Diplomacy & Crisis News

Staff fear ambitious goals won’t trickle down to the rank and file

Countries must step up urgent action to address the water-related consequences of climate change, the head of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and nine other international organizations said on Friday in a letter to world leaders issued ahead of the COP26 UN climate change conference. 

The director of the only media outlet in the country to cover the Pandora Papers speaks out.

Stephen Silver

DirecTV,

DirecTV’s exclusivity is set to expire after the 2022 season, and the NFL has been vocal about wanting to go with a different partner. 

It’s been known for quite a while that the NFL’s Sunday Ticket package, which has been exclusive to DirecTV since it first launched in 1994, is going to come up for bid in the near future. DirecTV’s exclusivity is set to expire after the 2022 season, and the NFL has been vocal about wanting to go with a different partner. 

This week, the NFL commissioner made that clear in public comments. 

According to CNBC, the issue came up at NFL owners’ meetings in New York this week, the first time since the pandemic it occurred in person. And while the CNBC story concentrated on recent controversies involving the e-mail scandal of former Las Vegas Raiders coach Jon Gruden and allegations of misconduct at the Washington Football Team, the Sunday Ticket issue was still raised. 

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell called Sunday Ticket a “streaming product,” and indicated that it will move from a satellite project to a digital one, as CNBC characterized his comments. 

“I think that is best for our fans to make it accessible on a digital platform,” the commissioner said. 

The report, cited “a person familiar with the NFL’s thinking about Sunday Ticket” told the network that “several tech companies” are interested in the package. The story also said that “in league circles, the rumblings suggest the NFL eventually wants to lure Apple to take it over.” 

CNBC reiterated that the NFL would like to offer creative options in Sunday Ticket, including “giving consumers the option to purchase individual team games,” as well as possibly allowing different streaming services to carry the American Football Conference (AFC) and National Football Conference (NFC) packages, the way those conferences are split between CBS and Fox on Sunday afternoons. 

Some reports of late have stated that DirecTV could retain the satellite side of the Sunday Ticket package, but the CNBC story did not mention that possibility. Also reported by CNBC was that the NFL hired Goldman Sachs last year to find investment partners in NFL.com and the NFL Network. 

The report added that the NFL hopes to for an agreement with a new partner before the start of next season, even though it wouldn’t go into effect until the season after that. 

Earlier this year, the NFL extended its standard TV deals, maintaining Fox, CBS, NBC, and ABC/ESPN as partners, while adding streaming elements to the package. Those include Amazon Prime as the new exclusive home of the Thursday Night Football package. Amazon has also been mentioned as a possible partner for Sunday Ticket. 

Stephen Silver, a technology writer for The National Interest, is a journalist, essayist and film critic, who is also a contributor to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Weekly, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Living Life Fearless, Backstage magazine, Broad Street Review and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. Follow him on Twitter at @StephenSilver.

Image: Reuters

Caleb Larson

Drones,

The Pentagon awarded development contracts to two of America’s unmanned aerial vehicle heavyweights to develop a new UAV as soon as next year.

The United States Department of Defense has awarded development contracts to Kratos Unmanned Aerial Systems and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems to develop an Off-Boarding Sensing Station (OBSS) for unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Both contracts, which were awarded separately, cover “the design, development, and flight demonstration in an open architecture aircraft concept to achieve the goals of rapid time-to-market and low acquisition cost,” with both companies’ work anticipated to be completed by October 31st, 2022. The Department of Defense awarded both companies about $17.7 million each and included an option for the companies to increase their payouts to just under $32 million.

Kratos’ Off-Boarding Sensing Station 

Kratos’s statement regarding the award explains that the OBSS will be an entirely new unmanned aerial system. However, like Kratos’s other offerings, it is “intended to be an affordable, highly modular conventional takeoff and landing jet-powered” aerial vehicle.

While details on the new UAVs are murky, Kratos asserted that the “OBSS solution incorporates innovative manufacturing techniques that enhance its ability to not only provide significant performance for sensor extension missions for manned jet aircraft but also will accommodate significant offensive weapons volume to also act as a weapons bay extension for manned aircraft.”

