Johnson Lai/AP/File

Military personnel stand next to U.S. Harpoon A-84, anti-ship missiles, as well as AIM-120 and AIM-9 air-to-air missiles prepared for a weapon loading drill at the Hualien Air Base in Taiwan, Aug. 17, 2022.

The U.S. has sent more than $45 billion in military aid to Ukraine, significantly drawing down its own stockpiles of key munitions and weapons systems. Among the items provided: more than 10,000 Javelin missiles, tens of thousands of 122 mm rockets, and more than 1.5 million 155 mm artillery rounds.

Replenishing that materiel won’t be easy. The U.S. defense industrial base has evolved into a system based on producing just enough materiel to fulfill regular Pentagon orders. Expanding capacity could require big boosts in machinery, labor, and other manufacturing inputs.

“A lesson learned, I think, for our country from the Ukraine conflict is that our industrial base is not as robust as we need it to be,” said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth at a Tuesday event with reporters. “It’s been a wake-up call.”

Pentagon rhetoric on defense production seems to have taken on a new sense of urgency. Ukraine is a driving factor, but not the only one. The Department of Defense is also preparing against the possibility of a Chinese attack on Taiwan, which itself is sitting on a $19 billion backlog in orders for U.S. arms.

“We have seen in Ukraine and more generally that a constraint and limiting factor for producing key platforms and systems is the industrial base in the United States,” said Dr. Radha Plumb, deputy undersecretary of defense for acquisition and sustainment, at a separate Tuesday Pentagon event. “So what we’re working on is to accelerate production.”

One bottom line: Some of the assumptions that underlie defense industrial base planning need to change. U.S. defense planning had adjusted to the belief that war between major powers is unlikely, and that the duration of other conflicts might be short.

Now the Pentagon is facing an unpredictable long-term commitment to Ukraine and even the possibility, however remote, of direct conflict with China. The U.S. has no self-defense treaty with Taiwan, but President Joe Biden has echoed previous occupants of the Oval Office by saying multiple times that America would defend the island.

Libkos/AP

Ukrainian soldiers fire at Russian positions from a U.S.-supplied M777 howitzer in Ukraine’s Kherson region, Jan. 9, 2023.

“Planning is usually built around short-duration conflicts. We don’t necessarily plan for longer duration like we’re seeing in Ukraine right now,” says Eric Fanning, a former secretary of the Army who is now president of the Aerospace Industries Association.

Just-in-time production now a problem

The American defense industrial base is a vast herd of 60,000 companies and 1.1 million employees. In some ways, its current predicament may be a function of its past success. One of its missions is to innovate, and over the years innovation has streamlined the industry into a precision producer of Pentagon needs.

In recent decades, advances in manufacturing equipment have allowed companies to shed waste and develop a system of just-in-time delivery – meaning they could produce just enough to fulfill orders.

This manufacturing model is more efficient, but it’s also trimmed some of the slack, or surge capacity, from the former system. With only enough employees and equipment to meet the current supply needs, defense companies struggle to accelerate production when demand suddenly rises.

Making this more complicated is the particular structure of the defense industry. Unlike in other fields, the U.S. government is virtually its only customer. That means the government’s needs end up molding the industry itself. If the Pentagon orders a consistent number of 155 mm howitzer shells for years, the companies supplying those will adapt to make only about that many each year.

But rarely more – government demand isn’t guaranteed, which means additional capacity involves taking on additional risk. With very few exceptions, the Pentagon orders all its systems and munitions on a yearly basis. It could want more shells one year, but defense companies don’t know when that year might occur.

“The Pentagon expects companies to maintain all of this excess capacity – workers, machines, equipment – and it’s very costly to have that,” says retired Maj. Gen. John Ferrari, who is now affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, a think tank.

The problem now is that extra personnel, manufacturing space, and equipment are all necessary to increase production, and increased production is in demand.

Besides the materiel provided to Ukraine, Taiwan too is waiting on its $19 billion in weapons orders. For Taiwan, the military goal is deterrence – meaning that to convince China to not invade, Taiwan needs to show that such an attack would be very punishing or unsuccessful.

Bolstering deterrence underlies the U.S. military relationship with Taiwan as well. Public war games, which admittedly miss key classified information, show the U.S. running out of vital weapons early in a potential war with China.

Efforts to ramp up

Pentagon efforts to bolster the defense industry production capacity have been increasing.

Doug Bush, assistant secretary of the Army for acquisition, logistics, and technology, has spent almost a year and a half coordinating industry and Pentagon officials.

Recently, Pentagon officials have, among other policy tweaks, called for more use of multiyear procurement, or longer-term contracts, which give companies a greater incentive to bulk up production. Such contracts require congressional approval for each use, but are estimated to save 5% to 10% on most orders.

