Crooked Bough News Round-up

— Who is Lee Jae-myung, Yoon's potential replacement?

 

at 4/5/25 7:28am

Now that South Korea’s Constitutional Court has upheld the impeachment of President Yoon Suk-yeol, attention is now focused on the upcoming snap election to replace him, with the opposition Democratic Party leader, Lee Jae-myung, with a hefty lead in the polls. A Lee victory would likely lead to major modifications in Seoul’s foreign policy and a possible convergence of interests with Donald Trump in defusing tensions with North Korea, if the U.S. president decides to resume his aborted courtship of Pyongyang’s leader, Kim Jong Un. In any event, the Constitutional Court’s decision and the formal removal of Yoon Suk-yeol marks a return to normalcy after a period of uncertainty and drift in South Korea that was touched off by what the judges determined was Yoon’s unconstitutional declaration of martial law and deployment of troops to the National Assembly. Yoon’s power grab, which was effectively undone when hundreds of thousands of citizens rallied to protect the parliament, also provoked a financial crisis. As foreign investors sold off nearly $1 billion in shares in the three days after the martial law declaration December 3, the South Korean won plummeted to its lowest value against the dollar since the 2008-09 global financial meltdown. Meanwhile, South Korea’s foreign policy engagement has been virtually paralyzed. The leadership vacuum and limited diplomatic capacity constrained Seoul’s much-needed engagement with the new Trump administration to discuss key issues, such as regional security cooperation and addressing tensions over elevated U.S. tariffs. On the whole, the political crisis has kept South Korea out of the Trump administration’s priority list, as evidenced by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s skipping of South Korea during his recent trip to East Asia, which included visits to Japan and the Philippines. What are the implications for the U.S.-South Korea alliance and regional geopolitics in East Asia in the case of Lee Jae-myung’s arrival as the next leader in Seoul? Lee has made a full recovery after being stabbed in the neck by a man pretending to be a supporter at a campaign rally in January 2024. He has been a vocal critic of Yoon Suk-yeol’s so-called “values-based diplomacy,” which hinged on the idea of cooperating with democracies to confront autocracies. Instead, Lee has advocated foreign policy pragmatism. While supporting a close security alliance with the United States, Lee has also emphasized the need for proactive diplomacy with North Korea to reduce intensified military tensions on the Korean peninsula and to maintain cooperative relations with China and Russia. “I’m a realist,” said Lee in an interview with the Wall Street Journal. There are apparent overlapping geopolitical interests between Trump and Lee that could allow both to work together — particularly on the issue of restarting nuclear talks with North Korea. Compared to Yoon, who was exceedingly hawkish toward North Korea, had minimal interest in diplomacy, and would have not reacted positively to Trump’s diplomatic overtures to Pyongyang, Lee likely will be a more suitable partner for Trump’s future diplomatic initiative with the North. Lee has even appeared to empathize with Trump’s transactionalist style in some respects. “Trump would do anything to defend America’s own interests, even if that means having a tariff war with allies or engaging with an adversary to end the war in Ukraine,” he said. ”It’s something we should learn from.” These apparent shared values between Lee and Trump could serve as a source of synergy if goals and interests align or a source of friction if goals and interests diverge. It remains to be seen whether the two sides will be able to manage potential differences and disagreements on issues such as tariffs, military cooperation against China, and the Taiwan issue. While it is unclear how Trump himself believes the United States should be approaching China and Taiwan, he is surrounded by advisers who are keen to mobilize U.S. alliances in the Pacific to focus on deterring China and are also eager to reorient the operational priority of U.S. regional forces around a Taiwan contingency. If Trump ends up going in that direction, Washington might see the Taiwan issue becoming a major tension point with a future Lee administration, as Lee would want to prioritize deterring North Korea and distance South Korea from the Taiwan issue. “Why should South Korea meddle with confrontation between China and Taiwan?” Lee once asked, adding, “let them handle their own business.” As South Korea is set to fill its leadership vacuum in two months, Washington would be well-advised to explore potential areas of agreement and disagreement, and map out a roadmap to maximize cooperation and overcome differences.

[Category: Lee jae-myung, Yoon, Yoon suk-yeol, Korea, South korea]

— EU hypocrisy on parade as Netanyahu goes to Hungary  without a peep

 

at 4/4/25 7:44am

The European Union likes to portray itself as the last principled bastion of the “rules-based international order” and global justice standing. Yet its true commitment to that order is a bit suspect. By applying double standards, the EU is actually undermining it, rendering hollow its own exhortations to other international players to respect it. The collisions around the International Criminal Court (ICC) are a case in point. The EU itself has no standing with respect to the ICC. That means that its members have a sovereign right to decide to join the Rome Statute that established the court — or not. That said, since the inception of the ICC, Brussels has encouraged its current and aspiring members, as well as other nations, to ratify the 1998 Rome Statute and support the Court’s work. The EU’s leverage on this matter is more political than legal, but it appears to be deploying it selectively, depending on who the Court chooses to place in the dock.This week during a visit of Israeli Prime Minister of Israel Benyami Benjamin Netanyahu to Budapest, Hungary announced that it will withdraw from the ICC. The catch, however, is that the ICC has issued an arrest warrant against Netanyahu, having charged him for war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Israel’s ongoing campaign in Gaza in which more than 50,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in retaliation for Hamas’ October 7, 2023, terrorist attacks (thousands more are presumed dead, still missing under rubble). Hungary’s withdrawal from the Rome Statute, assuming it is ratified by parliament, could still take months to take legal effect. Nonetheless, so long as the process is not finalized, Hungary has an obligation to arrest Netanyahu during his four-day stay.The EU’s reaction has thus far been muted. The European Commission’s spokeswoman Anita Hipper, reacting to the reports of Hungary’s intent to withdraw from the ICC, only offered platitudes about the EU’s support for the Court, and predicted “deep regret” if Hungary were indeed to leave.It remains to be seen how the EU’s top brass will react, should such be the case. However, that is not the point. When the EU summons political will, it could theoretically apply sufficient pressure to prevent undesirable outcomes before they materialize, rather than having to react after the deed.In 2023, for example, the EU exerted pressure on South Africa concerning the potential attendance of the BRICS summit there by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who by then, like Netanyahu now, had already been indicted by the ICC for war crimes in Ukraine. Brussels reminded South Africa that, as a member of the ICC, it had an obligation to arrest Putin if he were to show up in the country, and that his status as a head of state did not grant him any immunity in this case.The statements of EU officials, including the then-High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell, generally expressed a “with-us-or-against-us” kind of mindset. It left little room for countries like South Africa, which sought to chart a neutral course — neither condoning the Russian invasion of Ukraine nor joining in the U.S.- and EU-promoted sanctions and isolation of Russia. Such professions of neutrality — common in the Global South — were routinely dismissed as a sign of “siding with Putin.” While there were no overt threats of sanctions, European diplomats at the time hinted that Pretoria’s access to European markets and foreign investment could be affected should Pretoria fail to comply with its ICC obligations.The EU pressure and the prospect of strained ties clearly played a role in the internal deliberations in South Africa; in the end, Putin did not attend the BRICS summit in Johannesburg and sent his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, instead.No such leverage was apparent in the case of Netanyahu’s visit to Hungary. That is ironic as Brussels already has a rather confrontational relationship with the Hungarian prime minister. Brussels and Budapest have clashed regularly over domestic governance issues, particularly regarding Orban’s implementation of his “illiberal democracy,” in Hungary. Yet what really made Orban a pariah in Brussels is his insistence on opening space for diplomacy with Moscow to bring the war in Ukraine to an end. Frustrated with Orban’s position (which, in fact, is widely shared across the political spectrum in Hungary, but also, increasingly, in other EU countries), senior officials in Brussels are reportedly discussing ways to get Hungary expelled from the EU altogether.Yet, it would seem that Brussels is only exercised with Orban’s perceived flirting with Putin, but not Netanyahu, despite their both having been indicted by the ICC. Indeed, if the EU’s concern with the ICC and global justice were as consistent as it claims, it could already consider the failure to comply with the ICC orders as a breach of the rule of law — to add to the pile of other, preexisting disagreements Brussels has with Budapest. Yet political will is needed for the European Commission to move in that direction, and there is none. Perversely, Orban is being hammered for all sorts of issues, including diplomatic initiatives to end the war in Ukraine, but gets a pass for hosting a man accused of war crimes.And there lies the crux of the matter: The Brussels “blob” no longer appears to be worried about optics. Commission President Ursula von der Leyen is as staunch a supporter of Israel as she is a Russia hawk. The contrast is even more pronounced in the case of the new EU high representative for foreign affairs, former Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas. She is obsessively focused on Russia. Just this week, she spoke in the European Parliament about the need to establish a special tribunal on Russian crimes in Ukraine — presumably in addition to Putin’s ICC indictment. Yet a few days earlier, she talked up friendship and cooperation at a meeting with Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar. Of note, she also parroted hawkish Israeli talking points about Iran posing an “immense threat to the region and global stability” even though that has never been the EU’s official position.Such arbitrariness could create a domino effect: Hungary is not the only Israel’s ally in the EU. Other countries, such as the Czech Republic and Austria, may follow suit by ignoring their obligations under the ICC, literally with no consequences. And Netanyahu will have every incentive to exploit these cracks in the EU to vindicate his claim to his increasingly restive domestic audience that he is respected and authentic statesman.When the EU pressures other countries, such as South Africa and others in the Global South, to align with its geopolitical priorities (on Ukraine/Russia), while giving itself a pass when convenient (on Israel/Palestine), it grates in other parts of the world and undermines the very case for the “rules-based international order” that the EU purports to defend and exemplify.

[Category: Hungary, Orban, Israel, Icc, Netanyahu, Gaza, Putin, Brics, South africa]

— Deadbeats! Saudis won't pay $13.7M bill for US military fuel

 

at 4/3/25 10:05pm

Between 2015 and 2018, the United States supplied Saudi Arabia with tens of millions of dollars worth of jet fuel in support for the kingdom’s bombing campaign in Yemen. Seven years later, the Saudis refuse to repay most of their debt. And they are being rewarded for it. A Department of Defense report that was sent to Congress last October, reviewed by Responsible Statecraft, and previously unreported suggests that Pentagon officials are becoming increasingly desperate to recoup an outstanding $13.7 million in fuel costs that Saudi Arabia owes the U.S.“DLA energy and US central command will continue to engage the Saudi Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Finance through United State Military Training Mission - Saudi Arabia scheduled meetings, various MOD/MOF and DoD Key Leader Engagements, face to face meetings within the CONUS and Saudi Arabia, and through email correspondence until the SLC fuel debt is paid in full,” the report stated.In 2018, the Pentagon realized it had made an accounting error. The Pentagon had undercharged Saudi Arabia and the UAE by $36 million for jet fuel and another $294 million in flight hours for U.S. tanker aircraft that refueled Saudi and Emirati warplanes in midair. With Washington’s help, the arrangement allowed Saudi and Emirati jets — which, besides actual military targets, bombed hospitals, schools, marketplaces, and weddings — to stay in the air for up to three hours instead of a mere 15 minutes. But instead of the two oil-rich Gulf nations footing the bill for the aerial-refueling process, as is required by law, it was the American taxpayer. Seven years later — while the larger flight hours bill has been paid — Saudi Arabia has yet to pay $13.7 million worth of its jet fuel debt. The UAE, which owed the U.S. around $15 million for jet fuel, has reimbursed Washington in full. The kingdom certainly does not lack the funds. The Saudi sovereign wealth fund oversees $925 billion in assets. Rather, Saudi Arabia appears to be pleading ignorance; the Intercept reported that Saudi officials told representatives of the Defense Logistics Agency and U.S. Central Command last year that they were “not aware of the outstanding debt and requested some additional time to investigate the issue.” This defense is at odds with the recent Pentagon report, which maintains that Department of Defense officials are exhausting various avenues to bring up the debt, including email, virtual meetings, and in-person meetings with multiple agencies. The report also notes that the last payment, just over $1 million, was made in 2023. The Defense Logistics Agency confirmed it submitted the report, but did not elaborate if there have been any further payments since it was submitted in October. Annelle Sheline, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute, told RS that Saudi Arabia’s refusal to pay up speaks to the “privilege the Saudis enjoy with the U.S., as they fear zero repercussions for failing to repay a debt to American taxpayers.”Despite groveling about an unpaid debt privately, the U.S. continues to reward Saudi Arabia. Since 2018 when the accounting error was discovered, Washington has showered the kingdom with $14 billion in major arms sales, according to a tracker from Forum on the Arms Trade. Most of those transfers took place during the presidency of Joe Biden, who memorably fist-bumped Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman after promising to make the de facto Saudi ruler “a pariah” during his 2016 campaign for office. Trump is now reportedly eyeing Saudi Arabia as the destination for his first overseas trip next month, just as he did during his first term. “I said I will go if you put a trillion dollars to American companies,” Trump told reporters in March. “Meaning the purchase over four years of a trillion dollars. They agreed to do that. So I am gonna be going there.” While he’s at it, he could ask for the couple million in pocket change that Saudi Arabia owes the American taxpayer. The paltry $13.7 million sum may be small, but the foot-dragging speaks volumes.

