​Quotes of the Day:

“Patriotism is usually stronger than class hatred, and always stronger than internationalism.”

– George Orwell

"Forces beyond your control can take away everything you possess except one thing, your freedom to choose who you will respond to the situation."

– Viktor Frankl

"Don't hit at all if it is honorably possible to avoid hitting; but never hit soft!" 

– Theodore Roosevelt

1. Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time

2. a brief reminder: Panama and its canal

3. Iran Update, December 23, 2024

4. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 23, 2024

5. Cartels are Increasingly Turning to Social Media to Recruit Americans for Human Smuggling

6. White House Says Pakistan Is Developing Long-Range Missile Capable of Hitting the U.S.

7. A history of the Panama Canal — and why Trump can't take it back on his own

8. Judge rules Arkansas law allowing criminal charges against librarians is unconstitutional

9. Costs of the CR: Marines will miss full strength, and more

10. In defense of the military’s unfunded priority lists

11. Philippine Military Says Will Acquire US Typhon Missile System

12. Forgotten Wars: The Rising Tension in the Philippines

13. Syria’s Rebel Leaders Have Control of the Country. Now What?

14. Merit and the Case for Immigration

15. Ex-US fighter pilot accused of training Chinese military to be extradited to the United States

16. A Pathway to Peace in Ukraine

17. Multilateralism Can Survive Trump

18. The First U.S. Army Christmas: Washington and the Hessians

1. Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time

​What is really driving this? Who are the advisors advising him on this?

Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: Not a Joke This Time

In recent days the president-elect has called for asserting U.S. control over the Panama Canal and Greenland, showing that his “America First” philosophy has an expansionist dimension.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/12/23/us/politics/trump-greenland-panama-canal.html?

President-elect Donald J. Trump has accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the Panama Canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the decades-old treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama.Credit...Federico Rios for The New York Times

By David E. Sanger and Lisa Friedman

David E. Sanger has covered five American presidents and writes often on the revival of superpower conflict. Lisa Friedman covers a range of environmental and climate change challenges.

Dec. 23, 2024

Updated 9:08 p.m. ET

Leer en español

Over the past two days, President-elect Donald J. Trump has made clear that he has designs for American territorial expansion, declaring that the United States has both security concerns and commercial interests that can best be addressed by bringing the Panama Canal and Greenland under American control or outright ownership.

Mr. Trump’s tone has had none of the trolling jocularity that surrounded his repeated suggestions in recent weeks that Canada should become America’s “51st state,” including his social media references to the country’s beleaguered prime minister as “Governor Justin Trudeau.”

Instead, while naming a new ambassador to Denmark — which controls Greenland’s foreign and defense affairs — Mr. Trump made clear on Sunday that his first-term offer to buy the landmass could, in the coming term, become a deal the Danes cannot refuse.

He appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology.

“For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World,” Mr. Trump wrote on social media, “the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity.”

On Saturday evening, he had accused Panama of price-gouging American ships traversing the canal, and suggested that unless that changed, he would abandon the Jimmy Carter-era treaty that returned all control of the canal zone to Panama.

“The fees being charged by Panama are ridiculous,” he wrote, just ahead of an increase in the charges scheduled for Jan. 1. “This complete ‘rip-off’ of our country will immediately stop.”

He went on to express worry that the canal could fall into the “wrong hands,’' an apparent reference to China, the second-largest user of the canal. A Hong Kong-based firm controls two ports near the canal, but China has no control over the canal itself.

Not surprisingly, the government of Greenland immediately rejected Mr. Trump’s demands, as it did in 2019, when he first floated the idea. “Greenland is ours,” Prime Minister Mute B. Egede said in a statement. “We are not for sale and will never be for sale. We must not lose our long struggle for freedom.”

The Danish prime minister’s office was more circumspect, writing in a statement that the government was “looking forward to working with the new administration” and offering no further comment on Mr. Trump’s remarks.

Image

Mr. Trump appears to covet Greenland both for its strategic location at a time when the melting of Arctic ice is opening new commercial and naval competition and for its reserves of rare earth minerals needed for advanced technology.Credit...Carsten Snejbjerg for The New York Times

After Mr. Trump brought up the Panama Canal again in a speech on Sunday, Panama’s president, José Raúl Mulino, said in a video that “every square meter of the Panama Canal and its adjacent zones is part of Panama, and it will continue to be.” He added: “Our country’s sovereignty and independence are not negotiable.”

But the president-elect’s statements — and the not-so-subtle threats behind them — were another reminder that his version of “America First” is not an isolationist creed.

His aggressive interpretation of the phrase evokes the expansionism, or colonialism, of President Theodore Roosevelt, who cemented control of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War. And it reflects the instincts of a real estate developer who suddenly has the power of the world’s largest military to back up his negotiating strategy.

Mr. Trump has often suggested that he does not always see the sovereignty of other nations’ borders as sacrosanct. When Russia invaded Ukraine, his first response was not a condemnation of the blatant land grab, but rather the observation that President Vladimir V. Putin’s move was an act of “genius.”

Even now, as Mr. Trump seeks a deal to end the war in Ukraine, he has never said that the country’s borders must be restored, a key demand of the United States and NATO — he has only promised a “deal” to end the fighting.

In the cases of Greenland and Panama, both commercial and national security interests are at play.

Mr. Trump’s desire for Greenland was made explicit in the first term, when a wealthy New York friend of his, Ronald S. Lauder, the New York cosmetics heir, put the idea in his head.

In the Trump White House in 2019, the National Security Council was suddenly delving into the details of how the United States would pull off a land acquisition of that size. Mr. Trump kept pressing the point with Denmark, which consistently rebuffed him.

Mr. Trump was not the first president to make the case: Harry S. Truman wanted to buy Greenland after World War II, as part of a Cold War strategy for boxing out Soviet forces. Mr. Trump can make a parallel argument, especially as Russia, China and the United States jockey for control of Arctic routes for commercial shipping and naval assets.

Arctic experts did not dismiss Mr. Trump’s Greenland bid as a joke.

“Not that many people are laughing about it now,” said Marc Jacobsen, an associate professor at the Royal Danish Defense College in Denmark who focuses on Arctic security.

Mr. Jacobsen noted that the reaction in Denmark to Mr. Trump’s latest bid had been one of fury (one Danish politician called it “an unusually strange way to be an ally”). But, he said, Greenlanders — who have long sought independence — may seek to use Mr. Trump’s interest as an opportunity to further strengthen economic ties with the United States.

Since 2009, Greenland has had the right to declare its independence, but the vast territory of about 56,000 people is still heavily dependent on Denmark and has never chosen to pursue that path. Mr. Trump’s interest could give Greenland an opening for more U.S. investments, including in tourism or rare earth mining, he said.

“Was it crazy when the U.S. acquired Alaska? Was it crazy when the U.S. built the Panama Canal?” asked Sherri Goodman, a former Pentagon official and a senior fellow with the Wilson Center Polar Institute, a Washington-based think tank.

Ms. Goodman, whose book “Threat Multiplier: Climate, Military Leadership, and the Fight for Global Security” centers in part on the Arctic, said the United States did have a strong interest in ensuring that China in particular does not develop a strong presence in Greenland.

Beijing’s ambitions in the Arctic have grown, and in 2018 it laid out plans to build infrastructure and develop shipping lanes opened by climate change. Ms. Goodman said the United States should continue to prevent China from gaining a foothold in the doorstep to North America, but said Greenlanders must decide their own fate.

“We want to have all those territories proximate to our own mainland territory to protect us and also to prevent an adversary from using it to our strategic disadvantage,” Ms. Goodman said. “On the other hand, there is international law and international order and sovereignty, and Greenland is still a part of Denmark.”

When it comes to Panama, Mr. Trump may also hold a distant personal grudge.

In 2018, Panamanian police officers ousted the Trump Organization from the Trump International Hotel in Panama City after a protracted legal battle between the president-elect’s family and the majority owner of the property. The Trump name subsequently came down. The company had held a contract to manage the property.

David L. Goldwyn, who served at the State Department under Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, noted that Greenland has tremendous undeveloped natural resources, including more than 43 of the 50 so-called critical rare earth elements used to make electric vehicles, wind turbines and other clean technology.

“Certainly if Greenland chose to develop these resources, it would provide a significant alternative to China, although it is China’s capacity to process those minerals which gives it its current advantage,” he said.

But Mr. Goldwyn said that in addition to Denmark’s sovereignty, Mr. Trump might find that Greenland’s Indigenous communities do not want mining and resource extraction as much as he does.

“It is highly unlikely resource extraction could be forced on an unwilling population,” he said. “A more fruitful path might be to collaborate with the Danish government and Greenland’s population on ways to safely and sustainably develop those resources.”

David E. Sanger covers the Biden administration and national security. He has been a Times journalist for more than four decades and has written several books on challenges to American national security. More about David E. Sanger

Lisa Friedman is a Times reporter who writes about how governments are addressing climate change and the effects of those policies on communities. More about Lisa Friedman

A version of this article appears in print on Dec. 24, 2024, Section A, Page 18 of the New York edition with the headline: Trump’s Wish to Control Greenland and Panama Canal: This Time It’s Not a Joke. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

2. a brief reminder: Panama and its canal

​Geography (and so much more) matters.

Excerpts:

Panama has come through the past forty-five years with ups and downs after gaining sovereignty over the Canal. The 1989 U.S. invasion to end Manuel Noriega’s regime did not guarantee clean and fair participatory democracy but removed the military from the dominant position it had during the Cold War (which conveniently ended simultaneously with Noriega’s tenure).

Panama was for many years Taiwan’s “jewel in the crown” with diplomatic recognition until Beijing lured them away just three years ago. Hutchinson-Whampoa’s registry in Hong Kong makes many China hawks suspicious but the commercial benefits of unfettered transit the Canal thus far outweigh any incentive to prohibit U.S. access, military or commercial. The limitation on vessel access matters, however, so even if China tried to force Panama’s hand politically, it’s hard to know how much real effect this would have on U.S. military operations. Operators always seek options so they prefer access to the Canal but large vessels could not use it in any case.

The irony of Panama demanding U.S. companies pay taxes is a rich one since its status as a tax haven long tortured leaders, several of whom have left office under accusation of corruption themselves. Yet, a sense of loyalty to the country’s sovereignty remains passionate there as in many parts of the region. The idea that foreigners simply disregard Panamanian laws creates disgruntlement in the country.

I offer these as a couple of musings about how actions a century ago created consequences still playing out in this small country of 4.5 million in a strategic location. I have no idea how its sovereignty will play out—do you?

Actions create consequences

23Gift a subscription

a brief reminder

Panama and its canal

https://cynthiawatson.substack.com/p/a-brief-reminder?utm

Cynthia Watson

Dec 23, 2024

Panama, in the short version, is a thin piece of land connecting North and South America with a fascinating strategic location but some real challenges over time. It also annoys many Americans who feel the rules changed while Panamanians thought the rules were imposed on them.

If we had been as concerned then as we supposedly are now with so-called rules-based international system, President Theodore Roosevelt wouldn’t have recognized the isthmus’ independence as readily as he did in 1903 to build a canal. It was rather back doorish. We, in conjunction with a Frenchman, were instrumental in creating Panama, regardless of its on again, off again relationship with Colombia.

Traversing between Bogotá and Panamá City was quite a chore at the turn of the twentieth century.. Colombia has one of the world’s most challenging topographies because of three soaring Andean chains separated by long, deep river valleys. Once one made it from the Sabana de Bogotá to the Pacific coast, a further maritime excursion was essential to arrive in the less-than-salubrious town aiming to be a Panamian capital.

But, people thought it a potential location for a crucial short cut between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans as global trade and global power politics awakened.

The better location for a trans-Central American canal was in Nicaragua where the hard excavation would have been a wee bit easier because Lake Managua was smack dab in the middle of the oft-proposed canal site. But geography was a cruel there too as earthquakes drew doubts about a canal’s true sustainability when discussions first arose in the 1850s.

Instead, the impetus for a man-made waterway to short cut the extended journey around Cape Horn moved to Panamá with the expectations that parcel of Colombia would ultimately make its way free. If it did so with a little help from friends on the ground, all the better.

So Theodore Roosevelt’s ambition to establish the United States as a global maritime nation coincided with aspirations for an independent Panama. Colombia rebuffed U.S. entreaties as it suffered through the vicious War of a Thousand Days at the turn of the twentieth century. Colombians were in no mood to entertain Roosevelt’s suggestions that the United States complete the long-abandoned 1880s French scheme. Colombians saw American efforts as an intervention in their domestic affairs, rejecting the suggestion out of hand.

A new Frenchman with vast personal investment in this enterprise met with a Pananamian independence delegation, purportedly in Manhattan rather than Panama City, to solidify his role as representative to Washington to assure a sovereign Panama. Wealthy Panamanians declared their determination to escape Colombia’s control in early November 1903. The Roosevelt Administration welcomed the move by recognizing the independence almost immediately, then opening negotiations with said Frenchman Philippe Bunau Varilla on a canal accord. The entire exercise of declaring independence and conducting bilateral negotiations to allow Washington the right to build and administer the canal took merely days in November 1903, a rapidity unthinkable today. The Hay Banau Varilla Treaty of 1903 stipulated the United States would control the Canal Zone, the term for the waterway and an attached ten mile strip on either side of the waterway (the Canal Zone), “in perpetuity”.

Note Panamanians on the streets had no part of this process with foreigners and wealthy the primary beneficiaries. This foreshadowed questions over who the waterway benefitted, the same root for nationalism common in this region.

The Canal itself was a marvel, largely because the challenges for those excavating, then building the canal were wretched between 1904 and 1914. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took the lead, evidence of our national commitment to this epic project. Construction was difficult because of the toughness of the rock. Living conditions were dangerous because malaria and yellow fever pervaded the country, striking down workers at every turn. Indeed, Army physician William Gorgas discovered medical advancements in Panama against the latter, although we are yet to conquer malaria more than a century later.

The United States spent more than $10 billion (in 2024 dollars) on this Canal. Its lock system was a major advancement in technology, opening the door to considerably shorter transit times and enhanced financial operations for commercial ventures between the Pacific and Atlantic ports of the United States and elsewhere. The Canal was a major reason the United States was considered a global power by the end of World War I.

