World roundup: April 20-21 2024
World roundup: April 20-21 2024
Stories from Israel-Palestine, Myanmar, Ukraine, and elsewhere
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THIS WEEKEND IN HISTORY
April 20, 1752: A small battle south of the city (village at the time) of Shwebo marks the start of the Konbaung–Hanthawaddy War, which helped consolidate the modern nation of Myanmar. An “army” (of around 40 men) belonging to the nascent Konbaung dynasty, under its founder Alaungpaya, defeated a small military unit detached by the southern Hanthawaddy kingdom to pacify the region. The war ended with a Konbaung victory that reunited upper and lower (northern and southern) Myanmar (Burma if you prefer) under a Bamar ruling family and marked the final time that the Mon people of southern Myanmar tried to establish an independent state.
April 20, 1792: The French Assembly declares war against the Habsburg monarchy, kicking off nearly ten years of conflict sometimes called the “French Revolutionary Wars.” This conflict is perhaps more properly broken into the wars of the First Coalition (1792-1797) and Second Coalition (1798-1802), referring to the international alliances arrayed against the French First Republic. The Republic emerged victorious from both wars. They’re distinguished from the five subsequent coalition wars (1805-1815) thanks to Napoleon, who brought the Republic to an end with his coronation as emperor in 1804.
April 21, 43 BCE: In the followup to April 14’s Battle of Forum Gallorum, Mark Antony’s army is again defeated by a consular army led by Aulus Hirtius with the support of Octavian at the Battle of Mutina. Conveniently for Octavian, Hirtius died during the battle, and when his fellow consul Pansa died the following day of wounds suffered at Forum Gallorum, Octavian was left to claim credit for the victory uncontested. The newly empowered Octavian soon turned on the Senate and later allied with Antony under the framework of the Second Triumvirate.
April 21, 1526: An army led by a Timurid prince named Babur defeats the Lodi Sultanate at Panipat and lays the foundation for the Mughal dynasty.
April 21, 1802 (probably): A Saudi-Wahhabi army/mob sacks the city of Karbala.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
There was an AP headline on Sunday that I think sums up where things stand. It reads: “Israeli strikes on southern Gaza city of Rafah kill 22, mostly children, as US advances aid package.” For clarification, “mostly” in this case means 18 out of those 22 deaths were children. I don’t mean to single out this particular attack, which in its conduct and effect was indistinguishable from multiple Israeli attacks on Gaza every day. In full candor when I saw that story I was shocked at how desensitized I’ve become over the past six months to reading about another 18 dead Palestinian children, most likely killed by weapons my government supplied. But that juxtaposition did catch my eye, in that this particular atrocity coincided with my government’s decision to advance another $95 billion in mostly military aid to various US clients around the world. That package includes some $17 billion in arms for Israel to enable the Israeli military (IDF) to kill more Palestinian kids, along with around $9 billion in humanitarian aid earmarked in part for those Palestinians who manage to survive the weapons. For all of the Biden administration’s rhetoric about protecting Palestinian civilians, it seems the more kids the IDF kills the more goodies we give it.
We’ll be returning to the military aid package again later as it’s nearly certain to pass the Senate and has implications beyond Gaza. As for Israel-Palestine, there have been other news items of note:
The IDF’s Friday morning raid on the Nur Shams refugee camp in the West Bank city of Tulkarm continued through Saturday and left at least 14 people dead. At least some of them were members of the Tulkarm Brigades militia but the reporting I’ve seen doesn’t make clear how many were combatants and those figures may not be known. On Sunday, Israeli forces killed three Palestinians in two incidents. Two allegedly attacked IDF personnel near the city of Hebron while the third was shot at the Hamra checkpoint for reasons that are not clear.
In response to reports that US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been suppressing evidence of Israeli human rights abuses in violation of the “Leahy Law,” the Biden administration used its favorite conduit, Axios’s Barak Ravid, to leak word that the State Department will be imposing Leahy restrictions on a single IDF unit, the “Netzah Yehuda” battalion, in the coming days. The Leahy Law has been around since the late 1990s and it obliges the US to cut off support for any military or law enforcement unit credibly accused of human rights violations. Netzah Yehuda has been accused of a wide array of crimes against Palestinians in the West Bank, to such an extent that even the Israeli government decided enough was enough and transferred it to the Golan in January 2023. Designating it under Leahy is more a symbolic than practical punishment, since the IDF can simply use its own funds to arm the battalion without direct US support and the US probably can’t track whether its weapons wind up in the hands of a Netzah Yehuda soldier anyway. But even the symbolism has generated panicked reactions from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and “war cabinet” member Benny Gantz, and The Times of Israel is reporting that other IDF units may be similarly designated in the near future.