[Category: Yemen, Defense department, Pentagon, Congress, Mohammed bin salman, Saudi arabia]

— Diplomacy Watch: Rubio recommits to NATO as peace talks flounder

 

at 4/3/25 10:05pm

The NATO foreign affairs ministers’ meeting began in Brussels on Thursday amid frosty U.S.-EU relations, brought upon largely by the Trump administration’s recalculus toward a negotiated political solution for the Ukraine war.At the meeting, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated the Trump administration’s commitment to NATO — assuming its members bolster their defense spending, a talking point repeatedly pressed by the Trump team.“The United States President Trump's made clear he supports NATO, we're going to remain in NATO,” Rubio explained to reporters in Brussels. “The only way NATO can get stronger and more viable is if our partners, the nation states that comprise this important alliance, have more capability.”“A full-scale ground war in the heart of Europe is a reminder that hard power is still necessary as a deterrent,” Rubio explained, referencing the three-year-old Ukraine conflict. He hopes to leave the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting with a commitment from allies to spend 5% of GDP on defense.En route to the meeting, NATO head Mark Rutte likewise emphasized Europe’s recent commitment to upped defense spending. “It's my assumption that what we need to spend, the Canadians and Europeans together, will be north of 3%,” he said.Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has sent investment envoy and top negotiator Kirill Dmitriev to Washington to meet U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff.Dmitriev said on social media that the meeting was meant to facilitate a U.S.-Russia dialogue “completely destroyed under the Biden administration.”The visit comes amid what appears to be snags in Trump’s efforts to get both sides to the negotiating table."We take the models and solutions proposed by the Americans very seriously, but we can't accept it all in its current form," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told Russian magazine "International Affairs" in an interview released on Tuesday."As far as we can see, there is no place in them today for our main demand, namely to solve the problems related to the root causes of this conflict. It is completely absent, and that must be overcome,” Ryabkov explained.Trump, meanwhile, had also rejected Russia’s recent suggestion that a third party take control of Ukraine as part of a negotiated end to the war. Namely, the Russians want the United Nations and other countries to facilitate a transitional administration in Ukraine, which would include overseeing elections.Moscow’s suggestion comes in tandem with its repeated allegations that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose term expired in May 2024, is no longer Ukraine’s legitimate leader.Trump administration officials had initially hoped for a Ukraine peace keeping deal in upcoming months. Now, due in part to statements like Ryabkov’s, they’re recalculating their efforts for a longer diplomatic road ahead.“The White House has extensively engaged Russia on the central items of a peace deal, including NATO membership for Ukraine and questions regarding territorial claims, but it has so far proven difficult to arrive at anything approaching a consensus on these issues between the war’s four main stakeholders: Ukraine, Russia, Europe, and the U.S.,” Mark Episkopos, a research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft’s Eurasia Program, told RS.“The problem is that Moscow will not agree to a complete ceasefire without a roadmap for settling these issues on terms it considers favorable, and the West lacks the coercive leverage necessary to get it to significantly dial back its demands. Breaking this diplomatic logjam requires working toward a shared set of viable aims with Kyiv and European leaders, and engaging Russia on a wider diplomatic front with the goal of inducing Moscow to soften its baseline conditions for war termination in Ukraine.”This is unwelcome news for the American president, who, on Sunday, had said he was “pissed off” at Putin for slow deal making progress. Indeed, Trump threatened Russia with additional tariffs. "If Russia and I are unable to make a deal on stopping the bloodshed in Ukraine, and if I think it was Russia’s fault...I am going to put secondary tariffs on oil, on all oil coming out of Russia,” Trump threatened.Some Europeans, meanwhile, are throwing more money — and troops — at the equation. Berlin pledged a further €130 million ($140 million) in stabilization funding and humanitarian aid for Ukraine on Tuesday."We will make it clear to the American side that we should not engage with Putin's stalling tactics," outgoing German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said in a statement about her Tuesday trip to Kyiv. "It is Putin who is playing for time, does not want peace and continues his illegal war of aggression.” During her trip to Kyiv, Baerbock said Russia should accept a Ukraine ceasefire without conditions. And on Tuesday, Berlin, which will be sending up to 5,000 soldiers to Russia-bordering Lithuania, launched its first permanent troop deployment since World War II. "We have a clear mission. We have to ensure the protection, freedom and security of our Lithuanian allies here on NATO's eastern flank,” German Brigadier General Christoph Huber said in a statement. In other Ukraine War news this week:According to Al Jazeera, Finland has left the Ottawa convention banning antipersonnel landmines. It follows fellow Ukraine allies and Russia neighbors Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, who did so last month, citing the perceived Russian threat. "Withdrawing from the Ottawa Convention will give us the possibility to prepare for the changes in the security environment in a more versatile way," Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo explained the decision at a press conference.Ukrainian incursions continue into Russia’s Belgorod region. A Finland-based military analyst told Newsweek, however, that while Ukrainian forces have advanced to several villages in the area, they’re unlikely to threaten critical Russian infrastructure or the city of Belgorod itself.According to CNN, Russia’s ongoing conscription drive, the largest in years, has heralded about 160,000 new troops between the ages of 18 and 30.From State Department Press Briefing on March 31The latest State Department briefing addressed recent Ukraine war negotiation hiccups. “There was an idea from Russia about a temporary administration that was not appreciated by the president,” State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce said, citing Russia’s recent proposal for a third party to control Ukraine. “Ukraine is – well, I don’t think I need to remind everyone, but it’s a good reminder – is a constitutional democracy. Governance in Ukraine is determined by its constitution and the Ukrainian people.” Despite the hurdle, Bruce emphasized the Trump administration’s push for a negotiated political solution in Ukraine. “We are committed to the diplomacy necessary to achieve a full ceasefire and to bring the parties to the negotiating table for a final and lasting settlement,” she said. “President Trump has made clear that Russia and Ukraine need to move to a full ceasefire now. None of that has changed.”

[Category: Diplomacy watch, Qiosk, Ukraine, Russia, Europe, Trump, Witkoff, Ukraine war]

— Deaths of US soldiers put European deployments in spotlight

 

at 4/3/25 3:58pm

Last week, four young U.S. soldiers tragically died in a training exercise in Lithuania, highlighting the inherent risks faced by American forces stationed across Europe. With about 100,000 troops in the region, experts question the strategic value of America’s military presence — while President Trump says he wants a 20,000-troop reduction and European leaders urge an increase in U.S. support. Following a week of searching, all of the bodies of missing U.S. soldiers were found in Lithuania. The soldiers’ identities have been released: Sgt. Jose Duenez Jr., 25, of Joliet, Illinois; Sgt. Edvin F. Franco, 25, of Glendale, California; Pfc. Dante D. Taitano, 21, of Dededo, Guam, and Staff Sgt. Troy S. Knutson-Collins, 28, of Battle Creek, Mich. The men were operating an armored Hercules vehicle as part of a training operation and were reported as missing on Tuesday March 25, followed by an extensive search. Their bodies, as well as the vehicle, were located in a bog in the town of Pabradė, which is around 6 miles from the Belarusian border. While incidents like this in Europe aren’t common, it wasn’t the first time American servicemembers perished in Europe outside of combat. Four Americans were killed during the infamous 1988 Ramstein Air Show when an aircraft fell out of the sky and crashed into a crowd of servicemembers and civilian onlookers. Six American military flight crew members were killed in Croatia in 1996 when the pilots of a Boeing CT-43 carrying civilians and government officials crashed into a mountain close to the Dubrovnik airport. Today the United States has roughly 84,000 active duty troops stationed in Europe. President Biden sent 20,000 troops there following Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, saying, “In Poland, we're going to establish a permanent headquarters of the U.S. 5th Army Corps and strengthen NATO interoperability across the entire eastern flank.” The International Institute for Strategic Studies estimates that around 39,000 American forces are in Germany, 14,000 in Poland, 13,000 in Italy, and 10,000 in the United Kingdom. Lithuania hosts a rotating force of around 1,000 American soldiers. Additionally, Washington has over 40 military bases in Europe, with Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom hosting the most installations. Most of the bases are jointly operated with NATO partners. President Trump has expressed frustration with the uneven security relationship between the United States and its European partners. While he has suggested withdrawing troops from Europe he has disregarded the idea of withdrawing all of them, saying, “I don’t think we’d have to do that. I wouldn’t want to do that.” Trump did remove around 12,000 American soldiers from Germany in 2020, but almost half moved to other NATO countries rather than returning home. Nevertheless, some European leaders believe Biden’s 20,000 troops surge from 2022 will eventually return to the United States. A NATO diplomat said, “I would not be surprised if at some point [those troops] go back to their home base in America, the forces were sent at a height of emergency planning, so if they leave it would be, so to speak, a return to normalcy.” During NATO meetings in Brussels on Thursday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured NATO allies that “President Trump has made clear he supports NATO. We’re going to remain in NATO.” However, he explained that the Trump administration would still advocate for NATO members to increase their defense spending. While European leaders have called for the U.S. to provide military security guarantees to Ukraine, some experts applaud attempts to push Europeans to fund their own defense. “It is in Washington’s interest to facilitate a European takeover of NATO,” said the Cato Institute’s Doug Bandow. “They (Europeans) have an inherent right to self-defense. But a friendly push enhanced by helpful advice and practical experience could accelerate the end of European defense dependence, a process that some predict could otherwise take a decade.”The U.S. Army said in a press release that this “this is a tragic event, but it reinforces what it means to have Allies and friends.” It also reinforces that that our troop deployments put real lives at risk and there is no shame in asking if the tens of thousands of young American men and women we are sending there are strategically necessary.

[Category: Lithuania, Eastern europe, Troop deaths, Us soldiers, Nato, Trump, Qiosk, Us military]

— Bernie's effort to halt weapons to Israel fails miserably in Senate

 

at 4/3/25 3:43pm

The Senate on Thursday smacked down two measures sponsored by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) that were intended to block the sale of some offensive weapons to Israel. The first, a resolution to end the sale of certain bomb components and warheads, S.J. Res. 33, had 15 votes in favor and 82 against. The second, a resolution to end the sale of Joint Direct Attack Munitions and some guidance kits, S.J. Res. 26, failed 15 - 83. All votes in favor were from Democrats. His previous attempt at passing joint resolutions of disapproval for the sale of weapons to Israel in November 2024 also failed. Last time, he brought three JRDs forward, and they garnered slightly more support. A resolution to block the sale of some tank rounds received 21 votes in favor, and resolutions to block mortar rounds and guided Joint Direct Attack Munitions received 22 and 20 aye votes, respectively. Israel’s war on Gaza has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians, with over 112,000 wounded, or 7% of the total population. Israel officially broke the January ceasefire and resumed military activity last week, killing at least 700 since. Sen. Sanders noted during his remarks that all humanitarian aid had been blocked from entering Israel for over 30 days. He called what Israel is doing a violation of the Geneva Convention and the United States’ Foreign Assistance Act. “It is no secret how these weapons have been used,” Sanders said.. Strikes against civilian targets “have been painstakingly documented by human rights groups.”Sanders pointed to a recent Economist-Yougov poll that showed only 15% of Americans support increasing military aid to Israel, while 35% supported ending or decreasing military support. Additionally, a J Street poll found that 62% of Jewish Americans supported the withholding of offensive weapons to Israel until Benjamin Netanyahu agreed to an immediate ceasefire.

