Letter From the Editors

Halfway through 2022, it’s clear this is a year marked by crisis: war, food shortages, rampant inflation, and the extreme heat seen in India and Europe, our clearest sign yet of a warming planet. Yet daily life continues despite difficult conditions. Geopolitical flashpoints are a dime a dozen: from Myanmar’s brutal civil war to Kashmir’s ongoing security crackdown, from great powers’ strategic maneuvering in the Pacific to the creeping existential crisis of climate change in Southeast Asia’s delta regions. Yet for the people living in each of these places, the realities of daily life  – how to pay the bills, where to live, and how to stay safe – are what matters most.

It’s been 18 months since Myanmar’s military seized power in a coup d’etat, and 11 months since the National Unity Government declared the start of an armed insurrection against the junta. But war is expensive – how is the NUG funding its war efforts and the more mundane operations of a government in the territory it controls? In our cover story, Dr. Zachary Abuza, a professor at the National War College in Washington, D.C., examines the NUG’s efforts to raise money, which range from taxation and crypto-bonds to auctioning off properties owned by senior military officers. Most impressively, the NUG has avoided resorting to the illegal activities typically used by Myanmar’s many insurgent groups to raise funds, in keeping with its self-image as the sole legitimate government of the country.

The coastal Asian metropolises of Bangkok, Jakarta, and Ho Chi Minh City all battle a common set of existential threats generated, in one way or another, by climate change: coastal sinking, sea level rise, and overurbanization. Photojournalist Nicholas Muller traveled to Asia’s delta mega-cities and found citizens battling the encroaching sea, sinking foundations, and devastating floods. Water is what gave birth to these cities, and water now threatens their futures. There isn’t much time to act and the needs of the moment demand radical, rapid change.

India’s BJP government scrapped Jammu and Kashmir’s special constitutional status on August 5, 2019, promising that the move would help bring stability to the troubled region and usher in an economic boom. Three years later, however, those promises have not come to fruition. Journalist Ritu Mahendru, fresh off a reporting trip to Kashmir, recounts pervasive feelings of anger, sadness, and insecurity among the population. That’s borne out by a disturbing uptick in violence, most notably targeted killings aimed at the region’s minority Hindu population. Far from bringing normality to Kashmir, the abrogation of its special status has left the region poorer and more securitized than before.

Finally, with Solomon Islands back in the headlines due to its security pact with China, we revisit the last time the islands were the center of global attention: the Guadalcanal Campaign during World War II. Robert Farley, a senior lecturer at the University of Kentucky’s Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce, recounts the history of the Allies’ first major offensive against Japan, which turned into a war of attrition on both sides. Ultimately, the lessons from that battle are limited for the modern day, Farley writes, aside from one point: In the end, a location is only geostrategically important if both sides of a conflict decide it is.

We hope you enjoy these stories and the many more in the following pages.