🌐🌐🌐 GLOBAL EYES 🌐🌐🌐 – by Claire Berlinski

Claire—thank you for the very kind and tender messages so many of you sent me last week about Féline. I read them over and over. And thank you to everyone for your patience. You’ll now be receiving your newsletter on its regular schedule.

Speaking of which: In response to my survey, there was only one consistent request. You asked me to be more reliable in producing GLOBAL EYES. I was surprised by this, because so many of you complained that it was too long that I’d concluded you didn’t like it that much. I was very glad to learn otherwise. (I guess that’s why Substack urges us to send out that poll.) Your wish is my command, and from now on, no week will pass without an edition of Global Eyes in your In Box. For those of you who still find it too long, remember that you can just read the summaries and the starred items and you’ll still end up reasonably well-informed.

To make up for my absence this past week, I’m sending a very comprehensive edition. So print it out, get comfortable, and settle in for a panoramic tour of the world.

Biden has to choose to win World War III:

President Biden has a rare window of opportunity. He is no longer running for re-election, so his calculus now should be solely focused on winning the global war that Russian President Vladimir Putin has unleashed against the West.

Russia’s war against Ukraine is devolving into a wider World War III. An Axis of Evil allied against Washington and Brussels is rapidly coalescing in its wake. Democracy is under attack, and the White House needs to stop playing for a tie. …

How Ukraine chose weakest spot of Russia’s defenses for cross-border attack. Shortage of manpower and no clear chain of command among Moscow’s forces in Kursk have helped the offensive succeed:

When Ukrainian forces crossed the Russian border in the early hours of August 6, they sliced through Moscow’s defenses like a knife through butter. Strict operational security obviously helped. Ukrainian commanders learnt of the operation only three days in advance; ordinary troops on the day it took place. But the Ukrainians were also pushing on a Russian weak spot, where a shortage of decent manpower was exacerbated by the absence of a clear Russian chain of command. It is in stark contrast to last year’s failed counter-offensive.

… In the initial chaos of the thrust, Moscow’s military response was hampered by a lack of clarity on who was in charge. … Command and control—the exercise of authority by a commander over designated units, and what NATO militaries call “C2”—is crucial to operations, and has plagued the Russian army throughout the war. This part of the border was particularly chaotic. Unlike in the war zone inside Ukraine, the Russian chain of command on the border is hopelessly muddled.

Jason Jay Smart: “So many Russians are surrendering that Ukraine is facing ‘serious logistics complications’ shipping so many back to camps in Ukraine. Ukraine intended to invade Russia and stay there—not to be sending back thousands of Russians! The Russians refuse to fight.”

Biden says he’s being briefed on the situation every four to five hours:

“It’s creating a real dilemma for Putin,” he said in his first substantive comments about the operation, which appeared to have caught the Russians off guard. …

The White House said Ukraine did not provide advance notice of its incursion. White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre, speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, said Washington had no involvement in the operation. “We had nothing to do with this. …. We have no involvement. We’ll continue to have conversations with the Ukrainians about their approach, but it is really for them to speak to.”

Putin has said he believed Ukraine’s operation was aimed at improving Kyiv’s negotiating position ahead of possible talks and slowing the advance of Russian forces along the front. US officials say the objectives of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky remain to be seen. “We’re trying to figure out exactly what they are doing and the goal here, and it’s still not 100 percent clear,” said a US official.

These are “substantive” comments?—C.

British weapons may be used by Ukrainian forces in operations on Russian territory, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said, but restrictions on the use of long-range Storm Shadow missiles remain.

US offers quiet support for Ukraine:

“It’s not just kind of a stunt, it’s a serious military operation that’s been really brilliantly executed, and very daring and bold in concept,” (Senator Richard) Blumenthal said. “Strategically it’s meant to divert Russian strength from the East, and whether it does that remains to be seen.” By Blumenthal’s reckoning, the Biden administration has been wary of escalating the war and might have objected to the attack if it was given the chance. But he believes US military officials are “impressed and a little bit taken aback” by Ukraine’s operation, “because they have done it so well.” … House Foreign Affairs Chair Michael McCaul offered praise to Ukrainian forces tempered by criticism of the Biden administration for being too cautious in its aid to Ukraine. “I think it’s a message from the Ukrainians: ‘Look, if you give us what we need to win, we can win,’” he said.

Some are calling for Washington to deepen its support for Ukraine in the face of Ukraine’s successes, including Zelensky. “Our Ukrainian drones work exactly as they should, but there are some things that can’t be done with drones alone, unfortunately. We need other weapons—missile weapons,” Zelenskyy said on Wednesday. “We continue working with our partners on long-range decisions for Ukraine. The bolder our partners’ decisions are, the less Putin will be able to do.

Russia is evacuating another district in its Kursk region, the regional governor announced overnight, as Ukraine’s forces continue to make gains in the area.

Ukrainian forces have secured their hold on Sudzha, the administrative center of the Sudzhansky district in Kursk, and advanced several kilometers further into Russian territory. Overnight, acting regional Governor Alexei Smirnov said in a Telegram statement that the Glushkovsky district in Kursk, which has a population of 20,000, was being evacuated. Ukraine captured 102 Russian soldiers in the Kursk region on Wednesday—a record number for a single day. … But while the successes of the surprise Kursk operation have boosted Kyiv’s morale, Russian forces are striking back, capturing more territory around Ukraine’s Donetsk region.

Russia said it would strengthen its border defenses, improve command and control, and send in additional forces nearly ten days after the biggest attack on Russian sovereign territory since World War Two.

Ukraine said there was no sign Russian military pressure was receding along the eastern front inside its borders and reported the heaviest fighting in weeks near Pokrovsk.

Russian guided bomb attacks killed at least two people and injured seven more in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region. Six people, including a 12-year-old child, were wounded. Administrative buildings, a kindergarten, and more than 20 private homes were damaged.

Ukraine says Russia has initiated negotiations for a prisoner exchange for the first time since launching the full-scale invasion:

Ukraine’s Security Service special forces captured 102 Russian soldiers on Wednesday, August 14, in the Kursk region of Russia, an event that currently marks the largest single capture of enemy troops, and gave Kyiv Post the evidence to prove it. … SBU sources said the captured soldiers were from the 488th Guards Motor Rifle Regiment and the Chechen “Akhmat” special forces unit who surrendered despite having ample supplies and ammunition.

★ Ukraine’s plan to force Putin to retreat in shame. Zelensky’s top adviser says Moscow must be bullied into a peace negotiation:

Mykhailo Podolyak, the top aide to the Ukrainian president, said the incursion had shown Russians the harsh realities of Vladimir Putin’s war. “We need to use absolutely clear tools to coerce Russia (into negotiation). One of them is a military instrument of coercion.

Nearly 200,000 Russians in Kursk—and the neighboring region of Belgorod, where a state of emergency has been declared—have been forced to flee their homes and relocate to temporary shelters. Ukrainian forces have also taken Russian soldiers as prisoners of war to use as bargaining chips for their own civilians previously taken by Putin’s troops. Pictures on Wednesday showed blindfolded personnel in Russian uniforms in the back of Ukrainian trucks, heading across the border. … Ukraine’s key Western allies, including Britain and the US, say they were not informed about the attack before it happened, but Mr Podolyak suggested this was not the case. “There … were discussions between partner forces, just not on the public level.”

★ Ukraine has exposed (the West’s) cowardice. The position has changed, but there’s been no change in the position:

If the Russian army manages to get its act together, it has the killing power to hurl Ukrainian forces back behind their own borders. Russian troops have been counter-attacking and will continue to do so with ever-greater ferocity. In the face of that, President Zelensky has appealed to his Western allies to allow long-range weapons to be used to defend his soldiers, for example to hit Russian airfields used to strike the advancing troops, as well as roads and railways to bring up reinforcements.

British Storm Shadow missiles could be a game-changer in this battle, but the Government appears unwilling to allow them to be used to their full potential. …Joe Biden is reportedly taking the same line as Starmer, refusing to permit much-needed ATACMS long-range missiles to support the Ukrainian offensive. This has been the wretched story throughout this war, with Western allies making policy not on the basis of Ukraine’s vital defensive needs but with an unfounded fear of Russian retaliation. Putin has been extremely effective in deterring NATO countries, with his threats of untold consequences, including nuclear attack. As each of his red lines has dissolved, however, whether over the provision to Ukraine of long-range missiles, tanks or combat planes, the next step from the West has always been grudging, half-hearted, inadequate and seized by fear.

De-escalation has become the pusillanimous watchword of Western leaders, who fail to recognize that, when you’re facing a tyrant like Putin, escalation is often the only language he fears and understands. We can see the same thing in the Middle East, with Biden imploring Israel to deescalate. His unconvincing “Don’t” will not stop Ayatollah Khamenei from pressing the button on Iran’s expected missile attack any more than American admonitions to Putin have inhibited his assaults on Ukraine.

The West can and must do more for Ukraine. The alternative is bleak. (Ignore the headline The New York Times slapped on this otherwise excellent article—it reads, “Putin has victory within his grasp,” which he obviously does not.) I used a gift link so you should all be able to read it:

… The recent Ukrainian advance into Russian territory shows what could be possible if the shackles were lifted. But the West is wedded to its too-little-too-late approach, justified by the risk of provoking nuclear escalation from Russia. Ukraine’s application to join NATO is a moot point for the same reason. …

… By first casting its lot with Ukraine and then failing to follow through, America has lost its place as the bulwark of the West that can guarantee protection and peace to its allies. Last year, its hesitant, piecemeal approach for lending weapons undermined Ukraine’s summer counteroffensive. This year, its political dysfunction held up the critical aid and muddled American public opinion on the urgency of helping Ukraine. In a matter crucial to the world’s stability, America flunked the leadership test.

The Biden administration is “open” to sending long-range Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles to Ukraine, which would give Kyiv’s F-16s more combat punch.

• Phillips P. OBrien: “If this is true—will be very very helpful to Ukraine. Some of us have been arguing for this for years. Ukraine has always needed the ranged capacity, and JASSMs would be arguably the best possible choice. Could help Ukraine win. Far too late—but still.”

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has exploded the narrative that the war is a stalemate. With the right support, the West can now aid a strategic victory:

Ukraine’s Kursk offensive has already achieved several goals. It has:

• Demonstrated that Russian forces are stretched to the maximum of their abilities, incapable of both attacking Ukraine and protecting Russia simultaneously, and incapable of escalating their war effort. 

• Proved that Western fears of Russian escalation are unfounded: The Kremlin has no ability to escalate.

• Forced Russia to pull some forces out of Ukraine in order to defend inside Russia.

• Destroyed Putin’s narrative that Russia’s war of aggression is merely a “special military operation” with no real costs to Russia. (Over 200,000 Russian civilians have had to be evacuated.) 

• Demonstrated that billions of dollars in Western military and financial assistance are being put to good use. 

• Given a much-needed morale boost to the Ukrainian people. 

• And undermined the assumption that future peace negotiations are only about how much territory Ukraine cedes to Russia. (Now it is about mutual force withdrawals.)