The Freedom Flotilla Coalition is reportedly organizing a humanitarian relief flotilla in Turkey that may set sail for Gaza in a matter of days. Anyone who recalls the 2010 Mavi Marmara incident, in which IDF commandos raided a Turkish aid ship and killed ten people, will be familiar with the FFC. They’ll be challenging the IDF’s naval blockade again this time around. Organizers have implied that the flotilla was ready to set sail on Sunday but the Turkish government’s squeamishness prevented its departure.
SYRIA
Some enterprising folks fired at least five rockets from the vicinity of the northern Iraqi town of Zummar toward a US military facility in northeastern Syria on Sunday. The truck used to fire those rockets subsequently blew up, but Iraqi authorities can’t say yet whether it was attacked by US forces. Assuming the perpetrators were Iraqi militia fighters, which is at least a reasonable possibility, this would be the first time that cohort has attacked a US military position since early February, in the wake of their drone strike against US personnel in Jordan.
LEBANON
According to Hezbollah, an Israeli airstrike killed three of its fighters in southern Lebanon on Saturday. Hezbollah officials say they attacked several IDF targets in northern Israel in response.
ASIA
AFGHANISTAN
A sticky bomb killed killed one person and wounded three others on a minibus in the Kabul neighborhood of Koht-e Sangi on Saturday. Islamic State claimed responsibility, to I assume no great surprise.
PAKISTAN
Unspecified gunmen killed two Pakistani customs officers and wounded three more in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on Saturday evening. This was the second attack on customs personnel in that province in the past few days—the previous incident left at least four people dead on Thursday. It’s likely these attacks were carried out by the Pakistani Taliban or a related faction, though as far as I know there haven’t been any claims of responsibility.
MALDIVES
Maldivian voters headed to the polls for their country’s latest parliamentary election on Sunday and appear to have handed a victory to President Mohamed Muizzu’s People’s National Congress party. The PNC is projected to take at least 62 of 93 seats in the next parliament, a super-majority that should give Muizzu a relatively free hand moving forward. Maldivian politics turn in part on the tug of war for influence between the Indian and Chinese governments. Muizzu and his party lean toward China so this result will likely be good news for Beijing.
MYANMAR
New fighting between rebels and Myanmar military forces near the town of Myawaddy sent over 1300 people fleeing across the border into Thailand over the weekend. Karen rebels and People’s Defense Force fighters mostly seized control of Myawaddy, a major commercial crossing point, earlier this month. On Saturday morning they attacked a military position controlling a key bridge just west of the town. The rebels claim to have taken control of the bridge, which gives them full control of the border in that area.
NORTH KOREA
North Korean media reported over the weekend that the country’s military had successfully tested a “super-large warhead” for its Hwasal-1 strategic cruise missile, along with a “new-type anti-aircraft missile.” I’m certainly no expert in missile technology but as far as I know “super-large warhead” is not a technical classification and so I really can’t tell you what it means, nor have I seen any analysis from people who do claim to be experts. Sounds big though.
AFRICA
TOGO
The Togolese parliament on Friday approved, for the second time, a set of constitutional reforms that will weaken the power of the country’s presidency in favor of a new, prime minister-like position, while shifting the office from direct election to indirect election by parliament. The legislature had already approved these changes last month, but public outcry prompted President Faure Gnassingbé to call for a second vote. The Togolese opposition has warned that Gnassingbé intends to set himself up in the new PM job, which will allow him to hold executive authority indefinitely without having to bother with legal formalities like term limits.
NIGER
Several outlets, including the AP, are confirming Friday’s reports that the US has acquiesced to the Nigerien military junta’s demand for the withdrawal of US military forces from that country. The AP, citing “US officials” as the Biden administration still hasn’t publicly announced the withdrawal, reported on Saturday that there’s no timetable yet for the redeployment and that “an American delegation to coordinate the details of the withdrawal process will be dispatched soon.” There is as yet no indication how the Pentagon intends to replace Niger, which was the hub for its West African operations. Apparently there’s some hope that the junta is just going through some sort of “phase” and that it might still be possible for US forces to return to Niger down the road.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The Russian military says its forces seized the Ukrainian village of Bohdanivka on Sunday. There’s been no confirmation from Ukrainian officials but what independent reporting there is from the area seems to support the Russian claim. Bohdanivka is just northeast of Chasiv Yar, the town that has been the focus of Russia’s advance for several weeks now.
