Gennadi Borishpol doesn’t scare easily. But he knows that his hometown of Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine is among the next targets of Russia’s march into the Donbas.

The sound of war is constant, with artillery and rocket duels on the horizon to the north. Blasts of outgoing Ukrainian rounds erupt from inside the city; incoming fire is growing, including a strike overnight Tuesday that officials say left one civilian dead.

“You can hear it – the front line is coming,” said Mr. Borishpol, a former firefighter who was among first responders at the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. 

But that was two weeks ago. Now, Russia’s war has come much closer.

“It has been much louder these days,” says Mr. Borishpol, contacted by phone Wednesday. “Every other day there is incoming shelling. One was last night. But still, at least it is not every day.”

For now he is staying put, loath to flee the birthplace of his father and grandfather. Then there is his responsibility to others: He is in charge of a hostel where those displaced by the war, including older people brought by neighbors from nearby villages, can find temporary sanctuary, food, and a bed.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Retired senior engineer Liudmila Krylyshkina speaks about the challenges of life in wartime, as the Russian offensive to capture Ukraine's entire Donbas region advances closer to the industrial city of Bakhmut, Ukraine, on June 24, 2022.

Like many of his neighbors, he grapples with resignation, patience, and the need for courage that is more evident every day. Some in the town deny that the war is coming – or coming for them. But for those who recognize the potential for an all-out assault as well as Russian occupation, difficult decisions about staying or leaving their lives behind for an uncertain future loom large. They’re rendered all the more complex by ubiquitous Russian television news, which portrays Ukraine as the aggressor nation, even bombing its own cities in some conspiratorial play for global sympathy.

Just miles away

Russian forces are less than 10 miles from Bakhmut, some estimate, though they have advanced little in recent days, since President Vladimir Putin ordered a rest and regrouping after capturing Severodonetsk and Lysyschansk in late June. Over the weekend, Bakhmut was struck by Russian incendiary munitions, which set fire to civilian houses and property. It was one of nearly a dozen towns that Russia targeted across the front-line arc of the Donbas, an industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine that Russia vows to conquer.

“It’s never too late to jump on a last bus with Ukrainian soldiers if they must retreat,” says Mr. Borishpol. “Until then, it’s my home and I believe in the power of the Ukrainian army.”

SOURCE:

Institute for the Study of War and AEI's Critical Threats Project

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Jacob Turcotte/Staff

Despite his calm demeanor, a woman sitting on the back steps of the hostel building reveals the tension, chastising the Chernobyl veteran for speaking to a foreign journalist. 

“When the press comes, shelling comes!” she shouts, before angrily standing up and stepping inside.

It is a common refrain of paranoia in this Russian-speaking town, where “normal” has been redefined by the gnawing fear of encroaching conflict. Residents are all too aware of the violence elsewhere, which has left entire cities destroyed by weeks of bombardment.

“I think I should leave,” says Liudmila Krylyshkina, a retired chief engineer with three higher education degrees in finance and law. As she speaks in late June, the ominous sounds of war in the background are constant, like rolling thunder. 

“We want to believe that everything will be good. We’re sure that soldiers will protect us,” she says, brushing back gray locks. “We have a strong spirit; they won’t give us up.” 

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

A Ukrainian woman and a girl stand near a pharmacy that is boarded up to prevent shell damage, but is marked as open, in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on June 26, 2022. Russian capture of the city of Severodonetsk last week has raised the stakes in Bakhmut.

Bakhmut has been struck by Russian ordnance repeatedly, but not yet constantly.

“Those people who have been in places with active bombing, you can see it in their eyes,” says Ms. Krylyshkina. “I would never think we would get to this point, where the war would come. 

“It’s become the same as Syria: This is not a war, just killing, a massacring of people,” she says. “How can you imagine people just sleeping in their beds and getting killed? It’s ultra-cruel.”

Two weeks later, contacted by phone, Ms. Krylyshkina says she was unable to leave. Her friend refused to go, and she was afraid to leave on her own. She is now a permanent fixture at the hostel.

