World roundup: June 18 2024
World roundup: June 18 2024
Stories from Israel-Palestine, China, Sudan, and elsewhere
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A belated Eid Mubarak to those who are celebrating!
TODAY IN HISTORY
June 18, 1815: Napoleon’s revived imperial dreams run smack into British (with allies) and Prussian armies at the Battle of Waterloo. Spoiler warning for those who are listening to the excellent Age of Napoleon podcast, but this one doesn’t go too well for Napoleon. The French cause was arguably lost when Napoleon defeated the Prussians at the Battle of Ligny two days earlier, which despite the French victory ended with the intact Prussian army retreating in good order such that it was still available to reinforce the British army. At Waterloo, the British, under Duke of Wellington Arthur Wellesley, were able to hold on long enough for the Prussians to reach them and make a decisive attack that sent the French into retreat. Napoleon abdicated (well, re-abdicated) on June 22 and was forced once again into exile. This time he was sent not to nearby Elba but to distant (and considerably harder to escape) St. Helena, where he died on May 5, 1821.
June 18, 1954: Exiled army officer Carlos Castillo Armas invades Guatemala with 480 soldiers and the support of the US government, in the opening strike of the 1954 Guatemalan coup. Castillo Armas wound up in Honduras following the 1949 coup attempt against then-President Juan José Arévalo, at which point the CIA generously offered to put him on its payroll to the tune of $3000 per week. When the Eisenhower administration came to power in 1953 it decided that the current Guatemalan president, leftist Jacobo Árbenz, had to go in the name of Defeating Communism, and Castillo Armas emerged as the best candidate for the job. Although his invading force was quite small, a psychological warfare campaign by the US government is credited with demoralizing the Guatemalan army and eventually leaving Árbenz with no choice but to resign. Castillo Armas’s reign is noted for its brutality and corruption, which locked Guatemala onto the path toward its 1960-1996 civil war.
INTERNATIONAL
The number of civilians killed in conflict rose by some 72 percent last year, according to the United Nations. That includes triple the number of children and double the number of women killed as compared with 2022. Presumably it comes as no surprise that the Israeli campaign in Gaza and the civil war in Sudan fueled much of the increase, though other preexisting conflicts also contributed.
MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
There are several items of note so let’s take them one by one:
The Israeli military (IDF) announced over the weekend that it would begin daily “tactical pauses” in part of Rafah, ostensibly to facilitate additional humanitarian aid shipments. The pauses are intended to cover a route that aid trucks can use to pick up supplies at the Kerem Shalom checkpoint and then to transport them to the Salah al-Din road, Gaza’s main north-south artery, for further distribution. The reception here has been somewhat mixed. After some initial indications that the pauses were reducing the intensity of violence in Rafah, it seems like that intensity has ratcheted back up though it may still be lower than it had been previously. Possibly this is related to the end of Eid al-Adha, or maybe it has to do with the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded to the “tactical pause” announcement by lambasting both it and the IDF. Who’s to say?
The Israeli government says it intends to “strengthen” West Bank settlements in response to recent decisions by the Irish, Norwegian, Slovenian, and Spanish governments to recognize Palestinian statehood. It’s rare that you see a country openly declare its intention to violate international law like this so kudos to the Israelis for their candor I guess. It’s unclear exactly what Israeli leaders are planning to do in support of the settlement movement.
Netanyahu disbanded his “war cabinet” on Monday, partly in response to Benny Gantz’s decision to quit that ad hoc body earlier this month and partly to forestall demands by his right-wing coalition partners to join it. Both National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich had indicated an interest in joining the war cabinet, which probably wouldn’t have affected decision making about Gaza (it’s not like Gantz had any measurable impact on Netanyahu’s decisions) but would have sent a message to the rest of the world that Netanyahu presumably didn’t want to send.
On Tuesday, Netanyahu sent a very carefully crafted message in the form of a video in which he amazingly blamed Joe Biden for handcuffing him by “withholding” weapons from the IDF. It’s hard to know where to start with this—Netanyahu’s outrageous sense of entitlement would be one place—but maybe the most salient point is that there’s no evidence the Biden administration has withheld anything other than a single shipment of large conventional bombs whose main function in a place like Gaza is maximizing civilian casualties. A planned shipment of F-15 aircraft was briefly held up by Congress but now seems to have been cleared to move forward. Netanyahu didn’t offer any indication as to any other arms shipments that might have been held up. In return for Biden’s near-total indulgence for the past eight-plus months, Netanyahu has humiliated and insulted him regularly and now appears to be flat-out cutting Trump 2024 campaign ads. It’s a remarkable dynamic.
