The Red Folder

Archived from June 3, 2024.

Key stories for the week, brought to you by Lindsey Zhao and the Red Folder team.

Reading for the sake of reading sucks. Telling yourself to read to win a round is nice but ineffective. This condensed news brief helps you understand current domestic and international issues, analyze the news, and gives you opportunities to read more.

International Stories

4 key international stories for the week:

1) Clearing House: Putin’s New Military Purge Justin Palazzolo

For all relevance, it had seemed that the tide of war had finally shifted back to Russia’s favor in Ukraine. Political bickering in the West, particularly in the U.S., delayed the arrival of key military aid needed to supply Ukraine’s front lines. A revitalized Russian war industry that was seemingly unaffected by Western sanctions has provided Russian troops with a nearly 5-to-1 advantage in ammunition and guns and a 10-to-1 advantage in shells with an additional 30-to-1 advantage in aircraft.

The sheer armament discrepancy has resulted in Ukraine having to execute a fighting retreat resulting in the loss of the major cities of Bakhmut and Avdiivka as well as tens of thousands of Ukraine’s best men who died defending the cities. Once Moscow begins its expected summer offensive, Western and Ukrainian analysts have all but accepted that Ukraine will have to give up significant ground since undersupplied and outstretched Ukrainian forces are unlikely to hold off a concentration of Russian forces. Projections of a Russian breakthrough are no longer confined to state media or propaganda war vloggers, but rather to anyone with an eye on the conflict.

That is, except Putin himself.

Vladimir Putin’s lack of faith in the status quo has manifested itself in a military purge that has all but eviscerated the top brass of the Defense Ministry. It began with the firing of longtime defense minister Sergei Shoigu 3 weeks ago and has continued with a systematic purge of more generals. In comparison, Shoigu got off easy, considering that his deputies and colleagues have been arrested instead of being simply fired. Major Gen. Ivan Popov, the former commander of the 58th army was arrested on embezzlement charges while Timur Ivanov was arrested on allegations of bribery. Over the past 3 weeks, individuals such as Vadim Shamarin, Nikolai Patrushev, and Yuri Kuznetsov have all been arrested despite either being generals or high-ranking ministers in the Defense Ministry itself. Furthermore, the arrests are a blatant effort to remove Shoigu’s influence and inner circle from Russia’s military entirely. While in his position as defense minister, Shoigu used his friendship with Putin to appoint his close friends to deputy positions within the army, even going as far as to create new positions within the defense ministry itself to pad with his allies.

Corruption within this inner ring was both known within the government and apparent from the very start of the conflict. Russian generals within the circle were known for skimming the budget and taking money meant for equipment maintenance or modernization. In fact, at the start of the Russo-Ukrainian War ⅕ of all Russian equipment was either unsafe or unusable due to systemic corruption. Timur Ivanov, one of the arrested, was literally known as “Shoigu’s wallet” because of his bribery and financial connections to Shoigu. Clearly, Putin and his government were well aware, if not complicit, in this blatant budget skimming. However, Putin’s decision to purge his top brass now, a clear sign of distrust in Russia’s ability to win the war under the current leadership, is confusing experts considering Shoigu and his allies security during the 2023 Wagner rebellion and the fact that Russia’s military is in the best position now since the start of the war.

Speculation on Putin’s motivations has largely been based on Shoigu’s replacement, Andrei Belousov, a former construction foreman with no military experience to speak of. Despite his unconventional background, Belousov does offer a unique perspective. His position as a technocrat economist has come with his mandate to maximize production efficiency by reducing corruption and streamlining production. Putin appears to be making a strategic decision to favor Belousov regarding the Ukraine conflict. Russia’s current advantageous position that has put Ukrainian forces on the back foot is not due to Shoigu’s tactical/military leadership but rather the success of the Russian defense industry.

Russia’s defense industry has transformed Russia’s forces from an army that equipped its troops with WW2-era rifles in 2022 to an army that has thoroughly won the attritional stalemate that the Russo-Ukraine war devolved into. Shoigu’s military expertise, however, has proved to be of little worth given the limited territorial gains of the Russian military despite the armament advantage and the immense casualty figures which amount to 8,030 troops and 79 tanks this week alone. The move by Putin may be an effort to double down on the production advantage that Russia has succeeded in by appointing a minister best suited to optimize the defense industry. This frames Shoigu’s replacement as a strategic decision while the subsequent arrests encompass the clearing of Shoigu’s corrupt baggage that Putin no longer has the incentive to protect.

Regarding the purges, it's unlikely that they will end with Shoigu and his allies as the FSB, the state security apparatus, still has piles of cases that they have not pursued until now. With the possibility that hundreds of more lower-level officials could also be removed, Putin has certainly signaled that the brooms will stay until 19 Znamenka Street is fully cleared out.

