Elise Amendola/AP

Poll deputy Jerry Bangasser (right) watches as Fran Drago and her husband, Walton Davis, share hand sanitizer after voting in the Florida presidential primary, March 17, 2020, in Cape Coral, Florida.

This was always going to be a busy week for Leslie Swan. 

As the supervisor of elections for Indian River, a county on Florida’s mid-Atlantic coast, she had prepared all year for Tuesday’s primary: registering voters, training poll workers, and organizing precinct locations. But the past few days presented an unexpected to-do list – scouring the internet for hand sanitizer and instructing workers on how to wipe down equipment between voters.

“This was the last thing I was expecting,” says Ms. Swan, in the lobby of her office building which doubles as one of her 20 polling locations. 

As measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 intensify across the country – from distance learning for millions of students, to canceled sports seasons and shuttered stores and restaurants – the impact on campaigns and elections is also becoming evident.

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Florida, Arizona, and Illinois are still holding primary elections today, albeit with some changes such as reduced polling locations, and amid heightened tensions. Three other states – Louisiana, Georgia, and Kentucky – postponed their nominating contests until later in the spring. A dramatic scene unfolded in Ohio Monday evening as, just hours before polls were set to open, the governor postponed its primary, after the state health director ordered polling sites closed to avoid the risk of exposure. 

Beyond the mechanics of elections themselves, however, COVID-19 is casting a broad shadow over the 2020 campaign – upending traditional political campaigning as we know it. Rallies, canvassing, and phone banks have been called off and replaced with virtual town halls and online barnstorms. In a sign of the times, former Vice President Joe Biden and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders debated on Sunday in an empty studio, standing six feet apart. 

And for many voters, the situation has put politics in an entirely new light, raising the stakes of the election. Much of what passed for standard political discourse just weeks ago now seems petty and beside the point, as the nation faces an unprecedented challenge. For many, it’s putting a new premium on competence in government, while simultaneously clarifying the voting booth question: Which candidate has the right qualities to lead through these uncertain times?

“While the pandemic is disrupting our systems, it really does underscore that need for leadership in a way that is really palpable to people,” says Wendy Weiser, director of the Democracy Program at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice. “It underscores the importance of government.”

“The most important election in my lifetime”

On Friday, as Rob Withrow leaves the Palm Bay Community Center, a single-story mustard building blocks away from mobile home parks and the Indian River, he squints into the bright morning light and rubs a fresh dollop of hand sanitizer between his hands. Mr. Withrow cast an early ballot for Mr. Biden – the first time he has ever voted in a primary election, he says. 

“This is the most important election in my lifetime,” says Mr. Withrow, who owns a lawn care business. “Biden doesn’t make stuff up like our current president. ... Trump isn’t the person who’s going to be able to fix this.”

Story Hinckley/The Christian Science Monitor

Retirees Jane and Charlie Holstein set up a tent for the Brevard County Republicans outside a polling location in Palm Bay, Florida, March 13, 2020. They say President Donald Trump has already proved his ability to act decisively to address the pandemic.

Dozens of other Floridians interviewed say they feel more strongly than ever about the importance of voting in their state’s primary, feeling certain that their candidate is best able to steer the country through this crisis. Jeffery Nall, an adjunct humanities professor in Vero Beach who started a local Facebook page for Bernie Sanders in 2016, says COVID-19 has made it more evident than ever that the country needs a President Sanders to enact universal health care. 

The same goes for Republican voters, even though their primary is largely symbolic. Retirees Jane and Charlie Holstein, who are standing under a red tent with a “Brevard County Republicans” banner across the parking lot from Mr. Withrow’s car, say President Donald Trump has already shown his ability to act decisively to address the pandemic. Mr. Trump is an “experienced manager,” says Ms. Holstein, wearing a “Trump 2020” hat and matching elephant jewelry – and that extends into crisis management. A man leaving the Palm Bay Community Center yells out, “I agree with ya!” to the Holsteins, who wave in return. 

“Trump knows how to select the right people,” says Mr. Holstein. “Pence has got everybody who’s anybody in the medical fields. They’re all doing a great job, and I don’t know how people could expect any better.” 

Voters and political scientists alike take guesses about which candidate might be hurt most by the various unexpected factors now affecting campaigns. Big, energetic rallies – a mainstay of both Mr. Sanders’ and Mr. Trump’s campaigns – are off the table for now. But while a drop in campaign events might benefit Mr. Biden, his supporters also skew older than Mr. Sanders’, and may be more fearful about turning out to vote. 

Indeed, as soon as retirees John and Barbara Spilman file out of the Indian River County Library with “I voted” stickers on their chests, they pass a small bottle of hand sanitizer back and forth. Like Mr. Withrow, they say they would have rather voted on Tuesday because it feels more patriotic, but decided voting early was better for their health. 