A new AP investigation has “identified at least 60 Palestinian families where at least 25 people were killed — sometimes four generations from the same bloodline — in bombings between October and December, the deadliest and most destructive period” of the IDF’s Gaza campaign. I would quibble a bit with that, specifically the conclusion that October-December was “the deadliest and most destructive period” given that the destruction of Gaza’s medical facilities must cast doubt on more recent casualty figures. But apart from that, the story speaks for itself. If this isn’t plausibly genocidal, what is?
According to a new report circulating in Israeli media, the IDF’s “Unit 8200” intelligence outfit had amassed so much information about the plans for Hamas’s October 7 attack in southern Israel that it even knew roughly how many hostages the militants would attempt to take (200-250; they wound up taking 251). The report is further evidence that Israeli authorities knew what was coming prior to the attack but took no action. It will undoubtedly fuel conspiracy theories and should inform an investigation into what happened—which, in the least conspiratorial framing, was just a catastrophic failure.
LEBANON
With US envoy Amos Hochstein in Lebanon to try to head off a full-scale war between Israel and Hezbollah, the IDF said on Tuesday that “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon” have been “approved and validated.” So that seems nice. An Israel-Hezbollah war would be immensely destructive and could wind up incorporating Iran and/or the US directly, and while Israeli leaders have talked a lot about how quickly and thoroughly they could defeat Hezbollah, their inability to defeat Hamas over the past eight months suggests they may be blowing some smoke. Tuesday’s statement appears to have come in response to Hezbollah having published a video of footage one of its drones ostensibly took of Israel’s Haifa seaport—the implication being that the group could strike that facility if it so desired—so this talk of “operational plans” may also be a bit of smoke. That said, there’s no indication that anything other than a Gaza ceasefire can actually forestall further escalation on this front.
YEMEN
Don’t look now, but a new piece from Responsible Statecraft’s Giorgio Cafiero suggests that the Houthis are perhaps not feeling the full weight of angering The World’s Only Superpower™:
How much damage the strikes have inflicted on the Houthi war machine and its ability to continue attacking maritime targets is difficult to determine. Nonetheless, these operations, which have cost the U.S. some $1 billion according to a new intelligence report, have ultimately failed to deter Ansarallah, which continues firing missiles and drones at vessels off Yemen’s coast.
“Clearly, there has been some damage [to Houthi targets], but not at a significant level; the Houthis have suffered some losses, but they retain the ability to obstruct maritime shipping in the Red Sea,” said Thomas Juneau, an associate professor who focuses on the Middle East at the University of Ottawa's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, in an interview with RS.
“And perhaps more importantly, beyond the material damage they have suffered, their intent to continue obstructing shipping in the Red Sea has not wavered.”
The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations center said on Tuesday that it now believes that the Tutor, a coal-carrying cargo ship that was damaged in a Houthi attack last week, has sunk in the Red Sea. If true that would make it the second cargo vessel the Houthis have sunk since they began attacking commercial ships in October. Another damaged vessel is currently adrift without crew in the Gulf of Aden and may be at risk of sinking as well. Meanwhile, the Biden administration on Monday blacklisted two individuals and five entities allegedly involved in Houthi “weapons procurement,” along with one individual, an entity, and a ship allegedly involved in Houthi sanctions evasion. That should do the trick.
ASIA
PHILIPPINES
The Chinese and Philippine governments are blaming one another for a collision involving two of their vessels in disputed South China Sea waters on Monday. What is clear is that a Chinese Coast Guard vessel and a Philippine supply vessel did collide as the latter was attempting to bring provisions to the makeshift Philippine base in the Second Thomas Shoal. Beyond that we have Chinese officials claiming that the Philippine crew acted “dangerously and unprofessionally” in allegedly causing the incident, and Philippine officials insisting that the Chinese account is “deceptive and misleading.” Both countries claim maritime rights over the shoal.
CHINA
A new report makes alarming claims about nuclear weapons globally and specifically about China’s nuclear program:
China is in the midst of a “significant” expansion of its nuclear capabilities and may have as many intercontinental ballistic missiles as the United States or Russia by 2030, according to a new global analysis of nuclear weapons.
Beijing is both growing and modernizing its nuclear arsenal, according to an annual report released Sunday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a group that tracks global security and arms control. China’s military stockpile grew from 410 nuclear warheads last year to 500 as of January, the report found.
The expansion of China’s capabilities came as SIPRI warned that even as the total number of nuclear warheads around the world was declining as Cold War-era weapons were phased out, there were steady year-on-year increases in the number of operational warheads that could be used quickly in the event of conflict.