Read more here:

3) Dar-Fur Better or Dar-Fur Worse: The Siege of El-Fasher Robert Zhang

Since its sudden outbreak in April of last year, the Sudanese Civil War between the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) and the country’s military has only intensified by the day. To briefly summarize the conflict, an attempt by the Sudanese military to integrate the then semi-autonomous RSF militias into the military led to a sudden countrywide RSF rebellion, plunging the country into civil war. (For a comprehensive explanation of the conflict, I strongly recommend reading Paul Robinson’s Special Report on it!) While the conflict has spread across the entire country, one of the most intense conflict zones is the southwestern region of Darfur (pronounced “DAR-four”), as it’s the home region of the RSF and the main region they seek to control.

It’s important to understand some of the history, demographics, and circumstances of and in Darfur, and what implications that has on the civil war. Much of Darfur’s population is from indigenous Black African ethnic groups, like the Zaghawa, Masalit, and Fur, among others. Also living in the region are members of the country’s majority Arab population. (Exact proportions are hard to locate.) Ethnic tensions between indigenous African groups and Arab communities have been deep-rooted and longstanding. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, then-president Omar al-Bashir pursued a policy of assimilating and Arabizing non-Arab groups, giving political positions in Darfur to ethnic Arabs, while mostly excluding indigenous Africans from government. He also enabled ethnic Arab militias to conduct arbitrary attacks on indigenous African communities. This eventually led to an armed insurgency by allied Zaghawa, Masalit, and Fur fighters for an end to their communities’ marginalization. In response, the Rapid Support Forces (then known as the Janjaweed) was formed by al-Bashir’s government, which recruited members of Arab tribes and had them quash the insurgency.

Over two decades later, the Rapid Support Forces are still almost entirely composed of ethnic Arabs. On the other hand, there are also still militias of indigenous African fighters.

Following the onset of the war, the RSF rapidly took over most of Darfur, gaining almost complete control of four of the five states in the region. However, they were stopped at the city of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur State. This was for two reasons. First, following a string of defeats in 2023, the Sudanese military massively fortified its defenses and transported more resources to their forces surrounding El-Fasher (pronounced “EHL fuh-SHARE”), to prevent the RSF from taking over such a critical state capital. Second, it also allied with a formerly neutral regional defense militia of mostly ethnic Zaghawa fighters, known as the Darfur Joint Protection Force (more simply the Joint Force). This not only provided the Sudanese military with more soldiers to defend the region, but the Joint Force also issued an ultimatum - should the RSF attack El-Fasher, they would outright declare war and go on the offensive. Until recently, the RSF abided by this de facto truce.

However, the truce fell apart in March and early April. Emboldened by recent successes in recruiting additional soldiers from eastern Sudan, the Joint Force essentially began participating alongside the Sudanese military in offensive operations against the RSF. The truce immediately crumbled, and by mid-April, thousands of RSF troops had surrounded the city, essentially laying siege to it. The city is now in a perpetual state of combat, as the RSF continually shells the city with artillery and the Sudanese military fights back with aircraft, artillery, and firearms.

Control of El-Fasher will be pivotal in determining the future of the conflict. The Sudanese military is hoping to win a decisive victory over the RSF in the city, which would open the city and allow them to freely enlarge their troop presence and resupply the city. This would provide them with an effective “launching pad” to retake other RSF-controlled territory across Darfur, weakening the RSF in their home region and paving the path for a complete Sudanese military victory in the civil war as a whole.

On the other hand, an RSF victory would empower them to essentially take over the rest of the country. Should they capture all of Darfur, they would experience a massive boost in morale, prevent dissent within the RSF, and be able to loot the city of El-Fasher for resources and money to finance their operations. They would also be able to free up thousands of soldiers to fight elsewhere.

So far, it is unclear who will come out on top. The Sudanese military probably won’t suffer the same kind of crushing defeat they saw across the rest of Darfur, as their garrisons in El-Fasher have many more troops than in battalions that were defeated by the RSF last year. Additionally, the Sudanese military has dedicated aircraft to resupplying El Fasher using airdrops. Unfortunately, this is hampering their objectives elsewhere, as dedicating air resources to Darfur forced them to cancel a planned offensive to recapture RSF-held territory in central Sudan.

More importantly, the potential of an RSF takeover of El-Fasher will have devastating humanitarian implications. While the Sudanese military is certainly not without flaw, the RSF is an overtly genocidal actor. During their campaign in West Darfur State late last year, they killed thousands of ethnic Masalit civilians over their purported support for the Sudanese military. Because the Joint Force is predominantly composed of ethnic Zaghawa fighters, the RSF recently attacked and burned several Zaghawa villages. This has also led to reciprocal violence, as Zaghawa troops have summarily executed Arab civilians and stolen cattle from Arab villages.