“The main thing they tell you,” says Ms. Spilman, “is to stay away from a lot of people in small spaces.”

Looking ahead to November

A looming question is how states will conduct the 33 remaining primaries and caucuses, with the White House now recommending no gatherings of more than 10 people for at least the next 15 days. Many states are considering expanding their vote-by-mail operations. Monday evening, a group of organizations filed a lawsuit against Florida for not extending its vote-by-mail deadline.

Unsurprisingly, turnout on Tuesday appeared to be low. In Illinois, when a reporter asked the spokesman for the Chicago Board of Elections if low turnout was a blessing given reports of unexpectedly absent poll workers, he responded: “I would never call low turnout a blessing. I would call conducting an election in the midst of a global pandemic a curse.” 

Still, many experts point out that the coronavirus crisis hit at a point when the Democratic primary already seemed somewhat settled, after Mr. Biden’s big win on Super Tuesday and the following week had given him a sizable lead in the delegate count.  

“Even if we didn’t have the coronavirus concerns, turnout would go down because the dynamics have changed,” says Michael McDonald, an associate professor of political science at the University of Florida. “November – now that’s the direction we need to think about.” 

Indeed, if the U.S. wants to make sure it is prepared for November’s general election, says Ms. Weiser with the Brennan Center, now is the time to start. If there needs to be a mass increase in the creation and distribution of mail-in ballots, for example, now is the time for Congress to allocate funds so firms can begin printing. 

Eleven gubernatorial seats, 35 U.S. Senate seats, and all 435 House seats will be on the ballot in November, in addition to the race for the White House. In an op-ed in The Washington Post on Tuesday, Democratic Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Ron Wyden said they would be introducing legislation soon to make sure that every American will have the option to vote by mail. They would also expand early voting to reduce the risk of infection from long lines and crowds.  

“We have held elections in all sorts of crises, in the midst of hurricanes and civil war,” says Ms. Weiser. “We just need to make it fair – and get on top of it now.”

Editor's note: As a public service, we've removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It's free. 

Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde, seen here at a news conference in Frankfurt, Germany, March 12, 2020, has shrugged off suggestions the ECB might intervene directly in support of Italy.

It is the ultimate stress test.

Yet the crisis surrounding COVID-19 is different from the international challenge often cited as a parallel: the viral economic emergency of 2008. Then, the stress test involved banks and financial institutions. Now, it’s a political test striking at all levels: local, communal, national. But above all, international.

And while it’s too early to reach definitive judgments, one thing is clear. Just as major banks and finance groups were woefully unprepared for what hit them in 2008, COVID-19 has come as the international political order, and trust in national institutions, have been getting ever more fragile.

That’s particularly evident in Western Europe, which the World Health Organization (WHO) last week identified as the epicenter of its COVID-19 concerns. The worst-affected countries are now dramatically tightening restrictions on their populations, after long delaying the main consensus means of limiting the crisis: so-called “social distancing.”

Complacency may well have played a part in the delay. Yet to get buy-in for restrictions on movement before a crisis fully hits home requires credible, widely trusted national leadership. That’s in short supply in a number of the European countries facing sharply escalating COVID-19 cases, including Italy, France, and Britain.

Italy has been in the grip of partisan political feuding. In France, the initially popular President Emmanuel Macron has been dealing with street protests against his economic reform agenda. Britain remains divided over Brexit, championed by its polarizing prime minister, Boris Johnson.

Yet the weakened state of international political institutions has also undermined a coordinated strategy to deal with a virus that disregards borders. 

WHO has been attempting, at times almost plaintively, to assume the lead. But its funding has been cut in recent years. Its influence has eroded, too, amid nationalistic moves to devalue the importance of international institutions by the United States and by a number of countries in Europe.

That’s in striking contrast to the response to the 2008 world economic crash.

Individual countries took measures to deal with the immediate crisis. But Britain’s prime minister at the time, Gordon Brown, then used a meeting of the Group of 20 – the world’s leading economies – to chart an international response. The result, which ultimately helped rescue and revive the world economy: coordinated interest rate cuts, fiscal stimuli, and moves away from protectionism by individual states.

What’s been striking with COVID-19 is the absence of anything like that degree of coordination. WHO, possibly out of concern of further weakening its influence, initially echoed China in downplaying the severity of the crisis. Only gradually did it ramp up its messaging.

Nor was there coordinated international effort to apply the lessons from policies adopted by several Asian governments – Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and South Korea – that have proven relatively successful so far in limiting the effects of the virus. 