… The West needs to step up its game as Ukraine has done. We should worry far more about the consequences of a Russian victory through attrition than we currently worry about the risks of escalation.

Senators Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham say they’ll push for another Ukraine supplemental this year, as well lifting restrictions on Ukrainian strikes into Russia. Doug Klain writes:

Thoughts on why now is the right time and why a new supplemental is necessary. First, the timing: People forget what the purpose of the last supplemental was—the White House originally asked in August for an aid package that would last through 2023. After McCarthy’s ouster, it then asked for a supplemental to last through 2024 to insulate Ukraine from the US elections. The military assistance in the April supplemental package is largely long-term contracts for production here in the US It replenished the immediate military assistance pot (Presidential Drawdown Authority) by only US$7.8 billion. This will last maybe to early 2025. While European allies are codifying long-term military assistance to Ukraine, the US is still only giving Ukraine enough to plan ahead by about nine months at a time. It’s time to change that, and codifying the US-Ukraine bilateral security agreement in Congress could fix that.

We saw how bleak things got when US aid was blocked by Republicans afraid of losing their seats. Russia was in its best position since the start of the invasion. Now, thanks to allied support, Ukraine is proving in Kursk that this war isn’t a stalemate and wins are possible. I’m optimistic a new supplemental won’t face the same challenges as last time. Republicans saw they won’t pay a real political price for supporting Ukraine.

The Putin caucus is disempowered nowadays. Mike Johnson sounds more like Mitch McConnell on Ukraine. There’s a key reason for this: As of a few weeks ago, every single Republican member of Congress who voted for Ukraine aid in April won their primary election. Phony arguments that they put “Ukraine first, America last” fell flat with voters. A new supplemental can ensure Ukraine can plan for next year to capitalize on successes like the Kursk offensive. But Congress has to match our allies and pass meaningful long-term assistance. We can’t keep debating whether to help Ukraine every year. Let’s decide to help Ukraine win.

★ The deep divergence between Ukrainian and Russian identity in the last decade illustrates the power of historical narrative to shape societies and should remind the West that liberal values are not inevitable and must be defended:

Notions of liberalism’s universality and inevitability are ironically also some of liberalism’s greatest foes. Such beliefs distract Western governments and societies from the need to strengthen liberalism and to defend their countries’ interests from security threats. It diverts attention from understanding that liberalism is not an inevitable end state or a definitive sign of civilization, but rather the system some countries of the world arrived at based on historical experiences, which in turn shaped their values and principles. In other words, liberalism is part of Western identity—an identity constructed and chosen by those societies and fought for by earlier generations, and by Ukrainians.

If the arc of the moral universe is long but bends towards justice, it does so under the weight of many great horrors, painful lessons, and the sacrifices of countless individuals. The assumption that liberalism will prevail in Russia once Putin is gone, that Putin is the problem rather than the symptom, and that Ukraine will inevitably triumph are all without evidence. For Ukraine to prevail, its allies must revisit their ontologies: What is Western liberalism, and what do Western liberal societies stand for? What does “standing for” something mean? How much can and should be sacrificed to defend liberalism, abroad or at home? Answering these questions also involves deciding, in realpolitik terms, whether sacrificing Ukraine to Russia will leave liberal societies better or worse off. The obvious answer—worse off—must be weighed against the costs of supporting Ukraine to the extent necessary for it to thrive as a society. Continuing a policy of giving Ukraine enough support not to lose but not enough to win, is no answer at all.

How Ukraine’s fight solves global problems. Kyiv’s struggle, if successful, could reignite worldwide democratization and help speed along political transitions in other nations:

If Ukraine is victorious, the international alliance of democracies will win, and the axis of autocracies around Russia will lose. In this scenario, not only will other democracies become more secure, self-confident, and energized, but also it is likely that more democracies will appear—above all, in the post-communist world from Eastern Europe to Central Asia. …

Conversely, a Russian victory will embolden autocratic regimes and anti-democratic groups throughout the world. In such a scenario, democratic rule and open societies would become stigmatized as feeble, ineffective, or even doomed. …

A third, so far, underappreciated aspect of Kyiv’s contribution to global progress is the growing number of new and partly revolutionary Ukrainian cognitive, institutional, and technological advances that can be applied elsewhere. Already before the escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian War in 2022, Kyiv initiated some domestic reforms that could also be relevant for the modernization of other transition countries. After the victory of the Euromaidan uprising or Revolution of Dignity in February 2014, Ukraine started to restructure its state-society relations fundamentally.

Russia has sentenced another US citizen to twelve years in prison:

A Russian court sentenced a dual Russian-American citizen, Ksenia Karelina, to 12 years in prison on Thursday after finding her guilty of treason for donating money to a charity supporting Ukraine. The Los Angeles resident, a spa worker, pleaded guilty at her closed trial in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg, where her case was heard by the same court that convicted Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich of espionage in July.

We need to announce that any US citizen who goes to Russia does so at his own risk: We will not negotiate for his release. Anyone who boards a Russia-bound flight (or a flight to a country with direct flights to Russia, e.g., Turkey, the UAE, Qatar, Thailand, India) should be required to sign a document attesting that he understands the risk of being taken hostage and waives all rights to US assistance in the event. Perhaps there could be exceptions for humanitarian emergencies, but only if the visit is cleared in advance by the State Department—C.

Also of note:

Peter Zeihan thinks there won’t be a wider war, because no want wants it. (This is one of those predictions we’ll soon be able to verify).

US sends more forces to the Middle East, prepares for “significant” Iranian attacks:

“We share the same concerns and expectations that our Israeli counterparts have with respect to potential timing here. Could be this week,”(National Security Council Spokesman John) Kirby said. … “We have to be prepared for what could be a significant set of attacks.”

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin ordered the USS Abraham Lincoln Carrier Strike Group, equipped with F-35C fighters, to accelerate its transit to the Middle East to complement the USS Theodore Roosevelt. In an unusual public announcement, Austin ordered the USS Georgia guided missile submarine to the region. When asked why this was announced publicly, Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said, “We’re trying to send a message.”

A new round of Gaza ceasefire talks is underway in Doha, with the head of Mossad joining his US and Egyptian counterparts and Qatar’s prime minister for the closed-door meeting.

A source in the Israeli negotiating team said on Wednesday that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has allowed significant leeway on a few of the substantial disputes. Gaps include the presence of Israeli troops in Gaza, the sequencing of a hostage release and restrictions on access to northern Gaza. … (F)ighting continued in Gaza, with Israeli troops hitting targets in the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis.

White House National Security spokesman John Kirby said the talks were off to “promising start,” and said negotiations were expected to run into Friday.

Hamas will stay out of Gaza truce talks but may meet mediators afterwards:

The US has said it expects indirect talks to go ahead as planned in Qatar’s capital Doha on Thursday, and that a ceasefire agreement was still possible, while warning that progress was needed urgently to avert a wider war. Hamas has voiced skepticism about the talks, accusing Israel of stalling. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar has been the main obstacle to a deal. “… Hamas’s absence from the talks does not eliminate chances of progress since its chief negotiator Khalil al-Hayya is based in Doha and the group has open channels with Egypt and Qatar.

Ben Gvir figured now would be a great time to throw even more fuel on the fire:

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir on Tuesday dismissed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s insistence that Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount remains prohibited, repeating that it was his policy to allow the practice and eliciting outrage from Arab leaders as well as members of his own coalition. The uproar began as Ben Gvir visited the Temple Mount on Tuesday morning to mark the solemn Jewish fast day of Tisha B’Av, which mourns the destruction of the Temples that once stood in Judaism’s holiest site.

Dozens of masked Israelis riot in the West Bank, Palestinian reportedly shot dead.

Following the initial reports, the army added that forces had been transferred to the area and removed the rioters from the village. … Interior Minister Moshe Arbel condemned the incident, calling upon “the Shin Bet and the enforcement agencies to act immediately to eradicate the serious nationalist crime that took place. These actions are against the values ​​of Judaism. They are a moral and human abomination and harm the State of Israel and the settlement enterprise in Judea and Samaria.”

Washington approved weapons sales of more than US$20 billion to Israel including F-15 fighter-jets and nearly 33,000 tank cartridges.

A Hamas guard who killed an Israeli hostage acted “in revenge” and against instructions after he heard that his two children had been killed in an Israeli strike, a Hamas said:

“The incident doesn’t represent our ethics and the instructions of our religion in dealing with captives. We will reinforce the instructions,” he added. … (The IDF) said that the man whose body is shown in the photo released by Hamas was a hostage who had been murdered and whose body had already been recovered by the Israeli military in November.

Biden said a ceasefire deal in Gaza could deter Iran from attacking Israel. Asked if a truce between Israel and Hamas could stave off an Iranian assault, he said: “That’s my expectation.” He didn’t say why he thinks this.

Three Iranian officials also said that a deal could cause them to refrain from striking Israel:

One of the sources, a senior Iranian security official, said Iran, along with allies such as the Hezbollah terror group in Lebanon, would launch a direct attack if the talks for a ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas fail or it perceives Israel is dragging out negotiations. The sources did not say how long Iran would allow for talks to progress before taking action. … Several reports in recent days indicated Israel believes Iran intends to attack before Thursday’s renewed talks for a deal. The new comments appeared to signal that the attack would only take place after those talks, and only if they failed to yield what Iran deems to be sufficient results.

Iran seems to reconsider retaliation strategy: Professor Uzi Rabi discusses Iran’s hesitation to retaliate:

“There is ongoing deliberation in Tehran. If we go back to the day after Haniyeh was eliminated, they spoke of revenge at the highest level. However, as days pass, it seems that Iran is having second thoughts, mainly due to the American buildup in the Middle East,” Rabi said. “Currently, Iran even sees a chance in the Doha negotiations to gain more by seemingly delaying or suspending their response. The Iranians are essentially on a path of lowering expectations. A total war, which could ultimately be chaotic, could create severe problems for them with a faltering economy and potentially collapse it, as well as threats to the regime itself,” Rabi added.

… He addressed the cyber attack that struck Iran on Wednesday: “The cyber issue is a kind of warning, indicating what could happen if certain actions are taken. We’re discussing a country with power outages, water problems, and basic needs. If an attack targets the oil regions in Iran, it could be a blow from which they cannot recover economically. This is a very pragmatic and ruthless regime.”

Khamenei warns of “divine wrath” if Iran backs down:

Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei condemned “enemy psychological warfare” aimed at forcing the country to reconsider retaliation against Israel in the wake of the killing of the Hamas political leader in Tehran. … Khamenei underscored that any non-tactical retreat—be it military, political, or economic—invites “divine wrath,” as per the Holy Quran. “Governments that yield to the demands of today’s dominant powers, regardless of the size or strength of the nations they represent, could defy these pressures if they draw on the strength of their people and accurately assess their adversaries’ true, unembellished capabilities,” Khamenei said. He further criticized the longstanding habit of “exaggerating” enemy capabilities to instill fear.

★ Two dead terror chiefs, a US desperate to avert war, and a terrifying lack of strategy. Israel complacently allowed Iran to build a stranglehold around it; 313 days after October 7, where’s our domestically and internationally formulated plan to break that grip?