You know a “but” is coming. The early twentieth century is known as the golden era of imperialism, referring primarily to French, British, German, and other European nations competing for territories in Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. Conveniently, we forget that our own actions in the circum-Caribbean were seen as imperialism by many outside our country. Doubts lingered about the true impetus for the Spanish-American War in 1898, a mysterious explosion conveniently providing the United States with the justification to invade Cuba, then govern the Philippines after Spain surrendered several months later. We dominated Cuba politically for decades, sometimes barely maintaining a fig leaf of the island’s independence. U.S.. involvement in several Central American states as the United Fruit Company and other companies appeared advanced not only their own commercial causes but furthered U.S. diplomatic and military presence as well. Finally, American willingness to cross the border into Mexico amid its vicious civil war (1910-1928) only exacerbated anxiety about the nature of American ambition in the Western Hemisphere. All of this fueled nationalism for critics feeling helpless to control their own fates (this sounds similar to the rhetoric we hear from China about the ‘Century of Humiliation, doesn’t it?) under the thumbs of oligarchs connected to U.S. and foreign interests.

Whether we saw events in the same light is irrelevant; this is how many Latin political figures fomented nationalist sentiments condemning Americans in their countries. Panama had a series of undemocratic regimes repressing discontent but rarely ameliorating the standard of living for the bulk of the population. The vast commercial benefits the Canal provided rarely trickled to the average Panamanian whose life was hardly better than it had been under Bogotá before 1903. Military personnel often trained by the United States in connection with protecting the Canal Zone (which was sovereign U.S.territory under the 1903 Treaty) seemed to prefer foreigners to those they were suppose to protect.

Panamanians began demanding control over the Canal almost as soon as construction began but the crescendo occurred over the decades before President Carter actually negotiated the Canal reversion treaty in 1977. as a result of bilateral negotiations, the Canal would become Panama’s to operate, maintain, upgrade, or anything else. U.S. Army posts in the Canal Zone (recall the keefuffel that Senator John McCain faced when he ran for president in 2008 because he was born to an American Naval officer and American wife in the Canal Zone rather than in the continental United States as the Constitution mandates) closed when the Canal Zone reverted to Panamanian control, despite dire predictions that country could not operate the engineering waterway. The U.S. Senate ratified the Canal reversion treaties 68-32 while two-third of Panamanians 67.4% agreed to them. One treaty turned the Canal back to Panama to operate by 1999 while the other gave the United States the right to defend the Treaty to assure it retains a “neutral” status. This second accord meant the Canal would be open for commercial transit, regardless of who ran the country, but under our commitment of protection.

President Jimmy Carter’s determination to pass this territory back to Panama met decided opposition both here and in Panama. Many Americans believed the Canal ours because we built it and because we had an original agreement to operate “in perpetuity”. Carter and others believed circumstances under which Teddy Roosevelt signed the original treaty were no longer, if ever, valid. The transfer to Panamanian control went as planned on 31 December 1999.

Like good capitalists, Panama turned Canal operations over to private companies, including Hutchinson-Whampoa, a Hong Kong-based private corporation. Concerns about anything in Hong Kong/China post-1997 have always existed but the greater threat to the Canal is that technology left the Canal behind decades ago. The waterway can no longer handle the largest U.S. military or commercial vessels. Widening its fifty mile length probably makes no financial sense. Yet the Canal remains vital as a symbol of power and access. Additionally, building a replacement would in Nicaragua might appear preferable but would confront José Daniel Ortega Saavedra, the aging Marxist-turned-kleptocrat in Managua, hardly anyone’s desired partner in such a lucrative enterprise.

Panama has come through the past forty-five years with ups and downs after gaining sovereignty over the Canal. The 1989 U.S. invasion to end Manuel Noriega’s regime did not guarantee clean and fair participatory democracy but removed the military from the dominant position it had during the Cold War (which conveniently ended simultaneously with Noriega’s tenure).

Panama was for many years Taiwan’s “jewel in the crown” with diplomatic recognition until Beijing lured them away just three years ago. Hutchinson-Whampoa’s registry in Hong Kong makes many China hawks suspicious but the commercial benefits of unfettered transit the Canal thus far outweigh any incentive to prohibit U.S. access, military or commercial. The limitation on vessel access matters, however, so even if China tried to force Panama’s hand politically, it’s hard to know how much real effect this would have on U.S. military operations. Operators always seek options so they prefer access to the Canal but large vessels could not use it in any case.

The irony of Panama demanding U.S. companies pay taxes is a rich one since its status as a tax haven long tortured leaders, several of whom have left office under accusation of corruption themselves. Yet, a sense of loyalty to the country’s sovereignty remains passionate there as in many parts of the region. The idea that foreigners simply disregard Panamanian laws creates disgruntlement in the country.

I offer these as a couple of musings about how actions a century ago created consequences still playing out in this small country of 4.5 million in a strategic location. I have no idea how its sovereignty will play out—do you?

I welcome any thoughts about Panama, its Canal, our interests in that Canal, or anything else you find worth pondering. I thank you for your time on this busy Monday. I also thank the subscribers who support me with their financial commitment. Have you considered being a supporter in 2025?

I just came in from a walk in the cold but offer a photograph the Creek last night as we walked.

3. Iran Update, December 23, 2024

Iran Update, December 23, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/iran-update-december-23-2024

The SDF and Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) continued to engage in fighting around Tishreen Dam and Qere Qozak Bridge on December 23. Elements of the Manbij Military Council, which is under the SDF, thwarted an attack on Tishreen Dam, according to the People’s Defense Units (YPG) Media Center. Forces then combed nearby villages used by the SNA to stage attacks. The Manbij Military Council forces reportedly destroyed an SNA tank in Abu Qalqal, around 9.5 kilometers northwest of Tishreen Dam. SDF spokesperson Farhad Shami reported that SDF elements are operating around 15 kilometers from Manbij City. Footage posted on December 23 by anti-Kurdish media appeared to show the SNA in possession of an SDF armored vehicle after reportedly killing its crew.

Elements of the SDF continue to defect in areas that are protesting SDF control. Around 70 Arab SDF fighters from the Raqqa Military Council refused orders to join fighting at Tishreen Dam and turned their weapons into their command headquarters. Anti-Kurdish media claimed tha around 10 fighters abandoned fighting in the Aleppo countryside and returned home to al Shaddadi. A group of fighters from Markada, south of Hasakah, defected from the SDF as well.

Key Takeaways:

• Syria: The HTS-led Syrian interim government reportedly stated that it will discuss mechanisms for disarming and dissolving the US-backed SDF with SDF leadership. The government also reportedly wants to avoid negotiations that would grant regional autonomy to the SDF.

• Syria: Russian forces have reportedly withdrawn completely from most of their positions in Syria, including their base at Qamishli in northern Syria. Russia’s only remaining positions are at Hmeimim and Tartus along the Syrian coast.

• Iraq: The Iraqi federal government is reportedly reconsidering its request for US forces to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2025 because it is concerned that the fall of the Bashar al Assad regime in Syria could threaten Iraqi security.

• Iran: Iran is facing a severe energy crisis marked by electricity and natural gas shortages. This crisis presents a serious threat to regime stability given that it will likely stoke anti-regime sentiments and could spark protests.

4. Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 23, 2024

Russian Offensive Campaign Assessment, December 23, 2024

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-december-23-2024

Russian forces are gradually advancing south and southwest of Pokrovsk, but it remains unclear if Russian forces will be able to exploit these gains to envelop the town or if they intend to advance to the administrative boundary of Donetsk Oblast. Geolocated footage published on December 23 indicates that Russian forces recently advanced south of and within eastern Novovasylivka (southwest of Pokrovsk), and a Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces advanced north of Novovasylivka towards Solone and Vovkove and are attacking towards Kotlyne. A Kremlin-affiliated Russian milblogger claimed that Russian forces are focusing their attacks on Novotroitske (east of Novovasylivka) and Dachenske (south of Pokrovsk) and forced Ukrainian forces to withdraw to the Lysivka-Pishchane line (southeast to south of Pokrovsk). The milblogger claimed that Russian forces are also advancing from Pustynka and Pushkine (both further south of Pokrovsk) towards Ukrainka (southwest of Pushkine). ISW previously assessed that the Russian military command intends to envelop Pokrovsk via a turning maneuver from the south, but Russian advances southwest of Pokrovsk could be aimed at widening the Russian salient in preparation for the envelopment of Pokrovsk from the south or alternatively for advancing westward to the Donetsk-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast administrative border as part of the Kremlin's political and informational objective of seizing the entirety of Donetsk Oblast.

It remains unclear which effort the Russian military command will prioritize, as Russian President Vladimir Putin may have tasked the Russian military with securing territorial gains rather than seizing significant settlements. Putin stated during his annual Direct Line televised press conference on December 19 that Russian forces are advancing not in "100, 200, 300 meters" but in square kilometers throughout the frontline, and Putin appears to be increasingly characterizing Russian advances in terms of square kilometers instead of highlighting the seizure of particular settlements as he had previously done. Putin may have instructed the Russian military command to delay the seizure of Pokrovsk in favor of making further gains through open fields and small settlements, particularly as Russian forces advance closer to the Donetsk-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast administrative boundary. ISW has observed geolocated evidence sufficient to assess that Russian forces are within 10 kilometers of the Donetsk-Dnipropetrovsk Oblast administrative boundary, and Putin may be pressuring the Russian military command to advance to the boundary rather than to envelop Pokrovsk at this time. Seizing the remainder of Donetsk Oblast is one of Putin's long-standing objectives in Ukraine, and Putin would likely highlight Russian advances up to the boundary to make outsized claims about Russian successes in Ukraine for both foreign and domestic audiences. An organized offensive operation against well-defended towns could slow the rate of Russian advance during a critical moment in the Kremlin's efforts to project the inevitability of Russian military victory on the global stage.

Key Takeaways:

• Russian forces are gradually advancing south and southwest of Pokrovsk, but it remains unclear if Russian forces will be able to exploit these gains to envelop the town or if they intend to advance to the administrative boundary of Donetsk Oblast.

• It remains unclear which effort the Russian military command will prioritize, as Russian President Vladimir Putin may have tasked the Russian military with securing territorial gains rather than seizing significant settlements.

• The Russian military command appears to have split responsibility for the Pokrovsk direction between the Central Military District's 2nd and 41st combined arms armies (CAAs), and ISW has yet to observe significant Russian activity in the 41st CAA's area of responsibility (AoR).

• Decreased combat effectiveness among Russian forces may be slowing the rate of Russian advance in the Pokrovsk direction.

• Increased Russian armored vehicle losses over the last year, particularly among Russian units and formations that have been engaged in frontline combat for most of 2024, may be impacting Russia's rate of advance in certain sectors of the frontline.

• North Korea is reportedly planning to deploy more troops and weapons to Russia amid reports that over 3,000 North Korean troops have been killed and wounded in Kursk Oblast.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin used his meeting with Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico to advance Russia's campaign to undermine Western unity in supporting Ukraine.

• The Kremlin may be setting information conditions for a false flag in the pro-Russian breakaway region of Transnistria likely in a continued attempt to destabilize Moldova and hinder its integration into European Union (EU).
• Russian forces have reportedly withdrawn completely from most of their positions in Syria, including their base at Qamishli in northern Syria. (NOTE: A version of this text also appears in ISW-CTP's December 23 Iran Update.)

• Russian forces recently advanced near Kupyansk, Toretsk, Vuhledar, Velyka Novosilka, and in Kursk Oblast.

• The Kremlin's "Time of Heroes" program, which aims to appoint Russian veterans into government positions, is already causing conflict between veterans and corrupt regional officials.

5. Cartels are Increasingly Turning to Social Media to Recruit Americans for Human Smuggling

​Excerpts:

Eric Brown, CEO of Imperio Consulting and a former Green Beret, told The Latin Times that these tactics mirror methods used in human intelligence operations to coerce individuals intro actions they wouldn't consider under normal settings:

"A common framework in human intelligence gathering is MICE—Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Ego—an acronym that describes the primary motivations that could drive someone to betray their country or become an insider threat, often revealing sensitive information to an enemy. Cartels are employing the 'Money' element of this model by exploiting financial desperation with promises of fast cash, while also leveraging 'Coercion' through veiled threats or pressures to keep recruits compliant"

Cartels are Increasingly Turning to Social Media to Recruit Americans for Human Smuggling

The strategy appears to be targeting younger, financially vulnerable Americans, taking advantage of vague job offers and promises of fast cash

 Pedro Camacho / Published Dec 23 2024, 4:31 AM EST

latintimes.com · by Pedro Camacho · December 23, 2024

Cartels are increasingly recruiting human smugglers through social media Via Pexels

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said on Thursday that Operation Lone Star, the state's plan to combat undocumented immigrants which was launched in 2021, has led to Texas arresting "49,400+ criminals, issuing 42,500+ felony charges, and seizing over HALF A BILLION deadly fentanyl doses."

However, in that same time span, Texas authorities report a staggering 1,150% rise in smuggling arrests since the launch of the operations, with most of those charged being U.S. citizens unaware of the illegal nature of their actions, as a new sprawling report from The Texas Tribune reveals.

But perhaps the most revealing finding from the Tribune is the fact that Cartels operating along the U.S.-Mexico border are increasingly using social media platforms to recruit Americans into human smuggling, taking advantage of vague job offers and promises of fast cash to lure victims.

The report explains that social media posts on platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Snapchat advertise vague opportunities such as driving jobs with guaranteed payments of thousands of dollars. Recruits often receive instructions through encrypted messaging apps like WhatsApp, where they are directed to border areas to pick up passengers and transport them to cities like San Antonio or Houston.

"We have Uber, we have Lyft, we have a lot of these different services where normal everyday citizens are drivers," said Mary Pietrazek, a San Antonio defense attorney who's represented nearly 500 people arrested under the state's human smuggling law to The Texas Tribune. "It's not outside the realm of possibility for somebody to want a driver."

The strategy appears to be targeting younger, financially vulnerable Americans as about half of those arrested for smuggling in Texas in recent years were under the age of 27, with teenagers accounting for 6% of arrests annually, with many recruits only realizing the criminal implications after encountering law enforcement or observing signs that their passengers are undocumented.

