Wars

Democratic Republic of Congo Defense Forces gather in the North Kivu province village of Mukondi, Thursday March 9, 2023.

Rebel reliance: Part I

Critical State

Critical State, a foreign policy newsletter by Inkstick Media, takes a deep dive this week into a rebel group’s propensity toward battle as a function of the group’s control of resources.

people at gas pump

Renewed calls in Syria to overthrow Assad regime

Protest
A man walks next to heavily damaged buildings and destroyed cars following Russian attacks in Bakhmut, Donetsk region, eastern Ukraine, May 24, 2022.

Ukrainian doctors train for the possibility of a chemical attack from Russia

Ukraine
Faeza Satouf, from Syria, looks at a photo of her graduation day on her phone during an interview in Nivaa, Denmark, Wednesday, April 21, 2021. 

Family in conflict: Part II

Critical State
Salim Abdul Ghani helped start the Rainbow Center in the Akyol neighborhood in Gaziantep, Turkey, to help Syrian youth stay off the streets.

This center in Turkey was a refuge for Syrian youth. The pandemic shut it down.

Syrians on the border
Mother, father and baby pose outside for a photo in wooded area

‘For Sama’: A love letter from filmmaker to daughter on life and war in Aleppo

Waad al-Kateab decided to film her own life in Aleppo continously for five years, in which she fell in love, married a doctor, gave birth, and survived the months-long siege, airstrikes and snipers, while living in an upper floor of the last hospital in the city.  

Seven men in different military uniforms walk next to military vehicles.

How Twitter and other social media can draw the US into foreign interventions

Global Politics

What’s a protester’s best tool? It might just be Twitter. New research suggests that social media sites like Twitter may be one of the game changing factors in protesters winning support from abroad and creating US policy change.