Following the Hamas massacre, we very belatedly internalized that, for decades, Iran and its more and less closely allied forces in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond had been gradually assembling the means to execute their pledged destruction of our gutsy little nation, and that we had complacently allowed them to prepare at their leisure to wipe us out. More than 10 months later, high-intensity conflict against Hamas is long since over, but the IDF continues to exhaust itself in Gaza with diminishing returns—tiring out the standing army, placing intolerable strain on the reservists, battering the national psyche and exacerbating the mounting damage to the economy. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Israelis remain displaced from northern border communities, and the oft-promised switch of focus to tackle Hezbollah remains unimplemented.

With our and the world’s attention elsewhere, the ayatollahs in Iran move serenely ahead with their nuclear program, having further marginalized the always-inadequate oversight by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Breaking the stranglehold of armies and missiles that Netanyahu now acknowledges Iran has been tightening around Israel’s neck requires careful strategizing, including coordination with our allies and preparation at home to ensure Israel is best placed to prevail. It is unsurprising that the leadership, inexplicably unprepared for the Hamas invasion, was unable to immediately recognize the full extent of the existential threat. But more than ten months later, the abiding failure to strategize is outrageous and extremely dangerous.

★ Israel forgot about Iran’s nuclear threat —will it pay the price? Iran may be closing in on a nuclear bomb at the exact moment that Israel is most distracted— as dangerous a recipe as there could be:

Israel is very ready to defend against a massive Iranian conventional missile and drone strike, against a massive rocket and drone strike from Hezbollah, it has for now mostly neutered Hamas in Gaza, has terrorists on the run in the West Bank, and is ready for attacks from Syria, Yemen, or Iraq. But sources have given the Jerusalem Post mixed signals about how ready Israel is to stop an Iranian nuclear weapons breakout. In several high level briefings the Post has been part of where discussion of Iran’s nuclear weapons threat used to take up a significant amount of the time, the issue is often not mentioned at all or only discussed briefly as a response if the issue is pushed.

★ Should Israel cross Russia’s Rubicon?

Jerusalem now looks on with trepidation as the relationship between Moscow and Tehran has evolved into a strategic partnership with military, diplomatic, economic, and technological dimensions. Iran keeps inching closer to developing nuclear weapons while also continuing to wage war against Israel through Hamas, Hezbollah, and other proxies. Meanwhile, a Russia that is increasingly aligned with Iran and Hamas peers across the border from Syria. Although Israel had sought to appease Russia after it initially invaded Ukraine, this relatively passive approach has resulted in Israel’s standing idly by as Russia and Iran have consolidated a wide-ranging alliance, and Russia has sided with Iran against Israel in the ongoing Middle Eastern conflict.

Given this geopolitical architecture, Israel should consider at least wading into, if not outright crossing, the Rubicon and begin more actively supporting Ukraine against Russia in the medium term. … Jerusalem should gradually and quietly expand its support for Kyiv, focusing on increasing intelligence support for Ukraine and, to the extent it will be able to spare them, sending Kyiv a handful of defensive systems and munitions. Doing so would provide several significant benefits. First, it would increase the chances of Ukrainian success on the battlefield and dent Russian power. Second, further Israeli support for Kyiv could tie the Israeli cause closer to that of Ukraine in the Western imagination. At a time when Western support for Israel is faltering, associating Israel with Ukraine, whose struggle has captured the hearts and minds of many in the West, might yield considerable benefits. Overall, it would signal that Israel recognizes its role in the broader clash between the Western and Eurasian blocs and indicate to its allies and adversaries alike that it is a capable actor ready to help its partners and cripple its foes. It would put both Russia and Iran on notice that Jerusalem will respond to their anti-Israel alignment not only in the deserts of the Middle East but also on the plains of Eastern Europe.

I agree strongly—Claire.

★ The undoing of Israel. The dark futures that await after the war in Gaza:

The country is on an increasingly illiberal, violent, and destructive path. Unless it changes course, the humanist ideals of its founding will disappear altogether as Israel careens into a darker future, one in which illiberal values define both state and society. Israel is on track to become increasingly authoritarian in its treatment not just of Palestinians but of its own citizens. It could fast lose many of the friends it still has and become a pariah. And isolated from the world, it could be consumed by turmoil at home as widening fissures threaten to break up the country itself. Such is the perilous state of affairs in Israel that these futures are not at all outlandish—but neither are they inevitable. Israel still has the capacity to pull itself back from the brink. The cost of not doing so may be too great to bear.

Israel is the future of the Middle East. Abysmal demographics and tribal traditions mean the Muslim world will fall while a more modern Israel rises:

Improbable as it may seem, the core scenario according to present trends will make Israel the economic center of the Middle East sometime toward the end of the century. … Israel is unique in adjusting traditional life to the modern economy. It is the only industrial country with a fertility rate above replacement, and it has succeeded—albeit partially and with considerable friction—in integrating most of its growing ultra-Orthodox population into skilled occupations. The trade-off between female education and fertility doesn’t exist.

In Gaza, Israel’s military has reached the end of the line, US officials say. Israel has severely set back Hamas but will never be able to completely eliminate the group.

The IDF’s boot is on Hamas’ throat. At this point, the only obstacle to an Israeli military victory in Gaza is Washington:

There is desperation in Western media to declare Israel’s campaign in Gaza, Operation Swords of Iron, a failure. Over the past several months, there has been a steady supply of analysis beating the same drum: Israel is not winning. Hamas remains intact. The Israeli government has no plan. The very notion of a military victory is illusory. And so on. It’s a genre unto itself—one which, unsurprisingly, tracks precisely with the official talking points of the Biden-Harris administration and other Western governments that have been trying to bend Israel’s operation against Hamas to fit their own failed paradigms. …

This is not, and never has been, a counterinsurgency or counterterrorism operation. It is a conventional urban war against an irregular but fully formed terror army, with their own underground citadel. Yet many Western analysts are incapable of seeing the conflict through anything but the lens of post-9/11 operations. The refrain, echoing official Biden-Harris administration talking points, is that Israel should be doing what the West tried and failed to do in Iraq and Afghanistan. In other words, Israel needs to make sure it follows our lead and lose.

Can Israel’s intelligence services be saved? There is no foolproof solution to intelligence failure, and Israel needs far more than intelligence reform. It must rethink its overall national-security strategy and policies and elect a new national leadership with the ability to think afresh about all of Israel’s proliferating problems.

Iran shoots at a US base in Syria, misses:

A missile attack targeted a US airbase in Conoco gas field in Syria’s Deir al-Zor province, Syrian state media reported early on Wednesday. However, two US officials said the projectiles launched in the direction of a US airbase in a gas field in Syria did not hit the facility. Earlier, a security source told Reuters that Iran-backed militia (sic) targeted the base with six shells, all of which fell in the vicinity of the US base, adding that the US-led coalition responded to the attack with artillery.

Lebanese pro-Iranian television channel Al Mayadeen said US warplanes were flying intensely in the skies of Deir al-Zor countryside following the attack. …
On Tuesday, the Pentagon said eight US service members were injured in a drone attack on a base in Syria last week.

• Several US and Coalition personnel were treated for minor injuries, including smoke inhalation, after an attack drone struck the Rumalyn Landing Zone in Syria. … One set of facilities suffered damage as a result of the attack. Military officials are still assessing the damage, “though they credited swift and effective preemptive measures as limiting the drone’s effect.”

Women in Tehran’s Evin Prison are being subjected to forced confessions and denied medical care in a violent crackdown following a prisoner protest:

Iran’s security and intelligence agents are pressuring political prisoners at Evin to make false confessions against each other after a violent assault by guards on Tuesday against several female prisoners at the notorious jail, including Nobel Peace Prize laureate Narges Mohammadi. They had protested the execution of Iranian dissident Reza Rasaei. In a statement, Mohammadi’s family said that following the execution of Reza Rasaei, several prisoners gathered in the prison yard to protest against the death penalty given to Rasaei, among over 300 to have taken place since the start of the year.

Woman shot by Iran police over hijab left paralyzed, family told to stay silent:

The family of Arezou Badri, a 31-year-old woman shot by Iran’s police on July 22 for allegedly violating mandatory hijab laws, is under intense government pressure to withdraw their complaint. Badri, a mother of two, was left paralyzed after the shooting, an incident that has ignited outrage both within Iran and on the international stage. The family’s complaint regarding Badri, who suffered severe spinal cord injuries and remains hospitalized at Valiasr Hospital in Tehran, was heard in a court this week. However, the family remains dissatisfied with the outcome and the judicial process.

Iran International has learned that she underwent another surgery on Wednesday to remove fluid accumulated in her lungs, and her condition remains critical. According to our sources, the Badri family members have been summoned by intelligence and security agencies, pressured to stay silent, and urged to withdraw their complaint. Sources revealed that the family, including Badri’s sister, is under intense pressure from security agencies to deliver a coerced confession on camera regarding Badri’s situation.

The attack on Badri took place when she was stopped at a police checkpoint while returning home with her sister after work in Noor, Mazandaran province. According to reports and images obtained by Iran International, the police opened fire after stopping the car on a dirt road, striking Badri in the back.

Monstrous—C.

The US issued more sanctions targeting Houthi and Hezbollah trade networks. The Treasury Department said it targeted companies, people, and vessels involved in the shipment of Iranian commodities, including oil and liquefied petroleum gas to Yemen and the UAE on behalf of a Houthi financial official’s network. The US also targeted Hezbollah shipments of LPG.

Houthis seize the headquarters of the UN’s Human Rights Office. (I am not making this up.)

Yemen’s Houthis stormed the headquarters of the United Nations’ Human Rights Office in the capital, Sanaa, seizing documents, furniture and vehicles, a senior UN official said. … “Ansar Allah forces must leave the premises and return all assets and belongings immediately,” (UN Human Rights Chief Volker) Türk said, using the official name of the Houthis.

A spokesman for the Houthis didn’t return phone calls and messages requesting comment.

That’s delicious—C.

The Saudi Crown Prince is talking about an assassination. His own. Many people want to kill the Saudi leader, but is he using such threats as a means to get the US to pressure Israel on a future Palestinian state?

The Saudi royal has mentioned to members of Congress that he’s putting his life in danger by pursuing a grand bargain with the US and Israel that includes normalizing Saudi-Israeli ties. … The discussions have been weighty and serious, but one takeaway, the people said, is that the crown prince, often referred to as MBS, appears intent on striking the mega-deal with the US and Israel despite the risks involved. He sees it as crucial to his country’s future.

… I’ve come to view MBS’ framing of the situation as a clever diplomatic marketing strategy: He’s saying his life is in danger to push US officials to raise pressure on Israel to bend to a deal he likes. Arguing that you’re putting your neck on the line for a potentially epochal deal is certainly a compelling way to get your interlocutors’ attention. In fairness, it’s probably also true.

Does Kamala Harris have a vision for the Middle East?