Eric Brown, CEO of Imperio Consulting and a former Green Beret, told The Latin Times that these tactics mirror methods used in human intelligence operations to coerce individuals intro actions they wouldn't consider under normal settings:

"A common framework in human intelligence gathering is MICE—Money, Ideology, Coercion, and Ego—an acronym that describes the primary motivations that could drive someone to betray their country or become an insider threat, often revealing sensitive information to an enemy. Cartels are employing the 'Money' element of this model by exploiting financial desperation with promises of fast cash, while also leveraging 'Coercion' through veiled threats or pressures to keep recruits compliant"

Texas lawmakers have responded by imposing harsher penalties for smuggling. Under a 2023 law, individuals convicted of human smuggling now face a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years. However, the crackdown has also drawn criticism for overwhelming local courts and disproportionately punishing individuals with limited involvement in organized crime.

Texas law enforcement made 1,400 human smuggling arrests the year before Gov. Greg Abbott launched Operation Lone Star in early 2021. By 2022, the number had exploded to 17,500.

© 2024 Latin Times. All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.

latintimes.com · by Pedro Camacho · December 23, 2024

6. White House Says Pakistan Is Developing Long-Range Missile Capable of Hitting the U.S.

​No mention of help from north Korea but we know from the extensive research of scholars like Dr. Bruce Bechtol that there has been north Korean support to the Pakistan missile program (while north Korea was gaining nuclear plans from the A.Q. Kahn network).

Excerpts:

The concern over Pakistan’s missile program comes as the U.S. is facing a growing Chinese nuclear force, a strategic-arms treaty with Russia that is set to expire in February 2026 and North Korea’s efforts to build up its nuclear arsenal. 

A classified directive issued earlier this year by President Biden instructs the Pentagon to develop options to simultaneously deter aggression by China, Russia and North Korea. 

White House Says Pakistan Is Developing Long-Range Missile Capable of Hitting the U.S.

U.S. revealed intelligence after Islamabad rebuffed confidential discussions about its missile program

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/white-house-says-pakistan-is-developing-long-range-missile-capable-of-hitting-the-u-s-0863d5eb?mod=Searchresults_pos2&page=1

By Michael R. Gordon

Follow

Dec. 23, 2024 8:00 am ET

A military parade in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, earlier this year. Photo: Associated Press

WASHINGTON—Weeks before it leaves office, the Biden administration said that Pakistan is developing a long-range ballistic missile that could eventually provide nuclear-armed Islamabad with a weapon capable of striking the U.S.

The administration disclosed the intelligence about Pakistan’s secret missile activities and imposed sanctions against a state-owned entity involved in the work after repeated efforts to press its concerns in confidential channels fell short, U.S. officials said. 

“The list of countries that possess both nuclear weapons and the missile capability to directly reach the U.S. homeland is very small, and they tend to be adversarial,” deputy national security adviser Jon Finer said Thursday. “So candidly, it is hard for us to see Pakistan’s actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States.”

The White House warning underscored a growing rift between Washington and Islamabad, which was once considered such a vital U.S. partner in South Asia that it was designated as a “major non-NATO ally” by the George W. Bush administration two decades ago.

The newly disclosed intelligence points to efforts by Pakistan to expand the reach of its missile force, including the development of equipment to test large rocket motors, officials said.

On Saturday, Pakistan’s foreign ministry spokeswoman said that Finer’s allegations were “unfounded,” “devoid of rationality” and “unhelpful for the overall relationship.” 

The development of a long-range missile that could target the U.S. would take several years and perhaps as long as a decade, a senior Biden administration official said.

“We’re trying to build this pressure to get ahead of this problem because we don’t want Pakistan to go down this road so far that we are dealing with something that is more imminent,” the administration official added. 

Pakistan has long had a close military relationship with China, which also views India as an adversary and has supplied the Pakistani military with arms and assistance for its missile program.

Finer said the U.S. is seeking a cooperative relationship with Pakistan and has worked with Islamabad on counterterrorism over the years. Despite ups and downs in relations, the U.S. has sought to preserve channels of communication, in part because of Pakistan’s position in the region and its status as a nuclear armed state.

The U.S. focus on countering China and on improving relations with India has strained ties in recent years with Islamabad, which has become less important to Washington since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Deputy national security adviser Jon Finer discussed Pakistan’s effort to develop a long-range missile. Photo: Juan barreto/Agence France-Presse/Getty Images

Under Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif it has moved in an increasingly authoritarian direction largely because of the influence of the military, which has long wielded considerable power. Islamabad’s nuclear program has been seen as aimed at India, also a nuclear-armed power with which it has fought three major wars since 1947.

The decision to publicize U.S. intelligence at the end of President Biden’s term in effect leaves the matter to President-elect Trump, who slashed security assistance to Pakistan during his first term and demanded it take a tougher stance against terror networks on its territory.

Finer spoke at an event sponsored by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Arms Control Association, and his comments were described by other senior administration officials as part of a broader diplomatic effort to pressure Pakistan to halt the program.

“If these trend lines continue, Pakistan will have the capability to strike targets well beyond South Asia, including in the United States,” Finer said of Pakistan’s effort to develop a long-range missile. “Just looking at a map and looking at ranges, you know, we believe that this is fundamentally focused on us.”

He declined to say why Pakistan might want to develop such a longer-range missile. But some analysts said that Islamabad might be seeking a way to deter Washington from assisting India if another war erupted between Pakistan and India.

Pakistan might also be seeking to raise the potential risks of a U.S. effort to forcibly disarm Islamabad’s nuclear arsenal, though U.S. officials said Washington has no intention to do so. 

Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal is slowly increasing and is currently about 170 warheads, according to Hans Kristensen of the Federation of American Scientists, a nonprofit that looks at security issues.

The Pakistan foreign ministry spokeswoman said that the country’s military programs “are meant to defend its sovereignty and preserve peace and stability in South Asia.”

The concern over Pakistan’s missile program comes as the U.S. is facing a growing Chinese nuclear force, a strategic-arms treaty with Russia that is set to expire in February 2026 and North Korea’s efforts to build up its nuclear arsenal. 

A classified directive issued earlier this year by President Biden instructs the Pentagon to develop options to simultaneously deter aggression by China, Russia and North Korea. 

On Wednesday, the State Department announced sanctions against the National Development Complex in Islamabad, which the U.S. said is responsible for the development of Pakistan’s Shaheen ballistic missiles and has worked to acquire items for a long-range missile program, including special vehicle chassis and missile-testing equipment. 

It is the first time that the U.S. has sanctioned a Pakistani state-owned enterprise involved in missile development, Finer noted. 

Sanctions were also imposed on three Pakistani companies in Karachi, which the State Department said were also involved in supplying equipment for a long-range missile program. The U.S. has previously sanctioned a Chinese institute and Chinese companies for aiding Pakistan’s missile program.

Write to Michael R. Gordon at michael.gordon@wsj.com

Copyright ©2024 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the December 24, 2024, print edition as 'Pakistan Develops Missile Capable of Hitting the U.S.'.

7. A history of the Panama Canal — and why Trump can't take it back on his own

A history of the Panama Canal — and why Trump can't take it back on his own

AP · by WILL WEISSERT · December 23, 2024

1 of 3 |

JUAN ZAMORANO

WILL WEISSERT

Weissert covers national politics and the White House for The Associated Press. He is based in Washington.

twittermailto

AP · by WILL WEISSERT · December 23, 2024

8. Judge rules Arkansas law allowing criminal charges against librarians is unconstitutional

​I should certainly hope so. This is really getting out of hand. When are they going to start putting parents in jail for allowing their minor children to have access to smartphones that can access porn?

Judge rules Arkansas law allowing criminal charges against librarians is unconstitutional

apnews.com

Judge rules Arkansas law allowing criminal charges against librarians is unconstitutional | AP News

U.S. News

Nate Coulter, executive director of the Central Arkansas Library System (CALS), looks at a book in the main branch of the public library in downtown Little Rock, Ark., May 23, 2023. An increasing number of conservative states are pushing for measures making it easier to ban or restrict access to books. (AP Photo/Katie Adkins, File)

By  ASSOCIATED PRESS

Updated [hour]:[minute] [AMPM] [timezone], [monthFull] [day], [year]  

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) — A federal judge on Monday struck down key parts of an Arkansas law that would have allowed criminal charges against librarians and booksellers for providing “harmful” materials to minors.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks found that elements of the law are unconstitutional.

“I respect the court’s ruling and will appeal,” Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin said in a statement to The Associated Press.

The law would have created a new process to challenge library materials and request that they be relocated to areas not accessible to children. The measure was signed by Republican Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders in 2023, but an earlier ruling had temporarily blocked it from taking effect while it was being challenged in court.

“The law deputizes librarians and booksellers as the agents of censorship; when motivated by the fear of jail time, it is likely they will shelve only books fit for young children and segregate or discard the rest,” Brooks wrote in his ruling.

A coalition that included the Central Arkansas Library System in Little Rock had challenged the law, saying fear of prosecution under the measure could prompt libraries and booksellers to no longer carry titles that could be challenged.

“This was an attempt to ‘thought police,’ and this victory over totalitarianism is a testament to the courage of librarians, booksellers, and readers who refused to bow to intimidation,” said Holly Dickson, executive director of the ACLU of Arkansas.

But supporters of the law, known as Act 372, say they will continue to fight for its implementation.

“Act 372 is just common sense: schools and libraries shouldn’t put obscene material in front of our kids,” Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement to KATV-TV. “I will work with Attorney General Griffin to appeal this ruling and uphold Arkansas law.”

The ruling comes as lawmakers in some conservative states are pushing for measures making it easier to ban or restrict access to books.

Laws restricting access to certain materials or making it easier to challenge them have been enacted in several other states, including Iowa, Indiana and Texas.

—-

This story removes a sentence in the penultimate paragraph of outdated material.

apnews.com

9. Costs of the CR: Marines will miss full strength, and more

​Is there a direct correlation between the CR and end strength?

Costs of the CR: Marines will miss full strength, and more

A continuing resolution is better than a shutdown, but it’s still a stopgap that hurts.

By Patrick Tucker

Science & Technology Editor

December 23, 2024 06:31 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

The military is undercut in various ways by Congress’ failure to pass a defense budget this far into the fiscal year—even if the stopgap funding bill passed in the wee hours of Saturday morning avoided a costlier government shutdown.

The Marine Corps will miss its full authorized strength by the equivalent of a regiment because of the CR, Commandant Gen. Eric Smith said earlier this month.

“We will not meet our end strength goals,” Smith said.

The commandant is just one of many defense officials who have warned about the negative effects of continuing resolutions, which are passed to allow the Defense Department and other federal agencies to continue operating when formal appropriations have not been enacted. They generally hold expenditures at last year’s levels, prevent new program starts, and can snarl defense planning and operations. Congress passed a continuing resolution just before fiscal 2025 began on Oct.1. It expired on Dec. 21 but was replaced by another CR that will expire on March 14.

Speaking at the Reagan National Security Forum earlier this month, Smith explained how the CR hurts re-enlistment efforts.

“We have Marines who have stepped up to reenlist. We've offered them bonuses to reenlist,” he said. If those bonuses don’t come or can’t be offered, Marines will look elsewhere before signing up again. “They expect to have that promise completed. Their families expect to have that promise completed and when it's not, then they tend to look elsewhere.”

The result, he said: “We'll lose 3,000 or 4,000 people, and that is an entire infantry regiment, and we can't afford to do that.”

In acquisition, a CR costs some $2 billion a month because it delays the start of new programs and initiatives, according to Rep. Ken Calvert, R-Calif.

“We can't afford to continue to operate in this matter,” said Calvert, who leads the House Appropriations Committee’s defense panel.

The CR would also reduce the incoming Trump administration’s ability to meet its objectives, he said: “This is going to slow down the administration in their first 100 days because they're going to be caught up in this.”

Others said the loss of time hurts even more than the money.

“Going six months [without a passed budget] is incredibly debilitating. It's inefficient. It does not allow us to ramp up programs we need to ramp up. It does not allow us to increase production. We're essentially giving away our most precious asset, which is time. So I can't say enough about the negative effects of CR,” Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall said Thursday at a Mitchell Institute event.

A Defense Department official speaking in September echoed that point.

“No amount of funding can make up for lost time," the official said. "A shutdown impacts our ability to outcompete the PRC [People's Republic of China] — it costs us time as well as money, and money can't buy back time, especially for lost training events."

And yet CRs have increasingly become standard operating procedure. Congress last passed a budget on time in 1996.

Audrey Decker contributed to this post.

defenseone.com · by Patrick Tucker

10. In defense of the military’s unfunded priority lists

​Excerpt:

Critics should recognize that unfunded priority lists are information, not mandates. Lawmakers can choose simply to ignore them—and in fact, often do. There is simply no pressing need to repeal a law that provides legislators with more detailed information about the federal agency that is both the largest and whose core function is at the heart of why the government exists. Congress should instead protect its prerogative to conduct deep oversight and continue to allow commanders to highlight risk in defense budget insufficiency and in critical areas of investment excluded from annual White House requests.

In defense of the military’s unfunded priority lists

The service branches’ “wish lists” are a key part of Congress’ oversight process.

By Mackenzie Eaglen, John Ferrari and Elaine McCusker

December 23, 2024 12:50 PM ET

defenseone.com · by Mackenzie Eaglen

The knives are out for the Defense Department’s unfunded priority lists—sometimes called the service branch “wish lists” because they contain items not included in the president’s annual budget request to Congress. But to end the practice would undermine lawmakers’ oversight of America’s armed forces by removing an opportunity for politicians to hear straight from those in uniform.

In a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin last year, a group of legislators called for repealing these annual lists, citing concerns about waste, abuse, and budgetary gamesmanship. Secretary Austin has also signaled his openness to nixing the lists, which isn’t a surprise. After months of painstaking analysis, negotiation, and strategy alignment, telling Congress about items that hit the budget-cutting room floor can seem like a challenge to a leader’s carefully crafted priorities.

But this tension is precisely why military unfunded priority lists are so valuable. They bypass the Pentagon’s bureaucratic filters to offer unvarnished assessments of strategic, operational, and tactical risks that might otherwise be obscured. Far from being “wish lists” of unneeded military capabilities, UPLs are better understood as “risk lists” that offer Congress and the public a clearer view of the tradeoffs buried in Pentagon budget decisions.

Each year, executive-branch agencies—including the largest, the Pentagon—prepare and submit their budget requests to the White House and then to Congress. This final product often obscures the assumptions, rationales, and hard choices that produced it. This is why UPLs are valuable. By requiring commanders to submit lists that reveal their own organizational priorities—not just the ones picked by political appointees—Congress can glean valuable insights into the highest-risk areas of defense-spending choices.

