As Wallace Stegner, “the dean of Western writers,” once observed, California is like the rest of America, only more so. It’s a reference to the state’s character, but it could just as easily apply to its weather.

Extreme wildfires. Prolonged drought. And now, massive rain and flooding. In a surprise pummeling, along with the new year has come an unusually large number of powerful, back-to-back atmospheric rivers: narrow bands through the atmosphere that carry water vapor. They have flowed the length of the state – and blown destruction eastward across the United States. In the Golden State, they’re dumping rainfall that’s 400% to 600% above average in some places, forcing mass evacuations, closing highways, shutting down power, and killing 19 people.

“California is a land of extremes,” says Julie Kalansky, deputy director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. It stands out for having the greatest annual variation between wet and dry years in the continental U.S. Drought sets up conditions for intense wildfire, which sets up conditions for dangerous mudslides and flooding when heavy rain falls. Such cascading events make more extreme weather events possible, she says.

And yet, California is “very forward-thinking” as it transitions to greater preparedness for extreme weather and climate change, observes Dr. Kalansky. That’s no easy task considering the variety of weather challenges, the size and geographic variation of the state, and its 40 million residents – the largest state population in the country. “They have to plan for all these different extremes,” she says. “But it is very complex to be able to do that all at the same time.”

Ringo H.W. Chiu/AP

Wind whips embers from a burning tree during a wildfire near Hemet, California, Sept. 6, 2022. Wildfires are exacerbated by drought, and contribute to conditions for dangerous mudslides and flooding when rain falls.

Emergency prep: “record investments”  

Brian Ferguson, deputy director of crisis communication at the California Office of Emergency Services, says the state has made “record investments’’ in emergency management over the past four years, with more planes, helicopters, and firetrucks than at any point in California’s history. The effort includes more first responders, law enforcement, and technology, too, he says. “We’re better prepared for these disasters because of that.”

Some of the investments do double duty. New planes with infrared capability to detect wildfires and their spread are also being used to fly over this year’s floods and identify the most dangerous areas.

The damage estimate from this season’s atmospheric rivers runs into the billions – a level that now could be typical alongside other disaster costs for the state, says Paul Ullrich, professor of regional and global climate modeling at the University of California, Davis. “We’ve been seeing ... billion-dollar disasters every year that have major socioeconomic repercussions associated with them, and we’re seeing no slowing down of the kinds of extreme weather events that we’re experiencing here.” 

SOURCE:

"Climate Change and the Delta," Michael Dettinger, et al., San Francisco Estuary and Watershed Science (CC BY 4.0)

But preparedness efforts have made a difference, Professor Ullrich adds. Major floods have occurred throughout California history, he explains. Climate change has exacerbated them “a little bit,” but “overall, California is just inherently an extreme place.” Because of its history with floods, “we know what to do to some degree.”

“I know many places are still flooded. Nonetheless, I think that the damages are much less than they would have been maybe even 15, 20 years ago because of efforts put into building levees and water-management infrastructure that can deal with this level of rainfall.” He points specifically to reservoir management that, in conjunction with weather forecasting, controls reservoir levels when there’s major rain like this.

Long-term challenges 

On the other hand, the state’s drought preparedness “is a major problem,” he says, primarily because of its economic reliance on agriculture, which accounts for 80% of water use. While the rainfall is helping with the drought in the short term by replenishing depleted reservoirs and adding significantly to the snowpack, it won’t do much for the long term, Professor Ullrich and others say, because of continued aridification of the West. 

Noah Berger/AP

Following days of rain, floodwaters cover streets in the Planada community of Merced County, California, Jan. 10, 2023. The state has provided record resources for emergency preparedness in the last few years, but “there’s no amount of money that can keep up with the pace that our world is changing around us,” says Brian Ferguson, with the California Office of Emergency Services.

Mounting weather challenges put pressure on the state and individuals to better prepare, says Mr. Ferguson of the state’s emergency management office. Californians are well attuned after successive intense wildfire seasons to the dangers of fire, but they need to recover their muscle memory when it comes to excessive rain and flooding. After three years of drought, it’s “weather whiplash” to encounter this ongoing series of storms.

People underestimate the dangers posed by water, according to Mr. Ferguson, although the state’s deadliest disasters come from flooding. Many of the fatalities from these storms were preventable, he says, either by people evacuating or not driving through flooded areas. Just 12 inches of water can cause a driver to lose control of a vehicle.

Despite the state’s investment in emergency management, “there’s no amount of money that can keep up with the pace that our world is changing around us,” says Mr. Ferguson. That’s why local communities and neighbor-to-neighbor help are so important during dangerous events, he emphasizes.

Surviving fire, mudslide, and flood 

Last Sunday night, as rain was pouring down and the worst of the storms was developing, two sheriff’s deputies came to the door of Dana and Corby Fisher in coastal Montecito, telling them of an evacuation order. It applied to the entire town of more than 8,000 people. 

The Fishers live 100 yards from where, five years ago, the state’s deadliest mudslide killed 23 people and destroyed more than 100 homes. It followed on the heels of the massive Thomas Fire, which stripped the mountains above Montecito of their vegetation, leaving soil vulnerable when heavy rains arrived. The Fishers had just completed a kitchen remodel at the time. Their demolition container simply disappeared from the street and their car ended up in a neighbor’s yard. It took them a year and a half to restore their property.

Mr. Fisher is “impressed” with the sheriffs who came to their door in torrential rain, walking in the same spot where people had been swept away in January 2018. “For them to have that dedication is amazing,” he says, explaining that it’s why his son became a firefighter.

But the Fishers decided to shelter in place. Since the Thomas mudslide, his house is now surrounded by three concrete walls – two built by neighbors and one formed by the Fishers’ concrete planters. To protect themselves, they fortified their property with sandbags – and with prayer. “What you have to use is your God and your common sense,” he says in a phone interview.

The community has also taken steps over the last five years, expanding catch basins and building an additional one, as well as putting up steel-ring nets in canyons. Mr. Fisher believes much effort and cost could be saved with regular, prescribed burns. In any case, this time, there was no river of water and no mud coming down his street. “The water stayed in the creek, so our neighborhood was fine.”

Evan Vucci/AP

President Joe Biden is shown in the Oval Office of the White House, Jan. 13, 2023, in Washington. On Thursday, Attorney General Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate classified documents found at a former Biden office in Washington and in his Wilmington, Delaware, home.

As President Joe Biden well knows, political fortunes in Washington can turn on a dime. And nothing does it quite as effectively as the appearance of hypocrisy.

Just days ago, the president was savoring his party’s better-than-expected performance in midterm elections, watching his public approval ratings rise, and touting positive economic signs.

Now, he’s under investigation by a special counsel, and has lost an easy talking point against a potential 2024 rival: former President Donald Trump. 

Revelations about classified documents from President Biden’s time as vice president, found at a former Biden office in Washington and in his Wilmington, Delaware, home, have changed the narrative. Mr. Biden is on the defensive, as newly empowered House Republicans take aim at the latest Biden drama. On Wednesday, a House committee opened a long-planned investigation into the president and his family.

But it’s Attorney General Merrick Garland’s naming of a special counsel Thursday, hours after Biden lawyers told the Department of Justice they had found yet another classified document at his Wilmington house, that has sent Washington into overdrive. 

Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

Attorney General Merrick Garland (right) announces Jan. 12, 2023, that he has appointed a special counsel to investigate classified documents found in President Joe Biden’s home and at an office. U.S. attorney John Lausch (left) recommended a special counsel be appointed after beginning the investigation.

Even though the known facts around Mr. Biden’s Obama-era documents pale in severity compared with those around former President Trump – who faces a special counsel investigation into numerous boxes of classified materials found at his Florida estate, some at the top-secret level – the optics are nevertheless damaging. 

After the tumultuous Trump presidency, Mr. Biden’s image as a throwback to old-style norms, rooted in competence at the basics of governing, has been undermined. Realistically, Democrats can no longer criticize Mr. Trump for hoarding or mishandling documents as they seek to wrap the GOP brand around the former president’s legal woes. 