[Category: Gaza, Qiosk, Israel, Senate, Bernie sanders]

— How Trump tariffs are affecting allies, frenemies, adversaries

 

at 4/3/25 7:38am

At 4 p.m. on Wednesday — “Liberation Day” — President Trump announced the details of his “reciprocal tariff” strategy. He began with a speech that described persistent trade deficits over the last few decades as a sign that other countries were taking advantage of America through tariffs, non-tariff barriers, and currency manipulation. In an echo of the themes that powered his victory in 2016, he blamed these practices for the deindustrialization of the American heartland and the loss of manufacturing capacity in sectors critical for national security and technological advancement. The president then unveiled a scheme of tariffs remarkable for its complexity and for its impact on the international trading architecture. The levies on each country were said to be based on a quantified estimate of the tariff equivalent of all its “objectionable practices” — tariffs, non-tariff barriers, value-added taxes (sales taxes levied by national governments on both domestic and foreign production), alleged currency manipulation etc. However, there were suggestions, (confirmed here) that the tariffs were based on a simpler metric — the size of a country’s bilateral trade surplus with the U.S. as a percentage of exports, thus treating purportedly “missing imports” as a measure of all barriers to trade. Among other things the implication from the methodology is that in an ideal world, a country should have absolutely balanced trade not just across all its trading partners, but even with each single trading partner, perhaps an unrealistic expectation. Finally, there is also a floor of a 10% tariff on all countries covering those that run bilateral trade deficits with the U.S. The range of tariffs runs from the minimum of 10% for many countries (that are not enumerated in the linked annex) to 49% in the case of Cambodia, 48% for Myanmar, 46% for Vietnam, 45% for Laos, 44% for Sri Lanka, and 37% for Bangladesh. Among larger trading partners, the tariffs are set at 34% for China, 24% for Japan, and 20% for the EU. This set of tariffs is also additive to those already levied, particularly significant in the case of China, whose exports will now face a minimum tariff of at least 54%. For the global trading system, the introduction of bilateral tariffs across all products at the country level undoes a principle that has governed trade for decades. This is the idea of Most Favored Nation (MFN) status, i.e., that subject to certain limited exceptions (such as within a free trade area), a country should levy the same tariff on the same product across all its trading partners. The effect is to dynamite a cornerstone of global trade law, a system that grants formal juridical equality to countries rather than reflecting sheer size and market power. The reciprocal tariff measures increase the distance between the U.S. and the World Trade Organization (WTO), and they come a little more than a week after America suspended its payment of dues to the entity. As the U.S. increasingly withdraws from the system, it remains to be seen whether other countries can revitalize the WTO as a dispute-resolution mechanism, perhaps by using its opt-in binding arbitration system, the MPIA, of which Brazil, Canada, China, the EU, Japan, and Mexico (among others) are members. The tariffs will likely weaken U.S. diplomatic efforts to present “Chinese overproduction” as the biggest threat to the system.Within the U.S., the tariffs are likely to push up inflation significantly, particularly in the near term, both from price increases and from shortages resulting from the scrambling of supply chains. And even though the tariffs have been announced, it remains unclear whether they will remain where they are or function as a bargaining chip, exacerbating consumer and business uncertainty, thus feeding into subdued investment prospects. The moves are also likely to have significant, yet differentiated, impact across the countries of the Global South. As noted above, some of the highest tariff rates are among lower income developing countries in South and Southeast Asia like Cambodia or Sri Lanka. However, tariffs on African countries like the DRC at 11%, Cameroon at 12% or Chad at 13% are significantly lower. The high tariffs in Southeast Asia capture how countries in that region have serially pursued a successful development strategy based on inbound investment that has integrated them in global manufacturing supply chains. This is a development pathway that has had the benefits of simultaneously raising incomes and the technological complexity of the export mix in countries like Malaysia. It has also conferred balance of payments resilience, a theme explored here, and one of critical importance in the region that suffered a deep financial crisis in 1997-98. Conversely, many African countries get the benefit of lower tariffs but that is in many instances a reflection of their dependence on commodity exports, a factor that also accounts for the limited number of South American countries hit with high tariffs. In effect the U.S. tariffs could cut off a successful development path unless other more industrialized economies are willing to absorb imports and leave “room” for poorer exporters in more rudimentary industries. If not, poorer countries with less technologically developed production structures could find themselves stuck in a low-income trap subject to periodic financial crises, an outcome with both humanitarian and security implications. The tariffs are also not a good omen for the African Growth and Opportunity Act, a U.S. measure that provides duty free access for an expanded range of products to poor African countries that is up for renewal later this year. There may be a handful of (relative) winners here, like Brazil — which has been hit with only the minimum 10% tariffs and whose giant agricultural sector might benefit if countries retaliate against American farm exports. The tariffs have also hit America’s wealthier trading partners, who face several quandaries. One is whether to retaliate and how, particularly since the White House has threatened that retaliation will lead to higher tariffs. Another is whether (and how) to treat the interconnection of security and economic linkages. This might be easier for Europe, since the U.S. has signaled repeatedly that it wishes to see the continent do more for its own security, even as the EU is being hit with slightly lower tariffs (20%) than key U.S. allies in East Asia (24-32%). Europe’s largest economy, Germany, is increasing defense expenditures, which could act (in aggregate) as a macroeconomic offset to the impact of tariffs, thus making the security and economic response mutually consistent. Political and diplomatic calculations in East Asia could be more complex given that they are more dependent on exports to the U.S. and have high levels of interconnectedness with China, even as the U.S. pivots towards regarding the region ever more as its primary strategic theater. Canada and Mexico have not been hit by reciprocal tariffs, however, with the latter being particularly interesting, as it has replaced China as the largest trading partner in recent years. The U.S. ran a bilateral deficit of $172 billion with Mexico last year. Trump excoriated the NAFTA agreement yesterday and he has not exempted either country from his tariff wrath. Since his inauguration, he has targeted both Canada and Mexico on the issues of migration and narcotics, and has subjected them to steel and aluminum and automobile tariffs. Yet, their exemption from this round suggests at least some recognition of the extent to which automotive supply chains are integrated in North America, even if he seems inclined towards disintegrating them over the medium-term. In his actions on automotive tariffs announced on March 26, Trump exempted auto parts for now, but also imposed tariffs on all non-U.S. content embedded in imports within USMCA. This is formally at odds with the agreement, where such content should be exempt if 40-45% of the automobile is made by workers making 16 dollars an hour. The goal appears to be to force a return of large portions (if not all) of automotive supply chains back to the U.S. It remains to be seen how these aims will be viewed in Canada and Mexico given that the USMCA faces a review to be completed by July 1, 2026. Even so, the slightly different treatment of USMCA partners may suggest a desire to finesse the choice between aiming for reshoring entirely within the U.S. or permitting some “nearshoring” where American manufacturers have been deeply engaged for long. On this, as on many other issues, uncertainty seems to be the dominant outcome of yesterday’s announcement.

[Category: Enewsletter, Trump, Economics, Economy, Global south, Wall street, Tariffs]

— What happens to EU's anti-war bloc without Marine Le Pen?

 

at 4/2/25 10:05pm

A political bombshell in France: the long-time leader of the right-wing National Rally party (Rassemblement National) Marine Le Pen has been banned from running for political office for the next five years after a court in Paris found her guilty of embezzling the equivalent of $4 million in EU funds to pay National Rally staffers not working for the European Parliament.She was also handed a suspended four-year prison term and ordered to pay a €100,000 fine. It remains to be seen whether the court decision means a political death sentence for her (it can be overturned if she wins an appeal), but it is certainly a devastating blow and a major shake-up of French politics.It matters because the latest polls showed Marine Le Pen leading in the presidential race for 2027, projecting 34-37% of the votes in the first round. That would secure her a place in the run-off, where her chances would depend on the ability of all the other parties to coalesce around her would-be opponent.At first glance, Le Pen’s disqualification could weaken the anti-war voices in France and the EU by reducing their cohesion and visibility. Her party is a founding member of the Patriots for Europe (PfE), the third largest political group in the European Parliament, where it sits with influential like-minded parties like Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s Fidesz, and Italian Deputy Prime Minster Matteo Salvini’s Lega. All of them have been vocal critics of the EU’s unconditional support for Ukraine, anti-Russia sanctions, and the dogmatic refusal to engage in direct diplomacy with Moscow to end the war.To highlight the opposition to the current militarization drive in Europe, the Patriots voted against the European Parliament resolution in early March that endorsed Commission President Ursula Von der Leyen’s equivalent of $900 billion “rearm” plan. Critics dismissed that plan as unrealistic given the fiscal dire straits in which the continent finds itself and the lack of unified threat assessment throughout Europe — if you are in Portugal, for example, your perception of the Russian threat would be vastly different from Poland’s.Opposition to the “rearm plan” was transpartisan as the Patriots were joined by the anti-war Left faction, and some dissidents from the center-left social-democratic group, such as members of the Italian Democratic Party. On the level of the member states, national interest still trumps ideological cohesion: the conservative Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni — ideologically close to Orban and Le Pen — and the Socialist Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez both reject the “rearm” concept (even though the poorly-led Socialists in the European Parliament incomprehensibly voted to back Von der Leyen’s plan).Le Pen’s experience and networks in Europe made her a key player in ensuring the cohesiveness of these like-minded forces. Back in France, she has consistently criticized Macron’s hyper-activism on Ukraine and dismissed his idea of sending French peacekeepers to Ukraine as “sheer madness” — cognizant of the fact that, absent a Russian agreement to such a deployment (which will not be forthcoming), these forces would become targets for the Russian army. She also firmly opposed Macron’s ideas of diluting national sovereignty on defense matters, such as his loose talk of extending the French nuclear umbrella to the rest of Europe. Of course, this has prompted vivid speculation over the political motivations behind the French court’s decision to ban Le Pen from running. While her allies on the right predictably stand by her, leftist Yanis Varoufakis, an unlikely ally, chastised the “mind-boggling hypocrisy” of the liberal media in denouncing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s imprisonment of his main opponent, Istanbul’s mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, while rejoicing at the French courts “doing the same.” Some also tried to draw parallels with Romania, where the winner of the first round of the presidential elections Calin Georgescu had his victory annulled, and himself banned from a re-run on apparently flimsy grounds. Like Le Pen, Georgescu ran as a torchbearer of anti-establishment sentiment, and similarly opposed a further war in Ukraine. Yet one should not rush to hasty conclusions. The legal case against Le Pen appears to be robust. There is no evidence that the ruling of the court was politically motivated —France has a history of disqualifying misconducting politicians. In 2017, the mainstream conservative candidate Francois Fillon was disqualified for money diversion on a much smaller scale than Le Pen. What raises questions in Le Pen’s case is not so much the veracity of the allegations against her as the immediate enforcement of the five-year ban, even before any appeal could be resolved. Crucially, that period covers the next presidential elections in 2027. That urgency has led critics to accuse the judges of violating the people’s right to freely choose their representatives, particularly given Le Pen’s popularity. However, it seems indisputable that the judges enjoyed the discretion to do so.Short term, the news could be a boon for Macron and his liberal allies in France and the EU. For one thing, it may be giving some breathing space to the embattled centrist government led by Macron’s pick, Francois Bayrou. National Rally and the left have enough combined clout in the French parliament to oust the government, which they already did with Bayrou’s predecessor, another centrist. Yet doing so again, while mathematically feasible, could tempt Macron to call yet another parliamentary election, from which his most formidable foe would be excluded. Longer term impact would depend on more factors. Would Jordan Bardella, Le Pen’s 29-year-old protégé and presumed presidential candidate (in case her appeal fails) prove to be an effective leader? Currently he is the head of the Patriots for Europe in the European Parliament, which gives him visibility and a network with the like-minded parties in Europe. His youth and inexperience could be a challenge for keeping the anti-war faction together. However, the Patriots network has other experienced representatives, such as Orban and Salvini, to lean on in this regard.Ultimately, the appeal and the resilience of the anti-war, pro-diplomacy voices in Europe does not depend solely on personalities, but on broader trends, such as war fatigue, changes in U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump, the battleground situation in Ukraine, social and economic pressures stemming from the militarization drive, and the growing perception that the European publics were not really engaged by the elites in a proper democratic debate on the nature of threats facing Europe.These currents exist, and they will find their champions, regardless of Marine Le Pen’s personal fate.

[Category: Enewsletter, France, Emmanuel macron, Eu, Ukraine war, Marine le pen]

— Can Trump wait for a deal with Iran?