For example, the Navy’s 2025 UPL included $580 million to fund a damaged helicopter squadron hanger and $600 million for repairs for breakwater facilities on Guam. These were left out of the budget request, but their presence in the UPL underscores the estimated $50 billion in damages from a hurricane and an even longer list of an estimated $180 billion in deferred maintenance.

A Constitutional responsibility

Article I, Section 9 of the U.S. Constitution stipulates that “no Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law.” This is the clause that gives Congress the exclusive “power of the purse” and the final say on how taxpayer dollars are spent. Given the immensity of that task, Congress should have as much insight, advice, and access to quality information as possible, especially when it comes to national security.

Additionally, every senior military leader is asked during their confirmation process whether they will present the legislative branch with their best professional military judgment, even if they do not agree with the president or other leaders. Budgetary decisions are not exempt from this crucial provision of sharing information with elected leaders on Capitol Hill.

Unfunded requests have been around in some form or another since the 1980s, though recent legislation has widened their scope and necessity.

Though some critics call UPLs an example of government waste, they represent a tiny fraction of federal spending and, if approved, are subject to the same rules and oversight as any appropriated funds. In fiscal 2025, the Pentagon released 17 of these requests, whose total value of $29.4 billion amounted to 3.5 percent of the President’s $850 billion request for the Pentagon, and just 0.4 percent of total federal $7.3 trillion request.

Critics also often accuse Pentagon top brass of abusing these additional requests as an act of budget gamesmanship. The ploy, they say, is that military leaders excise key service priorities from the base defense budget, betting Congress will bump up their budgets for the needed purchases. This can be rebutted by a look at fiscal 2024, when commanders submitted $16.9 billion in unfunded priority lists requests. Instead of heaping these billions on top of the President’s topline, Congress made tweaks around the edges. The final appropriation bill saw just a $160 million difference from the president’s request, meaning 99 percent of the additional dollars in the unfunded priority lists did not appear in final appropriations.

Source: Conference report on the fiscal year (FY) 2024 MILCON/VA Appropriations bill, Conference report on the FY 2024 Defense Appropriations bill, and AEI's 2023 report "Defense Budget: The Storied Unfunded Priorities Lists". Dollars in billions.

Critics should recognize that unfunded priority lists are information, not mandates. Lawmakers can choose simply to ignore them—and in fact, often do. There is simply no pressing need to repeal a law that provides legislators with more detailed information about the federal agency that is both the largest and whose core function is at the heart of why the government exists. Congress should instead protect its prerogative to conduct deep oversight and continue to allow commanders to highlight risk in defense budget insufficiency and in critical areas of investment excluded from annual White House requests.

Mackenzie Eaglen, John Ferrari, and Elaine McCusker are senior fellows at the American Enterprise Institute.

defenseone.com · by Mackenzie Eaglen

11.Philippine Military Says Will Acquire US Typhon Missile System

Philippine Military Says Will Acquire US Typhon Missile System

thedefensepost.com · by Staff Writer With AFP · December 23, 2024

The Philippine military said Monday it plans to acquire the US Typhon missile system to protect its maritime interests, some of which overlap with regional power China.

The US Army deployed the mid-range missile system in the northern Philippines earlier this year for annual joint military exercises with its longtime ally, and decided to leave it there despite criticism by Beijing that it was destabilizing to Asia.

Since then, it has been used by Philippine forces to train for its operation.

“It is planned to be acquired because we see its feasibility and its functionality in our concept of archipelagic defense implementation,” Philippine Army chief Lieutenant-General Roy Galido told a news conference.

“I’m happy to report to our fellow countrymen that your army is developing this capability for the interest of protecting our sovereignty,” he said, adding the total number to be acquired would depend on “economics.”

The presence of the US missile launcher in the northern Philippine had angered Beijing, whose navy and coast guard forces have engaged in escalating confrontations in recent months with the Philippines over disputed reefs and waters in the South China Sea.

Beijing swiftly condemned the decision to acquire the system as a “provocative and dangerous move” and warned it risked triggering an “arms race.”

“It is an extremely irresponsible choice for the history of its own people and the people of Southeast Asia, as well as for regional security,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning said Monday.

“The region needs peace and prosperity, not missiles and confrontation,” she added.

Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

As a rule, it takes at least two or more years for the Philippine military to acquire a new weapons system from the planning stage, Galido said, adding it was not yet budgeted for 2025.

It took five years for Manila to take delivery of the BrahMos cruise missile last year, he added.

‘Project Force’

The land-based “mid-range capability” Typhon missile launcher, developed by US firm Lockheed Martin for the US Army, has a range of 300 miles (480 kilometers), though a longer-range version is in development.

Galido said the Typhon system would enable the army to “project force” outwards up to 200 nautical miles (370 kilometers), which is the limit of the archipelago nation’s maritime entitlements under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

“You have to take note of the fact that at 200 nautical miles there is no land there and the army cannot go there,” he said.

“We need to contribute to this (defence of Philippine interests) by having this platform to be able to assist the primary major service that would focus on maritime and air domain,” Galido added.

Under that scenario, the Typhon platform “will protect our floating assets,” he said, a reference to ships of the Philippine navy, coast guard and other vessels.

Chinese Defence Minister Dong Jun warned in June that the Typhon deployment was “severely damaging regional security and stability.”

Galido dismissed the criticism against the Typhon system in the Philippines.

“We should not be bothered by others’ seeming insecurities because we don’t have any plans to go outside of our country’s interests,” he said.

thedefensepost.com · by Staff Writer With AFP · December 23, 2024

12. Forgotten Wars: The Rising Tension in the Philippines

​Excerpts:

The rivalry between the United States and China has turned the South China Sea into a geopolitical battleground. While Washington views this region as crucial for global maritime security, Beijing seeks to consolidate its strategic and economic dominance in the area. The Philippines, thus, finds itself in a precarious position, forced to balance its national sovereignty against the pressures exerted by two global powers.

The politico-military crisis in the Philippines reflects a broader struggle that extends beyond the boundaries of its territorial waters, significantly impacting the strategic control of the Indo-Pacific. Manila, caught between two opposing forces and already burdened with a challenging internal situation, strives to maintain a fragile equilibrium by bolstering its defenses with traditional allies and promoting diplomacy to safeguard its sovereignty. However, rising tensions - exacerbated by recent Chinese military exercises around Taiwan - significantly increase the risk of open conflict, with repercussions that could affect the entire world. 

Forgotten Wars: The Rising Tension in the Philippines

By Matteo Balzarini Zane

https://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2024/12/21/forgotten_wars_the_rising_tension_in_the_philippines_1080239.html?utm

The Philippines, strategically located at the heart of Southeast Asia, occupies a critical geopolitical position. The current politico-military crisis primarily revolves around the South China Sea, a contested area rich in natural resources and home to one of the world's most vital maritime trade routes. In this context, the country faces an increasingly aggressive China while simultaneously strengthening its historic alliance with the United States. 

The United States has been a crucial partner for the Philippines for decades, largely due to the 1951 Mutual Defense Treaty. This agreement stipulates that Washington will provide military assistance to Manila in the event of an external attack. Over the years, the alliance has been reinforced through agreements such as the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA), which allows the U.S. to construct new military infrastructure and utilize existing Philippine bases for defensive purposes.

Recently, the U.S. administration expanded the scope of EDCA, enhancing its presence in the Philippines with advanced operational capabilities. Additionally, the U.S. regularly participates in joint exercises such as the Balikatan maneuvers, which bolster the operational readiness of the Philippine Armed Forces. For Washington, the Philippines is a cornerstone of its Indo-Pacific strategy, aimed at countering China's growing influence in the region. The contested waters of the South China Sea are particularly sensitive, not only due to the Taiwan issue but also because the U.S. has repeatedly emphasized that any attack on Philippine vessels or bases would be interpreted as a direct assault on American interests. 

China, for its part, claims nearly the entirety of the South China Sea as part of its historical territory, despite international rulings rejecting such assertions. In 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague ruled that China's claims had no legal basis. However, Beijing ignored the verdict, continuing to consolidate its presence in the area. China’s actions include the militarization of artificial islands, such as those in the Spratly and Scarborough Shoal regions, which are near Philippine territory. 

Beijing has also adopted a strategy of "passive aggression," using its coast guard and fishing fleets to intimidate Philippine vessels. Recent incidents have included the use of water cannons against Philippine ships and naval blockades that prevent the resupply of outposts in contested waters. This escalation has driven Manila to seek international support, engaging regional powers such as Japan and Australia. 

Beyond geopolitical challenges, the Philippines grapples with complex internal issues that undermine the country's stability. With the election of Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. in 2022, the son of the controversial former dictator Ferdinand Marcos, unresolved issues have resurfaced in public discourse. Despite Marcos Jr.'s promises to promote unity and economic development, the nation continues to struggle with social inequalities, corruption, and a precarious security situation. 

A chronic problem is the ongoing conflict with armed groups and Islamist militants in the southern regions of the country. In Mindanao and Sulu, movements such as Abu Sayyaf and the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) remain constant threats. Although peace agreements have been signed with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), violence persists, fueled by religious extremism and poverty. Recently, the Manila government has sought to strengthen the implementation of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, but the process faces delays and local resistance. 

The rivalry between the United States and China has turned the South China Sea into a geopolitical battleground. While Washington views this region as crucial for global maritime security, Beijing seeks to consolidate its strategic and economic dominance in the area. The Philippines, thus, finds itself in a precarious position, forced to balance its national sovereignty against the pressures exerted by two global powers. 

The politico-military crisis in the Philippines reflects a broader struggle that extends beyond the boundaries of its territorial waters, significantly impacting the strategic control of the Indo-Pacific. Manila, caught between two opposing forces and already burdened with a challenging internal situation, strives to maintain a fragile equilibrium by bolstering its defenses with traditional allies and promoting diplomacy to safeguard its sovereignty. However, rising tensions - exacerbated by recent Chinese military exercises around Taiwan - significantly increase the risk of open conflict, with repercussions that could affect the entire world. 

Matteo Balzarini Zane, bachelor degree in Political Science, International Relations and Human Rights at the University of Padua (Italy). His X account is @m_balzarinizane.

13. Syria’s Rebel Leaders Have Control of the Country. Now What?

Syria’s Rebel Leaders Have Control of the Country. Now What?

The new Islamist-led government promises moderation, but officials aren’t committing to such issues as women’s rights or free elections

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/syria-new-leader-priorities-ahmed-al-sharaa-jawlani-4dd71b01?mod=hp_lead_pos7

By Jared MalsinFollow

Dec. 23, 2024 9:00 pm ET

DAMASCUS, Syria—Victorious Islamist rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa spends his days conferring with advisers and meeting a stream of visitors—U.S. diplomats and leaders from Turkey, Jordan, Qatar and Syria’s religious sects.

They all want to know the same thing: How does Sharaa plan to govern the war-battered nation of 23 million people?

Sharaa, a guerrilla fighter who led the campaign that toppled the regime of Bashar al-Assad, is seeking an answer. So far, the U.S.-designated terrorist has shed the nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, which drew the world’s attention, and swapped combat fatigues for a suit.

Sharaa fought with al Qaeda in Iraq as an anti-U.S. jihadist and, in recent years, has sought to recast himself as a more moderate figure, promoting a pragmatic brand of Islamist politics. He now counsels patience. 

“People have big ambitions, but today we must think realistically,” he told reporters after the rebels’ swift victory. “Syria has many problems, and they won’t be solved with a magic wand.”

Sharaa’s rebel group, which had for years been running a tiny swath of northwest Syria, now controls cosmopolitan Damascus and rules over millions of Syrians including Alawites, Christians and Kurds. In Aleppo, the first city claimed in the recent offensive, the group left churches untouched and promised to govern inclusively. 

Sharaa, leaders of his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS, as well as allied resistance groups, face decisions that open the door to peaceful rebuilding after more than a decade of civil war or new rounds of sectarian fighting fueled by the meddling of outside powers.

The rebel leader’s immediate challenge is maintaining order and government services. His group, HTS, had essentially administered a single city in a rebel-held enclave of five million people. To govern the whole country is a tall order. Around 25,000 fighters are spread across Syria’s largest cities, and civilian authorities also are stretched thin. 

Celebrations in Damascus after the ousting of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad. Photo: amr alfiky/Reuters

A handout photo showing Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, left, and Syria’s rebel leader Ahmed al-Sharaa in Damascus. Photo: turkish foreign ministry press oFFICE HANDOUT/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

HTS political affairs bureau member Mohamed Khaled described in a briefing with reporters the group’s to-do list: Merge rebel groups into a national army, bring back Syrian refugees, write a constitution and staff government ministries.

Khaled said he and Sharaa envision a yearlong transition to lay the framework for a new government. Such hot-button social issues as women’s dress codes, the treatment of LGBT people and alcohol consumption will be discussed, they said, and elections will have to wait.

More broadly, Syria’s course will shape the influence of Russia, which has military bases in the country that serve as its foothold in the Middle East, and Iran, which sent militia forces to back the Assad regime and has long used Syria as an arena to exercise regional power. 

U.S.-backed Kurdish-led militias still control about a third of Syrian territory in the northeast, but they are under increasing pressure from Turkey, which is largely aligned with the new Islamist-led government in Damascus.

In the south, Israel sent troops into a buffer zone near the Golan Heights and seized high ground that commands the approach to Damascus. Sharaa has sought to avoid friction with Israel, even after Israel’s heavy airstrikes.

Barbara Leaf, an assistant U.S. Secretary of State who met Sharaa on Friday, said she heard “some very pragmatic and moderate statements on various issues from women’s rights to protection of equal rights for all communities.”

“It was a good first meeting,” Leaf said. “We will judge by deeds, not just by words. “

“At the end of the day they’re pragmatic, they’re utilitarian, they’re politicians, they’re incomparable to the regime in terms of their policies,” said Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser at International Crisis Group who has interviewed Sharaa many times. “But they are conservative Islamists.”

Some Western officials and analysts argue for removal of the group’s U.S. designation as a terrorist organization. Robert Ford, a former U.S. ambassador who initially pushed to add Sharaa to the terror list, has said they likely no longer qualify.

“Based on what they do now it would be hard to write a justification putting them on the Foreign Terrorist Organization list,” he said, noting that the group’s fighters fought and died in battle against Islamic State and for years allowed a U.S.-based medical charity to run a hospital in Idlib. 

