescents in the United Arab Emirates
Journal of Sleep Research, 7 June 2022 
This article aims to investigate the association between screen time on different electronic devices and sleep quality among adolescents in the United Arab Emirates during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Effectiveness of BBIBP-CorV Vaccine Against Severe Outcomes of COVID-19 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates
Nature Communications, 9 June 2022
This article aims to study the effectiveness of the inactivated BBIBP-CorV vaccine against severe COVID-19 outcomes (hospitalization, critical care admission and death due to COVID-19) and its long-term effectiveness in Abu Dhabi in the UAE.

Yemen

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Adult Mortality before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Nine Communities of Yemen: A Key Informant Study
medRxiv, 21 June 2022
This article aims to estimate population mortality during the pre-pandemic and pandemic periods in nine purposively selected urban and rural communities of southern and central Yemen (Aden and Ta’iz governorates).

At the APARC Japan Program, we are deeply saddened by the news of the assassination of Shinzo Abe, former prime minister of Japan and still an influential political figure domestically and globally. We strongly condemn this senseless act of violence. We also sincerely hope that we will all strive to stop the 21st-century world from conjuring the memories of a pre-World War II days, bringing back the invasion of a sovereign nation for no reason (Russia’s invasion of Ukraine), violent attack on democracy based on disinformation (the January 6 uprising in the United States), and assassination of an influential leader of a stable democracy (the death of Abe). Having served longer than any other prime minister in Japanese history, Abe had his admirers and detractors. Regardless of one’s evaluation of his legacy, however, this act of violence needs to be condemned in no uncertain terms, and every effort should be made to prevent similar acts of terror.

Abe was one of the most transformative political leaders in modern Japanese history, whose foreign policy accomplishments made him a leading protector of the liberal international order at a time when China’s authoritarian model and the U.S.’s isolationist tendencies began to threaten the rules-based international order. He consolidated U.S.-Japan relations by deftly handling the polar opposite personalities of Presidents Obama and Trump during his second term. He made lasting contributions to international politics, having invented new influential concepts such as Free and Open Indo-Pacific and Data Free Flow with Trust, which were later embraced by many democratic allies in the region, most notably by the United States.

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Abe's diplomatic prowess was predicated on his domestic power base, evidenced by six straight victories in national elections during his second term. Even after stepping down as Prime Minister, he wielded powerful influence in national politics, particularly in defense and foreign affairs. His passing will change Japanese politics in a number of ways.

Most immediately, internal politics within the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) will be shaken up. The LDP was poised to win the Upper House election held on Sunday, July 10, but the margin of victory likely grew because of national sympathy for Abe’s death. With this victory, Prime Minister Kishida now has “the Golden Three Years” in which he does not need to hold any national election. This puts him in a position to execute his policy agenda.

In the economic realm, Prime Minister Kishida no longer has to go out of his way to defend Abenomics and emphasize that his economic policy is an extension of Abe’s. He also does not face the same level of internal pressure to increase the defense budget, take a strong stance against China, and work toward a constitutional revision. At the same time, with Abe no longer uniting the conservative constituencies for Kishida, they might become more critical of Kishida, pushing him to pursue Abe’s policy agenda such as constitutional revision.

Abe’s faction is the largest in the LDP, and it will have to find a successor who can keep it together and exert influence within the LDP. Prime Minister Kishida will likely be emboldened to shake up the cabinet and bring in people he finds useful. He no longer needs to consider Abe’s preferences, which he did to a certain extent in forming his first cabinet. This will likely lead to surprising appointments in the next cabinet shuffle such as a long-term partner of Abe’s becoming Kishida’s close ally.

The U.S.-Japan alliance will remain strong, and Americans should not expect any major changes that would impact them directly in the short term. A stable leadership in an important ally is always welcome, and somebody like Kishida who is sensible and careful, if not dynamic, makes for a reliable partner. Abe’s interpersonal skills are hard to replicate but the geopolitical environments will continue to push American and Japanese leaders to work closely and remain friendly.

