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Lately I’ve been writing some fairly&nbsp, dreary stuff, mostly related to battle and foreign affairs. However, despite my efforts to avoid frightening events abroad, I remain optimistic about the domestic situation around in the United States. So I figured I’d compile a list of changes to look forward to.

Second, the big picture. 2020 and 2021 were very dark times for the US in many ways — no in&nbsp, all&nbsp, techniques, but in many. Covid killed a million Americans, there was enormous social upheaval, violent crime skyrocketed across the country, and in 2021 prices soared and actual money fell.

There were some great things going on to — Covid relief spending allowed a lot of people to pay down their debts, and the market rebounded strongly in 2021 — but nevertheless, if you said that 2020- 21 were terrible times, sensible persons perhaps would n’t contradict you. I still expressed optimism during those years, but more of the” We can fix it” variety rather than the” Things are going great” variety.

The American citizens will have a hard time settling their minds after those times, and the times of turmoil that followed in the late 2010s. However, treatment is already taking place because there are currently a number of positive trends in the country. Here are a few.

Violence is decreasing right now.

Violent crime is a major issue in America nowadays because it is typically a pretty violent nation. In fact, it is pretty much always a major issue in America. But in the 1990s, 2000s, and early 2010s things were getting progressively less terrible.

( Only as a side note, I like to use murder charges as a proxy for total violent crime — rape, robbery, and assault are subject to businesses. If there’s a lot of attack happening, people may just cease calling the cops when they get punched, but all calls the officers for a lifeless body. Therefore, I use death to assess the volume of violent crime total. Also, I often just say” crime” when I mean “violent crime”, because many other people use this shorthand. )

Violence reached a halt in 2014 with a lower level of violence. But in 2015, it started drifting up suddenly, and in 2020 it completely rose. Some, including myself, feared that America was entering a lengthy- term period of increased industrial violence, like we did in the 1970s.

But starting in 2022, something great started to happen — violence&nbsp, started to fall. In 2023, it fell yet more:

And the pattern looks like it’s continuing, or perhaps accelerating, in 2024. A fantastic table has been provided by The Wall Street Journal that provides an overview of changes in crime rates in several cities over the past year. In most locations, killings are falling, and in some locations they’re completely plunging:

America is becoming safer. Why? However, as with the great crime reduction that started in the early 1990s, we’ll probably never understand. Changes in policing and incarceration, the good economy, and falling social unrest are all possibilities.

The good news is that the nation appears to be becoming safer. We might return to the comparatively good years of the early 2010s if the trend continues.

Progress against climate change

One thing that many Americans find depressed, particularly many young progressive Americans, is climate change. And that’s understandable! Our way of life and the natural world are both threatened by climate change enormously. The last year was &nbsp, especially brutal.

There’s an inherent difficulty in solving climate change, since it’s an&nbsp, externality&nbsp, — climate policy is made at the level of individual countries, so each country has an incentive to sit back and do nothing and insist that the other countries handle the global problem.

But there’s another powerful force working against climate change: &nbsp, technology. Solar power, batteries, and other green technologies have gotten cheaper at astounding rates, to the point where decarbonization is the smart&nbsp, economic&nbsp, option as well as the good environmental choice.

At the same time, economic growth is generally shifting from manufacturing to services, especially online services, which are less carbon- intensive. In response, emissions have been decreasing in the developed world and accelerating across much of the developing world:

And as a result, projections for how bad climate change will get have been declining for the past six or seven years:

There is undoubtedly much more that must be done. Many people and places will be seriously affected by 2. 7 degrees of warming, and even 2. 1 degrees will be challenging to live with. Decarbonization and electrification must proceed more quickly.

But still, this is big progress, on a huge, important, and potentially even existential issue.

The US economy is expanding fairly quickly.

Although a lot of people these days like to minimize the importance of GDP, it is actually a very significant economic number. GDP is a measure of national&nbsp, income&nbsp, — the amount that people&nbsp, spend&nbsp, on goods and services is, theoretically speaking, the same as the amount that people&nbsp, earn&nbsp, ( even if in practice there are small differences between these numbers when we measure them ).

We want people’s incomes to go up! That means GDP growth. Also, faster GDP growth means&nbsp, more people have jobs. Since the pandemic, US growth has been largely consistent with previous decades ‘ average.