And there have been some results. The 2023 National Defense Authorization Act, the government’s yearly military budget, allowed the Pentagon to issue multiyear contracts for a range of systems and munitions, including the vital 155 mm artillery shells. Months ago, the military received about 14,000 of those a month but has since increased that to 20,000. Secretary Wormuth says that number will ramp up – to about 72,000 by the second half of 2025.

The cost of that added capacity is about $1.5 billion. Finding ways to boost other critical systems with a limited budget is a colossal math problem. The recent debt limit deal increases the Pentagon’s budget by 3% next year, less than the current rate of inflation.

“It’s one pie, the budget,” says Mr. Fanning of the Aerospace Industries Association. “To build surge capacity into it is an expense that comes at a price against something else that you might want.”

Increased production also requires sufficient time to accelerate.

There are ways to max out existing capacity – by hiring more employees (difficult in a tight labor market) and adding a third shift to the schedule. But go beyond that and there are tall hurdles to jump, from building new factory space to acquiring advanced manufacturing equipment to complying with government regulations, says Cynthia Cook, director of the Defense-Industrial Initiatives Group at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a think tank. 

“Ramping up production is not necessarily just a question of turning the crank and increasing what factories are producing,” says Dr. Cook. “It’s a heck of a lot more complicated than that.”

Editor's note: A sentence in this story has been updated to clarify Taiwan's status.

There was a time, not so long ago, when Russia’s Victory Day, marking the USSR’s triumph over Nazi Germany, was considered a shared international holiday. At one point, it even included contingents of NATO troops marching in the traditional military parade across Red Square under the gaze of Russian leader Vladimir Putin and visiting Western leaders.

The outside world largely ignored this year’s parade on May 9, which was a greatly scaled-back affair amid the war in Ukraine and the very real threat of Ukrainian drone attacks. But to the surprise of many analysts, Mr. Putin was joined on the reviewing stand by the leaders of seven other post-Soviet countries, including all five former Soviet Central Asian republics, plus Armenia and Belarus.

After more than a year of severe stress, many of those countries have sought to distance themselves from embattled Moscow and find alternative avenues for trade, political connections, and security. But it’s not that easy to escape the bonds of geography, history, economic integration, and geopolitical dependence. All of the leaders sitting with Mr. Putin, and a few others who weren’t, have discovered evergreen reasons not to burn their bridges with Moscow.

Most of the Central Asian leaders, and Belarus, run some degree of authoritarian regimes that make them almost as unwelcome in the West as Mr. Putin himself. As a recent study by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development details, the war in Ukraine has uprooted traditional trading patterns, with former Soviet neighbors of Russia benefiting enormously from cheap Russian energy exports that used to go to the West, while their own exports to Russia – including sanction-evading ones – have proved extremely profitable.

“Many of these countries are hedging their risks,” says Dmitry Suslov, a foreign policy expert with the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. “This leads to some distancing from Russia, making gestures to avoid the threat of secondary sanctions from the U.S. and the EU. That gives an impression that Russia’s relations with them are deteriorating. But in fact, they simply cannot afford to break with Russia.

“There is too much economic interdependence, shared security concerns – Central Asian states are far more worried about Afghanistan than Ukraine – and demographic considerations. Millions of workers from Central Asia, from Georgia and Armenia, come to Russia as guest workers, and their remittances are very important. A lot of Russians have moved to these countries since the war began. Some are draft dodgers, but others are relocating businesses, developing new ways to keep working in the Russian market in an age of blanket sanctions. There are a lot of new dynamics in play.”

Alexey Maishev/Sputnik/AP

Presidents from Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan take part in a wreath-laying ceremony on Victory Day at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Kremlin wall in Moscow.

“Why would we pick a quarrel?”

For Central Asian states, at least, the main counterbalance to Russia is not the West, but China. In mid-May, Beijing hosted a lavish summit for Central Asian leaders in Xi’an, which included major promises of Chinese aid and investment, and a general warming of relations. Many commentators have pointed out that these new ties between former Soviet states and China may come at Russia’s expense, but Moscow and Beijing are very much on the same page about excluding Western influence from the region.

“Realistically, only Russia and China are in a position to support economic development in Central Asian countries,” says Alexander Knyazev, a Central Asia expert with the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, which trains Russian diplomats. “Countries like Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan are more wary about China, and look to balance those concerns through relations with Russia. After American troops left Afghanistan, they sought to strengthen security cooperation with Russia. Who else can provide stability and security in that region?”

Kazakhstan’s new leader, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, has huge hopes for his resource-rich country, and has made efforts to balance geopolitical relations between Russia, China, and the United States. But in practice, Kazakhstan’s political stability was ensured during riots last year by the timely intervention of Russian-led military forces, who left after restoring order. Kazakhstan, which has seen a huge influx of Russian business and investment since the war began, has declined to condemn Russia’s war outright.

“You couldn’t say that Kazakhstan supports Russia. We have a multivector foreign policy” that aims to balance the country’s interests, says Pyotr Svoik, a political analyst and opposition politician in Kazakhstan. “But we have lots of ties to Russia – through history, language, culture – which can’t be wished away. About three-quarters of Kazakhstan’s exports to the West are transported through Russian pipelines, railroads, and ports. Why would we pick a quarrel with Russia? We had no part in creating these problems; why should we pay for it?”

One of the more pro-Western states in the post-Soviet region is Georgia, which actually fought a war with Russia in 2008 over its Russia-sponsored breakaway territories. Despite popular sentiment in favor of joining NATO and the European Union, the little country has been drawn back into Russia’s orbit by economic dynamics and a reluctance to be drawn into the Ukraine war. The country has seen major unrest in recent months by pro-Western civil society groups seeking to curtail what they see as an authoritarian and pro-Russia drift by the Georgian Dream government. Fresh protests broke out in mid-May after Mr. Putin ordered visa requirements for Georgians be canceled, and the reopening of airline links between Tbilisi and Moscow.

The Georgian government argues that easing tensions benefits Georgian business, stimulates tourism, and is also good news for the large Georgian diaspora in Russia.

“Georgian society would prefer to join the EU and NATO, but these options are not realistic,” says Andrey Kortunov, academic director of the Russian International Affairs Council, which is affiliated with the Foreign Ministry. “Meanwhile, Russia can offer very real advantages, which a normalization of relations brings. Why should they lose that? Georgia hasn’t shifted its nature, but it is becoming more realistic.”

Vladimir Smirnov/Sputnik/AP

Russian President Vladimir Putin (left) and Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev shake hands at their meeting during Victory Day celebrations in Moscow.

The necessity of maintaining ties

Azerbaijan, an oil-rich post-Soviet state on the Caspian Sea, has likewise carefully threaded the needle between Russia, Iran, Turkey, and the West. It has recently won a major victory over a longtime enemy, Russia-allied Armenia. With Western mediation, Azerbaijan and Armenia have agreed to settle their key differences over the Armenian-populated region of Nagorno Karabakh, a deal that suggests a hope that peace may reign in the troubled region for the first time in three decades.

Azerbaijan could be a key link in the long-stalled North-South Transport Corridor project, which is intended to connect Iranian ports on the Indian Ocean by rail with Russia’s vast east-west railway network. In mid-May, Mr. Putin signed off on $1.6 billion in Russian financing to complete the last leg of the railway in northern Iran. When completed in four years, the new transport route could rival the Suez Canal, advocates say.

“Azerbaijan sees what is happening in Ukraine, and we try to help the Ukrainians,” says Ilgar Velizade, an independent political scientist in Baku. “But distancing ourselves from Russia is not a geographical possibility. How do you isolate yourself from a close neighbor? Transport relations are impossible to break. The dialogue we maintain with Russia is essential for political and economic processes in our region.”

The ongoing war in Ukraine hangs over the wider region, and drives a good deal of the instability and shifting stances of many countries, says Mr. Suslov.

“Russia has certainly suffered a loss of influence in many areas, but the necessity of maintaining ties has also asserted itself. Russia is going to retain a central place in regional relations. In general, the West has been too blunt in demanding post-Soviet countries sacrifice their own interests for the anti-Russian cause, and too quick to threaten secondary sanctions. If they matched the threats with real resources and economic opportunities, Western diplomacy would be more effective in taking advantage of Russia’s weakness,” he says.

“As long as the Ukraine war continues we’ll see this intense rivalry between Russia and the West in the post-Soviet region, with various losses and gains on both sides. How the wider spheres of influence develop will depend very much on the results of the war, and how Russia emerges from it.”

Biswaranjan Rout/EYEPRESS/Reuters/File

Villagers block a Jindal Steel Works official and police from entering Dhinkia, India on Jan. 18, 2022, following violent clash over the transfer of thousands of acres of land for an integrated steel plant.

Manas Bardhan was 15 when he noticed a stir in his village in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. Dhinkia elders had begun to huddle together every evening, and when he tagged along with his parents one night, he was alarmed by what he heard. 

Their land had become the site of a lucrative industrial project, and if the village didn’t stand up in resistance, they would lose it. 

For generations, the community has cultivated betel vines in shaded plots and fished in water bodies scattered across the forested area. They depended on the fertile earth – “sweet sand,” as the locals called it – and the sea flanking them on one side. Mr. Bardhan would spend hours helping his father irrigate the fields one day, collecting cashew nuts with his mother another. But in 2005, this way of life was thrown into jeopardy when the Odisha government signed a $12 billion deal with South Korean steel giant POSCO – the biggest foreign direct investment in Indian history at the time – allocating thousands of acres from eight different villages to build an integrated steel plant.

The project has since changed hands, but Mr. Bardhan and other villagers continue to fight against the development nearly two decades later. There have been small victories – courts and expert committees have intervened at times and villages have passed resolutions. In March, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) suspended the new company’s environmental clearance and ordered a fresh environmental impact review. However, the fact that the project hasn’t been canceled yet, activists and experts say, underscores a broader pattern where the state and national governments have repeatedly ignored environmental laws and the concerns of forest-dependent communities in their push for industrial projects. 