… Her first-ever foreign trip as a senator was to Jordan in April 2017: She visited Zaatari, the world’s largest camp for Syrian refugees, and called on then-President Trump to “articulate a detailed strategy” on Syria’s civil war, in which President Bashar al-Assad had just carried out a gruesome chemical attack on civilians. Shortly afterward, she went to Israel and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Her legislative record on the Middle East offers only a few bread crumbs. In 2017, a United Nations Security Council resolution condemned Israel’s settlement-building in the West Bank. The Obama administration chose not to veto that resolution. Harris co-sponsored legislation objecting to that decision, on the grounds that the UN resolution was one-sided and would not advance progress toward a two-state solution, better achieved through bilateral talks. A year later, she deplored Trump’s withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, which she said was “the best existing tool we have to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons and avoid a disastrous military conflict in the Middle East.” She later recommended reviving that agreement and extending it to cover Iran’s ballistic missiles. She voted to cut off US aid for Saudi Arabia in its war in Yemen, even while acknowledging Riyadh as an important partner for Washington.

The link above is good for the next two weeks. In trying to figure out what to expect of a Harris foreign policy (about which I’ll write more in the coming days) I’ve concluded that there is simply not enough extant information about her views for an article like this to say anything serious. I included this because clues like these are, for now, all we’ve got—C.

Pay attention to Belarus:

… Despite the central role that Belarus played in Russia’s February 2022 invasion, the West has largely ignored developments inside Belarus. And when it did pay attention, including before the 2020 presidential election, it did so counterproductively.

… Usually when analysts and officials discuss the Russia-China-North Korea-Iran axis, nowhere is there mention of Belarus, even though it deserves being listed in this disreputable group. Belarus’ foreign minister was recently in North Korea comparing notes with the dictatorial regime in Pyongyang. Chinese military personnel visited Belarus in early July for joint exercises designed to “exchange experience, coordinate Belarusian and Chinese units, and create a foundation for the further development of Belarusian-Chinese relations in the field of joint training of troops,” according to the Belarusian Defense Ministry. Those exercises came days after Belarus formally joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization led by Russia and China. Lukashenka and Putin, of course, meet regularly.

The best way to help Belarus overcome the stifling grip of Lukashenka’s rein is to help Ukraine win the war against Russia. The reverberations of a Russian defeat would clearly and quickly be felt in neighboring Belarus. The people of Belarus would feel emboldened by a Ukrainian victory, and Putin would be distracted by having to recover from a forced withdrawal of his troops from Ukraine. Putin might decide that solidifying Lukashenka’s position would be vital to avoid a domino-like effect of falling regimes that could reach Moscow. But just as Putin’s forces never really understood why they were fighting Ukrainians, Russian soldiers similarly would be at a loss to figure out why they would fight to keep the unpopular Lukashenka in power. Even before Ukraine emerges victorious, the West should turn its attention to Belarus and make clear to Belarusians inside the country and those in exile that a Western orientation in the post-Lukashenka period could be in that country’s future.

Germany zeroes in on Ukrainian suspect in Nord Stream pipeline explosions:

His name: Vladimir Zhuravlev. Nationality: Ukrainian. Place of residence: Kyiv. Profession: diving instructor. … a German warrant was issued in June for his involvement in the September 26, 2022 attack on the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines … German investigators suspect that Ukrainian citizens chartered a yacht called “Andromeda” and divers used it to sail to the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm and plant explosives. … German investigators said that the attack had been planned by a Ukrainian group as early as 2014. …

However, some Western and German intelligence officials (have doubts and suspect) a so-called false flag operation aimed at covering up Russia’s involvement. This theory is particularly popular in Polish security circles, which sent a document with the names of Russian suspects to Germany’s BND Federal Intelligence Service. However, German investigators were not persuaded and prosecutors moved to issue the warrant for Zhuravlev’s arrest. German authorities transmitted the arrest warrant for Zhuravlev to Poland in June after they were able to identify him thanks to photos and statements from witnesses.

★ A drunken evening, a rented yacht: The real story of the Nord Stream Pipeline sabotage. Private businessmen funded the shoestring operation, which was overseen by a top general; President Zelensky approved the plan, then tried unsuccessfully to call it off.

The Ukrainian operation cost around US$300,000, according to people who participated in it. It involved a small rented yacht with a six-member crew, including trained civilian divers. … “I always laugh when I read media speculation about some huge operation involving secret services, submarines, drones and satellites,” one officer who was involved in the plot said. “The whole thing was born out of a night of heavy boozing and the iron determination of a handful of people who had the guts to risk their lives for their country.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky initially approved the plan, according to one officer who participated and three people familiar with it. But later, when the CIA learned of it and asked the Ukrainian president to pull the plug, he ordered a halt, those people said. Zelensky’s commander in chief, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, who was leading the effort, nonetheless forged ahead. The Journal spoke to four senior Ukrainian defense and security officials who either participated in or had direct knowledge of the plot. All of them said the pipelines were a legitimate target in Ukraine’s war of defense against Russia.

The findings could upend relations between Kyiv and Berlin, which has provided much of the financing and military equipment to Ukraine, second only to the US. Some German political leaders may have been willing to overlook evidence pointing to Ukraine for fear of undermining domestic support for the war effort. But German police are politically independent and their investigation took on a life of its own as they pursued one lead after another. “An attack of this scale is a sufficient reason to trigger the collective defense clause of NATO, but our critical infrastructure was blown up by a country that we support with massive weapons shipments and billions in cash,” said a senior German official familiar with the probe.

This is either complete fiction or blockbuster reporting. I have no idea.—C.

Ukraine’s presidential adviser denies Ukraine’s involvement:

“Such an act can only be carried out with extensive technical and financial resources … and who possessed all this at the time of the bombing? Only Russia,” (Mykhailo) Podolyak said as part of his written comments. … “Ukraine has nothing to do with the Nord Stream explosions,” Podolyak said, adding that Ukraine did not gain any strategic or tactical advantage from the blasts.

Macron protégé Gabriel Attal turns into biggest threat to president. Branded as Macron’s mini-me, 35-year-old Gabriel Attal is emerging as a ruthless rival to the French leader:

During the campaign, the outgoing prime minister successfully filled a power void. Disheartened by the president’s seemingly maverick decision to call new elections and wary that his low favorability ratings could impact their reelection bids, MPs chose to rally behind the young and combative Attal rather than the toxic Macron. With the presidential camp landing a better-than-expected result in the snap elections, the soon-to-be former prime minister can now position himself for the future—free from Macron’s authority.

Algeria blocks deportations from France over Western Sahara:

Many saw Paris as offering Morocco an olive branch by recognizing its claim of sovereignty over the Western Sahara, though in doing so, it may have also burned bridges with Algeria. Algiers’ disapproval of French President Emmanuel Macron’s actions has led the North African country to send back citizens handed deportation orders by France.

Kosovo’s president Vjosa Osmani warned that opening a bridge to traffic in the ethnically divided town of Mitrovica without NATO’s coordination risks a conflict between police and US troops:

The government of Prime Minister Albin Kurti is making final preparations to open the Mitrovica bridge which has been mostly closed to traffic since the Kosovo war ended in 1999, although the bridge is open for pedestrians. The bridge has been the site of some of the worst clashes between ethnic Albanians and Serbs, who make up the majority in the northern Kosovo. Its opening would be a symbolic move because three other bridges already connect the town across a river. Osmani’s comments came after the United States, the European Union and NATO warned Kurti that the plan may trigger ethnic violence, forcing NATO to intervene to maintain peace.

Erdoğan’s noisy diplomacy:

… If Turkey’s strategic thinking is guided by the assumption of a weakening West and an emerging multipolar system on one hand, and the goal of Turkey becoming a great power with influence and interests beyond its own region on the other, then it has also been colored, particularly since 2009 or so, by a particular set of characteristics: a tactical fluidity bordering on “ad hoc-ism”; a de-institutionalization of the foreign policy apparatus in favor of personalized control by Erdoğan; and a predilection for grand gestures and powerful rhetoric as a means of allowing Turkey to “punch above its weight” at minimal costs. … Messy and loud, Erdoğan’s handling of foreign policy has come with costs, both for the Turkish economy and especially for Ankara’s ties with its allies. … Given Erdoğan’s record so far, this is clearly a gamble, but not necessarily one that only a fool would take.

Extremist surge in eastern Germany threatens a political earthquake:

In Saxony, the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), which polls nationally at 17 percent, is in second place at 30 percent, hard on the heels of the conservative Christian Democrats. But in Thuringia and in Brandenburg, the AfD is in first place, at 30 and 24 percent respectively. The new hard-left Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW, named after its founder) polls at 7-8 percent nationally. But it gets 11 in Saxony, 19 in Thuringia and 17 in Brandenburg. In other words, two openly anti-system parties that nationally get a quarter of the poll vote are likely to receive a collective share of between 41 and 49 percent in these three states. Both are Eurosceptic, anti-NATO and anti-American. Both are pro-Russian, and against supporting Ukraine. That said, neither will work, much less govern, with the other. But they can cause havoc all the same.

The AfD has professionalized and consolidated—but also outpaced most of its European peers in its radicalism. It trades in neo-Nazi tropes, associates with violent militants and is supported by a broad network of extreme-right media, associations and activists. A German higher court has confirmed the domestic intelligence services’ assessment that the party’s chapters in Saxony and Thuringia are “proven rightwing extremist.” The journalist Mariam Lau calls the AfD’s striking inability to shake off the Nazi past “political Tourette’s syndrome.”

Can the six-day work week save Greece?

Investigators think a faulty power cable caused Greece’s worst wildfire this year. The fire killed a woman and torched 10,000 hectares near Athens, an area about the size of Paris.

British authorities have arrested more than 1,000 people following days of far-right rioting, violence, arson and looting. Many have been swiftly jailed, with some receiving long sentences.

Well done to the UK for arresting, charging, trying, and sentencing their rioters within days. There are January 6 rioters who are only now being tried and sentenced. The UK seems to have a much better grasp on the “right to a speedy trial” concept than we do—C.

England in pieces. Keir Starmer has imposed order after the riots. But now he must lead a national renewal:

Order has returned to the streets of England but the mood in the country is uneasy, and this feels more like a temporary respite from chaos than something settled. The King, perhaps more in hope than expectation, has called for the nation to unite around “shared values of mutual respect and understanding.” That may be wishful thinking. He must know, or at least sense, that the harrowing ethno-sectarian violence and racist attacks of recent weeks on mosques and hotels sheltering asylum seekers in provincial towns have revealed something dark and shocking: an England atomised, an England in pieces. Le Figaro, the leading centre-right newspaper in France, provocatively described the riots as an act of “civil war”. Elon Musk, owner of the social media platform X/Twitter, and its chief troll, said much the same in a post directed at Keir Starmer.

… Starmer was compelled to use the full force of the Hobbesian state to quash anarchy and reimpose public order. He acted swiftly and decisively to contain agitators and neo-fascists who had been inflamed by misinformation circulating freely on Telegram, X/Twitter, Facebook, TikTok and Signal. In the days following the horrific murder of three girls and the wounding of many others in a knife attack by a 17-year-old assassin on a children’s dance class in a quiet residential street in Southport on 29 July, we witnessed frightening outbreaks of public disorder across the country, from the south-west to the north-east.