“It would be very difficult, given these new circumstances, for Democrats to use the issue of the Mar-a-Lago documents effectively against Trump,” says William Galston, a former senior Clinton administration official, referring to Mr. Trump’s Florida home. “That’s a major consequence.”

Democrats are quick to note that the Trump and Biden cases appear markedly different. In the Trump case, the number of documents involved, based on what’s known so far, is far greater than in the Biden case. More consequentially, in legal terms, the former president and his team resisted efforts by the National Archives to retrieve the classified materials once their existence came to light. 

Then, after the initial batches of documents were collected, the Trump team falsely claimed that all materials had been turned over. In August, after obtaining evidence that there were additional classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, the FBI raided the estate. Mr. Trump and his team also face allegations of possible obstruction. 

Mr. Biden’s lawyers, in contrast, say they immediately reported the discovery of classified documents at the Penn Biden Center, a Washington think tank, to the National Archives. The archives reported the discovery to the Justice Department, and Biden attorneys then searched his two Delaware homes – where a small number of classified documents were discovered in the garage in Wilmington and in an adjacent room.

Patrick Semansky/AP/File

Security personnel guard President Joe Biden’s home in Wilmington, Delaware, on Feb. 21, 2021. Mr. Biden acknowledged Thursday that a document with classified markings from his time as vice president was found at his home, along with other documents found in his garage. Sensitive documents were also found at the office of his former institute in Washington.

The Biden White House has insisted from the start that the movement of classified documents from his time as vice president to his private office and home was unintentional. 

“We are confident that a thorough review will show that these documents were inadvertently misplaced, and the president and his lawyers acted promptly upon discovery of this mistake,” White House lawyer Richard Sauber said in a statement Thursday afternoon.

Even if Mr. Sauber’s assertion ultimately proves true, the public fallout has already been fierce and negative – and Mr. Biden himself hasn’t helped. In an appearance before reporters Thursday morning to tout a lowering annual inflation rate, the president took a question about the documents. 

A known car buff, Mr. Biden was asked why he kept classified materials next to his Corvette, which is stored in Wilmington. 

Mr. Biden’s testy response: “My Corvette’s in a locked garage, OK? So it’s not like they’re sitting out on the street.” 

The president had come prepared with a written statement on the document flap, but strayed from the script when his car came up. 

More problematic, Mr. Biden and his team have faced criticism for failing to make public the discovery of classified documents in Washington and Wilmington in a timely fashion. The first set of documents was discovered on Nov. 2 – before the midterm elections. But that information was not revealed to the public until this week. 

To many Americans, the whole situation may blur into eye-rolling toward Washington in general. 

Ryan Goodman, a law professor at New York University, agrees that “in the public mind, these things are all melded together and there’s an equivalence between the two.”

But he disagrees with an emerging conventional wisdom that the new Biden investigation will diminish the possibility of a Trump indictment. 

“The fact that it’s a special counsel will likely insulate the decision in such a way that it is actually more about faithful application of the law,” Professor Goodman says. 

Michael A. McCoy/Reuters/FIle

Special counsel Robert Hur, shown in Baltimore Nov. 21, 2019, is a former Trump-era federal prosecutor. His appointment to investigate the Biden documents case may help with questions of the Justice Department’s independence.

Attorney General Garland’s appointment of a former Trump-era federal prosecutor, Robert Hur, as special counsel on the Biden documents case could help with the optics. Mr. Hur won bipartisan support in 2017 for his nomination as a U.S. attorney and renewed praise Thursday when his appointment by Mr. Garland was announced. Still, no president or ex-president wants a special counsel looking over his shoulder. 

Much remains unknown to the public about the Biden case, such as what exactly the documents pertain to and how they wound up in his private possession. CNN has reported that among the classified documents in Mr. Biden’s former office at the Penn Biden Center, 10 pertained to Ukraine, Iran, and the United Kingdom.

For both the Biden and Trump special counsels, the task at hand is clear.