The laws in place are “not implemented and not honored by the state itself,” says Prafulla Samantara, an Odisha-based environmental activist who filed the petition at the NGT. Moreover, “after the [Bharatiya Janata Party] government came into power, they’ve tried to change pro-people laws and rules to give more opportunities and advantages to the corporates. This has happened at the cost of the people ... and at the cost of climate justice.” 

A long fight

Dhinkia has long been at the forefront of the resistance. Mr. Bardhan recalls being in his school uniform, the heat beating down, guarding the barricades villagers put up to keep the police and POSCO officials out. Like going to class or working the fields, protesting became part of his routine. Eventually, he dropped out of school.

“The stress of the resistance got to me,” he says. “I thought, ‘What are we going to do with our education while our elders are being beaten and sent to jail?’”

Facing unwavering resistance and new legal hurdles – including the landmark Forest Rights Act, which requires the informed consent of village councils before any occupied forest land is diverted for a proposed project, and strengthened mining regulations – POSCO surrendered the land in 2017. The relief was short-lived, however, with the government transferring the forest clearance to an Indian multinational corporation, the Jindal Steelwork Group (JSW).

JSW now plans to build its own integrated steel plant, which includes a cement grinding unit and a coal-based captive power plant of massive capacities.

Mr. Samantara, who filed the petition with NGT, argued that no environmental assessment had been done to study the “cumulative impact” of these polluting industries on the area’s human and ecological health. The tribunal’s order also noted that the public hearing for the JSW’s environmental clearance – which Dhinkia residents call a farce – provided incomplete information about the project’s impact. 

“We are conscious that the project involves huge investment. At the same time, the principle of sustainable development cannot be ignored,” the NGT order states.

The order comes as lawmakers have diluted several environmental regulations to pave the way for ease of business. Mr. Samantara says that the Indian government is “violating its own promises to the Paris Agreement.” Meanwhile, Mr. Bardhan and others in Dhinkia have not backed down. 

Battle heats up

The fight against POSCO was long and hard, says Dhinkia resident Shanti Das, but in the last two years, villagers have seen unprecedented levels of police repression.

Police have at times set up camps outside Dhinkia, prevented activists and media from entering, and left the village in a state of near siege, according to locals.

Last January, hundreds of officers baton-charged protesting villagers. Mr. Bardhan still carries scars from that day on his face. Ms. Das was also beaten; then she hid out in the forests for weeks before eventually being arrested. She and Mr. Bardhan face a slew of serious charges, including attempt to murder, criminal intimidation, and illegal use of prohibited arms, all of which they strongly refute. Both are currently out on bail. 

Local activists estimate that police have filed cases against thousands of villagers and issued arrest warrants against more than 700 locals since 2005. Many involved in the local resistance continue to languish in jails. The district administration was not available to respond to queries, but in the past, officials have justified police crackdowns as necessary to quell the protest. 

“Almost all of the local community (baring a very selected few individuals from Dhinkia village who are historically against industrial activities in the area), are fully supportive of the project development” and believe that it will “enrich the quality of life and livelihood of the community,” wrote Anil Kumar Singh, part of the management at a local JSW subsidiary, in an email response. 

Yet in some instances, the courts have sided with those “select few.” In response to a petition by residents from three different villages, including Mr. Bardhan, the Odisha High Court recently halted the alienation of land for the project until the government carried out the process of recognizing the rights of the community under India’s forest rights law. 

“The judge is like God to us. He upheld our rights,” says Mr. Bardhan. But it might be too little, too late. Dhinkia residents say almost all their betel vines and agricultural land have been flattened in preparation for the project – and with them, a sustainable livelihood.

Karen Norris/Staff

Development debate

“We worked, harvested the crops, and fed ourselves,” says Ms. Das about life in Dhinkia before the steel project. “What difficulty would we have? Just looking at that bountiful land filled my stomach. But now I haven’t stepped foot [in the betel farms] in a year and a half.”

For the loss of betel vines, JSW has offered a compensation of about $210 per 0.01 acres, along with a range of other one-time payments and the promise of jobs at the plant. Residents of Dhinkia say this compensation package is no substitute for the perennial income they once had. Having witnessed similar companies fail to deliver jobs in neighboring regions, and, aware of increasing industrial mechanization, they see no real guarantee of work either.

“This is our company,” says Mr. Bardhan, referring to the steady work betel farms once generated for many landless laborers. “Even an aged worker eats his meals with us and takes home at least 350 rupees [$4.27] at the end of the day. What will a company give them?”

Today, India is the world’s second-largest producer of steel, and Odisha, a mineral-rich state on an industrial overdrive, is the country’s largest producer of iron ore. But the state fares poorly on human development indicators, and reports highlight that income from mineral extraction does not benefit the regions from where these minerals come. 