 

at 4/2/25 10:05pm

While Donald Trump has repeatedly bragged that he can end international conflicts in days, he is clearly frustrated that global leaders are not bending to his will. Only last week, he said that he is “angry” that Moscow has not offered a Ukraine deal and that he might impose secondary “tariffs” on Russian oil sales. He also warned that if Iran doesn’t “make a deal, there will be bombing.”This lashing out is not part of some grand “madman” strategy. Rather, it is a product of Trump’s apparent need to project power. The trick is to know how to reward that projection: Putin’s commissioning of a portrait of Trump — which his personal Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, claims the Russian leader asked him to deliver to the president — paints a vivid example of the nature and perhaps limits of such strategic flattery.Iran’s Supreme Leader would never stoop to such antics. Still, it is possible that Ayatollah Khamenei understands that his negotiators might use Trump’s abiding need to display his global acumen to get American concessions on a nuclear deal. Because Trump’s volatility can open doors or blow them up just as quickly, international leaders — and his own advisers — are constantly struggling to manage (or exploit) an approach to the world that lacks any coherent strategy or even tactics.Thus, it is hardly surprising that while Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian insisted after Trump’s latest threat that “th[e] path for indirect negotiations remains open,” an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leader warned that American troops deployed “at least ten bases -around Iran” are “sitting inside a glass room.” Grappling with his impulse-driven foreign policy, Trump’s rivals find it difficult to get any sense of his bottom line.Hope and confusion in TehranU.S.-Iran relations are a case in point. It is worth recalling that in November Elon Musk met with Iran’s U.N. ambassador, Saied Iravani. Commenting on the surprise encounter, a conservative Iranian website declared that, “It appears that Trump has genuinely decided to adopt a different approach…perhaps, as (Foreign Minister) Abbas Araghchi put it, moving from 'maximum pressure' to 'maximum rationality.’” This observation echoed Araghchi’s previous statement that “maximum rationality” would “probably get a different result” and seemed calculated to test Trump.Trump’s decision in mid-January to remove security details for former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former U.S. Special Representative for Iran Brian Hook — both men key architects of Trump’s first-term “maximum pressure” policy against Iran — encouraged Tehran’s cautious optimism. When Hook was summarily dismissed from a top position on Trump’s transition team after complaining about the Biden administration’s “appeasement” of Iran, the hardline Tehran Times quoted Trump’s announcement on Truth Social (“Brian Hook from the Wilson Center for Scholars... YOU'RE FIRED!") while the Islamic Republic News Agency speculated that Trump’s actions “could be sending signals to Iran that he may be willing to engage with Tehran diplomatically,” even if it is “unclear whether the moves signal a shift in tactics, strategy, or attitude.”Trump’s mysterious letter to KhameneiThe drama revolving around the letter that Trump sent Khamenei on March 5 shows that striking this balance won’t be easy. While not revealing the letter’s contents, Trump alluded to it during his March 6 Oval Office remarks.“I’d rather negotiate a peace deal…but we can make a deal…just as good as if you won militarily,” he said. Two days later on Fox News, he acknowledged that “I’ve written them a letter saying I hope you’re going to negotiate because if we have to go in militarily, it’s going to be a terrible thing.” His assertion that the U.S. seeks a deal that would be “just as good as if you won militarily” suggests that Trump is telling Khamenei that, by dint of either talks or brute force, the administration will compel Iran to totally dismantle its vast enrichment facilities.This is a demand that no Iranian leader, including Khamenei, can possibly accept. As he and Araghchi made clear, they will not accept U.S. ultimatums. As Khamenei put it, the “negotiations” that “some bully governments” seek “are not aimed at solving issues, but to…impose their own expectations.” If his depiction of the letter’s take-it-or-leave-it tone is accurate, the U.S., Israel and Iran may well be on a path to military confrontation.A Trump-Netanyahu partnership without limits? While Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would welcome a U.S.-Israeli assault on Iran, it is striking that only six weeks ago the Israeli press was full of reports speculating that, as one Haaretz writer put it, Netanyahu might “go head to head with Trump on striking Iran.” But everything changed with Trump’s February 4 remark that two million displaced Palestinians must leave Gaza. While world leaders strained to make sense of this statement, Netanyahu praised Trump’s “revolutionary, creative approach,” arguing that it created “many possibilities,” one of which, it now appears, was Israel’s renewed assault in Gaza. It is also very likely that Netanyahu construed Trump’s words as telegraphing U.S. support for an eventual attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. But such an attack will not be easy given the domestic upheaval that Israel’s renewed assault on Gaza has sparked. Wading into the political waters, President Isaac Herzog declared that “thousands of citizens…are…crying out to prevent the widening of rifts and divisions….It is unthinkable to ignore these voices and not seek consensus.” Coming amid the controversy over Netanyahu’s March 20 firing of the head of Israel’s Shin Bet security service, Herzog’s statement points to a constitutional crisis that could send Israel into a kind of civil war. Undeterred, Netanyahu’s Likud Party asserted that “Herzog has joined the ‘deep state.’” Clearly, Netanyahu and his allies believe that he has much to gain by emulating Trump’s paranoia and thus intimating that he and the U.S. president are on the same page politically and strategically. Netanyahu cannot trust his mercurial twinStill, Netanyahu must tread carefully because the divisions tearing Israel apart will grow as it expands the war in Gaza and ramps up military actions in Lebanon and Syria. If these actions lead to the killing of the Israeli hostages and/or spark a military confrontation on three fronts, the specter of regional mayhem reflect poorly on Trump. The last thing he can tolerate is looking like a “loser.”In fact, Witkoff seemed to use his March 21 interview with Tucker Carlson to help his boss out. The resumption of war in Gaza, he argued, runs counter to Israeli public opinion. Moreover, he stated that Hamas is not ideological, that it must have a political role in a post-Gaza deal, and that real compromises with Hamas and Iran are vital to the stability that, according to Witkoff, is Trump’s number one goal when it comes to global affairs. And he seemed to walk back Trump’s own words when he argued that his letter to Khamenei was not an ultimatum, that he wants a nuclear deal that includes “verification,” and that the military option is not “a very good alternative.”Spinners beware!Witkoff’s interview provoked a storm in the Israeli press, and rightly so: a trusted envoy, he is struggling to transform Trump’s utterings into something resembling a coherent policy. Yet if the Middle East blows up, or seems to be moving that way, Trump might launch another verbal blast that will have leaders, policy analysts and pundits in Tehran, Jerusalem and Washington scurrying to fathom what it means. But if Witkoff and can temper his boss’s outbursts without embarrassing or antagonizing him, he could help Trump pull back from the brink. Such an effort will partly hinge on whether Trump can muster the emotional energy to articulate and sustain support for a real compromise. Perhaps pushing back against such a possibility, national security adviser Mike Waltz recently declared that nothing less than “full dismantlement” of Iran’s nuclear program is acceptable, thus perhaps putting him at odds with Witkoff.The battle to spin Trump’s verbal bouts continues not only in Washington, but also in Tehran. Days before Trump threatened to bomb Iran, government sources in Tehran claimed that the president’s letter “is not exactly clear, (but) is not an ultimatum.” Indeed, Araghchi’s assertion that “indirect negotiations can continue,” was a message reiterated by another close adviser to Khamenei.While, as noted above, Iran’s president has also repeated this message despite Trump’s recent threats, in the wake of the Signal Group Chat fiasco, senior administration officials are unlikely to risk their necks competing to influence Trump’s stance on Russia, Iran or indeed any other country. Like their counterparts in Tehran, Jerusalem, Moscow and other capitals, his security advisers must tread carefully in their attempts to manage Trump’s fiery temperament and careening impulses.A longer version of this article originally appeared at Arab Center Washington DC.

[Category: Israel, Iran nuclear program, Iran]

— Saudi Arabia chooses sides in Sudan's civil war

 

at 4/2/25 10:05pm

In the final days of Ramadan, before Mecca's Grand Mosque, Sudan's de facto president and army chief, General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan knelt in prayer beside Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman. Al-Burhan had arrived in the kingdom just two days after his troops dealt a significant blow to the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), recapturing the capital Khartoum after two years of civil war. Missing from the frame was the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the Gulf power that has backed al-Burhan’s rivals in Sudan’s civil war with arms, mercenaries, and political cover. The scene captured the essence of a deepening rift between Saudi Arabia and the UAE — once allies in reshaping the Arab world, now architects of competing visions for Sudan and the region.For two years, Sudan has been enveloped in chaos. The conflict that erupted in April 2023 between the Sudanese Armed forces (SAF) and the RSF, led by General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo "Hemedti," has inflicted immense suffering: an estimated 150,000 killed, allegations of mass atrocities staining both sides but particularly the RSF in Darfur, 12 million displaced, and over half the population facing acute food insecurity. Khartoum, once a symbol of confluence, bears deep scars — widespread destruction, looted homes, and streets haunted by the unburied dead. It was against this backdrop of devastation and military gains that al-Burhan made his trip across the Red Sea.Early in the conflict, Saudi Arabia played a prominent role by facilitating the evacuation of thousands of foreigners via Port Sudan, an effort that garnered significant goodwill. Building on this, and alongside the United States, the kingdom stepped into the role of mediator hosting the Jeddah ceasefire talks in May 2023. This mediation aligned with Riyadh’s broader strategic pivot toward de-escalation, evident in its rapprochement with Iran and its transformation from aggressor to peacemaker in Yemen. Instability across the Red Sea poses a direct threat to the kingdom’s ambitious Vision 2030 economic overhaul — particularly its crown-jewel projects like NEOM and the Red Sea tourism megaprojects along its western coastline, as well as the Yanbu Terminal expansion, which aims to diversify oil export routes away from the Strait of Hormuz. Such turmoil also risks undermining Saudi Arabia’s critical food security investments in Sudan, where vast agricultural ventures had become a linchpin of bilateral ties.However, the Jeddah process withered and the commitments signed on paper dissolved under the reality of continued fighting. A subsequent U.S.-led effort in Geneva, pivoting to humanitarian access after the Jeddah talks collapsed, faltered when the SAF boycotted the talks entirely. By 2025, the return of President Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine gutted what remained of American diplomatic capital. USAID’s funding slashes — which shuttered 77% of Sudan’s emergency food kitchens — not only deepened famine but stripped Washington of a key lever it could use to compel concessions. With the U.S. retreating inward, the vacuum proved irresistible to Saudi Arabia.The tipping point arrived in February 2025. As the RSF and its allies formalized their charter for a parallel administration in Nairobi, Saudi Arabia, alongside Qatar and Kuwait, issued a firm public rejection. The Saudi Foreign Ministry unequivocally stated its opposition to "any illegitimate steps taken outside Sudan’s official institutions that threaten its unity.” Al-Burhan’s recent visit to Saudi Arabia and its timing solidified this alignment. The agreement announced by both nations during the visit to establish a “coordination council to strengthen relations” signaled long-term engagement, moving beyond the neutral arbiter role. Crucially, this meeting directly followed a high-level Saudi delegation's visit to Port Sudan days earlier, focused squarely on reconstruction.While Riyadh actively cultivates the role of regional stabilizer, Abu Dhabi faces mounting scrutiny regarding its alleged role in fueling the RSF’s war effort. In March 2025, Sudan filed a case at the International Court of Justice, accusing the UAE of violating the Genocide Convention through its alleged military, financial, and political support for the RSF, thereby facilitating atrocities, particularly the ethnic cleansing of the Masalit in West Darfur. While the UAE’s foreign minister dismissed the case as "feeble media maneuvers," the charges echo findings from a U.N. Panel of Experts report, which deemed evidence of UAE arms supplies (including drones and air defenses) to the RSF as "credible."This alleged support has triggered significant political fallout in Washington. U.S. lawmakers Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) and Rep. Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.) publicly confirmed in January, citing administration briefings, that the UAE was indeed arming the RSF, directly contradicting prior assurances it gave the Biden administration. Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, also placed holds on arms sales to the UAE over its role in Sudan. The UAE's actions in Sudan appear consistent with a wider regional modus operandi. Abu Dhabi’s playbook involves empowering non-state actors, often with secessionist leanings, to secure access to resources and strategic geography. We see this pattern in Libya with its backing of Khalifa Haftar, and in Yemen through its enduring support for the Southern Transitional Council (STC), whose push for independence directly counters Saudi efforts to maintain Yemeni unity under the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC). Somalia offers another vivid example, where the UAE circumvented Mogadishu to directly arm and fund regional entities like Puntland (reportedly using its Bosaso base for RSF resupply), Somaliland, and Jubaland, thereby fragmenting the country while securing coastal footholds. The announcement of the RSF's parallel government in Nairobi last month seemed a direct application of these tactics. The UAE finalized a $1.5 billion loan to Kenya the same week, prompting speculation that its influence played a role in Nairobi hosting the event.The widening gulf over Sudan, therefore, is not an isolated disagreement but symptomatic of a deeper strategic divergence between Riyadh and Abu Dhabi. Where they once coordinated closely, particularly in countering the perceived threat of the Muslim Brotherhood and attempting to reshape the GCC during the Qatar blockade, their paths now diverge sharply.Economically, they compete fiercely, with Saudi Arabia challenging Dubai's business hub status through policies requiring regional HQs in Riyadh and launching rival mega-projects. Within OPEC+, tensions have simmered between the two over production quotas, reflecting differing priorities and misaligned projections on the proximity of the decarbonized future. Even maritime borders near the Yasat Islands has become a point of contention, with Riyadh lodging complaints at the U.N. against Abu Dhabi's unilateral demarcation of the potentially oil-rich area.This rivalry now spills into the public domain via social media. Recent online clashes saw well-known and widely followed Saudi commentators brand Emirati counterparts as "outcasts," describing them as being "hated by Arabs and Muslims." In tightly controlled media environments, such sharp exchanges often reflect official displeasure. Ultimately, Sudan is paying the price for this fractured Gulf relationship. Saudi Arabia, driven by its Vision 2030 imperatives and a desire to reassert regional leadership through stability and state institutions, has placed its bet on the SAF. The UAE, focused on resource access and countering perceived ideological threats, continues its alleged support for the RSF despite the mounting condemnation.As long as the rivalry persists, Sudan will remain tragically caught in the crossfire, its future held hostage by a geopolitical struggle reshaping the contours of power across the region.