The U.S. and much of Europe let weeks pass without putting in place widespread testing and tracking of those who showed signs of exposure, or effective social-separation policies. And even as the crisis deepened in Europe and America, the response has been limited almost completely to individual national governments.

The European Union has yet to achieve a broadly coordinated approach. Last week, the president of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde, shrugged off suggestions it might intervene directly in support of Italy, whose already struggling economy has been pushed into recession by COVID-19.

The key question now is whether the spiraling effects of the coronavirus could prompt a renewed appreciation of the value of international cooperation.

In recent days, there have been indications of that in at least one area: heading off the risk that the world’s financial markets could seize up. The U.S. Federal Reserve coordinated with the central banks of Canada, Britain, Japan, Switzerland, and the EU to cut interest rates and inject liquidity into the markets.

And Saudi Arabia, current chair of the G-20, has announced plans to convene a “virtual” meeting in the coming days.

Yet there have been less encouraging signs so far in response to the root of the economic concerns – COVID-19 itself – despite the potential benefits of a coordinated international strategy for securing and distributing urgently needed items like face masks and sanitizers, testing kits and respirators.

Even within the EU, Italy was initially limited in getting masks and protective gear from states like Germany and France, which were stockpiling supplies. That practice has been abandoned. But the EU as a whole has now effectively barred the export of such items outside the union.

And in a stark indication of the fraying bonds between Europe and the U.S. over the past few years, a major controversy has erupted in Germany over newspaper reports alleging that the Trump administration offered a large sum of money in hopes of gaining exclusive access to a COVID-19 vaccine under development by a German company.

A number of senior German politicians said any such move would be blocked. A prominent member of parliament caught the prevailing mood. “A pandemic is a matter for all humanity,” said Bärbel Bas of the Social Democratic Party, which is part of the governing coalition, “not for ‘America First.’”

Editor's note: As a public service, we've removed the paywall for all our coronavirus coverage. It's free. 

I certainly wasn’t in Moscow anymore. Looking through the window of a gondola lift, swaying high above a mountain gorge, the view was nothing but snow-gauzed peaks all around. It’s a half-hour, multistage trip to the summit of this towering mountain, and they say it’s important to focus the mind while getting accustomed to the thinning air, so I amuse myself by wondering, as if I forgot my bearings, where on earth this might be. 

Somewhere in Switzerland, perhaps? No, the jumble of tiny buildings now barely visible at the mountain’s base looks distinctly un-European, and the spicy lyulya kebab I had at lunch says it’s likely a place in Asia. Maybe the Himalayas?

But in a small wooden cafe at the freezing, desiccated summit, a babushka in a woolen headscarf pours a few fingers of zavarka – thick black tea concentrate – into a glass and tops it off with boiling water from a samovar. In gentle Russian she advises me to sit, drink the tea, and breathe deeply until I find my feet. Clearly, I am still in Russia, where I have lived for more than 30 years.

In fact, I am in Russia’s North Caucasus Federal District, a place of soaring snow-capped mountains, vertiginous gorges, cascading waterfalls, and gushing thermal mineral springs, all set amid some of Europe’s last untouched alpine wilderness. Lying between the Caspian and Black seas on Russia’s southern fringe, it is a surprisingly beautiful, ethnically fragmented, and culturally diverse land that remains largely unknown to the outside world. Larger than France, the North Caucasus Federal District is located on a historic fault line of civilizations. Its rocky hillsides are littered with ancient fortresses, buried cities, and eerie village-like necropolises. And then there’s Mount Elbrus, Europe’s highest peak, where I am sipping tea. 

Today most of this territory is divided into seven ethnic republics that identify with different religious traditions, mainly Muslim, but there are also indigenous Christians, Jews, and even Buddhists. In all, some 50 ethnic groups that speak more than 100 languages have coexisted here for centuries amid a maze of mountain valleys. In addition, the territory includes two Russian regions, Stavropol and Krasnodar, which are still heavily populated by descendants of the Cossacks.

YELENA AFONINA/TASS/GETTY IMAGES

Locals participate in a cultural festival in Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya.

Soviet citizens once knew these places like the back of their hands. To this day every Russian schoolchild becomes familiar with the key places and peoples of the North Caucasus – as well as romanticized stories of the 19th-century wars that dragged these territories into the Russian Empire – by reading literary classics such as Alexander Pushkin’s narrative poem “The Prisoner of the Caucasus” and Leo Tolstoy’s “The Cossacks.” Indeed, one of Tolstoy’s final works, “Hadji Murat,” is a tale of Islamist rebellion, treachery, and military subjugation by Russia in the 19th-century North Caucasus that reads as prophesy to the post-Soviet generation of Russians. 