Within hours of the girls’ murder being reported, the hashtag “#EnoughIsEnough” was trending. The killer had been falsely identified by agents of chaos on social media as a Muslim asylum seeker who had arrived illegally on a small boat; for some far-right agitators a tipping point had been reached. It was time to take to the streets. Videos and other posts by Tommy Robinson, the former frontman of the now-defunct far-right English Defence League, and whose X/Twitter account was reactivated last year on Musk’s authority, were viewed on average 54.3 million times a day from 30 July to 9 August, according to the Center for Countering Digital Hate. Social media, Starmer said, was “not a law-free zone.” He has pledged to challenge the unregulated power of the tech platforms in the weeks ahead. Good luck with that, one might say.

… Turn away in fear and loathing if you wish, but worse will follow if people’s smoldering resentment about mass migration and porous borders—as well as run-down high streets, broken community services, sub-standard housing and long-standing economic neglect—are not systematically addressed.

Meet the three types of rioter. Far-Right thugs weren’t the sole perpetrators:

… The first group—Combatants—refers to the kind of rioter that many have in mind when invoking the image of the far-Right thug: namely, inveterate racists alongside self-proclaimed patriots motivated by fears about white replacement and hostility to the British state and police for their perceived collusion in this. … The second group—Geezers and Scallies—refers to older and younger men respectively with criminal backgrounds whose participation in the riots was motivated not by any considered ideological grievances, but an abiding interest in manufacturing mayhem and the drama of violent contention. … The final group—Losers—refers to that type of rioter, both male and female, whose participation in the riots was spontaneous and situational. Many of these accidental rioters were drunk when they entered the fray …

The weaponization of ethnic Englishness. We must resist the reactionary nationalism that has flourished during these riots:

There has clearly been an attempt to fashion this exclusivist ethnic nationalism in the service of a tendentious and reactionary politics in recent years. And when notions of ethnicity are used in some of these discussions, it is a way to avoid explicit reference to race but retain its meaning. … This is partially a product of treating England as byword for Britain. Our histories and ancestries naturally overlap (in both directions). But following devolution inside Britain and the transformation of Britishness into a post-imperial civic nationalism, the task of adapting Englishness to the 21st century lingers on. …

(The) English people is a nation even though its heritage is mixed, one whose character is not based on ethnic purity, but to borrow a phrase of Rudyard Kipling is “like a built-up gun barrel, all one temper though welded of many different materials.” Nations are syntheses of peoples whose complicated overlapping histories make something new, distinct, and yet continuous. England is no different.

What can Britain do to tame Elon Musk’s X after the far-Right riots? Politicians have so far used little more than tough words to tackle big tech.

Rakhine armed group suspected of deadly attack in Myanmar on Rohingya:

At least 150 civilians from Myanmar’s Muslim Rohingya minority may have been killed this week in an artillery and drone attack in the western state of Rakhine that survivors suspect was carried out by a major force in the resistance to military rule. … Doctors Without Borders, said that in the past week, it has been treating increasing numbers of Rohingya people with violence-related injuries who managed to cross the border into Bangladesh.

Myanmar’s bleak future of civil war and ethnic strife:

China has promised technical support and aid to Myanmar for a census followed by an election, state media said, signaling Beijing’s backing to a junta cornered by an armed rebellion and steadily losing ground.

“Necessary technological assistance will be provided for Myanmar to conduct the census-taking process,” the state-run publication said. “Moreover, essential aid will be given for the election.” Myanmar’s generals last month extended emergency rule for another six months to allow more time to put together census data for voter lists.

The China-Myanmar border region has seen heavy fighting since last year, with junta suffering a series of defeats including the fall of Lashio in northern Shan state, the first of 14 regional military commands to be taken by rebels. Last October, a rebel alliance led by three major anti-junta groups launched Operation 1027 near the Chinese border, inflicting significant losses on the junta. The offensive was temporarily halted after Beijing brokered a ceasefire. But fighting resumed in June after the ceasefire collapsed, marking the start of an intensified second phase of the operation, during which Lashio was taken from the junta’s control.

Bangladesh on the verge of civil war:

Bangladesh is currently navigating one of the most tumultuous periods in its history. On August 5, 2024, the long-standing rule of Sheikh Hasina came to an abrupt end, marking a dramatic shift in the nation’s political landscape. The country is now under the leadership of an interim government headed by the esteemed economist, Dr. Muhammad Yunus. However, what could have been a peaceful transition of power has instead plunged the nation into deep uncertainty, with the potential for civil war looming on the horizon. The sudden downfall of Sheikh Hasina’s regime has left a vacuum that has destabilized the political equilibrium. The former ruling party, which once held significant influence, finds itself sidelined, with many of its leaders either in hiding or detained by the military.

Violence frightens Hindu minority:

Ever since former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina resigned and fled to India, her supporters and associates have faced retaliatory attacks by mobs who have been met by little, if any, resistance from authorities. Members of the country’s Hindu minority feel the most vulnerable because they have traditionally backed the Awami League—seen as a secular party in the Muslim-majority nation—and because of a history of violence against them during previous upheavals.

In the week since Hasina was ousted on August 5, there have been at least 200 attacks against Hindus and other religious minorities across 52 districts, according to the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council, a minority rights group that has been tracking incidents. … For many, the violence has evoked painful memories of Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence against Pakistan during which Hindus were targeted. Hindus were also attacked during the rise of Islamic groups in the 1990s, which Hasina stamped out.

The Yunus Paradox. The Nobel laureate’s peaceful vision versus the growing fundamentalism in Bangladesh:

… To many, Yunus embodies hope, an emblem of peace and economic innovation. Yet, beneath this veneer of optimism lies a complex and potentially perilous reality that India cannot afford to ignore. The ascent of the Islamist Jamaat-e-Islami, a party with deep-rooted ties to militancy and a vision of an Islamic state, casts a long shadow over this transition.

For India, this development is far from a cause for celebration. The secular fabric that has long underpinned Bangladesh’s polity—a cornerstone of its amicable relationship with India—now faces an existential threat. The Jamaat’s resurgence could herald a shift towards conservatism and anti-India sentiment, unravelling decades of carefully nurtured bilateral ties. The specter of historical tensions looms large, particularly given Jamaat-e-Islami’s notorious involvement in the atrocities against Bengali freedom fighters and the Hindu community during the liberation war. A revival of such dark chapters could exacerbate old wounds, leading to a deterioration in relations that neither nation can afford.

Moreover, the implications for Bangladesh’s Hindu minority are dire. Reports of violence and the exodus of Hindus seeking refuge in India during times of unrest have already strained India’s resources. An empowered Jamaat-e-Islami could escalate this humanitarian crisis, forcing India to grapple with an influx of refugees while managing the domestic fallout.

The Taliban marks three years of rule:

The Taliban’s supreme spiritual leader said the group had transformed Afghanistan into an Islamic sharia-based country, as the former insurgents marked three years of rule with a huge military parade at the Bagram Air Base near Kabul. “The system is Islamic and sharia-based, sharia is being implemented,” said supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, in a speech shared by the administration spokesman late on Wednesday. “As long as we are alive, we will uphold and apply Allah’s (God’s) faith and sharia upon ourselves and others,” he said. … The Taliban carried out a military parade a day before the anniversary on Wednesday, including marches by its security forces showcasing tanks and weapons at Bagram, once the largest military base of the US-lead coalition. Much of the equipment was once held by the Afghan military and provided by foreign forces, but seized by the Taliban after they took over.

Three years on, the Taliban have improved some economic indicators such as exports and widespread fighting has stopped, although attacks, including those claimed by Islamic State radicals, continue in urban areas. But a huge cut in development funding and restrictions on the banking sector led by Washington have contributed to the country’s massive humanitarian crisis with more than half of the population in need of aid to survive. Western governments have said that any path to recognition and a rollback of sanctions are stalled until the Taliban changes its course on women’s rights. Girls above the age of around 12 are barred from formal education, women are not usually allowed to travel long distances without a male guardian and have been banned from visiting gyms and parks

★ Three years on from Taliban’s takeover, what’s next?

Efforts to break the deadlock in relations with the Taliban as it pulls Afghanistan —and Afghanistan’s women and girls in particular—back into the dark ages, have been unfocused and confusing, raising questions now about how to move forward and how the next US administration might approach these complex issues.

… Numerous US and Western politicians, diplomats, and bureaucrats that I interact with contend that, after more than two decades of effort, it is no longer the international community’s responsibility to “fix” Afghanistan. They argue that any change must be initiated and organized from within Afghanistan. After the chaotic US withdrawal in August 2021, President Joe Biden declared, “I was not going to extend this forever war,” wielding an all-too-common and meaningless cliché as an excuse. And two months earlier, he’d said, “The Afghans are going to have to be able to do it themselves.” Yet during my regular conversation with a diverse group of Afghans inside the country, in neighboring countries, and beyond, after expressing understandable worries about their worsening economic conditions and severe restrictions on their basic rights and freedoms, they ask about US or Western plans for Afghanistan. The majority of my Afghan interlocutors, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds, believe that the Taliban’s return to power was facilitated by the Doha talks and the resulting agreements and actions or inaction by the Trump and Biden administrations, and so any change to the status quo also will have to be initiated by foreign powers. There are indications that a new president in the White House next year could break the impasse. …

(M)aybe Republican nominee and former President Donald Trump, who initiated the Doha deal,  will … offer diplomatic recognition in exchange for access to Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. … Vice President Kamala Harris … should label the Taliban as a regime committing gender apartheid, implement necessary sanctions, and end the deal-making that favors the Taliban based on the secret annexes of the Doha deal. Either the recognition of the Taliban by Trump or their complete isolation and sanction by Harris will pave the way for changing the current awful status quo.

“They promised to take out our families.” The Afghans America left behind.

A systematic analysis of the available government data suggests that by April 2023, at least three out of five petitions by Afghans who sought protection for their role in the war were still pending. Case processing has ticked up since then, but many allies remain in Afghanistan, some living in acute danger while they wait for administrative roadblocks to be cleared.

This is so shameful—Claire.

★ China is in denial about the war in Ukraine. Why Chinese thinkers underestimate the costs of complicity in Russia’s aggression:

As they analyze events in Ukraine, Chinese scholars seek to assess the United States’ and Europe’s resolve and understand what risks China might be forced to bear in a geopolitical or military crisis. Some experts, such as the leading military strategist Zhou Bo, have concluded that NATO’s hesitancy to make certain major interventions on Ukraine’s behalf proves that, aside from the United States, Taiwan would lack defenders in a future conflict with China. Although these scholars tend to be careful not to discuss the contours of a potential war in the Taiwan Strait too explicitly, many seem to be drawing a straight line from the cracks in the United States’ determination to support Ukraine and its likely will to stomach a possible protracted conflict with Beijing. …

Chinese analysts’ views offer a window into the possible lessons the Chinese government is drawing from Putin’s war. Their interpretations are varied and individual. After watching two years of war in Ukraine, however, many have concluded that the West has no stomach for conflict and will grow tired of supporting democracies facing an invading force if the economic costs are high. This conclusion is often overstated and probably underestimates American resolve. But the very fact that they have drawn it suggests that the Taiwan Strait—and the world at large—may be heading in a still more dangerous direction.