Furthermore, the OBSS is “a new addition to the Kratos family of low-cost Autonomous Collaborative Platforms (ACP) designed to employ weapons, sensors, and other effects that generate affordable, force multiplier combat power with a forward force posture.”

General Atomics’s Off-Boarding Sensing Station

Even less is known about General Atomics’s OBSS. However, the company has a very long track record building unmanned aerial vehicles and has been a prolific designer of UAVs over the last several decades.

General Atomics’s legendary Reaper and Predator drones made their combat debuts during America’s recent conflicts in the Middle East. More recently, General Atomics unveiled the new Predator C Avenger. Powered by a single jet engine buried in the platform’s fuselage and featuring a stealthily designed fuselage, General Atomics calls this Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS)  the next generation in remotely piloted aircraft.

General Atomics has also participated in the U.S. Air Force’s Skyborg program, an effort to develop low-cost unmanned aerial platforms capable of flying alongside manned aircraft. Flying in tandem, these expendable aircraft would fly far ahead into contested airspace, finding and assessing threats. In some cases, armed unmanned vehicles could also eliminate threats on their own.

Both General Atomics and Kratos will have to submit prototypes by next year. However, if they exercise the additional funding option, they will have until early 2024 to finalize designs.

Caleb Larson is a multimedia journalist and Defense Writer with the National Interest. He lives in Berlin and covers the intersection of conflict, security, and technology, focusing on American foreign policy, European security, and German society.

Image: Reuters

At COP26, leaders must find ways to allow much greater economic growth across large parts of the world.

Charlie Gao

Singapore, Asia

While it’s clear Singapore’s Air Force packs a significant air-to-air punch, its mission is not to just protect Singapore itself but its interests in the immediate region.

Here's What You Need to Remember: Overall, unlike their neighbors, Singapore has gone “all in” with Western tech. The common origins of their aircraft probably make resupply and maintenance easier. This trend looks to continue now that Singapore is looking into the F-35 as a replacement for their F-5Es. They also have the significant advantage of having AWACS aircraft, unlike their two closest neighbors.

Despite its small geographical size, Singapore fields one of the most advanced and well-equipped militaries in South East Asia. It spends more on its military than any of its neighbors. Being a tiny city-state, one of the strongest arms of the Singaporean military is the Republic of Singapore Air Force. But how does it stack up against its neighbors, from the small to the big? Does Western tech really provide the level of advantage it needs to defend itself?

The backbone of the RSAF is a fleet of F-15 and F-16 fighters. The RSAF fields forty F-15SG Eagles, forty F-16Ds, and twenty F-16Cs. These are augmented by around thirty F-5S Tiger II and some A-4 Skyhawks in storage. Singapore also fields an AWACS capability with five Israeli modified Gulfstream 550 jets.

Out of all those aircraft, Singapore’s strongest fighter is definitely the F-15SG, itself a variant of the F-15E. The most important advantage the F-15SG has is the APG-63(V)3 AESA radar, which one of the best aircraft mounted radars on any fighter in the region.

AESAs also have the capability to perform electronic warfare (EW) tasks: they can actively degrade the lock of an active radar guided missile while scanning at the same time due to their electronic nature. The RSAF F-16s are also rumored to be undergoing similar upgrades to receive AESAs of their own.

The F-15SG also has an IRST system, which gives it the capability to detect and lock onto aircraft with infrared missiles without even switching on the radar. The IRST bulb is positioned on a pod pylon under the left engine of the F-15SG and is directly integrated into the plane.

To make the actual kill, the F-15SG wields the advanced AIM-9X Block II air-to-air missile. This is integrated with the Joint Helmet Mounted Cueing System helmet, which allows the seeker to track where the pilot is looking, allowing for the missile to lock onto targets off boresight.

