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I have a family commitment this evening so today’s newsletter is coming out a bit early. We will catch up on anything I’ve missed tomorrow!
TODAY IN HISTORY
December 11, 861: The Abbasid caliph al-Mutawakkil is assassinated by his Turkic royal guard in his palace in Samarra. Al-Mutawakkil’s murder was the final straw in the capture of the caliphate by its Turkish slave soldiery and kicked off a 10 year period known as the “Anarchy at Samarra,” during which four caliphs were enthroned and deposed in rapid succession, each backed by some faction of the military. The period ended with the accession of the caliph al-Muʿtamid, who reigned from 870-892 mostly due to the efforts of his brother, al-Muwaffaq, who pacified the Turks and essentially ruled the caliphate from behind the throne.
December 11, 1917: British General Edmund Allenby enters the newly captured city of Jerusalem.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
At +972 Magazine, Alon Arad writes about the Israeli government’s newest plan to use archeology as a tool to further displace Palestinians:
While residents of Sebastia, a Palestinian village north of Nablus in the occupied West Bank, huddled for an emergency meeting to discuss a new Israeli plan to seize significant parts of their village under the pretext of “developing” its archaeological site, Israeli archaeologists gathered in Boston for the 125th annual conference of the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR).
Formerly the American School of Oriental Research, ASOR replaced the meaning of the letter “O” in its name in 2021 to ostensibly signal a shift away from archaeology’s colonial legacy and toward research based in equal partnership with local populations. For Israeli archaeologists, however, that shift appears largely cosmetic: As they attended the prestigious conference — their main arena for cultivating ties with the global academic community — their government was busy using archaeology as a tool for continued colonial control over Palestinians.
On Nov. 19, Israel’s Civil Administration announced plans to expropriate 550 of Sebastia’s private plots — approximately 1,800 dunams (450 acres) of land that have been central to the village’s livelihood, cultural heritage, and identity for centuries. Residents say the project will devastate local agriculture, including destroying some 3,000 olive trees, some of which are hundreds of years old.
Sebastia is the site of the ancient city of Samaria so there’s no denying its importance. International law and basic ethics would dictate studying the site while minimizing any disruption for the people currently living there. But the aim here is to maximize disruption, with research a secondary consideration at best. As Arad writes, when it comes to the Occupied Territories archeology’s “commitment to studying the past to deepen human understanding has been subordinated to a political project of Jewish supremacy, in which archaeology is wielded as a tool of territorial control. Rather than defending the integrity of their field, many Israeli archaeologists have effectively become an extension of the state’s political apparatus.”
The Israeli military (IDF) killed at least one woman in an attack on a displacement camp in northern Gaza’s Jabalia area on Thursday. The New Arab is reporting that Israeli soldiers gunned down a second person in Jabalia, a 16 year old boy, and then “ran over him with a tank.” To the south, storm “Byron” dumped “torrential” rain on the Mawasi displacement zone near Khan Younis overnight, causing the death of one eight month old child due to hypothermia. Israeli aid restrictions are preventing the construction of more durable structures that can withstand the eastern Mediterranean winter. With virtually all of Gaza’s population now displaced into makeshift shelters this is likely to be a massive humanitarian crisis over the coming months.
Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he will reveal the members of Gaza’s “Board of Peace” early next year. US officials had previously signaled an interest in unveiling Gaza’s new governing structures before the end of this year, so the process seems to have been delayed. That could be due to difficulties in recruiting countries to participate in Trump’s proposed “international stabilization force.” Trump is reportedly planning to appoint “an American two-star general” to lead that force, in the event it actually comes into existence.
IRAN
Iranian media is apparently reporting that the Russian space agency will put three new Iranian satellites in orbit in a December 28 launch. All three are Earth monitoring and communications devices ostensibly for use in “agriculture, natural resources management and environmental monitoring.” Both the launch and recent overall improvements in Iran’s satellite program are reflective of improved ties with Russia and could be viewed as part of Iran’s compensation for supporting the war effort in Ukraine.
ASIA
MYANMAR
A military airstrike reportedly hit a hospital in Myanmar’s Rakhine state late Wednesday, killing at least 33 people and wounding some 70. Those figures come from the Arakan Army rebel group, which is in open conflict with Myanmar’s ruling junta, so they may be taken with a grain of salt though an aid worker independently confirmed at least 31 dead to AFP. The military’s heavy reliance on airpower against Myanmar’s various rebel factions frequently results in strikes with high numbers of civilian casualties.
