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Much of Putins playbook falls into this murky area between war and peace what national security analysts have come to call the gray zone. The term has become fashionable, but the concept isnt new. It describes tactics that fall short of outright military aggression and instead take aim at a countrys social, economic or political cohesion. Gray-zone tactics include disinformation and cyberwarfare, as well as subversive economic practices, like Chinas efforts to coerce Western firms into doing its bidding. Another recent example came when Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko a Putin-allied autocrat manufactured a migrant crisis at the border between Belarus and Poland. This also wasnt a traditional act of aggression, but it created a feeling of crisis and chaos, forcing Poland and the rest of Europe to prepare for possible conflict.

Though the term can feel overused in national security circles, calling these seemingly disparate practices gray-zone tactics helps us see what they have in common: Theyre cheaper and easier than using military force, they frequently arent overtly illegal, and to date theyve rarely caused loss of life. Finally, gray-zone tactics take advantage of freedoms in democratic societies like the open Internet, a permissive business climate and freedom of migration to create political divisions, economic disruption or general social turmoil. Autocratic regimes (as well as criminals who are sometimes linked to them) are undermining liberal democracies by weaponizing their own strengths against them.

This emerging form of not-quite-warfare poses a direct challenge to President Joe Bidens goal of advancing democracy over authoritarianism. Its part of what I call the Defenders Dilemma: Liberal democracies are inherently vulnerable to gray-zone threats, but have worked themselves into such a sorry mess of divisiveness that theyre practically begging hostile countries and sundry groups to exploit their weakness. Over time, such tactics may help convince people that democracy isnt the best form of governance a task that could be disturbingly easy with many in liberal democracies already feeling that the system doesnt work.

There is no obvious tool or institution with which to combat gray-zone tactics. Its been clear for decades that the armed forces need help from other parts of government to combat threats that are diplomatic, technological, economic or scientific in nature. Today, even that isnt enough. As authoritarians eye a wider, more creative variety of targets from private companies supply chains, to the systems that deliver gas and water, to faith in democracy itself no government can, on its own, protect its population from gray-zone aggression.

The tool governments need is one that wont be easy to deploy: the rest of society. Companies and private citizens increasingly need to play a role in protecting democracy by shoring up their digital security, learning to detect misinformation and not succumbing to their worst instincts when cyberattacks or disinformation crises attempt to foment widespread panic.

Can society really come together this way? Obviously, this seems like a tall order at a time when so few Americans trust their institutions or one another. But other countries are experimenting with making corporations and citizens an asset in the fight against this new category of threats. Their experiences offer a starting point for the United States, which has only recently discovered that its vulnerable in a way never was before.

Polish soldiers patrol the Polish-Belarusian border on Jan. 13, 2022. Belarus' president Alexander Lukashenko manufactured a standoff with Poland by bringing hundreds of Middle Eastern migrants to the country's border. | Omar Marques/Getty Images

If it turns out that Russia or Russian-linked hackers were behind Fridays cyberattack in Ukraine, part of their rationale will surely have been to worsen the countrys existing political divides and make Ukrainians conclude that their government is failing. (Later on Friday, reports suggested that the U.S. believes Russian operatives are planning acts of sabotage against Russias own proxy-forces to create a pretext to invade Ukraine an example of how shadowy almost-war tactics can quickly lead to real war.)

Similarly, Lukashenko knew that massing migrants at Polands border would stoke existing divisions over European refugee policy and multiculturalism. The situation resembles a form of gray-zone warfare with which Americans are more familiar: In 2016, Russian intelligence agencies sought to manipulate Americans political views through Facebook. This effort took advantage of the open political debate in a free society, using that openness to turn us against each other.

Gray-zone warfare also exploits the interconnectedness of global business and the growing role private companies play in shaping public life. Danish, Irish and Romanian companies leased planes to the airlines transporting the migrants to Belarus. Russias most aggressive act of cyberwarfare against Ukraine the NotPetya attack brought down multinational corporations around the world by exploiting Ukraines links with the global digital economy. And of course, Russian election meddling in the 2016 U.S. election was that much harder to verify and address because it was done through a privately owned social-media platform.

