World roundup: September 7-8 2024
Stories from China, Libya, Germany, and elsewhere
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My apologies, but I must release this evening’s roundup early because of a prior commitment. For that same reason it is not possible for me to record our usual Sunday evening voiceover. Thanks for your understanding.
TODAY IN HISTORY
September 7, 1191: The Battle of Arsuf
September 7, 1822: Brazilian Independence Day—Portuguese prince and Brazilian regent Dom Pedro (the future Pedro I of Brazil) declares Brazil’s independence from Portugual. The ensuing war, which had already begun at a low level in early 1822, ended in 1825 with a Brazilian victory.
September 7, 1901: The Boxer Rebellion ends with the defeat of the Yìhétuán rebels and the signing of the Boxer Protocol. Under the treaty, the Chinese government was obliged to pay an indemnity to the Allies—Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—as well as Belgium, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, and Sweden, and to take steps to diminish its military capabilities.
September 8, 617: Rebels led by the Duke of Tang, Li Yuan, defeat an imperial Sui Dynasty army by luring it out of the city of Huoyi in northern China. The victory left Li Yuan preeminent among the many nobles who were in rebellion against the Sui, and the following June he had himself crowned Emperor Gaozu of the new Tang Dynasty. The Tang ruled China for almost 300 years, from 618 to 907, with a brief 690-705 interregnum. Nowadays the Tang period is generally regarded as a “golden age” in terms of the flourishing of Chinese civilization and the expansion of China’s political and cultural hegemony.
September 8, 1566: An Ottoman siege of the Hungarian city of Szigetvár ends with the Habsburg garrison, under the command of Croatian Ban Nikola IV Zrinski, defeated (and almost completely wiped out) and the Ottomans in control. Szigetvár is remembered today as a tactical victory for the Ottomans but a significant strategic setback, and is commemorated in both Hungarian and Croatian national histories (Zrinski’s death while leading a final charge out of the castle is particularly well-regarded). The Ottomans suffered significant losses during an unexpectedly lengthy siege, including Sultan Sulayman himself, who died in his tent two days before the siege ended at the age of 71. This forced them to abandon plans to march on Vienna, so there is a case to be made that the garrison’s robust defense—while ultimately unsuccessful—prevented further Ottoman expansion into central Europe.

MIDDLE EAST
ISRAEL-PALESTINE
A gunmen opened fire on a group of Israeli “security guards” at the Allenby Bridge (or King Hussein Bridge, if you prefer) border crossing on the Jordan-West Bank border on Sunday, killing three of them before being killed himself. The Jordanian government has closed its side of the checkpoint and says it is investigating the incident. That investigation has already revealed that the attacker was a Jordanian national.
An Israeli airstrike in northern Gaza’s Jabalia area killed the deputy director of the Gaza Civil Defense Service, Mohammad Morsi, on Sunday. The strike hit Morsi’s home (killing at least four of his family members in addition to Morsi himself) so it appears to have been a targeted killing. With his death the Israeli military (IDF) has killed at least 83 emergency service workers since October 7, the better to hinder efforts to pull Palestinians (or their bodies) out of the rubble I guess. I’m sure the Israeli justification would be that Morsi works for Hamas, which is literally true in the sense that Hamas is the governing authority in Gaza and the civil defense service is operated by the government. I’m not sure that fact alone entitles the IDF to target Gaza’s paramedics and rescue workers, but what do I know?
SYRIA
The New Arab is reporting that Syrian Democratic Forces fighters “ambushed” a “Syrian National Army” unit near the northern Syrian city of Afrin on Saturday evening, killing at least five of the Turkish-backed rebels. Meanwhile, a Turkish drone strike killed at least one person near the Kurdish-held city of Kobane.
LEBANON
The IDF killed at least three civil defense workers and wounded two more in southern Lebanon on Saturday, according to the Lebanese Health Ministry. The ministry said that the attack was “the second of its kind against an emergency team in less than 12 hours.” Israeli officials claimed that they struck “terrorists” affiliated with the Shiʿa Amal Movement. The attack prompted Hezbollah to fire a barrage of rockets into northern Israel overnight, which in turn prompted further IDF strikes on southern Lebanon on Sunday morning.
YEMEN
The Houthis released a video on Sunday claiming that they’ve shot down another US MQ-9 Reaper drone over northern Yemen, though it’s unclear when this is supposed to have happened. Assuming it’s true this would make the eighth Reaper they’ve downed since October 7.
ASIA
PAKISTAN
Thousands of supporters of former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan rallied in Islamabad on Sunday to demand his release from jail. They were able to do so despite copious government efforts to prevent or deter a protest, including a heavy deployment of riot police and the use of shipping containers and other large items to block major roads leading into the city. Khan remains in custody, despite the fact that his multiple convictions have been overturned, awaiting trial on a charge of “inciting violence” related to protests by his supporters last year. He and his supporters, and a United Nations working group, argue that his detention is politically motivated.
INDIA
There’s been a new outbreak of inter-communal violence in India’s Manipur state in recent days, culminating on Saturday with a clash between the Meitei and Kuki communities that left at least six people (including one non-combatant) dead. Those two groups have been at odds for months over the possibility that the state government might extend the same economic and employment quota benefits to the majority Meitei that it currently extends to the minority Kuki. It seems one of these groups is now using drones to drop explosives on their targets—authorities are pointing the finger at the Kuki, but they are denying it.
CHINA
The Wall Street Journal reports that Western scholars are finding it increasingly difficult to study China:
Scholars researching everything from urban development to religious belief in China say they are running into barriers—many erected by Beijing but some arising at home—that increasingly hamper their work.
A relentless tightening of political controls by Chinese leader Xi Jinping has curtailed access to even routine information and throttled research into topics that were once open. Interactions between people in China and foreigners are subject to intensifying state surveillance, stymying the flow of ideas.
Those obstacles have led some China scholars to change their fields of study, or reprise research techniques developed during the Mao Zedong era, when the country was largely closed off to the rest of the world.
A sharp rise in anti-China sentiment in the U.S. and other Western countries is compounding the difficulties, according to many scholars. Some say they fear being denigrated for their association with China. Money is also getting harder to come by, with new data showing U.S. federal funding for China-focused research falling markedly in recent years.
This is not purely an academic concern. Closing off research like this limits an important avenue of “Track II” diplomacy between the US and China, and a decline in China expertise could have unpredictable and potentially unfortunate effects on policy-making in Washington.
AFRICA
SUDAN
The World Health Organization now says that Sudan’s civil war has killed over 20,000 people since it began in April 2023, updating what is likely a woefully inaccurate estimate. The UN estimates that the conflict has displaced some 13 million people, 2.3 million of whom have fled to neighboring countries. Millions are facing serious food shortages and recent flooding has exacerbated the humanitarian crisis.
LIBYA
Libyan authorities have arrested the commander of the First Support Battalion militia, Mohamed Bahroun, and one of his aides over allegations that they were involved in the killing of Abdel-Rahman Milad in Tripoli last weekend. Milad had previously been blacklisted by the UN Security Council for his human trafficking operation, which apparently stood out even within a Libyan context where such activities are rampant. Given the free hand militias have in western Libya there must be concerns that Bahroun’s arrest could spark some sort of violent reaction.
Elsewhere, The Intercept’s Nick Turse reports that the Pentagon, which once decried warlord Khalifa Haftar for his ties to Russia and his “destabilizing” effect on Libyan politics, has decided that he’s good again:
In late August, the top-ranking U.S. military commander in Africa toured Libya — and had a cordial meeting in Benghazi with a notorious warlord: Field Marshal Khalifa Hifter.
U.S. Marine Corps Gen. Michael Langley, the chief of U.S. Africa Command, called on Hifter, the leader of the Libyan National Army, during his series of meetings with top officials in Libya to “further cooperation” between the U.S. and that nation. Hifter “expressed a desire to expand security engagement with the U.S.” when they spoke, according to an AFRICOM press release.
Left out of the AFRICOM announcement is any mention that Hifter is a notorious “warlord,” according to members of Congress, whose LNA, which the State Department lumps in with “other nonstate actors, including foreign fighters and mercenaries,” has been accused of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and gross violations of human rights.
ALGERIA
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune won reelection on Saturday with a very simple and believable 94.65 percent of the vote, according to official results released on Sunday. Authorities are going with a provisional turnout of 48 percent, though I’m not sure that figure should be considered any more reliable than Tebboune’s vote count.
EUROPE
UKRAINE
The Russian military says it seized two more population centers near the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk this weekend, the village of Kalynove on Saturday and the town of Novohrodivka on Sunday. Which is weird, because The New York Times informed us on Saturday that the Ukrainian military had “halted” the Russian advance in that region. I guess not so much.
KOSOVO
The Kosovan government shut down two of the country’s four border crossings into Serbia late Friday night due to protests on the Serbian side. Kosovan officials accused “masked extremist groups in Serbia” of blocking transit into Serbia for anyone carrying Kosovan, rather than Serbian, documents, with the acquiescence of “Serbian authorities.” The two crossings that were closed run through the majority Serb region of northern Kosovo. Protest organizers in Serbia said they were responding to the closure of Serbian-government run social institutions for ethnic Serbs in that northern Kosovo area. The Kosovan government has been trying to force Kosovan Serbs to use Kosovo’s institutions and documents rather than those provided by Belgrade. This has included a decision to make the euro Kosovo’s only official currency, partially supplanting the Serbian dinar.
GERMANY
The far-right Alternative for German (AfD) party performed disturbingly well in a couple of German state elections last Sunday, winning the contest in Thuringia and coming in a strong second place in Saxony. At Al Jazeera, Virginia Pietromarchi offers some context for the far-right’s rise in states of the former East Germany:
The vote follows a trend in European countries where anti-establishment movements, well versed in social media dissemination and led by strong communicators, are increasingly appealing to voters dissatisfied with centrist parties. Yet the results in Germany also point to specific fissures within Europe’s largest economy, experts said: The AfD has managed to tap into historical grievances stemming from the perceived failure of Berlin to address social and economic inequalities faced by the east after the fall of communism and the country’s reunification.
“This vote for many eastern voters represents the starkest rejection of being considered second-class citizens,” said Rafael Loss, policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
The perception is that the state has been neglecting the east, failing to invest enough there while not tackling issues such as immigration, social justice and crime. This, Loss said, was also enabled by Berlin’s failure in communicating effectively to voters in the east and a lack of representation of easterners in leadership positions – besides exceptions such as former Chancellor Angela Merkel – in the central government and in major companies.
The AfD has tried to fill this vacuum, setting up summer camps and support groups. That has placed the party in an advantageous position to “dominate the emotional ecosystem in the east and to frame problems in certain ways”, Loss said.
AMERICAS
VENEZUELA
Would-be Venezuelan president Edmundo González has fled to Spain, whose government agreed to grant him asylum after a Venezuelan judge issued a warrant for González’s arrest several days ago. González had first sought refuge in Spain’s embassy in Caracas, after which the Venezuelan government agreed to allow him to leave the country.
Meanwhile, there are growing tensions over the Argentine embassy in Caracas, which is currently housing at least six members of Venezuela’s political opposition. After two more opposition figures sought refuge inside the embassy on Friday Venezuelan security forces besieged the facility and apparently cut off its electricity. On Saturday, Venezuelan authorities revoked the Brazilian government’s status as caretaker for the embassy and Argentina’s diplomatic representative in Venezuela. Brazil has held those roles since the Venezuelan government cut ties with Argentina back in March, when a number of other opposition figures took refuge in the embassy. Under international law the embassy grounds are still inviolable, but Argentina must now name another custodian that is acceptable to the Venezuelan government.
UNITED STATES
Finally, at The International Policy Journal our Alex Thurston calls for a change in how the Democratic Party identifies and develops its foreign policy expertise:
The foreign policy establishment has been famously cast as a bipartisan “Blob” with monolithic views. Yet if the Blob is bipartisan, the Democratic foreign policy network has become the core of the Blob today. Democratic foreign policy hands view themselves as the keepers of order within American foreign policy, the crew that cleans up Republican foreign policy disasters. Democrats stand as reliable defenders of an American imperial order, the party tasked with winding down unwinnable wars (Iraq under Barack Obama, Afghanistan under Joe Biden) while prosecuting wars where the U.S. is ostensibly not a front-line combatant (Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza). Serious reforms to status quo American foreign policy have been fleeting. As vice president, Kamala Harris has championed the Democratic foreign policy status quo; at the insider-heavy Munich Security Conference in February 2024, she offered up the party’s mantras about American leadership, “international rules and norms,” and the importance of alliances with Europe and beyond. As the new nominee and through her choice of Tim Walz as vice president, Harris has stirred some hope that she will prove less militaristic than Biden and that her advisers will listen more to dissenting views.
The Democratic foreign policy elite sometimes tinkers with the status quo, but in relatively superficial and fleeting ways. Obama’s team showed imagination on Iran and Cuba, and Biden’s team promised a “new Washington consensus.” Yet Trump easily undermined Obama’s reforms, especially on Iran, and Biden’s team did not fight back vigorously once Democrats were back in power. Nor did Biden’s team undo Trump decisions such as moving the U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. As on many domestic issues, Democrats portray themselves as the adults while mostly letting Republicans shape the playing field. Democrats’ defense of the status quo, moreover, often brings both criticism from the non-governmental players in the Blob (the think tank set and the editorial pages of East Coast newspapers) and fallout among their own base; in different ways, Ukraine and Gaza both exemplify how Democrats act out the preferred policies of the Blob, take elite criticism for not being hawkish enough, and simultaneously lose ground with Democratic activists and core voters.
A more progressive foreign policy would need a different kind of executive, but also a different cadre of people to implement it. If the National Security Council-led “Process Makes Perfect” when it comes to debating foreign policy in the White House – a dubious claim, actually – then that “process” also involves not just selecting among options but constructing those options for the principals. The people who steer the process matter.