The Philippines is Washington’s new front line against China. Manila is receiving unprecedented US help to beef up its defenses:

Under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., the Philippines has re-embraced its historic security ties with the United States. Washington has been happy to increase arms transfers and make new infrastructure promises that bring the Philippine government in Manila closer to Washington and its regional allies, including Tokyo. … China has responded to Marcos Jr.’s turn toward the United States by firing water cannons at and ramming Philippine vessels multiple times in the South China Sea, where Beijing has competing territorial claims with several countries including the Philippines. … It’s the most consistent pressure Beijing has applied since an international court of arbitration ruled in favor of Manila’s maritime claims in 2016.

★ Filling the void left by Great-Power retrenchment: Russia, Central Asia, and the US withdrawal from Afghanistan:

The US withdrawal from Afghanistan, ending in August 2021, created favorable conditions for Russia to reassert itself as a regional hegemon in broader Central Asia. Historically, as great powers retrench from a territory, the resulting void can be filled either by rival powers or by friendly successor states responsive to the retrenching power’s agenda. While the United States has lacked reliable successors to take its place in the region, Russia has asserted itself in a number of ways to boost its own power and influence. Moscow has not only cultivated bilateral ties with each of the five Central Asian states, but it has also instrumentalized regional security organizations to advance its interests. However, the full-scale assault against Ukraine beginning in 2022 has undermined Russia’s initiatives in Central Asia and its aspirations for regional hegemony. The Central Asian countries fear Moscow’s apparent neo-imperial ambitions and prefer to develop multi-vectored foreign relations. In this situation, China is poised to supplant Russia as the dominant power and security provider in the region, which could create tensions within the so-called partnership without limits between Moscow and Beijing.

Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida won’t run for reelection:

Kishida, who took office in October 2021, has spent his three-year term ramping up his country’s defense spending, hewing more closely with the United States on security matters, and improving relations with South Korea. …His decision not to run for reelection comes after historically low approval ratings, which sank to 15.5 percent in an opinion poll last month.

The daughter of Thailand’s most divisive but enduring politician, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, will run for prime minister, an office her father and aunt once occupied. On Friday, less than 48 hours after Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin was dismissed by a court order, Paetongtarn will seek parliamentary support to replace him. Thaksin was my publisher—and Vivek’s—when we worked for Asia Times, lo, so many years ago. We only saw him on the rare occasions when he swooped into the office accompanied by his bodyguards and a dozen-odd scantily-clad Chinese courtesans, made a pronouncement about countering the white man’s neocolonial journalism, laughed hysterically, then decamped with senior editors to a brothel.

The US and French Navies conducted operations in the Philippine Sea “in support of a free and open Indo-Pacific.”

Also of note:

• China is neither collapsing nor booming. On a return to Shanghai, our columnist detects worries about the future—but also a steely determination that the country’s sheer size will see it advance in key areas.

★ Seventy miles in hell. The Darién Gap was once considered impassable. Now hundreds of thousands of migrants are risking treacherous terrain, violence, hunger, and disease to travel through the jungle to the United States:

… Guides and porters follow the migrants in the jungle with their iPhones rolling, asking, “Do you feel good?” and “Have we treated you well?” They film incessantly during the first day of walking, when people are still able to conjure a smile. (Even I ended up in one of their videos.) They post the videos on social media, selling trips across the jungle as if they were joyful nature walks. The profit motives of the cartel have become yet another factor fueling migration. …

… We started seeing abandoned tents and wondered if they meant that we were reaching the jungle’s edge, or if the people who’d left them had simply been too weak to carry even the most basic supplies. And for the first time, we saw people sitting by themselves on rocks and tree stumps, staring aimlessly into the distance, apparently deserted by their traveling companions. We crossed a river behind a family with three girls, two of whom were disabled. The eldest looked to be at least 10 but was swaddled like a baby in a sheet against her father’s chest, her long limbs flopping out. Her father slipped and face-planted, dunking them underwater. When they resurfaced, the girl was coughing and screaming. The father shook himself off, tightened the sheet, and kept going. Just off the path lay a decomposing corpse, tucked under a blanket.

This is superb reporting. It will win a Pulitzer. The link will work for two weeks—C.

US-funded flights will start this month to repatriate migrants illegally crossing into Panama through the Darien jungle. Panama and the US agreed in July to the flights as part of a deal aimed at curbing illegal migration through the region.

As Maduro cracks down, Venezuela’s opposition plots its next move:

Nobody expected that challenging Maduro’s 11-year grip on power would be easy. Now, the Venezuelan opposition is working to maintain morale while strategizing and preparing for the worst. The government has tightened its repressive hold on the country, stifling what began as massive spontaneous protests following the announcement of the election results. In Caracas’ impoverished neighborhoods, formerly government strongholds that have been hardest hit by the crackdown, the streets have now quieted, as residents are increasingly afraid to leave their homes. Despite these challenges, the opposition has not surrendered. Rather, it is regrouping—again. …

Though it is reticent to call for massive protests that could expose its supporters to the government’s violent crackdown, the opposition leadership continues to call for discrete solidarity gatherings among families, like the ones they have announced in more than 100 cities around the world for this Saturday. In addition, the opposition has mobilized more than 1 million volunteers to safeguard the vote. This includes the effort that has so far allowed the Gonzalez campaign to collect and audit 80 percent of the paper vote tallies to ensure transparency about the election results, once it became clear that the government-loyal electoral commission would not reliably perform this task. This innovative response sets a precedent that is likely to be emulated by opposition movements in other authoritarian regimes around the world. …

In just two weeks since the election, at least 24 people have been killed and over 2,200 arrested, according to government figures. … From a balcony at the Miraflores presidential palace last week, Maduro declared, “We’re going after them,” while his government has begun to label all who oppose his administration as “fascists, rioters and terrorists.”  The Venezuelan armed forces now stop people randomly on the streets, on buses and even in their homes to inspect the content of their smartphones. Individuals are being arrested and charged with terrorism, incitement to hatred or criminal association if authorities discover evidence of their support for the opposition. As a result, Venezuelans are frantically wiping their phones clean of all potentially incriminating content and hiding any political conversations.

Known as Operation Knock-Knock, referring to a knock on the door, the nationwide campaign aimed at targeting anyone who challenges Maduro’s reelection has found new ways to stifle dissent. As part of it, for instance, the government initially encouraged Venezuelans to use VenApp—a mobile app originally designed to report issues with basic services like water and electricity—to report and denounce their fellow citizens who question Maduro’s victory. Although Apple and Google suspended the app as a result, the Maduro administration continues to encourage citizens to report on one another through social media channels, fostering widespread fear, mistrust and suspicion across Venezuelan society. … In a further escalation, the government has begun annulling passports, effectively trapping people within Venezuela.

Venezuela’s Armed Forces close ranks with Maduro. “The regime is supported by the military.” The military leadership has sworn “absolute loyalty” to the president in the face of allegations of fraud. However, according to analysts, there is discontent in the barracks over the election results:

While the opposition and the international community are demanding that the National Electoral Council—controlled by the ruling power—present the voter tally sheets confirming Maduro’s victory over the opposition candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, the high command of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) have sworn “absolute loyalty” to the president.

The support of the military is disputed between the government and the opposition, which, led by María Corina Machado, has asked the FANB and police forces not to repress the protests against the suspected election fraud. The opposition has also called on the forces to accept the results shown in the copies of the more than 24,000 tally sheets they have collected, equivalent to 81.7 percent of the total. According to the opposition count, González Urrutia obtained 67 percent of the votes, compared to 30 percent for Maduro. Following calls from the opposition, Venezuela’s Attorney General’s Office—also controlled by the ruling Chavista party—opened a criminal investigation against Machado and González for “inciting” military and police officers to disobey the law. The high command of the FANB has also accused the “ultra-right” of plotting a coup in the country.

Venezuela: A playbook for digital repression.

As a state sponsor of disinformation, Venezuela systematically distorts and manipulates information to further its political agenda. This includes fabricating and disseminating false or misleading narratives about political opponents, economic conditions, and social issues, as well as using disinformation to discredit international organizations and foreign governments critical of the regime. In addition to its domestic efforts, Venezuela is also known for exporting its tactics of state-sponsored disinformation to other countries in the region. The government has been accused of using social media to interfere in elections and promote political instability in neighboring countries. Venezuelan officials have also trained and advised other governments on how to use digital tools for political control, further solidifying the country’s role in the global spread of digital autocracy and state-sponsored disinformation.

Solutions to Venezuela’s crisis. Wrong answers only. Your proposed solution is wrong. So is Lula’s. So is Petro’s. So is everyone else’s. Accept that to move forward.

★ The problem with El Salvador’s crime numbers. Bukele’s government has been undercounting homicides since its 2022 crackdown:

After a weekend of heightened gang violence in March 2022, Bukele, with the support of the legislature, launched the dramatic crackdown known as the régimen de excepción, which suspended several basic constitutional rights and was followed by aggressive criminal reforms. The provisional, 30-day régimen de excepción has become increasingly permanent, having now been extended a total of 28 times, and in 2023 the country’s reported homicide rate plunged to just 2.4 people per 100,000.

However, under Bukele’s crackdown, the government has been undercounting homicides by as much as 47 percent. This is no bureaucratic or clerical error. Since taking office, Bukele’s administration has been laser-focused on reducing homicide rates and improving perceptions of security. This was central to his administration’s negotiations with the gangs from 2019 to 2022.

The government offered incarcerated gang leadership less-restrictive prison conditions, reduced sentences, visits to civilian hospitals—often to communicate with fellow gang members under the guise of receiving fake medical treatment—and a promise to not extradite them to the United States. In exchange, the gangs needed to find ways to lower the number of homicides. One of the ways in which gang leaders achieved this was to authorize fewer killings and genuinely reduce violence. However, they also increased the practice of burying the bodies of victims in unmarked and often mass graves—in effect, reducing the number of “public killings.” …

In May 2021, Bukele’s government formally started changing how it counted homicides. Mesa Técnica, an interagency roundtable that tabulates homicides, began excluding the discovery of clandestine or unmarked graves from its counts. In a country ravished by a 12-year civil war that ended in the 1990s, discoveries of mass graves and unidentified human remains are an all-too-common occurrence, and for as long as the government had been recording homicide data, these deaths had been included.

How can we fix the border crisis? Mexico is the first line of defense.

Mexico’s long war. Drugs, crime, and the cartels. Violence continues to rage more than a decade after the Mexican government launched a war against drug cartels.

Mexican drug cartels are leading suppliers of cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and other illicit narcotics to the United States. The cartels and the drug trade fuel rampant corruption and violence in Mexico, contributing to tens of thousands of homicides in the country each year. Since Mexico launched a war on the cartels in 2006, the United States has provided it with billions of dollars in security and counternarcotics assistance.