Though they were mostly forbidden to travel abroad, Soviet people nevertheless yearned to sample different cultures. So for them, the Caucasus was a permitted realm of exotica inside the Iron Curtain. And it was completely safe.

But today, even Russians are stubbornly refusing to return in large numbers. That’s because following the demise of the USSR’s attempt to homogenize all these disparate peoples into one “Soviet” type, many of them have set out to recover their own heritages and seek greater independence. As a byproduct, the past 25 years have seen two savage Russian anti-separatist wars in Chechnya, simmering Islamist insurgencies in several other republics, and devastating terrorist strikes emanating from the region.

As a reporter who has traveled often in the Caucasus over the decades, I have always been struck by the wild, magnetic attraction of the region. I wondered whether it might be turned into a genuine tourist mecca in the event that reliable peace ever returned. Even though I was usually rushing through the region covering some tragic news event, it was impossible not to stop and marvel at the jagged mountain ranges with glaciers glistening in the sun, or muse about life in those hillside villages, or just slump onto a bench at one of the ubiquitous roadside eateries to savor the rich lamb soup known as chorba.

So, when the Ministry of the North Caucasus contacted me recently and invited me to join a small group of journalists on a road trip to this sprawling territory, I quickly agreed. I don’t normally accept official guided tours, but since I wanted to gauge the tourist potential of the places I have previously seen, determine the safety of traveling there, and above all, see how much the republics have reestablished their own identities, this seemed like an agreeable way to do it. The ministry provided a veteran guide, the wonderfully informative Lyudmila Shaffrai, and tellingly, no police escort. A minibus full of foreigners driving for four days through remote mountain roads once scourged by Islamist terrorists is a pretty good security test.

Yelena Afonina/Tass/Getty Images

A DJ performs at a music event on Mount Elbrus in Russia’s Caucasus Mountains.

“We are doing a lot to build new tourist facilities, aiming for world standards of quality. Lord knows, we have the natural wonders, including Mount Elbrus, to attract people,” says Murat Shogenchukov, minister of tourism of Kabardino-Balkaria, a mainly Muslim republic that occupies much of the central massif of the high Caucasus mountains. “We know perfectly well that if it’s not deemed to be safe, people are not going to come.”

Yet many people remain unconvinced that the Caucasus can compete with vacation spots in the now-accessible West.

“Nowadays, if you have money, you can travel to the European Alps, take a beach vacation in Turkey. And we have learned that in other countries you get good quality services for what you pay, and the kinds of services that don’t even exist in the North Caucasus yet,” says Yevgeny Butovsky, a Moscow businessman who traveled around the North Caucasus in the 1980s. “But the key issue is security. I am not convinced that the war is over down there. Maybe it’s been suppressed, but the problems have not been solved.”

Chapter 1: Do millennials like mud baths?

The first Russian settlers in the Caucasus foothills, in what is now the Stavropol region, discovered what they believed were healing properties in the more than 50 different mineral springs that bubbled up from the ground, as well as the salty mud from the vast bog known as Lake Tambukan. The spas built by the settlers never rivaled Central Europe’s, but they developed a solid reputation among Russian aristocrats of the 19th century.

But the USSR turned it into a mass phenomenon. The Soviet state subsidized the recreation and treatment for many millions each year in sanitariums for the working class that were half hospital, half hotel. Patients typically came for 21 days to receive morning medical treatments from doctors, augmented by special courses. In the afternoons, they might hike in the nearby hills, swim, or go sightseeing.

That unique public health model shriveled after the USSR collapsed, as evidenced by the giant hulks of near-empty Soviet-era sanitariums in cities such as Pyatigorsk, Zheleznovodsk, and Kislovodsk, but it never completely went away. 

Tourism authorities in the Stavropol region, which was mostly untouched by the violent unrest of the past 25 years, say that up to 1 million mainly older Russians still come each year, primarily to drink and soak in the mineral waters and wallow in familiar mud baths.

“This is a 200-year-old city that was built for one purpose: to promote health. We have dozens of natural mineral water springs here, each with its own healing properties,” says Yevgeny Moiseyev, mayor of Zheleznovodsk. “These days we only use about 5% of our water; in Soviet times it was 60%. Our goal is to reconstitute that Soviet mass health culture, and bring a younger generation to appreciate our sanitariums, which are like a luxury hotel with full medical facilities.”

ANTON NOVODEREZHKIN/TASS/GETTY IMAGES

A woman prepares a mud bath at a health resort in Zheleznovodsk, Russia.

Vladislav Timoshenko, director of the Pyatigorsk-based Ladya agency that has been organizing tours around the region for 14 years, says the Soviet-era sanitariums might not meet the demands of younger Russians, who have traveled abroad and developed higher expectations of service, price, and quality, as well as different notions of recreation. But he insists the area has much more to offer.