[Category: Saudi arabia, United arab emirates, Sudan]

— Trump tasks first time envoy with the most complex Africa conflict

 

at 4/1/25 10:05pm

As the war between the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and allied militias against the Rwandan-backed M23 rebel group continues, the Trump administration is reportedly tapping Massad Boulos as the State Department’s special envoy to the African Great Lakes region. In this capacity, Boulos will be responsible for leading the American diplomatic effort to bring long-desired stability to the region and to end a conflict that has been raging in the eastern DRC for decades. Other than serving as an adviser on Middle East policy for President-elect Trump’s team during the transition period between the election and inauguration, Boulos has no U.S. foreign policy experience. Much of his previous work was in the private sector, where he most recently worked at a small automotive conglomerate for a West African company, called SCOA Nigeria, whose profit was less than $66,000 last year. Boulos also has familial connections with the first family. The president’s daughter, Tiffany Trump, is married to Massad Boulos’ son, Michael. In an email to Responsible Statecraft, the State Department refused to provide comment on Massad Boulos’ reported appointment. Since the early days of the most recent incarnation of this conflict in late 2021, two major peace processes have been running in parallel. In one, Kenya brought together many of the 120 disparate armed groups fighting in the eastern Congo, successfully reaching a truce between some of these groups and the Congolese government. However, the most powerful of these groups, the Rwandan-backed M23, was absent from the talks and remains the major threat to the DRC. In a separate peace track, Angola had been serving as the leading mediator, attempting to set up negotiations between M23 rebels, their backers in Rwanda, and the DRC government. But exhausted and disheartened following numerous failed mediation efforts, Angolan President Joao Lourenco announced in mid-March that he will no longer lead this mediation process. In an interview with Responsible Statecraft, Onesphore Sematumba, a senior analyst on the DRC and Burundi at the International Crisis Group, said that “peace efforts have been further complicated by the involvement of multiple state actors, each with their own interests.” Burundi, Rwanda’s southern neighbor, has provided direct support for the DRC and Congo-backed armed groups seeking to attack Rwandan assets. Uganda, which borders Rwanda to the north, has also sent troops to the region. Although Uganda’s involvement is more enigmatic, the United Nations found that Uganda has supported M23 rebels in the eastern Congo. Mediating an end to such a long and complicated war with numerous state and non-state actors is a difficult task. Just launching negotiations has proven to be a challenge, with each side at times refusing to accept the basic parameters set forth by mediators before negotiations even begin. In December, Rwandan president Paul Kagame refused to attend Angolan-initiated mediation efforts if M23 rebels were not also present, something DRC president Felix Tshisekedi, who discredits M23 as an unserious armed group whose entire financial and military strength rests on Rwanda’s support, refused to allow. If confirmed as special envoy, Boulos and the American delegation would have the advantage of coming to the table with a relatively fresh voice. Recent news that Trump is considering agreeing to a deal offered by the DRC to grant critical minerals access to the United States in exchange for military support through the provision of military resources and training to the Congolese military risks violating American neutrality, consequently hindering its influence to broker a peace agreement. Agreeing to such a deal, which the Trump administration is reportedly considering, would immediately collapse American credibility in the eyes of Rwanda, hurting U.S. efforts to bring about a lasting peace deal. According to Sematumba, funnelling more weapons into the arena and tilting the military scales in favor of one side would only intensify the fighting and exacerbate the conflict. The U.S., Sematumba said, “should not come to the region with a plan centered around adding to the violence.” In a major surprise, Tshisekedi and Kagame united in Doha on March 18 for peace talks hosted by Qatar, opening a third track of peace negotiations. Although Sematumba is skeptical that any major player, including the U.S. government, will be able mediate an end to such a complicated war anytime soon, he says that any American effort to do so should “consider all the existing peace initiatives,” rather than adding yet another one to an already “incoherent” peace effort. Attaching itself to Qatar’s negotiating track might be the way to go, seeing it is the only peace initiative so far that has successfully brought together the heads of state of both the DRC and Rwanda to discuss the conflict face-to-face. U.S.-ties to each country can help contribute to an end to the conflict. Both the DRC and Rwanda have close economic and diplomatic relations with the United States. Both have also benefited from large amounts of U.S. foreign aid over the decades, with the U.S. budgeting $990 million for aid to the DRC and $188 million to Rwanda in 2023, the most recent year with complete data. Although a recent analysis finds that Trump’s policies will cut 65% of aid funding directed towards Rwanda and 34% directed towards the DRC, the U.S. is still a major contributor of aid to the region, and through it has the requisite soft power to influence peace negotiations. Any successful and lasting peace agreement is likely to require Rwanda to end its support for M23 and remove Rwandan troops currently stationed in DRC territory. The challenge to Boulos will come if Rwanda remains intransigent on that issue. American sanctions remain a more extreme option. The United States last month sanctioned a senior Rwandan government official as well as a member of the larger rebel group of which M23 is a part. Sanctions were a key part of the United States’ strategy to ending the less severe incarnation of this crisis in 2012, the first time M23 threatened regional security. Donors back then froze $240 million in aid to Rwanda, and President Obama used American diplomatic and economic leverage to successfully pressure Kagame to end his support for the rebellion. This, however, proved to only be a temporary reprieve, with M23 returning more powerful than ever in 2021. Sematumba expressed doubt that sanctions would lead to a lasting peace, saying that sanctions are “more likely to hurt villagers than the country’s leadership,” and that the numerous sanctions already in place against Rwanda, including by the EU and the UK, have failed to move the needle, and have quite possibly made the conflict worse. Once the EU implemented its sanctions on Rwanda on March 17, M23 pulled out of peace talks just a day before they were scheduled to be held in Angola as a form of protest against the EU’s new sanctions policy. Although the power of the U.S. dollar and the sizable levels of American foreign aid funnelling into the region give the U.S. some leverage to implement economic sanctions against Rwanda, in 2022, the last year with full data, the U.S. was only Rwanda’s tenth-largest export market and eleventh-largest source of imports. Rwanda, therefore, has plenty of alternative trading partners it could turn to if the U.S. were to implement sanctions.Despite the complexity of this conflict and the difficulty facing Boulos and his team once they take the helm, using American soft power and leverage can help them mold peace talks and incrementally move the conflict towards a resolution.

[Category: M23, Rwanda, Democratic republic of the congo]

— Why US shipbuilding is the worst and more money won't save it

 

at 4/1/25 10:05pm

“We are also going to resurrect the American shipbuilding industry, including commercial shipbuilding and military shipbuilding,” President Trump said during his March 6 joint address to Congress.The president did not break new ground with the announcement. Virtually every year, Navy and industry leaders complain that the United States does not invest enough in the nation’s shipbuilding facilities. Yet according to the Congressional Budget Office, lawmakers have appropriated more shipbuilding funds than the president requested for at least 17 of the past 20 years. Even with the extra funds, the Navy’s major shipbuilding programs have consistently fallen behind schedule and over budget.Over the next three years, the Navy plans on retiring 13 more ships than it will commission, shrinking the fleet to 283 ships by 2027. According to the Navy’s current plan, the fleet will grow to 515 crewed and uncrewed vessels by 2054. To reach that goal, the Congressional Budget Office estimates the Navy will spend more than $1 trillion, nearly $36 billion each year for the next three decades on shipbuilding alone.It remains unclear if the Navy can realize its plan, even if Congress provides the funds. Ramping up naval construction is not simply a matter of resources. The Navy spent $2.3 billion between 2018 and 2023 to increase the capacity of the submarine shipyards. Despite this investment, the production rate for Virginia-class attack submarines decreased from around two boats per year to 1.2.In just 10 years after the end of the Cold War, the number of skilled shipyard workers shrank from 62,000 to 21,000. The number of workers has increased since 2001, but shortages remain. During a 2024 symposium, the director of the Navy’s Submarine Industrial Base Program said the United States needs to hire 140,000 workers just to meet the needs of the current submarine building program.One of the best ways for the Navy to ease the current shipbuilding struggles is to pursue better ship designs. The constant pursuit of exquisite technology and excessively complex ship designs results in longer construction times. The insidious practice of concurrency — beginning construction of a ship before the design is complete — causes further delays. As design flaws are discovered during construction, workers must go back and re-do already completed work. These often require extensive retrofitting, consuming substantial time and money. With limited shipbuilding facilities, longer construction times create a backlog that only exacerbates industry’s ability to meet demand.Navy leaders could provide some relief to the haggard shipyards by simplifying ship designs. Simplicity should always be a key design parameter in any weapon program. Designs based on proven technology can be developed and built faster. An acquisition strategy that prioritizes simplicity will keep the Navy and other services one step ahead of obsolescence.Navy leaders should have learned this lesson from the Littoral Combat Ship debacle. That program was intended to be the small surface combatant of the future with a complicated modular design to swap out specialized equipment for different missions. Engineers could not get that gimmick to work properly, and the scheme was eventually abandoned. The program has been beset by a string of embarrassing maintenance failures and questions about its combat survivability. The Navy is now in the process of retiring these troublesome ships. The Littoral Combat Ship program’s only milestone achievement is joining the mothball fleet early.Before throwing more money at the shipbuilding problem, the nation’s civilian and uniformed military leaders should first change their acquisition strategy to lessen the burden on the overworked shipyards already devoted to naval warships. The Congressional Budget Office recommended the Navy develop a missile corvette that can be built by the nation’s other shipyards. The Navy has used a similar approach of licensing designs to commercial shipbuilders in the past to meet its shipbuilding goals to great effect. The idea has merit today because doing so would expand both the size of the fleet and the industrial base.The Navy’s challenges didn’t crop up overnight, and they won’t be solved overnight. Another infusion of taxpayer money is unlikely to resolve the shipbuilding industry’s capacity limits.

[Category: Littoral combat ship, Us navy, Congress, Pentagon budget]

— Sens. Paul and Merkley to Trump: Are we 'stumbling' into another war?