“I don’t think they have a detailed plan yet,” said Ford, the former U.S. ambassador to Syria. “I think, in part, they’re making it up as they go.”

Breaking away

Sharaa, who was born in 1982 in Saudi Arabia, grew up in Damascus. He spent five years in a U.S. prison camp in Iraq after rising through the ranks of al Qaeda in Iraq at a time when the militant group launched attacks on U.S. forces and Shiite civilians.

In 2011, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, dispatched Sharaa to Syria to form a local group after the revolt against Assad started. Sharaa’s nom de guerre, Jawlani, which means someone from the Golan, refers to his family’s roots in the Golan Heights. His grandfather was displaced during Israel’s capture of the territory in the 1967 Six-Day War.

Sharaa grew popular with military successes against the Assad regime and social services provided by his group, according to Aaron Zelin, a security analyst at the Washington Institute for Near Eastern Affairs, and his book on HTS.

Baghdadi grew to distrust Sharaa, who refused orders to wipe out opposition activists and rival rebel groups. 

A still image from a 2019 video of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi posted on a militant website. Photo: AL-FURGAN MEDIA/Associated Press

A 2020 photo showing an government airstrike on the rebel-held town of Ariha in the north of Syria. Photo: omar haj kadour/AFP/Getty Images

When Baghdadi declared the creation of Islamic State in 2013, Sharaa split off and renewed his allegiance to al Qaeda. He was guaranteed autonomy by al Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahari. Sharaa later described it as a marriage of convenience. 

Sharaa severed ties with al Qaeda in 2016 and set out to unify with other rebel groups. He set aside the transnational jihad advocated by al Qaeda and Islamic State and said his goal was to overthrow the Assad regime, rid Syria of Russian and Iranian influence and allow the return of displaced Syrians.

During the decade of war that followed Syria’s 2011 revolution, the Assad regime backed by Russian air power and Iranian-allied fighters pushed HTS and other rebels into a mountainous enclave of northwestern Syria centered on the city of Idlib. 

Idlib was known as one of the country’s most conservative cities before the war and swelled with an influx of an estimated two million people displaced by war from other parts of Syria. The city became a rebel-run statelet governed by Islamic law. Nearly all women wore headscarves, and HTS allowed no opposition to its rule.

The rebel group set up an Islamist-led government with courts and a school system in Idlib, launched a campaign to stamp out Islamic State and opened the region to foreign NGOs. For years, HTS has tried to distance itself from its former allies in the world of violent extremism and banned attacks abroad. 

Sharaa and his lieutenants, now in charge, say they need to respect Syria’s diversity.

“People have different cultures,” Khaled, the political affairs bureau official, said last week. At the same time, he said, “Syria’s identity is Syrian, and most of its population is Muslim.”

People removing the Syrian flag from the entrance of Bashar al-Assad’s residence in Damascus after the rebel takeover. Photo: bakr al kassem/AFP/Getty Images

No elections

After Assad fled Damascus on Dec. 8, Sharaa and HTS moved much of its administration from Idlib. “I have brought with me full institutions,” including armed forces, ministers and blueprints for an education system, Sharaa told reporters.

Police cars bearing the logo of the Islamist-led Salvation Government rolled in after Assad’s security services fled. HTS fighters in combat gear, their assault rifles slung over their shoulders, took control of the presidential palace and military and intelligence buildings.

 “The main goal is security, in order to allow the formation of the new government and the police,” said Abu Redaa Khaled, a 21-year-old member of the rebels’ special forces as he walked through the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus.

The new government has reopened schools and returned civil servants to work. It controls state television and the state-controlled news agency. Though the new leaders dismantled the regime’s military and security services, HTS officials said, they decided to preserve many state institutions.

“We didn’t have a choice,” Khaled said. “They understand the secrets of the state.” When HTS formed a new government, the group moved in the prime minister from its Idlib-based Salvation Government.

Western officials broadly agree that Syria’s new leaders have shown a command of technocratic details to manage such national responsibilities as power generation and currency reserves. One European diplomat, who spoke with Sharaa this month, said he expects mistakes from the new government. The question for the West, the diplomat said, is which mistakes to tolerate.

A man searching for the grave of a relative in Damascus on Monday. Photo: Chris McGrath/Getty Images

Syrian rebel fighters and residents in Homs, Syria, celebrating the fall of the Assad regime. Photo: abdulaziz ketaz/AFP/Getty Images

Many Syrians in exile have said they plan to return home, including those who hope to start businesses, charities or media enterprises. Many in Damascus said they were indifferent to HTS but were enjoying their new freedom of expression.

The Assad regime had long closed the white-stone esplanade of the eighth-century Umayyad Mosque, which stands in central Damascus. It has been a source of national pride for Syrians, a tourist destination before the civil war and an emotional symbol for millions of Muslims worldwide. 

In mid-December, the rebels opened the esplanade, and throngs of people filed into the complex. Many waved newly sewn green-white-and-black flags of the Syrian revolution, which had been banned under the Assad regime. In the plaza, rebel fighters and residents alike posed for photos.

“Now I can do something to help the country. Before, I couldn’t,” said Zoya Abdullah, a 22-year-old economics student at Damascus University. “We feel more relaxed now.”

Sharaa and his group have succeeded as liberators but have yet to prove themselves as leaders. Not long after the country changed hands, hundreds of people gathered in a Damascus square chanting “secularism” and “no to religious rule.”

The protest came after the spokesman for the new government, Obeida Arnout told a Lebanese news channel that women “by their biological and psychological nature,” weren’t suited “for all roles within the state, such as the Ministry of Defense.” 

Ghazal Bakri, a 23-year-old from the town of Sweida, stood in the square holding up a placard with the names of prominent Syrian women activists.

“We don’t want the last 13 years to go to waste,” Bakri said. “We demand the separation of state and religion.”

In a meeting with foreign journalists, Khaled was asked how his government would approach social issues such as LGBT rights and the sale of alcohol at bars.

“It’s open for discussion,” Khaled said. “There will be committees, there will be a constitution, and this is all going to be decided by the laws.”

That transition will take time as laws and a constitution are written, he said. Until, he added, there will be no elections.

Aroub Hammoud, Saleh al-Batati, Isabel Coles and Bertrand Benoit contributed to this article.

A crowd celebrating the overthrow of the Assad regime at Umayyad Square in Damascus. Photo: amr alfiky/Reuters

Write to Jared Malsin at jared.malsin@wsj.com

14. Merit and the Case for Immigration

Merit and the Case for Immigration

Most of the high-achieving U.S. students to whom we award college scholarships have foreign-born parents.

https://www.wsj.com/opinion/merit-and-the-case-for-immigration-education-scholarships-texas-finis-welch-a1dd1c1f?mod=Searchresults_pos1&page=1

By Phil Gramm and Robert Topel

Dec. 23, 2024 4:58 pm ET

Illustration: Martin Kozlowski

In a country with widespread use of quotas, preferences and set-asides, we seldom see unadulterated merit, especially in academics. As board members of a foundation that awards scholarships based on merit and financial need, we have seen what merit looks like. The findings are important enough to share.

Finis Welch, our late friend and economics colleague at Texas A&M University and UCLA, grew up in a poor Texas family and was paralyzed from the waist down in an accident when he was 18. That setback fueled his determination to succeed. Finis became a prominent academic economist and made a fortune in statistical software, economic consulting and ranching. He left that fortune to award four-year college scholarships to promising students from Texas families of modest means. Students, in other words, like him.

The Finis Welch Foundation supports more than 40 students a year at Texas A&M and the University of Texas, with plans to expand to as many as 250 scholarships a year. Both universities provide the foundation with roughly 300 of their top applications from students seeking financial aid. Our scholarships cover tuition, room and board and provide services, such as mentoring and business contacts, that prosperous parents might give their children. The foundation offers instruction in everything from table manners and etiquette to career and life advice and has staff who are there when our scholars need help.

When awarding scholarships, the foundation ignores applicants’ race and sex. We review high-school transcripts, but given the level of grade inflation, for all practical purposes, our applicants have near-perfect grades and have taken many advanced-placement courses. So transcripts and grades are of limited use in choosing among candidates. The same is true for the obligatory college essay. Other factors are more informative and distinguishing, such as extracurricular activities and whether an applicant worked while in high school. All applicants have stellar recommendations, but some letters stand out. Relative performance on standardized tests is the key differentiator among this pool of high-achieving candidates. That’s why the foundation requires all applicants to take the SAT or ACT. The average SAT score of last year’s 43 scholarship recipients was 1450, which is at the 96th percentile, and the highest score was a perfect 1600.

Once we make our selections, we ask for more biographical information as part of our counseling support. When the process is complete each year, the most common characteristic among recipients is that both parents were born in a foreign country. This was true of 62% of the recipients in 2024, about three times the share that would be expected if the students were drawn at random from the nation’s schools. Another 9% had one foreign-born parent, while only 29% had both parents born in the U.S. Parents of this year’s recipients came from China, Guatemala, India, Korea, Kuwait, Laos, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan and Vietnam. Not surprisingly in Texas, 20% of foreign-born parents were from Mexico.

These extraordinary numbers raise the question: Why did a majority of high-school seniors chosen on merit come from families with immigrant parents? Part of the reason is that foreign-born parents are on average poorer and more likely to meet the foundation’s income requirement. But there’s more to it. Based on research from the Institute for Family Studies, immigrant households are more likely to have both natural parents in the household. Also, their children were less than half as likely to have recorded behavioral problems at school, and were much less likely to have ever been expelled.

But immigrant households also predominantly spoke a foreign language at home, were much more likely to live in poor areas or areas with high minority populations, and were less likely to own their own home. The overwhelming majority of Welch Foundation scholarship recipients attended public schools—often subpar ones—though they were more likely than other students in their neighborhoods to attend charter schools. But perhaps the most significant finding is that 91% of all immigrant parents nationwide expected their children to graduate from college, and 59% expected them to pursue graduate or professional degrees.

Our conversations with winners confirm these high expectations. Immigrant parents know their children can advance through education.

These findings reinforce why America needs immigrants. Illegal immigration should be stopped because it is illegal, but that shouldn’t taint our view of legal immigration. Immigrants bring new energy to America, and their drive to succeed has been a powerful force for American progress.

The story of America is the story of the immigrant. America can attract legal immigrants from all over the world based on the opportunity and freedom we offer. What Pericles said 2,500 years ago about Athens applies to America today: “Where the prize is highest, there, too, will you find the best and the bravest.”

Preventing the best and bravest from coming to our shores is a recipe for national decline. Ambition and dreams are powerful. The Finis Welch scholarship recipient this year with a perfect 1600 SAT score and foreign-born parents was asked on the scholarship application about his goals. His response: “to cure cancer.”

Mr. Gramm, a former chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, is a nonresident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. Mr. Topel is vice chairman of the Welch Foundation and a professor emeritus of economics at the University of Chicago.

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Appeared in the December 24, 2024, print edition as 'Merit and the Case for Immigration'.

​15. Ex-US fighter pilot accused of training Chinese military to be extradited to the United States

​What was this guy thinking?​ Could he only see $$$$$?

Ex-US fighter pilot accused of training Chinese military to be extradited to the United States | CNN

CNN · by Hilary Whiteman · December 23, 2024

Daniel Duggan (right) faces a lengthy prison sentence if convicted in the United States.

Courtesy Free Dan Duggan Campaign

Brisbane, Australia CNN —

A former US Marine accused of training Chinese military pilots will be extradited to face charges in the United States, Australia’s Attorney General confirmed Monday, dealing a blow to supporters who have mounted a public campaign for his freedom.

Daniel Duggan, a naturalized Australian, was arrested in the state of New South Wales in 2022 based on a 2017 US grand jury indictment that accuses him of training Chinese military pilots in violation of a US arms embargo.

Duggan denies the charges, claiming that US officials knew about his activities and that he was only training civilian pilots as China’s aviation sector boomed.

Attorney General Mark Dreyfus confirmed that Duggan “should be extradited to face prosecution for the offences of which he is accused.”

After leaving the US military, Daniel Duggan offered joy flights in Tasmania through his company, Top Gun.

Courtesy Saffrine Duggan

Related article Ex-US Marines fighter pilot loses bid to block extradition to the United States over China training allegations

“Mr Duggan was given the opportunity to provide representations as to why he should not be surrendered to the United States. In arriving at my decision, I took into consideration all material in front of me,” Dreyfus said in a statement Monday.

His decision follows court approval for Duggan’s extradition by a magistrate in May.

In a statement, the pilot’s wife, Saffrine Duggan, said she and their six children were “shocked and absolutely heartbroken by this callous and inhumane decision which has been delivered just before Christmas with no explanation or justification from the Government.”

“We feel abandoned by the Australian Government and deeply disappointed that they have completely failed in their duty to protect an Australian family. We are now considering our options,” she said.

If convicted, Duggan faces a prison sentence of up to 65 years.

Argument against extradition

Duggan has been in custody since his arrest in October 2022, just weeks after returning to his family in Australia from six years working in China. He was detained by Australian police acting on the request of US authorities.

The 2017 indictment filed in the District of Columbia says that “as early as 2008,” Duggan received an email from the US State Department telling him he was required to register with the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls and apply for permission to train a foreign air force.

Instead, it claims he conspired with others – including the Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA) – to export defense services in violation of an arms embargo on China.

In a statement to CNN in 2023, TFASA said it complies with the laws of every jurisdiction in which it operates.

The statement said Duggan undertook one test-pilot contract for the company in South Africa between November and December 2012, and “never worked for TFASA on any of its training mandates in China.”

Duggan moved to China in 2013 and renounced his US citizenship at the US embassy in Beijing in 2016, though it was backdated on a certificate to 2012 to reflect when he became an Australian citizen, according to his lawyers.

FILE - In this June 29, 2019, file photo, President Donald Trump, left, meets with Chinese President Xi Jinping during a meeting on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Osaka, Japan. The Democratic impeachment inquiry may give Trump extra motivation to end his trade war with China, claim credit for a policy victory and divert a little attention from a congressional investigation into his dealings with Ukraine. But the partisan wrangling will complicate Trump's ambitious trade agenda overall, including his push to win congressional approval for a revamped North American trade agreement. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

Susan Walsh/AP

Related article Trump has assembled a team of China hawks. How will Beijing respond?

In an 89-page submission filed to Dreyfus’ office in August, Duggan’s lawyers alleged the former US serviceman had become a political pawn during a time of heightened US-China tensions.

It said that his case had been used to send a message to Western pilots that any dealings with China will not be tolerated by the US, or its allies.

“The extradition request is a brutal response to US Sinophobia,” his lawyer Bernard Collaery wrote in a cover letter attached to the submission.

“While scapegoating Daniel Duggan may please some, his extradition into a baying political environment and semi-lawless prison system may also constitute a profound moral and foreign policy failure by Australia,” he wrote.

Duggan’s arrest two years ago came as the US, the United Kingdom and Australia formed a stronger security bond under AUKUS, a deal they signed in 2021 to join forces in the Pacific to counter an increasingly assertive China.

Since then, the UK and Australia have tightened their laws surrounding former military personnel and their post-service activities.

CNN · by Hilary Whiteman · December 23, 2024

​16. A Pathway to Peace in Ukraine

​Excerpts:

It would be surprising if diplomatic efforts to end the war succeed in less than a year—if they succeed at all. Consider that it took two years and more than 500 meetings for the parties to the Korean armistice to come to agreement. Beyond stopping the fighting in Ukraine, the even larger task of stabilizing Russian-Western relations will likely require an open-ended process rather than a single agreed document. Another risk of pushing for a quick deal is that it may create the impression that the United States values getting a deal done more than getting a good one. Washington would not want to create expectations in Moscow that the United States is uninterested in the details and thus willing to make significant concessions in the interest of a quick resolution.

Trump needs a well-defined vision of the endgame.

Another pitfall would be the use of ultimatums to force the sides to accept a deal. Some in Trump’s orbit have advocated wielding U.S. military aid to Ukraine as a cudgel against whichever party proves intransigent in the talks: either by threatening to ramp up assistance to Kyiv to put the screws on Russia or to cut it off if Ukraine refuses to make the necessary compromises. Either step could backfire. It is not in the U.S. interest to cut off aid to Ukraine completely under almost any circumstance, because that could enable a Russian takeover of the country. Given how much aid the United States has already provided to Ukraine, there is not much room for Washington to expand the flow of arms quantitatively, and further qualitative increases would entail unacceptable escalation risks. In any case, such threats are unlikely to prove effective: U.S. leverage with Russia and Ukraine is significant, but not so much so as to force either of them to take what they see as a bad deal since both see the issues at stake as existential or near existential.

Third, Trump and Kellogg should avoid making this a bilateral U.S.-Russian negotiation. Putting aside the immorality and ugly historical resonances of excluding Kyiv from deciding its own fate, it is necessary to involve the Ukrainian side on purely pragmatic grounds: Ukraine can scuttle any deal that it finds unacceptable. Additionally, there are compelling practical reasons to keep the Europeans and other U.S. allies such as Japan involved: the EU accession process is key to Ukraine’s future stability; allies’ economic resources will be necessary to support reconstruction; and having a unified U.S.-European position will prevent either Russia or Ukraine from playing one side off the other.

Although the coming to power of a U.S. president who pledges to quickly end the war raises the possibility of a breakthrough, it also poses major risks. These will be high-stakes negotiations, mostly between two embittered belligerents in a war that has killed tens of thousands—and maybe hundreds of thousands—on both sides. If Trump’s efforts fail, the dynamic of the conflict will not simply revert to a stable status quo ante: the war is intensifying, and it is also becoming more internationalized. With a well-defined vision of the endgame and a game plan to get there, the incoming administration could help bring an end to this horror and the growing risks it poses to the broader world.

A Pathway to Peace in Ukraine

Foreign Affairs · by More by Samuel Charap · December 24, 2024

Trump Needs a Realistic Game Plan, Strong Incentives, and Patience

Samuel Charap

December 24, 2024

Riding a bicycle near a front line in Donetsk, Ukraine, December 2024 Alina Smutko / Reuters

Samuel Charap is Distinguished Chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy and a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation.

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For those seeking to end Russia’s devastating war in Ukraine, the election of Donald Trump presents a crucial opportunity. In direct contrast to U.S. President Joe Biden, whose administration has held to a policy of unwavering support for Ukraine without pushing for a defined endgame to the war, Trump has focused almost exclusively on that endgame. He has long made clear his intention to bring the two sides to the negotiating table soon after he takes office and maybe even before that. Within weeks of his election victory, he named a retired general and former senior official, Keith Kellogg, as special envoy for Russia-Ukraine, underscoring the priority he and his administration will place on winding down the war.

This coming radical shift in the U.S. approach to the war could revive negotiations that have been effectively dormant since April 2022. Back then, in the first weeks of the war, Russia and Ukraine conducted several rounds of talks in person and online aimed at ending the conflict; although a framework for peace called the Istanbul Communiqué was drawn up, an agreement was never finalized. In the run-up to and since Trump’s election, however, there have been signs that both Kyiv and Moscow might be ready to return to the table. This is particularly true of the Ukrainians, who have been losing ground—as well as people and energy generation capacity—for two years and need urgent relief before their manpower situation becomes critical. Russia also faces some challenges: it is taking more ground by the day but at an extremely high price, and the Kremlin wants to lock in those gains without having to incur enormous costs indefinitely.

Although the president-elect has not yet articulated a clear plan for ending the war, he has given hints of the approach he might take. Specifically, Trump often points to the horrible human costs of the war and indicates a desire to put an end to the fighting as soon as possible. But pursuing a cease-fire agreement that does not address the underlying drivers of the conflict is unlikely to work. Indeed, a deal that just ends the fighting would likely be unacceptable to both Kyiv and Moscow.

To gain traction, any U.S. approach to talks must take account of the broader drivers of the conflict that are in play on both sides and how they can plausibly be addressed. The administration will need to both formulate a comprehensive endgame for the war that addresses these core issues and craft a diplomatic strategy for getting there. That means not only setting out a road map for a durable cease-fire but also identifying ways to assure Ukrainian security, providing incentives to both sides, and laying out a strategy for stabilizing Russia’s relations with the West.

TELL THEM HOW IT ENDS

A crucial prerequisite for a successful U.S. approach to negotiations is a defined endgame. The Biden administration has made it a matter of policy not to define a U.S. objective for the war in Ukraine but rather to support Ukraine for “as long as it takes” and to defer to Kyiv on the details of the desired outcome. This pointed refusal to have a defined U.S. goal is not the norm for U.S. foreign policy. Although it can be awkward for the United States to state a desired outcome for a conflict in which it is not a direct participant, Washington has often done so when the stakes for U.S. interests were high and it had leverage, as, for example, in the 1995 Dayton peace accords that ended the Balkan wars or in President George W. Bush’s “road map” to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Indeed, Biden himself specified the U.S. vision of an endgame for the other ongoing conflict of major geopolitical significance, the war in Gaza.

In this context, Biden’s refusal to articulate a U.S. plan for ending the war in Ukraine is a glaring omission. For much of the past year, the president’s silence on the issue has sparked bipartisan ire in Congress, which demanded such a strategy when it approved the administration’s $60 billion supplemental request for Ukraine in April. Moreover, in the absence of a U.S. strategy, other powers, including China and Brazil, have dominated the international conversation about ending the war: Beijing alone has penned three different peace plans. That Trump has so swiftly redirected that conversation away from the Chinese peace plans—and even the Ukrainian plan—underscores the leverage the United States has always had to shape the outcome.

As of now, Trump has said he wants the fighting to end, but he has not laid out a plan to get there. Any such plan should include four key features: a well-designed cease-fire agreement, a credible guarantee of Ukraine’s postwar security, a way to provide accountability for Russia’s aggression, and measures to stabilize Russian-Western relations. The question of which side controls what territory is unlikely to be decided at the negotiating table; the line of contact, perhaps with some small swaps and adjustments, will remain where it is when the guns fall silent. Moreover, territorial control, while extremely important to both sides, is ultimately not as core a concern as these broader political issues. And recognition of Russian annexations is rightly considered a nonstarter for both Ukraine and its Western backers.

ARM THE PORCUPINE

To avoid renewed fighting, a U.S. peace initiative must include measures to deter Russia, assure Ukraine, and provide incentives to both sides to maintain the cease-fire. Security guarantees for Ukraine that are directly tied to the cessation of hostilities can advance all three of these objectives. If there are significant costs tied to a future Russian attack—whether because it will trigger third-party intervention or retaliation from a Ukraine armed with an enhanced deterrent—Moscow will be less likely to undertake one. And if Kyiv is convinced that its security is guaranteed, it will be able to focus on economic recovery and democracy rather than on becoming a garrison state.

Kyiv is seeking security guarantees in the form of accession to NATO. But neither the Biden administration nor the incoming Trump administration appear willing to offer that possibility either during the war or in its immediate aftermath. Moreover, preventing Ukraine from joining NATO has been a Russian policy objective for decades, and it was among Russian President Vladimir Putin’s core motives for attacking Ukraine in 2022. Even if membership in the alliance were a viable option, it is a clumsy policy instrument for ending a war. Accession would require the approval of 32 parliaments and thus take months at best, and it would be contingent on Ukraine implementing many reforms that have nothing to do with conflict resolution.

In fact, there are other, potentially more effective ways to provide a security guarantee to Ukraine in the context of a negotiated end to the war. On multiple occasions since World War II, the United States has made bilateral security commitments to allies and partners in comparable postconflict situations. Two months after the end of the Korean War, the United States signed a bilateral mutual security treaty with South Korea in which Washington committed to come to Seoul’s aid if it were attacked. After the 1973 Arab-Israeli war ended, the United States reached an agreement with Israel in which it committed to “remedial action” if Egypt violated the cease-fire or if there were “threats to Israel’s security or sovereignty by a world power.” These approaches, which helped produce enduring periods of relative stability and peace, could provide models for what might be offered to Ukraine in a future negotiation.

Russian soldiers undergoing training in Krasnodar, Russia, December 2024 Sergey Pivovarov / Reuters

Another kind of security guarantee could take the form of Ukraine’s eventual EU membership. Article 42.7 of the Treaty on European Union, known as the EU’s mutual assistance clause, states that if a “Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States shall have towards it an obligation of aid and assistance by all the means in their power.” This language is arguably more binding even than NATO’s common defense pledge, Article 5, and Russia already agreed not to stand in the way of Ukraine’s EU membership during the 2022 talks.

Whether or not Ukraine gets binding external commitments to its security, it will need an independent deterrent in the form of strong armed forces. The Biden administration and numerous NATO allies have already laid the groundwork for providing Ukraine the necessary training, arms transfers, and intelligence cooperation to create this deterrent in the bilateral security agreements signed earlier this year. But Ukraine’s partners need to consider how best to arm Ukraine to ensure a sustainable peace. Enabling a force focused on combined arms offense and long-range strike capabilities, for example, could make a second Russian invasion more, not less, likely by exacerbating the Kremlin’s threat perceptions.

Instead, allies should enable Ukraine to adopt a “porcupine model” of defense through their security cooperation. This would entail helping Ukraine develop a force that is optimized for defending the territory that Kyiv controls when the fighting ends, instead of providing training aimed at improving the ability to retake Russian-held territory. There is, of course, no clear-cut distinction between offensive and defensive capabilities and no off-the-shelf guide for what a porcupine model for Ukraine should look like. But aid focused on helping Kyiv to hold territory should help enable a future Ukrainian force to be more effective at deterring a future Russian attack.

ENGAGE RUSSIA

It will take more than just commands from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Putin to durably end the fighting on the frontline. For one thing, the size of the front, by the standards of contemporary global conflicts, is extraordinary and presents challenges of its own. Taking into account the undisputed areas along Ukraine’s borders with Belarus and Russia, as well as the line of contact in Ukraine, the front extends nearly 1,200 miles.

Policing such a line would require tens of thousands of peacekeepers, an impossibly large number—even if Russia and Ukraine agreed to allow such a force, which is highly unlikely. Nonetheless, unmanned systems and sensors could be leveraged to establish an effective monitoring system along the cease-fire lines. Such a system would likely require third-party oversight to assess the information coming in and to arbitrate disputes. Accountability mechanisms would have to be built in to ensure violations come at a cost. And a demilitarized zone with clear limits for deployments on both sides should be carefully designed to avoid the pitfalls of the Minsk agreements—the deals signed in 2014 and 2015 intended to end that earlier phase of Russia’s war—which did not contain a mutually agreed cease-fire line or clear disengagement commitments.

Another crucial issue will be assuring that the Kremlin’s aggression entails enduring costs to deter Russia or any other state from invading neighbors. Although Putin will inevitably claim victory when the fighting stops, the rest of the world should not come away with the impression that Russia has paid no cost for its aggression. The West can impose those costs by maintaining some sanctions and export controls as measures in place for the long term—or until Russia fully withdraws from Ukraine. Additionally, as part of the settlement, the roughly $300 billion in Russian state assets that are already frozen in Western countries could go to the reconstruction of Ukraine—with Russia’s explicit agreement. The Kremlin in all likelihood recognizes that it will never see those funds again, so such a deal is not implausible. Unless Moscow legally consents that the funds be used for that purpose, key European states will continue to object to spending them for fear of setting a dangerous precedent. Moscow is likely to demand in return that Ukraine relinquish further monetary claims on Russia for damages done during the war.

Russia will also need some positive incentives to comply with a settlement. Assurances that Ukraine will remain nonaligned, that foreign forces and infrastructure will not be deployed in Ukraine, and that mutual understandings can be reached on the limits of Western military aid, could be put on the table—and such assurances need not necessarily be incompatible with Western security guarantees for Ukraine. These would be similar to what the parties themselves imagined in the 2022 Istanbul Communiqué. Incentives could also encompass partial sanctions relief, with snap-back clauses to reimpose them if Russia violates the terms of the deal. Further, Russia is unlikely to agree to end the fighting without talks on NATO-Russian issues that go beyond Ukraine, such as the conventional force balance and long-range strike capabilities on the continent. Agreeing to a consultation process to address these issues in parallel to talks on the war itself could be part of the arrangements to end the war. Establishing such a process is no gift to Russia; it would serve Western interests as well since any durable settlement will require managing broader Russian-Western tensions.

