Usually they launder things through proxies though, directly lobbing bombs in all directions is unusual, especially at their allies - they like their plausible deniability.
Soriek
3mo ago
South Korea is armed to the teeth though and doesn't depend on US support in a border war the same way a Ukraine does. Even if they were really cut off, we have some 20k soldiers there already plus another 50k in Japan, nearly half of our forces deployed abroad. In a situation where a Taiwan strait crisis was happening Korea and Japan would also already be involved in that war.
Soriek
3mo ago
This is one area where if Kishida stays in power in Japan things will stay interesting. Abe talked about Japan hosting nukes but Kishida has been powerfully in favor of nuclear de-armament his whole life and has helped lead international efforts in that space. He was actually the Congressional representative from Hiroshima so it's personal for him and his constituents. That said, his reputation as a lifelong dove in general enabled him to finally boost defense spending without any real complaints, whereas when Abe tried to do the same he understandably made everyone nervous. So Kishida's anti-weapon, anti-war credentials ironically makes the citizenry trust him more to be responsible with actually wielding weapons and war. Nukes are still totally unthinkable for now, but in a situation many steps down the road with a lot of other factors changing plus a national emergency, he's still the highest potential leader they've ever had to facilitate an unthinkable situation.
Soriek
3mo ago
The mantle has now passed to you to lead Transnational Thursdays.
On the other hand, fellow Islamist nations seem to be far more laissez-faire about just taking each other on, on a whim, and I can't say I really feel like Pakistan is the aggrieved party.
This latest episode of Iran just kind of attacking all its neighbors is pretty uncharacteristic at least, and is hopefully just their way of showing they won't take terrorism lightly, not a continuous thing they're going to commit to. Iraq and Syria at least aren't going to retaliate militarily. I can think of one or two downsides to a war with Pakistan! Though hopefully this won't turn into that.
Soriek
3mo ago
Guatemala
After many months of tricks to keep anti-corruption President Elect Bernaldo Arévalo from taking office, including fully suspending his political party, the man has finally entered the National Palace. It took up till the last minute, a nine hour last legislative holdout from the establishment that reportedly involved such high level strategies as literally blocking the Congressional floor with a chain. I’ve mentioned it before but Arévalo is the son of Juan José Arévalo Bermejo, Guatemala’s first democratically elected leader, so for him to finally take the stage against an increasingly brazenly anti-democratic establishment has symbolic significance.
So, now that he’s here, what next? He wants to fight crime, pursue antitrust policies, lower drug prices, clean up the waterways (which are estimated to be over 90% polluted), control migration to keep the US (which backed him throughout all of the attempts to disqualify him) happy, and of course fight corruption. Much of this will be very difficult with a legislative minority, but there’s at least some stuff he can do on his flagship anti-corruption agenda via the executive office itself:
The opposition to Arévalo was so intense because he promised to continue the unfinished business of the CICIG anti-corruption commission, shuttered after it revealed graft at a massive scale, implicating everyone from politicians and business elites to unions to religious and university leaders…
Arévalo’s ability to effect structural change will hinge on three key fronts: reforms of the government contracting system at the heart of a slew of corruption scandals; the recovery of the Attorney General’s Office; and nominations to the high courts.
Contracting reforms may offer Arévalo the best chance to deliver concrete quality-of-life improvements. If he manages to make spending more transparent and more efficient, especially on infrastructure and health, the public will see better roads and more medicines on hospital shelves before the year is out. Greater private investment may also pour into the country.
The other two fronts are thornier. The Attorney General’s Office is controlled by Consuelo Porras, sanctioned by the U.S. for “significant corruption.” (She denies wrongdoing.) Her second tenure as Attorney General (2022-26) has produced a stream of decisions that have undermined anti-corruption investigations. Guatemala’s Odebrecht prosecutions are a case study of impunity; the prosecutors who sent corrupt officials to jail were themselves imprisoned or forced to leave the country.
Arévalo does not have the constitutional authority to remove her but insists he will ask her to resign immediately. He may succeed by starving her of resources. If she does resign, Arévalo will likely have to pick her replacement from the other five candidates approved by a commission in 2022, a list that includes relatively clean choices.
Meanwhile, the court system is scheduled for major changes in 2024, on the order of 250 new judicial appointments, including all 13 Supreme Court seats. This is a major opportunity for reform, but nominations come from the National Lawyers’ Guild, itself beset by corruption allegations, and must go through Congress.
Soriek
3mo ago
Taiwan
Taiwan held their latest election on Saturday with China’s presence breathing down the nation’s neck. The ruling Democrat Progressive Party was running on the strongest pro-independence platform whereas the KMT (successor of the form Chiang Kai-Shek dictatorship ruling party) ran on conciliating with China and the Taiwanese Peoples Party (TPP) ran on ignoring the China issue and focusing on Taiwan (previously Foxconn billionaire owner Terry Gou was running an independent campaign on really conciliating with China, but he dropped out). Despite China repeatedly saying they would consider a DPP victory provocative, voters handed the Democrats their third victory in a row. This will elevate current Vice President Lai Ching-te to the Presidency.
However, they will lack a majority in Congress and in fact will only have 51 seats to KMT’s 52. The really interesting result was the previously marginal Taiwanese People’s Party actually doubling its share of the vote from the 2020 election all the way up to 26.45%, drawn mostly from the youth vote, which will earn the party 8 seats in the legislature. Needless to say DPP will have to work together with at least some members of TPP to get anything done, which isn’t a bad thing. TPP won’t likely have any interest in DPP’s pro independence agenda, but a lot of that it rhetorical anyway - the DPP hasn’t made any serious moves in the previous two terms to move towards independence in any real way.
The real question will be how China reacts. They were apparently futzing around and removing preferential tariffs from Taiwanese goods as the voting drew nearer, so more trade war-esque saber rattling is conceivable, along with the same song and dance they do of flying jets around to get everyone worked up. The other country China has been inching closer to conflict with, the Philippines, wished President Ching-Te a public congratulations, which of course has also infuriated China.
Soriek
3mo ago
Ecuador
In the wake of the escape of a major cartel leader, accompanied by violent prison uprisings and a staff of newscasters being taken hostage on live TV, President Daniel Noboa has declared war on the cartels. A state of emergency has been stretched across the country and more than 1000 alleged gang members have been arrested. The cartels have responded in kind; a prosecutor investigating them was just assassinated right before i posted this even. Noboa has been not subtle at all that he’s hoping to copy El Salvador’s Bukele, so this is Bukele watchers’ opportunity to see what this looks like in a different country (assuming Noboa himself isn’t crooked, which is a big if).
My guess is: substantially different. Ecuador is much bigger than El Salvador, both geographically and in terms of population, and the bad guys don’t all tattoo their gang membership right on their face. More to the point, MS-13’s brutality I think causes people to overestimate their capacity. In reality, they’re basically a highly murderous but relatively small time, impoverished extortion racket. They go up to a civilian or store or whatever and demand protection money. Fighting a transnational cartel is a completely different thing. The gangs in Ecuador are vastly better financed and armed, and we have only to look at Colombia to get a quick comparison of what it looks like trying to fight that with every variety of tough on crime policy there is. On the other hand, the cartels are very recently established in Ecuador, so maybe they don’t have the same kind of systematic, built up entrenchment of the criminal world.
Soriek
3mo ago
Indonesia
The fourth largest country in the world will be holding their own election soon. Ruling President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) has been highly popular but is term limited out. The election will be down to three candidates: Ganjar Pranowo and Anies Baswedan, respectively the Governors of Centrals Java and Jakarta, and the overwhelming favorite to win: Jokowi’s 72 year old Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto.
Originally Jokowi and Prabowo were each others’ opponents in the 2019 election, during which they both said extremely bitter things about each other and Prabowo refused to concede, leading to riots by his supporters. Still, he got a place in the cabinet and now has the full institutional support of the establishment behind him.
This is in part due to the extremely clientistic and patronage based nature of Indonesian democracy. Jokowi was actually originally elected as an anti-corruption reformer and his victory was considered a watershed moment for the first ascension of a non-member of the traditional elite. However, ultimately instead of buck the system he just cemented it further, but with his friends and family on top; for his support of Prabowo, Jakowi’s son has been made the running mate and presumptive Vice President. His son actually isn’t old enough yet to legally run, but luckily it was ruled to be kosher by the Constitutional Court’s Chief Justice, who happens to be Jokowi’s brother-in-law. Oh, and I did I mention that Prabowo is actually the son-in-law of Suharto, Indonesia’s 32 year military dictator? And he has the checkered past to go with it:
As defense minister, Prabowo is trying to cultivate a softer public image. But the ex-military man and former son-in-law of Suharto stands widely accused of overseeing abductions of pro-democracy activists and masterminding atrocities in the then province of East Timor, which occurred in the late 1990s. In an interview with Radio Australia, former U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Robert Gelbard described Prabowo as “somebody who is perhaps the greatest violator of human rights in contemporary times among the Indonesian military.” [he was banned for entering the United States for a long time because of his record]
In his prior presidential campaigns, Prabowo portrayed himself as an populist strongman, vilified minority groups with divisive rhetoric, and pushed to eliminate some regional and local elections in Indonesia. Prabowo has close ties throughout the armed forces and has presented himself as a leader out of Indonesia’s autocratic and dynastic past; he could well shatter Indonesian democracy and govern like a Javanese authoritarian populist as president.
So while this is technically the sixth election since the collapse of military rule, the whole thing gives off a vaguely undemocratic flavor. To connect to the theme of how China has been dealing with the governments on Taiwan and the Philippines, Jokowi has tried to balance between the United States and China and court investment from the latter. Essentially every candidate running is more China skeptical but Prabowo will likely have to walk that balance as well, though can expect him to deepen security ties with the United States even further.
Soriek
3mo ago
Yemen
The United States and the United Kingdom started launching attacks against Houthi targets in Yemen last week in response to the Houthi attacks against their ships. On Tuesday they struck for a third time, reportedly targeting a cache of anti-ship missiles.
According to a U.S. Central Command statement, the overnight strike destroyed four Houthi ballistic missiles that were prepared to launch and presented an imminent threat to merchant and U.S. Navy ships in the region. The Houthi attack on the Zografia occurred later Tuesday and involved an anti-ship ballistic missile, the statement said, adding that the ship continued its Red Sea transit.
This latest exchange suggested there has been no let-up in Houthi attacks on shipping in the region, despite the massive U.S. and British assault on the group on Friday, bombing more than 60 targets in 28 locations using warship- and submarine-launched Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets.
Within days it seems like we’re already on the precipice of another crisis situation for Yemen. The Houthis haven’t built up (or been able to build up) any capacity during their time in governance and 2/3rds of the country still depends on aid. Humanitarian organizations have had to suspend operations and 23 aid org have now said that if the conflict escalates they will be unable to provide the aid that keeps the population alive. Houthis have continued to attack commercial shipping anyway, so expect things to continue to worsen.
Soriek
3mo ago
Iraq
Well, we’ve all been following Iranian militias firing on American servicemen and vice versa in Iraq. Now everyone is getting in on the fun. Iran has launched airstrikes on Iraq and Syria The situation has strangely reversed a bit with Iran now retaliating against the ISIS terrorist attack that killed over a hundred of their civilians by launching airstrikes: “at what it claimed were Israeli “spy headquarters” near the U.S. Consulate in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil, and at targets linked to the extremist group Islamic State in northern Syria.” The latter target of course being in retaliation for the ISIS -claimed terrorist attack that killed over a hundred Iranian civilians.
Turkey decided to get into the action too by…also bombing Iraq and Syria, though they’re strafing for Kurdish militias in retaliation for the Kurdish PKK attack on a Turkish base last month. Iraq is understandably not thrilled about any of this (how does Syria feel? Who’s to say?), recalling their ambassador from Iran and calling their attacks an infringement upon Iraqi sovereignty. Presumably they’re not thrilled with Turkey either but they never had any kind of working relationship before (this is not Turkey’s first random attacks into Iraqi soil).
Basically all the cool kids are launching attacks in Iraq, a country that is really only marginally connected to the actual Israeli-Palestinian war by virtue of the fact that the different powers all have some degree of presence here as well. Rough hand to draw.
Soriek
3mo ago
North Korea
Kim Jong Un says he no longer wants to reunify with South Korea:
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his country would no longer pursue reconciliation with South Korea and called for rewriting the North’s constitution to eliminate the idea of shared statehood between the war-divided countries, state media said Tuesday.
The historic step to discard a decades-long pursuit of a peaceful unification, which was based on a sense of national homogeneity shared by both Koreas, comes amid heightened tensions where the pace of both Kim’s weapons development and the South’s military exercises with the United States have intensified in a tit-for-tat.
Not that all that much progress was happening towards reunification before, but still I guess its newsworthy.
North Korea has also sent its Foreign Minister Choe Son Hui to Russia to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. In the west this has raised suspicions on North Korea provided more weaponry for Russia in the Ukraine conflict.
Soriek
4mo ago
I have nothing very interesting to add but just wanted to say this was a very interesting post. That's interesting that posters of Al-Sadr are still common. Did you have any impression of how people felt about him or Al-Sudani?
Soriek
4mo ago
We sure do. It definitely feels like we're slipping more and more into a regional war, though maybe that's overly dramatic.
Soriek
4mo ago
I like your style! No need for everyone to sound like me. Honestly I partially include more direct quotes because I'm extremely busy these days. If I had more time I would do more personalized writeups for each country, which I still try to do where I can or for the countries I know more about.
Soriek
4mo ago
It'll be interesting to see what Noboa does next. He ran on and for now seems to be pursuing a genuine tough on crime policy, but there are a fair amount of people who suspect his family of having cartel ties as well. His family is a banana shipping magnate and banana shipments are the primary way (that we/Europe have caught at least) that the Ecuadorian cartels have been moving drugs. The cartels are more recent in Ecuador but at least in more established countries like Colombia (1, 2) and Mexico it's normal for them to spend significant sums backing friendly candidates to the Presidency.
Bukele somehow didn't manage to shut up all the doubters,
In fairness it's a lot easier to lock up all the criminals when they've tattooed "bad guy" on their face. The real trick is just to have such a permissive approach to crime that gang members feel comfortable labeling themselves, then you can swoop em up all at once. Fwiw though, Bukele does have a string of copycat candidates running/or who ran in elections across Central and South America, though not all of them successful.
Ecuador
New President Daniel Noboa has started things off with a huge focus on law and order in response to the rise of organized crime in recent years (“The murder rate quadrupled from 2018 to 2022, while last year became the most violent yet with 7,500 homicides in the country of about 18 million people.”) . He has begun by announcing a referendum on new policies dealing with crime:
The referendum would seek approval from voters on lengthening prison sentences for serious crimes like homicide and arms trafficking, among others, as well for Ecuador's military to eradicate international criminal groups operating in the country, according to Noboa's letter to the court.
Noboa has also now announced the construction of two new maximum security prisons, with a not-exactly subtle nod to Bukele’s policies over in El Salvador:
He said the buildings would be exactly the same as a prison built by El Salvador President Nayib Bukele, who has led a controversial crackdown on gangs in his Central American country.
"The prisons will allow for the division, proper isolation of people," said the 36-year-old Noboa, who took office in November, speaking in a radio interview.
"For all the Bukele lovers, it is an identical prison," to those he has built, added Noboa.
To make even more room, Noboa says they will also deport over a thousand foreigners in prison back to the surrounding countries they came from (no word on those receiving countries feel about it). By design the new prisons will be on the coast, far away from the heart of the worst of the violence, in hopes it will make it harder for gangs to liberate their members.
Speaking of which, the leader of the notorious Los Choneros cartel was just liberated from prison by his fellow gang members. People are freaking out, probably understandably, and Noboa has declared a 60 day state of emergency for the leader to be found. Having only just come out of a prolonged state of emergency under Noboa’s predecessor Lasso, apparently it’s a state Ecuadorians must get used to. Given that the previous state of emergency gave the military powers of internal law enforcement, I guess it makes the whole referendum a little redundant.
The cartels have responded in kind with major prison uprisings holding over 130 prison staff hostage and ghastly footage of them breaking into a news broadcasting station and holding the staff hostage on live TV. President Noboa has now declared they are at war with the cartels and have detained hundreds of alleged gang members. It's been a really crazy few days.
Ethiopia & Somalia
A follow up to last week’s post about Somaliland trading Ethiopian access to their ports for Ethiopia recognizing them as a country (and giving them a stake in an Ethiopian airline, but the diplomatic coup is really what they wanted). The current Somali President Abdi has stayed in power in excess of term limits and recently got some terrible press for civilian deaths in a conflict between the government and a dissident group, so this treaty is a bit of a hail mary to keep himself in power/good graces. Is it working? Surprisingly hard to say.
There have been big (peaceful thus far) protests in Somaliland and the country seems divided about whether they support or oppose the deal, ironically because people are divided about whether it boosts sovereignty by getting foreign recognition, or compromises sovereignty by letting foreign troops use their land. The Defense Minister has actually now resigned in protest over stationing Ethiopian troops on Somali(land) soil. It sounds like there’s also some dispute over the territory belonging to his clan, or at least them perceiving that it belongs to them, so there could well be issues in the future even if he didn’t get his veto over the policy now.
Somalia proper is of course furious with Ethiopia, recalling their ambassador and demanding arbitration in both the United Nations and African Union. This is all complicated by the fact that, as covered previously here, Ethiopia has not exactly been building good region relations anywhere else lately either. Their new dam threatens the water supply of both Egypt and Sudan, and Egypt has already come out publicly supporting Somalia’s position in the conflict. It may not end there either.
Eritrea and Egypt will also be concerned with Ethiopia’s having a major naval presence in the strategic Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, observers say.
And in Djibouti, which charges Ethiopia about $1.5 billion a year to use its ports, observers say that the loss of such income could lead to instability for President Ismail Omar Guelleh, who has benefited from that cash inflow during his more than two decades in office.
Given that the Red Sea is already highly chaotic right now, this really isn’t an ideal time to make things even more complicated. Mercifully, it would probably take a long time for any of this to move forward anyway, and a treaty hasn’t actually even been finalized; all Ethiopia and Somaliland have now is a memorandum of understanding.
Red Sea
Speaking of the Red Sea, things still look chaotic there. The US issued a “final warning” to the Houthis to stop attacking or face reprisal, which the Houthis immediately defied by attacking the next day. It’s been a week since then and it’s unclear to me if the west has escalated in any specific way.
Otherwise, tanker traffic still looks remarkably stable though the shipping behemoth Maesrk has recently put a pause on the route for their vessels though, despite the US sinking three Houthi vessels that attacked Maersk ships.
Don’t worry though, Sri Lanka has now announced they will join Operation Prosperity Guardian.
Bosnia
Bosnian Republika Srpska’s long-time secession sympathizing leader Milorad Dodik has been kicking up extra dust lately. He’s been in the news for the past few years for threatening to withdraw from all of the country's federated institutions, like the court system and military, and for threatening to arrest the international peace envoy, and so forth. This Monday he illegally held a public celebration for Serbian independence day, banned by the court system for discrimination (and the legacy of the Serbian led ethnic cleansing in Bosnia). His intentions were pretty clear:
Bosnian Serbs are already "mentally integrated" into Serbia and would gladly support independence from Bosnia, their political leader Milorad Dodik told AFP just ahead of a controversial "national holiday"...
"We do not want to stay here," Dodik, president of Republika Srpska (RS), told AFP on Monday.
The US responded to this slight in traditional hegemonic fashion by flying two fighter jets over Bosnia. Dodik has waffled on claiming he wants secession outright but doesn’t seem to be backing down from the fight in general:
“I am not irrational, I know that America’s response will be to use force … but I have no reason to be frightened by that into sacrificing (Serb) national interests,” Milorad Dodik, the president of Bosnia’s Serb-run part, told The Associated Press in an interview Friday.
Japan
A follow up to the fundraising scandal that has rocked Japan’s governing Liberal Democratic Party and forced the resignations of the party Policy Chief, the Minister of Trade and Industry, and the Chief Cabinet Secretary. Prosecutors raided LDP offices a few weeks ago and on Sunday made their first arrest of an involved politician, a Congressmen and ex-Vice Minister of the Education Ministry. Amazingly, Kishida hasn’t been canned by his party yet, despite this, the Moonie funding scandal, and the assassination attempt (yes, that doesn’t seem like a fair thing to fire a PM for, but Japan historically changes leaders at the slightest sign of worsening vibes). Still, his days may be numbered if party popularity keeps falling (consistently sub 20% recently). Combined with the recent plane crash that killed 6 people and the brutal earthquake that’s piled up over 160 bodies so far, it’s been a really rough few weeks both for Kishida and for Japan.
Soriek
4mo ago
France
French leftist Prime Minister Elizabeth Borne has resigned on Macron’s request from her position. Her replacement is the young (youngest PM ever actually) Gabriel Attal, also originally from the Socialist Party. Polls say Attal, who rose to prominence during the Covid pandemic and went on to be the Education Minister, is one of the most popular politicians in France. Macron is likely hoping through his appointment to absorb some of that popularity himself in the wake of a series of hard ball policy pushes, from the pension reform to the immigration bill, combined with the backdrop of rising living costs. It still remains to be seen if Macron will reshuffle other members of his cabinet.
Also:
Macron, 46, and Attal have a combined age just below that of Joe Biden, who is running for a second term in this year's U.S. presidential election.
Rude.
Soriek
4mo ago
Myanmar
The conflict in Myanmar has been heating up more and more with the coalition of ethnic militias working together since October steadily gaining ground on the junta government. In the northeastern Shan state especially, towns are falling to the rebels throughout Operation 1027 (named for the date of the start of the military push). China has warned its citizens to withdraw and the military has released thousands of prisoners in hopes of garnering good will with the public. For the first time people seem to be saying a rebel victory is essentially assured, which would have been insane only a few years ago. Whether that means the junta actually losing control of the whole country, or just of the ethnic breakaway states remains to be seen.
How does everyone feel about it? Well, Myanmar is something of a soft pariah state in Southeast Asia, but also most national governments regionally don’t like the idea of successful coups. China in particular hates the conflict because it happens right on their border, affects Chinese citizens, and sometimes attacks have even landed over the Chinese border. They also don’t want to deal with any kind of refugee crisis. On the other hand, the “Alliance of Three Brotherhoods” is highly pro-China (as is the government) so a victory on their part wouldn’t mean the country realigning or anything. Chinese is allied with the junta but hasn’t helped them much in the conflict either, what’s really important to them is that the conflicts ends and stability is restored. America likewise doesn’t have great options. America is opposed to the junta for obvious reasons, but the ethnic militias aren’t likely to be any more pro-American and none of our allies surrounding Myanmar really want to deal with a potential refugee crisis either.
Somewhat fair on the framing, but all this is true of the attacks on Pakistan and Iraq as well. Ex: Pakistan is also an Iranian ally, is also facing an insurrection backed by internal separatists who are a common enemy of Iran, are also not in control of all their territory, and the Iranian attacks were only against that insurgent group - but Pakistan still very much interpreted it as an attack and responded in kind. Iraq is Iran's closest ally, with pro-Iranian militias embedded throughout politics and security affairs - and is now reporting them to the UN Security Council, so it's not unreasonable to suggest these attacks violate even the normal fuzzy bounds of Iran's historical relationship with its allies.
The particular branch of ISIS that launched the terrorist attack on Iran, ISIS-K, also isn't based out of Syria but Afghanistan, so it's not quite as simple as a direct retaliation either.
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