Mexican authorities have been waging a deadly battle against drug cartels for nearly two decades, but with limited success. Thousands of Mexicans—including politicians, students, and journalists—die in the conflict every year. The country has seen more than 431,000 homicides since 2006, when the government declared war on the cartels.

Prices in Argentina dipped to their lowest in more than two years, though the country has slipped into a recession:

Inflation in July came in at 4 percent, Argentina’s INDEC statistics agency reported on Wednesday, the lowest since the start of 2022. In the 12 months through July, however, inflation topped 263 percent—making it still the highest recorded in the world. … (President Javier) Milei’s sharp cost-cutting campaign has helped bolster the state’s embattled finances, allowed the central bank to rebuild reserves, and tamped down inflation—though it has taken a heavy toll on economic activity. Poverty levels have also risen. … Milei’s policies have helped bring down monthly inflation from over 25 percent in December to now 4 percent in July, though the country has slid into recession and subsidy cuts have pushed up prices of certain services and goods.

Many Argentines still feel their purchasing power is dwindling despite inflation slowing, with poverty affecting half the population and over seven million children living in poverty. … Milei’s government argues that fiscal responsibility is essential to stabilize the economy and cautions that things will get tougher for Argentines before improving.

This is similar to the trajectory of the UK’s economy under Thatcher. She brought inflation under control, but at the price of a serious recession. It’s unclear to me (and to the economists with whom I discussed it) whether a recession was necessary to wring the inflation out of the economy—C.

★ The year(s) of magical thinking on Sudan. Three fallacies have dominated—and damaged—US diplomacy:

After 16 months of war, the scale of Sudan’s devastation, the human toll, and the geopolitical fallout are staggering. Sudan’s sovereignty has been dismantled; its state has collapsed. Genocidal violence abounds in multiple areas of the country. Islamist militia proliferate. There are reports of a burgeoning Russian and Iranian presence in Sudan, on the western coast of the Red Sea, notably roughly across from the shores of Yemen, from which the Tehran-backed Houthis have already crippled shipping in one of the world’s most critical commercial waterways. The Sudanese people are suffering the largest hunger crisis by far in the world today and the most extreme even by the standards of Sudan’s tortured history—or of famines anywhere in the last 50 years, By October, twice as many Sudanese (2.5 million) are projected to have died from starvation in four months than the number of Cambodians who starved to death under four years of the Khmer Rouge.

The Sudanese Armed Forces and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces unquestionably bear primary responsibility for the carnage that has ensued since April 15, 2023. But that cannot be an alibi for the well-intentioned but counterproductive diplomatic efforts, including those of the United States that, at best, failed to prevent the war and at worst contributed to its outbreak. Contrary to the predictable finger-pointing, however, the question should not be who “lost Sudan” but rather how. A diplomatic and policy failure of the magnitude evident in Sudan never results from a singular mistake or the actions of one individual, but from a compounding series of miscalculations and missteps and a reluctance to change course in the face of facts. …

Three fallacies have contributed to the current crisis in Sudan: First, that power-sharing between civilian and military actors or exclusively between military actors is a basis for a stable political order. Second, that ceasefires end violence or that they are a prerequisite for doing so. Third, that political legitimacy is less important than coercive force. By clinging to these fallacies, US policy has amounted to magical thinking about what can bring about the desired end goal of a civilian, representative government that reflects the will of—and is accountable to—the people of Sudan.

The United States opened new peace talks in Switzerland in the hope of ending to the Sudanese civil war. But Sudan’s military didn’t send a delegation to the negotiations:

Famine was officially declared earlier this month in Sudan’s western Darfur region, and other areas are expected to follow. By one estimate as many as 2.5 million Sudanese could die from hunger by the end of September. Appalled at the scale of the war-induced calamity in Africa’s third largest country, American officials say the peace drive is necessary, even if chances of a breakthrough seem slim. …

Tom Perriello, the US envoy to Sudan, said in an interview before the talks began that his goal is to broker a cease-fire and to strike a deal for full humanitarian access across Sudan, where more than 10 million people have been forced from their homes and tens of thousands are estimated to have died. … If the military stays away, American officials hope to pressure its leaders to return to the table and also to draw global attention to a ballooning humanitarian crisis in which aid remains chronically underfunded. “We need to start pivoting to a different set of solutions if we are to prevent a couple of million people from starving,” Mr. Perriello said.

… American officials began to also see Saudi Arabia, their partner in peace talks, as part of the problem … Saudi officials were doing little to encourage talks to resume in Jeddah, and seemed to relish the growing tension between the United States and Saudi Arabia’s own rival, the United Arab Emirates, over the Emiratis’ continued military support of the RS.F, the two officials said.

… Sudanese and even former American officials said the Biden administration’s flawed diplomacy in 2022 set the stage for the outbreak of war in 2023 “Well-intentioned but counterproductive diplomatic efforts” by the United States and others “at best, failed to prevent the war and at worst contributed to its outbreak,” Payton Knopf, a former state department official who participated in some of those efforts, wrote this week.

★ Peace talks offer a fragile glimmer of hope. But they require a concerted effort to halt the foreign flow of arms:

… The continued supply of advanced weaponry to both sides shows the failure of the arms embargo. The involvement of external states and nonstate actors since then also underscores the need for stronger enforcement. It is crucial for international actors such as the United Arab Emirates and Egypt to face robust action if peace is to be restored in Sudan, but that action has not been forthcoming. The United States—despite concerns raised by members of Congress—as well as the EU and the UK have notably ignored the UAE’s role in the conflict.

… Washington has strong influence on both the UAE and Egypt. It should wield that influence to prevent these external spoilers from worsening the destructive conflict in Sudan. Furthermore, the UN Security Council must review and update Resolution 1591 to address the current situation and should establish a new sanctions regime to enforce the resolution’s aims. 

The conflict in Sudan appears as if it’s taking place between two primary factions, the SAF and the RSF. However, this oversimplifies the situation. There are more than 10 different groups with active armed wings, some of which have allied themselves loosely with either the SAF or the RSF. Two significant groups, the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM-Elhillo) and the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM-A-Wahed), maintain considerable arms and recruitment bases but have remained neutral. The Geneva peace talks, which focus primarily on the SAF and RSF, are meant to end hostilities and pave a way for a full transition to civilian-led governance. But those goals could be imperiled if the two, currently neutral armed groups enter the conflict. This is likely to happen if they perceive the Geneva talks as a political incentive and view their effective neutrality as a political disincentive in a potential post-agreement power-sharing deal. To avoid further escalation of this kind, at least some of these groups must be incorporated into an effective mechanism that involves them in the peace process, even as observers—and especially on the cease-fire and humanitarian-access agenda. The peace talks should also be open and transparent, to avoid misinterpretations on the part of armed and civilian groups.

UN experts call for an end to the use of starvation as a weapon of war in Sudan:

… (H)umanitarian aid is being blocked and the harvest season has been disrupted due to the armed conflict, making widespread famine imminent in the coming months, UN experts warned today. … “The extent of hunger and displacement we see in Sudan today is unprecedented and never witnessed before,” the experts said. “The SAF and RSF must stop blocking, looting and exploiting humanitarian assistance.” … People in Sudan had locally organized emergency response rooms and other community-based mutual aid groups, providing vital support and solidarity to thousands of families. Their efforts are hampered by unprecedented violence and targeted attacks on civil society and local responders, with dozens of activists and local volunteers arrested, threatened and prosecuted in recent weeks. …

“Foreign governments providing financial and military support to both parties in this conflict are complicit in starvation, crimes against humanity and war crimes.”

100,000 Sudanese refugees enter Libya after crossing Sahara. “People from Sudan have faced unimaginable trauma whilst fleeing conflict. They arrive in southern Libya severely traumatised, malnourished and often needing medical care.”

Philip Obaji, to whom we spoke recently on the podcast, continues to track the Wagner Group’s operations in Africa. If you haven’t listened to that podcast, I highly recommend it. Here’s some of his recent reporting:

Russia and Ukraine are fighting a proxy war in Africa. Tuareg separatists in the north of Mali are at war with the central government, which is supported by the Wagner Group. The Tuareg have made an alliance of convenience with the local Islamists, among them the Saharan branch of al-Qaeda. Recently, they staged an astonishing and very bloody ambush, killing 130 government forces and Russian mercenaries. Ukraine said it provided the intelligence for the attack. Mali has broken off ties with Ukraine. Niger followed suit. (This seems exceedingly unwise, on Ukraine’s part: Bludgeoning Russia by supporting jihadis in a faraway conflict has a certain blowback potential, as we discovered to our chagrin.) Here, Obaji explains how the ambush played out:

• Tuareg alliance denies they received help from Ukraine.

• “They rape us before we can cross.” Women and girls fleeing armed groups in Mali say they have suffered sexual assault by Malian soldiers at the border with Niger:

  Reports of rape by rebels and other fighters in Mali have been mounting in number since the conflict began in 2012. But government-backed forces, including the Russian mercenaries drafted in to assist them, have greatly added to incidents of sexual violence especially in the last three years.

  Frequent raids by Malian soldiers and Russian paramilitaries have made local people more afraid and anxious. “If it isn’t militants attacking homes and killing people, it is white soldiers and the army torturing and sexually abusing villagers,” said Heita, who—like many locals in Mali—refers to Russian paramilitaries as “white soldiers.” “Living in Mali has become so dangerous.”

  No one does a better job of tracking Wagner in Africa than Obaji, and it’s dangerous work. If it weren’t for him, I don’t think this news would be reported in English at all. I wish I ran a Cosmpolitan Globalist media empire big enough to hire him and pay him what he’s worth.

The video below shows something significant in Niger. “Migrant smuggling is back in full swing, with convoys of migrants bound for Europe leaving Niger on Tuesdays and Thursdays,” reports Africa News. Recall that recently Niger expelled the US military and replaced it with Wagner mercenaries. This migratory flow serves Russia by destabilizing Europe and strengthening far-right parties with ties to Putin.

Note the sequence of events: Wagner starts by saturating a country like Niger with anti-Western, anti-French, and anti-American propaganda. Once this reaches a fever pitch, they points out to the junta that unlike those self-righteous Westerners, they’d be delighted to help them deal with their security problems, and they don’t mind getting their hands dirty. They won’t give them any tedious lectures about “human rights,” either. And they won’t nag them about “organizing elections” and “returning to democratic institutions” or whatever woke obsession the Westerners are on about these days. In fact, they’ll protect the junta from anyone who suggests it. (And if anyone suggests it too loudly, well, it’s hard to tell the difference between jihadis and democracy activists these days.) All they ask in return is for a few mining concessions. Cheap at twice the price.

So the junta kicks out the French, kicks out US, and brings in Wagner—which has, fittingly, renamed itself the Afrika Corps. Wagner makes itself cozy in our abandoned military infrastructure (wish I was kidding, but I’m not—and this facilitates their further expansion). Then they set to work killing everyone who stands between them and their mines. They rape every girl they can get their hands on, because—well, it has no strategic value, but it’s a perk of the job. They loot the gold, the diamonds, the uranium, the timber, and anything else they can loot, then they sell the gold, as Philip Obaji explained on our podcast, on the black market in the Middle East. The money goes back to the Kremlin to fund its war in Ukraine. This is one reason Western sanctions don’t work.