COMMUNICATION IS KEY

In addition to identifying the main elements of a settlement, the United States needs a plan for getting there. The first step is for Washington to begin a dialogue with Kyiv and U.S. allies about the endgame. Surprisingly little time has been spent on this issue since the war began. Indeed, to this day, many senior U.S. and European officials see it as a secondary priority; in December, the new secretary-general of NATO, Mark Rutte, said, “We need to have these debates, but for the immediate future, the most important thing is to get your military aid into Ukraine.”

That approach needs to change. A negotiation is coming, and U.S. and European officials need to be ready. Preparing for the talks and building consensus on the overall approach will take time—and should start immediately. Input from Ukraine will be essential. Without advice from the United States and its allies, Kyiv has produced unrealistic ideas on ending the war—such as Zelensky’s victory plan announced this fall. The Ukrainian president and his team would benefit from regular engagement with their Western counterparts on diplomatic strategy to avoid this kind of dissonance.

The next step is opening channels of communication with Russia. There has been no regular dialogue between Moscow and key Western capitals since the full-scale invasion began. For negotiations to have any chance of success, exchanges of views, even without any expectation of reaching agreement, should become the rule and not, as they are now, the exception. In this regard, Trump’s appointment of Kellogg as special envoy on the war presents a significant opportunity, since it can be used to cajole Putin to appoint a Russian counterpart.That would ease engagement with Moscow significantly; at the moment, no one in the Kremlin appears to have the authority to negotiate on these issues.

Finally, in advance of beginning actual talks, the United States should push forward de-escalation measures. Two such efforts are already on the table: a Turkish-brokered agreement to avoid strikes on civilian shipping in the Black Sea and a Qatari-negotiated deal to avoid strikes on energy infrastructure. The text of both arrangements was largely finalized, but neither got over the finish line. A push from Washington could help. Additional such measures could include commitments to not strike beyond a certain distance from the line of contact; all-for-all prisoner-of-war exchanges, as opposed to the current practice of exchanging only equal and limited numbers of prisoners; and a pledge to not engage in further raids across the areas of the international border that both sides still recognize as such. (That last measure would rule out another Kursk offensive but also any Russian effort to create a buffer zone in the Sumy region of Ukraine, which borders Kursk.)

If some of these steps begin to bear fruit, consultations could begin on multiple tracks. In addition to bilateral contacts between Kyiv and Moscow, a contact group could be established involving Ukraine, Russia, key Western powers, and perhaps China. Separately, dialogues on U.S.-Russian and NATO-Russian issues could commence in parallel.

A YEAR, NOT A DAY

As Trump and Kellogg prepare to launch negotiations, there are several important pitfalls that should be avoided. First, it will be crucial to manage expectations—those of both the public and the governments involved. Trump’s promise of a 24-hour negotiation was likely aspirational, but it seems clear his team wants to move quickly. Yet as was true in many previous conflict talks, it is more likely than not that initial attempts at negotiations will fail; the path will be long and require great expenditures of time and high-level attention from the United States and its allies. The extent of the enmity between Russia and Ukraine—and between Russia and the West—and the dearth of communication among the parties over the past few years will make talks very difficult to get off the ground and a long slog once they do.

It would be surprising if diplomatic efforts to end the war succeed in less than a year—if they succeed at all. Consider that it took two years and more than 500 meetings for the parties to the Korean armistice to come to agreement. Beyond stopping the fighting in Ukraine, the even larger task of stabilizing Russian-Western relations will likely require an open-ended process rather than a single agreed document. Another risk of pushing for a quick deal is that it may create the impression that the United States values getting a deal done more than getting a good one. Washington would not want to create expectations in Moscow that the United States is uninterested in the details and thus willing to make significant concessions in the interest of a quick resolution.

Trump needs a well-defined vision of the endgame.

Another pitfall would be the use of ultimatums to force the sides to accept a deal. Some in Trump’s orbit have advocated wielding U.S. military aid to Ukraine as a cudgel against whichever party proves intransigent in the talks: either by threatening to ramp up assistance to Kyiv to put the screws on Russia or to cut it off if Ukraine refuses to make the necessary compromises. Either step could backfire. It is not in the U.S. interest to cut off aid to Ukraine completely under almost any circumstance, because that could enable a Russian takeover of the country. Given how much aid the United States has already provided to Ukraine, there is not much room for Washington to expand the flow of arms quantitatively, and further qualitative increases would entail unacceptable escalation risks. In any case, such threats are unlikely to prove effective: U.S. leverage with Russia and Ukraine is significant, but not so much so as to force either of them to take what they see as a bad deal since both see the issues at stake as existential or near existential.

Third, Trump and Kellogg should avoid making this a bilateral U.S.-Russian negotiation. Putting aside the immorality and ugly historical resonances of excluding Kyiv from deciding its own fate, it is necessary to involve the Ukrainian side on purely pragmatic grounds: Ukraine can scuttle any deal that it finds unacceptable. Additionally, there are compelling practical reasons to keep the Europeans and other U.S. allies such as Japan involved: the EU accession process is key to Ukraine’s future stability; allies’ economic resources will be necessary to support reconstruction; and having a unified U.S.-European position will prevent either Russia or Ukraine from playing one side off the other.

Although the coming to power of a U.S. president who pledges to quickly end the war raises the possibility of a breakthrough, it also poses major risks. These will be high-stakes negotiations, mostly between two embittered belligerents in a war that has killed tens of thousands—and maybe hundreds of thousands—on both sides. If Trump’s efforts fail, the dynamic of the conflict will not simply revert to a stable status quo ante: the war is intensifying, and it is also becoming more internationalized. With a well-defined vision of the endgame and a game plan to get there, the incoming administration could help bring an end to this horror and the growing risks it poses to the broader world.

Samuel Charap is Distinguished Chair in Russia and Eurasia Policy and a Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Samuel Charap · December 24, 2024

17. Multilateralism Can Survive Trump

​Excerpts:

For international organizations, strategies to weather another Trump presidency are not without risks. Trying to sideline Trump may provoke more hostility from his administration. And appeasement could lead to accusations from other member states that multilateral institutions are compromising their principles.

But both approaches are better than the alternative—doing nothing or reacting in an ad hoc fashion. The stakes are simply too high for global organizations to not be proactive. The world’s multilateral architecture is the best mechanism humanity has for confronting existential transnational threats. Allowing it to rot, weaken, or otherwise unravel would leave all countries far too vulnerable in an increasingly volatile world.

Multilateralism Can Survive Trump

Foreign Affairs · by More by Allison Carnegie · December 24, 2024

With Nationalists Ascendant, International Organizations Must Learn to Bend—So They Don’t Break

Allison Carnegie and Richard Clark

December 24, 2024

Leaders at a NATO summit in Watford, the United Kingdom, December 2019 Peter Nicholls / Reuters

Allison Carnegie is Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.

Richard Clark is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

• More by Richard Clark

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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has made his disdain for the United States’ international commitments abundantly clear. Throughout his first term, he condemned multilateral institutions and railed against what he depicted as an unaccountable, “globalist” elite. He withdrew from key agreements, such as the Paris climate accord, and disengaged from organizations that form the backbone of the liberal international order. True to his populist ethos, he chafed against constraints imposed by multilateralism, preferring instead to put “America first.”

Trump is one of many ascendant populists who emphasize inward-looking policies and challenge global cooperation. The French politician Marine Le Pen, for example, has proclaimed that she is “for local, against global.” Hungarian leader Viktor Orban rallies his supporters with a cry of “Hungary first.” Yet Trump’s position as president of the United States—the largest funder and primary backer of numerous international organizations—makes his antagonism uniquely consequential.

Many observers anticipate that Trump will be even more emboldened and organized when he attempts to reshape the global order in his second term. He has openly threatened to exit, undermine, or radically renegotiate Washington’s commitments to institutions such as the World Trade Organization (WTO), NATO, and even the United Nations. Trump’s nascent plan to levy new tariffs on Canada and Mexico threatens to undo the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement. Attacking these institutions is central to his goal of sidelining the practice of multilateralism in favor of one in which states act largely alone. Should this vision materialize, the ripple effects could destabilize an already fragile international system.

The stakes could hardly be higher. Humanity faces an array of transnational challenges that no single country can resolve alone. Climate change, pandemics, economic inequality, artificial intelligence, and other existential risks demand international responses. Indeed, Trump’s proposed retrenchment from global organizations could not have come at a worse time.

But international institutions do not have to passively accept their fate. They have agency and the capacity for self-preservation. They can adapt to Trump by working around him, appeasing him, secretly working with him, or appealing to his supporters. If international organizations learn to bend instead of break, they can save themselves. If they don’t, governments will lose the infrastructure through which they work together on the world’s toughest problems.

THE ANTIGLOBALIST AGENDA

Trump can undermine international organizations in many ways. Most directly, he could pull the United States out of key bodies or agreements. In his first term, for instance, Trump withdrew from the Paris climate accord, UNESCO, and the UN Human Rights Council because he saw them as anathema to his “America first” agenda. He could exit more organizations in his second administration; he has been especially critical of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

More subtly, Trump could disengage from international organizations by neglecting to comply with their rules, refusing to attend critical meetings, or obstructing key agenda items. During his first term, Trump successfully sabotaged the WTO by refusing to confirm nominees to its appellate body, severely limiting its ability to enforce trade rules. Such noncompliance is destabilizing in and of itself, given that Washington is the most powerful government in the world and often a leader in international organizations. But it could also have dangerous knock-on effects. Institutions depend on mutual trust, and if the United States flouts the rules, others may follow suit—eroding the foundations of global cooperation.

Trump might also manipulate or withhold vital information from these bodies, which depend on accurate data from member states to function effectively. The World Bank, for example, needs economic metrics, the WHO relies on public health statistics, and environmental agencies require data on carbon emissions. By refusing to share such information—or providing false reports—the Trump administration could hamstring these institutions. More simply, Trump could withhold money. The United States is the largest funder of numerous organizations, and without Washington’s money, many would struggle to survive. When the Trump administration defunded the WHO during the COVID-19 pandemic, it hobbled the institution’s response to the crisis and eroded the WHO’s reputation worldwide.

Trump could also undercut existing organizations by starting competing ones. These rival entities, designed to drain their counterparts of resources and influence, would serve as platforms for grandstanding rather than substantive cooperation. Much like regional institutions backed by other populist leaders—such as the New Development Bank, which was started, in part, by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi—these bodies could provide the United States with a veneer of multilateral engagement while taking away business from the existing institutions that do more substantive work.

Finally, Trump could attempt to co-opt international organizations to align with his administration’s agenda by focusing their resources on narrow U.S. priorities or leveraging their legitimacy to pursue policies that serve domestic political goals instead of broader global interests. Such a strategy could effectively weaponize these institutions, turning them into instruments of unilateralism rather than forums for global collaboration. China, for instance, has used its control of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank to pursue its domestic interests while benefiting from the legitimacy of the institution’s diverse membership.

GETTING CRAFTY

Thankfully, international organizations are not powerless in the face of these threats. In fact, they have many tools and techniques to protect themselves from a populist in the White House. Perhaps the most basic is working to minimize U.S. influence, specifically by looking for resources elsewhere. When the first Trump administration withheld energy-related data from the World Bank, the organization signed information-sharing agreements with Arab multilateral development banks. Similarly, the UN expanded its capacity to acquire data on its own, such as through surveillance drones, which it deploys during peacekeeping operations. In doing so, it has become less reliant on governments for intelligence.

Having a broad network of partners—including companies, charities, think tanks, and other multilateral institutions—can help make an organization more resilient. UNICEF, for example, has successfully worked with the multinational company Unilever to secure funding and expertise. The World Bank has done the same with the Gates Foundation. Multilateral institutions should improve their ability to share data securely with one another to improve coordination. Local governments can also be valuable allies. When Trump withdrew from the Paris climate accord, UN officials worked with U.S. states such as California and cities such as New York to maintain climate commitments and preserve dialogue.

International organizations can save themselves.

International organizations can also get around Trump by becoming more bureaucratically flexible. WTO members came up with the Multi-Party Interim Appeal Arbitration Arrangement, a stopgap forum to arbitrate trade disputes, to circumvent obstacles put in place by the Trump administration. Similarly, the Paris accord’s voluntary and scalable commitments helped sustain momentum even after the United States exited the deal in 2017.

If working around Trump is infeasible (or even if it isn’t), groups can look for ways to force him to remain in their organizations by raising the exit costs. For instance, embedding withdrawal penalties—such as the sanctions clauses the European Union installs in many trade agreements—can deter treaty abrogation. Lengthy withdrawal processes, such as the one-year delay required under the Paris accord, provide time for domestic opposition to mobilize or for political leadership to change.

International bodies should also make it easy for countries to rejoin. UNESCO, for example, swiftly welcomed the United States back after Trump left office. The Biden administration was similarly able to quickly rejoin the Paris accord—the process required only his signature.

IF YOU CAN’T BEAT THEM

Another approach to surviving Trump is appeasement, which can involve offering the United States material benefits or expanding U.S. influence within an organization. This strategy comes with downsides: taken too far, it can sacrifice institutional legitimacy and raise accusations of bias. But there are ways to walk a fine line. Consider, for example, how NATO fared during Trump’s first four years in office. When Trump criticized NATO allies for spending too little on defense, Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg encouraged allies to modestly increase their military budgets and publicly credited Trump for the changes, appealing to his ego. The approach appeared to work. Trump did not pull the United States out of NATO—as he had repeatedly threatened—and instead took credit for allies’ bigger defense budgets.

Multilateral institutions can also informally recalibrate their agendas to align, at least superficially, with Trump’s priorities. By focusing on issues such as trade fairness or counterterrorism—areas in which Trump has shown interest—international organizations can demonstrate their utility to him. For example, NATO has sought to mollify Turkey’s populist president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, by paying lip service to the fight against terrorism, a big concern for him.

For organizations wary of escalating tensions with Trump, retrenchment is another solution. Institutions can minimize their exposure to populist ire while maintaining credibility by narrowing their focus to core functions and avoiding controversial areas. For example, the WTO has historically exercised judicial restraint on politically sensitive issues, and the World Bank has often rolled out reforms incrementally, in cooperation with resistant governments. Similarly, organizations may emphasize temporary or informal adjustments to policies, retaining the ability to reverse course as political conditions change. Such flexibility offers these institutions a way to work with populists without undermining their broader missions.