“What both will be looking for is how the documents got moved, why they got moved, who’s responsible for moving them, and what that person or people knew and intended in the moving of the documents,” says Richard Serafini, a former senior criminal trial attorney at the Department of Justice. 

The Bradley armored vehicles at the U.S. Army’s Grafenwoehr garrison in Germany wave no banners declaring the significance of their imminent dispatch to Ukraine and entry into battle there in the nearly year-old Russian war.

They don’t have to. As one of the Army’s most effective armored fighting vehicles, the Bradley trumpets the next step in a monthslong shift in Western support for Ukraine’s war effort.

After warily providing defensive assistance for much of the war, the United States and NATO are signing on to Ukraine’s increasingly bold efforts to go on the offensive against Russia’s entrenched forces in southern and eastern Ukraine.

The supply of the Bradleys – along with Germany’s commitment to provide Marder fighting vehicles and France’s to send its AMX-10 armored vehicles – underscores a new high-water mark in the West’s shift on the conflict from caution to deepening involvement.

Further evidence of the shift comes from the imminent arrival in the United States of around 100 Ukrainian soldiers for training on the Patriot air defense system at Fort Sill in Oklahoma. Until recently, the U.S. had limited any training of Ukrainians on U.S. weapons systems to Europe and was reluctant to send Patriots to Ukraine – over concerns the advanced anti-missile system and training of Ukrainians on U.S. soil would be seen as escalatory by Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Over recent months such concerns have fallen away. Still, some national security analysts say the West’s all-in stance is both overdue and modest compared with what Ukraine needs to sustain gains now – especially since Mr. Putin appears to have concluded that time is on his side.

West’s message: “We’re all in now”

The U.S. and its NATO partners “started out from a very cautious position, but they have spent the year saying, ‘We’re a little more in,’ and then again, ‘We’re a little more in,’” says Matthew Schmidt, a political scientist with expertise in Russia and Ukraine at the University of New Haven in Connecticut.

“What they’re saying this time is ‘We’re all in now,’” he adds. “They can’t let Ukraine lose.”

What explains the Western change of heart, and its openness to helping Ukraine consolidate its recent advances on the battlefield and press on farther?

Matthias Rietschel/Reuters

German Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht visits the Marder fighting vehicle company of the Armoured Infantry Brigade 37 taking part in NATO's high-readiness task force in Marienberg, Germany, Jan. 12, 2023.

For some, the new willingness to provide more powerful weaponry – and in particular materiel designed for offensive operations – signals how the U.S. and European partners have been convinced that Ukraine now has Russia on the defensive – and can do much more with the right equipment.

“This is the right time for Ukraine to take advantage of its capabilities to change the dynamic on the battlefield,” said Laura Cooper, the deputy assistant defense secretary for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia, at a Pentagon briefing last week. Announcing more than $3 billion in new assistance that includes 50 Bradleys, she added, “We are positioning Ukraine to be able to move forward and retake territory.”

Even more, and heavier, help may be coming, in the form of tanks that are far superior to Ukraine’s outdated Soviet-era models. Poland is proposing to send some of its German Leopards to Ukraine, while the United Kingdom is said to be readying the dispatch of perhaps a dozen Challenger tanks.

Time is not on Ukraine’s side

Yet for others, the upbeat assessment of the Ukraine military’s abilities and its prospects for doing even more with the right assistance also comes with a warning: Helping Ukraine do more now makes sense because time is indeed not on Ukraine’s side.

No matter how deflated Mr. Putin’s Russia might seem on the cusp of the war’s first anniversary next month, these observers say, a conflict that sits stalemated and drags on for years is not in Ukraine’s interests – and if anything is likely to favor eventually the larger and more powerful belligerent.

Even now, Russia is working hard to symbolically seize the initiative again in the east, with a fierce battle, and conflicting claims Friday, over the small mining town of Soledar, near Bakhmut.

“I would wish a total victory for Ukraine, but that is unlikely and doesn’t become more possible the longer the fighting continues. In fact, a long-drawn-out conflict would likely be worse,” says Sven Biscop, director of the Europe in the World Program at Egmont – The Royal Institute for International Relations in Brussels.