“After many years, interest is growing and more people are coming down here,” he says. “There has been a good deal of public investment in roads and infrastructure, and private services like hotels, restaurants, and tourist services are growing fast. I think we’re getting back on the map.”

Chapter 2: Fluffy powder and fluffy hats

One of my most peculiar experiences on this trip was not exotic, but oddly familiar. On our second day we made a pit stop in the tiny village of Sari-Tyuz, in the republic of Karachay-Cherkessia, and my eye was drawn to a small cafe with a large sign that said “Stolovaya USSR.” A stolovaya was a ubiquitous Soviet eatery, where you could get cheap dishes, often served from big pots, like pelmeni (meat dumplings), gretchka (buckwheat porridge), and golubtsi (cabbage rolls). The menu here was almost identical to what you would have found anywhere in the USSR in those now-vanished days, with a few Caucasian dishes added in. 

So I went over and ordered a pirozhok (a meat pastry) and a glass of tea. I asked the waitress, a middle-aged lady in a headscarf who declined to give her name, why they named the place Stolovaya USSR. “Well, people like that,” she says. “We don’t see many foreigners here, but Russians come through on the way to skiing or mountain climbing, and they stop and order the food. Sometimes they say it makes them feel nostalgic. Local people like it, too. There aren’t too many alternatives around here.”

Karachay-Cherkessia – along with the ethnic republics of Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia-Alania, Chechnya, Ingushetia, and Dagestan – lies in the folds of the towering Caucasus Mountains. Despite their rugged natural beauty and amazing archaeological sites, these mountain republics cannot yet claim to be experiencing any new surge in tourism. But the people here have high hopes.

Jacob Turcotte/Staff

The ex-Soviet spa town of Arkhyz sits deep inside the republic of Karachay-Cherkessia, near the border with the small rebel Georgian state of Abkhazia. It is still renowned for its eponymous mineral water, but in recent years the Moscow government has invested about $65 million to build a modern ski resort, with two first-class slopes that have snow-making equipment, gondola lifts, and luxury hotels, as well as a variety of restaurants, cafes, and shops.

It’s the first of five major ski centers the Kremlin plans to build around the North Caucasus, and officials say more people are coming. It may help that Karachay-Cherkessia, the westernmost of traditionally Muslim North Caucasus republics, also has the most peaceful reputation.

“We’re all about mountains. Eighty percent of our republic is mountains,” says Anzor Erkenov, the republic’s minister of tourism. “We have vast glaciers, deep gorges with rushing rivers, endless hiking and horseback trails, the ruins of ancient cities, and Christian churches that date back a thousand years. If you like pure mountain herbs, berries, and honey made from alpine flowers, just stop at any market.”

But whatever the Kremlin has invested in Arkhyz doesn’t yet appear to have trickled down to the people living in ramshackle towns along the road. The poverty and isolation that created post-Soviet instability in this region are still on full display, a condition that local officials shrug at and few in Moscow seem eager to address.

Indeed, many residents appear to eke out a living in the traditional way, by harvesting the bounty of the mountains around them. As Mr. Erkenov suggested, every cluster of roadside stalls offers a cornucopia of spices, honey, and herbs that has sustained these people for millennia. Locals also sell animal hides and snug knitwear of all sorts made from the wool of the Caucasus mountain sheep. For a modest $30, you can obtain a papakha, the distinctive tall, fluffy astrakhan hat that is ubiquitous headgear for men throughout the Caucasus.

COURTESY OF FRED WEIR

Monitor correspondent Fred Weir dons a papakha, a fluffy wool hat worn by men throughout the Caucasus.

Chapter 3: Rooftop of Europe

The next republic to the east, Kabardino-Balkaria, has the tallest mountains, including Mount Elbrus at 18,510 feet, and some of the most stunning alpine scenery on earth. A three-stage cable car takes visitors to Elbrus’ top, where the wind is like an ice dagger. It’s said that on a clear day you can see the distant blue strips of the Caspian Sea in one direction and the Black Sea in the other. That wasn’t so on the day that I visited, but the spectacular central Caucasus massif was in full view, and to the south the mountains of next-door Georgia dominated the horizon.

One remarkable sight near Elbrus’ twin rounded peaks is a stark stainless-steel war memorial, commemorating a ferocious World War II battle here. In the winter of 1942-43, Nazi alpine troops seized the mountaintop and held off Soviet forces for several months. 

However, there is no marker for a more recent set of tragic events, a series of terrorist attacks in 2011 that destroyed a section of the gondola lift and killed at least three tourists.