Americas adversaries have realized that targeting private companies or individuals is a fruitful way to hamper societys day-to-day functioning and spread chaos. Ransomware attacks can hit gas pipelines, the power grid or critical parts of the supply chain that are often run by private companies. Beyond some minimal standard precautions, private firms in the U.S. and other democracies have significant latitude when it comes to cybersecurity. That makes them vulnerable. Yes, companies operating critical national infrastructure are regulated by the government but even in those sectors, the balance between societal responsibility and responsibility to shareholders is far from settled.

Another emerging form of geopolitical coercion short of war involves direct pressure on companies as a way of influencing their home governments. Nike and H&M were caught unprepared when they were hit by a Chinese boycott last spring, an apparent act of revenge for Western sanctions over Uyghur forced labor. Last year the telecom company Ericsson became another easy proxy target as China sought to force Sweden to reverse its decision to exclude Huawei from its 5G network. Again, these practices tend to be more successful in free and open societies because they have more open business climates.

Of course, non-military aggression against society at large is not new. In wartime, propaganda is a constant companion of military action, and blockades are used to try and starve a population into submission. During the Cold War, both sides used broadcast news and publications to fight the battle of ideas.

But todays globalized, digitized world offers far more opportunities to achieve geopolitical aims by targeting a countrys businesses and citizens. Practitioners of gray-zone tactics will find more and more ways to use the interconnectedness and openness of democracies to undermine them. And because aggressors frequently use tactics are much less acceptable in liberal democracies, the defender tends to always be one step behind.

People walk by a Nike store at a shopping area on March 26, 2021, in Beijing, China. Chinese state media called for boycotts of major Western brands, including Nike, after statements made by the companies about human rights abuses in the province of Xinjiang. | Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

The private sector and ordinary citizens are generally asked to obey laws and pay taxes, but most people dont think of them as playing a central role in protecting the nations security or its democracy. But this will need to change as it becomes easier and more effective to target a countrys economic engine or social cohesion in ways that government isnt equipped to handle alone. In case of a severe cyber attack against, say, a major food retailer, the government can respond by helping identify the attacker and even retaliating. But the company should play an active role, too, by having a backup plan in place to make sure it can keep distributing after being compromised and communicate effectively with the government about whats happening. (It should also maintain high cybersecurity standards in the first place.) Consumers, meanwhile, surely have an obligation not to panic and start hoarding goods.

A number of European countries are already taking steps toward a whole-of-society approach that acknowledges the role of private citizens and the private sector in keeping countries safe. Three years ago, Swedens Civil Contingencies Agency an agency similar to FEMA, but with a mandate to educate the public and coordinate crisis response sent a leaflet to every household with information about how to spot disinformation and what to do if power or gasoline runs out. Just this month, Sweden launched a government agency for psychological defense, which will counter disinformation and make the population more resilient to it. Last year, Britain explicitly announced it was shifting to a whole-of-society approach to national security. Among its first steps: plans to launch a civil reserve, analogous to military reserves, of experts in fields from cyber to healthcare who will volunteer their services in crises.

In 2020 Latvia published a crisis-preparedness leaflet called 72 Hours: What to do in case of crisis. The idea, the countrys defense minister wrote at the time, is to [prepare] society for catastrophes we cannot specifically predict. The document instructs citizens on what to do for food, water and health care in the event of a natural disaster, war or other crisis. The Czech Republic launched joint military-industry gray-zone exercises, in which the armed forces and companies from every sector team up to practice reacting to different forms of aggression below the threshold of war, from cyber attacks to supply chain disruptions to coercion of companies.

France, meanwhile, has launched a one-month national service program in which teenagers learn crisis response skills; the program is also designed to enhance cohesion among different societal groups. Similarly, Your Year for Germany invites young Germans to spend a year training and practicing homeland-security protection.

The question is, are any of these efforts going to work? Its too early to say whether they have a real shot at succeeding. And Americans should be skeptical about whether smaller-scale initiatives in Europes less populous, more cohesive countries can make a difference in the larger and generally more fractious United States.

Still, its relatively early in the game. At this stage, its progress to acknowledge the unique nature of this problem and to try something. The whole-of-society approach is essentially psychological, focused on building confidence and preparedness to deal with anything from an attack on the electric grid to a misinformation crisis about migrants at the border. Its an unusual philosophy, particularly for the United States. But the growing prevalence of gray-zone aggression preying on a divided populace and a complacent private sector should be a wake-up call.

