Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Some stuff I'm paying attention to this week:
Drag marks on the seabed were discovered following damage to the Estlink 2 undersea power cable, which connects Finland and Estonia. This provides further evidence of sabotage.
Chinese is facing a human metapneumovirus outbreak, with authorities ramping up detection and response protocols
Palestine: a year in review.
Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov shared Moscow's opposition to the deployment of Western peacekeeping forces in Ukraine
The IDF reports 891 casualties since Hamas' October 7 attack. Compare with the upwards of 40K dead Gazans.
Pakistan attacked some positions of the TTP in Afghanistan, leading to the Afghan Taliban hitting several points in Pakistan.
Iran to hold nuclear talks with France, Britain and Germany on January 13
Israel announced increase in propaganda budget by USD 150M to combat Gaza narrative
Israeli Report to UN Exposes Hamas Torture, Sexual Abuse of Hostages, Including Children
Israeli raid shuts last major hospital in north Gaza
Yemen's Houthis claim to have shot down 13th MQ-9 Reaper drone
China calls for withdrawal of U.S. missile system from the Philippines
Himalayan megadam gives China power to turn off taps in India
Leaked documents reveal that Russia has prepared target lists for over 160 sites in Japan and South Korea in the event of a major war, dating back to 2013-2014. The plans, which focus on military engagements in the Asia-Pacific region, highlight Russia's intentions to use non-nuclear cruise missiles to disrupt military operations and include both military and civilian infrastructure targets. Among the military sites are command headquarters and radar installations, while civilian targets include power plants and major transportation infrastructures like tunnels and bridges. The documents indicate that of the 160 targets, 82 are military installations, with the remainder being civilian infrastructure.
Taiwanese fighter who served in Ukraine says island unprepared for Chinese invasion
The US and Japan issued their first guidelines for extended deterrence, which outline the potential use of U.S. nuclear weapons in response to threats from China and North Korea. Final authorization remains with the US president. Seems more like something to calm Japan's nerves than anything else
The Chinese navy and Coast Guard conducted a maritime blockade drill in the Miyako Strait, a strategic waterway near Japanese territory where U.S. forces are stationed.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has directed the government and Sberbank to collaborate with China on AI, aiming to bolster Russia's capabilities, particularly military ones, like autonomous combat systems, in the face of Western sanctions.
"The people on both sides of the Taiwan Strait are one family. No one can sever our family bonds, and no one can stop the historical trend of national reunification," Xi said in a speech televised on China's state broadcaster CCTV.
Chinese-Russian air co-operation in the Artic has Norad's 'full attention'
Russia threatens more nuclear tests as World War 3 fears intensify. Russia ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in 2000, but has since withdrawn from the agreement
Russia will abandon moratorium on deploying short- and medium range milliles
Russia angry that state media blocked on Telegram in the EU
'We are waging an existential war': M23's Bertrand Bisimwa on DRC conflict
Delaware officials investigate possible bird flu outbreak after dozens of snow geese test positive. Small microcosm of how H5N1 is playing out
Sweden is planning to secure additional land for cemeteries in anticipation of potential war casualties,
Also, Scott Alexander also gave some thanks to me and my group at the end of this post on H5N1, :)-
While doing so, remember that the 40K number is provided by Hamas, which is extremely motivated to inflate the number and is known to lie about pretty much everything. There's absolutely no possibility of independent verification of these numbers, so they can not be compared with verified and documented numbers like IDF casualties. Here: https://henryjacksonsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/HJS-Questionable-Counting-%E2%80%93-Hamas-Report-web.pdf is some analysis of the Hamas numbers. Again, it is probably impossible to know the real numbers. IDF estimates they killed about 17 thousands Hamas (and whatever smaller fractions there are, like Islamic Jihad or PFLP) operatives. Probably not a very accurate number either as I doubt they bothered to search and identify every single killed combatant. Beyond that, I am not sure how can one make any supportable numbers.
It's a judgment call. I'm actually kind of surprised that the IDF estimates are in the same order of magnitude. I could say that you could split the difference, but that's a ratchet.
One way to get numbers would be to look at population before and after. Another would be to try to work back from satellite imagery (just checked and google earth doesn't have images from the last year yet, and commercial providers crashed my tab). Another would be to notice that by the time you get vaccine-derived polio, the population has to be pretty weakened. Another hint is the recent declaration of a famine by FEWS (since withdrawn because of USAID pressure, which funds FEWS). Israel destroying one of the last Northern Gaza hospitals also seems pretty concerning.
Idk man, take the 17K estimated by the IDF, say they only catch 75% direct deaths, and that direct deaths are 65% of total deaths, that's already 34.87K.
Then on top of this you could say, well, are these deaths justified. I have some sympathy for that, and I can see the argument where if your enemy is taking refuge in a hospital, then destroy the hospital—I wouldn't make the argument, but maybe that's just, like, me being weak, man. But I think this is separate from the magnitude of the death and destruction, where 40K is just not very far off.
Gaza gets more than enough aid to feed the people there. Of course, the distribution is challenging, with Hamas still being on the ground, still being very interested in presenting the picture of mass starvation, and also of course the whole process is grotesquely corrupt, with the aid which is supposed to be free being sold, etc. But even given that, there's no mass starvation is Gaza. There might be some nutritional imbalances and food quality issues, I mean living for an extended time on basic foods probably not a lot of fun, but that's a different picture.
But that's not what happens. I mean, "if" here is redundant - every single hospital in Gaza is used by Hamas as a base, it is a fact. There's absolutely no question about it, and the same of course is true for every school, mosque and other building with lower probability of IDF just blowing it out from the sky. But hospitals are not just destroyed with everybody in it. What is done about it is the hospital is surrounded, and then evacuated, and then it is searched (with multiple Hamas tunnels, weapons caches and often explosive traps inevitable discovered). Of course, this does not always goes smoothly - Hamas operatives sitting inside the hospital sometimes get ideas that shooting at IDF may be fun, and get the return fire, and so on. That stage is usually when civilians get hurt, but it doesn't usually take long to eliminate all active resistance. During the evacuation, of course Hamas operatives will pretend to be the sickest patients in urgent need to be in another hospital - e.g., in Kamal Adwan the first evacuating ambulance had 21 people inside, out of which 13 were completely healthy Hamas operatives (IDF has pretty good face recognition and by now very extensive lists of Hamas members, so it's not as easy as saying "I'm a sick civilian, please let me go"). The civilians that aren't identified as Hamas are provided with tents, generators, food and field medical facilities. Do civilians get hurt in the process? Yes, they do, but it's not like the whole thing is destroyed and everybody inside is instantly dead (though this is exactly the story that was told when Islamic Jihad hit another hospital with it's rocket and they tried to sell it as IDF attack - they counted 500 or so casualties within minutes, they're good like that, and nobody in the press cared to doubt it). Does replacing proper hospital facilities with whatever field medicine can be provided lead to some additional casualties? It probably does, but I don't think anyone has any accurate count of it.
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