But when you look at international comparisons, America is actually doing really well. Most nations struggled to grow at pre-pandemic rates in the post-pandemic era. This is especially true of European nations that experienced the Russian gas cutoff, but it’s also true of places like Japan and Canada ( and even China ).

The US has &nbsp, powered ahead, even when you take higher immigration rates into account:

( Note: This is not a per capita measure, but since most population growth in rich countries is now due to immigration, it’s basically the same. )

And forecasters expect the US to&nbsp, continue to outpace other rich countries this year&nbsp, as well.

Why is the US growing so quickly? Two commonly cited reasons are 1 ) the US ‘ expansionary fiscal policy, including more generous Covid relief payments, and 2 ) Biden’s industrial policy, which is&nbsp, causing a boom&nbsp, in factory construction.

But I would also like to point out&nbsp, allocative efficiency. The US economy got very shaken up by Covid, a lot of businesses were destroyed, and there was &nbsp, a huge boom in new businesses. Americans also&nbsp, moved around the country &nbsp, a lot more than they had been doing in previous years.

That churn results in a better allocation of productive resources; instead of dying and replacing them, workers relocate to jobs and places where their skills are put to better use.

In any case, American income is growing strongly. The higher income is also being released into the pockets of young Americans and the working class.

Younger generations perform better than their older counterparts.

I ‘ve&nbsp, written&nbsp, several&nbsp, posts&nbsp, about this over the past year, but the positive data keeps coming in, and it’s good to go over it again.

There was a great worry in the 2010s that the financial crisis and other negative economic trends would have had a significant impact on the Millennial generation and possibly also Generation Z.

But in the years since the pandemic, it’s become apparent that younger generations are — on average — doing very well economically. The Economist has &nbsp, a good story&nbsp, showing generational income gains by age:

Please take note that this figure has been modified to reflect changes in the cost of living over time.

And Jeremy Horpedahl has been&nbsp, tracking younger generations ‘ wealth gains &nbsp, over at his blog:

There are two basic reasons for the jump in the wealth of younger generations: 1 ) rising house prices, and 2 ) falling debt levels.

Now, these are averages, not medians. It’s reasonable to be concerned about inequality in the younger generation, particularly regarding who gets to give their parents a priceless house. But from 2019 to 2022, there were big increases in Millennials ‘&nbsp, median&nbsp, wealth, not just average:

The changes were especially good for traditionally disadvantaged groups — Black and Hispanic Americans, Americans without a college degree, rural Americans, renters, etc. So that suggests that the wealth surge of the younger generation is n’t disproportionately flowing to wealthy young people ( as it&nbsp, perhaps ), as it&nbsp suggests.

Young Americans are doing just as well because they earn more than their parents did when they were younger, and their wealth is higher as well, despite completing more academic studies and beginning their careers sooner.

Wage Inequality is falling

In America, inequality significantly increased in the 1980s and again in the 2000s and early 2010. The biggest factor in this was by far greater wage inequality: some people made significantly more money while others saw their wages decline. There were heated debates over whether this was due to the decline of unions, China’s competition, automation, tax changes, or the rise of new technologies, which were more advantageous to educated workers than others.

But in the mid 2010s, wage inequality plateaued:

And since the pandemic, this trend has accelerated. Autor, Dube, and McGrew have &nbsp, a recent paper&nbsp, titled” The Unexpected Compression: Competition at Work in the Low Wage Labor Market”, in which they document how low- wage and medium- wage workers have seen big gains since 2019, while high- wage workers have lost a bit of ground.

They point out that the biggest factor is the reallocation of labor; now that Americans are switching jobs significantly, low-wage workers are able to negotiate more difficult terms with their employers.

In fact, Jeremy Horpedahl has my favorite chart showing the real wage gains ( i. e., adjusted for the cost of living ) across the distribution:

Although it would have been nice if the top five had also gained, the people in the bottom should be proud of their significant gains. So those are five recent trends in America today to be optimistic about.

Our economy is finally fulfilling its promise to low-wage workers and young people, both in terms of greater income and greater wealth. The threat of global warming is less severe, and crime is decreasing.

This&nbsp, article&nbsp, was first published on Noah Smith’s Noahpinion&nbsp, Substack and is republished with kind permission. Read the&nbsp, original&nbsp, and become a Noahopinion&nbsp, subscriber&nbsp, here.