There is some movement in the United States toward preparing companies for a hostile nation cutting off essential services or attacking election infrastructure. The Department of Energy holds regular meetings with leading energy companies to discuss threats to their operations. Key businesses have recently been obliged to better protect their networks, and a May executive order by Biden makes firms part of a broader effort to secure the cybersecurity supply chain. The exercise Jack Voltaic, coordinated by the U.S. Armys Cyber Institute, is a good example of cooperation between the military and companies.

These are promising signs. The U.S. government needs to more regularly engage with companies and executives to update them on threats they may not know about. Companies will also need to start taking action sector-wide, such as by sharing cyber incident details with one another. Commercial satellite operators already do this, but few other industries do, generally fearing their competitors will use the information for advantage. But as cyberattacks and coercion efforts become more common, companies may need to set those worries aside. For instance, Colonial Pipeline and JBS both paid their ransomware attackers out of self-interest. Going forward, businesses could team up within their sectors and publicly say theyll never pay ransoms to create a stronger norm before the next attack.

President Joe Biden delivers opening remarks for the virtual Summit for Democracy on Dec. 09, 2021. The summit brought together world leaders and leaders of civil society and the private sector to "set forth an affirmative agenda for democratic renewal," said the State Department. | Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Tougher than getting private firms to collaborate with one another and the government will be securing buy-in from the population at large. Citizens of liberal democracies arent used to being asked to play an explicit role in protecting society, especially when it involves time or inconvenience. Then again, because the convenience they prize is so vulnerable to new forms of aggression, its in their interest to help make society as resilient as possible.

Citizen involvement both individual and collective wont be easy to organize. Two decades ago, Robert Putnams seminal Bowling Alone documented the decline of civic engagement in America. Now, we can draw a straight line from that disengagement to the divisions that plague America today and that seem to positively paralyze it in the face of crises. Adversaries have already taken advantage of this weakness, and we should expect that pattern to worsen. The fragmentation and atomization of society documented by Putnam is alarming on its own, but when it invites aggression from hostile countries, addressing it becomes a matter of urgency.

This September the House passed an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act, intended help the country address gray-zone aggression. The amendment instructs the government to establish how to conduct gray-zone campaigns, including prioritizing the allied nations that are frequently targeted. This is good progress, but what we need next will be more specific efforts to enlist not just the government but also the American people to make society resilient against economic, psychological and other attacks below the threshold of war.

Perhaps in the future, well see programs in which retired American doctors and nurses join civilian reserve forces for crises like fuel chaos triggered by cyber attacks or even epidemics instigated by hostile states. Or, initiatives like Finlands elementary-school information literacy instruction could help gradually inoculate Americans against the pandemic of disinformation a problem that phenomenal amounts of research have tried to tackle, but that remains a stubborn contributor to the divisions that make us vulnerable. Or, we might envision more formal, Czech-style collaboration between companies and the Pentagon to game out scenarios for future ransomware attacks on critical utilities.

With the whole of society involved, America would be a lot stronger when the next crisis strikes. The challenge is to create a mindset where companies and citizens dont fall into passivity or destructive behavior when a crisis occurs. This is certainly a massive undertaking and we dont have much indication right now that it can work, especially in a divided democracy like the United States. But this country, along with many others around the world, is slowly becoming aware of the challenge.

Motorists in Fayetteville, N.C., had to wait in line to refuel in May 2021 after the Colonial Pipeline was hacked by Russian cybercriminals. The 5,500 mile long pipeline delivers a large percentage of fuel from Texas to New York. | Sean Rayford/Getty Images

Many homeowners put signs in their front yards informing prospective burglars that the house is equipped with a burglar alarm (or a biting dog). Standing militaries send the same message to would-be invaders. But when it comes to gray-zone aggression, countries practically put a welcome sign on their front doors. Many companies seem uninterested in playing a broader social role. And when something goes wrong, citizens sort into their tribes and are frequently unable to tell facts from falsehoods. Countries wishing to do harm would be foolish not to exploit such weakness indeed, they already are.

In the long term, recognition of the need to act collectively against gray-zone aggression might even help serve as a force for unity. Americans may not want to bowl together again, but how about working together to keep themselves, their families, their companies production and sales and the country safe? Call me optimistic, but perhaps defending against this new category of threats could one day play the role of yesterdays bowling leagues in bringing a divided people together.