 

at 4/1/25 3:43pm

Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have co-written a letter to the White House, demanding to know the administration’s strategy behind the now-18 days of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen. The letter calls into question the supposed intent of these strikes “to establish deterrence,” acknowledging that neither the Biden administration’s strikes in October 2023, nor the years-long bombing campaign by Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2020, were successful in debilitating the military organization's military capabilities. “Rather, these campaigns only served to embolden the Houthis and rally their recruiting base,” the senators said in the letter. “U.S. military action must have a clear strategy that advances our country’s long-term national security objectives and is compliant with the law of armed conflict.”In addition, “Congress should be briefed about the recent strikes against the Houthis and the total cost expected to be incurred by this campaign at the American taxpayer’s expense.”Rand and Merkley also correctly connect the Houthis’ recent attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea with the collapse of the Gaza ceasefire, pointing out that no such Houthi attacks took place while the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas (brokered by the Trump team ahead of the presidential inauguration) had been in place. Paul and Merkley also questioned the Constitutionality of the strikes, given there has been no Congressional declaration of war on the Houthis. Congress wasn’t even consulted.“We also recognize that any U.S. military response — especially sustained military engagement — must be conducted within the framework of the Constitution,” the Senators said in a release Tuesday. “Although the Constitution assigns the President the role of commander in chief of the U.S. military, it is Congress that is entrusted with the power to declare war — and Congress has not done so with respect to the Houthis.”The letter comes amidst an escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran. In a post on Truth Social yesterday, President Trump warned that if the Houthis did not cease shooting at U.S. ships in the Red Sea, the real pain would be “yet to come, for both the Houthis and their sponsors in Iran.”Such rhetoric calls into question whether the strikes on the Houthis are to set the stage for war with Iran itself. Recognizing this possibility in their letter, the senators call on the Trump administration to make clear to Congress and the American public if they indeed intend to strike Iran directly. They conclude the letter by warning of the United States “stumbling into another costly and unnecessary war.”Bipartisan opposition to military escalation in the Middle East is urgently needed, moving beyond the procedural ‘Signalgate' debacle to a more substantive focus on what the strikes on the Houthis are to realistically achieve, and what they portend for greater regional peace and stability. In intensifying strikes against the Houthis, President Trump appears to be contradicting his own expressed desire to rein in American military action in the Middle East, risking a broader, regional war, while seemingly failing to identify the Houthis’ strategic calculus tied to the war in Gaza. While President Trump pledged a legacy of peacemaker in his inaugural speech, continuing along his current path in the Middle East threatens to permanently derail this worthy pursuit, particularly if war with Iran were to break out. Skepticism from across the aisle to avert this outcome is a welcome development.

[Category: Us airstrikes, Us military, Houthis, Israel-gaza, Red sea, War powers, Senate, Congress, Qiosk, Yemen]

— Sens. Paul, Merkley to Trump: What is your Houthi strategy?

 

at 4/1/25 3:43pm

Senators Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) have co-written a letter to the White House, demanding to know the administration’s strategy behind the now-18 days of airstrikes against the Houthis in Yemen. The letter calls into question the supposed intent of these strikes “to establish deterrence,” acknowledging that neither the Biden administration’s strikes in October 2023, nor the years-long bombing campaign by Saudi Arabia from 2014 to 2020, were successful in debilitating the military organization's military capabilities. “Rather, these campaigns only served to embolden the Houthis and rally their recruiting base,” the senators said in the letter. “U.S. military action must have a clear strategy that advances our country’s long-term national security objectives and is compliant with the law of armed conflict.”In addition, “Congress should be briefed about the recent strikes against the Houthis and the total cost expected to be incurred by this campaign at the American taxpayer’s expense.”Rand and Merkley also correctly connect the Houthis’ recent attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea with the collapse of the Gaza ceasefire, pointing out that no such Houthi attacks took place while the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas (brokered by the Trump team ahead of the presidential inauguration) had been in place. Paul and Merkley also questioned the Constitutionality of the strikes, given there has been no Congressional declaration of war on the Houthis. Congress wasn’t even consulted.“We also recognize that any U.S. military response — especially sustained military engagement — must be conducted within the framework of the Constitution,” the Senators said in a release Tuesday. “Although the Constitution assigns the President the role of commander in chief of the U.S. military, it is Congress that is entrusted with the power to declare war — and Congress has not done so with respect to the Houthis.”The letter comes amidst an escalation of tensions between the United States and Iran. In a post on Truth Social yesterday, President Trump warned that if the Houthis did not cease shooting at U.S. ships in the Red Sea, the real pain would be “yet to come, for both the Houthis and their sponsors in Iran.”Such rhetoric calls into question whether the strikes on the Houthis are to set the stage for war with Iran itself. Recognizing this possibility in their letter, the senators call on the Trump administration to make clear to Congress and the American public if they indeed intend to strike Iran directly. They conclude the letter by warning of the United States “stumbling into another costly and unnecessary war.”Bipartisan opposition to military escalation in the Middle East is urgently needed, moving beyond the procedural ‘Signalgate' debacle to a more substantive focus on what the strikes on the Houthis are to realistically achieve, and what they portend for greater regional peace and stability. In intensifying strikes against the Houthis, President Trump appears to be contradicting his own expressed desire to rein in American military action in the Middle East, risking a broader, regional war, while seemingly failing to identify the Houthis’ strategic calculus tied to the war in Gaza. While President Trump pledged a legacy of peacemaker in his inaugural speech, continuing along his current path in the Middle East threatens to permanently derail this worthy pursuit, particularly if war with Iran were to break out. Skepticism from across the aisle to avert this outcome is a welcome development.

[Category: Us airstrikes, Us military, Houthis, Israel-gaza, Red sea, War powers, Senate, Congress, Qiosk, Yemen]

— Can Bernie stop billions in new US weapons going to Israel?

 

at 3/31/25 10:05pm

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and National Security Advisor Mike Waltz have been roundly criticized for the security lapse that put journalist Jeffrey Goldberg into a Signal chat where administration officials discussed bombing Houthi forces in Yemen, to the point where some, like Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) have called for their resignations. But the focus on the process ignores the content of the conversation, and the far greater crime of continuing to provide weapons that are inflaming conflicts in the Middle East and enabling Israel’s war on Gaza, which has resulted in the deaths of over 50,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians.As Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies noted in an article in The Nation, the real disgrace in “Signalgate” was not the inclusion of a journalist in sensitive conversations, it is the continued bombing of Yemen without congressional authorization, with all the human consequences it entails:“[T]he biggest threat—that has already resulted in real lives lost—is being ignored. And that is the threat to the lives of Yemeni people—who, how many, how many were children, we still don’t know—being killed by US bombs across the poorest nation in the Arab world.”It’s important to put the U.S. battle with the Houthis in context. The Houthi campaign to block shipping in the Red Sea is a reaction to Israel’s war on the people of Gaza. Continued U.S. military support for Israel is the fuel that is sustaining conflicts throughout the region, from Yemen to Lebanon, and, if Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu has his way, in Iran.Trump administration envoy Steve Witkoff has said the U.S. supports resuming ground operations in Gaza, blaming Hamas from rejecting new conditions for continuing the ceasefire. Only a minority of members of Congress have taken a stand against U.S. military support for Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza or its escalation of the fighting to other parts of the region. Last November, resolutions brought by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) designed to block parts of a $20 billion arms package to Israel received 19 votes in favor — a long way from a majority, but the first time Congress had taken action on the issue of U.S. provision of arms to Israel.Now Sanders is bringing new joint resolutions of disapproval to block an $8.56 billion sale of bombs and other munitions to Israel. Sanders said he is doing so in order to “end our complicity in the carnage,” adding that “it would be unconscionable to provide more of the bombs and weapons Israel has used to kill so many civilians and make life unlivable in Gaza.” More than 50,000 people have died from Israel’s military attacks on Gaza. And a paper by Sophia Stamatopoulou-Robbins for the Brown University Costs of War Project estimates that at least an additional 62,000 have died from indirect causes like preventable disease and malnutrition.The United States gave Israel $17.9 billion in military aid in the first year of the war in Gaza — October 2023 to the end of September of 2024. But arms offers since that time — sales beyond the $17.9 billion in military aid, including items that have yet to be delivered — total over $30 billion. These weapons could enable Israeli aggression for years to come. The current deal is particularly concerning because it consists mostly of bombs and missiles of the kind used in Israel’s relentless attacks on Gaza.While handling of classified information is a real issue, enabling collective punishment and taking military action without congressional approval are far more important with respect to their human consequences abroad and the prospects for restoring democratic input on issues of war and peace at home. The press needs to widen its lens and take on these life and death issues on a more consistent basis.

[Category: Israel, Israel-palestine, Palestine, Gaza, Gaza war, Enewsletter]

— German leaders miscalculated popular will for war spending

 

at 3/31/25 10:05pm

Recent polls show the center right Christian Democrats (CDU-CSU) headed by prospective chancellor Friedrich Merz losing ground against the populist right Alternative for Germany (AfD), even before the new government has been formed. The obvious explanation is widespread popular dissatisfaction with last month’s vote pressed through the outgoing parliament by the CDU-CSU and presumptive coalition partner the SPD (with the Greens) to allow unlimited increases in defense spending. This entailed disabling the constitutional “debt brake” introduced in 2009 to curb deficits and public debt. The new parliament, with the AfD as the main opposition party, took its seats last week. The AfD opposes financing rearmament by a massive upsurge in public debt, and supports negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. Die Linke (the Left) which substantially improved its position in the February elections, opposes rearmament and favors peaceful conflict resolution. Polls show support for Die Linke has also risen since the elections. Mainstream consensus on financing rearmament The aversion to incurring debt to finance public expenditure, including for defense, has been a central policy tenet of the German center-right CDU-CSU. The Zeitenwende (epochal change) declared by Chancellor Scholz in 2022 provided an exceptional $100 billion in funding for defense, allowing Germany to reach the 2% of GDP target set by NATO last year.However, the latest move by Merz — which can be seen as an intensified Zeitenwende — permits any defense expenditure in excess of 1% of GDP to be exempted from the debt brake’s provisions. The justification given is a potential Russian military threat and the conviction that the U.S. is bent on reducing its commitments to the conventional defense of Europe. Merz’s CDU is paying the price with its fiscally conservative voters, who oppose incurring new public debt for the defense hike, rather than cutting spending to pay for it. These voters view Merz’s turnaround on fiscal probity as a betrayal of his own election campaign program. Presumably, the rise in AfD support comes from the defection of some of the CDU-CSU voters. Although Scholz and his cabinet resigned on March 25, they remain as caretakers until the new government under Merz is formed, perhaps as early as Easter. Public opinion and the mainstream parties’ programTension between the mainstream parties’ determination to continue arming Ukraine and a growing preference among much of the public for seeking a negotiated outcome has for some time been evident. The Ebert Foundation’s Security Radar 2025 report documents rising public anxiety in Germany and elsewhere in Europe about possible escalation of the war in Ukraine, with for example, 59% of Germans worried the war might escalate to the use of nuclear weapons, anda majority of (54%) of Germans agreed that defense spending should increase, with 36% opposed.However, 53% favored a negotiated settlement of the war even if Ukraine has to sacrifice territory. A third of Germans favored NATO membership for Ukraine, a quarter favored supporting Ukraine “until it wins” and only 11% favored deploying German troops to Ukraine. These findings suggest that the customary German reticence about armed conflict and preference for peaceful conciliation of conflicts has not been overtaken by any martial fervor. The German public favors increasing defense spending, so long as this is understood as taking responsibility for the conventional defense of Germany itself, rather than giving priority to aiding Ukraine’s defense in the current war. The Security Radar report discerned across Europe a mood expressed by the slogan “my country first.”How much and how soon will spending increase?The actual magnitude of a boost to defense spending in the coming few years remains a matter for the coalition’s programmatic document (still being negotiated). The relaxation of defense spending has so far produced an additional 3 billion euros for Ukraine in 2025, to be added to the 4 billion euros already approved for 2025. This includes German made air defense systems which will need two years to be produced. There is no indication yet of the release of a torrent of new money or weapons to Ukraine.Neither outgoing Chancellor Scholz nor Friedrich Merz has indicated Germany would contribute troops for the “coalition of the willing” peacekeeping effort advanced by UK PM Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron. The question of providing Taurus missiles to Ukraine will likely arise again soon after the new government takes office. Merz has previously advocated sending these, or at least threatening to do so to exact concessions from Russia. Throughout his tenure, Scholz firmly resisted pressure to provide these missiles. A recent report from the Breugel economic think tank estimates what defense equipment, manpower, and industrial developments would be needed for Europe to assume most or all of Europe’s conventional defense without the United States.The authors argue that Germany needs to raise its defense spending to 3.5% of GDP within the next three years and had to lift public debt limits to do so. They suggest that Europe would face several serious constraints in attempting to replace in a timely way the American material and technical contributions to the Ukrainians in a continuing war. Many economists, market analysts, and the DAX stock market index responded positively to the planned increases in defense spending, predicting a recovery of Germany’s weak economy as the plan is implemented. The plan includes a 500-billion-euro fund for infrastructure modernization to be spent over 12 years.What's ahead?In essence, the funding of a major increase in German defense spending belongs in the logic of burden-shifting of continental conventional defense from the United States onto NATO’s European members. It rests upon the anticipated continued engagement of the Americans in NATO, in the hope that a new division of labor will convince the Americans of the value of their ongoing engagement in European security. Moreover, the spending increase will need to be sustainable over years in order for the conventional capability of Germany to compensate for an American drawdown of forces deployed in Europe. Because the rearmament aims to achieve greater “independence” from the U.S., the German and European arms industry stands to benefit. The European public is seemingly not fully convinced of the necessity to embrace a radically changed security stance for Germany and the European members of NATO. In order to ensure stability and win long-lasting public support, the burden-shifting of conventional defense in Europe should be paired with renewal of diplomatic contacts with Russia, and with an agenda of arms control and mutual confidence building measures.

