World roundup: February 25 2025
Stories from Syria, South Korea, Ukraine, and elsewhere
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TODAY IN HISTORY
February 25, 628: Sasanian Persian nobles overthrow Emperor Khosrow II in favor of his son, Kavadh II, who promptly had his brothers and his father executed. Khosrow was on the verge of losing the 602-628 war against the Byzantines, which had begun very promisingly for the Sasanians but fell apart beginning with Khosrow’s ill-advised 626 siege of Constantinople. One of Kavadh’s first actions as emperor was to make peace with Byzantine Emperor Heraclius, after which his brutality toward the rest of his family plunged the Sasanian Empire into a civil war from which it never fully recovered.
February 25, 1943: The World War II Battle of Kasserine Pass, in central Tunisia, ends in an Axis tactical victory but a strategic stalemate.
INTERNATIONAL
The United Nations Development Program issued a new paper on Tuesday sounding a new alarm about the crippling effect that debt is having on the developing world. According to the UNDP, 56 developing nations are spending at least 10 percent of their annual government revenue on debt service payments and 17 are spending more than 20 percent. Devoting that amount of revenue to debt service siphons away money that could be spent on development programs. The agency is calling for a new global debt relief deal, which it estimates could save the developing world as much as $100 billion collectively.
MIDDLE EAST
SYRIA
The Syrian government’s “national dialogue” kickoff event wrapped up on Tuesday with a statement that stressed the need for national unity and made plans for a constitutional committee to undertake the next major step in the country’s political transition. The document made a number of other platitudinous statements about the state’s monopoly on violence, transitional justice, anti-discrimination, etc., but of some interest was its demand that the Israeli military (IDF) cease its occupation of southern Syria. This is the strongest statement the Syrian government has made about the occupation since it took power in December and the IDF absorbed a significant new chunk of Syrian territory. Most recently Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seen dictating who could and could not enter the region south of Damascus—an area that, it should be noted, is not currently part of Israel.
The Israelis, coincidentally or not, struck several military sites in southern Syria on Tuesday night, killing at least two people in one attack southwest of Damascus.
LEBANON
An IDF drone strike killed at least two people and wounded two others in the eastern Lebanese town of Shaara on Tuesday. Israeli officials described the casualties as “Hezbollah terrorists” who “were identified operating within a Hezbollah production and storage facility for strategic weapons.”
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
Palestinian medics say that cold temperatures in Gaza have killed six infants over the past two weeks. People are continuing to shelter in inadequate tent camps or in damaged structures with no heating or electricity, and while there have been moves recently to bring mobile homes into the territory to make for better accommodations it will take considerable time to move those units into Gaza and then move people into the units. That’s time that may no longer be available to Gaza’s residents and aid workers, what with the first phase of last month’s ceasefire deal currently set to expire on Saturday and negotiations on the second phase going nowhere. Hamas is refusing to engage in those talks until the Israelis release the detainees they were supposed to free on Saturday. That issue may be resolved on Wednesday, when according to Haaretz Hamas will repatriate the bodies of four more Israelis in return for the release of the detainees. But that leaves three days for the principals to negotiate phase two and, suffice to say, that’s not going to happen.
The Israeli government is reportedly open to extending the ceasefire’s first phase to allow for additional hostage releases, but it’s unclear how open Hamas will be to that. The Israelis could simply drag out the first phase long enough to free all of the remaining hostages and then resume obliterating Gaza. Hamas might be willing to keep the first phase going a bit longer but it will presumably want to see some path to the second phase and a full cessation of hostilities, which so far the Israeli government has refused to offer.
IRAN
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi told reporters on Tuesday that Tehran “will not negotiate” with the United States “under pressure and sanctions,” referring of course to Donald Trump’s renewed “maximum pressure” campaign. Trump has expressed an interest in negotiating over Iran’s nuclear program, but this could present him with an impasse. That said, Araghchi seemed to offer a way out of the bind when he said that “there is no possibility of direct negotiations with the US as long as maximum pressure is being applied in this way” [emphasis mine]. Indirect negotiations might be another matter, and here it may be worth noting that the negotiations that eventually led to the 2015 Iran nuclear deal began with indirect talks between the US and Iran conducted via the Omani government. Trump’s apparent affinity for Russia offers one obvious conduit for such negotiations if he wants to pursue them.
ASIA
CHINA
The Conversation’s Linggong Kong wonders whether Elon Musk’s business interests are going to affect the Trump-Musk administration’s China policy:
Elon Musk holds an outsized influence in the new Trump administration.
As head of his Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, the world’s wealthiest man has enjoyed nearly unfettered political power in slashing and refashioning the federal government as he sees fit. And it has quickly become clear that he has the president’s ear on issues beyond that brief.