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Opinion | The Unorthodox Weapon We Need to Defend Democracy - POLITICO

Editor, Townsman:

Our democracy is founded on many ideals such as popular sovereignty or the will of the people, applying scientific reasoning to politics, religious tolerance, freedom of speech, equality, freedom of press, and defending human rights against tyranny.

For democracy to function, its citizens must be entrusted to use reason, critical thinking, the capacity to discern fact from fiction, and accept the authority of truth especially as it concerns the function of government and the understanding of law and history. These democratic values form a right to rule established as a contract with the people which is threatened when rulers become oppressive.

We bore witness to egregious attacks on our democracy during the 2020 election that threatened to usher in an era of outright authoritarian rule. The incumbent president pressured state officials to alter election results, propagated lies and alternate realities claiming he was the rightful winner, schemed to have the vice president declare the election void, allowed his former national security advisor to propose implementing martial law to overturn the election while federal lawmakers sued state governments to invalidate a free and fair election. All these actions were designed to give unlimited power and authority to a single person and one political party, to remove legal restraints, and to solidify his demand for loyalty and subservience.

Our democracy is in dire peril because reason and truth have been abandoned by many citizens and lawmakers alike. Unless truth is returned to its rightful jurisdiction, we hover on the brink of tyranny.

William Kolbe

Andover

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Letter: Democracy in peril | Letters To The Editor | andovertownsman.com - Andover Townsman

A political activist who grew up in a family of rebels and campaigned for democracy from behind the Iron Curtain has been inducted as an associate chaplain at the University of Edinburgh.

Rev Dr Urzula Glienecke, who first began studying to be a minister in the early 1990s in Latvia when it was dangerous to be a Christian under Soviet Union rule has been ordained into the Church of Scotland at Greyfriars Kirk.

As associate chaplain, she will help run a listening service, which also offers out-of-hours support, for people of all denominations and none across the campus.

As part of the role I can bring in the things that are most important to me, such as working for social justice: against racism; against poverty, promoting the environment; supporting LGBTQ+ people; and working with people of other faiths, she said.

Everybody is welcome to come if they want a listening ear which is non-judgemental.

There is a lot of pain and a lot of violence that I can remember my own family faced growing up in this oppressive system, especially being connected to the church

Rev Dr Urzula Glienecke

Dr Glieneckes path into ministry, however, was far from welcoming.

At the age of 14, she was required to attend an underground church group, which was literally underground in the cellar of a church, because of the dangers of exploring her faith under strict communist and atheist rule.

She described her relatives as a family of rebels, giving a particular mention to her grandmother who played the organ for more than 30 years for the Lutheran Church in Latvia when such an activity was considered highly dangerous.

Any dissidents caught, including Christians, were at risk of deportation to camps in Siberia she said.

Then, while studying for her theology degree, the Latvian Lutheran Church changed dramatically and excluded women from ordination.

I lost my church home so I moved away to Norway, to Germany where I met my husband then to Ireland and to Spain, Dr Glienecke said.

There is a lot of pain and a lot of violence that I can remember my own family faced growing up in this oppressive system, especially being connected to the church.

Dr Urzula Glienecke as a teenager with other fellow activists holding the Latvian flag, which was banned under communist rule (Church of Scotland/PA)

Latvia fell to the east side of the Iron Curtain a political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of the Second World War in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991 an effort from the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its satellite states from open contact with the West and its allied states.

Yet despite the dangers, the Latvian Christian community was committed to the pro-democracy movement from the late 80s.

Many of them took part in the Baltic Chain in 1989, otherwise known as the Baltic Way, a peaceful political demonstration that involved about two million people linking arms or holding hands and forming a 600km-long human chain through the Baltic countries, demonstrating their unity in their efforts towards freedom.

We knew it was very dangerous, but we wanted freedom to believe, we wanted to communicate with the world, she said.

I dont know a single Baltic family who didnt lose a family member either due to being deported to Siberia or having to escape to the West, especially in the early days of the Soviet occupation.

When her denomination stopped ordaining women, Dr Glienecke moved abroad and completed a PhD at the Jesuit-affiliated Milltown Institute in Dublin.

She then moved to Spain where she ended up learning about the Iona Community in Scotland a dispersed Christian ecumenical community working for peace, social justice and communities and eventually was able to move to the Isle of Iona and become a member of staff there.

