Countries in the News, 2023-24: Argentina, Sudan, and Turkey

Two of these three countries really were in crisis. The third one, widely rumoured to have quit a major military alliance, never actually left.

A 200-peso Argentine banknote. Argentina’s currency has been at the centre of the country’s severe 2023-24 inflation crisis. CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

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International Relations · IntlRel0097

Countries in the News, 2023-24

Argentina

A severe economic crisis. Inflation over 250% in 2024.

Sudan

Civil war since April 2023: army vs. paramilitary RSF.

Turkey

Still a full NATO member since 1952. Did not leave.

Why this matters for the exam

A 2024 UPSC prelims question mixed two real crises with one false claim: Turkey never rescinded its NATO membership.

📑 Contents

1Must Know
2Good to Know
3Test Yourself
4Great to Know

Must Know.

Two Real Crises, One False Claim.

Argentina, Sudan, and Turkey.

Argentina. Argentina faced one of its worst economic crises in decades, with year-on-year inflation exceeding 250% in 2024, under new president Javier Milei’s austerity programme.
Sudan. Since April 2023, Sudan has been gripped by civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF). It has triggered one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Turkey. Turkey has not rescinded its NATO membership. It has been a full member since 18 February 1952, and remains one, with the alliance’s second-largest army.
The 2024 PYQ. Only the Argentina and Sudan pairs were correct. The Turkey-NATO claim was a deliberate false statement.

Previous Year Question.

Asked as: “Consider the following pairs. How many of the pairs given above are correctly matched?” (on Argentina, Sudan, and Turkey). This was asked in UPSC CSP 2024, GS Paper I. View this question.

Good to Know.

The Details Behind Each Story.

What Drove Each Crisis.

Milei’s Emergency Decree. Argentina’s new government declared a public economic emergency through Decree 70/2023, covering fiscal, pension, and social matters, aiming to run through 2025.
RSF Origins. The Rapid Support Forces trace back to the Janjaweed militias used during the Darfur conflict. The Sudanese government later restructured them into a formal paramilitary force in 2013.
Sudan’s Scale. The Sudanese civil war has displaced millions of people. A large share have fled the country entirely as refugees, making it one of the largest displacement crises of the decade.
Turkey’s NATO Role. Turkey ranks among NATO’s top contributors and hosts key alliance military infrastructure, underscoring how far the “rescinded membership” claim is from reality.

Test Yourself.

Great to Know.

Why UPSC Asks This Way.

Testing Current Affairs Precision.

Plausible but False. UPSC often includes one plausible-sounding but false current-affairs claim alongside genuinely correct ones. This tests whether candidates actually track international news, not just assume headline-sounding claims are true.
Alliance Membership Traps. Questions about a country supposedly leaving or joining an alliance are a recurring UPSC pattern. Such claims sound newsworthy even when false.
Broader Takeaway. Following major crises like Sudan’s civil war or Argentina’s inflation closely, rather than only remembering isolated facts, helps candidates spot exactly this kind of distractor.
Exam Angle. This question format, mixing real crises with one false alliance claim, has appeared in various forms across multiple UPSC prelims cycles.

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