One concern for Japan is that a copycat event is common after a violent incident like this. The fact that the gun used in the assassination was made by the perpetrator speaks to the efficacy of gun control measures in Japan but it also serves as a warning that others with similar skills and intentions could use hand-made guns for other acts of violence. Japan experienced a wave of political violence in the period leading up to World War II, and the political instability provided fertile ground for the destructive military expansion that resulted in the devastating defeat in 1945. It might seem too early to worry about such dire outcomes, but we can never be too careful in working to preserve our precious democracy. The United States is learning this lesson the hard way, as it has had to deal with all the demagogies and disinformation that seem to persist with no end in sight.

Shinzo Abe was killed while on a campaign trail in the last few days of the Upper House election period. While the assassin’s motivation was more personal than political, it is still alarming that election campaigns were the site of this violent attack. If this can happen in Japan, widely viewed as the least likely place for violence in general and gun violence in particular, then it could happen anywhere to undermine democracy. To honor Abe’s legacy, we all need to reassert our resolve to protect our democracy in Japan, the United States, and all over the world.

Let’s start with a broad look at opposition movements and their place in modern Russia. What role have opposition movements played in Russian society since the end of the Soviet Era in the late 1980s and early 1990s?

After the attempt by the Communist Party of Russia to forcibly seize political control in the 1991 August Coup, the course towards democratic reforms was supported by the majority of the Russian population. However, the democratic politicians were divided, and they had little to no experience with public political activity or organizing participation in elections. They failed to offer a clear, intelligible  plan for reforming the country and get it across to voters.                     

With the exception of certain leaders like Foreign Minister A. Kozyrev, human rights ombudsman S. Kovalev, and Deputy Prime Minister B. Nemtsov, truly democratic politicians were not widely represented in power at this time, and did not have a significant influence on state policy. Many of the politicians in power used pro-democracy ideals and the language of human rights as a mask to further their own, more selfish interests. Then with the economic crash in 1998, radical rhetoric and a revitalized communist party began to regain support.

Ultimately, a strong democratic party never emerged in Russia and deeply rooted democratic institutions were not built. The corruption and false promises corroded trust in democracy and undermined many Russian’s belief in liberalism. When Putin came to power in the late 90s, he took advantage of the chaos and further crushed many of the structures of the state. By the 2000s, he had tightened control over the legislature and elections and removed almost all competition from within the power system.

Today, few opposition forces survive. The leading figure is Alexei Navalny, and the goal of his movement has been to promote the idea of democratic change and the change of Putin's regime as essential prerequisite for other structural reforms in Russia. His followers were refused the right to register as an official political party under false, far-fetched pretexts, and the organization was declared by the state as an extremist organization and subjected to countless, baseless criminal charges. Like most opposition politicians, Navalny is now in prison. But these attacks only show how in the last 10 years, he has truly become a viable competitor that Vladimir Putin’s regime fears.

You work with the Anti-Corruption Foundation (Фонд борьбы с коррупцией), which was founded by Alexei Navalny in 2011. What has your network’s approach been to combatting corruption and systemic issues in Russia?

Our team investigates corruption crimes and collects legal evidence that we send to various law enforcement agencies as part of our efforts to bring those responsible to justice. At the same time, we focus public attention on these problems, demonstrating the negative impact that corruption and criminal activity has on all spheres of life. It’s important for people to understand that corruption is a foundational element of the system Vladimir Putin and his cronies built. Without removing him and his supporters from power, it will not be possible for serious reforms or deep democratization of state mechanisms to take place.

We’ve actively worked to propose anti-corruption bills and support those who are trying to ratify international standards like article 20 of the United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), which criminalizes illicit enrichment. Representatives of our team have participated in elections and conducted dozens of election campaigns throughout the country at all levels of government, from municipal and regional to the presidential elections in the Russian Federation. Our team also worked with authoritative Russian economists and experts such as Sergei Guriev and Sergei Aleksashenko to develop projects for economic and political reforms.

We’ve won several elections in both city and regional parliaments, and have also developed and successfully applied the Smart Voting project to help coordinate voting in support of promising opponents of Putin's United Russia party. But all this being said, we’ve faced strong opposition from the authorities, the police, and the FSB with each victory.
 

How have you and other activists had to adapt since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the further crackdowns in Russia against opposition voices and protests?

Repressions against our team began even before the attack on Ukraine. In the fall of 2020, the FSB tried to kill Alexei Navalny by poisoning him with the military-grade nerve agent Novichok. After an investigation into this poisoning and his return to Russia, he was imprisoned. Our group, the Anti-Corruption Foundation (FKB) was declared an extremist group and a foreign agent by the Kremlin and liquidated. In practice, this means we are banned from participating in political work like elections and protests. This has essentially created a ban on any political opposition activity in Russia.