I loved the open-mindedness, the inclusivity, the focus on peace-making and justice and the environment, she said.

She then completed her journey into ministry after spending time as a probationer at Greyfriars Kirk, where she will now take on her role as associate chaplain after being ordained on Tuesday evening.

Speaking about her latest role, Dr Glienecke said she feels very much at home and loves its democratic nature.

She described her next step in the church as the opportunity of a lifetime and says her ordination brought her joy.

She added: It felt very definitely right and I still cant quite believe it.

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Democracy activist who fought behind Iron Curtain ordained into Kirk - The Independent

Romana: I dont think we should interfere.

The Doctor: Interfere? Of course we should interfere. Always do what youre best at, thats what I say.

Doctor Who, Nightmare of Eden, 1979

For years, Republicans have mischaracterized Barack Obamas Affordable Care Act as a federal takeover of health care in the United States.

All those doctors, nurses, orderlies, cooks, insurance clerks and stockholders in for-profit hospitals would be shocked to hear that the federal government has seized their practices and properties. Because, of course, it did no such thing.

What Obamacare did was put some guardrails around how health care was paid for. As a result, health care in the United States stinks a little less, even though it is still the worst in the developed world, and is accessible to many more people in this, the only First World nation where medical bankruptcy is even a thing.

Now Utah Sen. Mitt Romney is among Republicans accusing Joe Biden and other Democrats of plotting a federal takeover of the American system of elections. A system, Romney says, that is and always has been run by state and local officials with no federal meddling.

Senator, Ulysses S. Grant would like a word.

Proposed voting rights legislation would not take the operation of elections away from the states. It would, like the ACA, set up some minimal standards and guards. The fact is that federal oversight interference, if you will has never made elections worse in any state or county. It has only made them better. And it is baked into the system.

In Article I of the Constitution of the United States: The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations.

Article IV: The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.(The capitalization of the word Republican in this case does not denote the Republican Party, which did not then exist, but is an example of the habit of the time, perhaps borrowed from German, to capitalize lots of important words.)

The 14th Amendment: No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States ... nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. ... The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

The 15th Amendment: The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. ... The Congress shall have the power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

President Grant called the 15th Amendment, a measure of grander importance than any other one act of the kind from the foundation of our free Government to the present day.

The John Lewis Voting Rights Act, as well as many previous, and bipartisan, voting rights laws over the years have been, in the words of the Constitution, appropriate legislation passed to keep the promise of equal access to the polls.

Until now. Without doubt, states North and South are moving to limit the right and ability to vote in ways that, even if they dont use the words, are intended to make it more difficult for people of color, poor people, working people, students, to vote. Not, necessarily, more difficult than it was 100 years ago. But more difficult than it was two years ago, something Congress has the right and the duty to stop.

Romney tries to minimize the impact of proposed changes by arguing that, even as states such as Georgia roll back such provisions as early voting or ballot drop boxes, those states laws are in some cases still more generous than the practices in blue states such as New York. Fine. Pass the new law, and everyone will be on the same page. Like the post-Civil War amendments intended.

Romneys arguments about election laws do make a couple of good points. One is that the voting provisions that have passed the House and run aground in the Senate dont face some of the most nefarious aspects of Donald Trumps plot to steal the 2020 election. The parts involving fake slates of electors and such. More legislation is needed to handle that.

The other is that the nuts and bolts of elections are traditionally run on the ground by states and counties, with guidelines set by Congress and enforced by the Department of Justice and the courts. The proposed laws wont change that, and they shouldnt.

Elections run as a fully federal enterprise would be easier to steal, allowing someone to hack into a single data system. Decentralizing the actual voting and vote-counting process was and is a good thing that should continue, if only to make it harder for anyone to cook the books.

Of course, to really protect elections, we must eliminate the Electoral College. With the current system, someone could fake or steal just a few thousand votes in a swing state or two and tilt the whole result. Whereas electing a president by popular nationwide vote with the votes counted in each of 3,142 counties would be a much more accurate measure of the national will even as it would be much more difficult to hack.

Romney says Biden was elected to, in effect, not be Donald Trump, and no more. But without federal enforcement of universal access to the polls, the chances that Trump and Trumpism will return could not be greater.

George Pyle, reading The New York Times at The Rose Establishment.

George Pyle, opinion editor of The Salt Lake Tribune, has been contemplating Ron Chernows 1,000-page biography of Ulysses S. Grant for about two years now. He is on page 18.

gpyle@sltrib.com

Twitter, @debatestate

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The Constitution expects that the federal government will set standards for democracy in every state. - Salt Lake Tribune

BAGHDAD With a vast office located at the top of a tower fiercely guarded by the army and a bell to call the staff, Khalid Hamza Abbas is obviously a powerful character, decked out in an impeccable suit. Abbas runs the Basra Oil Company (BOC), the national company responsible for the exploitation of the oil fields in the province of Basra, in the very south of Iraq, from which four million barrels of crude oil flow daily. Its the equivalent of 4% of world demand and 65% of central government revenue concentrated in a region of only four million inhabitants.

As he explains the profit-sharing scheme between the worlds major oil companies and his public enterprise, the 50-year-old with thin glasses is suddenly stopped dead in his tracks by the ringing of his telephone. He tries a joke to mask his suddenly worried face: "I'm going to ask you to leave my office for a few moments. If I haven't called you back in 10 minutes, call the police."

Clearly unannounced, Faleh al-Khazali, a member of a powerful Shia militia, bursts into the room with a toothy grin. One of his three bodyguards closes the door. What could the frail businessman and the newly elected member of parliament, who lost his eye in the fighting in Syria, have to say to each other?

Al-Khazali is far from his Baghdad constituency. He alone illustrates the headwinds blowing across the Iraqi economy as the U.S. Army packs up and lets the country stand on its own two feet. Torn between corruption, sectarianism and the curse of black gold, the land of ancient Mesopotamia will have to defy the laws of gravity to regain its lost prosperity.

In many ways, however, the skies are clearing over Iraq. The recent victory against the Islamic State organization may have ended nearly four decades of wars and embargoes. The COVID-19 pandemic, after ravaging the economy and forcing the first devaluation since the American invasion of 2003, is loosening its grip and allowing world oil demand to resume its upward trend. According to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, this increase should continue until the end of the 2030s. Iraq, the world's fifth largest crude producer, is counting on the windfall to rebuild, announcing recently that it would increase production by 40% by 2027.

A visit to the Zubair oil deposit, one of the country's largest in the middle of the desert, does not, however, leave the impression of an industrial site ready to conquer the world market. Old and decrepit, the operation shows several signs of leaks and spits thick black smoke into the sky.

"The construction of the gas compressor, which is supposed to reduce gas emissions, is very late," confides a local employee in the middle of half-ruined shacks. Management is clearly not keeping up with government ambitions. Jointly operated by the BOC and a European company, the enterprise should nevertheless increase its production by 50% in the next five years. Its a logistical challenge that many consider to be unrealistic.

Adel Wakir, an engineer from Basra and an expert on oil issues, says, Such an increase in national production has no chance of succeeding because Iraq is unable to make the necessary investments. You have to explore, drill, build new pipelines, terminals, reservoirs ... but the public deficit is so large that capital expenditure is systematically sacrificed."

Like the country as a whole, the Iraqi state is divided between Kurdish, Sunni and Shia factions, each of which holds one end of the chains of command, making the whole thing ungovernable. The Shia are in the majority among the population and now monopolize power after being excluded under Saddam Hussein's dictatorship from 1979 to 2003. The Shia have made the ocean of hydrocarbons in southern Iraq the rear base for their conquest of the country.

The oil industry, which represents nearly 60% of the national GDP, is thus under the control of more or less coordinated paramilitary organizations, often linked to Iran. Theyre present at all stages of the value chain: trucks, terminals, cargo ships. Their reach even goes as far as the clandestine refueling of oil tankers anchored in the Persian Gulf.

"We do not control our borders," says Finance Minister Ali Allawi, who says he has launched a customs reform in recent months.

Its a problem with seemingly no solution, given the size of the challenge. Even Baghdad's international airport, Iraq's gateway to the world, is said to be in the hands of militias. A businessman who regularly charters cosmetic products says he has to pay his customs taxes twice. "To export or import the slightest trifle, you have to grease the palms of the militias," he says on the condition of anonymity.

Endemic corruption deprives the population of revenues and international companies have to deal with it as best they can.

If Iraq wants to succeed in the coming decades, it will have to attract and keep the major oil companies because they are the ones with the technical know-how," says Adel Wakir. Wakir says some of them are arriving with the baggage of large-scale diplomatic agreements, such as TotalEnergies and its recent $27 billion contract: "Without a strong will from the French government, I am not sure that TotalEnergies would have invested such amounts in such an unpredictable country."

And he points the finger at several competing players that have recently left Iraq, citing profitability problems and a shift toward renewable energy.

Guard at an oil rig in Iraq

Pikist

If corruption does not get the better of the Iraqi oil industry, the climate issue could soon finish the job. The huge black streaks in the skies around Basra are a reminder day and night that as the era of fossil fuels comes to an end, Iraq is on the wrong side of history.

The global energy mix will soon work against us, and that is precisely why we are increasing production," says Finance Minister Ali Allawi. We need resources to diversify the economy before it is too late.

Can Iraq wean itself off hydrocarbons? Nothing is less certain, as its economy is suffering from dysmorphia. Competing with a huge civil service with extravagant privileges, burdened by the absence of the rule of law and hampered by a long overvalued currency and a starving banking system, the Iraqi private sector seems far from being able to take over.

From Basra to Baghdad, passing through the plains of the Tigris and Euphrates, one reality is clear to the visitor: Outside of oil and the civil service, there is no salvation for the Iraqi citizen. Umalawi, who is 80 years old, knows something about this. Standing at the entrance of her home, made up of bits of sheet metal, the matriarch has just returned from a day's work in the middle of the rubbish dump under one of the highways surrounding Baghdad and its 10 million inhabitants.

Half of my grandchildren don't go to school and start working as ragpickers at a very young age," she laments in a setting worthy of the world's worst slums. We live like animals and the situation is getting worse.

Once one of the most advanced countries in the Arab world, Iraq is now said to have nearly a third of its population in poverty, second only to Yemen and Syria in the human development index.

Undermined by poverty and methodically divided by Saddam Hussein, Iraqi society has gradually found refuge in a segregated communitarianism that reached its peak during the civil war of 2006-08. Nearly 70,000 citizens were killed, while Sunnis and Shia split into separate neighborhoods. Although the resentments have since largely subsided, many still retain certain identity-based instincts that have been skillfully fed by a political class that has turned religious antagonisms into electoral gains.

Not far from the runways of Baghdad airport, Ayad al-Jobouri, a tribal leader and former member of parliament, reigns supreme over a predominantly Sunni rural constituency. Living in a lavish residence and surrounded by dozens of henchmen, the political leader is also a distributor of agricultural equipment.

"The inhabitants of the surrounding area can borrow a tractor from me whenever they want," he declares in the midst of 50 machines as gleaming as they are impeccably aligned in his shed.

Is this a way to buy the loyalty of his flock? The man sidesteps the issue and prefers to accuse the Shia of destabilizing the Sunni strongholds with the government's checkbook: The Shia control the state and capture its resources to buy the votes of Sunni areas," he says. They are now the masters of the country, but they are divided and are beginning to tear each other apart between opposing factions."

This theory was confirmed on the same day by a crowd at the entrance to the Green Zone in Baghdad, the seat of the Iraqi government. Camped in a tense atmosphere, a few thousand young Shia militiamen coming from the four corners of Iraq are shouting about electoral fraud and demanding a recount of the votes from the October 10 legislative elections. The results were disastrous for pro-Iranian groups but favorable to Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shia nationalist leader who is expected to form a new government.

The elections were stolen!" says Ali Mohamed, 27, who arrived from Basra during the night. The Sadrists also committed fraud, they must leave. We are ready to fight if necessary.

After starting peacefully, the demonstration changed a few days later: In addition to scuffles with the security forces that left one dead and dozens wounded, three rockets were fired not far from the Green Zone. Further, two drone bombs attempted to eliminate Mustafa al-Khadimi, the outgoing Prime Minister.

If a new war breaks out in Iraq, it will be internal to the Shia camp," says Mustafa Nasser, a journalist in charge of the Press Freedom Advocacy Association, an NGO defending the freedom of the Iraqi press. While the militias may hold all the levers of power, they cannot prevent a fundamental phenomenon: More and more Iraqis aspire to look beyond the communitarianism narrative that's been hammered into them."

In the southern suburbs of Baghdad, the sprawling "Dream City" neighborhood deserves its name for several reasons: running water, continuous electricity, city gas, garbage collection, quality schools, supermarkets, and playgrounds.