Sandeep Kumar Pattnaik, an Odisha-based researcher, says the state’s vision of “development” does not take into consideration the needs of the marginalized communities who make up almost half its population. “In the process, we see that cases of displacement, environmental destruction, filing of [criminal] cases, politicization, and corruption have become high,” he says. 

While the state’s gross domestic product has gone up, he adds, “if we look at the structure of development, it is extremely violent.” 

In Dhinkia, residents say they feel depleted. Children have dropped out of school, there is no work, and meals are scarce. But they remain determined. 

“We don’t want money,” says Ms. Das. “Instead, let them release our sons from jails, return our land to us. ... It’s been our resolution from the start that we’ll fight till we die and won’t leave our land.”

This reporting was supported by the International Women’s Media Foundation’s Howard G. Buffett Fund for Women Journalists.

Ezekiel Akwach crouches down on a gray blanket spread under a tree, joining a large group of people gathered around a little boy lying on the ground, writhing from side to side and holding his head in his hands.

Mr. Akwach touches the boy’s forehead with the back of his hand and jots down a note in his notebook.

“I’m recording information about children who need medical assistance,” he tells the family. “He’ll be fine. We’re working to make sure they get help immediately.”

“Please,” the child’s aunt responds, clasping her hands.

Mr. Akwach nods, then springs up and gazes around for his next stop in the sprawling refugee camp in Malakal, South Sudan’s second-largest city. Many here, including Mr. Akwach, are returnees. Having fled north to Sudan from South Sudan when a civil war erupted in 2013, they are now returning home after fighting broke out between rival factions of Sudan’s military government in April. 

Mr. Akwach’s personal trajectory in some ways gives a glimpse into how the conflict has upended millions of lives. Already, more than 25 million Sudanese – half the population – are in need of humanitarian aid. Sudan also sits at the center of seven other African nations, all grappling with their own internal humanitarian and political crises. 

Once a diverse and thriving capital of South Sudan’s oil-rich Upper Nile state, Malakal has now become the main port of call for a stream of refugees and returnees.  

Yet despite the grim situation, South Sudanese people have resolved to care for each other. 

In Malakal, a local resident funded a barge trip to bring returnees to the city; another is building eight toilets at the camp. Mr. Akwach, who had to abandon his retail business in Sudan, has volunteered to collect data on the refugees and returnees pouring into the camp – work that requires him to be part therapist, part caregiver for long hours of the day.

“They are resilient as they have got used to many crises,” says Sister Elena Balatti, the director of Caritas Malakal, the humanitarian arm of the Catholic Diocese of Malakal, which is also providing relief at the camp. “It is true for so many people.”

Cycles of displacement

As he approached Malakal by barge last month, Mr. Akwach began having flashbacks of his old life.

He remembered how he loved drinking wala-wala, or millet porridge, in the morning and playing soccer with friends after school. But he also recalled the day when gunfire between government and rebel forces drove him and his family from the city where he was raised. Memories of bodies on the ground and people running for their lives still haunt him. 

He, his mother, his sister, and her three children left their house with the few belongings they could carry in their hands, and made the three-day journey to Khartoum, Sudan’s capital, by boat and cars.

Carlos Mureithi

Refugees fleeing conflict in Sudan arrive at a camp in neighboring South Sudan, seeking food and shelter.

The family rebuilt their lives there. Mr. Akwach completed high school, graduated from university, started a phone and accessory shop, and got married. No one planned on coming back. But nearly 10 years later, Mr. Akwach felt he was reliving the same nightmare when a conflict once again erupted on his doorstep.

The outbreak of fighting in Sudan is the result of a power struggle between the leaders of the two main factions of the country’s military government: General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudan Armed Forces, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF). 

The two men played important roles in a 2021 coup that toppled Prime Minister Abdalla Hamdok and was supposed to reform the coalition government he was heading following the ouster of President Omar al-Bashir in a coup in 2019. 

But disputes emerged between them during talks to integrate the paramilitary RSF into the regular military. The deadly fighting pushed a million people from their homes, and Mr. Awkwach is among the 30,000 who have fled to South Sudan.

In Malakal, he found a camp in crisis.

The new influx of arrivals piles more humanitarian pressure on a country that already has the world’s largest refugee population. Alongside those displaced during the civil war, another wave of refugees had arrived in the wake of catastrophic flooding in neighboring Jonglei state in 2021. 

“Resources were not even enough even to cater for these two categories of people in need,” says Sister Balatti, from Caritas Malaka. “The resources are limited. Resources have been outstretched.”

Resource management

During his daily round at the camp one hot afternoon, Mr. Akwach spots a young girl scaling fish in a cooking pot as an older woman sits nearby, watching over two children. Nyatipo Akuot arrived a few days earlier with her daughter and three granddaughters. One recent afternoon, they lined up together with tens of other people to wait for their turn for food distribution. But in a split second, a scuffle broke out and a few people made off with all the rations. 