While the Soviet Air Force pioneered this capability with the R-73 and Su-27/MiG-29 aircraft (including those fielded by its neighbors), the JHMCS and AIM-9X Block II take it to even further levels, with a wider seeker lock angle than what can be achieved with the Russian system.

For longer range targets, Singapore has access to advanced long-range active radar homing air-to-air missiles: the AIM-120C-7. It also has stocks of the medium-range AIM-120C-5. These can be fired from both the F-15 and F-16s Singapore has, although it’s likely the F-15 will be able to achieve a lock earlier on with its AESA radar.

While it’s clear Singapore’s Air Force packs a significant air-to-air punch, its mission is not to just protect Singapore itself but its interests in the immediate region. As a result, they have significant stocks of the AGM-154 JSOW, a long ranged American glide bomb that can fly up to 130km away. While these could be used to deliver an alpha strike against an opponent, Singapore is expected to use them more in an anti-shipping role.

One of Singapore’s greatest fighter threats might come from Indonesia, which bought the advanced Su-35S earlier this year. However, they are fewer in number than Singapore’s F-15SG fleet. Indonesia also fields many more different types of aircraft: the Indonesian Air Force has F-16s, original Su-27s, two different variants of the Su-30, and F-5E Tiger II s as well. Obviously, this results in greater maintenance and sustainment issues for Indonesia.

Another strong air force that could face Singapore is China’s PLAN aviation. China also has J-15 carrier fighters. These largely are Chinese-developed variants of the first-generation Su-27S Flankers China first received in the 1990s. While on paper they have the same capabilities as the F-15SG (ARH missiles, IRST, advanced radar), China’s Flankers are still considered to be underpowered due to their engines.

Malaysia also is a strong contender, fielding a weird mix of Western and Eastern planes like Indonesia. Unlike Indonesia, most of their Flankers are of older variants, and a good portion of their fighter fleet is relatively obsolete MiG-29s. They also do field the AIM-9X Block II like Singapore.

Overall, unlike their neighbors, Singapore has gone “all in” with Western tech. The common origins of their aircraft probably make resupply and maintenance easier. This trend looks to continue now that Singapore is looking into the F-35 as a replacement for their F-5Es. They also have the significant advantage of having AWACS aircraft, unlike their two closest neighbors.

Charlie Gao studied political and computer science at Grinnell College and is a frequent commentator on defense and national-security issues.

This article first appeared in August 2018 and is being reposted due to reader interest.

Image: Reuters

Plongée dans l'un des dix camps de réfugiés de Muzaffarabad, la capitale montagneuse de l'Azad Cachemire, qui abritent les populations cachemiries victimes du conflit opposant l'Inde et le Pakistan depuis la partition, en 1947. / Inde, Pakistan, Armée, Armement, Conflit, Géopolitique, Mouvement de (...) / Inde, Pakistan, Armée, Armement, Conflit, Géopolitique, Mouvement de contestation, Politique, Prison, Réfugiés, Violence, Conflit du Cachemire 1949-, Répression, Frontières - 2016/09

Peter Suciu

Arms Sales, Middle East

Critics of the deal have been vocal that the Biden administration’s deal with Saudi Arabia contradicts the spirit of the White House’s policy to bar all “offensive weapons sales” to the kingdom, as those weapons could be used against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Last month the United States Department of State approved a potential agreement for a sale of up to $500 million of military hardware to Saudi Arabia. The agreement was the first major defense agreement with the Middle Eastern nation to be sent to Congress for review since President Joe Biden took office in January.

However, the agreement has opened up a number of questions and follows criticism of U.S. ties to the kingdom over its human rights record, as well as Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the ongoing civil war in Yemen.

According to the State Department, the package of military equipment would also provide continued maintenance support services for a wide range of helicopters, including a future fleet of Boeing CH-47D Chinook heavy-lift helicopters, Reuters reported in September.

“This proposed sale will support U.S. foreign policy and national security objectives by helping to improve the security of a friendly country that continues to be an important force for political stability and economic growth in the Middle East,” the State Department said in a statement.

