World roundup: June 1 2023

Stories from Syria, Sudan, Sweden, and elsewhere

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TODAY IN HISTORY

June 1, 1215: After a lengthy siege during which a substantial portion of its population is believed to have starved to death and after which many more were massacred (actual figures are hard to come by), the city of Zhongdu—known today as Beijing—surrenders to Genghis Khan’s invading Mongolian army. Zhongdu had been the capital of the Jin dynasty, which ruled northern China, and this was the second time in very short order that the Mongols had besieged it. After the initial siege the Jin retained control of the city but moved their court to Kaifeng for security reasons, which was perceived by the Mongols as a provocation and thereby triggered the second siege. Because the Mongols turned their attentions west shortly after capturing Zhongdu, the Jin were able to survive at Kaifeng until it (and the dynasty as a whole) fell to the Mongols in 1233.

June 1, 1916: The Battle of Jutland, the largest naval battle of World War I and at least by some measures the largest in history to that point, ends in what I would say (there’s still disagreement on this point) was a fairly Pyrrhic German victory. The Germans sank substantially more British ships and killed substantially more British personnel than vice versa, but these were losses that the British navy could sustain more easily than the Germans. The German government was able to claim victory in the immediate aftermath of the battle, but the British fleet maintained and arguably even increased its naval superiority for the remainder of the war, while keeping Germany’s High Seas Fleet largely out of the Atlantic Ocean. Put another way, the battle was a German tactical victory but a British strategic one. Of historical note, Jutland was the last major naval battle that featured battleships—aircraft carriers subsequently displaced them as the primary combat ship for large naval powers.

INTERNATIONAL

In today’s global news:

• Worldometer is tracking COVID-19 cases and fatalities.

• The New York Times is tracking global vaccine distribution.

MIDDLE EAST

SYRIA

Another set of US intelligence reports uncovered in the Discord leak reportedly suggests that Iran is working with proxy militias in Syria to escalate attacks on US service members in that country. According to said reports this involves providing those militias with “more powerful armor-piercing roadside bombs intended specifically to target U.S. military vehicles and kill U.S. personnel,” to crib from The Washington Post, whose editors frankly must be thrilled at all the Content they’ve been able to wring from the Discord leak over the past few weeks. The documents also point to the creation of a “coordination center” by the Iranian, Russian, and Syrian militaries with the overarching goal of getting US forces out of Syria.

I think it’s important to note that these are leaks of US intelligence estimates, which means they’re guesses about what Iran, et al, might be planning and are not direct evidence of anything. But it’s even more important to note that if the US government has real reason to fear for the safety of its personnel in Syria, it could just…withdraw them. The US has no legal basis for being there in the first place and even its alleged justification—preventing an Islamic State resurgence—is thin cover for the real mission: squatting on Syria’s most productive oil fields in order to keep them out of the hands of the Syrian government.

TURKEY

Turkey’s Supreme Electoral Council on Thursday officially certified President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s victory over Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in Sunday’s runoff. Erdoğan took 52.18 percent of the vote to Kılıçdaroğlu’s 47.82 percent.

IRAN

The Biden administration on Thursday blacklisted five individuals and a Turkey-based airline affiliated with Iran’s Quds Force, in connection with alleged plots to kill a number of individuals around the world. Included in this alleged hit list is former US National Security Advisor John Bolton, part of a broader effort to retaliate for the Trump administration’s 2020 assassination of then-Quds Force leader Qasem Soleimani. There are also indications that former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Pompeo’s Iran envoy, Brian Hook, were targeted.

A new report from the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights issued on Thursday finds that Iranian authorities carried out at least 142 executions in May alone. Iran has executed at least 307 people so far in 2023, an increase of 76 percent over the first five months of 2022. Many of those executions can be linked back to the Mahsa Amini protests but a large number have been carried out for more mundane (for lack of a better term) charges related to drugs or religious offenses. The overarching goal may nevertheless be general public intimidation.

ASIA

PAKISTAN

Unspecified militants attacked security forces in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province on Thursday, killing two soldiers. The incident took place close to the Iranian border and it’s unclear whether the attackers crossed the border before and/or after the attack, but Pakistani authorities say they are in contact with their Iranian counterparts. A number of violent groups operate on either side of the border, including Baluch separatists, Islamist militants, and criminal traffickers.