A separate report, from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), says that global spending on nuclear weapons increased by $10.8 billion last year, to a total of $91.4 billion. By way of context, the UN’s World Food Program estimates that it would cost around $40 billion per year to end hunger. But defense contractors wouldn’t get rich ending hunger, so you can see the dilemma.
NORTH KOREA
For the second time this month, South Korean soldiers on Tuesday fired warning shots directed at a group of North Korean soldiers who had—accidentally, one assumes—crossed the Military Demarcation Line that separates the two countries. Those North Korean soldiers are apparently engaged in a construction project near the border, installing new fortifications. According to the South Korean military, not only are they repeatedly crossing the border they’re also triggering landmines in the Demilitarized Zone and have suffered “multiple casualties” (it’s unclear how many) since they began working there in January. The exact nature of the construction project is unknown—it may serve a dual purpose in terms of hardening the border against invasion and also making it more difficult for North Koreans to defect.
Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in North Korea on Tuesday, marking the first time he’s stopped by since 2000, early into his first stint as president. North Korea’s significance to Russia as a military and commercial partner has greatly increased since Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine brought heavy Western sanctions down on the Russian economy. The gesture of Putin visiting North Korea, rather than making Kim Jong-un come to him, demonstrates that significance. The trip has also raised alarms in the US and Europe, though it’s unclear what Western leaders fear Putin will do in Pyongyang that he couldn’t do by, say, telephone.
AFRICA
SUDAN
At Foreign Affairs, the World Peace Foundation’s Alex de Waal argues that rivalries in the Persian Gulf are exacerbating Sudan’s civil war:
There is a more important reason why the Sudan talks have continually failed to get off the ground. Until now, the two Gulf leaders that have the power to jointly bring [Sudanese military leader Abdel Fattah al-]Burhan and [Rapid Support Forces leader Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, AKA] Hemedti to the table have failed to seriously engage with the crisis. These are Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, known as MBS, and the United Arab Emirates’ President Mohammed bin Zayed, known as MBZ. The Saudis hosted [ceasefire] talks—but MBS did not want the UAE to participate. The UAE does not want the Saudis to influence a deal—or get the credit for it.
There’s a tangled history here. Nine years ago, when the two Gulf kingdoms launched their war against the Houthis in Yemen, they enlisted the SAF to fight in their anti-Houthi coalition; Burhan was the leader of that SAF contingent. But at the same time, Hemedti provided RSF fighters under private contracts to both the Saudis and the Emiratis. And Hemedti’s family business, al-Junaid, became an important supplier of gold to the UAE. Today, there are indications that the UAE is arming and funding the RSF—charges that Abu Dhabi has unconvincingly denied. And Saudi Arabia, with its links to Burhan, has permitted Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey to support the SAF, including with weapons, and has blocked other peace initiatives. This kind of meddling on both sides means that any progress on a cease-fire will require joint action by Riyadh and Abu Dhabi.
Under normal circumstances the United States would have considerable leverage to try to bring the Saudis and UAE into line on peace talks. But the Biden administration seems allergic to using that leverage and now, given the situation in Gaza, may no longer be able to use it.
LIBYA
Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar appears to be turning the governance of eastern Libya into a family business. He’s reportedly named one of his sons, Saddam, as army chief of staff within Haftar’s “Libyan Arab Armed Forces” group. That comes about a year after he named another son, Khalid, as head of the LAAF’s “security units.” A third Haftar son, Belqasim, has apparently been named head of a “development and reconstruction fund,” purely on merit I’m sure. Haftar is 81 and had a stroke in 2018, so in addition to the bog-standard corruption inherent in appointments like this he’s also presumably trying to secure his family’s position after he’s gone.
BURKINA FASO
A substantial number of Russian Wagner Group/Africa Corps “military instructors” have reportedly arrived in Burkina Faso from Mali in recent days, possibly in response to a major jihadist attack in the northern part of the country. According to AFP, al-Qaeda linked fighters attacked a military outpost in northern Burkina Faso’s Sahel region last week, causing a large number of casualties according to anonymous sources. That attack was followed by a strange incident involving a mortar shell landing near the state TV station in Ouagadougou and rumors of military mutinies at several bases. The junta has denied those rumors but the influx of Russian mercenaries could be for protection against possible unrest.