Contradicting White House Policy?

Critics of the deal have been vocal that the Biden administration’s deal with Saudi Arabia contradicts the spirit of the White House’s policy to bar all “offensive weapons sales” to the kingdom, as those weapons could be used against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.

President Biden previously pledged to end the sale of offensive weapons to Saudi Arabia, and to end all support for the civil war, which the administration maintains has created “a humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.”

And yet, as The Guardian reported this week, “Saudi Arabia was given permission by the state department to enter a contract to support the Royal Saudi Land Forces Aviation Command’s fleet of Apache helicopters, Blackhawks, and a future fleet of Chinook helicopters. It includes training and the service of 350 U.S. contractors for the next two years, as well as two U.S. government staff.”

Critics of the decision argue that it contradicts Biden’s very first foreign policy objective.

“To my mind, this is a direct contradiction to the administration’s policy. This equipment can absolutely be used in offensive operations, so I find this particularly troubling,” Seth Binder, director of advocacy at the Project on Middle East Democracy, told The Guardian.

It is clear that despite the harsh rhetoric from the White House earlier this year, it now seems that the administration is softening its stance with Saudi Arabia, which remains a key U.S. ally in the region.

Experts who have studied the conflict in Yemen have said they believe the Saudis have used the Apaches in operations along the Saudi-Yemen border, but to what extent isn’t clear. Michael Knights, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has suggested that the U.S.-made aircraft had been primarily used in “defensive” operations along the border and that the sale of the maintenance contract shouldn’t be seen as contrary to Biden’s policy.

The State Department also told The Guardian that the United States would continue to work with the kingdom “to help strengthen its defenses, as necessitated by the increasing number of Houthi attacks into Saudi territory. This proposed continuation of maintenance support services helps Saudi Arabia maintain self-defense capabilities to meet current and future threats. These policies are intertwined with the direction by President Biden to revitalize U.S. diplomacy in support of the UN-led process to reach a political settlement and end the war in Yemen.”

It is likely that the Biden administration now fully understands that even as it touted a strong stance against Saudi Arabia on the campaign trail, the situation with Yemen is far more complex. The reality is that the United States can’t afford to let the conflict in Yemen spread into the kingdom, and the United States certainly can’t leave Saudi Arabia unable to defend itself from attacks nor have its hands tied in how it can respond. Thus it will have to accept that the weapons will be used defensively—even if sometimes the best defense means going on the offensive.

Peter Suciu is a Michigan-based writer who has contributed to more than four dozen magazines, newspapers, and websites. He regularly writes about military small arms, and is the author of several books on military headgear including A Gallery of Military Headdress, which is available on Amazon.com.

Image: Flickr

Trevor Filseth

Capitol Riot,

The release of a trailer for Carlson's new "Patriot Purge" special prompted immediate backlash online, and a number of observers highlighted factual inaccuracies it contained.

On Wednesday evening, Fox News host Tucker Carlson announced that the network would be airing a documentary on the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol Building. 

A trailer for the documentary, entitled “Patriot Purge,” briefly outlined its content, arguing that the U.S. government had shifted its “war on terror” from Islamist terror groups abroad to right-wing groups in the United States. The trailer describes the government’s investigation into these groups as a “plot against the people” and claims that the Biden administration is attempting to criminalize dissenting views.

“The helicopters have left Afghanistan, and they’ve landed here at home,” Carlson claimed in a voiceover, suggesting that U.S. resources directed towards Afghanistan had been redeployed against American citizens.

The trailer’s release prompted immediate backlash online, and a number of observers highlighted factual inaccuracies it contained. One of the trailer’s interviewees dubiously suggested that conservatives had been imprisoned in America’s controversial Guantanamo Bay detention camp in southern Cuba. This is not true. According to the government, around forty prisoners remain in Guantanamo’s detention facility; none of them are U.S. citizens, although at least one U.S. citizen has been imprisoned in the camp in the past. 