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The US House of Representatives finally passed a bill authorizing US$ 60 billion ( £50 billion ) worth of military aid to Ukraine, despite months of delays and desperate pleas from Ukraine.

The invoice must then be approved by the Senate before Joe Biden, the US senator, can pass it into law. But given the Senate’s prior approval of a comparable measure and Biden’s passionate lobbying of the need to help Ukraine, this should be a formality.

Does US assistance save Ukraine from what might otherwise have been a certain but unsursurmountable fight? The answer is not easy. What is certain is that it gives Ukraine a chance to stop a slow but steady Soviet offensive that has resulted in significant territorial gains for Moscow in recent months. It also gives Ukraine a breathing room on the field.

There are still some logistical challenges to overcome, aside from Senate and political acceptance. Most of the desperately needed military technology, specifically weapons, is currently stored in Poland. However, it needs to be taken to the front lines and incorporated into Russian troops ‘ protection strategies and tactics it.

However, Kyiv will be less forced to ration munitions as it has been forced to do just because leaders are presently confident in the knowledge that supplies may arrive soon. This implies that things will probably get better on the front yet before fresh US supplies arrive, combined with the morale boost for the troops.

Political did

What much more than a relief did this aid package actually offer? This depends on several factors. The viability of defense and various forms of aid is more than just a financial issue. It is primarily one of social can.

In a national election year, the months-long wait in the US Congress was mostly a result of local political posturing. Donald Trump supported Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson in his decision to vote on the Ukraine support costs on Saturday, following a string of contradictory signs in recent months. However, more House Republicans voted against the costs than in favor of it.

Also, in case Trump returns to the White House after November’s vote, his personal animosity against Ukraine and its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, are also known. He and the US are now an ambiguous long-term alliance because of this and his previous expressions of enthusiasm for Vladimir Putin.

The pro-Russian tendencies of just one of the EU’s 27 heads of state and federal caused earlier problems in the EU to complete its multi-annual Ukraine aid package. Hungary’s Viktor Orbán now seems to have found a like-minded alliance in Slovakia’s perfect minister, Robert Fico, who has opposed attempts to provide more military aid to Ukraine, rather arguing that Kyiv may seek a negotiated settlement with Moscow.

A larger percentages of pro-Russian people who oppose open-ended support for Ukraine are likely to appear in the congress during the June legislative elections. While their impact on financing decisions is minimal, they could truly generate major problems in Ukraine’s EU accession negotiations.

Economic power

To top it off, Russia’s significantly higher military output and its own strengthened protection sector are nowhere near adequate equipped for the US and Europe’s defense professional bases. Russians ‘ quick transition to a war sector has also been boosted by aid and weapons from Iran, North Korea, and China.

There is some assurance that manufacturing capability will significantly improve in the US, Europe, and Ukraine as of 2025. Russia’s current level of military activity is in question, especially if the US and EU are able to stop China and Iran from more aiding Moscow.

However, even in the most optimistic scenario of continued investments in the social West’s defence industry and growing financial and operational difficulties in maintaining Russia’s security field, a game-changing shift in the balance of power is undoubtedly doubtful in the near future.

Russia holds the action, for presently

In contrast, Russia, at the moment in any case, however has distinct manpower advantages. In light of the depleted Russian air defense systems, it also enjoys air supremacy and has the necessary operating speed on the battle. If something, Russia will then double down on its latest offensive drives.

It will want to hit home these benefits before Ukraine’s threats are bolstered by the appearance of military support and, possibly, more US defense advisors.

A final place that should be reiterated is that the West is also at risk of experiencing a significant security issue. The US House of Representatives voted in favor of military aid for Israel and Taiwan, probably granting them access to a combined$ 100 billion budget at the same time that the US House of Representatives approved its support costs for Ukraine. The long-term viability of such assistance deals is in doubt, and not just during a possible second Trump administration, given the current$ 34 trillion national debt balance, which increases by$ 1 trillion every 100 days.

All of this, combined, probably means that the odds that Ukraine will defeat Russia in a year are at best overly optimistic and at worst dangerously delusional. A more accurate assessment would be that Kyiv will have a chance to strengthen its negotiating position when the two parties finally convene to put an end to this conflict because of the resolve the West appears to be rediscovering more of in its support for Ukraine.