But the beauty of this scheme hardly ends there. As you hear in the video below, Before the Russians arrived, Niger had laws against human trafficking. Probably, Europe encouraged them to pass those laws. One of the first things the Russians did was get those laws repealed. It’s a priority, like changing the mining laws all over West Africa so better to dislodge Western companies. In November, all of the laws related to migrant trafficking were repealed, and now it takes place right in the open. There’s a regular bus, as you see in the video below; it departs from the central square in Agadez twice a week. Without laws against it, there’s no friction on the exodus at all.

Last February, the Telegraph reported they’d seen intelligence documents indicating that Russia planned to use Libyan militias as a border police force to control the migrant flow to Europe. They cite a security source saying, “If you can control the migrant routes into Europe then you can effectively control elections, because you can restrict or flood a certain area with migrants in order to influence public opinion at a crucial time.” The Kremlin works with its agents and useful idiots throughout Europe to boost the violent anti-migrant sentiment on social media, and there you go: Russia installs its clients in European countries, and those clients lobby against sanctioning Russia for invading Ukraine.

And even though this has been going on for ages, useful idiots like Elon Musk reliably play the game, saying whatever the Kremlin wants them to say about both Ukraine and migrants (as if they were separate issues) at politically crucial times. And Musk has turned all of Twitter into Useful-Idiotville. This is exceedingly dangerous, as the UK has recently learned.

I wonder about Musk. Anne Applebaum recently speculated, on a podcast, that he must have business interests in Russia. David Sacks, too. Maybe. I don’t find it plausible, though. They’ve both got enough money that they hardly need to sell their souls for access to the Russian market, do they? I appreciate that to men whose temperament led them to make that kind of money in the first place, there’s no such thing as “enough money,” but these are men of colossal ego. Their usefulness to Russia doesn’t just make them look weird and traitorous, it makes them look like idiots—as the term suggests.

I find it hard to believe that men like that would be capable of so subordinating their vanity to their business interests. They clearly believe themselves men of supremely rarified mental acuity. They believe their superior intellect is why they’re billionaires—and why they deserve to be. Could they bear understanding that beyond the circle of people who admire the wit and wisdom of @catturd2, they’re regarded as fools? I doubt it. So my best guess remains that they are, authentically, absolute fools.

★ The Blood Gold Report. This is a meticulous, carefully sourced account of the way the Kremlin is using Wagner to launder billions in African gold, financing the murder of tens of thousands and displacement of millions across Africa, the Middle East, and Ukraine:

… Wagner’s blood gold operations in CAR and Sudan have been subject to sanctions, and the Kremlin-backed mercenaries have developed increasingly complex smuggling routes and corporate subterfuge tactics to move blood gold out of these countries and convert this gold into cash. In contrast, the Malian blood gold system enables Wagner to remain one degree removed from gold production. Instead, legitimate multinational mining companies convert gold into cash for the Malian military junta without triggering international sanctions.

To secure its position in a target country’s political and natural resource extraction landscape, Wagner’s African playbook consists of a four-pronged attack on the host country’s civic institutions and civilian population—suppressing political opposition, spreading disinformation, silencing free media and terrorizing civilians. The ultimate objective of Wagner’s playbook is to increase its clients’ dependence on Wagner forces to stay in power, thereby securing a long-term revenue stream for the Kremlin and fostering authoritarianism and instability throughout the region as part of Russia’s wider geopolitical strategy to distract and bog down the democratic West.

Nigeria arrests more than 90 protesters with Russian flags:

Thousands of people joined protests against government policies and the high cost of living last week as Africa’s most populous country suffers its worst economic crisis in a generation. The rallies have petered out in most parts of the country following clashes with security forces, but hundreds of protesters took to the streets in northern states on Monday including Kaduna, Katsina and Kano, as well as central Plateau state.

… Later on Tuesday, security chiefs from the armed forces and police, among others, gave a rare joint briefing and alleged unnamed “sponsors” were seeking to undermine the government, without providing evidence. “The sponsors of these protests, some of them, have a clear motive to subvert the government of the day, we are not going to allow that, we will defend our democracy,” said police chief Kayode Egbetokun. He alleged that some sponsors were “outside the country” and said “we have to arrest those carrying flags to be able to get to the sponsors.” …

Damilare Adenola, leader of the Take It Back group organizing protests in Abuja, dismissed the allegations as “mere distraction.” He said the authorities were using the claims as a “reason to clamp down on protesters.”

Le Monde is a bit snooty in saying “without providing evidence.” When protesters in this region start waving Russian flags, the smart money says it isn’t happening spontaneously. The claim that Russia is stirring things up in Nigeria is not at odds with the claim that the government is using this as an excuse to clamp down on protesters: Both can be true at once and probably are—C.

Also of note:

WHO declares mpox outbreak a public health emergency of international concern, or PHEIC, the WHOs highest form of alert. (Mpox is the same as monkeypox—the WHO renamed it because the old name was stigmatizing to monkeys or something.)

In declaring the PHEIC, Dr. Tedros (Adhanom Ghebreyesus) said, “The emergence of a new clade of mpox, its rapid spread in eastern DRC, and the reporting of cases in several neighboring countries are very worrying. On top of outbreaks of other mpox clades in DRC and other countries in Africa, it’s clear that a coordinated international response is needed to stop these outbreaks and save lives.” … The emergence last year and rapid spread of a new virus strain in DRC, clade 1b, which appears to be spreading mainly through sexual networks, and its detection in countries neighboring the DRC is especially concerning, and one of the main reasons for the declaration of the PHEIC.

• How worried should you be? If you’re a child, pregnant, immunocompromised, or gay and you live in Congo, Rwanda, Uganda, Burundi, or Kenya, you should be moderately concerned, especially if you live in a displacement camp. Otherwise, this doesn’t yet need to be one of your highest worrying preoccupations—although this could change, depending how the virus mutates.

• But you should be worried about how little we’ve learned:

  During the height of the Covid pandemic, there was intense focus among observers and policymakers on the need to shore up global health infrastructure. … And yet, despite all that focus, the WHO’s declaration yesterday underscores how little has actually been done … If anything, the declaration—now the second time the spread of mpox has been deemed a global health emergency in the past three years—highlighted how much the sense of urgency on addressing the spread of diseases has subsided. … Shoring up global health infrastructure for the next pandemic—whether it is today’s mpox outbreak or some other contagious disease to come—while obviously a necessity, requires a level of political will that the world currently lacks.

Thirty-fourth report of the UN’s Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team submitted pursuant to resolution 2734 (2024) concerning ISIL (Da’esh), al-Qaeda and associated individuals and entities:

The threat posed by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant–Khorasan (ISIL-K) has grown with significant terrorist attacks outside Afghanistan, notably in Moscow on March 22 , and with increased threat levels in Europe and other areas. Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) has used these attacks, as well as attacks in Africa and other regions, to support an enhanced propaganda effort to heighten public perceptions of threat and in order to recruit new members. The identity and location of the group’s leader, Abu Hafs al-Hashimi al-Qurashi is still not clear.

ISIL continues to be focused on Africa, with improved coordination between groups in West Africa, with ISIL in Somalia strengthening and the Al-Karrar office important in terms of broader ISIL finances and connectivity between elements of a dispersed organization.

Contiguous territorial gains by both ISIL affiliates and Jama’a Nusrat ul Islam wa al-Muslimin in the Sahel continue to result in high casualty levels and implications for regional security and stability. There is heightened concern among Member States about the terrorist threat emanating regionally from Afghanistan from ISIL-K and Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan in particular. But they are also concerned by new inward travel to Afghanistan of some al-Qaeda personnel and training, recruitment and reorganization activities.

Listed terrorist groups have continued to demonstrate resilience and adaptability in the face of counter-terrorist pressure. Listed terrorist groups have increased use of anonymity-enhanced cryptocurrencies. Terrorist adoption of other technologies continues at pace, making near military-grade capabilities available to sanctioned terrorist groups. This includes the exploitation of 3D printing and the development of unmanned aerial and maritime weapons and surveillance systems. Exploitation of these technologies potentially enables evasion of restrictions imposed under the ISIL and al-Qaeda sanctions regime.

★ Wake up call: UN Security Council’s report on ISIS and al-Qaeda. Key points from the UN monitoring team’s analysis:

• The “identity and location” of ISIS’s global leader “is still not clear.”

•  ISIS-K is the “greatest external terrorist threat to Europe.”

• “European investigations illustrate the global and interconnected nature” of ISIS’s network.

• Al-Qaeda “remains strictly hierarchical” with Sayf al-Adl as its “de facto leader.”

• Al-Qaeda “exercises strategic patience” in Afghanistan, “prioritizing its relationship with the Taliban.”

• The TTP (Tehrik-e Taliban) has “intensified” its attacks against the Pakistani military.

• ISIS and al-Qaeda may be able to evade the UN sanctions regime through technological innovation.  

• The UN monitoring team recommends better cooperation against evolving threats.

Stop telling aliens we’re here. Rogue scientists are broadcasting humanity’s existence out into the universe. That’s a big mistake that could destroy us all.

While I’m not especially concerned about hostile ETs, I note that all of the arguments here apply to artificial intelligence—and I’m extremely concerned about that. It’s one more issue that the US presidential election candidates should be debating but of course won’t—C.

🎧 Anne Applebaum on Autocracy, Inc. Yascha Mounk and Anne Applebaum discuss the new tools autocrats use to stay in power. With a transcript for those in a hurry.

Money doesn’t fear geopolitical shocks. Markets are ignoring the global instability:

Financial markets’ ability to absorb negative geopolitical news—from the possibility of a sprawling war in the Middle East and the entrenched conflict in Ukraine to the new wave of protectionism that would strain relations between China and the West if Donald Trump wins the White House—has created a clear dissonance between the international and economic pages of a newspaper. While the former report on the increasingly unstable global context—with targeted assassinations by Israel, incursions by Ukrainian troops into Russian territory, tariff wars between Washington, Brussels and Beijing, insecurity on the supply routes of the Red Sea, and growing unrest in Venezuela—, the financial news is largely reporting on the strong performance of the stock markets in the United States and Europe, the record results of Apple, Nvidia and other large technology companies, and the containment of the price of crude oil.

Our lives depend on the cloud. Now what?

The world recently woke to a massive global cyber outage paralyzing major enterprises and critical services. The culprit turned out not to be traceable to a sophisticated hacker, instead to a routine but insufficiently tested software update intended to protect Microsoft Windows users that had been pushed out by the cybersecurity firm CrowdStrike. … The risk of incidents or accidents that broadly disrupt services, or compromise of information integrity and confidentiality is rising—and the CrowdStrike outage should be viewed not as a one-off mistake but as a harbinger of things to come.

Crimea River:

The Oriental Shorthair: