Our Top Weekend Reads

Sweden has long enjoyed a sort of wholesome global image: home of Ikea, Pippi Longstocking, and meatballs in cream sauce. But that reputation has taken a beating during the coronavirus pandemic, as the country became a lone proponent of herd immunity and floundered accordingly. Now, the government has instituted some restrictions, but confusion remains as to how Swedes should behave toward the coronavirus.

Meanwhile, progressive groups have developed a robust strategy for laying down roots in U.S. President-elect Joe Biden’s foreign-policy ranks. 

And, a decade after the Arab Spring, a look at the permanence of an enduring, but never consummated, revolution.

Here are Foreign Policy’s top weekend reads. 

A nurse wearing personal protective equipment in a tent at the Sophiahemmet private hospital performs tests on a patient to look for symptoms of COVID-19 in Stockholm on April 22.Jonathan Nackstrand/AFP via Getty Images

1. Sweden’s Second Wave Is a Failure of Government—and Guidance 

Rattled by a staggering second wave of coronavirus infections, Swedes are less opposed to mask recommendations and social-distancing guidelines than they are puzzled by their government’s chronic mixed messaging—a result of infighting between the prime minister and public health officials, Carl-Johan Karlsson writes.

U.S. President-elect Joe Biden gives a thumbs-up as he leaves Pennsylvania Hospital after a follow-up appointment at the radiology department, in Philadelphia on Dec. 12. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

2. Progressives Try to Sway Biden on Top Foreign-Policy Jobs

Though progressives have recently won some key posts in Biden’s cabinet, his foreign-policy team is still fairly establishment. But the left isn’t fretting—yet: Cabinet posts are only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to political appointments, and they’ve got a plan for putting down roots at a lower level, FP’s Jack Detsch reports. 

A man mourns the death of seven members of a family, killed in a house hit in a reported airstrike by pro-regime forces in the town of Sarmin in the northern Syrian Idlib province, on Feb. 2.Omar Haj Kadour/AFP via Getty Images

3. Betrayed by Their Leaders, Failed by the West, Arabs Still Want Democracy

The Arab Spring was less a coordinated, democratic movement than a series of localized struggles against decades of failed governance. Ten years on, the fact that those struggles instead provoked further repression is not just an indictment of brutal Arab dictatorships, but also of the Western countries that embrace them, Oz Katerji writes.

A young man pushes a cart in front of Tigrayan flags at Martyrs Square in the city of Mekelle, Ethiopia, on Sept. 9. EDUARDO SOTERAS/AFP via Getty Images

4. The War in Tigray Is a Fight Over Ethiopia’s Past—and Future

There are fears that the burgeoning civil war in Ethiopia could lead to one of the largest state collapses in modern history. That’s ironic given what the conflict is all about: not whether Ethiopia should exist, but how it should be governed, Teferi Mergo writes.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani and Chinese President Xi Jinping at a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, on June 14, 2019. VYACHESLAV OSELEDKO/AFP via Getty Images

5. China Won’t Rescue Iran

China is making inroads in Iran. But observers shouldn’t be too worried about the prospect of a robust Beijing-Tehran alliance. China cares far more about courting the West than wooing Iran, and it won’t risk further U.S. sanctions by saving Iran from its own financial peril, Wang Xiyue writes.