Even this might turn out to be illusory. Another forever war might have just become more manageable, at least for the time being, given the rhetoric of victory in Moscow and Kyiv.

At the University of Birmingham, Stefan Wolff is a professor of international security.

This article was republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Myanmar’s political opposition intricate is celebrating its three-year anniversary of the military coup that ended in 2021, but its progress has been at best subpar and at worst an absolute failure.  

The National Unity Consultative Council ( NUCC), an appointed executive body for the National Unity Government ( NUG), and the Committee Representing Pyidaungsu Hluttaw ( CRPH), a group of parliamentarians from the National League for Democracy ( NLD ) elected in the 2020 nationwide election that was overturned by military coup-makers, are the three groups that make up the complex.

There are 204 members and a more 230 spectators. The Second People’s Assembly, which was convened by the NUCC on April 4 through April 4, was held for three weeks amidst heated discussion, sparking long-standing conflicts between these groups.

The last day was likely the result of a contentious discussion between attendees that resulted from procedural irregularities and division of responsibilities, long-standing personal animosities, dramatic accusations of a NUG-sponsored attack on a well-known People’s Defense Force ( PDF) leader, and disagreements over the movement’s future priorities.

All in all, there was n’t much “unity ” on display.

The NUCC’s post-assembly statement about the controversiously controversial 1982 Citizenship Law good addressed one question. Of the three “decisions ” passed by the assembly, the third “determined that the ( law ) would be abolished…implemented in accordance ( w )ith ( sic ) Chapter ( 5 ) ‘Interim Legislature ’ of the Federal Democracy Charter. ”

The guiding record of innovative Myanmar, released in March 2021, states in Chapter 5 that:” the provisions and policies in this Charter are the fundamental guidelines that may be used to implement the issues relating to the time government and time constitutional arrangements that will come quickly. ”

Little has changed in more than three years, and the repeal of the biased citizenship law has been largely accepted platitudes. Whilst the FDC has become the Rosetta Stone of the anti-SAC social movement, especially the NUG/CRPH/NUCC structures, it has n’t served the other minority and stateless people of Myanmar. Why has n’t the citizenship rules been repealed?

For such a controversial equipment, it is amazing the legislation has endured. It becomes even more illogical because it was actually the founder of tyrant Ne Win.

His speech releasing the policy, published on the front page of the Working People’s Daily on October 8, 1982, is a nakedly racist diatribe, justifying a law that broke citizenship into three categories, “( r )acially, only pure-blooded nationals will be called citizens”, Ne Win vowed, formalizing the concept of taingyintha or official “ethnic nationalities. ” The two lower classes, naturalized and associate people, had “mixed body ” and deserved lesser right, according to the law.

The army was engaging in rigorous war atrocities against ethnic communities in Karen, Shan, Kachin, Arakan, and many other fight areas when South Asians were expelled from then-Burma following the military coup of 1962, anti-Chinese protests, and the first large-scale abuse on Rohingya Muslims in 1978.

The concept of taingyintha was established with the classification of 135 regional races, a record so excessively manufactured it should have been discredited and scrapped centuries ago.

But the rules persisted, being used by trivial bureaucrats to control access to education, employment, release of ID cards, passports and company subscription for Rohingya, Tamils, Chinese, Punjabis, Gurkhas, Telugus, Bengalis and smaller ethnic minorities living in remote areas. It was not just a tool of domestic repression, it also contravened Myanmar’s obligations to international treaties, especially on child rights.

The Kofi Annan-formed Rakhine Advisory Commission report of 2017 contained a significant section on the subject and solid recommendations for reform, but it also included a more opportune suggestion to “set in motion a process to review the law. ” It also contained a more cautionary suggestion to “set in motion a process to review the law. ”

2019’s International Commission of Jurists produced a thorough report with compelling arguments for reforming the law. Numerous academic articles on the subject have been written by authors like Elizabeth Rhoads and Nyi Nyi Kyaw. According to Rhoads, the Myanmar state “uses various measures to strip, delay, and defer citizenship of racialized and minoritized populations. ” ”

Between 2016 and the coup attempt in 2021, the Aung San Suu Kyi administration’s alleged worsening of these measures. Her NLD was resistant to legal reform. Looking Familiar, Remaining Strangers, a 2023 report from the think tank Mosaic Myanmar, documented the experiences of “unofficial minorities ” both before and after the coup, the capricious and corrupt nature of local administrators, and how the lack of documentation particularly affected younger people and the working poor.