International institutions can also use regional organizations, such as South America’s Mercosur or the African Union, as intermediaries to get around Trump. Many regional organizations do not include the United States as a member, and those that do tend to fly under Trump’s radar, such as the Inter-American Development Bank. There are other benefits, too. Governments in the global South often see these smaller organizations as less intrusive and more sympathetic to their concerns than global ones. Many World Bank projects are cofinanced with regional development banks that have strong ties to member governments and can usually get more buy-in from recipient countries.

PUBLIC RELATIONS

International organizations have long relied on public support to sustain their work, but in recent years they have struggled to court the masses as populist leaders have stirred up antiglobalist resentment. Confronting the incoming president’s hostility thus requires not only engaging him directly but also finding ways to manage his supporters. That will sometimes require discreet, behind-the-scenes diplomacy. By working covertly, international organizations can allow Trump to quietly reap the benefits of multilateralism—economic growth, better security, and access to critical technical expertise—while shielding him from the political costs.

Many organizations already do a good job at affording secrecy to their members. The UN Security Council frequently conducts closed-door meetings on sensitive issues, ensuring that frank discussions can take place without public scrutiny. Similarly, the International Monetary Fund classifies the positions expressed by member states during board meetings for up to seven years. And the WTO redacts adjudication documents to protect proprietary or politically sensitive information.

Building effective secrecy mechanisms, however, requires significant investments in technology, infrastructure, and bureaucratic capacity. Encryption tools, secure communication channels, and data storage are essential to maintaining the confidentiality of sensitive discussions. Multilateral organizations may also need clear protocols outlining who can access confidential materials, under what circumstances, and for how long. This might involve granting clearance to select staff, contracting with specialized cybersecurity firms, or enhancing internal information technology capabilities. Although advancements in technology have made such solutions more accessible, they also expose organizations to new risks, including cyberattacks and leaks. Addressing these vulnerabilities is important to ensuring confidentiality.

Organizations that do not want to work around Trump voters might try appealing to them directly. Populist leaders denounce international organizations as elite driven and out of touch. But if these institutions more effectively communicate the benefits they provide to everyday people or align their messaging with populist rhetoric, they make multilateralism harder to vilify. In 2020, for example, UN Secretary-General António Guterres thanked Trump for his engagement with UN initiatives and wished him a swift recovery from COVID-19, even as the president had sought to rein in U.S. financial contributions to the UN. Trump, in turn, praised Guterres for “working hard to ‘Make the UN Great Again.’” Americans generally know little about the benefits they get from international organizations, such as lower prices on goods thanks to fewer restrictions on international trade. By better communicating their upsides, these institutions can help sustain their legitimacy and create a constituency of supporters.

STAYING ALIVE

For international organizations, strategies to weather another Trump presidency are not without risks. Trying to sideline Trump may provoke more hostility from his administration. And appeasement could lead to accusations from other member states that multilateral institutions are compromising their principles.

But both approaches are better than the alternative—doing nothing or reacting in an ad hoc fashion. The stakes are simply too high for global organizations to not be proactive. The world’s multilateral architecture is the best mechanism humanity has for confronting existential transnational threats. Allowing it to rot, weaken, or otherwise unravel would leave all countries far too vulnerable in an increasingly volatile world.

Allison Carnegie is Professor of Political Science at Columbia University.

Richard Clark is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame.

Foreign Affairs · by More by Allison Carnegie · December 24, 2024

18. The First U.S. Army Christmas: Washington and the Hessians

​History worth recalling.

The First U.S. Army Christmas: Washington and the Hessians - War on the Rocks

warontherocks.com · by Alexander Burns · December 24, 2024

Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in 2023.

It is a story so well known it has become a meme. “Americans: Willing to cross a frozen river to kill you in your sleep on Christmas.” George Washington’s Continental Army, having suffered a series of major setbacks in the fighting around New York City in the summer and fall of 1776, launched a surprising counterattack on Dec. 26, 1776. Crossing the icy Delaware River on Christmas night, Washington’s army surprised and captured almost 1,000 brutal Hessian mercenaries, drunk from Christmas celebrations. These troops were fighting on the British side, sent to America by their greedy monarchs. The victory over these drunken mercenaries raised the morale of the Continental Army, convincing many of the patriots to stay on and reenlist for an additional six weeks. As a result, future battles hinged on the success of Trenton, making this a turning point in the war. In this telling, a free army of American citizen-soldiers triumphed over the hireling corruption of European despotism. Ergo, a sort of American Christmas miracle.

The trouble is, many elements of this familiar story aren’t quite right. They rely on an overly simplistic understanding of the Revolutionary War. The story above is part of America’s heritage, but not quite part of American history. In the Christmas season, it can be easy to reach for the comforting. Stories that go beyond fact into myth can tell us important truths about who we are, but they can also distract us and lead to false or hazy understandings of military history and military affairs. This Christmas, let’s cut through a bit of myth in order to gain a better understanding of the reality of America’s founding. By trying to move past the heritage to the history, we can find out more about our enemies and ourselves. Only by giving the Hessians their due can we appreciate the true nature of Washington’s wisdom.

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Who Were the Hessians?

Carefully understanding our enemies is an important first step. Who were the Hessians? George Washington’s German opponents have long been obscure, but the research of scholars like Friederike Baer and Daniel Krebs is making them tangible.

Of the many myths regarding the Revolutionary War, none seem as widespread as the idea that the “Hessians” were “mercenaries.” First off, they weren’t all Hessian. Although most came from the mid-sized state of Hessen-Kassel, there were also troops from the principalities of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, Hessen-Hanau, Ansbach-Bayreuth, Waldeck, and Anhalt-Zerbst. And if you look at the larger global war, of which the revolution was a part, troops from the state of Hanover (Braunschweig-Lüneburg) also fought for the British in such far-flung locales as Gibraltar and India. So, while over 60 percent of the “Hessians” came from Hessen, the other 40 percent hailed from all over the western and central Holy Roman Empire — roughly where Germany is today.

Also, these troops, Hessians and others, weren’t quite mercenaries. This is a tough one to swallow, and this misconception is even included in the Declaration of Independence. Don’t believe me? Imagine you are a soldier in the 1980s U.S. Army, serving in West Germany during the Cold War. You are stationed there because of longstanding agreements and alliances. The United States and the West German government have a financial understanding that helps provide for your stationing there. Are you a mercenary?

The situation was very similar for the German-speaking soldiers who fought in the American War of Independence, They had a longstanding relationship with Great Britain, stretching back decades. As a result of the Hanoverian succession in 1714 (the British royal family was drawn from Hanover), their leaders had marriage ties with Great Britain. Horace Walpole, a British politician from the 1730s, referred to the Hessians as the Triarii of Great Britain: its reliable last line of defense. These soldiers did not personally or corporately take on contracts from the British; they were members of their state militaries. Their governments were paid a subsidy by the British in order to fight in their wars.

Many of them, like some of the American troops they fought against, volunteered for economic reasons. Others, like some of the British troops they fought alongside and some of the Americans across the battlefield, were conscripted soldiers. For this reason, the modern German term for these troops is Subsidientruppen, or subsidy troops. Thus, it might be better to speak of the German-speaking subsidy troops, as opposed to calling them Hessians or mercenaries.

The mercenary relationship, if one existed at all, was between the British and the rulers of these states. As a result, you often hear that these troops were sold to fight in North America because their princes were greedy and wanted to build palaces and pay for their illegitimate children. This, too, ignores the realities behind these policies. The princes of the western Holy Roman Empire lived in an incredibly dangerous world during the 18th century. Their territories were small, rural principalities, trapped between the military giants of France, Austria, and Prussia. As a result, from the 1670s on, 100 years before the American Revolution, these princes used subsidy contracts to build themselves larger armies. This preserved their independence. These subsidy contracts were a standard feature of European politics, diplomacy, and conflict resolution. They allowed the princes to better protect their small domains. None of the princes who formed subsidy contracts with Britain during the American War of Independence were doing something radically new or greedy. Instead, the money from subsidy contracts was often poured back into the army, in order to create a larger military to protect these small nations from the French.

Some rulers even used the subsidy funds to promote their economy. The Hessian (Hessen-Kassel) Landgraf Friedrich II actually used the funds from the contract, in part, to promote economic development and the textile industry in his territories. Now, not all of these princes were the same. Some of them had illegitimate children. Some had opulent palaces. But portraying them as sex-crazed misers limits our understanding of the economic and security necessities that actually underpinned their subsidy policies. For over a hundred years, from the 1670s to the French Revolution, these policies maintained the survival and independence of these states.

If these troops weren’t all Hessians or mercenaries, were they particularly prone to brutality or drink? English officers in the Seven Years’ War noted that their troops were reprimanded for plundering more than Hessian forces were. During the War of Independence, the Hessians once again behaved better than their British counterparts. Although there was a surge of fear about Hessian brutality early in the war, after the first few years of the fighting, American civilians believed that the subsidy troops treated them better than British soldiers did. The American soldier and future vice president Aaron Burr wrote of Hessian atrocities: “Various have been the reports concerning the barbarities committed by the Hessians, most of them [are] incredible and false.” Hessian troops committed crimes in America, there is no doubt. What is clear is that these crimes were not excessive for an 18th-century conflict.

And what about the state of Hessian soldiers, supposedly drunk from Christmas celebrations when Washington arrived? John Greenwood, a 16-year-old soldier in a Massachusetts regiment, recalled, “I am certain not a drop of liquor was drunk the whole night … and I am willing to go on oath that I did not see a solitary drunken soldier belonging to the enemy.” As Greenwood’s regiment assaulted the Hessians at close range and he guarded Hessian prisoners of war after the battle, he was in a good position to speak with authority. The myth of the Hessians stemmed from stereotypical American attitudes in the 1770s, which saw German Christmas celebrations as a bit over the top. One American officer wrote: “They make a great deal of Christmas in Germany, and no doubt the Hessians will drink a great deal of beer and have a dance to-night.” Only, as Greenwood attests, they did not.

Christmas: A Battle and a Compromise

Regardless of the state of the Hessian garrison, Washington’s plan was bold. Employing cutting-edge European tactical arts, he devised an attack where multiple independent columns would converge on Trenton, bringing around 6,000 men to attack the Hessian force of roughly 1,500. In the event, due to the weather and novelty of this type of operation, only around 2,400 Americans arrived. They began their attack, aided in the knowledge that the wet weather would hamper Hessian defensive fire. Both Hessian and American combatants reported trouble with their firearms as a result of weather.

Indeed, the fighting at Trenton was heavy. Despite American claims that they suffered no killed in action at Trenton, multiple Hessian officers reported seeing American dead on the ground after the battle. Were they mistaken, or were they lying to protect their reputation? Were the low American casualty figures part of an information operation to boost morale? It is difficult to say with certainty.

In their narratives of the battle, Hessian officers criticized American tactics, particularly their tendency to fire too early. Hessian officer Andreas Wiederholdt recalled:

he had seen about 60 men of the rebels coming over to him, out of the wood about 200 paces away on the road to John’s Ferry, and they had three times fired on his picket. At first, he had not fired in return, because he thought them too far off, as they fired for the third time he ordered his picket likewise to fire on the enemy.

In other portions of their accounts, Hessian officers reported executing complex maneuvers such as deploying skirmishers as a screen to keep the Americans at a distance, in order to give their men time to escape. This tactical complexity didn’t work: the skirmishers were driven in due to malfunctioning muskets. Even almost 250 years later, the frustration of Hessian officers comes through in these documents. For all their professional excellence, they couldn’t tactically fight their way out of a bad operational situation. They surrendered in mass.

The American army was justly pleased with the results of Washington’s counter-offensive. They had restored the army’s pride. This is sometimes used as shorthand for the story of American soldiers patriotically reenlisting after the battle. In this telling, victory on the battlefield motivated soldiers to stay. This is partially true. Washington and his subordinate commanders were desperately negotiating with their men to stay on and fight. But they still had a lot of convincing to do, even after the victory at Trenton.

Washington, having provided a tangible example of success, also had to meet the material needs of his soldiers. He raised the morale of his troops with patriotic exhortations, but he also promised them a significant reenlistment bonus. Washington was relatively upbeat about this in his report to Congress, stating that he had “engaged a number of the Eastern troops [New Englanders] to stay six weeks beyond their term of Inlistment, upon giving a bounty of ten dollars. This I know is a most extravagant price.” He was more direct in a letter to John Hancock on Wednesday, January 1:

After much persuasion and the exertions of their Officers, half or a greater proportion of those from the Eastward, have consented to stay Six Weeks, on a bounty of Ten Dollars. I feel the inconvenience of this advance, and I know the consequences which will result from it; But what could be done? Pennsylvania had allowed the same to her Militia, The Troops felt their importance, and would have their price. Indeed as their aid is so essential and not to be dispensed with, it is to be wondered, they had not estimated it at a higher rate.

Here, Washington fell back not on the patriotic feelings of the citizen-soldier, but on the promise to provide for material needs. This type of negotiated authority was common in most European militaries. Washington agreed to meet the material needs of his men and earned their loyalty as a result. Facing the prospect of a decline of enlistments, he did not assert that material needs were a discipline problem.

Conclusion

Like many comforting Christmas stories, the battle of Trenton has been wrapped in layers of myth. What lessons does the real battle of Trenton offer military practitioners in the 21st century? Lazy or essentialist thinking about “who we are” or who the enemy is rarely leads to accurate results. Instead, America’s enemies frequently make choices and policy decisions that make sense when they are understood in context. Far from being brutal drunken mercenaries, the Hessian soldiers George Washington faced down in December 1776 were professional soldiers with history and values of their own. Washington’s bold and innovative operational planning put them into a difficult situation, where despite their tactical acumen, they were captured. Washington appears in this story as a leader with the vision and operational brilliance to give his men an inspiring victory, but also the flexibility to negotiate and meet their material needs. All in all, it was a Christmas that America would never forget.

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Alexander S. Burns is an assistant professor of history at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, studying George Washington’s army and its connections to European militaries. His edited volume, The Changing Face of Old Regime Warfare: Essays in Honour of Christopher Duffy, was published in 2022. You can follow him @KKriegeBlog.

Image: Wikimedia

Commentary

warontherocks.com · by Alexander Burns · December 24, 2024

De Oppresso Liber,

David Maxwell

Vice President, Center for Asia Pacific Strategy

Senior Fellow, Global Peace Foundation

Editor, Small Wars Journal

Twitter: @davidmaxwell161

Phone: 202-573-8647

email: david.maxwell161@gmail.com