INDIA

The Indian government released a new national energy plan on Wednesday evening that, among other things, imposes a five year freeze on the construction of new coal plants. An earlier draft of the plan had estimated that India would need to build out another 8000 megawatts of coal power by 2027, but the plan now is to add battery capacity instead with the aim of generating that increased power through renewable sources. India is still apparently lagging on its more nebulous, long term clean energy commitments but assuming this plan holds it’s undoubtedly good news from an environmental perspective.

NORTH KOREA

Images of the North Korean rocket that failed to put a spy satellite in orbit on Wednesday seem to indicate that it uses components that the North Koreans have developed as part of their intercontinental ballistic missile program. This is not terribly surprising given the degree of overlap between those technologies, but it does allow the US government to claim that Wednesday’s launch, along with every other North Korean space launch, is a violation of United Nations restrictions on Pyongyang’s missile program. The US is seeking a UN Security Council session on Friday to discuss the issue. It’s a specious argument—the implication is that North Korea is carrying out space launches in order to refine its ICBM program, when in reality North Korea has carried out numerous overt ICBM tests and now seems to be using its missile developments to improve its space program (not vice versa).

AFRICA

SUDAN

Sudan’s ongoing conflict—I hesitate to use the term “civil war,” which I think implies a level of public support that neither the Sudanese military nor the Rapid Support Forces possess—reached a milestone on Thursday with the imposition of its first US sanctions. They group up so fast, you know? In what I guess was an attempt to be even-handed, the Biden administration blacklisted two firms with ties to the military and two more with ties to the RSF. This step, an acknowledgement that US diplomatic efforts have failed following the collapse of ceasefire talks on Wednesday, came after an attack on a market in Khartoum left at least 18 people dead. Given the reports that the market was bombarded from the air it seems likely that the military was responsible.

The governor of Sudan’s Darfur region, Minni Minnawi, called earlier this week for Darfur residents to arm and prepare to defend themselves. There are concerns that this could be the precursor to a militia recruitment drive. Minnawi is linked to a faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement (also known as the Sudan Liberation Army), a militia that descends from the Darfur Liberation Front and is comprised of several non-Arab Darfur groups. The SLM has a long and hostile history with the Arab tribes that comprise the RSF and its Darfur support network. Arabs aligned with the RSF have been attacking non-Arab communities in the region since the RSF and military started fighting on April 15 so a mobilization among those communities would not be entirely unexpected.

BURKINA FASO

Jihadist militants attacked a food convoy in Burkina Faso’s Nord region on Wednesday, killing two civilians. According to the Burkinabè military, the convoy’s security detail killed “at least 50” attackers and drove the rest off.

NIGERIA

According to the International Crisis Group, Boko Haram is rebuilding amid its ongoing conflict with its Islamic State West Africa Province offshoot:

On the battlefield, ISWAP remains dominant. It took over the Sambisa forest, adding to the rural areas it controls in northern Borno, notably the southern shores of Lake Chad and the Alagarno forest on the Yobe state boundary. ISWAP has instituted a semblance of governance in these areas, in part by taking a more moderate stance toward civilians than JAS [Jamaʿat Ahl al-Sunnah li’l-Daʿwah wa’l-Jihad, aka Boko Haram]. JAS regards all civilians as fair game for plunder: it frequently steals crops, livestock and other items, rendering travel so unsafe that people are afraid to take goods to market. ISWAP, on the other hand, guarantees people freedom of movement, allowing them to engage in normal commerce, though it taxes the proceeds. Soon after [former Boko Haram leader Abubakar] Shekau’s death, ISWAP reached out to JAS units, offering to absorb them on the condition that they cease ransacking villages and attacking civilians. To ensure that its new recruits would honour these terms, it confiscated their guns, storing them in armouries – it is ISWAP’s policy to limit the circulation of weapons and hand them out only when it needs extra firepower for large-scale operations. It was thus able to attract a number of JAS commanders, but not many fighters, who were alienated when ISWAP began to disarm them.

JAS is now a much weaker force, but it is hardly vanquished. Estimates are unreliable, but most believe that at least 3,000 JAS fighters surrendered to the Nigerian authorities following Shekau’s death. JAS still has several thousand men under arms, however, though ISWAP’s ranks are most likely larger. Other JAS cells have resumed fighting ISWAP, as well as the Nigerian and Cameroonian armies. They have also restarted their predation on civilians.

DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF THE CONGO

East African Community member states agreed on Wednesday to extend their regional military deployment in the eastern DRC through at least September 8. The EAC force has had a mixed record at best, having negotiated some limited withdrawals by the rebel M23 militia in North Kivu province but overall having failed to bring that insurgency to an end. Congolese President Félix Tshisekedi criticized the force’s performance last month and hinted that the deployment would end soon, but apparently he’s had a change of heart.

EUROPE

RUSSIA

The Russian military claimed on Thursday that its forces fought off three attempted incursions across the Ukrainian border directed at the embattled town of Shebekino, in Belgorod oblast. These were presumably carried out by the same pro-Ukraine Russian partisan groups that have been responsible for previous attacks in Belgorod and other parts of Russia. According to Russian officials some 50 of the attackers were killed, while civilians in the area were evacuated due to shelling and drone activity.

UKRAINE

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky attended a meeting of the European Political Community in Moldova on Thursday to press his case for Ukraine’s admittance into NATO. In Norway, meanwhile, NATO alliance foreign ministers spent part of their day bickering over that very subject. Several NATO member states are calling for a concrete path toward Ukrainian membership in the alliance, though there is no chance Ukraine will be admitted in the middle of an ongoing war.

The Gang Meets in Oslo (LISE ASERUD/NTB/AFP via Getty Images)

To the extent that the completely nebulous promise of future membership that NATO gave to Ukraine in 2008 helped birth the present state of affairs, there is a case to be made that clarity on Ukraine’s status would be helpful. But NATO can’t definitively offer Ukraine membership and most member states refuse to definitively rule Ukraine out as a future member because they feel that would constitute rewarding Russia for its invasion. Alliance leaders are hoping to be able to make some sort of commitment to Ukraine at next month’s NATO leaders’ summit in Lithuania but the members are nowhere near anything approaching consensus.

NORWAY

As part of his visit to Norway on Thursday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the opening of a new “American Presence Post” in the Norwegian city of Tromsø. The new facility will be the northernmost US diplomatic outpost in the world and indeed the only US diplomatic outpost north of the Arctic Circle. The State Department previously had a facility in Tromsø that it closed in 1994, but the resurgence in hostilities with Russia—coupled with the melting of the Arctic ice cap due to climate change—has generated new strategic interest in the region.

SWEDEN

NATO leaders are also hoping to introduce Sweden as the alliance’s newest member at next month’s summit. Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told reporters on Thursday that he’s heading to Turkey to press the issue. As I noted earlier this week it sounds like the US is making a fairly explicit “F-16s for Sweden” offer to Erdoğan, whose election victory (see above) means there’s less political need for him to look like he’s standing up to the West. For whatever it’s worth, Joe Biden seemed fairly certain of Sweden’s accession in a speech at the US Air Force Academy’s graduation ceremony on Thursday. And the Swedish government is hoping that a new “anti-terrorism” law coming into effect this week will win Ankara’s approval.

AMERICAS

UNITED STATES

Finally, The Lever digs into the environmental repercussions of the new “debt ceiling” bill, and shockingly finds that they’re not great:

The House of Representatives voted 314 - 117 last night to approve a debt deal that includes provisions expediting construction of a controversial fossil fuel pipeline — and attempting to block courts from hearing challenges to its legality.

The language nestled into the agreement reached by the Biden administration and congressional Republicans last weekend came amid a flood of campaign cash from executives at NextEra Energy, one of the companies spearheading the pipeline, to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (Ind.-Ariz.) and two other Democratic senators whose votes could be needed to pass the agreement.

The bill now advances to the Senate. Not only does it mandate approval of a major gas pipeline, it also omits proposals to expedite construction of transmission lines that energy grid experts say are necessary to transition the country off fossil fuels.

(By way of an update, the bill will likely have passed the Senate by the time you read this, at which point it will go to Biden to be signed into law.)

According to Lever, the bill provides legal protections to the controversial Mountain Valley Pipeline project that could shield it from further challenges and directs any challenges not covered by those protections to a court that is likely to rule in favor of the pipeline. To say that this sets a troubling precedent for future projects like this seems to be an understatement.