“It was overwhelming and not organized,” says Ms. Akuot.

Mr. Akwach approached the family and shook each person’s hand. Ms. Akuot says the family has at times gone for days without food but were relieved as relatives had given them money to buy fish. Mr. Akwach reassures them that a new batch of donated food would arrive the next day and that the family would be among the recipients.

Still, not every encounter is so hopeful. Early in June, tensions began to rise after women tussled at a water point. Then, last week, at least 20 people died when clashes broke out after a man was stabbed. Malakal, like several other camps, is home to ethnic groups and communities who maintain an uneasy peace following the civil war that ended in 2018. The United Nations office in South Sudan said it had reinforced the military and police presence. 

Nearly 10,000 people arrived at the camp during its first two weeks of operation, and while most have left for other parts of the city and the country, aid workers are expecting more to come. 

“Across the country ... we have only been able to provide two weeks’ worth of food to families each month,” says Gemma Snowdon, head of communications for the World Food Programme in South Sudan. “This operation is putting pressure on limited resources as WFP is redirecting food to assist new arrivals.”

There’s also a shortage of human capital. For thousands of refugees and returnees, the government has a team of just 14 people on site to oversee camp activities. Shortly after Mr. Akwach arrived, officials formed a team of 27 returnees tasked with collecting data and being a point of contact for new arrivals who may have questions. The work doesn’t come with pay, but the volunteers get occasional meals, and Mr. Akwach was recently voted chairman of the team.

Mr. Akwach’s goal is to get a job with a nonprofit and so he can rent a house and bring his family over.

“I myself am sleeping on the ground near the river,” he says. “This situation is not suitable for them.”

He acknowledges that getting a job may take a while as the city is still rebuilding itself and there are few opportunities. In the meantime, volunteer work at the camp will suffice.

But first, he’ll have to repay a debt to a friend who lent him 50,000 South Sudanese pounds ($83) to help him get to Malakal. He’ll double the amount, he says.

“Two times, not one. When someone helps you, you do something good for him,” he says.

When septuagenarian Keith Griffith was a kid, he remembers gathering with friends in front of his home, dragging a low wooden plank into the middle of the street to play a uniquely Barbadian sport called road tennis – and having the time of his life. 

Barbados may be known for its white-sand beaches, crystalline waters, and killer fish sandwiches, but many here hope road tennis will soon become synonymous with the Caribbean island.

The sport emerged in response to classism and racism in the 1930s that excluded many Barbadians, or Bajans, from private clubs and tennis courts. Locals like Mr. Griffith remember kids collecting stray tennis balls that flew over traditional tennis court fences and removing the green fuzz to use the rubber inside for their games. Any time a car approached, they’d move the long board, about 8 inches tall and used as a net, onto the curb.

“Road tennis was a gem for us,” says Mr. Griffith, now 79, who played until about six years ago when he retired for health reasons. “You could just step outside and play.”

The game is likened to a combination of table tennis and lawn tennis. Players use what look like oversized wooden table tennis paddles with flat handles, which makes wrist work key. The “net” is so low to the ground that players must be, too. That means backs, buns, and knees get a thorough workout.

Today the sport is more formalized with standard court sizes, official governing bodies, and government-backed efforts to export the game around the globe. A single tournament can net a winner thousands of dollars, or even a new car. But the professionalization of road tennis and the dream of taking it far beyond Barbadian borders hasn’t erased the beauty of its humble beginnings, players and proponents say.

Whitney Eulich

As the afternoon wears on, more and more neighbors turn out at the community road tennis courts in Belfield, Barbados, to play, watch, and socialize.

“This sport is about taking what you have and making something beautiful out of it,” says Dale Clarke, CEO of the Professional Road Tennis Association. “Road tennis, like Barbados, is a story of innovation.” 

A welcoming sport 

Tucked behind rows of candy-hued houses and cars in various stages of repair sits The Sauna, a mechanic’s workshop-turned-community gathering place and training center.

On a recent sweltering weekday afternoon, a group of men ranging from late teens to late 70s watches a white rubber ball fly back and forth across the 10-foot by 21-foot court. On weekends bystanders play cards, get haircuts, and munch on hot, local sandwiches like roti and fish cutters. Indoors or out, road tennis is a central part of daily life – a magnet for socialization, says Anthony “Baku” Simmons, who transformed his car repair shop into The Sauna in the late 1990s. “I just love the sport,” he says of his motivation to build the space.

In bringing communities together to socialize and exercise, road tennis creates a sense of unity, says Frederick Blunt, president of the Barbados Road Tennis Association. “Those who are good want to see the sport keep going and growing.”

Across town in the neighborhood of Belfield, Trevor Ifill sits under a shaded pavilion alongside three bright blue, green, and yellow-accented road tennis courts. He says despite his background playing cricket and soccer, he didn’t give road tennis much attention until the pandemic, when it became one of the only social and physical activities still taking place across the island. Today, he’s hooked.