“The thinking at NATO is Russia is unlikely to win,” he adds, “but it’s equally unlikely Ukraine can liberate all its territory. So, best to help Ukraine make its advances and consolidate positions now” while momentum and Western support remain strong.

The argument that time is on Russia’s side was starkly laid out for Washington this week by Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state and national security adviser, and Robert Gates, the former defense secretary and director of the CIA. In a commentary Sunday in The Washington Post, the national security veterans and Putin savants warn Western allies not to underestimate President Putin’s staying power and his “messianic” commitment to taking Ukraine, no matter the cost or time it takes.

“We are convinced he believes time is on his side, that he can wear down the Ukrainians and that U.S. and European unity and support for Ukraine will eventually erode and fracture,” they argue. “The only way to avoid such a scenario,” they add, “is for the United States and its allies to urgently provide Ukraine with a dramatic increase in military supplies and capability” to enable the Ukrainian military to push back entrenched Russian forces now.   

They call the U.S. dispatch of Bradleys a “good start,” but insufficient.

Clodagh Kilcoyne/Reuters

Ukrainian soldiers fire an anti-aircraft weapon in the front-line city of Bakhmut, Ukraine, Jan. 10, 2023.

Is West’s support sustainable?

A key reason that New Haven’s Dr. Schmidt concurs is the precarious state of Ukraine’s economy after a year of war. The Ukrainian people have proved to be impressively resilient, but he says a collapsed economy will eventually wear down both Ukraine and its Western donors.

“It’s absolutely right that the longer-term prospects are not as bright for Ukraine,” he says. He notes that the economy has contracted by 30% since the war began while the “burn rate” through the West’s support is $5 billion to $6 billion a month. “That’s simply not sustainable.”

And all of this is music to Mr. Putin’s ears, he says. “Putin is cognizant of these conditions,” he adds, “and he’s concluded that if he digs in and prevents [the Ukrainians] from winning outright, he can win in the long term.”

At the same time, Dr. Biscop of the Egmont Institute in Brussels says that to a certain degree, the Russian leader has himself to blame for Europe and NATO’s unabating resolve to assist Ukraine.

It’s not just that Mr. Putin brought war back to a Europe that has worked so hard to ensure war would never again be fought on European soil, but more the brutal and shockingly inhuman manner in which he’s conducting his war.

“The sheer brutality of the war and the way the Russians use war crimes systematically as part of their way of waging war, that shocks and motivates us,” he says.

Europe’s “initial reaction was to be cautious,” he adds, “but Russia has consistently gone so far in its persecution of Ukrainians that the initial reasons to be careful no longer apply.”

Mandel Ngan/AP

President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida walk along the colonnade of the White House on Jan. 13, 2023, in Washington. Friday’s meeting underscored Japan’s status as the United States’ most critical ally in Asia.

President Joe Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida met Friday to hail their countries’ robust new military cooperation and Japan’s unprecedented defense buildup – essential components of their shared vision for strengthening order and safeguarding peace in the Indo-Pacific.

The meeting underscored Japan’s status as the United States’ most critical ally in Asia, as the Biden administration applauds Tokyo’s willingness to shoulder greater responsibility for its own defense, and thereby play a bigger role in regional security.

In the Oval Office meeting, Mr. Biden said Japan and the U.S. have never been closer, pledged Washington’s full support for the alliance, and praised Japan’s “historic increase” in defense spending. Working together for peace and prosperity in the region is vital, Mr. Kishida said, stressing that “Japan and the United States are currently facing the most challenging and complex security environment in recent history.”

Under bold new security initiatives announced this week, the U.S. and Japan will work together to protect Japanese satellites, bolster U.S. Marine forces in Japan, and fortify the country with hundreds of long-range American Tomahawk cruise missiles. The agreements come a month after Japan’s Cabinet approved an ambitious and transformational plan to shore up its military by doubling the share of GDP devoted to national security from 1% to 2% – spending an estimated $320 billion – over the next five years. The plan represents the most rapid expansion of Japan’s military might since World War II, marking a dramatic break with the strictly restrained, pacifist posture pursued by Japan since it established its Self-Defense Forces (SDF) in 1954.