But on one topic, Musk stands somewhat apart from others in the coterie of aides and advisers around Trump: China. In contrast to the many hawks in the new Trump cabinet who call for a hard-line approach on China, Musk is a striking outlier.
As an expert on China-U.S. relations who has monitored Musk’s views on China, I don’t find his long history of espousing pro-Chinese sentiment surprising, given that he has sought throughout to get a business hold in the country.
But those entanglements are worth scrutiny, given Musk’s role in the Trump administration at a time when one of America’s biggest foreign policy challenges is how to manage its relationship with Beijing.
Maybe instead of affecting US-China relations this discrepancy will affect Musk’s standing within the administration. I guess time will tell.
SOUTH KOREA
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol attended the final hearing in his impeachment trial on Tuesday. Prosecutors characterized his attempt to impose martial law back in December as an act of “dictatorship,” while Yoon in his own closing statement insisted that he only declared martial law “to inform the public of the national crisis we’re in.” It seems like there must be less destructive ways of doing that, but what do I know? He also apparently claimed that he was not intending to impose “full” martial law, though I’m not sure it’s possible to impose “partial martial law” if for no other reason than the phrase “partial martial” just sounds awful.
Yoon’s final big argument was apparently that there’s no point wondering whether he actually ordered the South Korean military to arrest members of parliament, as he’s been accused of doing, because the whole martial law affair was over so quickly that he never had a chance to actually do anything with it. That’s certainly a novel approach to a legal defense but again I’m just not sure it’s going to stick. Legally the South Korean Constitutional Court has until June 14 to decide whether or not to approve Yoon’s impeachment, though precedent suggests it could have a ruling in the next couple of weeks.
AFRICA
SUDAN
A new report from Human Rights Watch accuses armed groups affiliated with the Sudanese military of carrying out attacks on civilian populations in Sudan’s Gezira state in recent weeks. The military has regained control over much of that province from the Rapid Support Forces militant group, which has also been credibly accused of committing war crimes against civilians in the same region. HRW cites reports of an attack by a group called “the Sudan Shield Forces” on a village in Gezira on January 10 that left at least 26 civilians dead and much of the village looted and destroyed. Local men and boys were singled out for allegedly supporting the RSF.
CENTRAL AFRICAN REPUBLIC
Return, Reclamation, Rehabilitation (3R) militants reportedly attacked the village of Nzoro in the northwestern CAR’s Lim-Pendé prefecture on Tuesday, killing at least nine people and burning over 700 homes. 3R claimed that it was “defending marginalized herders” amid reports of a cattle theft, but Nzoro Mayor Bertrand Oudin Dimanche accused the militants of having “no respect for human life” and said that “they kill for political reasons.”
SOMALIA
The Somali government is claiming that its security forces killed “over 70” al-Shabab militants in an operation in central Somalia’s Hirshabelle state on Tuesday. This was apparently in response to recent al-Shabab activity in that region. The government’s casualty figures can’t be confirmed, but AFP reported that local residents did confirm that there was fighting on Tuesday and that the militants seemed to get the worst of it.
DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO
Burundian soldiers who are still deployed in the eastern DRC appear to be moving north of the city of Uvira to try to intercept the M23/Rwandan advance on that border city. They’re being supplemented by pro-government “Wazalendo” militia fighters. M23 is currently said to be about 75 miles north of Uvira and local residents are reportedly fleeing in anticipation of a clash. Meanwhile, the East African Community and Southern African Development Community regional blocs are reportedly considering a new multilateral military deployment into parts of the eastern DRC that are already under M23 control in hopes of facilitating humanitarian assistance and evacuating any wounded in need of medical care. Obviously this would require M23’s assent and it’s unclear whether the militants and their Rwandan patrons would be prepared to go along with such a plan.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The US and Ukrainian governments have apparently reached agreement on at least a preliminary minerals deal that should provide substantial economic benefits to the US and for the Ukrainians…well, I’m sure they’ll really enjoy it too. The framework gives the US what The Washington Post described as “partial access to Ukraine’s minerals, oil and gas,” which may reflect a softening of US demands since Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejected a proposal earlier this month that sounds like it would have signed the entire Ukrainian economy over to US control. Otherwise it’s unclear how this agreement differs from the earlier proposal. Donald Trump views ownership of Ukrainian resources as appropriate payment for past US assistance that he values at $350 billion, a significant markup from the actual amount of around $120 billion in military and financial support.