Elbrus is surrounded by a national wilderness park with its own famous source of mineral water, Narzan. It has so far received very little in the way of state investment. A small town with a jumble of private hotels and restaurants lies at the mountain’s base, but nothing like the elaborate new complex at Arkhyz. Experts say the explanation for the discrepancy probably lies in the byzantine politics of Moscow, where some republics seem more adept at prying loose federal funds than others. Khesa Bekayev, head of the Elbrus shareholders’ society, insists that it doesn’t matter.

“We would need huge financing to bring our Elbrus services up to European standards,” he says. “But, never mind, this is Mount Elbrus. It’s on all the lists of the seven top mountains in the world that people want to climb. It’s a unique place, and no one else around here has anything like it.”

Chapter 4: Monasteries and many tongues

Further east, North Ossetia-Alania is the region’s only traditionally Christian republic, tracing its heritage to the Alans, a civilization that speaks an Iranian language and dominated much of the North Caucasus in medieval times. A drive through its major mountain gorges is rich in Alanian sites, including ancient fortresses built into cliffs. It also features Georgian-style Christian churches and monasteries, as well as an amazingly well-preserved mountainside necropolis dating from the Middle Ages.

North Ossetia is where one of the most horrific terrorist attacks of the Putin era occurred. On Sept. 1, 2004, Islamist militants took more than 1,000 people hostage in a school in the sleepy town of Beslan. At least 334 people, mostly children, died when Russian forces stormed the school.

Not far away is the Roki Tunnel, through which Russian armies poured in August 2008 to repel Georgian forces that were invading the rebel Georgian republic of South Ossetia. Though all looks quite peaceful and friendly now, the oft-expressed desire of North Ossetians to unify with their ethnic kin in Russian-controlled South Ossetia, which is legally part of Georgia, could well be the source of future instability.

Chapter 5: Military tourism, anyone?

The hardest destination to sell to Russian tourists, much less outsiders, is Chechnya. The region’s main centers were smashed and the population decimated in two devastating Russian military campaigns well within recent memory.

Though I have visited Chechnya before, we did not go there on this trip. By most accounts the republic has risen from the ashes of war and rebuilt its ravaged cities with the help of massive funding from Moscow. It’s also gone the furthest down the road of cementing its national autonomy: It has a tough local dictatorship and a program of Islamization, which has created serious frictions with the Russian government over issues such as legalizing polygamy and forcing women to wear headscarves. The capital city, Grozny, now boasts one of Europe’s largest mosques.

Chechnya’s minister of tourism, an urbane, bearded man named Muslim Baytaziyev, insists that it is now completely safe to travel around his republic – whose mountain zones are as picturesque as any in the region – but admits that Russians are still very reluctant to come. Instead, he says, Chechnya’s tourist strategy will be to lure wealthy Muslim visitors from Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf, and republic officials are investing money to build luxury hotels and other attractions geared to the interests of Muslim travelers. One such activity, he suggests, is “military tourism,” in which visitors can drive mountain trails in combat vehicles, fire automatic weapons, and camp in military-style redoubts.

“In the Middle East there are fewer prejudices” about Chechnya, says Mr. Baytaziyev. “We hope that thanks to our halal culture, Islamic traditions, and a similar mentality, we will attract well-off customers from the Arab world. After all, they need to go somewhere in their hottest seasons. So why not come to Chechnya?”

Alexander Nemenov/AFP/Getty Images

A minaret stands outside the village of Gukhoy in the Itum-Kale district of Chechnya on July 25, 2019.

Chapter 6: Shedding an image of danger

Ingushetia, a Chechen-speaking republic that managed to stay out of the wars, has its own small slice of high Caucasus mountain magnificence, including a village that boasts one of only two streets in Russia named after Vladimir Putin (the other is in the Chechen capital, Grozny). But Ingushetia has its own reputation for instability, including bombings and kidnappings, and has also followed its neighbor Chechnya down the road of deepening social Islamization. In Ingushetia’s main airport, Magas, the female staff members now wear headscarves and long draping robes that cover their arms and legs. The airport bar, which I recall used to dispense vodka in shot glasses, now serves nothing stronger than coffee.

Last in the mountain line is Dagestan, which, with eight official languages and dozens of smaller ones used by its 3 million people, may be the most ethnically diverse place on earth. It is well remembered by older Russians for its deep mountain ravines, isolated hilltop villages where ancient crafts like silversmithing are still kept alive, and its well-preserved ancient Persian fortress in Derbent – now a UNESCO World Heritage site. It also encompasses miles of beautiful, subtropical Caspian Sea beaches. 

The republic has been roiled by multiple Islamist insurgencies for the past two decades, incessant gang warfare, and epic corruption scandals that shock even Russians. I personally have not been to Dagestan for more than 20 years, simply because it was the most dangerous place in Russia. Its ministry of tourism insists that the whole republic is now “100% safe” for tourists, but no independent expert seems willing to go on the record to affirm that.

Chapter 7: If you build it, will they come?

Thanks to various factors, Russians do appear to be returning in large numbers to many of their old Soviet-era haunts. Black Sea resorts like Sochi and holiday zones of the recently annexed Crimean Peninsula are reportedly experiencing major revivals. This is due in part to the severe devaluation of the ruble, political crises with the West, and the instability in other favorite Russian tourist destinations such as Egypt and Turkey.

But it’s clearly going to be much harder to entice even the travel-hungry Russians back to the North Caucasus, despite the stepped-up federal investment in infrastructure and the tentative appearance of peace. 

“We need much better marketing outreach to spread the word that we are open for business down here and can deliver everything people expect,” says Mr. Timoshenko, the tour operator from Pyatigorsk. “It’ll take time. But as long as political stability is maintained and there are no more violent incidents, it will happen. Press coverage of this region is generally good of late, and development of infrastructure is proceeding. We have everything it takes, and we’re optimistic.”

As a first-generation college student in Texas, George Bolton was hooked on an Army career through the stories of the Buffalo soldiers, the black cavalry units formed in 1866 to serve on the western frontier, becoming icons of African American military service.  

Today, Lieutenant Colonel Bolton runs the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program at the historically black Alabama A&M University outside Huntsville. He often invokes these stories to inspire his students to take on the combat jobs that can in future vault them to the highest echelons of military leadership. 

The more leaders of color willing to serve, he says, the better the military becomes. “When you have people that can bring diversity to the policymakers, then you have a better product for the nation. And that’s how you become part of the solution,” he says. 

Judging by the current makeup of the United States military, that solution is still lacking. While African Americans make up nearly 1 in 5 of the enlisted ranks, they comprise only 9% of officers. Across all minorities, the distribution is similarly lopsided: More than half of all enlisted women, and 43% of enlisted men, are Hispanic or a racial minority. Yet virtually all U.S. combat brigade commanders – a stepping stone to becoming a general – are white. 

The Pentagon is working to change this by using social media campaigns and recruiting potential officers in cities with large minority populations. In January, President Donald Trump announced an initiative to expand ROTC programs on the nation’s 102 historically black colleges and universities (HBCU) campuses, roughly one quarter of which have them. Among all colleges and universities, more than 1,700 currently host ROTC programs. The White House has not yet provided details of how it will expand onto the campuses.  

Minority soldiers should be able to “look upward and see themselves,” retired Gen. Carter Ham, president of the Association of the United States Army, told a Heritage Foundation panel held in January on the ties between the military and HBCUs. Right now, he said, the officer corps “does not look like America.”

A strong U.S. labor market – at least until the coronavirus-induced economic shock – has made it harder for the U.S. military to replenish all ranks including minority officers. The Army, which is the largest military branch, missed its recruiting target in 2018 for the first time in more than a decade. “I find that competing with a highly functioning economy forces the military to take a broader look at the populations they’re trying to recruit,” says Nathalie Grogan, an analyst at the Center for a New American Security. 

Urban strategy

While the South has long supplied a disproportionate number of troops, military services are now focusing on urban areas like Chicago and Detroit. The Pentagon is also trying new recruiting strategies: The Navy targets roughly 20% of its ads toward “multicultural and female prospects.” 

For their part, Army leaders have reached out to the 55-strong Congressional Black Caucus, asking lawmakers to beat the drum and sharing data on how few African American military recruits from their districts are on leadership tracks. “The message is, ‘If you’re serious about advancing the opportunities of your constituents, here’s an avenue you’re not taking advantage of,’” says General Ham.

Yet once recruiters bring service members of color in, it needs to do a better job keeping them, says Ms. Grogan, noting that midcareer black officers are more likely to leave than their white colleagues. Between the promotion from lieutenant colonel to colonel – a key career marker in the Army – 64% of black officers chose to leave, compared to 51% of white officers.

To retain black officers, Pentagon leaders need to be attuned to the ways they are unintentionally sidelined, says retired Gen. Larry Spencer, former Air Force vice chief of staff. “It doesn’t mean that folks at the top are against or have any issues with diversity, but left alone to work itself out, it’s complicated,” he says.  

Years ago, for example, General Spencer expressed interest in being the military assistant to the next secretary of the Air Force – a plum assignment. The problem, he was told, was that the leading candidate was African American, and it would look like favoritism for him to choose a black aide. “White males hire white males all the time. That’s still the case.”

Most students who receive a full scholarship on an ROTC program are obliged to serve for four years after graduation, providing a pipeline for future top leadership. 

At HBCUs, ROTC students say they receive the sort of leadership coaching that pushes them to tackle everything from the tyranny of low expectations to the pressure they put on themselves when they’re the only nonwhite people in the room. “I see what works and what doesn’t,” says Mia Robinson, a senior at Howard University who plans to become a military intelligence officer. “Those people with leadership qualities that work, they go far. I also want to be a good leader for my peers.” 

Among her own mentees, this is vital, she adds. “I notice that in the event they don’t have someone who looks like them, they’re not going to feel as comfortable.”

Barriers to diversity

Yet White House efforts to reach out to potential black recruits come at a time when many African Americans are wary of President Trump, says Katherine Washington-Williams, northeast regional head of the National Association for Black Veterans. “I used to tell young people, ‘Join the military,’ because it’s one of the best things I’ve ever done. But now I look at our commander in chief, and I’m not seeing anything positive. I’m a proud American, but where’s the love?” 

Maj. Gen. John Evans, head of U.S. Army Cadet Command, says he’s promoted women and officers of color onto his staff and that it’s made him a better leader. Their varied experience and backgrounds are particularly important, he says, because he came up in the notoriously white special operations world where, “through our own fault or not, it was hard to get diversity into the conversation, because there weren’t other [non-white] officers you could bring in.” 

Military officials say that they are increasingly pushing young officers of color into jobs that aren’t their first choice to give them a better shot at career advancement. 

In the Army for example, the top generals overwhelmingly come from the fighting fields – infantry, armor, field artillery – known collectively as the “combat arms.” Yet less than 10% of young black officers chose these fields, versus some 25% of white officers, according to the Military Leadership Diversity Commission. “This means that women and minorities have fewer opportunities for advancement and will, therefore, be underrepresented among leadership,” it concluded in a 2011 study.

It’s a good illustration of why mentors must be “insistent” about pushing young minority officers into combat specialties, says Major General Evans. One drawback is that combat jobs don’t easily transfer into civilian jobs compared to logistics and other fields. “You don’t get paid a lot of money on the outside to go and kill someone with precision,” he says. 

For his part, Lieutenant Colonel Bolton says he’s “tripled” interest in infantry and armor careers among his students at Alabama A&M, particularly among female cadets, who could not until recently pursue these jobs because women were banned from combat arms. Those who had marked it 5th or 6th on their list of top career fields “turned it into a 1 or a 2.” 

He takes up a new job next month as a battalion commander in an Armor division, one of the Army fields most likely to produce four-star generals. He wants to work his way up and into one of the rare military positions where he can create policy – and be a role model. “When we see success at a high level,” he tells his students, “We say, ‘Yes, this is possible. For everyone.’”

Reuters

Food donations are handed are out at the Emergency Feeding Program of Seattle and King County in Renton, Washington State.

In a pandemic, everyone is a responder, even if he or she is self-isolating. Yet for many people during the coronavirus outbreak, the response has been outward. According to the research group Candid, global giving to combat the outbreak and deal with the economic fallout has reached $1.3 billion in a matter of weeks. That’s far higher than for recent disasters such as the Australian bushfires or the 2014 Ebola outbreak.

The current tally of private charity may be low compared with what governments are spending. But it comes with a number of differences that will probably make a difference. For one, it shows the spirit of generosity remains high despite the gloom of contagion and predictions of long lockdowns. And it speaks to a confidence that the virus and its effects can be licked by the creativity and nimbleness of charities and foundations.

Givers themselves have had to be nimble during this unusual crisis. Gone are the public fundraising galas, walkathons, and people soliciting on the street or door to door. Volunteers are few. Instead, donors have had to go online, tapping sites like Venmo, GoFundMe, and Kickstarter. Twitter threads often elicit instant charity.

Giving is often targeted to specific people in need, with donors making sure their money has the intended impact. One example is a Facebook group in North Dakota called Neighbors Helping Neighbors. Within days of its launch it had more than 1,400 members donating money and goods to at-risk people in the community.

So far, the bulk of giving is from big donors, such as South Korea tech companies or the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. The World Health Organization along with a few partners set up a COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund.

In U.S. cities where the virus first showed up, local foundations have sped up grant giving, often to meet the needs of low-income people. In Pittsburgh, the United Way has surveyed local charities to pinpoint specific requests for help. Meanwhile, food banks in many cities are setting up drive-through distribution points for people in cars to pick up food through a window.

For such groups, hope is more than a thought. It is love in action. Giving fills many of the gaps left in government response to the virus. At a time when people think the world is going to pieces, generosity helps them feel whole again.