The trailer also featured a speaker who claimed that the January 6 incident was a “false flag” attack planned by government agencies to discredit the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” movement seeking to overturn the results of the November 2020 election. This claim echoes a false theory popular in the aftermath of the attack that claimed it had been instigated by “Antifa” militants disguised as pro-Trump protesters.

In the aftermath of the Capitol riot, more than 650 attendees have been arrested and charged with illegally entering the building, although the FBI’s investigation remains open and it has continued to search for more attendees. 

Democrats and moderate Republicans quickly condemned the documentary trailer, describing it as an incitement to violence.

“It appears that Fox News is giving Tucker Carlson a platform to spread the same type of lies that provoked violence on January 6,” Republican congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-WY), a prominent anti-Trump legislator and one of the two Republican members of the House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack, tweeted.

“Anyone working for Fox News must speak out. This is disgusting. It appears Fox News isn’t even pretending anymore,” Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), the other Republican committee member, wrote.

Some conservative sources, however, defended the trailer, insisting that government informants had infiltrated the preparations for the January 6 attack and had done nothing to prevent it.

Carlson claimed on Wednesday that he was “proud” of the documentary series, and described it as “the best thing we’ve ever done.”

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.

Image: Flickr/Gage Skidmore

A “revolving door” premiership would have consequences both at home and abroad.

The UN Special Representative for Mali told the Security Council on Friday that despite collective efforts, “the reality is that the security situation has deteriorated and the crisis is deepening”, across the northwest African nation. 

Trevor Filseth

Facebook,

Can a name change help Facebook shake its bad PR?

Following weeks of rumors, Facebook has rebranded itself as “Meta,” expanding its identity beyond the flagship social network that has come under increased scrutiny for its alleged reluctance to filter extreme or toxic content.

CEO Mark Zuckerberg hailed the move as a shift towards the creation of a “metaverse,” an augmented virtual reality in which people can interact with each other, both for business and for entertainment.

“The metaverse is the next frontier,” Zuckerberg announced at Facebook’s virtual Connect conference on Thursday. “From now on, we’re going to be metaverse-first, not Facebook-first.”

Zuckerberg justified the name change on the basis that the company’s brand was closely linked to “one product that can’t possibly represent everything we’re doing today, let alone in the future.” Another reason he cited for the changes was the company’s attempt to refocus on young adults, who have increasingly begun to use competitor apps such as ByteDance’s TikTok. 

Left unmentioned was Facebook’s ongoing public relations problem, made acute by the release of thousands of internal company documents by whistleblower Frances Haugen to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. While the company has argued that selecting a small subset of its internal discussions amounts to cherry-picking, the revelations in the leaks have led to a media firestorm and prompted a congressional investigation.

Another concern for the company’s future regards user privacy and the extent to which services such as Facebook and Google collect, log, and sell users’ information. Zuckerberg promised that the future “metaverse” would have full disclosure about its data use, a feature that Facebook has substantially lacked.

Zuckerberg confirmed that the name change would not affect any of the company’s day-to-day operations.

While the company’s vision for the ‘metaverse’ will not be achievable for some time, it has already begun marketing virtual-reality (VR) technology, including its Oculus VR headsets. Meta announced that its investments in its VR division, now known as “Reality Labs,” would cost the company around $10 billion in operating profit. 

Facebook, which will remain the company’s flagship service, is now used by around 3 billion people worldwide, more than one-third of the global population. In terms of market capitalization, it is estimated to be the sixth-most valuable company in the world, with revenue of nearly $120 billion. The company also owns the popular image-sharing platform Instagram and messaging service WhatsApp.

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters

Graham Allison

Taiwan, Asia

The era of U.S. military primacy is over.

During a town hall last week, when asked whether America would defend Taiwan against a Chinese assault, President Joe Biden answered: “yes.” In response, China’s foreign ministry stated unambiguously that, to prevent the loss of Taiwan, Beijing is prepared to go to war. If China were to attack Taiwan, and the United States sent military forces to Taiwan’s defense, could the United States lose a war with China?