Road tennis is “truly a welcoming sport,” he says. “You can call even the best player in Barbados, and if they’re free, they’ll come out to play you or coach you.”

Carlyn “The Model” Herbert, a former road tennis world champion, started playing with her brothers when she was a kid. Today, her adult children are racking up wins, following in her footsteps. “It keeps you fit – and gives you bragging rights,” she says.

Whitney Eulich

Bajans of all ages come out to the road tennis courts in Belfield, Barbados, to exercise and socialize – even former road tennis world champions like Carlyn "The Model" Herbert (right), shown here May 17, 2023.

Trash talk is part of the fun. “Someone might see you and say, ‘Oh, you good!’” Mr. Ifill says, as a father and son start volleying on one of the courts beside him. “But then, loud enough for everyone to hear, they’ll add, ‘But I’m gooder!’” he says, laughing.

Road tennis’s revival 

Road tennis started to lose steam around the 1990s, says Mr. Blunt, but it’s been revived in recent years as clubs began formalizing in different neighborhoods, courts became more prolific in community parks, and prize money for tournaments grew exponentially. 

“Road tennis was on its deathbed,” says Mr. Clarke. “It was only played in the poorest areas, and it had this reputation of being a ‘lower-class’ sport.” That’s changed, in part thanks to Mr. Clarke’s vision to professionalize the game. “It used to be $300 and a plastic trophy,” if you won a tournament, he says.

He sought sponsors to up the prize pool, set up seating around courts, and cordoned off viewing areas, giving it a more professional air. Local media started covering big matches and tournaments, and both women’s and men’s divisions earn the same amount of prize money, emphasizing equality in the sport.

“There was an opportunity to have a mini social revolution. To empower people through the sport,” he says. “The amazing thing is how accessible it is – to all people, all classes. No one will keep you away. It’s inclusive, and that’s at its roots.” 

The elements that gave the game the reputation of being a “poor man’s tennis,” as Mr. Clarke puts it – like no need for fancy equipment, stadiums, or even shoes – are what give it so much potential today. The Barbadian government sees the sport’s promise, billing road tennis as the nation’s “only indigenous sport,” and nominating it for inscription on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List. 

Barbadians have traveled everywhere from Dubai to Cuba to play and offer coaching, and courts are popping up across the globe. Prime Minister Mia Mottley pitched road tennis as an Olympic sport to the president of the International Olympic Committee in March.

“We have much to share and to give to the world as small as we are,” said Minister of Culture Shantal Munro-Knight in an address at the Barbados Museum and Historical Society in May. “We are elevating road tennis ... because we understand the value that we have.”

At the end of a cul-de-sac in the neighborhood of Barbarees Hill, septuagenarian Cecil Ferdinand sits next to a road tennis court painted in the middle of the street. 

When he was a child, Mr. Ferdinand remembers watching his uncles field lost balls from lawn tennis games in wealthier parts of town. They’d come home and draw a court with charcoal on the road. Today, players can buy balls made specifically for road tennis. There’s plenty of change he likes to grumble about, he admits, and yet, one thing remains the same: “It’s a sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet, sweet game.”

"Loot," by Tania James, Knopf. 304 pp.

In late 18th-century India, a large automaton depicting a near life-size wooden tiger mauling an Englishman was created for Tipu Sultan, the Muslim ruler of the Kingdom of Mysore. Internal mechanisms and a pipe organ stowed within the two figures’ cavities caused the tiger to emit grunts, the man to wail, and various parts of the structure to move. Since 1880, the curiosity has been a popular attraction in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, among other spoils of war seized from the imperial courts of south India.

“Loot,” Tania James’ dazzling, richly embroidered historical novel, imagines the circumstances behind the fabrication of this ingenious toy, which gruesomely expressed Tipu’s hatred for the English and the East India Company’s armies that threatened his sovereignty. 

James has structured her third novel around the profound effect the automaton has on the people who connect with it throughout its decadeslong journey from a sultan’s whim to a prized plunder. In doing so, she has found a clever angle from which to explore the dark legacy of colonialism and the quest for betterment, autonomy, and love among those displaced by it. 

The novel begins in Srirangapatna, Mysore, in 1794, when Abbas, a gifted 17-year-old woodworker, is summoned to Tipu’s Summer Palace to work under the tutelage of a French master inventor and watchmaker named Lucien Du Leze. They are given just six weeks to create a novelty meant to enchant Tipu’s young sons, recently returned from English custody in Madras, where they were held as collateral until Tipu met the punishing financial terms of a peace treaty following a humiliating defeat at Bangalore.  

Neither artisan has a choice in the matter: Du Leze, sent over from France by Louis XVI, has been trapped unhappily in India due to the French Revolution. In Mysore, where spies are said to “outnumber the people,” everyone knows they must submit to power. In case there’s any doubt, Tipu alludes to the terrible fate of a friend of Abbas’ who apparently betrayed the regime. The sultan reminds the boy that his life, too, is in jeopardy: “Really anything is punishable by death if I say so.” 

