Foreign_policy_-_july_-_august_2015.pdf

I N

P U R S U I T

JUL/AUG 2015 $8.99 U.S./CAN

O F

T H E

W A T E R

M A F I A

contents 07|08.2015

054 Midnight Marauders

Delhi’s water economy is broken, leaving residents at the mercy of a water mafia. But as the capital scrambles for solutions, could this network of illicit suppliers serve as the very model needed to slake the city’s everdeepening thirst? by AMAN SETHI

066

Survival by Design On a planet already stressed for food and water, are there enough resources to support a population that will approach 10 billion by 2050? Despite what doomsayers argue, all might not be lost. essays by OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER and CHARLES FISHMAN

076 Corked

As former Soviet republics develop closer ties with the West, Russia is pulling out all the stops to keep them in the fold. Amid this battle, Moldova’s wine industry has become the unlikeliest front. by MARK BAKER

084 The New Abolitionists

Operation Underground Railroad, a small Mormon-led group, is going undercover to rescue kids from sex trafficking. But is its brand of salvation working? by THOMAS STACKPOLE

ON THE COVER PHOTOILLUSTRATION BY Sanjit Das AND Gluekit

Photograph by ADAM VOORHES

russia-direct.org

EXPAND YOUR PERSPECTIVE ON RUSSIAN STUDIES

How to get from Soviet studies to Russian studies?

How deep is the Russian studies bench?

Where did all the Russia experts go?

How to improve the field of Russian studies?

The Russia debate, from ivory tower to the White House.

Why Russia could become a place for American students to study?

LEARN MORE ABOUT THE HIGHEST RANKED SCHOOLS IN THE US FROM THE NEW RUSSIA DIRECT REPORT

ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION FOR ONLY $39.99* Subscribe now and get a 30% discount >> russia-direct.org/get-discount *Annual subscription includes 12 reports, covering a wide range of foreign policy topics; unlimited access to 25+ publications in the archive section; delivery of 4 special print reports within the US.

contents 07|08.2015

Observation Deck

096 MAPPA MUNDI

Requiem for a Macrosaurus by DAVID ROTHKOPF

Sightlines

012

098 NATIONAL SECURITY

Missed Calls

APERTURE

by JAMES BAMFORD

Child’s Pay

104

photographs by TOBY BINDER

020

ECONOMICS

The Secret of Singapore

THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

by DEBORA L. SPAR

The Village Health Worker

106

interview by ELIZABETH PALCHIK ALLEN

022

THE EXCHANGE

Lynsey Addario and Shirin Ebadi Talk Iran

024

VISUAL STATEMENT

Real Suffrage by WINNIE DAVIES

026

ENERGY

Same Game, New Board by KEITH JOHNSON

108 BOOKS & CULTURE

Fare Trade by CHERYL LULIEN TAN

110 THE FIXER

Out and About in Lahore interview by MIRA SETHI

DECODER

The Art Market by ED JOHNSON

028

INNOVATIONS

Precise Pain-Reduction, Virtual Battlefields, and More by NEEL V. PATEL

008 Contributors 112 The Futurist

ENNEAD ARCHITECTS

International. Interdisciplinary. Indiana. Indiana University, one of America’s great global public institutions, is investing in international affairs and area studies. Indiana’s new School of Global & International Studies is hiring 25 new tenure track faculty to add to the University’s renowned strength in area studies. The School’s new $53 million building opens this fall, bringing together 300 faculty, instruction in 70 languages, and award-winning institutes that cover the world.

sgis.indiana.edu

David Rothkopf CEO AND EDITOR, THE FP GROUP

Mindy Kay Bricker

Benjamin Pauker

Yochi Dreazen

EXECUTIVE EDITOR, PRINT

EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ONLINE

MANAGING EDITOR, NEWS

Seyward Darby

Rebecca Frankel

Lara Jakes

DEPUTY EDITOR, PRINT

DEPUTY EDITOR, ONLINE

DEPUTY MANAGING EDITOR, NEWS

Josef Reyes CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Amanda Silverman

Amy Finnerty

STORY EDITOR, PRINT

ARTICLES EDITOR, PRINT

SENIOR EDITORS, TEA LEAF NATION

SENIOR STAFF WRITERS

Rachel Lu, David Wertime

Colum Lynch, Seán D. Naylor

MIDDLE EAST EDITOR

SENIOR REPORTERS

David Kenner

John Hudson, Keith Johnson

ASIA EDITOR

STAFF WRITERS

Isaac Stone Fish

David Francis, Paul McLeary

ASSOCIATE EDITOR

COPY CHIEF

Max Strasser

Preeti Aroon

ASSISTANT MANAGING EDITORS

DEPUTY COPY EDITOR

Jake Scobey-Thal, Alicia P.Q. Wittmeyer

Shannon Schweitzer

ART DIRECTOR

Elaine C. Ayo

COPY EDITOR

Ed Johnson

WEB DEVELOPER

ASSISTANT EDITORS

Erik Reyna

Elias Groll, Ilya Lozovsky, Siddhartha Mahanta, Thomas Stackpole

Reid Standish

FELLOWS

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian

ASSISTANT DIGITAL PRODUCER FELLOW, TEA LEAF NATION

Justine Drennan, Siobhán O’Grady EDITORIAL ASSISTANT

Benjamin Soloway

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

Daniel Altman, John Arquilla, Peter Bergen, David Bosco, Ian Bremmer, Rosa Brooks, Christian Caryl, Mohamed A. El-Erian, Peter D. Feaver, David E. Hoffman,

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, PUBLISHER

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CIRCULATION, DIGITAL STRATEGY AND OPERATIONS

Amer Yaqub

Christopher Cotnoir

CONTRIBUTING PHOTO EDITOR, PRINT

ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER

James Wellford

Ian Keller

VICE PRESIDENT, BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT AND BRAND MANAGEMENT

VICE PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL

Tara Vohra

William Inboden, Charles Kenny, Christina Larson, Aaron David Miller, Thomas E. Ricks, J. Peter Scoblic, James Traub, Stephen M. Walt, Micah Zenko

Emily Simon DIRECTORS, INTERNATIONAL

Duc Luu, Aaron Schumacher DIRECTOR, ADVERTISING

WEB DIRECTOR

Tim Showers WEB DEVELOPERS

Brian Ackerman

Josh Mobley, Priya Nannapaneni, Saxon Stiller

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT INTERN

DIRECTOR, CONTENT SALES

Henry Burbank

Keith Arends

VICE PRESIDENT, COMMUNICATIONS

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, MARKETING RESEARCH AND AD TRAFFICKING

Carol Ross Joynt

Matthew J. Curry

PRESS DIRECTOR

Maria Ory

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER

VICE PRESIDENT, EVENTS

Allen Chin

Grace Rooney

ASSISTANT TO THE CEO

DIRECTOR, EVENTS

Ann Kingston

Stephanie Cherkezian

JUNIOR ACCOUNTANT

Henry Riggs

6

JULY | AUGUST 2015

2009 NATIONAL MAGAZINE AWARD

GENERAL EXCELLENCE Foreign Policy 11 Dupont Circle NW, Suite 600 Washington, D.C. 20036 PUBLISHING OFFICE (202) 728-7300 SUBSCRIPTIONS (800) 535-6343 ADVERTISING (202) 728-7310

© 2015 by The FP Group, a division of Graham Holdings Company, which bears no responsibility for the editorial content; the views expressed in the articles are those of the authors. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher.

SUBSCRIPTIONS  SUBSCRIBER SERVICES Foreign Policy, P.O. Box 283, Congers, NY 109200283; ForeignPolicy.com/subscription-services; e-mail: [email protected]; (800) 535-6343 in U.S.; (845) 267-3050 outside U.S.; Publications mail agreement no. 40778561. Rates (in U.S. funds): $59.99 for one year. NEWSSTAND AND BOOKSTORE DISTRIBUTION Curtis Circulation Company, 730 River Road, New Milford, NJ 076463048; (201) 634-7400. BACK ISSUES $10.95 per copy. International airmail add $3.00 per copy; online: ForeignPolicy.com/buy-back-issues; e-mail: [email protected]. SYNDICATION REQUESTS Contact Matthew Curry (202) 728-7351; [email protected]. OTHER PERMISSION REQUESTS Copyright Clearance Center, Inc. (978) 750-8400; www.copyright.com.

READY TO CHANGE THE WORLD? TREASURY DEPARTMENT

WORLD BANK

WHITE HOUSE

IMF

COMMERCE DEPARTMENT

THE GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY

OAS

FEDERAL RESERVE

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

STATE DEPARTMENT

START HERE.

GW ELLIOTT SCHOOL OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs is located just steps from some of the most important policymaking institutions in the world. Our proximity to U.S. and international organizations puts our scholars in a powerful position to analyze policy problems as they unfold, and it draws world leaders to our campus to address some of the most important issues of our time. Every school of international affairs bridges the theory and practice of foreign policy. At GW’s Elliott School of International Affairs, we don’t need bridges; we have sidewalks.

elliott.gwu.edu

contributors

Cheryl Lu-Lien Tan is a New York-based writer. Born and raised in Singapore, she is the author of A Tiger in the Kitchen: A Memoir of Food and Family and is the editor of the fiction anthology Singapore Noir. Her first novel, Sarong Party Girls, is forthcoming. She was previously a staff writer at the Wall Street Journal, InStyle magazine, and the Baltimore Sun.

AMAN SETHI “‘Forget it,’ Sanjit Das, the photographer, said as we drove down yet another alley in southeast Delhi. ‘Why don’t we just get some kebabs?’ It had been a long day in search of the spots where the water mafia fill their tankers, and Sanjit and I were getting nowhere. Everyone we spoke to assured us that we just had to drive along the Yamuna River to find long queues of tankers waiting to pick up their illicit cargo, but no one could point us to the right place. Defeated, we pulled over to a cramped restaurant and, over a plate of kebabs and daal, planned our next steps. We got back into the car and were headed home along the highway when suddenly we spotted a water tanker, painted a rusty orange, careening down the road, making a beeline for the river. We slipped behind the truck and followed it as it crossed the Yamuna and veered off the road down an unlit, broken dirt path. We paused for a second, worried by what lay ahead, but figured, ‘This is our city. How wrong can things go?’ We continued behind the truck, until a turn in the darkness revealed a busy operation of idling tankers.” P. 54

8

JULY | AUGUST 2015

Thomas Stackpole

Mira Sethi

is an assistant editor at FOREIGN POLICY, where he oversees the Peace Channel, a partnership with the U.S. Institute of Peace. Formerly, he worked for Mother Jones, where he wrote about energy and climate change, and for the New Republic, where he covered politics and reproductive rights.

is a Pakistan-based writer and was formerly an assistant books editor at the Wall Street Journal. Her work has appeared in the New York Times and the New Republic, among other publications. Her first book, a collection of short fiction set in Pakistan and the United States, is forthcoming.

Olivier De Schutter is a legal scholar focusing on economic and social rights. He recently stepped down after a six-year term as the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the right to food. Prior to that, from 2004 to 2008, he served as a secretary-general of the International Federation for Human Rights.

SPONSORED CONTENT

Keeping Score: Who Won and Who Lost in The ‘Arab Spring’ Aftermath An interview with Antoine Sreih, a Middle East business advisor and co-author of Reinventing the Middle East Q: Who should read Reinventing the Middle East? A: The book is focused on the MENA region’s socio-economic changes and their wider implications for the region’s political economy. Consequently, it is an excellent update for those with general interest in WKH0(1$UHJLRQDQGVSHFL¿FDOO\IRU those interested in its geopolitics, business, economy and trade. Q: What gap in the literature on the UHJLRQGRHVWKHERRN¿OO" A: Unlike most publications focused on political (and military) affairs and day-to-day developments that take place in the region, this book analyzes the region in a macro context. First, it reviews the core social and economic structures of the Arab Middle East and North Africa and illustrates how those VWUXFWXUHVLQÀXHQFHGVWDWHOHGVWUDWHJLHVLQ the region over the past several decades. Second, it explains how the interaction between these political strategies and the region’s socioeconomic fabric contributed to the uprisings. Third, the book examines how the region’s economic institutions may ¿WLQWRWKHIXWXUHGLUHFWLRQRIWKHUHJLRQ one hundred years after the Sykes-Picot agreement, a secret treaty between France and the UK that divided the MENA region and shaped it into what we know today.

billions of dollars from their strategic reserve to maintain their national budget. Q: What opportunities did the Arab Spring open for the region’s economic growth, national development, and social cohesion that were not possible before the revolutionary period? A: Unfortunately, things are not looking JRRG¿YH\HDUVDJRZHZHUHIXOORI optimism and hope that democracy would ¿QDOO\UHDFKWKH0(1$UHJLRQ)LYH\HDUV on, we stopped talking about the region’s democratic future and we can now only hope that the region can stop the advance of terrorists and their bloodshed and restore the security and safety of the region before it is too late. Very few opportunities still exist in the region and it is critical for the organizations operating in the MENA region to assess, prioritize and mitigate operational risk in the region. Q: In what ways did the Arab Spring fundamentally change the economics of the Middle East? A: The Arab Spring did little to change the economics of the MENA region. It was rather an outcome of the region’s internal challenges and external pressures that have been built up for generations. In fact, the Arab Spring was partly triggered by a series

“The ordinary people of the MENA region, especially the poor, are the biggest losers . . . Unfortunately, it seems like the biggest winners at the moment are ISIS and Al Qaida terrorist groups.” Q: In what ways have the region’s ¿QDQFLDOLQVWLWXWLRQVGLVSOD\HGUHVLOLHQFH in the face of the Arab Spring? In what ways have they been weakened? A: 'XULQJWKHJOREDO¿QDQFLDOFULVLVRI WKH0(1$UHJLRQ¶V¿QDQFLDO institutions were relatively strong because they were managing their assets and liabilities in a much more conservative manner than their Western counterparts were. In addition, the weaker link between the region’s capital markets and the global ¿QDQFLDOV\VWHPUHGXFHGWKHLPSDFW of the toxic assets that brought down numerous institutions in the West. Many of them have shown similar resilience after the Arab Spring so far. However, with recent escalations in countries like Libya, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, one can only predict disastrous economic and ¿QDQFLDOFRQVHTXHQFHV7KHULVLQJFRVWRI doing business and low oil prices will even endanger the positions of wealthy countries RIWKH*XOI)RUH[DPSOHWKLVGLI¿FXOW situation forces Saudi Arabia to withdraw

of social experiments that some of the MENA regimes tried to reduce the fragilities in their economy. Many MENA countries promoted higher education, but this did not bring the expected results as the region’s governments failed to create economies that could fully absorb the well-educated youth and their aspirations for freedom, democracy, and social equality. Q: What are the biggest setbacks that the region now faces because of the instability associated with the Arab Spring? A: The biggest setback the region now faces is the escalation of the local and proxy ¿JKWLQJLQ6\ULD/LE\D,UDTDQGQRZ
Buy Reinventing the Middle East on Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

About The Authors Antoine Sreih is a board-level advisor to MENA banks and assists banks to establish RIƓFHVDQGEUDQFKHVLQYDULRXV locations in the EU. With more than 30 years’ international banking experience, Antoine was the CEO of Europe Arab Bank (part of Arab Bank Group) from 2008 to 2011, and Chairman of Wahda Bank (the fourth largest bank in Libya) until 2011. This is Antoine’s third book co-authored with Joseph DiVanna. Previous titles include A New Financial Dawn: The Rise of Islamic Finance (2009) and Weathering the Financial Storm in the MENA Region (2012). Antoine Sreih can be reached at [email protected] Joseph DiVanna can be reached at joe.divanna@ marisstrategies.com

region, especially the poor, are the biggest losers. More than 10,000 people were driven from their homes every day last year by war and violence in the MENA region. As a consequence of ISIS’s terror campaign, WZRPLOOLRQ,UDTLVÀHGWKHLUKRPHVLQ 0HDQZKLOHPLOOLRQ6\ULDQVDERXW percent of the population, are now refugees. Unfortunately, it seems that the biggest winners at the moment are ISIS and Al Qaida terrorist groups. Q: Is the Middle East actually reinventing itself, or have the tensions that simmered underneath the surface of the region’s long-reigning authoritarian regimes simply been revealed? A: It is both. What started with what appeared to be the aspiration of becoming democratic societies has been quickly kidnapped by terrorist organizations, who KDYHEHQH¿WHGIURPWKHHWKQLFDQGVHFWDULDQ FRQÀLFWLQWKHUHJLRQ

APERTURE

Young workers find both opportunity and exploitation in Bolivia’s recent labor law. | P. 12

THE THINGS THEY CARRIED

In Uganda, a health worker needs an old bike—and new pants—to deliver drugs. | P. 20

THE EXCHANGE

VISUAL STATEMENT

DECODER

INNOVATIONS

Photojournalist Lynsey Addario and Nobel laureate Shirin Ebadi on exposing injustices in Iran. | P. 22

The Umbrella Movement lives on, though Hong Kong’s pleas for democracy never reach Beijing. | P. 24

Thanks to the 1-percenters who want Warhols, the global art market is more lucrative than ever before. | P. 26

Hydrogen-powered cars, virtual reality that wins real-world battles, and newspaper-inspired solar cells. | P. 28

“The Umbrella Movement was born. And it isn’t dead.” | P. 24

Illustration by NICK CHAFFE

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

11

12

JULY | AUGUST 2015

aperture

SIGHTLINES

photographs by TOBY BINDER

Child’s Pay Each morning before school, Oliver, 12, spends about five hours shouting minibus routes to passengers at an informal bus stop in El Alto, Bolivia. Among the youngest announcers at the station, he is paid around 70 bolivianos per day (roughly $10). Oliver’s work is sanctioned by a July 2014 law that made Bolivia the first country to legalize labor for children as young as 10—dependent on school attendance and their parents’ permission. Human rights groups have condemned the law, but the government has argued that it offers necessary protections to an already widespread practice: Nearly 500,000—or one in four—children ages 5 to 13 work in the country, according to a 2008 study. In December 2014, German photographer Toby Binder spent two weeks documenting these young laborers, who are identified only by their first names. “I want to show the complexity of this topic—and that you cannot simply argue there is a right and a wrong.”

aperture

Marina, 6, dances for money in La Paz. The girl and her mother travel some 130 miles from their home in Oruro province every month, for about a week at a time, to earn money in the capital.

SIGHTLINES

Working with her family, Maria, 9, hawks sweets to passing drivers during rush hour in downtown La Paz. Her mother sells candies; her brother José, 7, cleans windows; and her sister Ana, 11, serves as the cashier.

Nearly every day after school, Sara, 9, sells sweet limes for 5 bolivianos (around $0.75) per bag to pedestrians and drivers in Sopocachi, one of the more upscale neighborhoods in La Paz. In the evening, when she’s done, she takes three bus lines— a journey that takes about 90 minutes—to return home to the neighboring city of El Alto.

aperture

Jorge, 12, lives with his brother and mother near silver and tin mines in the city of Potosí, around 330 miles from La Paz. The family is paid about $50 a month to guard one of the mine entrances on the weekends and at nights. During the day, Jorge sorts and crushes rocks.

16

JULY | AUGUST 2015

Like Jorge, Tania, 12, also picks through rocks. She and her family work as guards at one of the 40 entrances to the Potosí mines. In addition to her duties at the mines, she is responsible for family chores, such as washing clothes.

SIGHTLINES

Gonzalo, 15, has been working inside the mines for a year. Here, he waits as a wagon transports stones out of a tunnel.

aperture

Working to support his family since he was 10, Vladi, now 22, is one of the older lustrabotas, or shoeshiners, in La Paz. When he was 14, his parents abandoned the family, leaving Vladi to care for his four younger siblings.

Lustrabotas often work in units, like the boys pictured here. Although informal—there is no wage sharing among the shiners— the groups serve as a support system for the young laborers.

18

JULY | AUGUST 2015

SIGHTLINES

Brayan, 16, cleans car windows in La Paz. On a good day he earns about 90 bolivianos (around $13).

1

The Village Health Worker Desire Njalwe

2

3

4

5

6

1

2

3

4

5

6

Medicine box

VHT-issued T-shirt

Timer

Generic antimalarials

Alcatel mobile phone

Ugandan shillings

Some patients don’t take the dose correctly, even after we explain it. Once the child starts to get better, the parents stop giving the drugs, even if the prescription requires more treatment. Then the child gets sick again.

I have to carry two fully charged batteries at all times because people call me every day for medical information, especially young men in their 20s. They argue about the quality of different condom brands and how to use them.

Supplies from the Ministry of Health are stamped “GOU [Government of Uganda] - NOT FOR SALE.” In the past, some health workers would steal government supplies and sell them. Now, people know that they are stolen goods and will report it to police.

20

JULY | AUGUST 2015

It’s of poor quality and is not durable, so I don’t like wearing it. But the shirt matters a lot in the community because when I put it on, it advertises what I am doing. I don’t need to carry an ID when I have it on.

When I am treating a coughing problem, I can count the frequency of breathing and judge if I should refer the patient to the hospital. The timer doesn’t have a clock on it; it just makes ticking noises at onesecond intervals.

As coordinator, the district gives me 10,000 shillings per month [approximately $3.30]. Regular VHTs earn nothing and yet they help people at all hours. They’re also not given basic resources they need, like flashlights and umbrellas.

the things they carried

SIGHTLINES

interview by ELIZABETH PALCHIK ALLEN

7

8

DESIRE NJALWE SPENDS

most Fridays and

Saturdays pedaling over the bumpy terrain of Masaka, a rural district in central Uganda, on a government-issued bicycle. As a coordinator of village health teams (VHTs)—groups of unpaid medics who, among other things, provide free drugs to sick children—Njalwe distributes fresh supplies to the 20 volunteers whom

9

he oversees. Despite progress over the past few decades, far too many Ugandan children won’t reach their fifth birthday. According to the latest World Bank data, the United States has seven deaths in this cohort per 1,000 births; Uganda has 66. Njalwe himself has buried three of his own eight children. Part of the problem is that, by some estimates, Uganda has just one doctor per 15,000 people; the World Health Organization recommends 10 times that many. In response, the Ugandan Ministry of Health launched the VHT program in the early 2000s. Often farmers or petty traders by vocation, volunteers take a twoweek basic health-care course in which they learn how to diagnose and treat diarrhea, bacterial pneumonia, and malaria— three of the top killers of Uganda’s young children. The medics are also trained to provide advice to new mothers about caring for their babies and to entire communities on how to improve sanitation and hygiene. Njalwe, a retired social worker, joined the program in 2010. Now 74, he says the

10

work is a way to serve his community and God: “As a religious believer, not every activity should be paid for.” (He receives

7

8

9

10

Rehydration salts

Amoxicillin

Bicycle

For diarrhea, I usually give a patient two packets per day. The next day, the patient can come back and get more. I don’t give too many drugs at once because poor families might sell them for money or give the child more than the recommended daily dose.

This is for bacterial pneumonia, another big problem here. Some adults call me wanting medicine; unfortunately, I do not have their medicine. They’ve asked, “Why are only children cared for?” I explained to them that children have no money.

Medical reference cards

Photographs by JIRO OSE

I show parents the illustrations on these cards when I’m trying to diagnose a child or conduct a health lesson. The cards describe common childhood illnesses. They also prove that I am working with the Ministry of Health.

I got this about a year ago through the VHT program, but the quality is poor. When I still had the original tires, I had an accident; they burst and I fell. My trouser was torn, and I had many bruises. Thankfully I was not carrying a patient.

a meager stipend as a coordinator, complementing earnings from his farm.) Among other tasks, Njalwe records how a disease is spreading locally, and, though not technically part of his job description, he also sometimes provides free ambulatory services to hospitals and clinics. “There are some patients who cannot move rapidly,” he explains, “so I just load them on my bicycle, mother and child both.” FOREIGN POLICY recently sat down with Njalwe to learn what he takes traveling through the countryside.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

21

the exchange

Is anyone free to report on Iran?