“The main impetus [of Friday’s meeting] is to highlight the monumental nature of the step Japan has taken,” says Nicholas Szechenyi, deputy director for Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). “The White House wants to give a stamp of approval ... and to send a much broader signal about the strength of the U.S. alliance network.”

The defense push is designed primarily to deter China’s growing military assertiveness, but Japan’s larger vision is to build a unifying consensus for Asia, experts say. 

“Japan’s ultimate objective in the Indo-Pacific is not to isolate, contain, or weaken China,” says Mr. Szechenyi. “More broadly, Japan’s objective is to develop an architecture in Asia based on rules and norms that ultimately China adopts.” 

Stronger military capabilities could allow Japan to eventually enjoy better ties with China, he adds.

Japan’s top priority today is to work with the U.S., Australia, and other Indo-Pacific countries to counter China’s coercion and uphold the rules-based order in Asia, says Sheila Smith, senior fellow for Asia-Pacific Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Japanese see the future better served in aligning in a coalition with like-minded partners,” she says.

Responding to increasing risks

Longstanding tensions surrounding China’s military buildup and presence in the East China Sea and North Korea’s advancing missile technology – coupled with concerns over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – combined to push Tokyo to adopt the sweeping plans to expand its defense capabilities.

Issei Kato/Reuters

Members of Japan's Ground Self-Defense Force (SDF) 1st Airborne Brigade take part in a joint military drill among Japan, the U.S., Britain, and Australia at Narashino exercise field in Funabashi, Japan on Jan. 8, 2023. Japan’s ambitious plan to shore up its military over the next five years marks a dramatic break with the strictly restrained, pacifist posture pursued by Japan since it established its SDF in 1954.

Japan’s national security strategy, unveiled last month, says China poses “the greatest strategic challenge” ever to peace and stability in Japan. China now has hundreds of missiles capable of hitting the island, according to the U.S. Department of Defense. Last August during major exercises around Taiwan, China fired five missiles into waters that are part of Japan’s exclusive economic zone, highlighting the risks for Japan of a Taiwan Strait conflict.

North Korea in October launched a ballistic missile that flew over Japan – the first in five years. And Russia has increased its military exercises and activity near Japan, including in joint exercises with China.

The shock to the international order of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was a key factor in convincing Japan’s leaders and the public alike that the country must assume greater responsibility to safeguard its territory. 

“Ukraine today may be East Asia tomorrow,” Prime Minister Kishida warned last summer.

The Russian invasion drove home to Japanese citizens not only the need for their country to acquire the ability to strike back at aggressors, but the urgency of doing so, experts say. Recent polls show that a majority of Japanese support the country’s plan to obtain a counterstrike capability with long-range missiles.

Before the Ukraine conflict, “many Japanese didn’t believe a major war could occur. … They have been living in a kind of euphoria,” says Tsuneo Watanabe, senior fellow at the Sasakawa Peace Foundation, an independent policy research organization in Tokyo. But the invasion “made it easy to say that Japan needs to be ready,” he says.

Cross-border buildup

Japan’s defense buildup is both ambitious and comprehensive, calling for a new integrated command to boost the ability of its three SDF forces to fight together, new investments in weapons technologies and innovation, and expanded cyber and space capabilities. Drawing on lessons from Ukraine, it stresses secure stockpiles of basic supplies such as ammunition and fuel.

Critically, Tokyo will also gain “counterstrike capability” from their planned purchase of American Tomahawk missiles, which have a range of 1,000 miles, allowing Japan to hit back deep within Asia. After decades of limiting the geographic reach of its military, “Japan will for the first time have missile … capabilities that allow it to reach out and touch its neighbors,” says Dr. Smith.

Despite the sense of urgency, the upgrades will take time, and heated debate is already underway domestically on how Japan will finance them. Mr. Kishida, a former foreign minister whose hometown is Hiroshima, is widely viewed as more diplomatic and dovish, and these qualities may have made it easier for him politically to push through the defense measures with less opposition, said Glen Fukushima, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, in an online talk Friday.