THAILAND
The latest outbreak of border violence between Thailand and Cambodia continued to escalate through its fourth day on Thursday, with the AP reporting that the death toll has now risen to “about two dozen.” Donald Trump assured reporters on Wednesday that he can calm this situation down and suggested that he would speak to leaders of both countries on Thursday, but if he’s done so I haven’t seen any reporting about it. The two sides did hold negotiations on Thursday, but only about opening the Khlong Luek border checkpoint to allow Thai nationals who have been stranded in Cambodia to return home. As far as anything more substantive is concerned, World Politics Review’s Elliot Waldman argues that both the Cambodian and Thai governments are too politically invested in this conflict now for either to back down. That could make it difficult to find a near-term resolution.
Speaking of political investment, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul took the first step toward dissolving parliament on Thursday, apparently because of some sort of legislative impasse. When Anutin became PM in September he said he was planning to dissolve parliament in January, so he’s several weeks early. He’ll undoubtedly feel the need to project strength against Cambodia heading into the election, which adds another potential complication to reestablishing a ceasefire.
AFRICA
SUDAN
Al Jazeera is reporting that the South Sudanese military has deployed to the Heglig oilfield in Sudan’s West Kordofan state to secure the site. The Rapid Support Forces militant group seized Heglig, Sudan’s largest oilfield, earlier this week, at which point the Sudanese military apparently entered into discussions with South Sudanese officials about stepping in to assume control of the site and evacuate civilian workers.
South Sudanese oil exports are processed at Heglig before continuing via pipeline to Sudan’s Red Sea coast for export, giving Juba a vested interest in protecting the site from further military action. The South Sudanese government is also on good terms with the RSF, which made it possible to negotiate what its military officials are calling a “tripartite agreement” with both sides of Sudan’s ongoing conflict. Both the RSF and the Sudanese military will withdraw from Heglig under that accord. There are potential longer term implications here, in that the South Sudanese government has a territorial claim on Heglig and it and Sudan fought two battles over the site in 2012, shortly after South Sudan became independent. But one thing at a time, I guess.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Officials in the eastern DRC’s South Kivu province are reporting that at least 413 civilians have been killed amid M23’s latest offensive, which began earlier this month and has seen the militants seize the city of Uvira. There were reports of “sporadic gunfire” around Uvira on Thursday but on the whole M23 seems to be in firm control of the city. Reuters is reporting that some Burundian military forces that had been deployed to Uvira have not withdrawn to Burundi, and they could be the source of any continued fighting.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The Russian military is claiming to have captured the town of Siversk in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk oblast. There’s no independent confirmation of that claim and the Ukrainian military insists that Siversk is still under its control.
“Senior officials” from Ukraine, France, Germany, and the UK are scheduled to meet in Paris on Saturday to discuss the latest US proposal for ending the war in Ukraine. At this point it’s unclear whether the Trump administration will participate, given Donald Trump’s apparently growing frustration with the negotiating process. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went into some detail about the state of peace talks in a briefing with reporters on Thursday, saying that Trump wants a “full understanding of where we are with this agreement by Christmas.” Some parts of the framework seem to be in place, including plans for postwar rebuilding and for Ukraine’s security guarantees—which Zelensky suggested would be codified in a US Senate-ratified treaty. A proposed cap on the size of the Ukrainian military has also apparently been raised to around 800,000 personnel, which is roughly the size it’s at now and probably larger than Kyiv could maintain under normal circumstances.
The main sticking point, as has been reported over and over again at this point, is the US demand that Ukraine cede its remaining territory in the Donbas. Apparently the Trump administration is now proposing to make that territory a demilitarized “free economic zone” rather than turn it over to Russia. That could be more palatable to Ukraine, but there’s no indication who would govern the territory and seemingly no protection against the Russians simply moving in and seizing it militarily at some point down the road.
BULGARIA
Bulgarian Prime Minister Rosen Zhelyazkov resigned along with his cabinet on Thursday, just prior to a parliamentary no-confidence vote that his minority government seemed likely to lose. Bulgaria has experienced weeks of protests ahead of its January 1 adoption of the euro, which threatens to raise prices, and over proposed tax increases in the government’s 2026 budget, which Zhelyazkov scrapped last week in response to the public outcry. Those protests also involved longstanding grievances about corruption and youth discontent, which gives them a couple of very broad things in common with other so-called “Gen Z” protests though I find that label deeply unsatisfying (“young people protesting about corruption and economic complaints” is not a thing that is unique to this generation or this moment in history).