When current Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks and her fellow members of the National Defense Strategy Review Commission examined this question in 2018, they concluded: maybe. In their words, America “might struggle to win, or perhaps lose a war against China.” As they explained, if in response to a provocative move by Taiwan, China were to launch an attack to take control of that island that is as close to its mainland as Cuba is to the United States, it might succeed before the U.S. military could move enough assets into the region to matter. As former Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral James Winnefeld and former CIA Acting Director Michael Morell wrote last year, China has the capability to deliver a fait accompli to Taiwan before Washington would be able to decide how to respond. 

Former Deputy Secretary of Defense Bob Work, who served under three Secretaries before retiring in 2017, has been even more explicit. As he has stated publicly, in the most realistic war games the Pentagon has been able to design simulating war over Taiwan, the score is eighteen to zero. And the eighteen is not Team USA.

This scorecard might shock Americans who remember the Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1995-1996 when China conducted what it called “missile tests” bracketing Taiwan. In a show of superiority, America deployed two aircraft carriers to Taiwan’s adjacent waters, forcing China to back down. Today, that option is not even on the menu of responses that Chairman Mark Milley would present to the President.

How did so much change so quickly? A forthcoming report from Harvard’s China Working Group on the Great Military Rivalry documents what has happened in the military race between China and the United States in the past decades, and summarizes our best judgments about where the rivals now stand.

First, the era of U.S. military primacy is over. As Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis put it starkly in his 2018 National Defense Strategy, “For decades the U.S. has enjoyed uncontested or dominant superiority in every operating domain. We could generally deploy our forces when we wanted, assemble them where we wanted, and operate how we wanted.” But that was then. “Today,” Mattis warned, “every domain is contested—air, land, sea, space, and cyberspace.”

Second, in 2000, A2/AD—anti-access/area denial systems by which China could prevent U.S. military forces from operating at will—was just a People's Liberation Army (PLA) acronym on a briefing chart. Today, China’s A2/AD operational reach encompasses the First Island Chain, including Taiwan and Japan’s Ryukyu Islands. As a result, as President Barack Obama’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michèle Flournoy put it, in this area, “the United States can no longer expect to quickly achieve air, space, or maritime superiority.”

In the current climate where American political dynamics are fueling increasing hostility to China, insistence on recognizing the military realities may seem unhelpful. But as former Deputy Secretary Work has noted, the Chinese leadership is more aware of everything he has made public than are most members of the American political class and policy community who have been expressing views about these issues.

The reason for confronting ugly realities is not to counsel defeatism. On the contrary, it is meant as a call to act now to change these facts. There are many things Taiwan could do to make itself a much harder target, including deploying a protective barrier of smart mines. There are many asymmetric systems the U.S. military could deploy that would raise the costs and risks for China of a military assault on Taiwan. There is an even longer and likely more impactful agenda of initiatives the United States could undertake with the other instruments of American power in the DIME—diplomacy, informational, military, economic—arsenal that would make China’s leaders worry that the costs and risks of an attack on Taiwan would exceed the benefits.

Unfortunately, a clear-eyed observer would remind us that Taiwan and the United States had similar opportunities a decade ago. Nonetheless, previous failures need not be a predictor of future performance. The question now is: will they?

In the meantime, clear-eyed recognition that the current military balance over Taiwan has shifted dramatically in China’s favor does not mean that the United States would not come to Taiwan’s defense. Chinese strategists remember 1950 when the Truman Administration declared unambiguously that Korea was beyond the U.S. defense perimeter. Despite those declarations, when Communist China’s ally in North Korea launched an assault on South Korea, the U.S. did come to South Korea’s defense. China and the United States soon found themselves at war. While the United States had taken no position on Taiwan prior to the Korean War, during the war, the 7th Fleet positioned itself in the strait between China and Taiwan, effectively creating a de facto American security umbrella. For the Chinese, this was the beginning of the enduring narrative that they lost Taiwan for a generation.