[Category: Ukraine war, Russia, German elections, Merz, Scholtz, Afd, Germany]

— Is US bombing Somalia just because it can?

 

at 3/31/25 11:15am

U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) conducted an airstrike in Somalia against ISIS targets on Saturday, killing “multiple ISIS-Somalia operatives.” It was the eighth such strike in the short time that Trump has been in office, reflecting a quiet, but deadly American campaign in a part, of the world that remains far below the public radar.“AFRICOM, alongside the Federal Government of Somalia and Somali Armed Forces, continues to take action to degrade ISIS-Somalia's ability to plan and conduct attacks that threaten the U.S. homeland, our forces, and our civilians abroad,” a Sunday AFRICOM press release stated. The military said the attack against ISIS-Somalia, Islamic State’s small branch there, was coordinated in tandem with the Somali government and Somali Armed Forces.While AFRICOM alleges no civilians were harmed in the strike, the Pentagon has been less than forthcoming about Somali casualties in similar incidents. Saturday’s attack follows a Trump administration decision in late February to ease rules guiding U.S. raids and airstrikes outside conventional battlefields; that move was made with al Shabaab, another Islamist group in the region, in mind.What’s more, AFRICOM struck Somalia eight times between February 1 and March 15, reportedly conducting “collective self-defense airstrike[s] against al Shabaab” in some of the cases, and striking ISIS-Somalia in some others.“Our Military has targeted this ISIS Attack Planner for years, but Biden and his cronies wouldn’t act quickly enough to get the job done. I did!,” Donald Trump previously said of an early February AFRICOM strike on ISIS-Somalia on X. “The message to ISIS and all others who would attack Americans is that ‘WE WILL FIND YOU, AND WE WILL KILL YOU!,’” he wrote.A Somali government official told Nick Turse at the Intercept, that despite the military’s assertion that it had been working in coordination with the Somali government on that February strike, that little advance notice of the attack was provided to officials in Mogadishu. The U.S. has been blasting away at Somalia since at least 2007, and has carried out military operations there since 2002 despite no formal declaration of war. Successive administrations have been using the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Force (AUMF) as a blanket authorization to bomb targets in Somalia since the 9/11 attacks in 2001.There are also an estimated 450 American troops stationed there, after President Biden reversed a Trump era decision to move them all out.Despite his decision to withdraw boots on the ground, the last Trump administration authorized over 200 air strikes against al Shabaab and IS in Somalia. In comparison, the Biden administration struck Somalia a declared 39 times over its four year term through 2024.AFRICOM says ISIS-Somalia’s “malicious efforts threaten U.S. security interests.” In contrast, Intercept reporter Nick Turse points out how far away that threat really is.“ISIS–Somalia is a tiny organization that operates primarily in the Golis Mountains of the Bari region in Somalia’s semiautonomous Puntland state,” he wrote in February. “There is no evidence the group has the capability to target the United States.”

[Category: Trump administration, Airstrikes, Africom, Africa, Isis, Somalia, Qiosk]

— Alexander Vindman's new book is a folly: of history, and the truth

 

at 3/30/25 10:05pm

Alexander Vindman’s recent book, “The Folly of Realism,” throws down the gauntlet, as the name suggests, at the “realists” he thinks were responsible for failing to deter Russia and seize opportunities for defense cooperation with Ukraine. According to Vindman, the former National Security Council official who testified against President Trump during his impeachment trial in 2019, this “realist” behavior incentivized Moscow’s continued imperialist predations, culminating in the 2022 invasion of Ukraine.Vindman’s proposed antidote to what he considers the lapses of the past three decades is Benjamin Tallis’ framework of "neo-idealism," a lightly repackaged menagerie of post-Cold War transatlanticism’s greatest hits that is bizarrely presented as a novel outlook on the international system. Fully squaring all the historical misjudgments presented in these 240 pages demands an exegesis of at least as many pages, and not just because there are so many — though one certainly doesn’t find themselves pressed for material — but because Vindman’s central arguments flow from larger, decades-long narratives about Russia and post-Cold War U.S. policy that simply do not stand up to scrutiny. Nuclear policy emerges as one of the main causal drivers of Vindman’s story. No one can quarrel with the proposition that successive administrations took seriously the cause of nonproliferation in the post-Soviet sphere — they had every reason to — and that nuclear concerns shaped U.S. engagement with the Russian Federation to a significant even if not decisive degree. But to suggest, as Vindman does, that the thrust of early U.S./NATO policy toward Russia boils down to nuclear concerns is to lapse into a narrowly tendentious reading of events that history doesn’t lend itself to. Vindman, who interviewed the officials involved in negotiating the 1994 Budapest Memorandum from the U.S. side, was careful not to retread the solecisms so heartily indulged by many of his allies and fellow travelers. He concedes, and not insignificantly so considering how deeply this narrative has entrenched itself in recent years, that the signed memorandum did not contain U.S. security guarantees to Ukraine in exchange for relinquishing its supposed nuclear arsenal. “There's no question in my memory and in my mind that the Ukrainians understood completely the difference between security assurances and Article 5 security guarantees. And they understood they were getting security assurances,” Vindman quoted Nicholas Burns, Senior Director for Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasia Affairs at the National Security Council, as saying. These assurances, as I explained with my colleague Zach Paikin, did not commit the U.S. to undertake any specific commitments beyond what it agreed to in previous treaties. Indeed, it’s precisely because the memorandum was not legally binding and contained no concrete defense commitments that it did not have to be ratified by the Senate, as all treaties must be. But this whole “denuclearization” business calls for a greater degree of technical scrutiny than Vindman affords it. Three of the 15 states that emerged from the Soviet collapse — Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus — did not in fact “inherit” thousands of nuclear weapons. These were Soviet nuclear weapons, stationed across the Soviet Union but controlled from Moscow. After the Soviet collapse, these became Soviet nuclear weapons left over on the territories of former Soviet soviet states. It was never established that Ukraine exercised legal, political, or operational control over these weapons, nor that the nascent Ukrainian state disposed of the considerable resources required to maintain them. Ukraine did not, in this sense, possess a nuclear inheritance that could be bartered away for Western security guarantees or anything else. What we have before us, then, is not a geostrategic question but a largely operational challenge of removing these weapons, to which Ukraine had no recognized claim, from Ukrainian territory in an orderly way. This rather unremarkable process, though unquestionably a major part of the story of 1990s U.S.-Russia relations, is lent a degree of long-term political significance by Vindman that it simply doesn’t deserve.So, what, then, is the larger picture and how does it fit into Vindman’s argument that the West’s woes stem from a decades-long policy of, if not appeasing, then at least turning a blind eye to “Russian ambition and exceptionalism?” One cannot help but escape the sense that Vindman’s story suffers from the plight of Alexander the Great, who wept that he had only one world to conquer. His analysis is strongly tinted by the endless, yet strategically vacuous, expressions of goodwill, optimism about Russia’s Western path, and other such millenarian effusions that characterized U.S.-Russia relations up to the mid-2000’s. But in the most important ways, U.S. policy has been guided all along by something quite similar to Vindman’s neo-idealism. The Soviet collapse gave Western leaders a generational opportunity to go about the difficult but necessary task of building a new security architecture that includes mechanisms not just to deter Russia, but also to engage it in ways that do not lead to security spirals in Eastern Europe. U.S. policymakers, less driven by balance of power concerns than they were enchanted by the seductive vision of a Europe “whole and free,” brushed aside the concerns of George Kennan, Robert McNamara, and a great many others to greenlight the limitless expansion of NATO, an alliance explicitly arrayed against the Russian Federation’s Soviet predecessor. It seems to be a source of consternation for Vindman that Ukraine was not invited into NATO in those early days. Vindman’s implication that Ukraine was thus abandoned to Russia’s sphere of influence incorrectly frames the problem at hand. Washington’s fervid devotion to NATO’s “open door” membership policy and dogged refusal to countenance any framework for delimiting NATO’s boundaries shows that the lack of progress in this area was purely tactical in nature and certainly not grounded in systemic realist thinking. There is also the peccadillo of democratic values, defense of which is supposed to be NATO’s entire raison d’être. In point of fact, polling shows most Ukrainians had no desire to join the alliance until as late as the mid 2010s, when it became impossible due to outstanding territorial conflicts with Russia. Vindman’s indictment of what he wants the reader to believe passes for “realism” — more on that shortly — hinges on viewing Russia as an innate aggrandizer emboldened by the failure of successive U.S. administrations to deter it. It all falls apart upon the most basic attempt at a more sophisticated structural analysis — one which would find that Russia’s behavior is consistent not with a grand strategy of conquest for its own sake but with what most realists would identify as balancing behavior in response to the eastward expansion of Western military and security institutions into the post-Soviet sphere, and Russian actions intended to preemptively deny such expansion. Trudging through this book, with its unique blend of endless encyclopedic tedium heaped on top of the analytical equivalent of a children's pop-up story, can be best likened to navigating a swamp that’s shallow yet impossibly vast. But this rather unpleasant journey at least gives the reader ample time to meditate on the book’s central conceit. Vindman unfortunately displays a woefully inadequate grasp of that which he tries to impugn: at no point does he demonstrate anything more than a cursory understanding of realist approaches to the issues he tries to elucidate. One is left grasping in vain for any evidence that Vindman can pass the simple theoretical Turing Test of explaining any school of realism — let alone to distinguish between them — to the satisfaction of a realist. But Vindman’s underlying thrust is not to meaningfully engage with realist arguments on Ukraine’s post-Soviet transition, 1990’s U.S.-Russia relations, or nuclear proliferation in the former Soviet sphere. Instead he wants to launder what has largely been an idealist, atlanticist handling of these issues since 1991 by pinning the neoconservatives’ manifold sins and lapses on a haphazard cluster of ideas and approaches clumsily christened by him as “realism.” There was no realism in the strategically shortsighted decision — condemned by many realists at the time — to enable successive waves of NATO expansion and encourage, against genuine U.S. and European security interests, the integration of post-Soviet states into the West’s collective defense umbrella. The well-established idealist framing of American engagement with competitors as a manichean confrontation between democracy and autocracy is anathema to realism and, indeed, to a healthy understanding of U.S. national security priorities. But it is true that actual realist ideas are rapidly making their way back into the foreign policy discourse after decades in the wilderness. As is always the case after an exiled intellectual movement rediscovers the levers of power, there will and should be a vigorous debate on what form these ideas will take when filtered through the vicissitudes of American politics and applied to the pressing challenges of our time, including the Russia-Ukraine war and the broader task of building a sustainable architecture of European security. And whatever missteps are made along the way pale in comparison to a disastrous status quo that can be described by many names. Realism, it is not.