Doubts about who’s telling the truth

Across town, in a park with a memorial marking the 10th anniversary of the Chernobyl meltdown, retiree Nelly Rudenchyk sits on a bench in the shade of a purple plum tree and marvels at “how beautifully” swallows are flying as they catch insects.

She lives alone, but says she can’t leave because “you need a pocket with a thick wad of cash, and I don’t have any.” Though she has relatives in Poland, “they don’t need me there,” she says.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Pensioner Nelly Rudenchyk sits in a park in Bakhmut, Ukraine, on June 26, 2022. She is not convinced Russia is to blame for the war, or that Russian troops have committed atrocities: “People make up stuff themselves. I don’t know what’s happening.”

Stuck in her mind is a 1960s Cold War song, which became well known in the Soviet Union, called “Say, Do the Russians Want a War?” It describes how sincere Russian intentions were misinterpreted by the West, which Ms. Rudenchyk says she believes is happening today.

She does not watch television because of the “negative energy” it brings, and says she gets her information from those who might randomly sit next to her and talk. She is not concerned if Russian troops seize Bakhmut, because Russians and Ukrainians are “the same” and “someone put us in an argument.”

“I’m sorry for the children who have not been evacuated; they are beginning to stutter,” she says, her words disrupted by the frequent barking of dogs abandoned by those who have fled. Yet she is not convinced that Russia is to blame for this war, or that Russian troops have committed the atrocities verified near Kyiv and across the battlefield since February.

“People make up stuff themselves,” says Ms. Rudenchyk, disbelieving when asked about Russian actions. “I don’t know what’s happening.”

Fully aware of what is happening is Serhii Sobolev, an evacuation driver for a Ukrainian nongovernmental organization called Help People. In late June, his van from Bakhmut had only half a dozen residents seeking safety in cities far to the west.

“Most people who stay, they sit and wait until the very last moment, when shells are falling around them,” Mr. Sobolev said then.

Scott Peterson/Getty Images/The Christian Science Monitor

Evacuation driver Serhii Sobolev, who works for the Ukrainian charity Help People, prepares to evacuate half a dozen residents on June 26, 2022. He says the number of people choosing to leave has increased as the sounds of war have drawn closer.

That balance has now tipped, and the charity group in the past week has delivered 50 to 60 tons of food, medicine, and toiletries. Eight vehicles have evacuated 300 people from Bakhmut and other Donbas cities, including Soledar, Sloviansk, and Kramatorsk, where water, gas, and electricity supplies have been cut.

“Now more people are leaving. Buses are full every day,” says Mr. Sobolev, contacted by phone Wednesday.

Not among them is Serhii Pogorelov, a municipal electrician, whose house has been struck by several pieces of shrapnel from an incoming artillery shell. Rockets also smashed into two apartment blocks a stone’s throw down the road, collapsing three floors of one and removing an entire corner of the other.

“This is our land; I was born here,” says Mr. Pogorelov, his fingers stained red from picking cherries. His wife works in a hospital, and he installed the generator in the hostel for those displaced by war.

“No, we won’t change our minds about leaving,” he says. “It’s my house. And we still have a job to do.”

Oleksandr Naselenko supported reporting for this story. 

Bandar Algaloud/Courtesy of Saudi Royal Court/Reuters/File

President Joe Biden is scheduled to meet with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, seen here in 2018 in Riyadh. The visit is aimed at shoring up cooperation with Saudi Arabia, particularly on increasing the flow of oil to global markets.

It’s a maxim coined by Joe Biden a dozen years ago, when he was still vice president. But it might just as well be emblazoned on Air Force One as he embarks on his first presidential visit to the Middle East: “Life is a matter of really tough choices.”

Back then, he was talking about a political trade-off on tax-cut legislation. Now, however, he’s had to face a much tougher choice on a larger stage: a world seismically jolted by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.