SOUTH AFRICA
The African National Congress-Democratic Alliance coalition now encompasses five parties in total, with the inclusion of the smaller Inkatha Freedom Party, the Patriotic Alliance, and the GOOD party. Collectively they hold 273 seats in South Africa’s 400 seat National Assembly. The ANC’s hopes of forming a national unity government appear to have been dashed, however, as the uMkhonto we Sizwe party and the Economic Freedom Fighters party, among others, have reportedly opted to form an opposition coalition.
EUROPE
NATO
Outgoing Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte appears to have overcome the final obstacles standing between him and a future gig as NATO secretary-general, as the Hungarian and Slovakian governments declared on Tuesday that they’re OK with his accession. They’d been part of a group of three holdouts along with Turkey, which relented back in April. Rutte should replace current NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in October.
In other NATO news, Stoltenberg visited the White House on Monday and told Joe Biden that 23 of 32 alliance members are on track to hit The Gang’s defense spending guideline this year. NATO members are supposed to spend at least 2 percent of GDP on defense, but many come in under that figure because they’re reliant on the US to pick up the slack. According to Stoltenberg NATO will increase its collective defense spending by “18 percent” this year, which is its “biggest increase in decades.”
UKRAINE
The Russian military claimed on Sunday that its forces had captured the village of Zagrine in southeastern Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia oblast. To the north, meanwhile, the Ukrainian military appears to be attempting to surround Russian forces that have established themselves near the town of Vovchansk, on the Ukrainian side of the border in Kharkiv oblast. It’s unclear how isolated those Russian units are at this point but there have been reports that they’re being resupplied by drone.
The Ukrainian government’s big “peace summit” in Switzerland over the weekend seems to have fizzled out to some extent, as a number of major regional states apparently refused to sign a post-event joint statement. Over 80 of the conference’s more than 100 attendees did sign on, but with China in particular having skipped the thing altogether it’s hard to see how this could have really created any momentum toward a ceasefire. Along those lines, The New York Times on Saturday published a set of documents related to the peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in 2022. Not much more than a historical artifact at this point, they’re nevertheless an interesting glimpse into what both sides had been willing to concede before the talks broke off in mid-April of that year. Some of those positions could conceivably be revisited, though of course the situation is considerably different (and considerably more tilted in Russia’s favor) now than it was then.
AMERICAS
HAITI
According to a new report from the UN’s International Organization for Migration, 578,074 Haitians have now been displaced by gang/insurgent violence. That’s a spike of some 60 percent compared with the 362,551 Haitians who’d been displaced as of the IOM’s previous report, in early March. A group of Haitian police officials met with Kenyan police inspector-general Japhet Koome on Tuesday to advance plans for the deployment of a Kenyan-led peacekeeping force. That operation was supposed to have begun last month but was postponed, ostensibly due to delays in preparations on the Haitian side. The hope now is that the deployment will take place by the end of June.
UNITED STATES
Finally, Reuters published a bombshell investigative piece on Friday alleging that the US government engineered a social media disinformation campaign against China:
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. military launched a secret campaign to counter what it perceived as China’s growing influence in the Philippines, a nation hit especially hard by the deadly virus.
The clandestine operation has not been previously reported. It aimed to sow doubt about the safety and efficacy of vaccines and other life-saving aid that was being supplied by China, a Reuters investigation found. Through phony internet accounts meant to impersonate Filipinos, the military’s propaganda efforts morphed into an anti-vax campaign. Social media posts decried the quality of face masks, test kits and the first vaccine that would become available in the Philippines – China’s Sinovac inoculation.
Reuters identified at least 300 accounts on X, formerly Twitter, that matched descriptions shared by former U.S. military officials familiar with the Philippines operation. Almost all were created in the summer of 2020 and centered on the slogan #Chinaangvirus – Tagalog for China is the virus.
“COVID came from China and the VACCINE also came from China, don’t trust China!” one typical tweet from July 2020 read in Tagalog. The words were next to a photo of a syringe beside a Chinese flag and a soaring chart of infections. Another post read: “From China – PPE, Face Mask, Vaccine: FAKE. But the Coronavirus is real.”
It must be stressed that the goal here was to convince people in the Philippines to reject Sinovac, which while not as effective against COVID as some US-made vaccines still provably offered some protection against hospitalization and death. There’s no way to know for certain what effect this campaign had in terms of driving down Philippine vaccination rates but it’s not at all a stretch to assume, as Spencer Ackerman does, that human beings died as a result of this propaganda. They died because the US government feared that China’s offer to share Sinovac around the world would win it international support at a time when the US, instead of sharing its own vaccines just as widely, was hoarding them. It is thoroughly repulsive and yet, as Van Jackson points out, also entirely to be expected in an environment where “Great Power competition” drives so much of US foreign policy.