Finally, the biggest takeaway from the recent history of Taiwan is that imaginative diplomacy offers a much better way for parties to both secure their interests and avoid war. When the United States and China established formal relations under Presidents Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter, statesmen recognized that the issue of Taiwan was irresolvable—but not unmanageable. The diplomatic framework they created wrapped irreconcilable differences in strategic ambiguity that has given all parties five decades of peace in which individuals on both sides of the strait have seen greater increases in their well-being than in any equivalent period in their history. Much has changed over these decades in China, in Taiwan, and in the United States.  In this grave new world, the most urgent and consequential international challenge for President Biden and his team is to craft a twenty-first-century analog that will extend this peace for another half-century.

Graham T. Allison is the Douglas Dillon Professor of Government at the Harvard Kennedy School. He is the former director of Harvard’s Belfer Center and the author of Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?

Image: Reuters

There is a “serious risk” that the UN climate conference (COP26) in Glasgow, Scotland, “will not deliver”, the UN chief told journalists on Friday in Rome, just ahead of the G20 Summit of leading industrialized nations.

Trevor Filseth

Taiwan, Asia

Taiwan can lean on the United States as a support in its defense against China, but it cannot depend on it. 

Chiu Kuo-cheng, Taiwan’s defense minister, said on Thursday that the island’s military forces could not rely on outside help in the event of an attack from mainland China, and would need to mount their own defense.

“The country must rely on itself,” Chiu said. “If any friends or other groups can help us [...] we’re happy to have it, but we cannot completely depend on it.” 

Chiu’s remarks came after a questioning session from the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s unicameral parliament, raised concerns about Taiwan’s ability to protect itself from a Chinese invasion following rising tensions between Beijing and Taipei. Although the relationship between the mainland and the island, which China regards as a rebellious province, has never been friendly, it is now at its most adversarial level in decades. Since the hundredth anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s founding in early October, China has sent hundreds of fighter jets into the airspace surrounding Taiwan—an area known as an “air defense identification zone” (ADIZ) over which Taiwan does not claim sovereignty, but actively tracks incoming planes. 

Taiwan’s Defense Ministry has warned on other occasions that, if current trends persist, China would have the “comprehensive” ability to invade and conquer the island by 2025, pushing its leadership to invest increasingly in defense and maintain cordial relations with the United States.

In an interview with CNN, Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen optimistically suggested that the United States would likely help to defend the island if China attempted to invade, citing the “long-term relationship we have with the U.S., and also the support of the people of the U.S. [and] Congress.”

Tsai confirmed that U.S. forces were present on the island training Taiwanese troops—a point on which the U.S. Defense Department had previously been ambiguous. 

As part of its relationship with Taiwan, America has sold billions of dollars’ worth of weapons to its military, and sales noticeably increased under the Trump administration. The Biden administration’s most recent sale took place in August when it sold the Taiwanese military a self-propelled howitzer system for $750 million.

As tensions have escalated between China and Taiwan, President Joe Biden suggested that the United States had an obligation to defend Taiwan, seemingly contradicting Washington’s longstanding policy of “strategic ambiguity” on whether or not it would. 

The White House later claimed that the president’s remarks were not indicative of a policy change.

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters

This time, India is not supporting another country’s empire but advancing its own interests.

Attacks on the Hindu community show how the country has turned away from its pluralist heritage.

Ethen Kim Lieser

Booster Shots,

Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized booster shots of all three available vaccines for certain people, which include the elderly and those who are immunocompromised.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its coronavirus vaccine guidance, now saying that those who are considered immunocompromised might need another shot, which in some cases would be their fourth dose.

It was back in August when the CDC recommended that immunocompromised individuals who were vaccinated with either the Pfizer-BioNTech or the Moderna mRNA vaccine should get another dose. Do take note that the extra shot, though, was not considered a booster, but rather an integral part of their primary vaccination series.