As the anti-coup” Spring Revolution” began, people were hoping that the law would be repealed in accordance with the FDC’s fine principles. On June 3, 2021, the NUG released a “Policy Paper on the Rohingya in Rakhine State”, which promised to treat all minorities as equal citizens and pledged a “process of repealing, amending, and promulgating laws, including the 1982 Citizenship Law, by the new constitution when the drafting is complete. ”

So legal reform and minority rights are held hostage to elite NUG/CRPH/NUCC inertia? Senior opposition officials frequently make reform promises, but they are never followed by action.

When the NUG Ministry of Foreign Affairs was asked directly, aloof from the concerns of the international community, to hold its first press conference ever in 2023, they completely ignored the question. Aung Kyaw Moe, a highly regarded Rohingya activist, was appointed as deputy minister of human rights in the middle of the NUG’s most encouraging move in 2023.

The 21 recommendations and proposals from the NUCC included strong calls for reform, including the creation of a “special commission on minority affairs, ” a pledge to “eliminate all discrimination against ethnicity, religion, and the crucial final point, to amend or repeal laws that violate the values of women’s and human rights. ”

What laws have the NUG/CRPH/NUCC addressed in the past three years? Only one law has been abolished: the Myanmar Police Force Maintenance of Discipline Law in 2022 ( Law 1/2022 ). Three laws have been enacted. The first appointment, which came on February 9 and came on the same day as the CRPH was established, was the State Counsellor of State ( Law 1/ 0121 ), which gave Aung San Suu Kyi the authority to provide advice to the citizens and the interests of the state in ways that are not incompatible with the constitution. ”

That is the constitution of 2008 that the majority of revolutionary movements oppose. The NLD prioritized the appointment of their leader just a week after the coup, much like the party did in 2016, when Suu Kyi’s inaugural State Counsellor Law, which enraged the Myanmar military leadership, was the first piece of legislation to enact effective head of state status. The other two laws were the Union Taxation Law ( Law 6/2021 ) and the People’s Police Force Law ( Law 2/2022 ).

The five amended laws involved taxation, public debt management, gambling and the state counsellor law. For a stable and effective government, this would be a shockingly unimpressive legislative record.

The symbolic amendment or repeal of repressive laws should be merely a keystroke away, however, for the CRPH, which operates in a virtual Zoomtopia. They could have made sweeping, dare one say revolutionary, symbolic reform to the tangled, nasty web of the Myanmar legal system, with a priority being the Citizenship Law, therefore laying the ground for future revolutionary implementation.

One strategy might be to use the laws the SAC is enforcing against domestic dissention. SAC Order No. was issued by the regime. 29/2024 on April 17, remitting sentences of convicted prisoners, except for murder or rape or offensives from several laws that included the Unlawful Association Act and 2014 Counter Terrorism Law, but also absurdly the 1878 Arms Act, the 1924 Shan State Arms Order, and the 1948 Arms ( Emergency Penalty ) Act.

This would be police-state parody if it was n’t so repulsively repressive. And yet the “legitimate” NUG/CRPH/NUCC continues to threaten people with prosecution using some of these laws.

The NLD/NUG/NUCC/CRPH inner circle of foreign advisors, who publicly deny their involvement in the ongoing military and bureaucratic oppression of all nationalities, share a collective responsibility for failing to demand the repeal of the citizenship law.

Why do they fight a supposedly legitimate government that has abdicated its fundamental right to defend the rights of others? How can foreign donors provide millions in federal funding for a so-called “revolution” that still believes in racial hierarchies?

The balking of the “revolutionary troika ” to prioritize basic legal change is rank cowardice. This failure stems from a culture of bureaucratic infighting, personality vendetta, moral inertia, political hubris and the ingrained imperiousness of NLD political culture, a personality cult that fuels servility.

This crippling culture has been largely ignored by the NUG and CRPH. This is in part due to their poor performance and declining popularity. Entitlement, alas, is not a strategy.

David Scott Mathieson is an independent analyst working on conflict, humanitarian, and human rights issues on Myanmar

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