Tokyo is coordinating closely with Washington both on prioritizing and incorporating new defense capabilities, which by better protecting Japan could also free up U.S. forces. Meanwhile, other U.S. treaty allies in Asia such as South Korea, Australia, and the Philippines are also increasing defense cooperation. 

For its part, Taiwan has welcomed Japan’s new defense initiatives as helpful for maintaining peace, while China has criticized the moves for provoking tension.

Growing concern over a Taiwan contingency is a major motivation behind Japan’s buildup, experts say. “If China planned to have a military operation to unify Taiwan, it’s impossible to avoid passing our territorial waters,” says Mr. Watanabe. “Japan wants … to deter such military action by China – that is the very first priority to maintain our security.”

Overall, Japan’s stepping up its defense capability and the broader strengthening of U.S. alliances in Asia reflects a heightened emphasis on shared principles as risks increase, says Dr. Smith, author of “Japan Rearmed: The Politics of Military Power.”

“When the tensions get high,” she says, “it provides opportunity for greater integration.”

Reuters

A fashion retailer in Ghana takes a picture of second-hand jeans for online resale.

There have been more than 50 documented campaigns of disinformation in Africa in recent years, directly affecting nearly every country on the continent. Most have come from external sources like Russia and China seeking influence and control of strategic natural resources – although Africa’s authoritarian regimes have been prolific falsifiers, too. “The objective is less to convince as to confuse citizens,” the Africa Center for Strategic Studies noted last year. Another goal: undermine democracy. 

One country gaining notice for how it is strengthening its digital defenses is Ghana. It is one of a handful of African countries with a national cybersecurity strategy able to track and respond to digital threats, including disinformation. The West African country jumped 40 places in the Global Cybersecurity Index in just three years, ahead of Ireland and New Zealand. 

The strength of Ghana’s approach is a commitment to civic unity and freedom of expression – democratic principles that face rigorous challenges around the world as countries come to grips with the free flow of information via social media. In Ghana, cybersecurity policy is under civilian leadership and oversight. Businesses and the banking sector participate in monitoring and responding to threats. Judges and prosecutors have been specially trained to assess digital evidence.

Those measures are particularly noteworthy in Africa where only two of 54 countries have laws pertaining specifically to disinformation. Still, the laws have also raised concerns among media and human rights experts for the restrictions and penalties they impose. In 2021, a total of 34 African countries shut down the internet nationwide 182 times. Ghana, meanwhile, ranks third among African countries in internet freedom, its government constrained by law from censoring content and media content. 

“Ghana has placed a citizen-centric, multistakeholder approach at the core of its efforts to address the country’s cybersecurity challenges,” wrote Kenneth Adu-Amanfoh, chairman of the Accra-based Africa Cybersecurity and Digital Rights Organization, in an essay for the Africa Center. “This has enabled Ghana to build cyber capacity in a transparent manner that has helped reinforce trust between government and citizens.” 

A citizen-centered approach to countering disinformation – instead of, for instance, mandating or urging content moderation on social media platforms – has proved effective elsewhere. In 2007, for example, the tiny Baltic state of Estonia came under a withering cyberattack on government and public websites, email servers, and the banking sector. Linked to Russia, the incident bore the hallmarks of a strategy that Moscow has since deployed both internally and externally to further its interests.

Since then, Estonia has become a model for civic media literacy and “digital competency” in an age of mass disinformation. Public schools teach students how to question critically what they see on their cellphones and computer screens. Those lessons are woven into every subject, from math to art.

“The purpose of education is to support students and help them become a person who adequately perceives the environment around them and critically understands and evaluates information,” Britt Järvet, a strategic planning adviser in Estonia’s education ministry, told the BBC last year.

The disinformation campaigns that have shaken democracies, including the United States, in recent years have shown that lies require broad and willing participation.

Ghana now has a different message: that the slings and arrows of false content cannot harm societies united in digital discernment.