Ukraine has been seeking a security commitment from the US as part of these negotiations and it does not appear that it has gotten one. Instead I guess Zelensky and company are contenting themselves with the idea that US economic investment in Ukrainian resources will bring with it some sort of implicit security guarantee. I’m not sure the logic holds up but the Ukrainians also don’t have a lot of options at this point. Part of the revenue from developing those resources may be put toward Ukraine reconstruction, which the World Bank now says will cost at least $524 billion and that’s if the Russian bombardment of Ukraine were to end today, though The Financial Times reported that the terms of a previous US draft that envisioned a “Reconstruction Investment Fund” are not part of the deal. I’m not sure if the concept of the fund made the cut.
During a visit to the US on Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron suggested in a Fox News interview that negotiations on ending the conflict in Ukraine could begin in a matter of weeks with some sort of agreed-upon truce. During his visit to the White House he spoke of having reached a “turning point” in his discussions with Trump about the issue of a security guarantee for Ukraine. It’s unclear what that might have been and Trump hasn’t been forthcoming about it, but I think his rhetoric highlights a real looming problem.
Any Ukrainian security guarantee is likely going to require putting some sort of deterrent force in Ukraine, and the likeliest candidates to provide that force are European nations. There are two issues here. One is that so far the only European governments that have broached the idea of such a deployment are France and the UK. Nobody else will even talk about it and it’s unclear whether those two countries are actually prepared to participate. The second and probably more important issue is that the Russian government still insists it will not accept a European military force stationed in Ukraine, or at least not one that includes forces from any NATO member states. Unless that latter issue can be resolved any peace process is likely to stall.
GERMANY
The BBC explores the far-right Alternative for Germany party’s relative success in Sunday’s German federal election, where it took just a bit under 21 percent of the vote to finish as the country’s main opposition party. It was a stunning outcome for the party and, given its ideological leanings and Germany’s history, has to be viewed as troubling to say the least. AfD’s stature is rising nationwide but the party is particularly strong in the former East Germany, where not only did it do very well in Sunday’s vote but it’s also done quite well in recent state elections in Saxony and Thuringia. The continued economic weakness of eastern German states relative to states in the former West Germany, a relic of reunification that lingers even as eastern states’ economies have improved in recent years, seems like a relevant correlation.
AMERICAS
CUBA
The Trump administration on Tuesday expanded the already existing US visa restriction program for individuals involved in the Cuban government’s program of exporting skilled labor (primarily medical personnel). The US government has long alleged that these programs are exploitative because they force the workers to go abroad while the Cuban government keeps most of the revenue of their labor. These programs have reportedly become a conduit for the embargoed Cuban government to obtain hard currency or other needed goods.
CANADA
The Financial Times reported on Tuesday that Peter Navarro, Donald Trump’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, is pushing his boss to kick Canada out of the “Five Eyes” intelligence sharing network, in which it is currently a member along with Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and the US. The intent would be to pressure Canada into…well, that part isn’t clear. Trade concessions? Acquiescing to US annexation? I’m not even sure Navarro knows what the aim would be. At any rate he later denied the report, saying that “we would never, ever jeopardize our national security, ever, with allies like Canada, ever.” I’m taking this as confirmation that the FT report was basically accurate.
UNITED STATES
Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed replacing the US State Department’s EB-5 visa, which was enacted in 1990 to provide residency to anyone willing to invest around $1 million in a commercial enterprise that would create at least ten new jobs in the US, with a $5 million “gold card” that would give especially high rollers a path to buying US citizenship. In fairness, the Congressional Research Service has highlighted the EB-5 program as a potential vector for fraud, so I guess just selling residency for $5 million up front is at least a way to ensure that the money goes where it’s supposed to go, maybe? The program would be similar to other “pay for residency” schemes around the world that are of course all entirely above reproach.
And finally, speaking of draining the swamp, Responsible Statecraft’s William Hartung and Ashley Gate outline the likely impact of Trump’s decision to stop enforcing the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act on the US defense industry:
This move by the Trump administration to pause enforcement of the foreign bribery law now and allow it to be put on the shelf later risks a revival of the pre-1970s period, when bribery was a routine practice among major U.S. arms contractors.
In the post-Watergate reform period in Congress, in late 1975 and early 1976, Idaho Senator Frank Church’s Subcommittee on the Conduct of Multinational Corporations of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee exposed widespread foreign bribery on the part of U.S. oil and aerospace firms, with the starring role played by Lockheed Martin, which bribed officials in Japan, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Indonesia, Mexico, and Colombia in pursuit of contracts for its civilian and military aircraft.
The revelations caused political turmoil in the recipient countries, led to the resignation of Lockheed’s two top executives, and prompted Congress to pass the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.
Now that’s how you Make America Great Again.