March

Haiti

Haiti has faced numerous challenges, including political instability, natural disasters, poverty, and social unrest. In recent years, the country has experienced a series of crises that have exacerbated these challenges. 

In 2021, Haiti was hit by a devastating earthquake followed by a tropical storm, which worsened the already dire humanitarian situation. The earthquake killed thousands, injured many more, and caused widespread destruction, particularly in the southern part of the country. The storm brought heavy rains, flooding, and landslides, further impacting communities already reeling from the earthquake.

Political instability has also been a longstanding issue in Haiti. Since the 1990s the country has faced years of political turmoil, corruption, and economic challenges. With many American foreign interventions throughout its history, the most recent being the American initiative in 1991 and the subsequent UN missions like MINUSTAH. Even with foreign help, political reform and financial aid the situation of Haiti has only deteriorated further, with the latest sequence of events being the culmination of the last three decades of failure in nation-building.

In 2021 the president Jovenel Moise was assassinated by his bodyguards, engulfing the country once more into a power struggle between the remaining government and powerful criminal gangs. The power struggle culminated when in the beginning of March 2024 the Haitian gangs orchestrated a mass prison break that released almost five thousand prisoners, empowering even more the already potent criminals that rule a vast amount of life in Haiti. The most powerful of the gang is led by a man called Jimmy Chérizier also known as “Barbecue”, an ex-police officer turned criminal, a common path for security officers in the chaos of Haiti.

Political Chaos, economic desperation, inequality and an enormous dependence on foreign aid, Haiti also will have to cope with a an increasingly deteriorated natural environment, decades of mismanagement and bad policy also took a toll on the islands natural forests and therefore its soil quality, it only takes a satellite picture from the border between Haiti and The Dominican Republic to notice how the same geography can be shared by different societies and policies.

After many foreign interventions and aid, UN missions, NGOs, Haiti seems stuck in the same vicious cycle that got it into this situation in the first place, any solutions seem more and more unfeasible by the day.

Crocus Moscow

The attack and perpetrators

On march 22nd, gunmen entered the Crocus Concert Hall in Moscow, at the end of the attack more than a hundred innocent civilians had been killed and more injured, in the few hours during and after the attack many theories circulated throughout social media, many speculated Ukrainians were involved or even that it was a false flag operation conducted by the russian government itself, regardless of the validity of such theories the suspects were caught on camera by the russian security forces and ISIS-K, a offshoot of ISIS that is located in the region of Khorasan, claimed responsibility for the attack, releasing body cam footage of the incident quashing any theories about who was responsible.

ISIS-K is an offshoot of the original ISIS that sprung up during the Syrian civil war and managed to occupy vast amounts of territory, even capturing Mosul, one of the biggest cities in Iraq. Contrary to the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, the branch of Khorasan does not intend to hold territory making them less potent in terms of capability of general violence but also makes them more resilient to counter actions that are able to destroy a more conventional force. ISIS-K is indiscriminate on who they target, dozens of civilians died in Iran when they suicide-bombed a prosession in honor of General Suleimaini. The Taliban is one of ISIS’s greatest adversaries, being a constant target for attacks, the most infamous happened during the US evacuation of Kabul that killed several US soldiers and Taliban militants. 

Why Russia

Since the 1990s Russia has also had to deal with islamic terrorism with it being much closer to home than what the US had to battle with. The wars in Chechnya were the principal political problem in 1990s Russia, terror bombings and invasions marked struggle between these two forces, and it was Putin’s ability to deal with the Chechen concern that allowed him to dominate Russian political life since then.  

More than 10% of the Russian population are composed of muslims that although most of them are fully integrated into the wider Russian society depending on the region ethno religious identity can be a factor of resentment and disafection, that demographic reality made itself a security risk when the Islamic State in Syria became the most famous terrorist group in the world. 

When ISIS broke out to the world stage in 2011, russian citizens were the biggest cohort of foreign volunteers, their departure from Russia was facilitated by the government, the rationale was that these individuals were potential domestic terrorists and it would be easier to let them be killed in Syria and Iraq than to combat them in russian soil.

The American Intelligence services detected that a attack was imminent in Russia and promptly warned the Russian government, following CIA doctrine that says that should found intelligence prevent innocent deaths it should be disclosed even to unfriendly governments such as Russia or Iran, the exception to that is if the sharing of intelligence can expose the source of the intelligence then its permissible not to make the potential targets aware of the danger. The Russian government, however, did not take heed of the warnings sent by the americans, at least publicly, Putin even made a statement almost mocking it, whether Putin was only posturing for his internal audience or not the internal security services were pursuing the threat and even managed to thwart an attack on a Synagogue a few days before the one on Crocus Concert Hall.

Still in Soviet times, russian strategists recognized a key weakness of its geography its ports were isolated from each other, the Black Sea can be isolated by Turkey, Saint Petersburg by the NATO nordic countries and the Arctic ports are just too far and frozen to be relied upon, their solution was the naval base of Tartus in Syria. Therefore the survival of the Assad regime in Syria became paramount for Russian broad strategy, however that also put Russia and ISIS as direct adversaries.

In September of 2022 the Russian embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan was subject to a bomb attack by ISIS killing and injuring several Russian officials, since then with an increasing focus of the state in Ukraine the most important tools for anti-terror deterrence, its border security troops and intelligence resources have all been very much committed to the “Special Military Operation”, making the country much more vulnerable to a terrorist attack.

Kremlin Narrative

Predictably, Putin was reelected without any major incidents. In regimes such as in Russia, where democracy is “managed” elections serve a purpose other than continuing the facade of a democratic legitimate process, it serves to gauge the popularity of the government in the regional and municipal levels, it also can serve as a flashpoint for the opposition or a repressed discontent the usually does not boil to the surface in the day-to-day, the absence of these movements are positive for the continuity of any authoritarian government. Elections as manipulated as they may be also project strength for the ruler, this image of perceived strength if not managed can definitely be undermined by an attack as lethal and as central as this one, therefore a massive effort to shape the history was already underway before the assailants were even captured.

Putin's government together with state media has since the attack been not so subtly hinting that ukrainians were somehow involved, whether they actively participated on the planning or that ukrainian officials allegedly offered refuge for their scape, the shaping of the narrative had begun the moment news of the attack started to come to surface. The Kremlin’s narrative is intended to direct the anger of the Russian public with this attack towards Ukraine, mitigating potential dips in popularity that a subsequent round of mobilization may cause. 

Israel and Gaza

In the beginning of March the US Air Force began airdropping supplies into Gaza, later that month president Biden also began contemplating building a mobile pier that would increase the flow of humanitarian supplies. On the surface this seems like just a humanitarian mission, however it also shows the first practical signs that the White House is reflecting on its almost unconditional support to Israel and particularly its support for the Netanyahu government and its rhetoric. It became more and more common news of disagreements and heated exchanges between Israeli and American officials.

Since Israel started the invasion of the Gaza Strip it has lost much of the good will that followed the 7th of October attacks, whether because of Israeli actions, disinformation, anti-semitism or sympathy for the people of Gaza, many countries have started publicly questioning the operation and Israeli leaders. Spain, Ireland, Norway are just some of the western countries levying harsh criticism against the Netanyahu administration and its conduct of the conflict.

The israeli public support inside Israel for the ruling coalition is starting to question some of the wider policies of the Far right government in Tel-Aviv, such as the settlements in the Left Bank, the proposal banning of Al-Jazeera and the judicial reforms that divided israeli society until the 7th of October. Although support for the war continues to be strong and widespread politically.

In the beginning of april a convoy of humanitarian workers which had authorization by the IDF to operate and had clearly drawn insignias on its vehicles was repeatedly targeted by drones, killing aid workers, including a Canadian veteran, and creating another tragic public relations disaster. This loss of international support does not correlate to loss of internal support to the cessation of hostilities, many israelis feel that the international community has always been against Israel defending itself, claiming that much of the opposition is “out of touch” with the realities of living in a country surrounded by hostile organizations.

Wider escalation of this conflict seems almost inevitable, and Israeli politics, although frozen by the attack in October, will return to its contentious state that it was before the war, having many more internal and external struggles to address, repairing the relationship with the USA and wider international community among them.

Macron and Ukraine

Macron and Nato troops

The French president Emmanuel Macron decided to change the tone of their support for Ukraine, in the beginning of the conflict France provided aid in a slow and limited manner, Macron also adopted a more diplomatic tone with Putin trying, at least in the beginning of the conflict, this policy has been announced to have changed. The French president decided to publicize his intention of deploying french soldiers in Ukraine.

Macron has a tendency of grand proclamations with little action afterwards, should this initiative be followed upon it would change the russian attitude in the battle-space. A historical example of this is when the Soviet Union sent engineer troops and anti aircraft batteries manned by their own soldiers, making the US Air Force think twice before bombing a strategic position as to not kill soviet soldiers, all for the sake of limiting escalation.

Strikes within Russia

Equipped with very crudely produced drones and ancient cruise missiles, Ukraine has been able to affect Russia’s oil refining capabilities striking several refineries throughout Russia, affecting gasoline and diesel production. These strikes have a particular effect on the prices for everyday use, increasing the inflation pressures for russian citizens and therefore discontent with the regime, although this is not a strategy the bears fruit on the short term such disruptions can compound over time and really cost the target effort the could be spent otherwise on the battlefield.

So far the NATO countries have provided advanced cruise missiles with the condition that they are only to be used inside Ukraine and the russian occupied territories, including Crimea, should these conditions be lifted the ukrainians would be able to disrupt much more effectively russian efforts to military power generation, i.e. arms factories and power plants, the fear for the west is the loss escalation control.

At the moment has Russia does not have the capability to protect all of its territory from ukrainian drone attacks, whenever an attack happens Russia responds with its own attacks, however the greater part of its more modern and potentially decisive equipment is not made in Ukraine but in the USA, Germany, UK therefore this exchange is more favorable to Ukraine and not Russia.

Russian offensives have since the fall of Advika modestly successful but extremely costly, with the reelection of Putin and the attrition caused by offensive action a new mobilization is under way, the russian president also ordered the creation of another army. The russian ability to regenerate its manpower has given western intelligence agencies some concern, most of the western governments and the ukrainians themselves did not expect Russia to be able to absorb its losses and create new combat power.  

Should western aid not re-pick up its pace the situation for Ukraine will further deteriorate, contrary to their russian adversaries the Ukrainian army has not been able to recruit and generate strength as much as the russians, its demographic situation before the war was not favorable suffering from a massive emigration of its youngest and most productive citizens, therefore complicating further recruitment, the  product of this is the fact that the average age of the ukrainian soldier is 43 years old.