Bulgarian politics have been extremely unstable since the April 2021 parliamentary election, with the country running through six prime ministers and a series of more or less inconclusive elections since then. President Rumen Radev will now consider options for forming a new government to replace Zhelyazkov’s, but the likeliest outcome here is another snap election early next year.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
Axios reported on Thursday that the Trump administration is blacklisting three of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s nephews as well as “a businessman close to his regime and six companies shipping its oil.” One of the nephews is connected to Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, and the other two have previously been convicted in the US on cocaine trafficking charges. The shipping company designations come after the US seized an oil tanker off of the Venezuelan coast earlier this week, an incident that according to Reuters is likely the first of several such seizures to come.
HONDURAS
Honduras’s National Electoral Council (CNE) is likely to begin a partial recount of votes from last month’s presidential election, perhaps as soon as Saturday. The final results of that vote are still not available, owing to technical issues in the counting process as well as an apparently large number of irregular tally sheets. Former Tegucigalpa Mayor Nasry Asfura leads the official count by around 42,000 votes over Salvador Nasralla.
UNITED STATES
Finally, at Foreign Affairs Robert Kelly and Paul Poast question whether US allies may start to rethink their relationships with Washington amid the second Trump presidency:
Donald Trump’s rise was supposed to have upended the liberal international order. In his first term, Trump openly disparaged longtime European allies, pulled out of international treaties such as the Paris climate agreement, and decried how the United States was subsidizing its allies through military support and trade deficits. Yet as we argued in Foreign Affairs in 2022, Trump’s aggressive unilateralism did not break U.S. alliances. Shaken and often irritated by Washington’s bullying, the allies nevertheless did not drift away from the world’s preeminent superpower. The foreign relations doctrines, defense spending, and geopolitical alignments of core U.S. partners such as France, Germany, Japan, and South Korea did not shift in any meaningful way during the first Trump administration. Instead, these countries accommodated Trump because they felt that loosening ties with the United States would be more dangerous to their economic and security interests than trying to stand up to his abuse.
Trump’s second term has put this dynamic to an even sterner test. The president’s disdain for U.S. allies and partners is much greater this time around. He has talked about annexing Canada and Greenland, bombing Mexico, retaking the Panama Canal, and giving up on Ukraine and Taiwan, to name just a few. Trump, claiming that allies are ripping off the United States, is demanding large, ill-defined investments in the United States that look a lot like bribes. For instance, he wants a staggering $600 billion investment guarantee from the European Union to be used at his discretion. He seems to be leaning into the notion that alliances are not pillars of a mutually beneficial network but elements of a protection racket—and that it’s high time for the United States to reap the rewards.
If allies had hoped that the election of Joe Biden in 2020 would restore traditional American liberal internationalism, Trump’s reelection proves that the foreign policy belligerence and explicit quid pro quo basis for U.S. commitments evident in his first term was not an aberration. Instead, as demonstrated in the administration’s just-released National Security Strategy, it will probably be a core part of U.S. foreign policy moving forward. Future Republican leaders are likely to continue to promote Trump’s overall policy direction. And even if the Democrats retake control, the ability of Trump-aligned Republicans to exercise power in a two-party system will undermine the United States’ reliability as an ally.
So far in Trump’s second term, U.S. allies have not yet defected. In October, Trump visited Japan and South Korea, and each country’s leaders signaled their desire to stay in the president’s good graces. Just as we concluded in 2022, the allies still seem to be all right. But they are much more worried than before. Unlike eight years ago, countries can no longer wish away the implications of a United States that might not support them in a crisis. Instead, over the next decade, it is likely that U.S. allies will start to noticeably drift away. They may still hope for U.S. support, but they are also starting to hedge against the possibility that the United States will be absent when problems arise by building alternative alliance structures, considering obtaining nuclear weapons, and even brokering separate peace deals with, rather than confronting, regional opponents. Without being able to predict how Trump would respond to calls for help in a major war or a nuclear crisis with China, Russia, or North Korea, U.S. allies have no choice but to shift their long-term strategies to reduce their dependence on Washington.
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