Partly financed by the Americans and built by a Korean consortium at the beginning of the 2010s, this new city of several hundred blocks of flats has enabled tens of thousands of lower middle class Iraqis to achieve a standard of living that was previously out of reach. One is Ahmed Karim, who moved in with his family as soon as the neighborhood opened in 2015: "This is the best place to live in Baghdad. The place is known throughout the country because it offers a glimpse of what positive things Iraq can achieve."

A few buildings away, Mohamed and Ibtissam, 55, explain that they jumped at the chance to escape the Sadr City suburb where they had always resided: "In our old neighborhood, there are only Shia and every mosque is held by a militia. It's a horror. Here, Sunnis and Shia live together in harmony. In fact, there is not even a mosque!

Can Iraq free itself from separatism and focus its energies on its development?

"It is within reach," says journalist Mustafa Nasser. Look at the example of the revolution in 2019, during which hundreds of thousands of people of all faiths had demonstrated against governmental negligence and the militia grip.

"Although the movement was harshly repressed, it showed that extremism is in its last hours," Nasser adds.

While waiting for a new world to emerge, some parts of Baghdad are in full swing. The opera house is sold out every night. For the first time in 20 years, a music festival has been held in the mythical ruins of Babylon, an hour away. The shopping malls that are springing up all over the city are home to the world's biggest brands and are teeming with people as soon as night falls. With Saddam gone and ISIS defeated, the fragile peace seems to be putting wind in the sails of a middle class eager to invent a future for itself.

Nowhere is this frenzy of life more visible than in Al-Anbar province, an hour's drive north of Baghdad. Under the yoke of the Islamic State organization between 2014 and 2016, the region was emptied of its population and martyred by the violence of the reconquest battles led by the Iraqi army, but it is now the site of a spectacular reconstruction. The two million or so inhabitants have returned and a feeling of optimism is abundant throughout the region.

We have turned the situation around," says Mahdi al-Nohman, head of the province's investment commission, from his state-of-the-art office. Al-Nohman says that in less than three years, he has granted nearly 300 business licenses for a total of $5 billion and created 11,000 jobs.

Wherever you look in the main cities of Anbar, Fallujah and Ramadi, large construction sites bristle with cranes: here a 30,000-seat stadium, there a gigantic shopping mall where Carrefour could soon occupy an entire level, further on a residential area with hundreds of single-family houses, a five-star hotel ...

While many of these contracts were awarded under murky conditions to contractors with opaque finances, the results are nonetheless impressive to onlookers strolling through Ramadi's bazaar.

Ahmed, the owner of a clothing store on the crowded main street, says, "We still lack schools and hospitals, but the roads are now excellent and electricity is more plentiful than before ISIS.

"My son was unemployed before the war and now has a good job in construction," says Khalida Ali, 55, who came to buy fabric to furnish her newly renovated house. A member of the local UN mission confirms this success on condition of anonymity: "The fact that this region is entirely Sunni is not unrelated to its success. Here, there is no trace of militias, the population is homogeneous. But I believe above all that the war has provoked an electroshock among the population. They no longer want violence and are now looking to the future.

Significantly, its a future that will now be written without America. The Biden administration has formally announced the end of the Pentagon's participation in combat operations against ISIS, which has been reduced to a few sleeper cells holed up in the desert between Iraq and Syria. Uncle Sam will nevertheless maintain a presence of about 2,000 soldiers on Iraqi soil, mainly for training purposes.

As he hands over the keys to his ministry, Ali Allawi says, This presence may seem anecdotal, but it constitutes a sort of security umbrella for Iraq. The proof is that Kurds, Sunnis and a good part of the Shia are happy with this presence. With this assurance, Iraq must now focus on regional integration. This is the key to its future."

As the Middle East goes through a phase of relative respite, a chorus of politicians from all sides is calling for the post-war Europe model to be used to tie regional economies together through transportation, trade or the energy sector. For Iraq, the practical work could begin with the management of its major rivers, which have their sources in Turkey and Iran and whose flows are decreasing at the rate of the construction of dams upstream. Far downstream, Basra, suffocating under a severe water crisis and abominable pollution, could be the first test of Iraq's ability to make its way into the 21st century. From there, there will be no shortage of challenges.

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