James’ mastery of the tools and vocabulary of woodworking is impressive, but it is her meticulous development of the respectful relationship between teacher and apprentice that lifts her story to another level. Ambitious Abbas, thrilled to have “risen past his station” with his role in the automaton’s creation, recognizes that his despairing, homesick teacher is “a ticket to greater things.” But he also knows that his future is anything but certain.

“Loot” is masterfully plotted, moving quickly from Tipu’s desperate last months to the British conquest of Srirangapatna and beyond. Abbas later observes, “Goats are slaughtered with greater care.” 

James keeps things lively with plenty of action and welcome flashes of wit. Traveling between continents, her characters sail on trade ships vexed by disease and pirates. In an English castle, Lady Selwyn, an eccentric, rich widow with a passion for South Asian art carries on a clandestine affair with her personal secretary, a Brahmin who served as aide de camp in Mysore to her late husband.

Tipu’s library and what becomes known as the Tipu Tiger have easier passage from India to England than the human cargo. In a wonderful move, James briefly turns over her narrative to the fictional journal of a British seaman named Thomas Beddicker to provide a vivid view of her hero’s exodus from his devastated homeland. Beddicker relays conversations with Abbas during their shared night watches. At one point, Beddicker confesses his dream to captain his own ship and hire Abbas as head carpenter. But Abbas demurs: “You must understand, I did not come through such misery in order to serve others. Now I serve myself.” Abbas’ dream is to create something “that would outlast him, and for which he would be remembered.”

Abbas, determined to make his talent visible to “the unkind world,” yearns to “move through the world with a natural ease.” But in France and England, where race and class trump talent, he learns “how much harder it is to cultivate ease in a world that is wary of you.” While James doesn’t explicitly draw the connection, there are discomfiting similarities between her émigrés – trapped in subservience without dominion over their futures – and the foxes hunted on Lady Selwyn’s country estate.  

People meet, lose, and reconnect with each other in unexpected ways throughout “Loot.” Perpetually on their guard, they are sometimes slow to trust and recognize love. Among other narrative drivers, “Loot” features a “will-they-or-won’t-they” subplot. 

James has pulled off something special in this ingeniously constructed novel. By creating characters who steadfastly refuse to become plunder themselves, she has produced an inspiring work of beauty sure to leave its mark on readers.

AP

A seller covers his eyes due to the sunlight as he waits for customers in Istanbul, Turkey, Wednesday, June 7. The Turkish lira has tumbled to fresh record lows since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan won a third presidential term in elections last month.

Turkey has the world’s 19th-largest economy and a leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has been in power for 20 years. As a pivotal state between Europe and the Middle East, it enjoys a commanding perch in geopolitics, able to call in financial favors from wealthy nations. Yet after President Erdoğan won reelection on May 28, he appointed an economic czar who promises to re-create the Turkish economy almost from scratch, as if Turkey itself had to be reborn.

From now on, said Mehmet Şimşek, a former Merrill Lynch economist appointed as finance minister, the government’s principles in guiding the economy will be “transparency, consistency, predictability, and compliance with international norms.” He promised to bring accountability, “rules-based” policymaking, and a “return to rationality.”

Not only that, but Mr. Erdoğan’s choice to head the central bank, Hafize Gaye Erkan, took office with an international reputation for grounding her decisions in economic reality. “Data is indisputable,” she stated in a biography based on her high-level experience at Goldman Sachs and First Republic Bank, as well as an education from Princeton, Stanford, and Harvard.

These two respected appointees may indeed reflect a new direction for Turkey. At the least, they signal a possible epiphany for Mr. Erdoğan on how an economy should run. His very unorthodox ideas on economic management have led to a financial crisis and high inflation that almost cost him the election. (He won with 52%.)

The president has “effectively accepted the invalidity of his macroeconomic theory that ‘high interest rates cause inflation,’ though he has not said so publicly,” wrote Turkish American economist Timur Kuran on Twitter. Mr. Erdoğan sees high interest rates as un-Islamic, calling them the “mother and father of all evil.”

To ensure interest rates stayed low in the run-up to the election, he had to effectively take control of the central bank. He appointed four central bank governors in four years and placed his son-in-law as finance minister. The result was inflation at 85% last year and a critical depletion of foreign reserves to prop up the value of a much-diminished Turkish currency.

Now foreign analysts are watching to see if Ms. Erkan will raise interest rates by up to 25% to tame inflation and win back foreign investors. More importantly, they wait to see if she will be fired by the president if the economy slows too much for his party to prevail in local elections next year. According to a report by Middle East Eye, the new finance minister was able to present economic numbers to the president that persuaded him to support a credible approach on interest rates.

“You have to see all the data and understand what is going on yourself,” Mr. Şimşek supposedly told the president. Or as the finance minister told the people of Turkey, the country needs a “return to rationality.”