Furthermore, the fighting itself has meant that humanitarian aid cannot enter the region, because of the actions of both sides. The Sudanese military has forbidden the United Nations from bringing in food aid across most of the border with Chad, limiting shipments to a single border crossing controlled by a militia it is allied with. The RSF has also set up a checkpoint for aid coming in from El-Fasher’s north, preventing most aid from making it into the city. The consequences are heart wrenching: many of the over 500,000 refugees sheltering in El-Fasher lack access to adequate food. Additionally, in the Zamzam refugee camp just north of El-Fasher, 40% of extremely young children are acutely malnourished, and one child dies from starvation once every two hours.

It is in the utmost interest of civilians and (most of) the international community that the Sudanese military does not lose control of El-Fasher. The United States and its allies can help: threatening to impose multilateral sanctions on the RSF’s weapons suppliers (like the UAE), as well as directly imposing economic sanctions on RSF leaders like Mohamed “Hemedti” Dagalo, such as by tracing and tracking gold mined in territory controlled by the RSF, and prohibiting its import. Whatever the international community does, they must act quickly. Every day they fail to act could translate into another month of the RSF’s encirclement of El-Fasher and its hundreds of thousands of desperate refugees.

Read more here:

4) The Surprising Story of South Africa’s Democracy Evelyn Ding

South Africa is now struggling with its democracy which it fought so hard to achieve. The country’s first Black president, Nelson Mandela, was a charismatic hero who rallied millions of other Black South Africans to vote for the first time—in favor of dismantling apartheid and economic inequality. However, Mandela’s party — the African National Congress (ANC) which has ruled for decades — is now stuck with a much less charismatic, much less competent leader. In fact, this weekend, Cyril Ramaphosa made history as the first ANC leader without a parliamentary majority.

The votes are in, and the numbers speak volumes about the ANC’s precipitous decline in popularity. The ANC only won just over 40% of the vote. This is a far cry from the 57.5% it won in the previous 2019 election and the 50% it needs to avoid a coalition government. As a result, the ANC must form a coalition to move forward. It forces the ANC to share power with a rival party, which is historic and unprecedented.

To form their coalition, the ANC can take one of two diverging roads. The first scenario involves partnering with the Democratic Alliance (DA). The DA, which won 22% of the vote, is the ANC’s main opposition party. It is relatively moderate and centrist, which is why the international community broadly supports a DA-ANC alliance. Yet unfortunately, this scenario is unlikely. The DA is viewed as a “white party” and is rejected by the majority of Black South Africans who support the ANC. is. Furthermore, many voters are disgusted at the thought of extending an olive branch to their biggest rival’s party.

That leaves the ANC with the other scenario, which is to partner with the Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) or uMkhonto weSizwe (MK), or both. For reference, the latter won 14.6% of the vote and the former won 9.5%. Both parties are extremist branches of the ANC that took a left-wing, socialist turn. Many leaders in these two parties advocate for radical policies like confiscating white-owned farmland, a policy that empirically didn’t work out so well in Zimbabwe. This unprecedented and extreme alliance between the ANC and the EFF and/or the MK is described as the “doomsday scenario” by some members of the international community.

To understand the discontent with the ANC, one must simply look to South Africa’s debilitating economy. South Africa is faced with extreme levels of poverty and unemployment. Nearly 42% of South Africa’s working-age population is unemployed. To put that number into perspective, the current US employment rate hovers around 4%. According to the World Bank, South Africa’s unemployment rate is the highest in the world, which is even worse than Gaza, Djibouti, and Kosovo. Unemployment is especially prominent in the youth population, where 61% of young people aged 15-24 are unemployed. Many of these people are destitute and barely able to survive from one day to the next.

The blame is being placed squarely on the government’s shoulders. Decades of corruption has meant the government is more interested in stuffing their own wallets than prioritizing the needs of the people. The ANC isn’t taking responsibility for services that it is obligated to provide. This is most apparent in infrastructure, where the state-run power company Eskom reached a record high number of blackouts from poor management, and in the broken pipe system results in 40% of water being lost before it reaches the customers’ homes. The citizens of South Africa have begged for President Ramaphosa to take action, but nothing substantial has come out of it besides empty promises and investigations weighed down by bureaucracy. The government’s corruption is fueling the huge sense of dissatisfaction with democracy in South Africa. 72% of South Africans said they would ditch democracy and happily accept an autocrat if they could fix the economy and crime. Many South African voters have lost hope in democracy altogether. Those who lose faith in the ANC often don’t vote for the other parties; instead, they don’t vote at all. This is the unfortunate reality of a country that only recently embraced democracy in 1994. The surprising rise and demise of South Africa’s democracy shows that nothing can be taken for granted.