[Category: Ukraine, Russia, Book review, Ukraine war, Enewsletter]

— Trump should take the victory in Canada and move on

 

at 3/30/25 10:05pm

Just days after replacing Justin Trudeau and becoming Canada’s 24th prime minister, Mark Carney has advised Governor General Mary Simon to dissolve Parliament. Canadians will now head to the polls on April 28 for a long awaited and highly anticipated federal election.Trudeau had announced his intention to resign as prime minister and Liberal Party leader on January 6, having served more than nine years as Canada’s head of government. Opinion polling had shown an increasingly sizable lead for the rival Conservative Party over the preceding 18 months, with about 25 percentage points separating the two parties by the time Trudeau announced he was stepping down.Carney’s arrival on the scene has changed the dynamic decisively. A former governor of the Bank of Canada and the Bank of England, Carney’s image as a steady pair of hands at the helm during a time of national crisis has allowed the Liberals to establish a roughly five-point polling lead in the early days of the campaign. What was almost certain to be one of the largest Tory landslides in Canadian history has since become a tossup.Given the mounting popular perception that Trudeau’s government had mismanaged major policy files ranging from the economy to immigration to public order, this election was expected to be a referendum on nearly a decade of Liberal rule. But Trudeau’s departure and — more importantly — Donald Trump’s arrival on the scene have ensured that Canadians are likely to cast their ballots with the future rather than the past in mind.The ballot box question “Who is best positioned to deal with Trump?” has become increasingly urgent due to the growing perception that the U.S. president is not joking when he repeatedly threatens to annex Canada and make it America’s 51st state. Few Canadians believe that the tariffs the administration has levied have anything to do with fentanyl — indeed, the Intelligence Community’s newly released Annual Threat Assessment neglects to mention Canada as a source of America’s fentanyl crisis.With no clear demands or conditions for how to avert (or lift) the imposition of tariffs, there is a sense among Canadians that the purpose of these economic measures is not to compel a negotiation nor to obtain specific policy concessions, but rather, in Trudeau’s words, to bring about “a total collapse of the Canadian economy because that will make it easier to annex [Canada].” Tariffs are seen not as a tool, but rather as a good in themselves capable — albeit at great cost, given the highly integrated nature of the North American economy — of repatriating jobs to the United States.Carney has pledged to negotiate with the U.S. on trade only when “Canada is shown respect as a sovereign nation.” But Trump would be wrong to conclude that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre would be easier to deal with. Poilievre’s brand of Canadian “prairie populism” is ideologically distinct from the more iconoclastic MAGA populism found south of the border. And unlike Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s call for an “Am-Can Fortress” which focuses on persuading Americans of the extent to which Canada can underwrite American security and prosperity, Poilievre’s brand of “Canada First” is more in line with promoting Canadian resource development for overseas export.Given the perception among many Canadians that their country has become engulfed not in a mere trade dispute but rather a struggle to preserve their national sovereignty, Ottawa will likely be more willing than Washington to endure the pain that the ongoing tariff war will bring, even if Canada is more economically dependent on the United States than the U.S. is on its northern neighbor. And whatever the potential benefits of pursuing a deeper economic relationship with Moscow, many struggle to understand the logic behind talking up economic ties with Russia while placing Canada so firmly within America’s crosshairs.Having secured re-election, Canadians can no longer afford to dismiss Trump as an aberration in American politics. Unlike during his first term when it was assumed that “adults in the room” would limit Trump’s room for maneuver, this time he has built a loyal administration willing to cheer him on. But the economic fallout of a sustained trade war with Canada may risk Trump’s most significant accomplishment — a generational political realignment in which a multiethnic working-class electoral coalition underwrites support for the Republican Party.Given these circumstances, Trump would be wise to declare victory and move on. For example, he could claim that Trudeau was the problem and that his administration’s policies successfully drove him from power. Building on the positive tone of his first call with Carney, he could also publicly acknowledge that, while he continues to believe that Canada would be better served by joining the United States, such a venture is not practical nor economical so long as Canadians overwhelmingly oppose it. These entirely cost-free moves from the administration would help to avert potentially permanent damage to Canada-U.S. relations.Canada remains the largest market for American exports, larger than China, Japan, Britain and France combined. It also remains a friendly and reliable source of (subsidized) energy — the largest provider of oil, gas and electricity to the United States by a wide margin. American leaders should take note when the Canadian prime minister, a member of the country’s centrist establishment, openly concludes that the longstanding era of Canada-U.S. cooperation “based on deepening integration of our economies and tight security and military cooperation, is over.”Whatever discord exists between Ottawa and Washington on issues ranging from trade to continental defense, maintaining a cooperative — and respectful — relationship with Canada remains manifestly in the national interest of the United States.

[Category: Donald trump, Canada, Enewsletter, Canada elections]

— Does Vance’s free speech defense in Munich not apply here?

 

at 3/28/25 12:59pm

At the Munich Security Conference in mid-February, U.S. Vice President JD Vance warned Europe not to back away from one of the West’s most basic democratic values: free speech. “In Washington there is a new sheriff in town," he said, "and under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree.” Vance continued, “Dismissing people, dismissing their concerns… shutting down media, shutting down elections… protects nothing. It is the most surefire way to destroy democracy.” He added, “If you’re running in fear of your own voters, there is nothing America can do for you. I believe deeply that there is no security if you are afraid of the voices, the opinions and the conscience that guide your very own people.” Vance had just joined Donald Trump in running a successful 2024 presidential campaign that championed free speech and condemned the Biden administration for its censorship efforts. On March 8, barely three weeks after Vance’s Munich speech, Columbia University graduate student and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil was arrested and sent to a detention center in Louisiana to be deported. He is a legal resident married to an American woman who is pregnant. Khalil was not charged with a crime. President Trump praised the arrest, saying that Khalil had engaged in “pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic, anti-American activity” that his administration would not tolerate. “We will find, apprehend, and deport these terrorist sympathizers from our country,” Trump added. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said his department has revoked more than 300 student visas. “We do it every day. Every time I find one of these lunatics, I take away their visas," he said. When Turkish Tufts University student Rumeysa Ozturk was arrested this week, a video showed “masked, plain-clothes officers handcuffing and leading her to an unmarked car.” Department of Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin posted on X that Ozturk "engaged in activities in support of Hamas, a foreign terrorist organization that relishes the killing of Americans.” "A visa is a privilege not a right," she added. Yet, like the case of Khalil, no one knows what, if any charges she is facing. A judge ruled that she could not be removed from Massachusetts but the feds took her to the same Louisiana detention center anyway. Reports presume that it was an op-ed that Oztruk wrote last year with two other students criticizing the Israel war in Gaza that brought on the heat. When asked about Oztruk, however, Rubio said no one should get a visa if they come to the United States to join protest movements that result in vandalism and “raising a ruckus” on campus. He would not say if Ozturk was being singled out for those activities. The administration argues that the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 gives the government the right to revoke the green card of “[a]n alien whose presence or activities in the United States the Secretary of State has reasonable ground to believe would have potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences for the United States.” Without issuing evidence that Khalil and Ozturk’s presence here in the U.S. would have “potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences” (the statute says the administration has to notify Congress with their justifications, have they?) we can assume that they are being used as examples in order to chill speech more broadly. The administration appears to be hiding behind this rarely used statute, but what the rest of us are taking away from all this is that the administration believes our First Amendment protections end at criticizing Israel’s government. “One reason the actions against Khalil should give MAGA pause is that the administration seems to be acting on behalf of Israel, not the American people,” wrote Andrew Day for the American Conservative, who warned Trump supporters that “the precedent could enable a future Democratic president to target conservatives.” Categorizing pro-Palestinian protesters as “pro-terrorist,” “pro-Hamas,” or “anti-Semitic” could feasibly be true in some of these cases, and yet, if these people are not actually committing crimes, their speech should be Constitutionally protected.The Nazi marchers that the Americans Civil Liberties Union so famously defended in Skokie, Illinois, in 1978 were definitely anti-Semitic. And the courts determined they had a right to speak. It might be cliché to say that the entire point of free speech is to protect the speech we hate, but apparently it's a trope the Trump administration hasn’t heard enough. Those cheering Trump’s rounding up of pro-Palestinian protesters might argue that supporting Israel and opposing Hamas has greater value than free speech, or even that those targeted are actual terrorists, putting them in a separate category. But we can rationalize similar free speech exceptions about all sorts of positions. In his Munich speech, Vance cited the prosecution of Briton Adam Smith-Connor, a physiotherapist and army veteran who Vance said had been charged with the “heinous crime of standing 50 meters from an abortion clinic and silently praying for three minutes, not obstructing anyone, not interacting with anyone, just silently praying on his own.” Heidi Stewart, chief executive of Bpas, the UK’s leading abortion provider, said of Vance’s comments, “Bpas ... will always remain proud to stand against misogynistic and anti-democratic interference with British women’s reproductive rights by foreign extremists, whether they are the vice-president of the US or not.” Someday, “foreign extremist” JD Vance could be considered a “threat” to U.S. foreign policy by another administration. Then what happens? Vance’s broader point was that people of different views should be able to express them in Western democracies. And he was right. The first time. He told European countries last month that their greatest threats weren’t from Russia or China, but their retreat from some of their “most fundamental values,” that the United States has historically shared with them, with freedom of expression seeming to top his list. “What I worry about is the threat from within,” Vance warned. Americans should worry too.

[Category: Free speech, Constitution, First amendment, Israel, College protests, Israel-gaza, Gaza, Jd vance, Munich security conference, Enewsletter]

— Macron fails to get Europe to send troops to Ukraine

 

at 3/27/25 10:05pm

European leaders met this week at the behest of French President Emmanuel Macron, who wants to solidify a plan to send troops to Ukraine as a security package. However, the meetings emerged, according to the Wall Street Journal, “without a public commitment from other European countries to send troops.”France and the United Kingdom have been pushing for troops on the ground in Ukraine, and other countries, like Sweden, Denmark, and Australia, have indicated a willingness to do so as well. The main hurdle appears to be that most are apparently unwilling to send their armed forces to Ukraine without the protection of the United States.“My wish is that the Americans are engaged at our side, but we have to be prepared for a situation in which they maybe don’t join in,” Macron said.Another European diplomat said, "when Ukraine was in a better position, the idea of sending troops appealed. But now, with the situation on the ground and the U.S administration as it is, it's not very sexy.”European countries did agree this week to provide more aid and training for Ukraine. France, Germany, and the United Kingdom also agreed to send a team to Ukraine to analyze how many troops would be needed for a hypothetical European force. Meanwhile, after negotiations earlier in the week, U.S. and Russian leaders agreed on an expanded ceasefire deal focused on the Black Sea. The Kremlin clarified that accepting an agreement would hinge on the relaxation of sanctions on the agricultural bank, Rosselkhozbank.The U.S. did not explicitly promise to lift sanctions but that it would “help restore Russia’s access to the world market for agricultural and fertilizer exports, lower maritime insurance costs, and enhance access to ports and payment systems for such transactions.”European leaders balked at the idea of lifting sanctions. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said doing so would be “a serious mistake.” Additionally, U.K. Prime Minister Kier Starmer said, “now is not the time for lifting sanctions.” “Moscow has shown every indication of driving a hard bargain in the talks conducted thus far, not to mention that much of the subject matter is innately technical and simply does not lend itself to swift resolution,” said the Quincy Institute’s Mark Episkopos. “There have been signs in prior weeks of a slow convergence between U.S. and Russian positions… However, Kyiv, flanked by some of its European partners, has voiced deep-seated reservations about possible concessions and other terms of a potential peace settlement.” Episkopos added, “these concerns and the way they’re being raised speak to a larger lack of buy-in that, if left unsquared, will complicate efforts to get a peace deal past the finish line.”In other Ukraine War news this week:On Wednesday, the Wall Street Journal reported that President Trump said that the Kremlin may be “dragging its feet” on the Black Sea ceasefire deal. “I’ve done it over the years. You know, I don’t want to sign a contract. I want to sort of stay in the game, but maybe I don’t want to do it quite—I’m not sure,” he said, referring to his previous experience in real estate.Russia’s mission to the United Nations accused Ukraine of sabotage. In a statement to the Security Council, UN Representative Dmitry Polyanskiy said, “Kiev continues to plan and carry out strikes against Russia's energy infrastructure, thus trying to hoodwink both us and the United States.” According to CNN, South Korean officials claim that North Korea sent an additional 3,000 soldiers to Russia in January and February. Pyongyang also sent “220 pieces of 170-millimeter self-propelled howitzers and 240-millimeter multiple rocket launchers,” and that further aid was likely to increase depending on the situation. The European Commission advised EU citizens to have at least 72 hours of food and supplies in reserve. CNN outlined the new document released on Wednesday, which cited Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, geopolitical tensions, and other concerns.U.S. State Department news:During a State Department briefing this week, a reporter asked spokesperson Tammy Bruce if the Trump administration agreed that Putin had legitimate claims to Crimea or other regions annexed by Russia, referencing comments made by envoy Steve Witkoff. Bruce said she did not want to speculate on the topic but promised that the president was “singularly focused” on bringing peace to the conflict.Another reporter asked how the administration was planning on ensuring trust between the United States and Ukraine. Bruce replied, "this isn’t about trust or if—who you’re dealing with and whether or not you like them or you don’t or what that dynamic is.”

[Category: Qiosk, Nato, Trump, Macron, Ukraine war, Ukraine]

As of 4/6/25 4:43pm. Last new 4/5/25 7:32am.