The result: an even more difficult, and controversial, trade-off. It’s between the emphasis on democracy and human rights he has placed at the core of his foreign policy, and his campaign to build and sustain international support to isolate Mr. Putin and deny him victory.

The latest, and starkest, sign is this week’s Middle East mission.

The three-day trip is already being criticized as a jettisoning of his human rights agenda to secure an easing of world oil supplies. But the administration insists Mr. Biden will still raise human rights concerns in his meetings. And it is stressing the importance of strengthening America’s regional security partnerships in response to what it sees as the longer-term threat to democratic values represented by the Russian invasion.

The core of the controversy surrounding the visit is a scheduled meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, a man U.S. intelligence has blamed for the 2018 killing and dismemberment of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul. He’s also a man Mr. Biden vowed to treat as a “pariah,” and to whom he’d not even spoken until the Ukraine war.

But MBS, as he’s known, also runs the Arab world’s leading oil-producing state. And he’s rebuffed American requests to bring millions more barrels onto the world market in order to alleviate the Ukraine-related shortages that are driving up pump prices, stoking inflation, and potentially weakening international support for the sanctions regime against Mr. Putin.

So on the face of it, President Biden is indeed swapping principle for oil.

That’s certainly the view of a growing chorus of critics: other Saudi dissidents, human rights groups, unhappy members of his own party, and newspapers including The Washington Post, for whom Mr. Khashoggi, who was a U.S. resident, wrote opinion columns.

Osman Orsal/Reuters/File

A demonstrator holds a picture of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi during a protest in front of the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Oct. 5, 2018. U.S. intelligence blames Saudi Arabia for Mr. Khashoggi's killing.

But the MBS meeting, assuming it goes ahead, is also part of a wider picture, and a more complex conundrum: the “really tough challenges” that are simply inevitable in responding to an international crisis on the scale of the Ukraine war.

The toughest call of all

On a personal level, Mr. Biden will have found the Saudi visit the toughest call of all. The “pariah” pledge was made on the campaign trail, but he clearly felt genuine abhorrence over the Khashoggi killing. He directed all presidential communications with Saudi Arabia through its aging, ailing King Salman, instead of MBS. And within days of his inauguration, he declassified the CIA report personally linking the crown prince to the killing.

The decision to meet MBS will have been made no easier by the crown prince’s response to Mr. Biden’s freeze.  

“Simply, I do not care,” MBS told an interviewer earlier this year.

But oil, if the prime catalyst, would not have been Mr. Biden’s only one.

The broader geopolitical implications of Mr. Putin’s invasion loom large. Years of American military involvement in the Middle East have now shrunken to a far smaller presence, with no domestic appetite for reengagement. Besides, the United States is finding it difficult enough to balance its security imperatives in post-invasion Europe with its response to the growing power of China.

With both Russia and China expanding their influence in the region, the U.S. needs to shore up its alliances with other Middle East states – not just Israel, but the growing number of Gulf Arab states, Saudi Arabia among them, moving toward entente with the Israelis as a result of their shared interest in restraining Iran.

And the “tough choices” as a result of the Ukraine war are not limited to the Middle East.

In Europe, the “illiberal democracy” of Poland has become a critical NATO ally, both in welcoming Ukrainian refugees and helping Kyiv push back against the Russian invasion force. Turkey, whose President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has imprisoned thousands of critics, has become essential to any potential arrangement to unblock Black Sea export routes for Ukrainian wheat – as well as for the required unanimous approval to welcome new members Sweden and Finland into NATO.

The administration has also felt the need to avoid a full-on political clash with key Asian powers – India, and China too – that have been cushioning the effect of the Russia sanctions by buying Russian oil. The concern has been to prevent them from more actively undermining Western sanctions and, in China’s case, helping shore up Mr. Putin’s military machine.

Put differently, the “really tough choices” have led to a recognition that, with the overriding priority of confronting Russia’s invasion, making nice isn’t only for close friends.

The key question now is whether the downplaying of human rights and democracy concerns that have been central to Mr. Biden’s message, even if in clear response to Ukraine policy considerations, may weaken America’s ability to make that case in the longer run.

In a strongly worded article on the eve of Mr. Biden’s departure for the Middle East, the publisher of The Washington Post argued that his U-turn on MBS wouldn’t only “erode our moral authority” but also “breed anti-American resentment” and “communicate to democracy activists and reform-minded governments worldwide that Washington is an unreliable partner.”

President Biden’s evident belief – and certainly his hope – is that the choices his administration is making will lead to success in what he’s termed a broader international struggle between democracy and autocracy, by consigning Mr. Putin’s invasion to failure.

So not only are the choices really tough. The stakes are really high.

In March, when the inflation rate hit a 40-year high, Kim Massale didn’t fret about rising prices for food or other goods. She and her husband, John, had already cut back on unnecessary spending on Amazon.com and elsewhere. Instead, they socked away $30,000 into a retirement fund. 

The day before he quit his lucrative aerospace job last week, Ryan and his wife bought a new Subaru Ascent after years of making do with one vehicle. “That’s probably the only thing so far inflation-wise that’s really adjusted our lifestyle and decision making,” says Ryan, who declined to have his last name published for privacy reasons.

Rising prices and looming fears of a recession have caused legions of consumers to worry about the future and pull in their horns. Security is at stake even among Americans earning $100,000 or more, two-thirds of whom say they are “very concerned” about inflation, according to a Morning Consult/CNBC poll conducted last week. More than half of Americans believe the United States already is in a recession, according to an Economist/YouGov survey last month.

But for one group of Americans – practitioners of FIRE, or Financial Independence, Retire Early – clouds of economic doubt have not rained on their parade, at least not yet. Made up mostly of millennials and Gen Z, the movement emphasizes living below one’s means with disciplined savings, diversified income, and robust do-it-yourself investing to achieve financial independence long before retirement age.

The strategy worked in an era of low inflation and rising stock prices. Now that the economic scenario has flipped, the FIRE movement is about to get tested. On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the U.S. inflation rate hit 9.1% in June, a new 41-year high. Practitioners say they’re ready.

Inflation “is hard for everyone,” says Julien Saunders, co-host of the Rich & Regular podcast with his wife, Kiersten. But “I do think it helps for people who have already done a lot of the work to dig deep and get scrappy and find ways to save even when we’re not in a hyperinflationary market.”

Courtesy of Julien Saunders

Inflation “is hard for everyone,” says Julien Saunders, co-host of the Rich & Regular podcast with his wife, Kiersten. But “I do think it helps for people who have already done a lot of the work to dig deep and get scrappy and find ways to save even when we're not in a hyperinflationary market.”

Some devotees go to great lengths to cut expenses. Jacob Lund Fisker, an early pioneer of financial independence and creator of the Early Retirement Extreme blog, became financially independent at 30. Now married, he and his wife each live on $7,000 a year in Chicago.

Others take a more relaxed approach. Ms. Saunders, for example, participates in a couple of Buy Nothing groups, local bands of people who give away things they no longer need to neighbors, she says. “It’s just this idea of searching there first instead of going to a store or even a thrift store.” 

Also, a devotee might plow 25%, 50%, or even 75% of their income into savings, a financial cushion that typically goes into stocks or rental property, holdings that usually hold their own in inflationary times. And it’s hard to be scared about losing one’s job in a recession for people who work because they want to, not because they have to.

Many financial professionals frown on the idea of early retirement because it means drawing down reserves that otherwise would have years and decades to grow bigger. And for those starting out, the FIRE journey can be bumpy.

Ryan, the former aerospace engineer in the greater Boulder, Colorado, area, got his baptism by fire during the Great Recession. After buying his first house in 2007, he saw its value drop by half before he sold it at a $100,000 loss. It took him three or four years to dig out of that financial hole and buy another property. Now, having sold all his rental properties, Ryan is relying on his wife’s part-time income and their significantly more than $1 million stock portfolio to get them through. He’s stress-tested it against a number of historical scenarios, including the stagflation of the 1970s and the Great Depression, to make sure that his family can survive a downturn.

“On the Great Depression, I don’t think anybody was living a great life,” he says. “But from a financial perspective, the models say that our portfolio and our approach should be able to handle that kind of a situation.”

What’s required, FIRE practitioners say, is a change in mindset. 

Resetting priorities

“It was like a really difficult discipline to learn at first,” says Ms. Massale of Longmont, Colorado. “We were just sort of blindly living and spending a lot of money to create comfort in the present. When we stopped and made that change, we really were able to create both an experience in the present as well as a lifestyle for the future that’s way more free and way more aligned with our wish to be connected as a family.”

Instead of working full time at a job and on a graduate degree, Mr. Massale became a full-time dad to their two young children. Earlier this year, Ms. Massale pushed off much of her counseling and coaching to her 10 therapist employees, leaving her to run the business side of her company and spend more time with her children.

Courtesy of Jordan Grumet

FIRE podcaster Jordan Grumet speaks at The EconoMe Conference in Cincinnati, on March 7, 2020. He says a younger generation is seeking to integrate greater financial freedom into their lives before they retire, while also building a path toward full financial independence.

“Happiness researchers, they talk about things like life actualization or emotional well-being, but I think we’re talking about the same thing, which is having a purposeful life,” says Jordan Grumet, host of the Earn & Invest podcast and author of “Taking Stock,” a book on financial independence and personal fulfillment due out next month. “Those are the North stars that we tend to forget – or at least don’t ever do the hard work in figuring those things out, especially when we’re young.”

The modern FIRE movement has gone through a maturing process itself. 

“The first FIRE practitioners were people who didn’t like their jobs at all, felt like work was miserable and really grinded it out in the 9 to 5, made as much money as possible, and then got out,” says Mr. Grumet. “This idea was that things like purpose and meaning were things you could put off until you had enough money to get away from work. The younger generation of FIRE practitioners is smarter and they realize that, ‘I don’t want to have to wait 10 years, work through incredibly hard nights and weekends and only then integrate that freedom.’ They want to integrate that freedom now. And so they’re looking at less aggressive models that allow them to enjoy themselves, maybe even spend money, and yet still build a path toward financial independence that feels comfortable.”

By his estimate, some 5 million to 10 million people practice FIRE. A Reddit discussion thread on the topic boasts 1.3 million followers.

Can it work for all income levels?

One of the criticisms leveled at the FIRE movement is that it only works for upper-middle income people with the means to save large amounts of money.

“It’s certainly a whole lot easier when you have discretionary income that you can use to put toward saving and investing without it taking away from your needs,” says Mr. Saunders, who wrote with his wife their first book, “Cashing Out: Win the Wealth Game by Walking Away.” Their aim is to teach the relevant FIRE principles to people of color who suffer ongoing pay disparities with their white colleagues. 

“It’s very difficult to have a conversation with someone about retirement who doesn’t know how they’re going to put food on the table next month,” he says. “And so in those cases, conversations are much more centered around: ‘These are some of the newer ways that you should explore in terms of income generation and income creation,’ which I think given the growth of the internet is far easier for people to do today than ever before.”

Even many people with modest salaries can find ways to save, says Pete Adeney, author of the Mr. Money Mustache blog, which in 2011 began to popularize the idea of financial independence. He recalls helping a single mother living across town from her job at Walmart. She spent a third of her income on car expenses, given the car loan, insurance, maintenance, and gas. When Mr. Adeney convinced her to rent next door to her job, she ditched the car for an e-bike and saved $8,400 a year.

Courtesy of Chris Mamula

Five years ago, Chris Mamula quit his job as a physical therapist to spend more time with his wife, Kim, and their daughter, including this trip to Grand Canyon National Park in April 2022.

“More helpful to the world as well”

“The lower your income and tighter your living arrangement, the more important this becomes,” he writes in an email. “From my experience, work is better if you don’t need the money. So once you achieve early retirement (which simply means you are financially set for life), any work you decide to pursue after that point is likely to be very meaningful to you and probably more helpful to the world as well.”

In 2017, Chris Mamula of Ogden, Utah, ditched his 16-year career as a physical therapist, became a stay-to-home dad, and started writing part-time for a FIRE blog. Now, he’s getting a certified financial planner certificate. “I don’t know if I’ll ever practice,” he says, “but I kind of see myself offering a little bit of one-on-one counseling to people who need that kind of extra help beyond reading the blog.”

It’s a journey many successful FIRE devotees share. 

“I have more space to think about giving back,” says Ms. Massale. She is currently working on creating free or low-price services to empower women and guide them in creating a lifestyle of freedom themselves.

Zoa Archer planned to be back at camp this summer. She’d already accepted a job at Camp Summer Fenn in Concord, Massachusetts, and knew how desperate the camp was for staff. It had even asked her to name her own salary. 

But the college student pulled out at the last minute when the opportunity arose to spend the summer at Oxford University studying Renaissance literature. 

“It was hard to decide,” says Ms. Archer, an aspiring college professor, “because I love my camp.”

From the smell of sunscreen and mosquito repellent to exasperatingly catchy campfire songs that stick well into fall, summer camps around the United States have long offered campers and counselors a home away from home. Since the pandemic, parents are more eager than ever to get their children off screens, into nature, and practicing rusty social skills, says Sarah Kurtz McKinnon, co-founder and CEO of The Summer Camp Society, and some camps are reporting record registration numbers. 

But camps are finding it harder than expected to return to business as usual because of what Ms. Kurtz McKinnon calls a “perfect storm” of problems.  

Many camps have struggled to attract counselors, like Ms. Archer, with some failing to find enough staff to open. Supply shortages have eased since last year, but are still causing challenges. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Camp Putnam, in New Braintree, Massachusetts, has had trouble getting adequate supplies of certain foods, like chicken and orange juice. Counselor Nate serves family-style lunch in the dining hall, which is a retrofitted barn.

And the pandemic isn’t over. Shifting protocols are forcing camps to think on their feet, while they respond to lingering mental health challenges and lockdown-induced gaps in social learning. 

Despite the challenges, most summer camps are coping by innovating, say industry experts, reassessing how they’ve done business for decades – and developing creative solutions to unexpected problems. 

“Camps needed pressure to update some of the things that they’ve been scraping by on for a long time,” says Ms. Kurtz McKinnon. “The market has demanded that camps improve.” 

Adapting job requirements 

For starters, camps are learning to be more flexible.  

Belmont Day camp director Zach d’Arbeloff is used to competing with academic programs and internships for skilled counselors. But this year, he’s noticed a change: Counselors aren’t just happy to have a job anymore, he says. They’re much more vocal about their employment needs and desires, from salary and scheduling to work-life balance. 

“It’s a positive thing,” he says. “And it requires that I, as a camp director, rethink my relationship with those staff in order to meet them where they are.”

This year, he dropped the minimum time requirement to four weeks with this guideline: “Give me what you can give me during the summer, and we’re going to find a way to make that work.” 

Instead of requiring lifeguards to be certified, the camp now certifies them. And staff shortages have meant Mr. d’Arbeloff can promote junior counselors over the summer – a silver lining, he says. 

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Campers head back to their cabins to change for lunch after swimming at Camp Putnam in New Braintree, Massachusetts.

At Birch Trail Camp for Girls in Wisconsin, flexibility has meant looking beyond the conventional pool of applicants, says director Gabe Chernov, who this year felt the frustration of “ghosting” – when someone accepts a position but doesn’t follow through. So he reached out to parents and campers from decades past to fill higher-skilled positions such as wilderness trip leaders and social workers. 

“We’ve historically recruited a lot of people through different outdoor programs at colleges,” says Mr. Cherbov. “Now instead of targeting the students, we’re targeting the professors.” Older and wiser staffers, he adds, have been a “phenomenal” blessing for the whole camp, and they’re planning to return next year. 

Adaptability is expensive: Birch Trail doubled a number of salaries this summer, with payroll on the whole at least 40% higher than last year, he says.

And at a time when food costs have increased 35% to 40% since last summer, he’s chosen not to pass costs on this year to campers, who are also feeling the effects of the economy through shortages. 

At Camp Putnam, nestled in the evergreens of central Massachusetts, the kids’-menu staples of orange juice and chicken have been hard to find, says director Todd Stewart, whose mother – the head cook – strategizes alternatives when they run out. The camp has also struggled to keep the swimming pool open for lack of replacement parts for pumps, and paper goods and cleaning products are often on back order.

Camps are also doing more to support staff and campers emotionally following a pandemic that has tested the mental health of everyone by hiring social workers and psychologists, or partnering with telehealth and teletherapy organizations. 

In light of cultural change, camps no longer operate in a vacuum, says Ms. Kurtz McKinnon, and many are taking steps to become more inclusive. 

“Typical camps in the United States have a history of appropriating Indigenous cultures, of playing make-believe with real cultures,” she says. “So there’s been a lot of dismantling of traditions.” And some camps are incorporating language and facilities to make camp as welcoming as possible for transgender or gender-nonconforming campers and staff.

“So much has changed socially, culturally, from a physical health standpoint, from a mental health standpoint. It’s a completely new world,” she says.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Nick Lareau, one of the head counselors at Camp Putnam, helps a camper in a Spider-Man outfit learn to ride a bike. Mr. Lareau, a pre-med college student who has worked six summers at the camp, says his job is “the most humbling experience I’ve ever had.”

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Camper Caylee Constance McGann chats with fellow campers and counselors during lunch in the dining hall at Camp Putnam in New Braintree, Massachusetts.

“The most humbling experience”  

Before COVID-19, summer camps in the U.S. served 26 million children and teens in over 15,000 camps, staffed by 1.2 million seasonal employees, says Tom Rosenberg, president of the American Camp Association. While the camp industry hasn’t hit those numbers this year, he adds, “Demand seems to be surpassing what we saw pre-COVID. And meeting that demand is the challenge.” 

On the staffing front, the key for camps now is to better communicate the intangible value of working at camp, he says. “The most valued skill in terms of what you get paid and [your] career in the future is human-based skill. ... That’s what we do,” says Mr. Rosenberg, who points to conflict management, communication, leadership, and on-the-fly creativity as a few of the knacks that counselors pick up. 

Nick Lareau, for one, knows that well. Six summers as a counselor at Camp Putnam amount to “the most humbling experience I’ve ever had,” the pre-med college student says over the whoop and holler of dodgeball. “There’s nothing that makes you feel better about yourself, or what you can do for other people,” he says of days spent teaching kids to ride bikes or nights singing songs in cabins. 

Camper Caylee Constance McGann, who is 12, considers Mr. Lareau something like an older brother – and wants to pass that same joy along to others when she’s old enough: “I’ve always dreamt of being a camp counselor here. I would like to make some other little kid’s year much better.”

Set in the prairies, the Canadian Museum for Human Rights sits at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers in Winnipeg. Since its opening in September 2014, it has been billed as the only museum dedicated exclusively to human rights – past and present – around the world. 

The museum takes visitors on a journey through the evolution of those rights. Starting at the dimly lit ground floor, visitors follow a timeline through key moments in history. As they ascend through the space, they witness the rise of democratic societies, the determination of prisoners of conscience, and the emergence of Indigenous rights. By the time the visit ends, guests find themselves in the 328-foot Israel Asper Tower of Hope, which offers a panoramic view of Winnipeg. Light from outside fills the space – a symbol of the museumgoer’s own enlightenment in understanding human rights. 

A look at the news suggests that human rights are under threat in many parts of the world, including in the United States and Canada. The museum’s idealistic portrayal received a sharp reality check in 2020, when its management faced allegations of discrimination and harassment of Black, Indigenous, and LGBTQ staff at the height of the Black Lives Matter protests. This led to an external review, released that summer, which concluded that “racism is pervasive and systemic within the institution.” It’s not the first controversy the museum has faced. From its inception, it has been accused of propping up the myth that Canada is a benevolent leader in human rights on the world stage while the country has failed to address violations at home, from its treatment of Indigenous people to discrimination against Black Canadians. 

The museum, which has worked to address the criticism, explores human rights issues at home with the exhibit “Canadian Journeys.” Among the Indigenous artists whose work graces the gallery is Jaime Black, whose “The REDress Project” installation reflects on the killing and disappearance of Indigenous women and girls. 

Moving beyond Canada, the museum is responding to ongoing rights violations, from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to the plight of refugees. At the end of May, it opened an exhibit called “Behind Racism: Challenging the Way We Think.” The exhibit is relevant not just to the challenges faced by the museum itself but also to the larger racial reckoning happening around the world.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Photographs of Canadians on digital screens surround the space in the “Canadian Journeys” exhibit.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

The unconventional museum building was designed by architect Antoine Predock of Albuquerque, New Mexico. A bronze sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi stands nearby.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

“Beadwork,” seen in close-up, by Métis artist Jennine Krauchi is on display in the “Indigenous Perspectives” gallery.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

Alabaster ramps, glowing with LED lights, lead visitors up through many galleries across seven stories, from darkness to light.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

North Shore Productions produced 45 films on display throughout the museum. “Uncertain Harvest” sheds light on the plight of farm workers.

Melanie Stetson Freeman/Staff

The metal and glass Israel Asper Tower of Hope rises to the top of the museum, giving visitors panoramic views of Winnipeg.

AP

A 2017 photo by the Philippines Air Force shows structures built by China on a built-up reef in the Spratly chain of islands in the South China Sea.

Ukraine’s fight to restore its territorial sovereignty has an unusual supporter half a world away –from an Asian country whose own struggles for national integrity help reveal a grander global goal in Ukraine.

For the Philippines, Russia’s violation of international law was a reminder of China’s forceful taking of strategic reefs in Philippine waters a decade ago. Unable to take back the islets, the Philippines instead took the high moral ground. In 2016, it won an international court ruling against Beijing’s violation of the Law of the Sea treaty.

On July 12, for the sixth anniversary of the verdict by the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague – a verdict China rejected – a new government in Manila reminded the world of what is at stake in upholding a rules-based world order.

The ruling, said Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo, remains “an inspiration for how matters should be considered – through reason and right – by states facing similarly challenging circumstances.” The court put an aspect of international law “beyond the reach of arms to change,” said the country’s top diplomat. He also welcomed “the support of a growing list of countries” for the ruling.

The newly installed Philippine president, Ferdinand Marcos Jr., appears ready to take a stronger stance against China than his predecessor, Rodrigo Duterte. “We will not allow a single square ... millimeter” of the Philippines’ 200-kilometer economic zone in the South China Sea “to be trampled upon,” said Mr. Marcos.

The new president, the son a former dictator, also has domestic opinion behind him. A poll in June shows nearly 90% of Filipinos insist on the country’s rights to its offshore waters. And the Biden administration used the anniversary to reaffirm that an armed attack on the Philippines in the South China Sea would trigger a U.S. military response under a 1951 mutual defense treaty.

The Philippines is not alone in dealing with China’s aggression. The Chinese military has intruded on either the islands or airspace of countries from Japan to Taiwan to Indonesia. “Nowhere is the rules-based maritime order under greater threat than in the South China Sea,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken last year.

Asia may well be where the shape of the international order will be decided, perhaps more than in Europe with the Ukraine war. Both Russia and China have imperial aspirations with little regard for the stability that honoring national borders brings. Yet China’s economic and military strengths make it a greater threat. Countries like the Philippines are trying to set a standard for the power of law over the power of guns.