Recent data from the CDC are indicating that booster shots are needed for certain populations. “Studies show that after getting vaccinated against COVID-19, protection against the virus may decrease over time and be less able to protect against the Delta variant. Although COVID-19 vaccination for adults aged sixty-five years and older remains effective in preventing severe disease, recent data suggest vaccination is less effective at preventing infection or milder illness with symptoms,” the agency writes.

Currently, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has authorized booster shots of all three available vaccines for certain people, which include the elderly and those who are immunocompromised.

Moderately to severely immunocompromised individuals include people who are in active treatment for cancers, certain organ transplant and stem cell recipients, those with advanced or untreated HIV, and those who take high-dose corticosteroids or other drugs that could suppress their immune systems.

The CDC has estimated that between 2 and 3 percent of the U.S. population fit into this category. 

“We know that six months after you reached a good level of protection, your protection has waned … and we need to boost that,” Dr. Dorry Segev, professor of surgery at Johns Hopkins University, told NBC News. “That’s for people with normal immune systems and people who are immunocompromised.” 

However, he did admit that not all immunocompromised individuals will need a fourth vaccine dose.

“Out of the eleven million immunocompromised people in this country, some of them were fine with two doses,” Segev noted.

“Some of them were not fine with three doses. Some of them do need a fourth dose,” he continued.

According to the peer-reviewed journal The Lancet, a group of leading U.S. and international scientists, including those from the FDA and the World Health Organization, recently contended that boosters are not needed currently for the general public.

The experts were aware of the fact that vaccine effectiveness against the coronavirus likely wanes over time but did note that protection against severe disease could persist.

“Current evidence does not, therefore, appear to show a need for boosting in the general population, in which efficacy against severe disease remains high,” the team writes.

Ethen Kim Lieser is a Washington state-based Science and Tech Editor who has held posts at Google, The Korea Herald, Lincoln Journal Star, AsianWeek, and Arirang TV. Follow or contact him on LinkedIn.

Image: Reuters

Trevor Filseth

Sudan, Africa

The Sudanese won’t let their prospects for democracy go without a fight. 

Following the country’s coup d’etat on Monday, the military government of Sudan under General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan has attempted to consolidate its control over the country. Sudanese troops have occupied key positions in Khartoum, and the internet in the country’s capital had reportedly been cut off on Monday morning following the putsch.

Even so, Sudan’s population, from pro-democracy activists and working professionals to employees of the country’s state-run oil firm, has taken to the streets to protest against the overthrow of the civilian government. The military has attempted to curtail the protests, leading to further violence; Al Jazeera reported that another protester had been killed on Thursday, marking at least eight since the protests began. 

The international community has uniformly condemned the coup. Several developed nations, including the United States and Germany, suspended aid to the country until the civilian government was restored, as did the World Bank. The UN and the Arab League condemned the coup, calling on Burhan to step down and restore the country’s civilian prime minister, Abdalla Hamdok, to office. The African Union suspended the country from its ranks until Hamdok is restored to power. Sudan is the third government it has suspended for a coup this year, following putsches in Mali in May and Guinea in September.

President Joe Biden indicated on Thursday that the United States supported the street protests. “Our message to Sudan’s military authorities is overwhelming and clear: the Sudanese people must be allowed to protest peacefully and the civilian-led transitional government must be restored,” a White House statement read.

For his part, Burhan has claimed that the military intervention was necessary to prevent the country from falling into chaos. He asserted that he would continue to implement Sudan’s democratic transition independent of its pre-coup Sovereignty Council, which he dissolved. Burhan also announced that he had freed Hamdok from captivity following his arrest on Monday morning. The former prime minister is now at his home, although he remains under effective house arrest.

Sudan’s political situation has remained precarious since the overthrow of dictator Omar al-Bashir in 2019. Bashir, who had ruled the country since his own military coup in 1989, was removed by the military, led by Burhan, after months of civilian protests. Because both the military and civilian protesters had played a role in his ouster, the transitional government that succeeded him included leaders from both the military and the protest movement, causing prolonged unrest prior to the coup.

Trevor Filseth is a current and foreign affairs writer for the National Interest.

Image: Reuters