LYNSEY ADDARIO

detriment because Iran is an incredible country. The people are very educated and have a lot to say. If more journalists were allowed into Iran, there would actually be great sympathy for the people. SE: What is good about Iran is related to the people of the country and the civilization of Iran.

22

JULY | AUGUST 2015

SHIRIN EBADI: Lynsey, you managed to travel to Iran as

What the government does not want the

a female photojournalist. How difficult was it for you

world to know is its own performance. So

to actually obtain a visa? LYNSEY ADDARIO: I haven’t been

you must differentiate between what the

able to get into the country in nine years. But when I

government does and [the] people and the

did get a visa, a lot of what I was doing was in private

civilization. LA: Exactly. Exactly. Before I

homes and sort of in secret. SE: In your opinion, if a

went to Iran, I had this idea of what it would

country is making it so difficult for journalists to obtain

be like—this dark, oppressive place—and

a visa, what does that actually mean? LA: I become very

it was the opposite. I ended up meeting

skeptical as a journalist. If journalists are not allowed

incredibly intelligent people, going out

inside and there’s no freedom of speech, clearly people,

for wonderful dinners in private homes,

their opinions, their views, and the way they live are

and seeing how cultured and how open

oppressed in some way. In Iran’s case, that’s to great

the Iranian people were. And I think that’s

ADDARIO: PAUL ZIMMERMAN/GETTY IMAGES; EBADI: TIZIANA FABI/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

Since the fall of 2013, the international media have offered a weekly, and sometimes hourly, tick-tock of the successes and setbacks leading up to a nuclear deal with Iran. Largely missed by this exhaustive news cycle, however, have been the human rights abuses that persist in the Islamic Republic. Last year alone saw, by some accounts, more than 700 executions, upwards of 100 Bahais—Iran’s largest non-Muslim religious minority—in detainment, and the imprisonment of Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian. ¶ The challenges of covering these types of abuses and the vulnerability of a free press are things with which American photojournalist and MacArthur “genius” grant awardee LYNSEY ADDARIO is all too familiar: She has been kidnapped twice herself—first in Iraq in 2004 and then again in Libya in 2011—for documenting those caught in the cross-hairs of conflict. Iranian lawyer and Nobel Peace Prize laureate SHIRIN EBADI’s work defending the Bahai community and publicizing Iran’s dismal rights record made her a target of the regime, which shut down her Tehran-based human rights center in 2008 and detained her sister the next year. Ebadi was ultimately forced into exile in 2009. ¶ Today, drawing from their personal experiences, both women are chroniclers of injustice. Addario, a frequent New York Times contributor, penned It’s What I Do, a memoir in which she shares the often harrowing stories behind her photographs of rape victims in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, everyday life under the Taliban, and injured U.S. soldiers leaving Fallujah. Ebadi’s Treachery: My Story of Exile From Iran is due out in early 2016. The two recently caught up to discuss the importance of an open press, how to fight censorship, and what Iran is really like.

SIGHTLINES

the role of journalism. We have to interview the local people. We have to get their stories told. When we get those stories out to policymakers, to people in positions of power, they have to act on it. That’s why I feel like it is important to cover places like Iran. Or like, I felt it was very important to be in Libya when I was there in 2011. And I ended up in prison. I ended up kidnapped for a week, but I think it was important to precisely the reason why I can’t get a visa to

bear witness to what was happening in the

you think a government that’s behaved in

go back, because I did many stories on how

uprising. SE: This is exactly the case. Every-

such a way with a human rights activist, with

Iran was actually the opposite of what we

one pays a price for what they believe in—

a lawyer who has won a Nobel Peace Prize,

had seen in the Western media. And I don’t

and the same applies to journalists.

behaves toward unknown students or young

think the government actually liked that.

journalists in the country? LA: I agree. I think SE: In all these personal experiences with

that we have to use these more-high-profile

LA: It’s so important that journalists are able

detainment, with regards to my family mem-

kidnappings to bring attention to people

to get into difficult-to-get-into places like

bers and so on, I have made sure that they

who are detained. SE: This has been my

Iran. At the end of the day, the job is to show

have been well publicized. I’ve written about

objective in publishing my diaries. One

a real picture of what these countries are

this in my books and have asked: How do

of my very close colleagues, with whom

like. SE: Iran is one of the worst countries

I have worked with for many years, is the

for journalists. We have a large number

well-known feminist Narges Moham-

of journalists in prison at the moment. Is

madi. She has been sentenced to six years

Jason Rezaian one of your friends? LA: No,

of imprisonment by a very unjust court

he’s a friend of a friend. But he’s Washing-

for her human rights activities. Her hus-

ton Post! His detainment should be more

band, Taghi Rahmani, is a political activ-

public news. It’s outrageous that a Wash-

ist and a journalist, and he also spent 16

ington Post journalist is in prison. SE: Unfor-

years behind bars in the Islamic Repub-

tunately, this is a very tragic reality in Iran.

lic of Iran. At the moment, he’s a refugee

Just recently, in May, there were reports

living in Paris. He cannot return to Iran

on Iranian news that Mohammad-Reza

because if he takes the risk and does that,

Moradi, the editor in chief of a publica-

he could end up being behind bars for the

tion called Bayan Eghtesad, was arrested

rest of his life.

Q

because he compiled a report on the corruption in a city council. LA: In your opin-

This conversation has been condensed

ion, what’s the best way to deal with this?

for publication.

SE: I think that foreign journalists must go

to the aid of their Iranian counterparts, and they must publish what the Iranian journalists cannot. The European Union and the United States have both compiled a list of Iranian officials who have violated human rights. They’ve banned these officials from entering their countries and confiscated any of their assets in the West. That’s very good, but this list is still too short. LA: In a lot of the conflict zones where I’ve

worked, there is very little to no freedom of the press for journalists, particularly local journalists. But I feel very strongly about

SHIRIN EBADI

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

23

visual statement by WINNIE DAVIES

“When the British handed over Hong Kong to China in 1997, the ‘special administrative region,’ it was determined, would follow a policy of ‘one country, two systems.’ Hong Kong was promised democracy; yet the process has stalled. For more than two months last year, thousands of protesters, me included, united for more robust voting rights. And though the student-led demonstrations were peaceful, the police responded with pepper spray and tear gas. For protection, the students used umbrellas; thus, the Umbrella Movement was born. And it isn’t dead: More protests occurred in June, when lawmakers were considering the government’s political reform package. The yellow I use in the ribbons, umbrellas, and banners (‘I want real universal suffrage’) symbolizes our peaceful fight. The red, white, and blue cloth in the foreground is a cheap material commonly used in Hong Kong and represents the soil on which the city stands. Our demand never reaches Beijing, which is set high and far in the background.” THE ARTIST

SIGHTLINES

decoder by ED JOHNSON

50M

49.8 million sales IN 2007

The Art Market AT CHRISTIE’S NEW YORK

in May, for the first

AL

TS

AL

fell at $179.4 million.

40M

ing a seminal Picasso painting that drew a raft of telephone bids until the hammer

T E AR ALU L V A T OB E GL ARK M AR

$1 billion worth of art in a week—includ-

ES

time in history an auction house sold

GL

OB

The art market’s resurgence was confirmed

OF

this year by the European Fine Art Founda-

1,530

ME

tion’s annual Art Market Report: Last year’s

VO

LU

$68.1 billion (51 billion euros, converted based on the average 2014 exchange rate)

LOTS WERE SOLD FOR OVER $1.33 MILLION EACH IN 2014.

in global sales, the highest ever recorded, sigNotably, even more growth was seen at the

Together, they represented 48 percent of the value of all fine art deals, but only 0.5 percent of transactions. Money has become concentrated at the top of the market, which is clear when comparing the volume of sales (see dotted red line) to their value. 2014 had more than 10 million fewer sales than at the previous height of the market, in 2007. Like other macroeconomic trends, this was largely driven by increasing income inequality. It’s no surprise that 2014 also tops in a different statistical category: Globally, there were more billionaires, at 2,325, than ever before.

30M

naled a full recovery from the 2009 recession. highest reaches of the market than during the 2007 crest, when sales were driven up, in part, by speculation and an ascendant Chinese market. Indeed, in 2014 a minuscule 0.5 percent of transactions encompassed nearly half the value of overall art sales—a ity in many of the world’s major economies. On the supply side, only 54 artists, from

20M

polarization that parallels increasing dispar-

U.S.

Édouard Manet to contemporary provocateurs such as Jeff Koons, produced lots that sold for more than $13 million. In short, a few alpha buyers, the world’s poshest hoarders, are battling it out over a shrinkArt buying is driven by both profit and emotion. Art is portable and pretty, and today a startling number of the world’s treasures are concentrated in the hands of a few

10M

ing resource: masterpieces.

U.K.

RES

F TO

WO

RLD

wealthy collectors. The density is geographical too. A New York monopoly persisted until 2010, when China began to dominate. Last year, how-

CHINA

ever, China slipped to 22 percent of market share, tied with London, while New York took the lead again. Today, as dealers eye

2006

2007

2008

2009

billionaires across the globe, the cities with tutional expertise remain the power centers. And, whatever the nationality of its unidentified buyer, the sale of that record-breaking Picasso added a 12 percent broker’s fee to New York’s art economy—a windfall of more than $19 million. AMY FINNERTY

26

JULY | AUGUST 2015

10.5%

RETURN FOR POSTWAR  CONTEMPORARY ART, 200313

7.4%

RETURN FOR SP 500, 200313

ART AS INVESTMENT? Larry Fink, who heads the world’s biggest investment management fund, made waves in April when he said that contemporary art, along with apartments in Manhattan, is one of “the two greatest stores of wealth internationally.” According to Deloitte’s 2014 Art & Finance Report, postwar and contemporary art provided a compound annual return of 10.5 percent between 2003 and 2013, compared with 7.4 percent for the Standard & Poor’s 500 index.

DOLLAR AMOUNTS CONVERTED FROM EUROS USING ANNUAL AVERAGE EXCHANGE RATE.

priceless collections and deep wells of insti-

$60B

SIGHTLINES

$68.1 billion

$50B

THE ART MARKET REACHED ITS LARGEST RECORDED SIZE IN 2014.

$40B

38.8 million sales IN 2014

$18.5 billion

$10B

$20B

IN 2011, CHINA SURPASSED THE U.S. FOR THE FIRST AND ONLY TIME FOR ART SALES. ECONOMIC UNCERTAINTY IN CHINA HAS SINCE CHILLED ITS ART MARKET.

$30B

WARHOL RULES 2014 was a good year for Andy Warhol. His work alone accounted for 8.5 percent of postwar and contemporary art sales—itself the largest sector of the overall art market. His Triple Elvis [Ferus Type] sold for $81.9 million, and Four Marlons sold for $69.6 million.

DATA VIA THE EUROPEAN FINE ART FOUNDATION’S 2015 ART MARKET REPORT.

2010

2011

2012

2013

OTHER OLD MASTERS

MARKET VOLUME MARKET VALUE

IMPRESSIONIST AND POSTIMPRESSIONIST MODERN POSTWAR  CONTEMPORARY 10%

20%

30%

2014

IN WITH THE NEW In 2014, the postwar and contemporary art sector accounted for 48 percent of the entire market’s value. It was also the most lucrative sector on a per-sale basis.

40%

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

27

Pain Is Temporary, But Electricity Is Forever IT’S CURRENTLY IMPOSSIBLE FOR MANY PAIN

medications to target only problematic body parts: Rather, drugs spread throughout the body, sometimes harming healthy tissues and organs. In a study published in Science Advances this spring, researchers from Sweden showed off a proof of concept for an implantable bioelectric medical device that could deliver localized medication for years, limiting the patient’s drug exposure and achieving true, precise pain reduction. What’s more, this development has the potential to eventually treat neurological disorders like epilepsy, which affects 65 million people worldwide, by delivering relevant drugs directly to the body’s nervous system and hastening their effects. A tubular device—surgically implanted under the skin, parallel to and alongside the spine—dispenses pain-blocking medication, which doctors can refill through a syringe as needed. The key is in having complete control over how much dosage is dispersed, which is why the device is operated electrically via an outside power source. Once the doctor flips on the power, low, measured voltage pumps the drugs into the spinal cord. The researchers successfully tested the device on rodents with nerve injuries and were able to block pain signals stemming specifically from those wounds from reaching the brain.

28

JULY | AUGUST 2015

Elastic Energy Back in the 20th century, when newspapers flourished, they were printed quickly and cheaply on long sheets of paper that unrolled down a large factory belt, a process called roll-to-roll (R2R). Today, digital media means there is less use of R2R, but it’s actually finding a second life in the production of solar cells. Scientists working on TREASORES, a $15 million EU-funded project to create cheap carbon-based electronics, announced this spring that they had successfully developed a prototype of a flexible solar cell module made from R2R processing. The cell, they reported, can bend to a 25-millimeter radius without breaking, and it boasts a lifetime of about 4,000 hours. But unlike conventional cells, which are heavier and cannot be readily used in bendable or flexible devices, the prototype doesn’t require scarce (and expensive) materials, using silver instead of indium. Ultimately, TREASORES plans to produce rolls about 330 feet long.

innovations

SIGHTLINES

by NEEL V. PATEL

The Little Engine That Can

A man refuels Toyota’s fuel-cell vehicle, Mirai, at a hydrogen station in Tokyo.

TOYOTA, HONDA, GENERAL

byproduct accumulation—

Motors, and at least

two factors that are crucial in

a dozen other automak-

keeping the cost of fuel-cell

ers are jostling to domi-

parts down. They created

nate the nascent market for

special 20-micron-wide par-

zero-emission, hydrogen-

ticles, about as wide as a fine

powered vehicles. But the

strand of hair, called “Janus

newest commercial hydro-

particles,” named after the

gen car, the Toyota Mirai,

two-faced Roman god. One

still comes in at a whopping

side is made of a catalyti-

$57,500—blame the steep

cally active platinum powder,

expense of onboard hydro-

and the other side is coated

gen storage—so it’s no sur-

in inert titanium. The par-

prise that only a few are on

ticles are dumped into the

the market today. Hydro-

liquid-filled tanks, where the

gen fuel cells typically gen-

platinum chemically reacts

erate electricity by fusing

with hydrogen-infused salts

stored hydrogen gas with

and produces hydrogen gas.

oxygen. And though special

That gas production makes

tanks can store the gas at

the particles act like tiny

high pressures, they take up

motors: They’re propelled

huge space under the hood

forward, which stirs the fuel,

and waste precious energy

prevents byproduct buildup,

because so much is needed

and ensures the process hap-

to lug them around.

pens continuously.

CAR: YOSHIKAZU TSUNO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES; BRIEFCASE: COURTESY OF BAE SYSTEMS

But nanoengineer Joseph

5

That’s the diameter, in nanometers, of a particle that can help detect carbon monoxide levels in the air. In a study published in April, researchers in Austria and Japan showed how tiny gas-sensing wires, made from cheap materials like copper oxide, could replace larger, more expensive, and less efficient pollution trackers.

Wang of the University of

The researchers’ method produced more than nine

California, San Diego, might

times as much hydrogen gas

have discovered a cheaper,

as liquid reactions without

more compact alternative

Janus particles. They even

that turns this method on

powered a small model car,

its head. In a recent paper in

about the size of a large beach

the German journal Ange-

ball. The technology could

wandte Chemie, Wang and

mean a substantial reduc-

his team outline a system

tion in costs, but the team

that stores hydrogen as a

still needs to test it on con-

space-saving liquid instead

sumer-sized vehicles to see

of as a bloated gas.

whether these micromotors

When they were develop-

can really save the bright

ing this model, their biggest

idea of hydrogen-powered

challenge was creating a

cars. If the technology works,

metal catalyst that would pro-

expect to see cars whirring

duce enough hydrogen gas

down the highway spew-

to power a car, while avoid-

ing water vapor instead of

ing chemical

smoky exhaust.

Briefcase Battles Although the public will soon be getting its first dose of augmented reality through much-hyped devices like Oculus Rift and Microsoft’s HoloLens, militaries around the world have long been a leap ahead. Soldiers and fighter pilots have been training with augmented-reality displays, which overlay virtual data on a real-world view, for more than 50 years. But now U.K.-based defense company BAE Systems hopes to take this technology and, in its own words, “revolutionize” training and real-life battlefield operations, as well as emergency-response systems. With the help of researchers from the University of Birmingham, BAE is developing a briefcase-sized portable command center that includes a virtualreality headset paired with interactive gloves. Announced in May, the prototype allows a commander, interacting from anywhere in the world, to access a virtual touch screen with video feeds and real-time information collected by on-site cameras and other instruments. Users can even employ artificially intelligent avatars—think a less annoying version of Microsoft Office’s Clippy—that can collect and analyze all kinds of incoming data in order to provide a more comprehensive assessment of what factors are affecting what is happening on the ground. The commanders’ orders on navigating the battlefield or managing disaster-relief operations can be relayed directly to troops via the command center.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

29

It's All Global Now

Searching for a graduate school with an international focus?

Make it an APSIA school!

The world’s leading graduate programs in international affairs come together in the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs (APSIA). APSIA members combine multidisciplinary, policy-oriented studies with professional development. They have demonstrated excellence in preparing students for success in the public, private, and non-profit sectors.

Visit APSIA.org today to • • • •

Discover what you can do with an APSIA degree Learn about hiring APSIA students and alumni Register for admissions events around the world and online Find Fellowship and Scholarship information

WWW.APSIA.ORG

From 20th century walls to 21st century bridges. From geopolitics to global business. From security to humanitarian aid. From investment to sustainable development. From walled gardens to open source. The world you inherit will require you to be agile across borders of many kinds—between countries, between academic fields, between knowledge and practice, between top-down policies and bottom-up ventures. The Fletcher School’s multidisciplinary approach to complex problem solving transcends the classroom and prepares graduates for leadership positions that span traditional boundaries. Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy (MALD) Master of International Business (MIB) Global Master of Arts Program (GMAP) Master of Laws in International Law (LLM) Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Master of Arts (MA) Executive Education

Visit fletcher.tufts.edu or email [email protected]

From Thesis Project to Business Plan: How Amanda Judge Turned $10,000 into a $1 Million Thriving Social Enterprise

Amanda Judge, MALD’09 Founder, Faire Collection

While earning her Fletcher degree, Amanda Judge (MALD ’09) conceived and launched Faire Collection, a New York-based fair trade jewelry company that provides pathways out of poverty for rural artisans in Ecuador and Vietnam. Judge is the winner of the 2015 Fletcher Women’s Leadership Award. Read her story at Fletcher.Tufts.edu/FWLA2015 .

Read Amanda’s story

7

9

I came to Korbel because it’s a place where new ideas and different ideas are brought about – it’s not just about a set curriculum.” - Kyleanne Hunter M.A. Candidate Sié Fellow

Kyleanne Hunter is a former officer in the United States Marine Corps, serving as an AH-1W Super Cobra attack pilot. Now she’s a Sié Fellow at the Josef Korbel School’s Sié Chéou-Kang Center for International Security & Diplomacy. As such she’s working alongside world renowned faculty doing relevant research on today’s most pressing global issues. To learn more about our master of arts programs and our two-year full tuition scholarship, the Sié Fellowship, call 303.871.2544 or email [email protected].

www.du.edu/korbel/info

of Global Studies

The Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies is Boston University’s newest school. Our students take courses with world-class faculty, and have access to University-wide resources and all our affiliated regional and thematic studies centers. Rigorous graduate programs—including joint and dual master’s degrees—offer small classes, language proficiency, and support for research travel. Gain real-world expertise before you graduate. Experience the Pardee difference.

Advancing Human Progress bu.edu/pardeeschool

@BUPardeeSchool

University of Ottawa

A school where

public policy and international affairs come together

Created in 2007, the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs (GSPIA) is a focal point for debate on public policy and international affairs. Excellence is our purpose and public affairs is our passion.

GSPIA — unique and exceptional t %FEJDBUFE
XPSMEDMBTT
TDIPMBST
FOHBHFE
JO
DVUUJOHFEHF SFTFBSDI
BOE
UPQRVBMJUZ
UFBDIJOH t "
QMBDF
XIFSF
UIFPSZ
BOE
QSBDUJDF
DPNF
UPHFUIFS UISPVHI
UIF
DPOUSJCVUJPO
PG
POTJUF
QSBDUJUJPOFST
XJUI exceptional experience t 5IF
MBSHFTU
CJMJOHVBM
TDIPPM
PG
QVCMJD
BOE
JOUFSOBUJPOBM BGGBJST
JO
$BOBEB t -PDBUFE
JO
UIF
IFBSU
PG the national capital, the centre of our country’s HPWFSONFOU
BOE
UIF
IVC PG
JUT
EJQMPNBUJD
BGGBJST

"
HMPCBM
WJTJPO www.socialsciences.uOttawa.ca/api

613-562-5800, ext. 2834

15

bridging theory and practice The School of Public Policy at Central European University is a new kind of global institution dealing with some of the most compelling public policy issues we face today LQFOXGLQJJRYHUQDQFHVXVWDLQDEOHGHYHORSPHQWVHFXULW\DQGPHGLD:HR΍HUSXEOLF policy graduate degrees that combine knowledge and experience of policy design and practice. We are an English-language institution accredited in the United States and Hungary. Join our international community of students, scholars, and professionals from over 50 countries in Budapest, Hungary. For more details on our programs, visit our website at www.spp.ceu.edu or contact us at [email protected]

PREPARE TO BE AN AGENT OF

CHANGE

Pursue a Graduate Program in International Affairs at Seton Hall University Master’s Degree with 13 Specializations Certificate in Post-Conflict State Reconstruction Certificate in United Nations Studies United Nations Summer Study Program Join us for a webinar and learn more.

www.shu.edu/diplomacyFP

17

“International politics is changing at an increasingly rapid pace. Many long-held assumptions have to be challenged, new threats have to be tackled, and old and new partnerships have to be strengthened. Today more than ever, prosperity and peace in one region are dependent on stability and security in another. We need young professionals who understand the nature of these challenges and who are equipped to deal with them successfully.” Wolfgang Ischinger Senior Fellow, Hertie School of Governance Chairman, Munich Security Conference

Study International Affairs and Public Policy in Berlin Join students and professionals from over 40 nations at the Hertie School of Governance, Germany’s leading public policy school. We offer graduate programmes that prepare our graduates for leadership positions in government, business and civil society: • • • • •

Master of International Affairs Master of Public Policy Executive Master of Public Administration Doctoral Programmes Executive Seminars and Certificates

Scholarships available. For more information visit our website or contact us at [email protected]

Understand today. Shape tomorrow. www.hertie-school.berlin

19

GLOBAL CITIZEN

TO UNDERSTAND GLOBAL ISSUES, YOU MUST BECOME PART OF THEM. The growing influences of new world powers, emerging states and non-state actors, socioeconomic transformation, and cross-border crises have reshaped the field of global affairs. Those pursuing careers in this area must not only study the issues, they must be deeply involved in them. The M.S. in Global Affairs, offered by the NYU School of Professional Studies Center for Global Affairs, positions you in the heart of the international community of NYC, providing you with the contextual perspectives you need to become an effective problem solver and innovator. Global field intensives, exposure to renowned expert practitioners, and challenging projects form the basis of an education that allows you to live what you learn—anticipating the next global challenge.

VISIT: sps.nyu.edu/cga/programs1a

M.S. in Global Affairs CONCENTRATIONS: Environment/Energy Policy Human Rights and International Law International Development and Humanitarian Assistance International Relations Peacebuilding Private Sector Transnational Security Graduate Certificates in: Global Energy Peacebuilding Transnational Security

CALL: 212-998-7100

REQUEST INFO./APPLY TODAY: sps.nyu.edu/gradinfo12a FIND YOUR FUTURE SELF New York University is an affirmative action/equal opportunity institution. ©2015 NYU School of Professional Studies.

GREAT CHALLENGES

OF OUR TIME DEMAND A

GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE

MALINI RANGANATHAN Assistant Professor, School of International Service

GARRETT GRADDY-LOVELACE Assistant Professor, School of International Service

HOW DO WE LINK ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY WITH SOCIAL JUSTICE? Just ask Garrett Graddy-Lovelace and Malini Ranganathan, both geographers, political ecologists, and professors at the School of International Service. While Ranganathan studies urban water access and flood risk in India and the US, Graddy-Lovelace researches grassroots agrarian politics in the Andes, Appalachia, and beyond. Learn how you can join these professors and their colleagues in meaningful conversations at www.american.edu/sis.

21

the food and water issue

IN MAY, the United Nations announced that while globally there are 200 million fewer hungry people than there were 25 years ago, twice as many African countries are now suffering food crises. Moreover, Pacific islanders’ access to sanitation facilities is declining, and just over half of that population has potable water. The question of power and agency—who gets to control the resources on which human survival depends—is central to FP’s food and water issue. Former U.N. special rapporteur Olivier De Schutter challenges the agency’s claim on hunger, stating that numbers, if anything, have remained steady and explains why local responses, not solely international actions, will defeat hunger. Charles Fishman, author of The Big Thirst, asserts that slaking a parched planet requires collective pragmatism, even cooperation among adversaries. Travel writer Mark Baker explores Russia’s grip on impoverished Moldova’s wine industry. And reporter Aman Sethi’s investigation of Delhi’s water mafia shows that when governments fail as stewards of nature’s bounty, corruption fills the void. Climate change demands that humankind be nourished more sustainably; figuring out whose responsibility this is won’t be easy. But it is crucial. —THE EDITORS

Illustration by MATT CHASE

D E L H I ’ S WAT E R E C O N O M Y I S B R O K E N , L E AV I N G R E S I D E N T S AT T H E M E R C Y O F A WAT E R M A F I A . B U T A S T H E C A P I TA L S C R A M B L E S F O R S O LU T I O N S , W H I L E G O V E R N M E N T P O L I C I E S C O N T I N U E TO FA I L , C O U L D T H I S N E T W O R K O F I L L I C I T S U P P L I E R S S E R V E A S T H E V E R Y M O D E L N E E D E D TO S L A K E T H E C I T Y ’ SA N D E V E N T H E N AT I O N ’ S EVERDEEPENING THIRST?

M I D N I G H T M A R A U D E R S

BY AMAN SETHI PHOTOGRAPHS BY SANJIT DAS

Down by the sandy banks of the Yamuna River, the men must work quickly. At a little past 12 a.m. one humid night in May, they pull back the black plastic tarp covering three boreholes sunk deep in the ground along the waterway that traces Delhi’s eastern edge. From a shack a few feet away, they then drag thick hoses toward a queue of 20-odd tanker trucks idling quietly with their headlights turned off. The men work in a team: While one man fits a hose’s mouth over a borehole, another clambers atop a truck at the front of the line and shoves the tube’s opposite end into the empty steel cistern attached to the vehicle’s creaky frame.

“On kar!” someone shouts in Hinglish into the darkness; almost instantly,

fitting T-shirts—has little to do: Sitting near

his orders to “switch it on” are obeyed. Diesel generators, housed in nearby

the trucks, the men are absorbed in a game

sheds, begin to thrum. Submersible pumps, installed in the borehole’s shafts,

of cards. At dawn, the crew switches off the

drone as they disgorge thousands of gallons of groundwater from deep in the

generators, stows the hoses in the shack

earth. The liquid gushes through the hoses and into the trucks’ tanks.

from which they came, and places the tarp

Within 15 minutes, the 2,642-gallon (10,000-liter) containers on the first three rigs are full. The pumps are switched off briefly as drivers move their now-

back over the boreholes. Few traces of the night’s frenetic activity remain.

heavy trucks forward and another trio takes their place. The routine is repeated

Teams like this one are ubiquitous in

again and again through the night until every tanker is brimming with water.

Delhi, where the official water supply falls

The full trucks don’t wait around. As the hose team continues its work, driv-

short of the city’s needs by at least 207 mil-

ers nose down a rutted dirt path until they reach a nearby highway. There, they

lion gallons each day, according to a 2013

turn on their lights and pick up speed, rushing to sell their bounty. They go

audit by the office of the Indian comptrol-

to factories and hospitals, malls and hotels, apartments and hutments across

ler and auditor general. A quarter of Delhi’s

this city of 25 million.

households live without a piped-water con-

Everything about this business is illegal: the boreholes dug with-

nection; most of the rest receive water for

out permission, the trucks operating without permits, the water sold

only a few hours each day. So residents have

without testing or treatment. “Water work is night work,” says a middle-

come to rely on private truck owners—the

aged neighbor who rents a house near the covert pumping station and

most visible strands of a dispersed web of

requested anonymity. “Bosses arrange buyers, labor fills tankers, the

city councilors, farmers, real estate agents,

police look the other way, and the muscle makes sure that no one says

and fixers who source millions of gallons of

nothing to nobody.” Tonight, that muscle—burly, bearded, and in tight-

water each day from illicit boreholes, as well as the city’s leaky pipe network, and sell the liquid for profit.

AT AN ILLEGAL WATERFILLING POINT IN DELHI.

The entrenched system has a local moniker: the water-tanker mafia. Although the exact number of boreholes created by this network is unknown, in 2001 the figure in Delhi stood at roughly 200,000, according to a government report, while the 2013 audit found that the city loses 60 percent of its water supply to leakages, theft, and a failure to collect revenue. The mafia defends its work as a community service, but there is a much darker picture of Delhi’s subversive water industry: one of a thriving black market populated by small-time freelance agents who are exploiting a fast-depleting common resource and in turn threatening India’s long-term water security. Groundwater accounts for 85 percent of India’s drinking-water supply, according to a 2010 World Bank report. The country continues to urbanize, however, and a little more than half its territory is now severely water-stressed; more than 100 million Indians live in places with critically polluted water sources, according to India Water Tool 2.0, a local mapping platform. The tanker mafia is only worsening this problem. In 2014, the government reported that nearly three-fourths of Delhi’s underground aquifers were “over-exploited.” This means that boreholes must go deeper and deeper to

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

57

TWO TANKERS DRIVE PAST EACH OTHER NEAR AN ILLEGAL WATERFILLING POINT IN DELHI.

find water, making it increasingly likely that hoses are sucking up liquid laced with dangerous contaminants. In 2012, the country’s Water Resources Ministry found excess fluoride, iron, and even arsenic in groundwater pockets. Yet the mafia continues to thrive as the local demand balloons. When boreholes dry up and more drilling leads to nothing, pumping crews just look farther afield, toward or even past Delhi’s borders. This has created a vast extraction zone, where the thirsty metropolis gives way to a parched hinterland. And recognizing a business model that works, the mafia is putting down roots or spawning copycats in other cities and towns. The government has made some efforts to stop illegal water pumping and sales, but to no avail. Despite what its name suggests, the mafia is not a unified, organized syndicate and thus cannot be eliminated by catching and punishing a few big players. Rather, it is loose, nimble, and adaptable; it routinely outsmarts the authorities whom it isn’t already bribing to allow it to do its work. The real answer to the tanker mafia is better infrastructure: a correction to several decades’ worth of inequitable development in which public utilities were built for the benefit of the elite, leaving millions of poor to fend for themselves. But the city’s long-neglected and corrupted water system, managed by an agency known as the Delhi Jal Board (DJB), is near the point of collapse. Projections for needed improvements indicate a dauntingly long and expensive process. It may be too late to cut the mafia off at the knees, much less provide millions of residents with the water they need to survive. Delhi thus offers a painful warning to other countries where water mafias have sprouted up: Bangladesh, Honduras, and Ecuador, to name just a few. “More than anyone else, the DJB and the Delhi government [have been] responsible for the rise of the water mafia,” says Dinesh Mohaniya, a member of the Delhi Legislative Assembly who represents Sangam Vihar, one of Delhi’s poorest neighborhoods, that is a hub for water tankers. “If they had supplied piped water to everyone, why would anyone pay the mafia?”

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

59

I T I S 1 1 3 D E G R E E S Fahrenheit in the shade on a recent afternoon in Sangam Vihar. Raj Tilak Sanghwan, one of the community’s most established tanker bosses, rests on a cot, his beefy forearms crossed over his bulging stomach. He wears a gray polo shirt, blue sweatpants, and white Adi-

“ C A L L I T A W AT E R M A F I A ; C A L L I T A B U S I N E S S ,” S A N G H W A N S AY S . “ I C A L L I T A L I F E L I N E .”

das sneakers that make him look like an aging nightclub bouncer. A pump buzzes nearby as it transfers

The need for a lifeline dates back to the 1960s, when urban planners grossly

water from a nearly 5,300-gallon tanker

underestimated growth in Delhi’s first master plan. Within 20 years, the city’s

to a fleet of smaller containers hitched to

population had exploded from 2.6 million to 6.2 million, but there was only

farm tractors. A few feet away sits Sangh-

housing (of varying quality) for 90 percent of that number. Some half a million

wan’s assistant, a slim man in his late 20s

people wound up in unauthorized colonies—essentially squatter settlements.

who answers his mobile phone every few

One of them was Sangam Vihar, where enterprising farmers, including Sangh-

minutes. In this heat, desperate residents

wan’s parents, divided their personal fields into residential plots and sold them

of the sprawling neighborhood are rush-

to migrants eager for toeholds in the city. Over time, tension arose between the

ing to place their orders. Along with the

colonies’ residents and the city’s elite and middle class. Fear grew, in particu-

words “Sanghwan, Janta Sevak” (“Sangh-

lar, as the illegal settlements became more populous, topping 2 million in the

wan, Servant of the People”) emblazoned

early 1990s. Wealthier Delhi residents became concerned that colonies would

in white, all the containers bear the assis-

suck away resources, including water, in a city already strapped for them, as

tant’s phone number.

municipal politicians looked to the booming population centers for votes.

“It’s always busy on a Sunday,” the young

In 1993, Common Cause, an Indian legal advocacy group, filed a petition in

man says between rounds of placating cus-

the Delhi High Court demanding that the government be restrained from pro-

tomers. “Most people are home and want

viding public amenities to colonies. The petition criticized “politicians who

to fill up for the rest of the week.”

have been interested in promoting, encouraging and stimulating the devel-

The economics of the illegal water busi-

opment of such unauthorized colonies” and argued that people living in the

ness are straightforward: Tanker bosses

settlements were “encouraged to act illegally and to gain from such illegal

buy water from the men who steal it—

acts; their moral fabric gets undermined.”

for instance, the crew on the banks of the

While the case wound its way through India’s overburdened judiciary over

Yamuna—for $3 per some 2,600 gallons,

the next eight years, flustered colony residents began to take water manage-

according to four borehole operators inter-

ment into their own hands. They installed hand-operated pumps to draw

viewed for this article. The tanker owners

groundwater for drinking, cooking, and bathing, but this only worked for a

then sell the water directly to locals at an

little while. Overpumping eventually caused water levels to dip and quality

elevated price; on this particular day in San-

to deteriorate. In turn, residents began pressuring the Delhi government for

gam Vihar, a gallon costs about 0.75 rupees

assistance. The pending court case meant that authorities could not install a

(about 1 U.S. cent). Sanghwan, whose tank-

permanent water grid, but they launched a program in 1998 that can best be

ers have a combined capacity of about 8,400

described as institutionalized ad hoc-ism: The DJB drilled a series of boreholes

gallons, will earn around $90 to empty a full

around the city that released water for eight hours at a time, and it hired a fleet

load. That’s $2,700 per month, assuming

of private tankers to deliver drinking water at specified times.

one complete sale per day—minus the cost

Colony residents were expected to wait in lines to retrieve water and then

of fuel, bribes, drivers’ salaries, and tanker

lug it home themselves. But the boreholes were prone to malfunctioning,

maintenance. (The monthly minimum wage

and queues sometimes persisted for hours. In Sangam Vihar, some residents

in Delhi for a skilled worker is roughly $165.)

devised an ingenious workaround, laying a private pipeline system that con-

Sanghwan has mandated that the min-

nected the nearest borehole to any home willing to pay a monthly fee. Oth-

imum order allowed is 1,050 gallons, the

ers created their own holes to connect to the pipe system. (Sanghwan did this

capacity of all his smaller tractor-drawn

in 2005, pumping water to his neighbors’ houses for a price until his well ran

tankers. Many of Sanghwan’s clients are too

dry eight years later.)

poor to shell out so much money in one go,

Meanwhile, the DJB’s tanker plan quickly fell apart. Drivers began selling

so they sometimes pool funds and divide the

their water, intended to be free, to middle-class Delhi residents who could

purchased water among themselves. “Call

afford to pay. Other eager individuals saw an opportunity and began invest-

it a water mafia; call it a business,” Sangh-

ing in their own rigs that could link up with both legal and illegal boreholes.

wan says. “I call it a lifeline.”

And so the tanker mafia was born. It quickly grew and morphed, in step

with a widening gap in water distribution. The 2013 government audit found

DELHI’S RESIDENTS HAVE long hoped

that colonies received, on average, 1 gallon of water per person per day, while

that a transformative political force could

in central Delhi—home to politicians, judges, and other elites—the number

act for the good of the many by fixing

was 116 gallons. Sanghwan, like other soon-to-be tanker bosses, bought two

the city’s inequitable water distribution.

trucks to ferry water from illegal boreholes along the Yamuna to an under-

A possibility arose in late 2013 when the

ground cistern he had put in his land, and smaller vehicles to make deliveries

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), a new political

to thirsty residents across Sangam Vihar.

front of former civil society activists, won

The mafia has gained other, wealthier customers too. Over the past decade,

municipal elections on a platform of pro-

Delhi has become home to a vast number of water-intensive establishments:

tecting the average person’s interests. But

malls, office towers, and hotels that need floors mopped, lawns watered, and

then it announced it intended to dismantle

toilets flushed. The government cleared projects based on the assumption that

the water mafia—and things turned sour.

necessary infrastructure would be put in place, but that has rarely happened.

In January 2014, Mohaniya, the party’s

Instead, sleek buildings have been erected atop old, dripping pipes that can’t

elected legislator from Sangam Vihar,

possibly supply them with water. “No one, not even the DJB, knows the water

orchestrated a police raid on the commu-

network,” said a private consultant to the government water agency, who

nity’s water tankers and borehole opera-

spoke on the condition of anonymity. “There is no master plan, no blueprint.”

tors. “A crowd gathered outside my office

New facilities have thus gone searching for help. And water bosses, ever

and demanded that the party either sup-

eager for new clients and adept at capitalizing on government failures, have

ply water ourselves or let the tankers oper-

always been just a phone call away.

ate,” Mohaniya recounts, describing how an irate resident threw a brick through a glass window, while others tried to burst into his office. SANGAM VIHAR NEIGHBORHOOD.

Mohaniya then took a different tack, introducing, as he recalls, the concept of water-user associations: groups of people, recommended by their communities, who would oversee private operators of specific government wells. The associations, Mohaniya announced, would supply water to homes for a flat monthly fee—$0.75 for rental tenants and $1.50 for homeowners, who presumably could bear higher costs. The goal was to apply some semblance of regulation to the illicit water industry, while also drastically reducing the going price per gallon. More than 100 such associations exist in Sangam Vihar today (one for each DJB borehole), according to Mohaniya, but they have no legal basis. They are strictly voluntary, operating without government oversight and with no clear procedures for electing members or collecting money. At this point, almost anyone can form one. According to S.C.L. Gupta, a former legislator from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party, the groups have basically maintained the status quo: “Many of the water-user associations are headed by the same people who were running the wells in the first place,” Gupta says. What was a private mafia, he says, became one that was legitimized by the government. “The same people contin-

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

61

ued their same business,” he says, “except

The AAP is still going after the mafia. The DJB, for instance, has begun put-

that the government now paid the electric-

ting GPS sensors onto its tankers in an effort to stop bosses from diverting its

ity bill for each pump.”

water. Yet these efforts haven’t even put a dent in the illegal market, which is

Sanghwan, in particular, didn’t waste

only expanding its reach.

any time jumping on the association bandwagon: He became the head of one in 2014.

SANGAM VIHAR’S 30 YEAR transformation from an agrarian community

(His assistant notes that it wasn’t hard for

on Delhi’s periphery into a densely populated urban slum has become some-

his boss to take the helm. “Sanghwan has

thing of a model for rural locales increasingly shaped by their proximity to

always supplied water to the area,” the

Delhi. Farmers in the neighboring state of Haryana, for example, have begun

young man explains, “so it was natural.”)

carving up their fields into housing colonies packed with multistory homes

Sanghwan says his group, which professes

made of exposed brick and with unruly sprawls of shops and cafes. And just

to oversee one DJB borehole, its pump, and

like their cousins in the city, these communities are boring down in search of

its privately laid connections to nearby

water as a source of both sustenance and income. According to a 2011 report by

homes, collects about $800 a month, on

the Central Ground Water Board, a Delhi-based government regulatory body,

top of the money earned by his tanker outfit.

there are more than 13 million boreholes across the country.

This money is ostensibly used for mainte-

One evening in May, a young man named Krishna and some friends in

nance and a $78 monthly salary for a sin-

Tilpat, a small village about 14.5 miles from the heart of Delhi, sit around a

gle employee hired to oversee the pumping

table piled with beer bottles, spent cigarettes, chewing tobacco, and bottles

and pipes—calling into question whether

of molasses whiskey. “There are no jobs in Tilpat,” Krishna explains, even for

the operation can really be called an asso-

someone like him, with an undergraduate degree in history from the Univer-

ciation at all. However, Sanghwan’s group

sity of Delhi’s distance-learning program. “So young men in these parts either

gives no receipts to customers nor keeps any

sell land, as property agents, or they sell water.”

books of accounts, so it’s hard to say where the funds really go.

Krishna says he has drilled into his family’s fields and can now pump some 2,600 gallons and sell it to tankers for about $3, the same going rate as

Even with his continued success, Sangh-

in Delhi. (Sanghwan’s team of trucks from Sangam Vihar has begun going

wan admits that it’s getting harder to be in

as far as Tilpat to purchase water.) The tankers then sell to garment-export

Delhi’s water business. The DJB borehole he

businesses, based in Delhi and Haryana, that need lots of liquid to process

operates is supposed to supply 500 homes,

clothes before shipping them to the United States and Europe. Of late, how-

but with groundwater levels dipping deep

ever, Krishna notes that business is suffering, as farmers closer to the national

below the earth’s surface, he says, “even the

highway connecting Delhi and Haryana have begun to dig their own bore-

most powerful pump can’t supply more than

holes and peddle water.

one or two houses at a time.” On average,

Other enterprising men in places like Tilpat are well on their way to becoming

each home receives water for a few hours

new tanker bosses. After retiring in 2012 from a low position at a Delhi-based

every fortnight.

multinational bank, Devraj Choudhury, along with his brothers, dug a 250-foot-

Customers are feeling the strain. “You can

deep borehole beside the Delhi-Haryana highway, invested in a heavy-duty

fill as much water as you can each time the

pump, and got to work: “Everyone was doing it, so we thought, ‘Why not?’”

water comes from the DJB borewell,” says

Choudhury says. At first, they only sold water from their borehole to pass-

Sangam Vihar resident Sunita, a domestic

ing tankers; now the brothers own eight trucks of their own, bought partly

worker who goes by only one name. “So

with Choudhury’s retirement bonus and partly with money earned from the

everyone tries to buy as much storage as

borehole. They supply water to nearby textile factories for as much as $24 for

possible, because you never know when

roughly 2,600 gallons. “The rates are higher in the winter,” Choudhury says,

your turn will come again.” For her fam-

when the facilities are upping production for the spring and summer fashion

ily of six, Sunita has 660 gallons’ worth of

collections in the West.

storage capacity that lasts her about a week

As Choudhury sits next to his borehole, trucks turn off the highway, use the

to 10 days at a time. If her turn to have run-

well to fill up, and then drive away. “I don’t know where they go,” he says. “We

ning water does not come before her tanks

just sell the water and mind our own business.”

run dry, she is forced to buy from a private tanker at a higher cost. Sunita estimates that

POLITICIANS AND PLANNERS IN Delhi, like their peers in many other parts

she spends almost one-fifth of her salary on

of India, are eager to solve the city’s water-supply problems with megaprojects.

water. Her husband, whose income was cru-

When they see a shortage, they begin discussing dams, miles-long pipelines,

cial to balancing the monthly budget, has

and massive pumping stations, often built with the help of private corpo-

been sick for well over a year with chronic

rations. Already, some of the DJB’s water supply comes from as far away as

diarrhea, a water-borne disease.

the Himalayas; the Tehri Dam, about 200 miles northeast of Delhi in Uttara-

62

JULY | AUGUST 2015

from beneath Delhi and other cities and could be distributed over small, well-kept grids or, if necessary, by regulated tankers. “Policymakers need to accept that groundwater is being used and the issue is the unsustainability of its use,” says Sunita Narain, director-general of the Centre for Science and Environment, a publicinterest research organization. It’s a sentiment echoed by Rajendra Singh, a conservationist and winner of the 2015 Stockholm Water Prize, often called the Nobel of the water world. “Urban India’s water problems cannot be solved if governments focus on transporting water from the countryside to the city,” he says. To Singh and Narain, an enlightened mafia model, so to speak, doesn’t just require better governance; it must involve finding a way to replenish the water being pumped from the earth. Singh already has experience doing exactly this. Over 30 years, he has helped revive underground aquifers by building rainwater-harvesting structures in the arid state of Rajasthan. The program, by most accounts, has been a spectacular success: The water table has risen sharply, local rivLOCALS GATHER TO COLLECT WATER FROM A DELHI JAL BOARD WATER TANKER IN A SLUM IN DELHI.

ers and streams have revived, and villagers report having enough water for their daily needs. But urban centers, including Delhi, he says, haven’t tried anything similar. “I am yet

khand state, came online in 2006 for close to $1 billion. More recently, Delhi

to see one town or city in India that harvests

authorities have offered to pay 90 percent of the costs of a new dam in the

its rainwater and replenishes its aquifers,”

country’s mountainous northeast that supposedly would supply the city with

Singh says, adding that his attempts to share

275 million gallons of water per day.

his experiences with state officials have been

The rush to sanction such projects is due in no small part to the potential

rebuffed. “Governments are not interested

scope of corruption: The more expensive and complex a scheme, the more

because they think they will build another

opportunities there are to skim money. Unsurprisingly, graft is already well

pipeline and find more water.”

documented in India’s water sector. In 2012, for instance, a government whistle-

Political will, in other words, is criti-

blower revealed irregularities to the tune of $5.5 billion in a decade’s worth of

cal to achieving the public water system

irrigation projects in Maharashtra, the western state that is home to bustling

Delhi needs, but it is also nearly impossi-

Mumbai (and that metropolis’s own water mafia).

ble to harness. The AAP’s Mohaniya has

Corruption is a big reason that major projects routinely flop, or at least fall

proposed connecting Sangam Vihar to Del-

well short of expectations, and these failures, in turn, are only giving water

hi’s existing grid, and his party recently

bosses more power. But counterintuitively, some water activists say, the mafia

pledged to provide nearly 5,300 gallons of

may offer lessons for a way out of India’s multifaceted water crisis, including

free water a month to Delhi homes with

an end to the black market.

formal, metered connections—a promise

Most notable among these lessons is the idea of keeping solutions local.

that excludes about one-fourth of the city,

Water doesn’t need to be found in far-flung places; megaprojects have human

which, according to the 2013 government

costs—some 9,500 families were displaced by the Tehri Dam, according to

audit, remains without meters. But these

government estimates—and they don’t inspire a much-needed focus on water

are merely plans, and they don’t address

conservation. With smart planning and investment, water could be drawn

the question of where all the water will

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

63

ultimately come from or how those sources would be refreshed. Singh guesses that public resolve may finally arise “when urban communities experience water scarcity the way the villagers in the deserts of Rajasthan do.” For Delhi, that time could be nigh. Until then, the water mafia will continue to rule. SOME EVENINGS, when the summer heat is more unbearable than usual, Sanghwan diverts a few thousand gallons of his bounty into a watering hole in the Delhi Ridge, a sparse forest patch behind Sangam Vihar. “It’s for the animals,” he says, referring to the small population of nilgai antelopes that are still occasionally spotted in the area. “They need to drink too.” In conversations, Sanghwan is annoyed by concerns about the sustainability of his small empire, about the short-term nature of his profits compared with his work’s potentially devastating long-term implications. Such questions, he says, demonize the poor and water providers like him, while letting the rich and the government off the hook. He claims he would welcome efforts to lay a proper pipe network in his neighborhood, but given the government’s track record, he isn’t holding his breath. Sitting in his courtyard and listening to the rumble of passing trucks, the sound of water gushing into tankers, and the voices of drivers as they yell to one another, he makes a point of mentioning a broken bathtub he fills each evening for the stray cattle that wander the streets of Sangam Vihar. He also shows off his muddy courtyard, which, he says, he intentionally didn’t pave over so that rainwater can trickle into the earth. It seems to be Sanghwan’s way of saying that he, more than any policymaker, knows water’s true value and is seeking to protect it. “Ultimately, what is money?” he eventually asks, standing up to indicate that the interview is over. “It is the dirt of our hands that is washed clean in death.” AMAN SETHI

Q

(@Amannama) is a Delhi-

based journalist and the author of A Free Man: A True Story of Life and Death in Delhi.

THE RIVER YAMUNA, ONE OF THE MOST POLLUTED RIVERS IN THE WORLD, IS THE PRIMARY SOURCE OF DELHI’S WATER.

On a planet already stressed for food and water, are there enough resources to support a population that will approach 10 billion by 2050? Despite what doomsayers argue, all might not be lost.

Survival By Design Illustrations by KATE FRANCIS  GEL JAMLANG

Don’t Let Food Be the Problem PRODUCING TOO MUCH FOOD IS WHAT STARVES THE WORLD. By OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER

Fifty years ago, many people believed the world was on the edge of disaster. In the mid-1960s, the annual rate of population growth peaked at an estimated 2.1 percent. In 1968, Paul R. Ehrlich predicted in his best-selling book, The Population Bomb, that entire regions would soon be facing starvation as agricultural output failed to catch up with demographic growth; after all, in much of the developing world, yields per surface— that is, the amount of food produced on a given piece of land—had been stagnating for decades. Before long, the neo-Malthusians’ doomsday predictions seemed to be turning into reality. In 1972, bad harvests in the Soviet Union, combined with the first global oil shock the following year, led the real prices of food to skyrocket suddenly.

The answer, governments decided, was to

State of Food Insecurity reports. While the

in the form of an idea steadily gaining trac-

produce more food—much more food. The

proportion of undernourished people has

tion at the grassroots level: food sovereignty.

specific responses varied, but the general

declined—today, it’s about 12 percent of the

The concept emerged 20 years ago from

approach was similar everywhere: Techno-

world’s population—hunger is far from erad-

the mobilization of small-scale farmers, or

logical advances and public policies, includ-

icated. In fact, when assessed from the view-

campesinos, in Costa Rica, and from the

ing subsidies to farmers, would raise outputs

point of their contributions to health, poverty

protest marches of small-farm holders in

and drive prices down. This vision shaped

alleviation, and environmental protection,

the Indian state of Karnataka. The message

the Common Agricultural Policy of the

the food systems inherited from the 20th

was simple: Agricultural policies should not

fledgling European Economic Community,

century have not been a spectacular suc-

be held hostage to the exigencies of inter-

while in the United States, it inspired Pres-

cess. Rather, they have failed spectacularly.

national trade. This idea was central to the

ident Richard Nixon’s agriculture secretary

establishment in 1993 of La Via Campesina,

to launch a massive program encouraging

IT MIGHT APPEAR THAT the world is hopelessly

which is now arguably the world’s largest

grain production. Farmers were told not to

stuck with a dysfunctional behemoth of a

transnational social movement, spanning

worry about the risk of gluts in the markets;

global food economy. From storage facili-

164 local and national organizations in more

if prices were insufficient to cover costs, the

ties to processing plants and transportation

than 70 countries across Asia, Africa, Europe,

government would make up the difference.

routes, infrastructures have been built in sup-

and the Americas; it represents an estimated

In South Asia, where the perils associated

port of large-scale production. As a result,

200 million farmers. Initially rural, the move-

with overpopulation were considered to be

today’s food systems are in the hands of large

ment focused on the needs of small-scale

highest, the Green Revolution attempted

agrifood interests—the commodities brokers,

farmers who took pride in their identity as

to boost agricultural output through new

the food processors, the increasingly con-

“peasants”—very much a reaction to big-

high-yielding crop varieties, particularly

centrated retailers—whose dominance only

food geopolitics. By 1994, when the Uruguay

wheat and rice; the extension of irrigated

breeds dominance. Because they have the

Round of multilateral trade negotiations con-

land; and a massive increase in the use of

logistics, control the networks, and capture

cluded, and at the request of major develop-

chemical fertilizers and mechanization.

the subsidies, they can easily crush compet-

ing countries, agriculture had become a key

This framing of hunger and malnutrition

itors. These large actors, in turn, have reason

bargaining chip in the establishment of the

primarily as quantitative problems—the

to oppose a transformation in the food sys-

World Trade Organization. Food was set to

results of a remediable mismatch between

tems, and their economic heft allows them

become the next frontier of the great mill of

supply and demand—didn’t just shape pol-

to veto change. In the meantime, they con-

commodification, and farmers the world over

icy choices in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

tinue to flood the markets with processed

were asked to compete, even if this meant

It inaugurated a trend that has lasted for

foods, manufactured from the mountains

that the least competitive would disappear.

several decades almost without interrup-

of soy and corn that governmental subsi-

tion, driven by governments and big agri-

dies encourage.

The early food-sovereignty activists of La Via Campesina were quite prescient when it

business. Judged by their own standards,

These interconnected systems of over-

came to understanding how international

the revolutions in food systems have been

production won’t feed the world. In fact,

trade could—and would— shape food sys-

tremendous victories. As population growth

it is both what ails humankind and what

tems: standardizing farmers as well as the

rates have declined, agricultural output has

starves it. Although its Goliath-like scale

commodities they produce, encouraging the

grown steadily—about 2.1 percent annually

might make it appear invincible, its very

unsustainable growth of long-distance trade

over the past 50 years—and without a sig-

ungainliness and failure to meet human

controlled by the agrifood behemoths, and

nificant expansion of cultivated areas. In

needs could yet be its undoing. Indeed, big

neglecting local and regional markets. Resil-

1961, food grown on 1.37 billion hectares of

food has already been met with resistance

ience requires diversity, these activists cam-

land fed 3.5 billion people; by 2011, when the

paigned, including a diversity of markets.

world’s population had doubled to 7 billion,

The 2008 food-price crisis showed how right

only 12 percent more land was being used.

they were. The dramatic spike in commodity

Was looming disaster thus averted? Not exactly. The absolute number of hungry people has hardly been reduced since the early 1970s, consistently oscillating around 850 million—that is, when including such things as short-term undernourishment, inequalities in food distribution within the household, among other things, that the United Nations overlooks in its annual

795M people in the world do not have enough food to lead a healthy active life. That’s about one in nine people on earth. (World Food Programme)

prices hit the countries that depended the most on food imports particularly hard, and it did not benefit farmers, who were squeezed between rising costs for inputs upstream and large buyers downstream whose commanding position allowed them to capture most of the value of the food chain. Food sovereignty has now left its rural origins and become a movement in which both consumers and producers seek to

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

69

reclaim or reinvent food systems from the

Agriculture’s Food and Water Web

bottom up. Indeed, in all regions, groups

Over the past two decades, food-sovereignty movements have tirelessly pushed governments and corporations to put the power of production and distribution back into the hands of local farming communities. The fact remains, though, that the world’s food systems are still dominated by international trade. Two years after the 2008 crisis, food prices rose again almost as dramatically as they had fallen; that year, in 2010, the United States exported nearly $30 billion worth of corn, soybeans, and wheat— major staples on which the world’s poor largely depend— just in the trade routes shown here. Global trade networks have become busier as developing countries struggle to keep booming populations nourished. The United States, for instance, exported nearly $1 billion in soybeans to China in 2000; by 2010, that figure had increased to $12 billion. Meanwhile, as countries export crops, they also, in a sense, export water: Globally, the agricultural sector accounts for roughly 70 percent of all freshwater withdrawals, according to the United Nations.

of ordinary citizens are developing ways to gain autonomy and bypass the dominant industrial food systems. On the consumers’ side, today foodpolicy councils in North America invoke sovereignty; examples from Toronto to Oakland are increasingly influencing experiments elsewhere. Sovereignty has given rise to farmers markets in Mumbai and Beijing, among other cities, and to school gardens and urban agriculture as citizens seek to reconnect to local farmers and, more broadly, to the food systems on which they depend. On the production side, as a way out of the fossil fuel-based model, farmers increasingly are embracing agroecology. In this approach, biological control—the use of the right combination of crops on any single field—replaces the use of pesticides. Leguminous plants serve to nourish soils, reducing the need to use nitrogen-based fertilizers. Trees, which in the past had been banished from fields in the name of maximizing yields, are being planted again alongside crops; their roots allow soil to capture moisture better, and their shade reduces evaporation, making it possible to save water for irrigation. Integrated cropping and rotation allow the replenishment of soils that monocropping had been quietly destroying over decades. Agroecology aims to reduce the use of external fossil fuel-based inputs, to recycle waste, and to combine elements of nature to maximize synergies. It treats the complexity of nature not as a liability, but as an asset. The farmer learns by trial and error, even when the ultimate “scientific” explanation may remain elusive; long at the receiving end of technological developments, he or she will now determine what works best in a local context. LET’S NOT LIE TO OURSELVES. Well-documented

threats—peak oil, genetic erosion from monocropping schemes, soil degradation, climate change—will mean a future with more volatility and the need to quickly invent more solutions to food problems.

PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL FRESHWATER FOR AGRICULTURE 2013 CORN SOYBEANS WHEAT EXPORTS PER YEAR 2010

PALM OIL

Still, there is room for optimism: Devastating threats, in fact, could lead us to gradually favor resilience over efficiency.

70

JULY | AUGUST 2015

15 PERSONS/SQ. MILE

POPULATION DENSITY

250+

TRADE DATA: RESOURCES FUTURES / CHATHAM HOUSE; CORN TRADE DATA, ARGENTINA: INSTI TUTO NACIONAL DE ESTADÍSTICA Y CENSOS, ARGENTINA; US CORN TRADE DATA: UN COM TRADE; POPULATION DENSITY MAP VIA SOCIO ECONOMIC DATA AND APPLICATIONS CENTER

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

71

If nimble, location-specific innovation is the best way to build that resilience, the paradox of an increasingly interdependent world requires creating alliances at the national and international levels to support local markets and systems—even partnerships long unthinkable. Environmental groups can team with parents organizations, as both worry about the impacts of industrialized food production on the planet and on their children. Politicians of all stripes concerned about public deficits might join forces with health-care practitioners to address the mounting costs of treating diet-related ill-

Don’t Let Water Be the Problem

nesses. Development NGOs may discover

IF IRAN AND THE UNITED STATES CAN COOPERATE

that their concerns about the impact of sub-

ON WATER ISSUES, ANYONE CAN.

sidies, which result in dumping on local markets in the global south, are echoed by taxpayers associations, which complain

By CHARLES FISHMAN

about the huge sums of public money that go to farmers to grow commodities— not food, but raw materials that serve as inputs to the food-processing industry. The more I have worked with governments operating from the top down, the more I have come to believe in the strength of social movements to make change happen from the bottom up. Solutions that can be designed using local resources (in addition to, not instead of, external resources that may provide backup) are less vulnerable to outside market or energy shocks. The more diverse these solutions, the better local systems will be equipped to deal with contingencies. Is this revolutionary? Perhaps not if we think of a revolution as an event in history when a group overthrows a regime and takes power. That view of revolution however, as German political philosopher Hannah Arendt once remarked, sounds more like a coup d’état. Changing society without seizing power is what food-sovereignty movements are about. The revolution they propose is a silent one. It is gradual. But it is already happening all around us, proposing an alternative to low-cost, big-food systems with which we’ve been saddled for far too long.

Q

OLIVIER DE SCHUTTER (@DeSchutterUNSR),

a legal scholar focusing on economic and social rights, served as the United Nations’ special rapporteur on the right to food from 2008 to 2014.

On May 27, 2009, the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul sent a cable to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s office. The 2,000-word message detailed worsening water challenges in Iran: prolonged and frequent droughts, rising salinity that threatened natural wetlands, and irrigation practices that were sucking the country’s limited groundwater reservoirs dry without producing enough food. In the understated tone of diplomatic communiqués, the cable endorsed the idea of finding a way to help the Iranians. ¶ At the time, U.S. President Barack Obama’s administration was just four months old, and despite some outreach efforts by Washington, the United States and Iran publicly regarded each other as enemies. Tehran faced crippling trade and financial sanctions and remained on the

official U.S. list of state sponsors of terror-

slavery, unable to get good educations or

water problems become, the more likely

ism. Nonetheless, behind the scenes, Ira-

jobs, in part, because they must devote so

they are to be addressed collaboratively

nian water experts were so desperate to

much time to fetching water. Meanwhile,

and effectively.

prevent Iran’s poor water practices from

most major aquifers in the planet’s arid

Just look at the United States and Iran.

destabilizing the country that they were urg-

and semiarid regions are being dangerously

Water has become a surprising area of rou-

ing Tehran’s chief international antagonist

overpumped.

tine cooperation between the two countries,

to step in with technical and scientific assis-

And water woes only seem des-

despite continuing public acrimony. Even

tance. According to the cable, these experts

tined to get worse. In the next 25 years,

before the 2009 cable, Iranian and Ameri-

predicted that, if offered discreetly, U.S. aid

the world is expected to add 1.7 bil-

can water experts had met every few years.

would “be met with a cautiously pragmatic

lion more people, almost all of them in

Recently, they’ve met once a year or more,

response from the [government of Iran] and

water-stressed areas. Climate change

typically for a couple weeks at a time, to

with grateful enthusiasm from Iran’s sci-

will shift rain and snow patterns, cre-

trade experience, advice, and research. The

entific and environmental communities.”

ating flooding and drought. If current

exchanges have involved hundreds of sci-

It’s easy to be pessimistic about the

water challenges seem like brush fires—

entists from dozens of institutions. Amer-

world’s water issues. Nearly 2 billion peo-

flaring, doing damage, then subsiding—

ican experts were in Iran this January; as

ple use water contaminated with human

they could soon become wildfires: sources of

of press time, a group of 10 Iranians was

waste. Each day, 44 percent of the world’s

much more harm and maybe even conflict.

expected at the University of California,

people rely on water that must be carried

That’s the bleak bet, anyway, and the easy

back to their homes—mostly by women

one. But there is a less apocalyptic, more

The unlikely alliance points to what

and girls who end up trapped in a kind of

counterintuitive possibility: that the worse

some see as the underappreciated power of

Irvine, in late June.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

73

Food Finances

mistakes haven’t yet been made. Sure, cit-

During the 2008 food crisis, the price of the world’s staples jumped to their highest levels in decades, but dropped shortly after. They skyrocketed again in 2010 and 2011, indicating that 2008 wasn’t an anomaly, as shown here by the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization’s food price indices, which measure average international prices of commodities.

ies with millions of residents don’t bother

FOOD AGGREGATE SUGAR VEGETABLE OIL CEREAL DAIRY MEAT

be addressed. Meanwhile, big challenges

400

to treat their sewage, and rivers from the Colorado to the Tigris and Euphrates aren’t well-managed. But current dilemmas can are already visible on the horizon. Scientists

350

know that sea levels are rising, and where;

300

they know that climate change is likely to

250

make the wet parts of the globe wetter and the dry parts drier; they know how to feed

200

1990

2008

2011

many more people without using more water.

150

Water, however, doesn’t respond to wish-

100

ful thinking—and that’s exactly what there’s

50

too much of right now in all corners of the

2015

world. Unless reversed or prevented, water troubles will continue to cause conflict,

more sustainably include Ford Motor, Intel,

safety and stability for people. Already, we

together, in ways large and small, both

Coca-Cola, Levi Strauss, Campbell Soup,

have seen how bad water management can

locally and across national boundaries.

and Google. At the start of 2015, business

be the last straw where economic, cultural,

Water problems have an inherent urgency

and political leaders attending the World

and political volatility already exists.

and universality. Their outcomes can deter-

Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland,

That’s what happened in Syria, according

mine whether populations thrive or fail.

ranked water problems as the No. 1 source

to an analysis by Gleick published last year

Unlike with shortages of energy or food,

of risk to societies. Five years ago, water

in Weather, Climate, and Society, a journal

there are no alternatives for water in almost

barely made the list.

of the American Meteorological Society.

all of its uses.

For people who’ve spent decades tackling

“The conflict in Syria isn’t about water; it’s

The trick is how to spin capacity into real

water issues, this attention is both welcome

about religion, ideology, economics, and

progress. Thanks to research and experi-

and disorienting. No society overcomes a

ethnic tensions,” Gleick said in an inter-

ence, people know well the misery and

major obstacle it doesn’t realize it has, but

view. “But to argue that it had nothing to do

instability that a blossoming of water chal-

the community that works on water—so

with water is wrong.” A four-year drought

lenges will cause—a rare insight in a world

used to operating under the radar—is wor-

starting in 2006 triggered food shortages,

afflicted with uncertainty. But for water’s

ried that public awareness won’t necessar-

price increases, and the migration of bereft

future to look better than its recent past,

ily be harnessed, that momentum might be

farmers to cities, where many couldn’t find

knowledge must translate into resources,

squandered. “I don’t want to be glib about

work. This piled popular unrest and pres-

invention, and diplomacy that create per-

this. I’ve been arguing for smart water man-

sure onto the government of President

manent solutions. Otherwise, chaos looms.

agement for decades,” said Peter Gleick,

Bashar al-Assad. “I could spin a scenario

president of the Pacific Institute and one of

where the Assad regime had smart water

WATER IS SUDDENLY on the list of urgent pri-

the world’s leading experts on water. “The

management institutions—and expanded

orities in government offices and execu-

problem isn’t that we don’t know what to do.

agricultural production, reduced unemploy-

tive suites around the world—even in the

The problem is we aren’t doing it.”

ment, prevented migration to the cities,”

Vatican with Pope Francis’s encyclical this

In theory, virtually every water challenge

summer. In February 2012, U.S. intelligence

can be dealt with. Typically, there’s enough

agencies jointly produced a dedicated

water to go around in a given locale, and the

It’s a crucial insight to keep in mind in

report assessing the risks water issues pose

technical hurdles to making that happen

order to avert a repeat of the Syria case in

to national security. The blunt assessment:

aren’t too high. Although international coop-

another region: More often than not, water

“[M]any countries important to the United

eration and aid can be important in some

problems don’t require high-tech miracles—

States will experience water problems—

situations, global treaties aren’t necessarily

they require pragmatism.

shortages, poor water quality, or floods—

required; cities in California or farmers in

Already, there’s plenty of this hap-

that will risk instability and state failure

northern India can address their water trou-

pening. For example, conflict has been

[and] increase regional tensions.” Private

bles without waiting for a summit. That’s the

brewing in the Nile Valley for years, as

companies that are dramatically chang-

good news, and it’s frequently overlooked.

Ethiopia builds the largest dam in Africa,

ing their operations in order to use water

What’s more, with water, the really big

and Sudan and Egypt, sitting downstream,

74

JULY | AUGUST 2015

Gleick noted. “It’s not hard to see a different scenario.”

DATA: FOOD AND AGRICULTURE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS

strangle economic growth, and diminish water: its capacity to get people to work

worry that the river they rely on will be

That can mean high-level diplomacy or

STILL, DESPITE SOME headway, the leap from

disrupted. In March, after years of negoti-

millions more latrines. It can also mean

worry to concerted, widespread action has

ations, the three countries signed a frame-

innovation, which thankfully is being

yet to be made. There is no uncertainty

work agreement to share both the river’s

pursued on many fronts. It costs just 25

about water’s value to human life or about

water and the electricity from Ethiopia’s

percent of what it did two decades ago

the damage that unsound water policies

new dam. In India, meanwhile, where more

to make ocean water drinkable. Water-

can do. But the burgeoning water revolu-

than half of homes have no toilets, Prime

cleaning systems have also become dra-

tion has yet to inspire a necessary sense

Minister Narendra Modi has launched a

matically cheaper and easier to operate,

of determination, to prompt everyone—

nationwide sanitation campaign. His gov-

to the point that individual buildings,

from policymakers to businesses to farm-

ernment has constructed 6 million toilets

schools, and factories can afford their own

ers to consumers—to see their own vul-

and wants to install some 50 million more

on-site water-recycling systems. Inex-

nerabilities with clear eyes and decide to

by 2019. “The lesson,” Gleick said, “is don’t

pensive sensor technology commercial-

tackle them.

let water be the problem. Smart countries,

ized in just the last five years means that

The reason is straightforward: Water

smart leaders, will try to take water out of

farmers can finally determine how dry

problems don’t get solved because they

the equation [of instability] by doing the

their fields are and water only when crops

often aren’t really about water. They’re

things that we know work.”

actually need it.

about politics and economics, culture and habit. Due to long-standing policy and practice, for instance, farmers from Pakistan to Kansas pump ground-

Water Isn’t Free

water for their crops not only without

Cheap drinking water isn’t just a matter of modern infrastructure. Denmark has some of the world’s highest drinking-water costs, as the government encourages conservation by requiring customers to pay the entire bill themselves. Singapore, though, has some of the cheapest costs relative to GDP per capita; despite rising incomes, water prices on the island nation have remained the same over the past 15 years. Here, consumption is measured in 200 cubic-meter units, the rough equivalent to one-twelfth of an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

paying for it, but often without limit or even keeping track of how much they use. It’s seen almost as an entitlement; charging farmers for water or insisting on better irrigation technology inspires outrage and resistance. Similarly, lei-

DATA: INTERNATIONAL STATISTICS FOR WATER SERVICES, “INFORMATION EVERY WATER MANAGER SHOULD KNOW” REPORT, 2012

DRINKING WATER CHARGES, 2011 IN USD PER 200M3

100

200

300

400

500

600

surely daily showers and lush lawns explain how Americans end up using twice the amount of water per person as Europeans do. Changing attitudes about water’s value, in other words, is just as

ARMENIA

important as creating the correct mix of AUSTRALIA

dams, treatment plants, and sustainableagriculture policies.

BRAZIL

A shift in attitude is what happened in BURKINA FASO

2009, when scientists in Iran were able to view their country’s risky water prospects

CHILE

plainly enough to ask the Americans for DENMARK

help. The Iranians understood something that government officials, water man-

GERMANY

agers, and businesses everywhere can learn from: One way or the other, through

IRAN

action or indifference, the future of water

JAPAN

is completely under human control. The right choice may be obvious, but it may

MALAWI

also be uncomfortable or difficult, surSINGAPORE

prising or even humbling. That doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be made.

SOUTH KOREA UGANDA

Q

CHARLES FISHMAN (@cfishman) is a journal-

ist and the New York Times best-selling

U.S.

author of The Big Thirst: The Secret Life GDP PER CAPITA IN USD

10,000

20,000

30,000

40,000

50,000

60,000

and Turbulent Future of Water.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

75

76

JULY | AUGUST 2015

C O R K E D As former Soviet republics develop closer ties with the West, Russia is pulling out all the stops to keep them in the fold. Amid this battle, Moldova’s wine industry has become the unlikeliest front. BY MARK BAKER

ON A SUNNY SPRING AFTERNOON THIS YEAR, WINEMAKER CRISTINA Frolov was leading an impromptu tour through ridges of dried mud, gravel, and shoots of green at her family’s winery in Moldova. The season’s grape vines at Castel Mimi were just beginning to flower. The central Codru wine region, where the vineyard is located, is traditionally known for its white grapes. But Frolov explained that they’ve had success in recent years growing higher-value-added red varieties such as cabernet sauvignon. The experiment is part of her plan to cater to Western wine drinkers, who are often seen as having more demanding palates. ¶ The 270-acre vineyard, near the village of Bulboaca, about 20 miles southeast of Moldova’s capital, Chisinau, produces an average of 1 million bottles of wine annually. Castel Mimi is part of a network of some 100 vineyards in Moldova that export tens of millions of bottles every year, putting the country’s wine industry in the top 20 globally. In fact, wine is at the core of the country’s economy, accounting for one-fifth of its GDP and employing one-quarter of its labor force, according to a 2010 government report. ¶ Even still, Moldovan vineyards have long been considered a backwater in the global wine-drinking hierarchy. With the hope of finally making Moldova a true destination for Western customers, the past five years have seen winemakers across the country investing as much as $100 million in renovating and expanding their properties and output.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

77

On the main grounds of Castel Mimi, the evidence of

agreement and a visa-free regime for short-term travel.

that investment is clear: The otherwise bucolic set-

Russia, of course, has not sat idly by while the West

ting is actually a massive construction zone. Dozens

makes overtures in what Moscow considers to be its

of men in hard hats and fluorescent-yellow protec-

backyard. Nearly two years ago, in September 2013,

tive vests hunch over rolls of blueprints and scuttle

Russian officials, backed by President Vladimir Putin,

around the property. They’re in the final stages of a

announced that the country was freezing imports of

$6 million transformation project, launched in 2010,

Moldovan wine—a critical blow because, prior to 2013,

that will restore the neoclassical château that once

Russia accounted for around 30 percent of Moldova’s

belonged to Constantin Mimi, an early 20th-century

wine export market. It was the second time in less

politician who initiated winemaking on the site. When

than a decade—the first being in 2006—that Moscow

the project is completed in the spring of 2016, Castel

used wine as a means of punishing its former satellite.

Mimi will feature a brand-new restaurant, hotel, spa,

Although Russia justified the 2013 decision on ques-

and conference center.

tionable grounds of sanitation concerns, the move was

In a country with just over 3.5 million people and a per capita GDP of roughly $2,200—among the low-

widely considered retaliation for Moldova’s increasingly close ties to the European Union.

est in Europe—such spending is significant, to say

The interest from the West has enabled the wine

the least. Yet the improvements being carried out

industry to find a toehold in Europe and to ultimately

at wineries across the country are about more than

stay afloat during the Russian ban; sales of bottled

beverages, tourism, or even the bottom line. Wedged

Moldovan wine in Western Europe actually grew 14

between Romania and Ukraine, Moldova finds itself

percent in 2014. The reality, though, is this aid hasn’t

much like its neighbors: caught in the cross-hairs of a

been enough. The Russian moratorium has hurt many

struggle for influence in Eastern Europe that pits Rus-

vineyards, including Castel Mimi, which, before Sep-

sia against the West. And this small republic’s wine

tember 2013, sold around 300,000 bottles a year to

industry has become perhaps the unlikeliest battle-

Russia. The winery had hoped to raise this amount

ground in that fight.

to 500,000 bottles by 2015, Frolov says, but that looks

Over the past decade, the United States and the Euro-

increasingly unrealistic. Even with the support pro-

pean Union have pledged an estimated $100 million in

vided to Moldova by the United States and the EU,

grants, loans, and other sector support to assist Moldo-

Russia can still exert a devastating amount of control

va’s wine producers—and, in turn, reinforce the rest

over the small country.

of the local economy. Much of this largesse has come

The crisis is far from over. The main U.S. aid pro-

in the form of a multiyear European Investment Bank

gram backing Moldovan wine closed its doors this

credit line that started in 2011 and will run through

year, a result of an expiring mandate—and it’s not

2017. It not only promises to provide direct financing

clear when a successor program will begin operating.

to winemakers, but it also will add indirect assistance

While relations between Russia and the West only

as wineries tap additional lines of private equity. The

grow increasingly acrimonious, Moldova’s vineyards

United States, for its part, has invested $17 million-plus

and the country itself remain caught in the middle of

via development programs that have helped Moldo-

this geopolitical dispute between major powers—one

van industries, wine included, diversify their markets.

with very real stakes. The embrace of the West may ulti-

These ventures are only part of Moldova’s broader

mately be a boon for Moldovan vineyards, but given

integration with the West; in recent years, the country

the possibility of further Russian aggression, it might

has bargained with Brussels to establish a free trade

prove to be the very salvo that sinks them.

RUSSIA , OF C OURSE , HAS NOT S AT I D LY B Y W H I L E T H E W E S T M A K E S OV E RT U R E S I N W H AT M O S C OW C O N S I D E R S T O B E I T S B AC K YA R D.

78

JULY | AUGUST 2015

OLEG NIKISHIN/KOMMERSANT PHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

Employees fill a brandy barrel at a distillery in the contested region of Transnistria in 2014.

IN MOLDOVA, WINEMAKING IS MORE THAN A

lands, purportedly reaching 220,000 hectares by 1960.

business: It’s also integral to the country’s history

But quality during the Soviet era suffered. Moldo-

and has long been a point of national pride. When

van wines were traditionally dry, in keeping with the

the Romans arrived some 2,000 years ago in what

best French and Italian varieties. Russians, though,

would become Moldova, production was already thriv-

had long preferred heavier, semisweet wines that

ing. The industry’s golden age, locals say, came in the

were inexpensive to make and didn’t typically bring

15th century under the rule of Prince Stephen the

home blue ribbons. Moldovan winemakers shifted to

Great. Revered as a heroic defender of the medieval

cater to these tastes, planting lower-quality, higher-

Moldovan principality against incursions by Ottoman

yield grapes and in turn developing a reputation for

Turks, Prince Stephen is lauded as a champion of wine.

“cheap and sweet” wines—a slight that mattered little

He imported new grape varieties and created a posi-

at the time because nearly all Moldovan wines were

tion in his court specifically to oversee operations.

sold to its Soviet neighbors.

Over the next two centuries, wine production and

After declaring independence from the Soviet

quality began to fluctuate, as the territory of modern-

Union, Moldova’s government sought to distance

day Moldova became a vassal state of the Ottoman

itself from Moscow, forging closer ties to a range of

Empire. The Russian tsars who finally pushed out

European institutions and even switching from Cyrillic

the Ottomans in 1812 helped revive the industry, even

script to the Latin alphabet. But the country remained

steering it through a deadly infestation of phylloxera

economically and culturally tied to Russia. Ethnic

aphids, a grape pest, near the end of the 19th century.

Moldovans, who are nearly all Romanian-speaking,

So Moldovans like to joke that their wine survived

have long shared the same small country with Rus-

the Ottomans, phylloxera, and two world wars—but

sians and Ukrainians. According to the 2004 census,

not the Soviets. When Moldova was part of the Soviet

the most recent for which full results are available,

Union, from 1940 to 1991, wineries actually received

around 80 percent of the nation’s population iden-

relatively lavish investment. In the aftermath of World

tified as either ethnic Moldovan or Romanian. The

War II, the Soviets even expanded Moldova’s vineyard

next two leading groups were those who identified

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

79

as ethnic Ukrainians (8.4 percent)—most of whom

World Trade Organization. But the damage was already

speak Russian—and ethnic Russians (5.9 percent).

done: Moldova’s wineries—which had changed their

(In Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region of

profile to satisfy Russian customers and, as a result,

some 500,000 people, Ukrainians and Russians made

had made their products unpalatable to European mar-

up around 60 percent of the population.)

kets—lost some $180 million in just eight months. (The

Meanwhile, Moldova’s wine industry had a difficult

entire industry was only worth around $300 million at

time untangling itself from the Russian Federation,

the time.) Wine output, which accounted for a third of

which continued to provide reliable sales. In the 1990s

the country’s GDP before the ban, dropped 60 percent

and early 2000s, some 80 to 90 percent of Moldova’s

that year, according to Moldova-Vin, one of the coun-

annual wine exports continued to go to Russia, accord-

try’s main export agencies at the time.

ing to a 2007 International Monetary Fund report. This cozy state of affairs abruptly ended in 2006,

IF THE 2006 WINE BAN SHOWCASED RUSSIA’S

when Russian officials banned the import of Moldovan

willingness to use trade penalties as a political weapon,

wine, citing quality concerns. Just the year before, Rus-

it also provided the West with a perfect entree for pry-

sia had also cut off wine imports from Georgia. In both

ing Moldova out of Moscow’s grasp. Since the 1990s, the

cases, the trade crackdown was seen as political retal-

United States and its European allies had been operat-

iation. In Moldova, it was interpreted as punishment

ing aid programs throughout much of the former Soviet

for Chisinau’s attempt earlier that year to impose cus-

Union, but these programs had relatively modest goals.

toms controls on goods moving in and out of Transn-

Kent Larson, the current head of the U.S. Agency for Inter-

istria. Russia, which supports the region’s efforts toward

national Development (USAID) in Moldova, explains:

greater autonomy, labeled Chisinau’s actions a blockade.

“Much of that early work was in assisting land privatiza-

William Hill, who served as the head of the Organiza-

tion as a way of helping the economy transition from a

tion for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE)

communist system to competitive markets.” But Larson

mission to Moldova from 2003 to 2006, says there’s

notes it wasn’t clear at that point how U.S. aid could most

“no doubt” that the 2006 wine ban was an attempt to

effectively serve post-Soviet transition efforts. “We had

coerce political action from Moldova. “Economic bans

to feel our way around to focus on areas where we could

like that have been a Russian modus operandi for ages

make a contribution,” he says.

in that part of the world,” he says.

By the early 2000s, though, the political landscape

The ban was effectively lifted a year later, after Mol-

in the Western-leaning former Soviet republics, such

dova set up a new quality-control regime for its wine

as Ukraine and Georgia, had changed. Democracy

and signed a bilateral deal with Moscow under which it

movements like Georgia’s 2003 Rose Revolution, which

explicitly agreed to support Russia’s membership in the

swept President (and former Soviet Foreign Minister) Eduard Shevardnadze from

Oak barrels filled with wine at a vineyard about 15 miles north from Chisinau.

power, and Ukraine’s Orange Revolution a year later, which enabled the rise of pro-Western reformer Viktor Yushchenko, had put Moscow on the defensive. These events also solidified the involvement in the region of the United States and Europe, both of which played at least an indirect role in the political uprisings. In Georgia, for example, OSCE-funded foreign election observers and USAID were instrumental in computerizing voter lists that ultimately helped secure President Mikheil Saakashvili’s victory.

80

JULY | AUGUST 2015

VADIM DENISOV/AFP/GETTY IMAGES

While Moldova didn’t have its own democratic rev-

a couple of wineries remain in government hands.)

olution at the time, it was still caught up in regional

Diana Lazar, CEED II’s wine industry manager, explains

events. Hill claims Russia’s wine ban was actually a

that Moldova also needed help reforming layers upon

direct outgrowth of Yushchenko’s coming to power in

layers of outdated regulations—like the unnecessar-

Ukraine: The new Ukrainian president was pushing

ily large amount of storage space that wineries were

an “action plan” that gave Chisinau greater customs

required to have on-site—in order to get smaller pro-

control in Transnistria. This, Hill says, was “what the

ducers into the market and foster competition within

Russians were reacting to in the first place.”

the sector, a critical factor in improving quality. “The

In light of regional political developments, Lar-

rules have allowed for a whole new generation of win-

son explains, the United States saw an opportunity

eries to emerge,” Lazar says. Legislation also created a

to build on its previous work in Moldova and promote

national wine fund, paid into equally by the state and

the country’s democratic aspirations through more-

individual wineries, to shift some of the economic

targeted economic assistance. In 2005, USAID launched

muscle away from old state-run operations.

the Competitiveness Enhancement and Enterprise

Perhaps most importantly, CEED worked to reorient

Development (CEED) program, which went through

Moldova’s wine toward Western markets. Its money

two iterations—totaling more than $17 million over

supported participation at international trade fairs

10 years—before closing its doors in June 2015. On

such as the annual ProWein exhibition in Düssel-

paper, CEED aimed to identify promising Moldovan

dorf, Germany, and the CEED team helped revamp

industries and help producers find export markets to

Moldova’s international wine branding, including cre-

bolster the economy. But in reality, the program had

ating a French-style appellation d’origine contrôlée,

a deeper—if explicitly unstated—geopolitical aim: to

or a seal of approval, affixed only to bottles and wine-

reduce Moldova’s economic dependence on Russia. Lar-

makers that meet higher European export standards

son notes that CEED and later its successor program,

as determined by the country’s new National Office

CEED II, were designed “to help Moldovan companies

for Vine and Wine. The program also helped produce

diversify away from what were highly unstable markets

a splashy marketing campaign—“Wine of Moldova,

[in the former Soviet republics]” and toward more reli-

a Legend Alive”—which aims at making Moldovan

able and less politically sensitive markets in the West.

wine appealing to Western customers used to buy-

Given its cultural and economic importance to Mol-

ing European, American, and Australian wines. At

dova, wine was one of the sectors CEED chose to focus

the heart of that campaign is a new logo depicting a

on. And Russia inadvertently gave the fledgling pro-

medieval Moldovan legend in which a stork delivers

gram its first big boost when it slammed the door on

a beakful of grapes.

Moldovan wine imports in 2006. After Moscow dropped

USAID’s Larson explains that a lot of wineries,

the hammer, Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin,

hooked for years on high-volume, low-quality exports

who had actually risen to power advocating closer ties

to Russia, were initially skeptical of cracking the more

to the Russian Federation, publicly admitted, as Hill

demanding Western markets. “It’s a familiar problem of

tells it, that Moldova needed to reorient its industries

moving from a centrally planned economy to a market

away from the East.

economy,” he says. “The winemakers had great tech-

Larson, who has been working for USAID since 1994,

nical skills, but they lacked skills in marketing and

says, “CEED is unique. I’m not aware of any other aid

understanding the needs of consumers.” Neverthe-

program quite like it.” It hired consultants and sent

less, they slowly adjusted as CEED’s efforts in training

winemakers on fact-finding trips abroad, including a

winemakers and its assistance with promotion came

trip by Castel Mimi’s Frolov to the Finger Lakes region

to bear fruit. Not only are sales of bottled Moldovan

of upstate New York in 2011. It also shaped Moldova’s

wines to the EU rising rapidly—sales to Lithuania in

outdated legislation on wine production to allow new

2014 grew by roughly 35 percent and to Romania by

privately owned wineries to compete more effectively

60 percent—but Moldovan wines have begun winning

with old Soviet-era behemoths. (While a part of the

over critics as well. Just in June, wines from Moldova’s

Soviet Union, wine production and exports in Mol-

highly regarded Château Vartely, an active participant

dova were concentrated in the hands of a few large

in the CEED II program, won two gold medals and two

state-owned enterprises. Since independence, the

silvers at the Festival of European Wines and Enotour-

industry has been largely privatized, and today only

ism, held in Oeiras, Portugal.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

81

Meanwhile, EU support for Moldova’s wine industry

[Vilnius] summit and the signing of the association

has been centered largely on a $100 million line of credit

agreement,” Hill, the former OSCE head in Moldova,

from the EU’s European Investment Bank, plus a much

says. (In a similar move the following year, Russia

smaller technical-assistance program funded by the Dutch

also banned Moldovan apples, another key export, in

government. Moldova and the European Union have also

an attempt to turn farmers against the government

now established a “deep and comprehensive free trade

just ahead of parliamentary elections. The vote in

area,” which has made it easier for Moldova to export

the country’s north, where apples are grown, ended

many goods, including wine, into the rest of Europe.

up falling heavily in favor of Moldova’s pro-Russian Party of Socialists.)

IN SPITE OF THESE RELATIVE SUCCESSES, RUSSIA’S

Nevertheless, Moldova agreed to ratify an associa-

second wine ban came down in September 2013,

tion agreement with the EU in Vilnius; Ukraine fate-

exposing yet again the vulnerabilities of Moldova

fully did not. (Kiev’s new government eventually did

and its wine industry. As before, Russian officials

sign an agreement in June 2014.) Though Moldova

were very careful not to explicitly link the move to any

hasn’t been plunged into violence by Russian-backed

aspect of Moldova’s foreign policy. Gennady Onish-

separatists as its neighbor has, it has hardly survived

chenko, the head of Russia’s public health authority,

unscathed. Moldova has lost around one-third of

said only that impurities had been found in the wine:

its wine market—a significant improvement from

“We don’t intend to act as a nanny for the Moldovan

the nearly two-thirds loss in 2006, thanks in part to

economy.… The ban is a necessary step that we have

CEED, but devastating nonetheless. Russia’s actions

undertaken reluctantly, but it is the only possible way

have even jeopardized Moldova’s traditionally sec-

of solving the present situation.” (Subsequent tests by

ond-largest wine market in Ukraine. “The Donbass

the Moldovan government could find no evidence of

[area of eastern Ukraine], where the fighting is tak-

such contamination.)

ing place, is Ukraine’s wealthiest region outside of

But the wine ban didn’t emerge from a vacuum. From 2006 to 2013, in step with USAID’s efforts to

82

Kiev,” Castel Mimi’s Frolov says. “And there’s no selling there anymore.”

reform Moldova’s wine industry, the country had

The ban couldn’t have come at a worse time for

drawn ever closer to the EU, with visa facilitation in

the Moldovan economy. Adrian Lupusor, director of

2007 and more formal labor, migration, and travel

the Chisinau-based think tank Expert-Grup, predicts

agreements in 2008. The real turning point came in

the economy will stagnate this year, after expanding

April 2009, when mass protests erupted over allega-

4.6 percent in 2014. In a now-infamous banking scan-

tions that Moldova’s then-ruling Party of Communists

dal, around $1 billion disappeared in November 2014

had rigged parliamentary elections earlier that month.

from the three largest domestic banks, equivalent to

The demonstrations eventually brought to power a

more than one-fifth of the country’s GDP at current

coalition of four pro-European parties. While the new

exchange rates. As of June, the Moldovan currency had

leadership was wary of antagonizing Moscow, it put

lost roughly 30 percent of its value since that scandal.

at the forefront of Moldova’s foreign policy European

Moscow, though, may be showing signs of eas-

integration and the signing of an association agree-

ing its punishment—at least in the more Rus-

ment with the EU that would bring the country eco-

sia-friendly parts of Moldova. In May, it partially

nomically and politically directly into Brussels’s orbit.

relaxed the ban for a handful of winemakers in the

Russia, unsurprisingly, was deeply critical of the

autonomous Gagauzia region, in Moldova’s south,

shift. Referring to the protests after the disputed 2009

after Russia’s public health agency announced that

vote, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov used excep-

tests showed those wines again complied with its

tionally harsh language, describing the protesters

standards. To observers in Chisinau, it wasn’t clear

as “pogrom-makers” set on destroying the country.

whether the move heralded a wider rollback or was

So the timing of the wine ban, just two months

simply a reward for Gagauzia’s behavior: In April,

ahead of when both Moldova and Ukraine were set

the area’s 160,000 residents elected a stridently pro-

to sign formal association agreements with the EU

Moscow lawyer, Irina Vlah, as regional governor.

in Vilnius, Lithuania, left little doubt that Russia was

And in a 2014 referendum, 98 percent voted in favor

again up to its old tricks. “They were trying to put

of integrating with a Russian-led customs union.

pressure on the Moldovan government ahead of the

It’s no accident that the Kremlin excluded more

JULY | AUGUST 2015

Workers put labels and authenticity stamps on bottles of wine at a vineyard near Chisinau.

Western-leaning areas of Moldova, but it’s uncer-

are convinced by the strategy of producing higher-

tain whether this political jockeying will persuade

quality, smaller-batch wine for Western markets but

the rest of the country to follow Gagauzia’s example.

admits that wineries would welcome a lifting of the

OLEG NIKISHIN/KOMMERSANT PHOTO VIA GETTY IMAGES

ban. “Of course,” she says, “they want to sell their WHILE RUSSIA CONTINUES TO TOY WITH THE

wines on the Russian market again.” A repeal of the

Moldovan economy’s largest sectors, the general pop-

ban would lead to an immediate injection of cash for

ulation, it seems, blames its own government, not

many Moldovan wineries, including Castel Mimi,

Moscow, for the fiscal woes. “Things like the bank-

which in addition to bottled wines makes wine distil-

ing scandal,” Hill says, “very much play into Russia’s

lates used in brandies that are popular with Russian

hands.” Moldovans think, he explains, that “if this is

consumers and that were also affected by the ban. But

democracy, let’s go east.” A public opinion poll con-

there’s always the danger that some wineries could

ducted in the spring by the Chisinau-based Institute for

fall back into their old bad habit of depending on the

Sociological and Marketing Research, in fact, showed

unpredictable market to its east.

a 3-to-2 majority of the population favoring Moldova’s

In the meantime, Moldova’s winemakers continue

membership in the Russian-led Eurasian Economic

to hope for the best—and to look for a way out of

Union over joining the EU. Moreover, the Party of

this geopolitical tug of war. “We were so hopeful in

Socialists has emerged as the single largest party in

2009 with the democracy movement,” Castel Mimi’s

Parliament and a force on the political landscape.

Frolov says. “Now we are simply tired of politics and

This Eastern-looking shift comes during a lull in

are losing faith in the country.”

Q

Western assistance for the wine industry as CEED II formally ended in June. In theory, the program has

MARK BAKER (@markbakerprague) is a Prague-based

left Moldovan winemakers with a clear path forward,

writer and has authored numerous guidebooks

but the real test may be whether Russia does in fact lift

on Central and Eastern Europe for Lonely Planet,

the wine ban wholesale. Lazar says that winemakers

Frommer’s, and Fodor’s.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

83

By Thomas Stackpole | Photos by Jared P. Moossy

Operation Underground Railroad, a small Mormon-led group, is going undercover to rescue kids from sex trafficking. But is its brand of salvation working?

just under Paul’s nose, their faces hidden behind balaclavas. “You’re working with the cops, are ya, Mario?” Brian yells as he drops to the ground. “You’re fired. You’re all fired!” Stone-faced, Mario slips out of his chair and slithers belly down. A policeman grabs his arm and drags him into the middle of the grass before searching him. The teenage girls, now lying on the floor of the living room where they’d been left, put their hands over their heads. One begins to cry quietly. A female social worker cooperating with the cops arrives at their side, cooing that they’re not in trouble. Their grotesque fun over, the Americans are led uncuffed into a ground-floor a warm morning in March, an American man named Paul stands on the balcony of a sprawl-

room of the house. Plucked from his perch,

ing stucco mansion in Acapulco, Mexico. In the distance, the spring sun glimmers on the

Paul is among the last hauled inside. “So

city’s harbor, nestled among iconic white beaches and lush peaks. Acapulco is quiet—rel-

this is where they’re going to interrogate

atively speaking anyway. Caught in the cross-hairs of the country’s gruesome drug war, a

us?” he asks.

city that once bustled with cruise ships and spring-breakers now has the ignominious distinction of being Mexico’s murder capital: 590 people were killed there in 2014.

But it’s a deadpan question. Paul smiles, and some of the other Americans laugh.

The co-founder of a multibillion-dollar real estate investment fund, Paul is on the

The mood in the room quickly loosens.

cusp of middle age. His short, graying hair is thick with gel, and he wears a pale blue

Everything in the sting, the men agree,

shirt, sunglasses, and a Bentley-edition Breitling watch. He has come south of the bor-

went according to plan. “Oh, man, did you

der to take advantage of Acapulco’s seedy underbelly. He isn’t after property or drugs,

see Mario’s face?” Brian asks. “These guys

however. He’s looking for sex with underage girls.

are going to jail for a long time.”

Down below, a dozen other gringos are scattered around the mansion’s pristine infin-

Not a security guard at all, Brian is really

ity pool. A mix of associates and Paul’s imposing security detail—hulking ex-military

named Tim Ballard. He’s the founder of

types in Oakley shades—they sip beers and chew on cigars. On the balcony’s railing,

Operation Underground Railroad (OUR),

Paul carefully props an iPhone against a wine bottle so that he can look at the live visage

a U.S.-based organization that goes under-

of a friend in Silicon Valley, beamed in on FaceTime to watch the lurid show. “I have to

cover to rescue children forced into the sex

apologize,” Paul says. “There are only two girls coming.”

trade. The Acapulco trip was the group’s

A little after midday, the girls arrive. They have long, dark hair and are squeezed into

first foray into Mexico. In total, three peo-

strapless dresses. Leading them into the backyard is Mario, their squat, grim pimp. Men

ple, including Mario, were arrested; they

around the pool shout, “Hey, hey, Super Ma-ri-ooo!”

face prison sentences of up to 25 years,

The girls greet the gringos with cheek kisses and totter in stilettos into an airy liv-

according to OUR.

ing room next to the lawn. There, a thick-armed security guard with a drooping blond

Paul, a member of the OUR team who

mustache introduces himself as Brian and expresses some concerns to the pimp: Paul

keeps his real identity private to protect

and his entourage got some young girls a few months ago, Brian explains, but when the

his cover, holds up his phone: “It was awe-

boss started touching them, they flipped out. “If it happens again, I’m fired,” he says.

some,” proclaims the disembodied voice

“So are these girls going to do everything?” Anal sex, Mario answers, “depends on how

from Silicon Valley. An executive at a major

big” Paul is. But he insists the girls are game. Brian turns to one of them and asks how

technology firm—OUR won’t provide his

old she is. “Voy a cumplir diez y seis,” she replies—almost 16.

name—the man on FaceTime had donated

At a wrought-iron patio table, the final details are hashed out as Paul and the Silicon Valley voyeur watch from above: $1,000 for the girls—half up front, half after the sex—plus a tip for Mario’s troubles. “You’re just like us,” Brian tells the pimp. “You’re not afraid to get a little dirty from time to time.”

the money needed to set up the operation. “Let’s fund another,” he says. “This is going to end—and I’m not lying—in the rescue of thousands and

When two flashbangs explode in the street outside the mansion, the pops echo dully

thousands,” Ballard rhapsodizes, still

around the pool. For a moment, no one really seems to notice. But then more than two

wearing his fake blond mustache. With-

dozen police officers in black SWAT gear come pouring into the yard. “Abajo! Get down!”

out it, he’s the epitome of the all-American

they yell, their assault rifles raised. A second column swarms in from a side entrance

man: tanned and fit, with bright blue eyes.

86

JULY | AUGUST 2015

“[The Mexican police] just learned how to

weak,” according to a report by the U.N.

do something.”

Office on Drugs and Crime.

After Mario and the girls have been

Efforts to eliminate sex trafficking have

removed from the mansion, the Americans

enjoyed prominent backing in the United

pile into police trucks queued up to take

States for about 20 years, ever since strange

them to Acapulco’s airport. A loaned private

bedfellows—feminists who opposed sex

plane is waiting on the runway. Ballard and

work, politicians from both political par-

Paul are due at a dinner in León hosted by

ties, and right-wing Christians—rallied

former Mexican President Vicente Fox, and

behind the cause of defeating modern-day

they’re already running late.

slavery. In 2003, three years after Congress passed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act, which established

uman trafficking

new laws against trafficking and rights for

is one of the world’s

victims, President George W. Bush called

fastest-growing crim-

sex trafficking a “special evil” in an address

inal enterprises,

to the U.N. General Assembly.

according to the

Responding to the call for a moral cru-

United Nations. Pre-

sade, a handful of private organizations

cise figures are hard to come by, given the

has adopted what is now widely known as

inherent challenges of collecting data on

a raid-and-rescue strategy: identify where

illegal activity. But according to estimates

people are being sold for sex, send in police

from the International Labour Organi-

to haul them out, and arrest traffickers.

zation (ILO), trafficking is a $150 billion

Among the groups using this method is

industry affecting 20.9 million people

the International Justice Mission (IJM), a

worldwide, nearly a quarter of whom are

Washington, D.C.-based Christian legal

marketed for sex.

organization with a presence in 11 devel-

The ILO estimates that 5.5 million chil-

oping countries; it claims to have rescued

dren are victims of the trafficking indus-

at least 258 people from sex trafficking and

try, and many are sexually exploited. Some

abuse in 2014 alone. The FBI uses the same

young people are held or live in brothels,

model and says its busts have saved more

while others are forced into the hands of

than 3,600 trafficked children since 2003.

international criminal rings; still more are

OUR is a new entrant in this field. Ballard

marketed by relatives seeking cash. What

was a U.S. government agent for a dozen

typically unites their stories is poverty. Pimps or networks of traffickers usually target people who are “poor, isolated and

years, including a stint at the Department Police raid an OUR party in the Dominican Republic.

of Homeland Security (DHS), for which he posed as a pedophile to infiltrate child-trafficking rings. But he became frustrated with red tape. While working abroad, Ballard says, “I could find children who were being sold into the sex trade, but if there was no U.S. nexus”—if the case would never land in a U.S. courtroom for jurisdictional or other reasons—“I couldn’t pursue it.” So in 2013 he struck out on his own and formed OUR, a small group of independent operatives who could set up stings anywhere in the world. Ballard’s Mormon faith also heavily influences his work. “The other option was to face my maker one day and tell him why I didn’t do it,” he says of his decision to start combating crimes against children. Ballard insists that religious belief isn’t a

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

87

requirement to join OUR but notes that the staff members often pray together. If someone isn’t “comfortable praying,” he says, “they’re not going to be comfortable working with us.” (In a February interview with LDS Living magazine, Ballard was more candid about his faith: He said he launched OUR after being instructed by God to “find the lost children.”) Today, OUR has a full-time staff of 12 people and a stable of trained volunteers, most of them Mormon. They include former military and intelligence officers, nurses and Army medics, cops and martial arts instructors. From small offices in Salt Lake City, Dallas, and Anaheim, California, OUR has coordinated more than a dozen raids in Latin America and the Caribbean. It claims to have saved at least 250 trafficking victims, including 123—55 of whom were children— in three stings coordinated across Colombia last October. Simultaneously, OUR is making a public splash by amplifying the drama of its tactics and the ways people can support the group’s cause without ever busting into a brothel.

The night before the raid in the Dominican Republic, Dutch Turley points at a ledger that documents how many girls each trafficker plans to bring to the party (left); Turley, a former Navy SEAL, does crossfit (right).

A documentary movie, called The Abolitionists, has been screened privately in select U.S. theaters, and a proposed TV series about OUR is currently being filmed. The organization’s “give a Lincoln, save a slave” campaign, which like the term “underground railroad” conjures noble notions of 1800s anti-slavery efforts, asks people to become

our days after the

“abolitionists” by giving $5 a month. Supporters can sign up to receive text-message

Acapulco bust, Ballard

alerts “when children are saved.” If they’re big funders, they can get front-row seats: The

is sitting on a plastic

tech executive watching the Acapulco operation gave more than $40,000.

lawn chair on a beach in Sosúa, a town on the

As of this writing, OUR has 229,000 likes on its Facebook page, 3,000 more than the veteran IJM has. According to Jerry Gowen, OUR’s chief operating officer, the organiza-

Dominican Republic’s

tion has raised almost $5 million since its founding less than two years ago. Celebrities,

north shore. It’s late morning, and behind

many of whom are Mormon, are getting on board too. The Walking Dead star Laurie

him is a strip of tourist restaurants and

Holden and Dancing With the Stars’ Chelsie Hightower have participated in raids.

tchotchke shops. On another chair nearby,

Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes went undercover with the group. This March, OUR

Dutch Turley, a 6-foot-3-inch, 230-pound

announced its merger with the Elizabeth Smart Foundation, a child-protection NGO

former Navy SEAL, is getting a $10 pedi-

run by the family of the young Mormon woman famously kidnapped in Utah when she

cure from a woman with dyed red hair who

was just 14 and held in captivity for nine months.

carries a small nail kit in a bucket up and

OUR and its growing network of backers are nothing if not committed and well inten-

down the beach.

tioned. But do their chosen methods actually work? The answer is anything but clear-cut.

The lazy scene belies an early step in

Though most people can get behind fighting human trafficking, how to wage the

OUR’s next raid: The men are waiting for

war is another matter. Nor is claiming victory necessarily quick or simple. After a raid,

two young Dominican traffickers who the

there’s long-term support to consider, such as psychological care and rehabilitation for

day before had promised they could deliver

victims; this could take months, if not years. “To realize success in a lot of these cases

girls, maybe even some as young as 12.

takes a lot of time,” notes Rebecca Surtees, a senior researcher at the Nexus Institute, an international human rights research and policy organization.

When the men arrive, they’re wearing board shorts; one sports a Lakers hat. Stand-

But time, OUR argues, is exactly what children being sold for sex do not have. Getting

ing near the Caribbean surf, they tell Ballard

them out of a horrendous situation as fast as possible is the top priority. “The children

and Turley that they have pictures of the teen-

are desperately waiting for us,” Ballard testified before Congress in May, advocating

agers on offer. “I know you guys are tourists,”

that the U.S. government do more to combat trafficking. “I know. I have seen them.”

one says, “but you can’t have cameras.” It’s

Right, wrong, or flawed, this urgent mission only seems to be gaining steam. Between

too risky to let evidence leave the scene. In

February and April, OUR staged five operations in as many countries, including its first in

the end, they promise to bring 13 girls the next

Thailand. “This idea of actually doing something is very powerful,” says Anne Gallagher,

day to a party—the cover for the operation.

an expert in trafficking and an advisor to the United Nations. “It’s addictive to people.”

88

JULY | AUGUST 2015

The Sosúa sting is following OUR’s usual

pattern. The first phase is finding a govern-

children as a sting is happening, gives them

ment, in a country with high trafficking

candy, plays games—whatever is needed

rates, willing to cooperate with the group.

to keep them distracted. The film crew for

OUR’s staff members reach out to people

the TV series is in tow as well; cameramen

they know from their former lives as agents

shoot the jump team using lenses hidden

and soldiers: local police and prosecutors

in backpacks, water bottles, and sunglasses.

with whom they’re already friendly or rep-

OUR operatives walk the streets of which-

resentatives from the State Department,

ever city or town is their latest target and

FBI, or DHS who know the territory. In the

pose as potential sex customers. They go

Dominican Republic, the group secured a

to bars, talk to hustlers, explain that they’re

memorandum of understanding with fed-

throwing a party and want to cut a deal that

eral police before getting to work.

will satisfy their boss’s desires. Sometimes

That work is done by what OUR calls

Paul himself goes looking for traffickers;

its “jump team.” Ballard coordinates trips

he throws money around, buys strang-

and inhabits fake identities as needed. Paul

ers drinks, and telegraphs that he wants

plays the moneyman; lest anyone ques-

particularly exotic partners—meaning,

tion him, he has created a false, elaborate

underage girls. (The group is careful not to

identity online, complete with a Facebook

entrap potential targets.)

profile boasting pictures of yachts and pri-

In Sosúa, the jump team has trolled

vate jets to advertise his lavish playboy life.

beaches and the local red-light district,

Turley handles tactical details—who goes

thick with frumpy Americans and Euro-

where and when during raids—and can

peans in town for sex. “Some guy will almost

act as muscle if necessary. Matt Osborne,

always come up to you and ask you if you

OUR’s senior vice president for rescue and

want something,” Ballard says. “‘You look-

rehabilitation, acts as the main liaison with

ing for some smoke? Maybe a girl?’” One

local law enforcement. Then there’s Krista

woman at a roadside restaurant even offered

Rykert, a tall, blond CrossFit instructor and

her daughter, who she claimed was 17, and

gym owner from a Salt Lake City suburb

five of her friends. (The age of consent in the

who plays the “groomer”: She talks to the

Dominican Republic is 18.) Wearing tank

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

89

tops and heavy makeup, the girls smiled at

message from an undercover Dominican cop

Osborne as he pretended to check them out.

working alongside OUR when Ballard shouts

The goal is to get as many children as

the words, “Bring in the wine!”

possible to the site of a bust. By the night

The prosecutor, who will ultimately try

before OUR’s party in Sosúa, seven people,

the case against the people arrested, is sat-

including the young men from the beach,

isfied. “Remind everyone to keep straight

have said they can bring more than 26 girls

faces,” admonishes a contact from the

for Paul and his friends.

U.S. Embassy who has come to survey the

OUR has rented two houses—one for

setup. The mission is a go.

the faux celebration, the other across the street as a hideout for cops. Both are modern, all stone and glass, and sit in a tony,

UR says its method

gated community a short drive from the

of collaborating with

beach. The documentary crew carefully

l aw e n f o r c e m e n t

places more than 20 cameras throughout

and luring traffickers

the party house. (Police often use this foot-

works like a charm. At

age as legal evidence.) Some $7,000 in cash

a $200-per-plate gala

is meticulously laid out on a bed and pho-

in Washington, D.C., last November, Ballard

tographed before being divided into enve-

regaled more than 260 guests with success

lopes for each trafficker.

stories. Wearing a dark suit and a slightly too

For final preparations, police officers and

wide red necktie, he told the crowd at the

members of the local prosecutor’s office stop

JW Marriott, “I don’t care about borders and

by. The logistics are explained: Some police

boundaries when they’re kids.” A teaser for

officers will come in through the driveway,

The Abolitionists played. OUR makes slam-

while others will enter a side door by the

dunk cases, Ballard’s voice-over explained,

kitchen. The cues for storming will be a text

and then ensures they’re “delivered to [law

90

JULY | AUGUST 2015

enforcement] on a silver platter.” The gala

ally improve lives—and that they often

deals with the police to keep using; at least

raised more than $150,000.

do the opposite. “The appeal of the res-

a dozen ran away and returned to broth-

Critics, however, are quick to pick apart

cue is that it’s a happy ending,” says Janie

els. “You hear about the raid, but you don’t

claims of triumph, as they have been

Chuang, who teaches courses on traffick-

hear a lot about the safe houses, the rehab

since the advent of raid and rescue. IJM

ing at American University’s Washington

process,” says Gretchen Soderlund, a pro-

largely pioneered the field in the early

College of Law. “But it’s not. It’s a really

fessor at the University of Oregon who

2000s when it conducted high-profile

hard life.”

studies trafficking.

stings across Southeast Asia; during a

In some cases, victims are quickly

Sometimes, the consequences can be

March 2003 bust in Cambodia, journal-

cut loose because governments lack the

even worse. In the same investigation,

ists from Dateline tagged along to pro-

resources or concern to assist them. Others

the Nation learned that IJM didn’t track

duce a widely watched segment called

choose to leave protective services; some-

minors rescued in Thailand, including

“Children for Sale.” Later, in 2011, IJM

times they fear that authorities will abuse

young girls from Myanmar who subse-

took New York Times’ columnist Nicho-

them or that traffickers will do the same

quently may have been deported back to

las Kristof along for an operation in India.

to their families. (This is to say nothing of

their oppressive homeland. It also found

IJM’s approach quickly gained acolytes.

rescued adults who weren’t trafficked at

that busts in Cambodia disrupted health

An Internet search reveals numerous raid-

all but had chosen to be sex workers, a dis-

NGOs’ efforts to educate women and girls

and-rescue groups with names like Des-

tinction that raid groups often fail to make.)

in brothels about HIV; pimps believed

tiny Rescue and The Exodus Road. “The

Mother Jones found in 2003 that girls and

the groups had aided IJM and no longer

undercover and mass-mediated model of

women saved in an IJM bust in Thailand

wanted them providing care.

activism that IJM propounds has become

were “locked into two rooms of an orphan-

Holly Burkhalter, IJM’s vice president

the emulated standard,” Barnard College

age by Public Welfare authorities” and were

of government relations and advocacy,

professor Elizabeth Bernstein, a promi-

allowed outside for only one hour each day.

shot back in 2012 in the Anti-Trafficking

nent critic of raids, has written.

Following up on the operation featured

Review, “This view suggests that there is

Detractors, including many health and

on Dateline, the Nation reported in 2009

some level of backlash by brothel owners

human rights advocates, argue that stings

that some of the rescued children were

against health workers that would justify

are only as good as their ability to actu-

addicted to intravenous drugs and made

leaving the children to their fate.” Critics, she added, “have not offered any alternative to police operations to apprehend per-

Tim Ballard speaks on the phone at the sting house in the Dominican Republic (left); cameras are used to document OUR raids (below).

petrators and bring them to justice. That is because there are none.” Still, IJM has tweaked its approach over time. “It’s not just a … drop-in to get a couple of children out of a brothel and then leave. We did that in the early days,” Burkhalter said in an interview with FOREIGN POLICY. IJM now sets up offices in countries where it works—it recently opened one in the Dominican Republic—and places greater emphasis on training police and building the capacity of judicial and social-service systems. “We want to walk away from the image of the Western superhero going into places of darkness to rescue … the little girl,” says Pablo Villeda, IJM’s vice president of regional operations for Latin America. Ballard knows the criticisms that have plagued other raid-and-rescue outfits, and he is wary of OUR being characterized as a group of vigilantes. He insists that his organization has strong relationships with its police partners and that its missions are intended to set examples for future stings. OUR is also developing software that could

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

91

flag international travelers whose computers are known to have downloaded child pornography—a tool that could help foreign officials intervene before customers even get to traffickers. Still, the organization has opened itself to plenty of reproaches. Busts, Soderlund says, are “very strategic events that are almost tailor-made for the media.” OUR has embraced this notion, using the Internet, television, and film to push a slaveto-saved narrative. But Chuang says this story is an oversimplification that “just seems to be glorifying the savior.” She also worries that flashy campaigns divert donor funding from “the mundane work that needs to be done on the prevention side” of the trafficking equation—a concern shared by Randy Newcomb, president and CEO of the San Francisco-based philanthropy Humanity United, who wrote in the Anti-Trafficking Review in 2014 that donors’ desire for visible results has had “the unintended consequence of growing the capacity of only a select group of organisations that may, in fact, be more successful at marketing and far less successful at actually ending trafficking.” Unlike IJM, OUR doesn’t have plans to shift from its parachute approach. “We really feel like we’re not in the buildinghomes business,” says Gowen, OUR’s chief operating officer, referring to planting roots

n the day of the

in foreign locales. “That’s not our … core competency.” This isn’t to say that the group

Dominican raid,

isn’t concerned with aftercare: OUR routinely links up with local entities that can assist

a bevy of teenage

the children gathered during raids and says it is hoping, with resources from the Eliza-

girls arrives in a

beth Smart Foundation, to provide these groups with a best-practices guide and funding.

caravan of vans,

This model, however, doesn’t always work. In 2014, after OUR’s first operation in

shuttle buses, and

the Dominican Republic, a local organization called the National Council for Children

SUVs at the house rented for the fake

and Adolescents (CONANI when abbreviated in Spanish) quickly discovered it didn’t

party. Some have come from as far as

have the capacity to handle the 26 girls rescued. They were released in less than a week.

Santo Domingo, the Dominican Repub-

Some still went on to testify against the men arrested in the sting—as of press time, a

lic’s capital; the city sits 125 miles away,

verdict had yet to be delivered in the case—but CONANI lost track of others. “The influx

on the country’s opposite coast. Wearing

of a large number of victims at once is very challenging to the social-service side,” says

colorful dresses, the girls stand around the

Fernando Rodriguez, IJM’s field office director in the Dominican Republic. (IJM has

backyard pool, chatting nervously. At one

coordinated with OUR on two raids.) “To some degree, it is potentially a disservice and

point, all of them start singing. Rykert,

creates more problems than it would solve.”

the OUR groomer, has told them it’s her

Sometimes, OUR takes matters into its own hands. After the Acapulco bust, which

birthday—a way to keep the girls busy as,

was much smaller than anticipated—and one of the two girls saved turned out not

behind sliding glass doors, other opera-

to be a minor—OUR decided to take care of the almost-16-year-old’s financial needs.

tives negotiate the day’s deal. To further

She was placed at a shelter in Mexico City and “wants to be a beautician,” Osborne

the lie, the deck has been decorated with

says, estimating that OUR will provide $20,000 raised over the next few years for her

pink and yellow balloons, and the gringos

care and education. “In the small rescues you don’t get as many,” he explains, “but

saunter around drinking Red Bull poured

you can really, really make a difference in the life of this girl.”

into Presidente beer bottles.

92

JULY | AUGUST 2015

has to get to the airport to make a meeting back in the United States. “Can we get a quick wrap-up?” asks one of the cameramen as OUR’s founder grabs his bags. “Some of [the girls] were crying on the way here,” Ballard says to a camera before pulling off his hidden wire. “These were truly, truly kids being trafficked.” A few members of the OUR team stay behind, planning to lay low for the night at one of the tawdry all-inclusive resorts that dot the Dominican Republic. They drive away from the house not long after Ballard, in the vehicles that brought the girls to the house. The teenagers have all been taken to CONANI and been given access to IJM psychologists. A few hours after the raid, OUR’s Twitter feed boasts: JUST IN UNOFFICIAL NUMBERS: 29 SAVED 6 ARRESTED YOUNGEST AGE: 13 Less than three weeks later, the girls are released to their families on a judge’s order—well short of the three months of targeted care the rehabilitation organizations had hoped to provide. IJM’s Villeda claimed in an interview with Rykert towers over the teenagers, her wrestler-size arms stretching out of a

Dominican police arrest alleged traffickers and OUR members during a raid.

FOREIGN POLICY that his group asked OUR to consider a smaller operation “knowing

cobalt-blue tank top. She hams it up, con-

that the Dominican government didn’t

ducting the singing with her hands: “Cum-

have the capacity to house the number of

pleaños feliz!” The chorus peaks in an off-key

victims that they were expecting to rescue.”

“Deseamos Mariaaaaa”—the fake name

OUR, however, insists it was the govern-

Rykert is using—“cumpleaños feliz!” The

ment’s call. “Were there too many that were

girls, gathered in an arc, burst into applause.

brought? Perhaps,” Ballard said in a phone

As the teenagers and Rykert take selfies,

interview in June. “But that’s the number

Ballard, Turley, Osborne, and undercover

that the Dominicans wanted.”

Dominican police hand the traffickers

He also detailed his plans for his group’s

the cash. “Vino!” Ballard yells to his asso-

future. “It’s not just a bunch of sex parties,”

ciates, as one of the cops shoots off the

he explained. “It’s going to be raids on broth-

text-message signal.

els; it’s going to be buying one kid on the

What happens next is much the same as

beach from one trafficker … [and] military-

in Acapulco. The Americans pretend to be

style raids on a slave-labor camp.” OUR, in

shocked as the cops rush in. The teenagers

other words, is just getting started.

Q

begin to cry. The traffickers, who had been grinning at their good luck, turn dumb-

THOMAS STACKPOLE (@tom_stackpole) is an

struck. Afterward, the Americans and the

assistant editor at FOREIGN POLICY. He

police congratulate each other, but the cel-

embedded with OUR operations in Mex-

ebration is once again short-lived: Ballard

ico and the Dominican Republic.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

93

GLENN DENNING

SURESH NAIDU

JEFFREY SACHS

MERIT E. JANOW

DOUGLAS ALMOND

ESTER R. FUCHS

BEN S. ORLOVE

Columbia SIPA Where the World Connects With a rigorous curriculum that teaches core analytic skills and offers six practical, career-oriented concentration areas, SIPA prepares the next generation of world leaders to address critical issues. sipa.columbia.edu

MAPPA MUNDI

NATIONAL SECURITY

ECONOMICS

ENERGY

Today’s macroeconomists will never be able to compete with the coming big-data revolution. | P. 96

Could the justification for the NSA’s mass surveillance program be rooted in a lie? | P. 98

Singapore grew its economy large by starting small. Why a liberalizing Cuba should do the same. | P. 104

Climate change is remaking more than geography. Just look to the South China Sea. | P. 106

Illustration by GEL JAMLANG

BOOKS  CULTURE

“Trash cooking,” Australian wagyu, and other foods on the newest front line of soft diplomacy. | P. 108

THE FIXER

Waqar Gillani on the best places to eat daal and spot famous cricket players in Lahore. | P. 110

mappa mundi by DAVID ROTHKOPF

Requiem for the Macrosaurus The beginning of the end of the Jurassic Period of economics.

This summer’s biggest movie is Jurassic World. Apparently, people have an endless appetite for dinosaurs, which could also explain much about the popularity of Flintstones vitamins or, for that matter, Vladimir Putin. Fortunately for these people, there remain dinosaurs among us who are producing mayhem on a scale unimagined by even Hollywood’s CGI wizards. ¶ We call them economists. ¶ The term may initially evoke visions of kindly bespectacled wonks droning on about arcane theories or perhaps government big shots mumbling unintelligibly before Congress. But we know better: These are powerful women and men. They have made giant policy decisions that have affected the lives of billions, often while working behind closed doors with data and on strategies that few understand and fewer still believe in.

96

JULY | AUGUST 2015

Economics has long been known as the dismal science. Thomas Malthus, a cleric who also wrote about economics, has become the poster child used by many to illustrate the rationale behind this label. (Thomas Carlyle actually first coined the term in reference to the study of the business of slavery.) In the very last years of the 18th century, Malthus posited the argument that population growth would ultimately derail human society’s efforts to perfect itself. “[T]he power of population is,” he wrote, “indefinitely greater than the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.” It is indeed a grim prognosis. But it highlights another reason economics might be seen as dismal: that is, just how off the mark its predictions can be. Being wrong has long been a special curse of economists. You might not think this would be the case in a so-called “science.” But, of course, all sciences struggle in those early years before scientists have enough data to support theories that can reflect and predict what actually happens in nature. Scientists from Galileo to

Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

OBSERVATION DECK

today, has roughly the same relationship to the size of the economy as estimates of the number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin do to the size of heaven. It misses vast

panies, investors, and citizens require, but

amounts of economic activity and counts

are better equipped to work with the local pri-

some things as value creation that aren’t at

vate sector in real time to solve those issues.

all. Even the guy who pioneered the idea in

New economic theories will also emerge

Einstein have offered great discoveries but,

the 1930s, Simon Kuznets, warned against

based on growing sources of real-time data

due to the limits of their age, have labored

using it as the prime measure of national

about every aspect of markets and the fac-

under gross misconceptions. And in econom-

economic well-being. Trade data, such as

tors affecting them—and new, ever more

ics we are hardly in the era of Galileo quite

that used in measuring national surpluses

powerful tools will be created for analyzing

yet. It is more like we are somewhere in the

and deficits, misses a big chunk of trade in

that data. Some will relate to the fact that

Middle Ages, where, based on some care-

services and much Internet activity, among

soon money as we know it will be replaced

ful observation of the universe and a really

many other swaths of trade—and is widely

by alternative bit-based and mobile-

inadequate view of the scope and nature

reported inaccurately. Labor statistics, such

payment systems, knocking old-school mon-

of that universe, we have produced proto-

as unemployment rates, are cooked and

etary policies for a loop. Others will have to

science—also known today as crackpottery.

deceptive. The list goes on. The reality is

do with the new ways we not only create jobs,

(See long-standing views that the Earth was

that only two things are known about most

but define work. There may ultimately be a

the center of the solar system or the belief

of the data that policymakers use to make

need to revisit the issue of the redistribution

that bleeding patients would cure them by

decisions: It is late and it is wrong.

of wealth as big companies harness capital,

ridding them of their “bad humors.”)

But today the world stands at the dawn of a

technology, and data to grow rich—but in

Modern economic approaches, theo-

new era thanks to the advent of big data and

so doing, benefit comparatively few inves-

ries, and techniques, the ones that policy-

enhanced computing power. Already there

tors and employees, while displacing many.

makers fret over and to which newspapers

exist data flows that will show economic fluc-

Just as the 20th century saw the advent of

devote barrels of ink, will someday be seen as

tuations in real time and down to an incredi-

the weekend, the hyperproductivity of the

similarly primitive. For example, economic

ble level of detail: by community, by block, by

intelligent-technology-empowered 21st

policymakers regularly use gross estimates

family, by business, by however you want to

century might see labor demand fall and

of national and international economic

slice it. The world will also be able to find cor-

four- or three-day weeks become the norm.

performances—largely aggregated measures

relations never before imagined. Old ideas,

Taxation will transform as methods by which

based on data and models that are some-

like tracking national economic performance

we track activity and levy fees within the

where between profoundly flawed and crazy

based on geography, will give way to new

economy change; such processes will eas-

wrong—to assess society’s economic health,

ones, like tracking customizable groups that

ily cover more kinds of activity in real time,

before determining whether to bleed the eco-

share much closer correlations than bor-

while algorithms will constantly adjust for

nomic body politic by reducing the money

ders. There is a “you-istan” out there full of

the economic circumstances of those being

supply or to warm it up by pumping new

millions of people who act more like you,

taxed. Gradually, there will be a recognition

money into its system. Between these steps

who respond to stimuli more like you, and

that most of the economic value in the global

and regulating just how much the govern-

who rise and fall more like you than do your

economy is created and exchanged in virtual

ment spends and takes in taxes, we have just

neighbors. Next-generation economists will

rather than real space, with important con-

run through most of the commonly utilized

be able to target their actions more surgically.

sequences for the metrics and ideas we use

and discussed economic policy tools—the

Whereas today’s economic models rely on

big blunt instruments of macroeconomics.

a relative handful of variables, future mod-

Indeed, tomorrow’s economics will be

I remember that when I was in govern-

els will be able to utilize a limitless number,

so unlike that of today’s that it might just

ment, those of us who dealt with trade

creating opportunities for policymakers to

take a Hollywood device—like a mosquito

policy or commercial issues were seen as

develop new tools. Many of these new mod-

preserved in amber, carrying, for example,

pipsqueaks in the economic scheme of

els and tools will require not the insights

the blood of Alan Greenspan, from which

things by all the macrosauruses beneath

of microeconomists, but those of nano-

viable DNA can re-create this macrosau-

whose feet the earth trembled, whose

economists, superspecialists in the relation-

rus—for future generations to fully grasp

pronouncements echoed within the can-

ship between much smaller economic units

the Jurassic Period economic thinking and

yons of financial capitals, and who felt

and the larger economy as a whole. Economic

approaches that have governed and guided

everything we and anyone else did was

policymaking will therefore devolve from

our daily lives.

playing at the margins.

central governments to state and local gov-

for measuring that value.

Q

But think of the data on which those deci-

ernments, which are not only closer to the

DAVID ROTHKOPF (@djrothkopf) is CEO and

sions were based. GDP, as it is calculated

issues and the solutions that workers, com-

editor of the FP Group.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

97

national security by JAMES BAMFORD

Missed Calls Is the NSA lying about its failure to prevent 9/11?

On March 20, 2000, as part of a trip to South Asia, U.S. President Bill Clinton was scheduled to land his helicopter in the desperately poor village of Joypura, Bangladesh, and speak to locals under a 150-year-old banyan tree. At the last minute, though, the visit was canceled; U.S. intelligence agencies had discovered an assassination plot. In a lengthy email, London-based members of the International Islamic Front for Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders, a terrorist group established by Osama bin Laden, urged al Qaeda supporters to “Send Clinton Back in a Coffin” by firing a shoulder-launched missile at the president’s chopper. ¶ The same day that Clinton was supposed to visit Joypura, the phone rang at bin Laden’s operations center in Sanaa, Yemen. To counterterrorism specialists at the National Security Agency (NSA) in Fort Meade, Maryland, the Yemeni number—967-1-200-578—was at the pinnacle of their target list.

98

JULY | AUGUST 2015

They monitored the line 24/7. But at the time, the agency now claims, it had no technical way of knowing who was placing the call. The culprit, it would later be revealed, was Khalid al-Mihdhar, one of the men bin Laden had picked months earlier to lead the forthcoming 9/11 attacks. He was calling from his apartment in San Diego, California. The NSA knew about Mihdhar’s connection to bin Laden and had earlier linked his name with the operations center. Had they known he was now reaching out to bin Laden’s switchboard from a U.S. number, on the day an al Qaeda-linked assassination plot was planned, the agency could have legally obtained an order to tap the San Diego phone line. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, in fact, approves eavesdropping on suspected terrorists and spies in the United States. By monitoring Mihdhar’s domestic calls, the agency certainly would have discovered links to the 9/11 hijackers living on the East Coast, including Mohamed Atta.

Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

OBSERVATION DECK

from an individual already in the United States. The telephone metadata program under Section 215 [of the Patriot Act] was designed to map the communications of terrorists so we can see who they may be in contact with as quickly as possible.” But according to some former senior NSA officials, the agency did have the technical capability in 2000 to determine that the calls to bin Laden’s operations center came from California. “They’re trying to cover up the failure of the NSA,”

multiple sites, so any call coming into or out

said J. Kirk Wiebe, a former senior analyst

is hit by multiple sites and recorded, first

who worked at the NSA for 32 years, until

of all, but also transcribed as soon as [NSA

October 2001. “And I think they’re embar-

analysts] have a transcriber available,” Bin-

rassed by that.”

ney said. The signal “could go by satellite or cable, or a mix,” he said, adding that the

It’s likely, in other words, that 9/11 would have been stopped in its tracks.

THE COVERAGE OF THE OPERATIONS

center in

Yemen was what NSA veterans describe

cooperating phone companies then “would pop it right into our recorders.”

A decade and a half later, that call and

as “cast iron.” Wiebe explains: “You have

Beyond eavesdropping on satellite sig-

half a dozen others made from the San

a target so important to the system that

nals from dishes on the ground, the NSA

Diego apartment are at the center of the

you don’t ever tune a receiver away from

was also able to get inside satellites them-

heated debate over the NSA’s domestic sur-

that frequency or off of that target.” And,

selves, often through covert agreements

veillance activities—namely the agency’s

of course, every phone transmission is

with personnel of telecommunications

collection of the public’s telephone metadata, which George W. Bush’s and Barack Obama’s administrations have claimed was authorized by the 2001 Patriot Act. (That law expired this June and was replaced with the USA Freedom Act, which states that, without a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the NSA will no longer have access to telephone metadata records.)

“THEY’RE TRYING TO COVER UP THE FAILURE OF THE NSA,”

SAYS A FORMER SENIOR NSA ANALYST. “AND I THINK THEY’RE EMBARRASSED BY THAT.”

According to Michael Hayden, the NSA’s director from 1999 to 2005, the failure to realize that the man phoning Sanaa was located in San Diego was evidence that

automatically accompanied by informa-

companies and occasionally without the

mass surveillance is vital to U.S. national

tion required to charge the correct phone

knowledge of upper management. With

security. “Nothing in the physics of the

companies. “You know the phone numbers

access to satellites, the NSA could pick and

intercept, nothing in the content of the

involved, who’s making the phone call, and

choose what country codes, city codes, and

call, told us they were in San Diego,”

who it’s going to because the billing system

specific phone numbers it wanted to inter-

Hayden told Frontline in 2014. “If we’d

has to have that metadata to charge you,”

cept and secretly transmit information to

had the metadata program … those num-

Wiebe notes. All that was required to track

an agency facility.

bers in San Diego would have popped up.”

a number of interest, in short, was access to

According to another high-ranking NSA

It’s a sentiment shared by a host of

phone companies’ records or technology.

veteran who asked not to be named, among

national leaders, including President

During a private lunch in Washington,

the businesses with which the agency had

Obama. “One of the 9/11 hijackers, Khalid

former NSA Senior Executive Service mem-

relationships was Inmarsat, a satellite tele-

al-Mihdhar, made a phone call from San

ber William Binney, who was in charge

com company whose services bin Laden

Diego to a known al Qaeda safe house in

of automating the agency’s worldwide

had used to communicate with contacts

Yemen,” he said in a 2014 speech at the Jus-

eavesdropping operations, detailed how

while in Afghanistan. “It’s Inmarsat for

tice Department. “NSA saw that call, but

interception worked. “When you have a

Christ’s sake. We have certain arrange-

it could not see that the call was coming

[cast-iron] number like that, it’s tasked at

ments,” the former NSA staffer said,

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

99

national security

OBSERVATION DECK

adding that the setup was similar to Prism, the NSA’s program in which it cooperated with major Internet companies, such as Google and Yahoo, to collect user data. The NSA, the source said, was also able to covertly eavesdrop on another major

IN AN AGENCY FILLED WITH

satellite system: Thuraya. Based in the

SECRETS, THE NSA’S FAILURE TO DETECT THE 9/11 PLOT OR HELP OTHER AGENCIES DO SO IS PROBABLY ITS DEEPEST AND DARKEST.

United Arab Emirates, Thuraya provides mobile coverage to more than 160 countries throughout Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. This company, like most others of its ilk, encrypts communications signals as they travel up to a satellite and then down to a ground station; however, the NSA cracked the encryption. “Our secret was that the Thuraya system had

The NSA, in other words, was able to

to a Senate subcommittee during a closed-

been broken for a long time—deep state

monitor every call going into and out of

door hearing. In his research, Drake dis-

secret,” the source said. “Routinely, we

the al Qaeda operations center in Yemen—

covered the transcripts of the calls from

could intercept [the satellite transmis-

including the 221 calls that came in from

Mihdhar to the Sanaa operations center.

sion] at will. We could take any number

bin Laden’s phone in Afghanistan.

“We essentially had cast-iron coverage

that was being dialed in or out … [and]

on that safe house at least since 1996.…

listen in literally live on any conversation

AFTER 9/11, THOMAS DRAKE,

a member of

People don’t realize how much NSA actu-

or after the fact.… One of the things NSA

the NSA’s Senior Executive Service, was

ally knew about the network,” he told me

became very good at was breaking satel-

assigned to provide an overview of what

during a recent dinner. “Some of the best

lite communications systems.”

the agency knew at the time of the attacks

analysts, traditionally trained analysts,

BOOKS FOR SERIOUS THOUGHT AND DISCUSSION Meeting China Halfway How to Defuse the Emerging US-China Rivalry Lyle J. Goldstein cloth, $29.95, 978-1-62616-160-3

The Global Village Myth Distance, War, and the Limits of Power

US Foreign Policy and Defense Strategy The Evolution of an Incidental Superpower Derek S. Reveron, Nikolas K. Gvosdev, and Mackubin Thomas Owens cloth, $49.95, 978-1-62616-158-0 paper, $29.95, 978-1-62616-091-0

Patrick Porter

Nuclear Authority

cloth, $49.95, 978-1-62616-193-1 paper, $29.95, 978-1-62616-192-4

The IAEA and the Absolute Weapon

Not for sale in the UK, the British Commonwealth (excluding Canada), Europe, and Africa.

cloth, $54.95, 978-1-62616-182-5 paper, $32.95, 978-1-62616-183-2

Robert L. Brown

Not for sale in Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan AVAILABLE AS EBOOKS FROM SELECT EBOOK RETAILERS.

100

JULY | AUGUST 2015

FOLLOW US @GUPRESS

Expand Your Global Reach Earn Your Master of Arts in Diplomacy – Online Norwich’s Master of Arts in Diplomacy online program can help you develop the specialized skills you’ll need to build cooperation and solve problems on an international scale. Whether your background is business, military, government VYPU[OLUVUWYVÄ[ZLJ[VY`V\»SSNHPUHUL^WLYZWLJ[P]LVU[OLJVTWSL_P[PLZVM communicating and negotiating global affairs.

It’s time to think globally. Visit diplomacy.norwich.edu/fpp VYJHSS L_[[VSLHYUTVYL

national security

OBSERVATION DECK

had essentially in early ’01 put together

the fact. Drake put this in his report for

ber if it was the up-going side to the sat-

a pretty good picture,” Drake added. (He

the subcommittee, he said, but the docu-

ellite or the down-coming side.” After

left the agency in 2007 and was later

ment was rejected by his boss at the NSA,

collecting and translating its part of the

indicted for leaking NSA documents to the

who subsequently removed him from the

intelligence, the CIA would request the

Baltimore Sun. Those charges were even-

hearing’s roster of participants.

remaining intelligence from the NSA “so

tually dismissed; I was a member of his defense team.)

Confirmation of what Drake uncovered comes from Michael Scheuer, who

we could better understand it,” he said. “But we never got it.”

When Drake heard Hayden’s denial

ran the bin Laden desk at the CIA prior

“We sent about 250 electronic mes-

that the NSA had the technical capa-

to 9/11. He knew the NSA had succeeded

sages … and not one of them was ever

bility to determine that Mihdhar was

in developing cast-iron coverage of the al

answered,” he claims. To make matters

calling from San Diego, he completely

Qaeda operations center in Yemen, but

even worse, nor did the NSA share the

disagreed. “Not true. That’s an absolute

that it refused to share the raw intelligence

information with the FBI, according to

lie,” he said. “Every number that comes

with his agency. “Inmarsat calls were very

the 9/11 Commission.

into that switchboard, if you’re cast-iron

important,” he said, “and we knew that

coverage on that switchboard, you know

because NSA had told us … not only [in]

IN AN AGENCY FILLED with secrets, the NSA’s

exactly what that number is and where

the run-up to 9/11, but to the attacks in

failure to detect the 9/11 plot or help other

it comes from.… You know exactly—

East Africa [in 1998] and other places.”

otherwise it can’t get there.”

agencies do so is probably its deepest and

In desperation, according to Scheuer,

darkest. For years, rather than reveal the

Another problem, according to Drake,

the CIA constructed its own satellite

true nature of the blunder, the agency has

was that before the 9/11 attacks, the NSA

dish in the Middle East to intercept calls.

instead propagated the fable that it missed

didn’t share what it knew with other fed-

“Eventually, CIA built its own collection

that San Diego call in 2000 for technical rea-

eral intelligence agencies—and it has

capability, but we could only collect one

sons. Consequently, the Bush and Obama

sought to cover up its negligence after

side of the conversation—I can’t remem-

administrations conducted what amounted to ironclad surveillance of Americans’ phone activity for more than a decade. The dragnet metadata operation, finally declared illegal by a federal appeals court this year, was likely the largest and most secretive domestic surveillance program ever undertaken. Yet the public only became aware thanks to the information leaked by Edward Snowden. Today, other NSA whistleblowers are claiming that the program was based on a lie. They’re also demanding answers to tough questions: How were certain key phone numbers missed in surveillance—or were they at

Secure the world– and your future. Earn your master’s degree in international security studies with UMass Lowell online or on campus.

all? And why did the NSA refuse to share with the CIA and FBI the full details of what it collected from bin Laden’s operations center in Yemen? Fourteen years after the 9/11 attacks, it seems time for the NSA and the White House to reveal what really happened— and to replace, once and for all, fiction and lies with facts and the truth.

Q

JAMES BAMFORD (@WashAuthor) is a colum-

nist for FOREIGN POLICY and the author of The Shadow Factory: The Ultra-Secret NSA

uml.edu/international-security

From 9/11 to the Eavesdropping on America. He also writes and produces documentaries for PBS.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

102

economics by DEBORA L. SPAR

The Secret of Singapore Why Cuba should look to Lee Kuan Yew’s thriving citystate for economic inspiration.

Sometime in the next few years, the Cuban people will be faced with a huge decision: how to develop their nation. As the Castro brothers fade from the scene and relations with the United States continue to thaw, a new generation of Cuban leaders will be forced to grapple with the inevitable challenges of political and economic reform. Like the governments of Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall, they will have to plot a path from communism to capitalism; like their neighbors across Latin America and the Caribbean, they will have to juggle a historical distaste for Western (and particularly U.S.) imperialism with a desire for Western goods, technology, and capital. And like leaders everywhere, they will almost certainly have to strike a balance between the demands of economic prudence and political expedience, forming institutions that will serve their country over the long run while heeding their citizens’ call for more immediate change.

104

JULY | AUGUST 2015

Whoever these new leaders will be and however they will come to power, they will face a panoply of development options and an avalanche of advice. But they would do well, in the early days of their decision-making, to heed the model of another island nation—one dealing with the loss of a legendary leader and that arguably handled its post-colonial development better than any other small country. I’m referring, of course, to Singapore. Between 1965 and 1991, the tiny city-state grew at an astonishing compound annual growth rate of nearly 14 percent. Critics of the island’s performance accused its celebrated leader, Lee Kuan Yew, of thinly veiled tendencies toward communism and authoritarianism; they argued that the country’s pace of growth was being artificially inflated by investment rates that would quickly prove impossible to sustain. Yet Lee and Singapore outlived, and outperformed, their detractors. The country maintained strong growth throughout the 1990s, stumbling only slightly during the

Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

OBSERVATION DECK

lyzed, constantly re-examined plan for taking what Singapore had and maximizing its use. In contrast, the history of post-colonial

extends to corporate and nonprofit entities

development is littered with great visions

as well. Far too frequently, these organiza-

brought down by limited or mismatched

tions falter because their plans are based

resources. Brazil, for example, has a legacy

on dreams—on how they would grow or

1997-1998 Asian economic crisis and

of overinvesting in grand projects (dams,

what they would do if myriad improbable

achieving levels of per capita income

ports, railways) that never meshed with

factors fell perfectly into place. Start-ups

that approached those of the industrial-

either its assets or the world’s needs. Kenya

long for an angel investor or a sudden burst

ized West. Even in the early years of the

constructed major fish-processing plants in

of attention that launches an initial pub-

21st century, as Lee slipped from politics,

the 1970s, neglecting to consider that most

lic offering. Nonprofits imagine what they

Singapore maintained an average annual

of the local population had no history of

could do with greater funding or a surge of

growth rate of around 5 percent.

eating fish and that the economy had no

interest in their cause or programmatic

In retrospect, it is easy to attribute Sin-

means of providing the freezers and clean

offerings. Sometimes dreams come true,

gapore’s extraordinary trajectory to luck, or

water that the plants required. The Pales-

of course—but not always.

to a hardworking culture, or to Lee’s unde-

tinian Authority once briefly considered

The Singaporean model is more pow-

niable record of micromanaging his cit-

growing its fragile economy by luring Scan-

erful than dreaming and more likely to

izens and quashing dissent. But the real

dinavian tourists to the beaches of Gaza.

achieve results. And it is widely replica-

reason behind Singapore’s success was the

None of this is to say that developing

ble, not with regard to the details of what

country’s unique understanding of what

countries such as Cuba need to think small.

Lee and his colleagues did, of course, but

it had to offer the world and how to craft

On the contrary, the lesson from Singa-

with regard to how. They were honest and

a development strategy around an honest

pore is that starting from a realistic assess-

clear about what their country did and did

appraisal of those assets.

ment gives countries the power over time to

not have; methodical in their planning

At independence, Singapore was little more than a rock in the sea—a small colonial outpost half the size of modern-day Los Angeles, wedged between Malaysia and Indonesia. It had no natural resources, no industrial infrastructure, and a population split among ethnic groups that shared no true common language. It had a deepwater harbor, however, and a port situated at the southern entrance to the strategically

THE HISTORY OF POST-COLONIAL

DEVELOPMENT IS LITTERED WITH GREAT VISIONS BROUGHT DOWN BY LIMITED OR MISMATCHED RESOURCES.

important Strait of Malacca. It was from this port that Lee and his comrades built their nation. They invested all the capital funds they could muster into the port’s develop-

think big. In the 1980s, for example, Costa

and execution; and steadfast in their fol-

ment. Several years later, they financed

Rica leveraged its political stability and

low-through. These are lessons that Cuba’s

repair and refueling facilities that would

extreme biodiversity to position itself as

next generation of leaders, unshackled

induce ships to come—and stay.

a center for ecotourism in Latin America

from their predecessors’ ambitious but

Singapore’s leaders trained a labor force

and to then entice investment from foreign

ultimately unrealistic goals, would be

to service both the port and a subsequently

manufacturers, many of whose executives

well-advised to consider. They should build

constructed airport, leveraging the island’s

had first visited the country as vacationers.

gradually from the assets that Cuba has—

location to become a regional hub for ship-

Similarly, once Botswana had crafted a

fertile land, an enviable location, and an

ping, commerce, and eventually foreign

stable structure of property rights around

eager and wealthy diaspora—rather than

investment. They kept these workers com-

its vast underground wealth of diamonds,

aim for utopia.

pliant and content by investing heavily in

which elsewhere are typically exported in

housing. Simultaneously, they developed

their rough state, it formed an integrated,

DEBORA L. SPAR (@deboraspar) is a colum-

a sophisticated method of forced savings

profitable industry around polishing and

nist for FOREIGN POLICY, the president

that channeled the nation’s capital into

cutting the stones.

of Barnard College, and the author, most

internal investments. This all worked

This basic maxim of starting small to

because it was a system—a carefully ana-

grow large isn’t confined to countries; it

Q

recently, of Wonder Women: Sex, Power, and the Quest for Perfection.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

105

energy by KEITH JOHNSON

Same Game, New Board Climate change is destroying the geopolitical playbook. How will nations survive?

Just over a century ago, in a lecture to the Royal Geographical Society, British geographer Halford Mackinder laid out the fundamental tenets of a new discipline that came to be known as “geopolitics.” Simply put, he said, international relations boiled down to the intersection of unchanging physical geography with the vagaries of human politics. Only one constant was ever in that equation: “The social movements of all times,” he said, “have played around essentially the same physical features.” ¶ But here’s the thing: Today the “geo” in “geopolitics” is actually changing, chiseling away at one of the core principles that has guided foreign policy in the United States, Europe, and Asia for the past 100 years. Oceans and islands are appearing where they weren’t before, once-constant coastlines face a salty dissolution, and formerly fertile breadbaskets are doomed to be barren. So what do we do when both parts of Mackinder’s equation are in flux?

106

JULY | AUGUST 2015

Sure, nations and empires have disappeared from history plenty of times. And, of course, wrenching natural transformations have happened before (12,000 years ago, the Younger Dryas cooling snuffed out the first shoots of global civilization, for instance). Humans themselves have intentionally been dramatically reshaping the natural geography of the world for centuries (just see the massive canals that tore continents asunder). But watching entire countries become submerged beneath the waves will be a novel experience. Today’s changes, which will become only more apparent in the decades to come, are both man-made and unintentional. They’ve created a shifting Earthscape that promises an uncertain revolution, affecting the way states relate to each other and to the world around them. This, in turn, has the power to reshape everything from international law to the makeup of the world’s militaries. The geopolitical upheaval is most evident in the South China Sea, long a flash point where an ascendant China is now

Illustration by MATTHEW HOLLISTER

OBSERVATION DECK

ment. Within its broader rebalance to Asia,

sels ever—amphibious assault ships—with

the United States is trying to pivot more

just such humanitarian missions in mind.

specifically toward the South China Sea—

As China learned to its chagrin a decade ago

an effort that includes more-robust military

after the Indian Ocean tsunami, countries

meeting nervous neighbors and a wary

alliances with Australia, the Philippines,

like the United States that have the tools and

American hegemon. The region is nearly

and Japan, in addition to much closer ties

the reach to rapidly respond to disasters can

alone in seeing a collision of unintentional

to Vietnam. Meanwhile, China’s actions

reap geopolitical dividends for years.

climate-related changes with drastic man-

potentially have huge implications for inter-

On the other side of the globe, climate

made geographical alterations. Here, sea

national law: Reefs, rocks, and islands each

change is already tearing open the Arctic,

levels are rising almost a centimeter a year,

confer vastly different benefits on their

raising the curtain on a new stage of poten-

nearly three times the global average, and

owners, with issues of sovereignty and

tial conflict among Russia, the United States,

the Pacific trade winds that for centuries

the title to billions of barrels of oil yet to

and even would-be Arctic nations that have

dictated the course of empires are showing

be decided. Were China’s outposts legally

no business there in the first place, such

unprecedented strength. Waves and water

deemed islands, Beijing could take hun-

as China. Now that massive and formerly

driven westward now threaten to erase tiny

dreds of square miles of energy-rich waters

inaccessible oil and natural gas reserves

nations like Tuvalu and the Marshall Islands,

currently claimed by other countries.

are thawing out, countries everywhere are

which rise just a body’s height above the sea.

The developments here and elsewhere are

scrambling to resolve long-dormant border

And increased moisture in the air over the

also pushing militaries everywhere to rein-

disputes and establish a new framework for

Western Pacific, many scientists believe, is

vent themselves. In fact, China’s official jus-

international coexistence in a place where

intensifying tropical storms, like the ones

tification for building 10,000-foot airstrips

it simply never mattered before.

that keep battering the Philippines.

in the middle of one of the world’s busiest

The mutating landscape isn’t only about

Coming on top of these unnatural

trade routes was its need to better respond

a scramble for resources, but is sometimes

changes are frenetic, artificial geographical

to stronger typhoons and other climate-

also about a race for survival. The Ganges

transformations. Over the past year, China

related disasters. Just the specter of climate

and Nile river deltas, long two of the Earth’s

(as well as, to a lesser extent, Vietnam) has

upheaval in the Western Pacific, in other

most fertile regions, are threatened by the

embarked on an unprecedented campaign

words, gives land-grabbing Chinese leaders

double whammy of rising sea levels and rising salinity. That could put millions of people at risk of not just losing their homes,

IT’S INEVITABLE THAT

POLITICIANS AND POLICYMAKERS WILL HAVE TO JETTISON SOME OLD CERTAINTIES IN ORDER TO SURVIVE.

but their daily bread. Up to 20 million Bangladeshis could be displaced by the middle of the century. Dealing with hordes of refugees was hard enough in times past—just ask Indians about the impact of Bangladeshi refugees during the 1971 liberation war. But this wave will likely accelerate a fundamental rethinking of how to integrate new climate norms—or lack thereof—into

to create islands out of reefs, dredging up

an excuse to create their own geographical

and piling on millions of tons of sand and

realities and burnish their own geopolitical

the canons of international refugee law. As the very game board of international

spending billions of dollars to physically

fortunes. More broadly, humanitarian assis-

affairs is redrawn, it’s inevitable that politi-

stake its claim to what until recently was

tance and disaster response have become

cians and policymakers will have to jettison

just watery blue. Thanks to this reclamation

increasingly important missions for militar-

some old certainties in order to survive in

effort, China has essentially, if not legally,

ies around the world, including those of the

a world that’s busy remaking itself—and is

expanded land in the Spratly and Paracel

United States, the United Kingdom, and Aus-

being remade. “[W]e should expect to find

island groups and has effectively pushed

tralia. Preparing to respond to widespread

our formula apply equally to past history and

out the Middle Kingdom’s borders—and

devastation is shaping decisions about what

to present politics,” Mackinder concluded in

its military—hundreds of miles from its

platforms to build (more hospital ships or

1904, long before the maps he so confidently

coast. (Vietnam, on a much smaller scale,

multimission coastal vessels), where to deploy

pointed to began to morph. Past history, per-

has also built up reefs into possible mili-

them, and even what kinds of troops best fit

haps; present politics, not even. To the future

tary waypoints.)

into expeditionary forces in disaster-prone

world, little doubt remains.

Q

This dredger-fueled muscle-flexing has

areas, though new missions tend to strain

already spurred alarm in Southeast Asian

already overburdened forces. Australia’s

KEITH JOHNSON (@KFJ_FP) covers the geopol-

capitals and in the U.S. Defense Depart-

navy, for instance, is building its biggest ves-

itics of energy for FOREIGN POLICY.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

107

books & culture by CHERYL LU-LIEN TAN

Le Bernardin for one day, Benn dazzled American eaters with a butter-poached Hawkesbury River squid; tender Australian wagyu beef with Japanese pickles and samphire, a briny sea vegetable; and a golf-ball-sized “pearl” dessert that, when cracked open, released a slightly fizzy, tart gingerade with finger-lime powder. Kitchen sharing or even relocating a restaurant to a faraway continent is trending. This year, for the first time, Britain’s Heston Blumenthal uprooted his 20-year-old flagship establishment, The Fat Duck, moving it from Bray, England, to Melbourne, Australia, for six months. In January, Danish chef René Redzepi temporarily relocated Copenhagen’s Noma—regularly a “World’s Best Restaurant” contender—to Tokyo, where he opened a Noma pop-up serving a 15-course tasting menu priced at 40,200 yen (about $336). Such exchanges generate publicity, to be sure, but on a deeper level they are a form of culinary diplomacy, a first step in the demystification of a faraway culture. Food, after all, is the way to a nation’s heart, an easy gateway to understanding—witness the long-standing custom of monarchs exchanging tribute gifts of tea, local delicacies, and livestock. Some of the recherché ingredients and techniques shared by chefs ultimately fil-

Fare Trade Elite chefs are swapping kitchens, and shaping the world’s culinary and cultural future.

ter down to the masses. Consider that, until the 1970s, sushi was a rarity in Western countries and is now a mainstay in cities around the world. Or that currently European Union officials are debating whether British Birmingham Balti curries, derived from Pakistani fare, should be given an official protected food name designation. Along with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emir-

Earlier this year in the hushed private dining room of the three-Michelin-starred Le Bernardin in New York City, chef Eric Ripert emerged from the kitchen to greet lunch guests and escort them to their seats. Although the setting was his seafood-forward dining temple, the dishes that hit the table that afternoon weren’t Ripert’s handiwork at all. Rather, they had been created by English-born chef Martin Benn, who had jetted in from Sydney with a small team from his award-winning Sepia restaurant, known for its focus on sustainable ingredients and avantgarde dishes that fuse classic French techniques with Japanese-influenced visual artistry. Cooking at

108

JULY | AUGUST 2015

ates, Britain boasts one of the world’s largest Pakistani diaspora communities, one whose cuisine has been embraced by generations of Britons from a diversity of ethnic backgrounds. Consequently, curry has become “a great part of the U.K.’s food heritage, along with fish and chips and pork pies,” Elizabeth Truss, Britain’s secretary of state for environment, food, and rural affairs, told the New York Times in January. While culinary border crossing bestows pleasure on the plate, it also often spreads virtue. Globalization, the two-edged sword

Illustration by ALVARO DOMINGUEZ

OBSERVATION DECK

chefs “outside their comfort zone,” in the words of Andrea Petrini, co-founder of the global chefs collective Gelinaz!. Notably, that organization has no national base but orchestrates events like this summer’s “chef

to churn out traditional vegetarian tem-

shuffle”: In early July, 37 chefs from Asia,

ple dishes in New York. Even street fare

Europe, North and South America, and Aus-

often percolates up into high-end rep-

tralia, including Redzepi and Alain Ducasse,

ertoires. “Cooking in Singapore when I

swapped kitchens for a day.

was 25 changed my life,” says Ethiopian-

The cross-fertilization is both professional

born, Swedish-raised Marcus Samuelsson,

that disseminates Big Macs, makes widely

and philosophical. In Japan, Redzepi was

whose New York City restaurants include

available the “bright flavors from the

struck by the primacy of personal relation-

Red Rooster Harlem and Streetbird Rotis-

Mediterranean to Southeast Asia to Latin

ships, as opposed to transactions, in his deal-

serie. “All that hawker food, the ethnic Malay

America,” wrote Greg Drescher of the Culi-

ings with fishmongers and other purveyors.

food,” he says, made him “think about what

nary Institute of America in a 2013 CNN

At the same time, Michelin-starred Japanese

[culinary] diversity means.”

Eatocracy blog post. This can “often tip a

chef Shinobu Namae, who facilitated Redze-

But cuisine is almost incidental to

menu balance more towards healthier, plant-

pi’s intense research of Japanese ingredi-

Samuelsson’s most salient guest-cheffing

based foods and away from meat,” he wrote.

ents, was impressed by what the Dane calls

memory. In the late 1990s, he was invited

Chefs, he added, “have a unique opportunity

“trash cooking”—the mindful use of often

to cook at Dooky Chase’s Restaurant in New

to leverage our new, collective culinary wan-

discarded byproducts, such as pig tails, fish

Orleans. The place started out as a sandwich

derlust on behalf of public health.” South Korean-born food-truck pioneer Roy Choi is a case in point. He and Daniel Patterson, a Michelin-starred San Francisco chef, are working to put cheap, healthy Asian- and Latin American-inflected fast food in low-income California neighborhoods, and the two are spreading their pro-

WHILE CULINARY BORDER

CROSSING BESTOWS PLEASURE ON THE PLATE, IT ALSO OFTEN SPREADS VIRTUE.

active gospel abroad, as they did in 2014 at Redzepi’s Copenhagen symposium, known as MAD (drawn from the Danish word for food), an annual gathering of chefs, scholars,

heads, and potato skins—part of his mission

shop in 1939 and became a bar and restau-

and activists that has been called the Davos

to eradicate waste from his kitchen. Anita Lo,

rant that drew leaders of the civil rights

of food. Chefs have become thought leaders

co-author of Cooking Without Borders and

movement, including Martin Luther King Jr.

on everything from plating and slaughter-

owner of New York City’s acclaimed Annisa

“It was one of the first integrated restaurants

ing methods to food justice.

restaurant, which fuses American, Asian,

in America, and it’s really a part of American

Exposure to foreign approaches is part

and French cuisine, says guest-cheffing in

history,” Samuelsson says. “Cooking there

of a venerable culinary tradition, but one

a Russian kitchen gave her a more intimate

went way beyond being a badass chef for

that used to be emphatically Franco-centric

insider’s view of Moscow. And award-

me—it was being able to walk in history.”

and top down: A jaunt in a Paris kitchen was

winning tapas chef Jamie Bissonnette

Today, he and his peers have become

almost compulsory for chefs who aspired

not only discovered local crustaceans like

unofficial culinary ambassadors abroad and

to the pinnacle of the profession. The bri-

bay bugs and mud crabs while cooking at

change agents back home as they soak up

gade system established by chef Auguste

Melbourne’s Bomba in March, but he also

ideas on their walkabouts. In this role, they

Escoffier in the late 19th century militarized

learned about Australia’s unique style of

too are making history, leaving an enduring

training, with protégés working their way

butchering domestic wagyu: “They take

imprint in distant geographies and forever

through “stations,” ranks including plongeur

some muscles out of the back legs,” render-

reshaping the way food is produced, pre-

(dishwasher) and poissonnier (fish cook).

ing a tender and flavorful cut. The American

sented, and relished in their homelands. Q

In recent years, however, a stint with Span-

chef was so inspired that he plans to experi-

ish molecular-gastronomy darling Ferran

ment with the method back home in Boston.

Adrià or sushi maestro Jiro Ono in Japan

This knowledge sharing can also involve

Singaporean writer based in New York,

might be more prized. Today’s interna-

exalted chefs learning from more hum-

is the author of A Tiger in the Kitchen: A

tional guest-cheffing is a collaborative,

ble practitioners. In February, for exam-

Memoir of Food and Family. Her first novel,

multilateral phenomenon that places

ple, Ripert invited a South Korean monk

Sarong Party Girls, is forthcoming.

CHERYL LU LIEN TAN

(@cheryltan88), a

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

109

the fixer interview by MIRA SETHI • photographs by SAAD SARFRAZ

Lahore, Pakistan Waqar Gillani on what to wear, how to do poondi, and where to find a little pomp and circumstance. ON A HOT, DUSTY DAY in May, Lahore fixer Waqar

Gillani snakes his blue Mitsubishi Lancer through the fabled old city. As he parks near Gawalmandi, a street bustling with food vendors, he smiles. Here—where the scent of jalebis, a sweet deep-fried dough, hangs in the air—is the best spot to take in local culture, he says. Just a few kilometers away, the Badshahi Mosque, one of Pakistan’s most famous holy sites, looms in its sandstone majesty. The country’s top art and design school, the National College of Arts, where Rudyard Kipling’s father was the first principal, also stands nearby. More than any other place in Lahore, it is the old city that stirs devotion in the hearts of Lahoris. While Islamabad is the capital and Karachi is the commercial heart, it is Lahore, with its Mughal monuments, spice-heavy WHERE TO FIND

food, and progressive literati, that con-

LOCAL FASHION:

tinues to be hailed as the cultural center.

GENERATION sells

slightly modernized versions of our national and cultural dress, the salwar kameez, a long tunic with loose pants. The tunics are usually made of cotton because it’s hot here eight months of the year. But the genuinely authentic forms are not often worn anymore. +92 42 3 576 1523

Despite this, a nostalgia about the 1950s and ’60s—when the city’s bars sat atop grocery stores and locals celebrated their country’s nascent independence—still saddens and delights. Delight for the potential of such freedoms; sadness because those freedoms, to converse and dress freely, no longer exist. Beginning in the 1980s, a national reorientation known as “Islamization” began under Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. The media were censored, and textbooks were infused with nationalism and religion. Public displays of piety, such as communal prayers and long beards, slowly became the norm. Nevertheless, the repression engendered creativity: Lahoris have revived modern miniature art, parodied the political elite in TV comedy, and reimagined Eastern classical music. On a recent afternoon, Gillani guided FOREIGN POLICY through his city, navigating its modern present and MughalBritish past.

110

JULY | AUGUST 2015

WHERE TO SPOT GOV ERNMENT MINISTERS:

Usually it’s not the style of our ministers to be public; they think of themselves as VIPs. CAFÉ AYLANTO is an exception. It’s a posh restaurant in a posh area serving Western-inspired food ranging from steak to pasta. It has spacious sofas and is kind of arranged like a vast unending lounge. +92 42 3 575 1886 WHERE TO SEE AND BE SEEN: COSA NOS TRA is an upscale

continental restaurant where you frequently find Pakistani celebrities. The cricket star turned politician Imran Khan has been spotted here. THE LAHORE SOCIAL

(pictured above) is a new restaurant with a similar menu to Aylanto, but more sophisticated. They even offer duck rolls! It has beautiful architecture and jazz music; everyone seems to be going there these days. COSA NOSTRA +92 42 3 579 2161 THE LAHORE SOCIAL +92 42 3 577 3142

OBSERVATION DECK

WHERE TO EAT: COOCO’S DEN — owned by the artist Iqbal Hussain, whose paintings focus on Lahore’s dancing girls—is popular. From here, you can see the Badshahi Mosque. Rumors persist that the food is outsourced from the vendors nearby. The menu offers barbecue and vegetarian dishes, like saag [spinach] and daal [lentils].

LOGISTICS CLOSING TIME

There are no official clubs in Pakistan! But if people are out at restaurants, they close late— last orders around 11:30 p.m.

+92 42 3 763 5955

DINNERTIME

Quite late. It’s not a good habit, but usually 9, 10, 11, even 12, if you’re eating in a private home. TIPPING

There should be a tip, though a tipping culture, as such, doesn’t exist. SPENDING

Eating out, the primary recreational activity, usually costs 1,000 rupees [about $10]. WHY ALL EYES WHERE TO TAKE IN

TOURIST MUST SEE:

WHOM TO READ AND

ARE ON YOU

POLITICAL CULTURE:

TRUCK ART , which is the Pakistani tradition of painting trucks in bright peacock colors, with snippets of playful poetry. The driver travels long distances, so he eats, rests, and may even nap in his truck; it’s his home.

LISTEN TO: MOHSIN

Pakistanis love to stare. If you happen to catch them, chances are they will not look away: They will continue looking at you as if it is their right to do so. In the ’90s, a concept called poondi—boys checking out girls and vice versa— entered Urdu slang.

Every day, 25 kilometers from Lahore, is the famous WAGAH BORDER CEREMONY . It’s all about the snobbery and pomp of both the Indian and Pakistani sides. The flag-lowering and -raising ceremonies are patriotic scenes, but the guard salute is also mocking: The Indian and Pakistani guards compete to see who can raise their legs higher in their marching.

FP (ISSN 0015-7228) July/August 2015, issue number 213. Published six times each year, in January, March, May, July, September, and November, by The FP Group, a division of Graham Holdings Company, at 11 Dupont Circle NW, Suite 600, Washington, D.C. 20036. Subscriptions: U.S., $59.99 per year; Canada and other countries, $59.99. Periodicals Postage Paid in Washington, D.C., and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send U.S. address changes to: FP, P.O. Box 283, Congers, NY 10920-0283. Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: P.O. Box 503, RPO West Beaver Creek, Richmond Hill, ON L4B 4R6. Printed in the USA.

HAMID is known in

the West because of The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a novel written against the backdrop of 9/11. But in Lahore, he is known and loved for his debut novel, Moth Smoke, which was, in a sense, an ode to the city, which is also his home. It is a book about love and lust and class set in the Lahore of the 1990s. The singer RAHAT FATEH ALI KHAN is very popular. He sings qawwali songs, a form of Sufi music, and is the nephew of legendary qawwali singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

FOREIGNPOLICY.COM

111

the futurist by JAKE SCOBEY-THAL _

Stanford University professor Paul R. Ehrlich believed the pressure of population growth could not be mitigated. In his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, Ehrlich wrote, “[T]he battle to feed humanity is already lost, in the sense that we will not be able to prevent large-scale famines in the next decade or so.”

Paul R.Ehrlich’s influential book

BU

LL

’S

In a 1967 article titled “The Wondrous World of 1990,” U.S. News & World Report foresaw a time when there would be “food enough for all the world,” in part thanks to “fabricating synthetic protein from such sources as crude oil.”

In a 1900 article in Ladies’ Home Journal, civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins imagined the ways in which electricity might revolutionize food production over the next 100 years: “At night [the farmer’s] vegetables will be bathed in powerful electric light, serving, like sunlight, to hasten their growth. Electric currents applied to the soil will make valuable plants grow larger and faster.”

In 1950, New York Times science editor Waldemar Kaempffert envisioned significant advancements in synthetic-food production that would help feed a quickly growing population. Sawdust and wood pulp, he wrote in Popular Mechanics, could be converted to sugary foods by 2000.

EYE Hubert Humphrey

RIG

HA

MO

WA

ST

LY WR

LF

RI

HT

CL

OSE

!

ISH

GHT

ONG

YO FF

In a 1967 paper, “Predictions: Zero Population Growth,” demographer Donald J. Bogue argued that a net food shortage was unlikely. Rather, he wrote, “[t]he really critical problem will continue to be one of maldistribution of food among the world’s regions.”

In 1798, English economist Thomas Malthus famously predicted a future of widespread famine. Population growth, he surmised, would at some point overtake Earth’s food resources, leading to pervasive shortages.

Speaking in 1966 at the University of Minnesota, Duluth, U.S. Vice President Hubert Humphrey forecast new frontiers of agricultural expansion. Experts, he said, projected an improved food supply by 2000— a result of “the fabrication of synthetic proteins” and “large-scale ocean-farming.”

THE IMPENDING population boom will demand a 70 percent increase in food production to keep everyone fed by 2050, according to

the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). It’s a lofty goal, but FAO officials are cautiously optimistic—in contrast to some of history’s prognosticators, who have been much less sanguine about a food-secure future. For centuries, scientists and policymakers have hypothesized about how a bulging population might affect Earth’s capacity to provide sustenance. Their forecasts have included everything from inevitable worldwide starvation to questionable technological advancements— protein wrought from crude oil, for instance—that humans might deploy to protect their diets.

112

JULY | AUGUST 2015

Illustrations by ELIAS STEIN

PHOTOS VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

SO

Addressing the critical issues facing Asia in the 21st century South Asia is one of the most densely populated, water scarce regions in the world. In India, demand for water is greater than ever before with increasing urbanization, energy consumption, and food production. India draws most of its fresh water supply from large, internationally-shared river basins. The Asia Foundation is focused on convening multi-stakeholder and multi-country dialogues on shared rivers. Read our report:

STRENGTHENING TRANSPARENCY AND ACCESS TO INFORMATION ON TRANSBOUNDARY RIVERS IN SOUTH ASIA

asiafoundation.org