Under such conditions, most of our team has evacuated to neighboring countries and continues to work from exile. We still influence the minds and moods in Russia through our internet media resources, which have an audience of millions. Conducting one-time protests is currently impossible in the country due to the introduction of repressive laws, but we continue to encourage our supporters to participate in elections under the Smart Voting strategy. We stand up for increasing the number of our supporters and for the trust of the people, while increasing the political costs for Putin, reducing his personal rating, and diminishing the standing of the United Russia party.

What can supporters of democracy across the world do to help the work you and other activists from Russia are doing?

After the attack on Ukraine, the best thing the rest of the world can do is to help Ukraine to get everything it needs to win this war. Ukraine's victory is Putin's loss.

The war unleashed by Putin is criminal not only in relation to Ukraine and Ukrainians, but also to Russia. It contradicts Russia’s national interests and literally destroys its future. Putin and his regime are a common enemy for Russians, Ukrainians, and the entire democratic world.

But the war is not only on the battlefields and in the Ukrainian cities. This war has an economic front, and Western countries need to intensify their efforts to deprive the Kremlin of its resources to continue the war. There also needs to be much tougher personal sanctions against Putin’s officials and propagandists.
 

Despite what the propaganda tries to portray, Russia is not homogenous and support for Putin is far from being ironclad. Putin has not won the entire information war for Russian’s attitudes. That’s why we at FKB consider it our duty to continue countering false information and tell Russians the truth about the war and Putin’s crimes.

We want the democratic community to understand how important this work is for victory in the war and the post-war reconstruction of Russia. While the physical fighting might be localized to Eastern Europe, the war will have far-reaching consequences across the globe. Its outcome will determine the vector of development for the entire world: either towards democracy or to totalitarianism. That’s why victory on the side of justice and rights in this war is important not only for the people of Ukraine and Russia, but for everyone, everywhere.
 

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s Twitter account struck an urgent tone the Sunday after the Supreme Court’s historic abortion ruling. She implored her 968,000 followers to have the “fortitude to act” against Department of Defense leaders for refusing to recognize the court’s decision, which eliminates the constitutional right to an abortion.

But DOD leaders never stated they would ignore the court’s ruling in the Dobbs v. Jackson case.

Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican, repeated a trope that appears to have originated on a now suspended Twitter channel known as BNN Newsroom a day prior. The BNN post erroneously said the Pentagon would not recognize abortion laws implemented in the wake of Dobbs. It was shared more than 26,000 times before being deleted, the Associated Press reported.

While Taylor Greene’s call to her followers said DOD leadership had “wage(d) an insurrection against the Supreme Court,” the anodyne statement from Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III was anything but that.

Austin’s statement, made in the hours after the court ruled, noted that the agency was “examining” the Dobbs’ decision and evaluating internal policies to ensure access to reproductive health care for service members and their families “as permitted by federal law.”

This bland statement spawned the BNN story which, in turn, led to the Taylor Greene tweet exclaiming that DOD leadership “must be removed.”

(Taylor Greene’s office did not return an email seeking comment).

Disinformation scholars said this incident exemplifies why the abortion issue, both polarizing and emotional, is a perfect vessel for spreading divisive falsehoods. Herb Lin, a senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at Stanford University, said he worries these qualities will make the mounting abortion wars an easy target for foreign interference. He pointed to how Russian influence operators hoping to provoke violence simultaneously promoted pro- and anti-Muslim rallies held at the same time and place during the run up to the 2016 election.

Read more at Cyberscoop

Dr. Sanne Verschuren has been awarded the 2022 Kenneth Waltz Outstanding Dissertation Award from the International Security Section of the American Political Science Association for her dissertation titled "Imagining the Unimaginable: War, Weapons, and Procurement Politics". 

The Kenneth N. Waltz Dissertation Award is awarded to a successfully defended doctoral dissertation employing any approach (historical, quantitative, theoretical, policy analysis, etc.) to any topic in the field of security studies. Manuscripts are judged according to (1) originality in substance and approach; (2) significance for scholarly or policy debate; (3) rigor in approach and analysis; and (4) power of expression.

Dr. Sanne Verschuren received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Brown University and her research focuses on the development of military technology, shifts in military strategy and tactics, and the role of ideas and norms therein. She was a Stanton Postdoctoral Fellow for CISAC during the 2021-2022 academic year. 

APSA Announcement

This article originally appeared in The Jerusalem Strategic Tribune.

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The numbers tell part of the story. While US merchandise trade with the Southeast Asian region grew by a respectable 62.4% from 2010 to 2019 (the last pre-pandemic year), China’s trade increased by an impressive 115% during the same period, according to the statistics of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Over a longer period, the US share of the region’s total merchandise trade fell from 16.1% in 2000 to 11.6% in 2020, while China’s share rose from 4.3% to 19.4%. Although infrastructure investment numbers are harder to come by, there is no question that China is playing a much more significant role in Southeast Asian infrastructure development than the US.

Some of the relative decline in the US economic role in the region is the inevitable result of China’s dramatic economic growth and the resulting increased trade and investment. That trend, however, only partly explains the US predicament. Over the past 10–20 years, Beijing has been much more aggressive in its economic statecraft than Washington. Beijing signed a Free Trade Agreement with ASEAN, then joined a new multilateral trade agreement—the Regional Cooperation and Economic Partnership (RCEP)—and more recently asked to join the high-standard Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) free trade accord. On infrastructure, China established the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the high-profile Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which aims to funnel billions of dollars into infrastructure projects in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.

The BRI initiative generally has been welcomed in the region for one simple reason: Southeast Asia has huge and urgent infrastructure needs—estimated by the Asian Development Bank to be $210 billion per year through 2030—that it cannot meet by mobilizing domestic resources. Through BRI, Beijing is offering to meet a portion of those needs with greater speed and fewer conditions than other would-be partners. Southeast Asian governments have lined up for BRI projects, with outgoing Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, Indonesian President Joko Widodo, and former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razaq having signed on for more than $20 billion of BRI-funded infrastructure projects in the 2015–2018 period. Although the BRI has been the subject of substantial criticism for overpromising, project delays, quality problems, employing Chinese rather than local labor, and raising the host government’s debt obligations, the initiative still dominates the discussion of infrastructure in the region.

The US, meanwhile, has underperformed in terms of its economic diplomacy. Most importantly, in 2017 it summarily withdrew from its primary economic initiative in the region, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) free trade agreement. President Trump’s decision to pull out of that accord was a severe geostrategic and economic blunder, as TPP would have bound the US into the broader region for a generation or more, as well as facilitated greater US trade with a number of fast-growing economies. With the US out of the TPP and China joining RCEP, the prospects are for a growing percentage of ASEAN trade to be with China (and other RCEP partners) and for the US and American businesses to lose further ground.

The US also has struggled to compete on infrastructure. The US is not going to match China, particularly in areas such as road, rail, and port development, but it could do more. The Trump administration launched several initiatives—including the Blue Dot Network, Clean EDGE Asia, and the establishment of the Development Finance Corporation (DFC), a larger, more ambitious version of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), a federal entity that helps insure US ventures abroad—all of which sought to leverage private sector funding to offer high-quality projects. The Biden administration has followed up with the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment, announced in June in coordination with G-7 partners, and promised via the Quad $50 billion in infrastructure funding. To date, however, these initiatives generally have not significantly changed the overall infrastructure picture in the region.

The US failure to engage in the region’s burgeoning free trade networks—combined with the big splash that China’s BRI initiative is making and the lack of a countervailing American initiative—is fueling the perception in the region that the US is a declining economic player. In an ASEAN 2021 survey of regional opinion leaders, 76% believed China was the most influential economic partner in the region, compared to less than 10% who felt that way about the US. Even more telling, I recall asking a senior Myanmar economic minister in 2017 why he had led private-sector roadshows to China, Japan, and South Korea but not the US, and he replied: “We didn’t even think of the US.”

Thus, the US faces a problem of both reality and perception. To address this, the US does not need to match Chinese numbers. It does, however, need to find a way to re-energize its trade engagement and to become a more significant player in Southeast Asian infrastructure, and to do so in ways that change the narrative in the region.

Recognizing this reality, the Biden administration recently launched the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), which is expected to result in negotiations on trade, supply chains, clean energy, and decarbonization, as well as on tax and corruption issues. The administration touted this initiative as reflecting the needs and realities of the 21st-century global economy. The good news is that seven of the ten ASEAN member nations signed onto IPEF, presumably reflecting their interest in greater US economic engagement and their hope that IPEF can produce just that. Skeptics say the initiative does not offer the promise of greater access to the US market via tariff reductions, which normally would be the carrot to entice other governments into adopting the high standards Washington wants. Also, as Matthew Goodman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies has pointed out, the fact that the administration is unwilling to take any negotiated agreement to Congress for ratification is likely to raise doubts in the minds of Asian partners about the IPEF’s durability, since a future administration can easily toss it aside.

Despite or maybe because of these doubts, the US needs to do all it can to turn the IPEF into something that is economically meaningful. Can it produce a digital trade agreement, real substance on strengthening supply chains, or can it possibly even use trade facilitation tools to enhance market access as former senior US trade official Wendy Cutler has suggested in a recent podcast hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies? It is too early to say, but the bottom line is that many in the region—and indeed even in the US—will remain privately doubtful until and unless the IPEF shows that it can result in tangible business and economic benefits.

The White House put the IPEF forward because it believes it lacks the political support either to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership or to launch another significant trade initiative. The domestic politics of trade might be tough right now, but that is not an excuse that is going to go very far in Southeast Asia. The region is not going to say “no problem, we understand.” Instead, it will go ahead without the US. If Washington wants to maintain influence, it needs to find a way to make the domestic politics on trade work. That almost certainly will entail appealing to bipartisan concern about Chinese geostrategic dominance, as trade alone probably will not sell.

On infrastructure, the various US initiatives to date have disappointed to some extent, although the Development Finance Corporation has been a step in the right direction. They do little other than offer the prospect of quality to give the US a competitive edge over Chinese-funded projects. The Chinese offer relatively speedy approval processes, low or zero conditionality deals, and complete project packages, including financing. Chinese state companies often are willing to undertake projects that do not appear to be commercially viable. Plus, Chinese political leaders weigh in personally to push the projects forward. I have seen this on the ground, in Indonesia and Myanmar, countless times. The Chinese pull out all of the stops, with intensive lobbying and full financing, and they often win.

Economic officials in the region complain that the multilateral development banks and Japan, which also offer substantial infrastructure deals, move much more slowly and laboriously than China. The design, discussion, and approval process often takes many years. With the US, it is almost always the private sector taking the lead, and private American companies have a hard time finding well-developed, “bankable” infrastructure projects in the region. Plus, US companies often come to the table without full financing or even all the pieces of the project. Government lobbying and financing usually lags, if it is there at all.

If the US is going to compete effectively for infrastructure projects in the region, it is going to have to change the way it does business. To begin with, the US will have to make it easier for Southeast Asian governments to say “yes” to deals. That means offering the full project package, including financing, and accelerating the project preparation and approval timeline to come closer to matching that of the Chinese. It also means more government funding for project development along with heavy US government lobbying, including by the president when appropriate, for major projects. The US is not going to engage in bribery or support projects that destroy communities or the environment, nor should it. But it needs to use just about all the other available tools to compete.

The US should consider establishing an overseas infrastructure czar in Washington who can lead and oversee government-business teams that identify potential projects where the US can compete, put together a full project package, including private and public financing, and then aggressively lobby the host government for approval. I often hear that the US does not work that way on overseas business. Perhaps, but if Washington wants to win some victories—and more significant projects—it needs to be willing to adopt new thinking.

Re-engaging on trade and winning more infrastructure deals are essential, but there is one more thing the US needs to do to reverse the perception that it is a declining economic player in Southeast Asia. It needs to do a much better job of telling its economic story. For example, the US remains the largest foreign investor in Southeast Asia, but I am willing to bet few people in the region know that. Similarly, America remains a huge market for Southeast Asian exports, just slightly smaller than China, but again that is not well known or much talked about in the region. The US should devote more resources and time to telling this story and to reminding the region of the incredible power of American private sector innovation and the US commitment to quality investment. Better communications alone will not solve the problem, but combined with trade and infrastructure initiatives it can help the US persuade the governments and people of Southeast Asia that it remains a major economic partner.