As you might expect, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was pretty pleased to learn that the US House of Representatives approved roughly $61 billion in new aid for his government—most of it military aid—on Saturday. In an interview with NBC News on Sunday he urged the rapid shipment of new arms once the aid package is finally signed into law, stressing in particular a need for air defenses and “long-range weapons.” The Washington Post reported on Friday that the Pentagon has already put together an initial package of arms that should be ready to go in short order.
KOSOVO
The Kosovan government’s attempt to unwind the tension caused by last year’s controversial elections in four predominantly Serb communities has been a bust:
Residents of four Serb-majority municipalities on Sunday overwhelmingly boycotted a vote on removing their ethnic Albanian mayors from office following last year’s mayoral elections.
The referendum — supported by the West — was an attempt to diffuse tensions between Kosovo and neighboring Serbia as both countries vie to join the European Union. However, Kosovo’s main ethnic Serb party, Srpska Lista, or Serbian List, which has close ties with Belgrade, had called for a boycott of Sunday’s poll.
Only 253 out of 46,556 registered voters cast their ballots in all four municipalities. For the mayors to be ousted, a majority vote is needed. No ballots at all were cast in one of the municipalities, Zvecan, according to results after voting ended at 1700 GMT (1 p.m. EDT).
“That is why we note that the citizens’ initiative to oust the mayors of the municipalities of Leposavic, Zubin Potok, Zvecan and North Mitrovica has failed,” said Kreshnik Radoniqi, head of the Central Election Commission, which is in charge of the process.
Kosovan officials are accusing the Serbian government of ordering the boycott. Serbian List says it wants the mayors out but it’s demanding their resignations rather than going through this referendum process.
AMERICAS
ECUADOR
Voters in Ecuador headed to the polls on Sunday for a referendum on President Daniel Noboa’s security crackdown. Among the issues on the ballot is Noboa’s decision to declare gang violence an “internal armed conflict” in order to deploy military forces in a law enforcement role. Results were not yet available at time of writing.
VENEZUELA
Venezuelan opposition parties have aligned behind a new candidate to challenge President Nicolás Maduro in July’s election: a former diplomat named Edmundo González. The parties had “provisionally” registered him as their candidate in March but had to come to a final decision before a procedural deadline on Saturday. González replaces María Corina Machado, who won the joint opposition primary in October but remains legally prohibited from running for office.
MEXICO
Mexican politics has been marred by violence in the run up to the country’s June 2 general election. Mayoral candidates in Tamaulipas and Oaxaca states were found dead on Saturday and they thus became the 16th and 17th Mexican political candidates murdered in this election cycle. Out of control criminal violence is surely to blame. The Mexican government has started providing security for some candidates, but it’s been slow to roll that program out to candidates for local/municipal offices.
UNITED STATES
Finally, Un-Diplomatic’s Van Jackson has issues with the Biden administration’s new metaphor for its Asia-Pacific strategy, as a “Lattice Fence” of alliances:
Perhaps you think I should give the administration some credit for wanting to distance themselves from the imperial-flavored imaginary of Asia that policymakers have embraced my entire adult life: an American hub and alliances as spokes.
Washington’s professed rationale for the metaphor change is to characterize the region in a way that accounts for the mini-networks of trilateral, bilateral, and quadrilateral ties that crisscross the region. On a superficial level, that may seem fine, but I have two issues with this.
One, what most Asian security folks know but do not acknowledge is that intra-Asian ties have always been a thing; it’s not some new invention that Uncle Sugar came up with. What’s new the past decade or so is that the US has spent an inordinate amount of diplomatic capital trying to encourage mini-networks of allies to develop the same threat perceptions and to be militarily interoperable—they seek a kind of intellectually monolithic Voltron that, at its best, might give the US the benefits of an Asian NATO without the commitments/constraints of one. I was once part of that project, and I made my early academic career writing about it from a non-critical perspective.
Two, policy practitioners and scholars who focus on Asia like to talk about “regional architecture,” which is shorthand for the structures that order regional relations (be they institutions, regimes, power, whatever). But I’ve studied this shit for my entire adult life, just as they have. The thinking that dominates when it comes to regional architecture is not rigorous enough. Unless you can make meaningful/causal claims about why particular configurations of “architecture” matter, you really ain’t saying nothing. And that’s the problem here—the lattice-fence metaphor has no value as a way to understand Asia or the Pacific.