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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   1598 thread views

Transnational Thursday for January 18, 2024

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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Texas Border Situation Continues This is a developing situation so I'm moving updates to transnational Thursdays. Last update was this one: https://www.themotte.org/post/832/culture-war-roundup-for-the-week/179653?context=8#context

The federal government's deadline for Texas to relinquish control of Shelby park has come and gone with no changes(as was expected). https://texasscorecard.com/state/texas-rejects-biden-administrations-demands-for-access-to-eagle-pass-park/

The likely result is a legal battle; indeed that's what Paxton's letter rejecting federal demands promises:

President Biden has been warned in a series of letters, one of them hand-delivered to him in El Paso, that his sustained dereliction of duty in securing the border is illegal. By instructing your agency and others to ignore federal immigration laws, he has breached the guarantee, found in Article IV, § 4 of the U.S. Constitution, that the federal government “shall protect each of [the States] against Invasion.” Texas, in turn, has been forced to invoke the powers reserved in Article I, § 10, Clause 3, which represents “an acknowledgement of the States’ sovereign interest in protecting their borders.” Arizona v. United States, 567 U.S. 387, 419 (2012) (Scalia, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). Although you invoke the majority opinion in that case, it never addressed these crucial constitutional guarantees because Arizona did not raise them. Having abandoned the field of immigration enforcement, in defiance of Congress’s commands, your agency is in no position to claim preemption under Arizona v. United States and the Supremacy Clause.

Rather than addressing Texas’s urgent requests for protection, President Biden has authorized DHS to send a threatening letter through its lawyers. But Texas has lawyers, too, and I will continue to stand up for this State’s constitutional powers of self-defense. Instead of running to the U.S. Department of Justice in hopes of winning an injunction, you should advise your clients at DHS to do their job and follow the law

Obviously, injunctions will go back and forth and be roundly ignored on both sides.

Ireland

Some interesting developments in the refugee saga and some more of the same:

(i) The more of the same was a fire at a convent in Longford earmarked to host 85 Ukrainian refugees. This is the first time Ukrainians have been the target as far as I'm aware. Ukrainians aren't considered asylum seekers as they are granted refugee status immediately and don't have to be confined to one place until they are processed, but they do spend some time in emergency accomodation given how hard it is to find a place to rent in Ireland. A local Fine Gael counciller said that he was aware that there were rumours circulating that the building was going to be used for asylum seekers so maybe the arsonists mistakenly targeted this place or maybe they just assumed that if it's going to be used for Ukrainians it will eventually be used for asylum seekers.

(ii) A protest in Roscrea, Co. Tipperary became unusually violent as protesters attempted to block a bus carrying 17 asylum seekers (out of a proposed 160) from entering a hotel that had recently been repurposed as asylum accomodation. The protest was broken up by police (the first time that this has happened besides the Dublin riot) and the fact that some of the asylum seekers were women and children has given the protesters some bad PR.

Roscrea has a population of 5,500 and already has an asylum centre and is hosting Ukrainian refugees in another building so they've got more of a reason to complain than most, the hotel was also closed on short notice last Thursday with job losses and wedding party cancellations. The fact that locals supplied the protesters with food and firewood is a mark against the narrative that these protests are the work of a small group of troublemakers with no links to the local communities travelling from town to town. As far as politicians go local counciller Shane Lee took part in the protest and Tipperary Independent TD (member of parliament) Mattie McGrath criticised the government's handling of the situation.

(iii) Mayo County Council has voted to cease co-operation with the Department of Children, Integration, and Youth:

The motion, spearheaded by Independent Councillor Michael Kilcoyne, calls for an immediate halt to collaboration with government officials until clear plans are in place for the provision of essential services, such as medical care, transportation, training, and delivery schedules.

Councillor Kilcoyne spoke on the importance of equal distribution across national constituencies, challenging the disproportionate burden placed on Mayo compared to other regions.

This is a non-binding resolution from an institution that doesn't control much in the first place but it's interesting to see politicians sticking their neck out for a cause that is popular in polling but extremely unpopular in the media.

(iv) Finally Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said that the government will likely take the option of paying money rather than directly taking in migrants under a new EU pact. Dealing with this problem through the EU seems like a good answer to the "international obligation" argument for taking in more migrants, and since the EU is both very popular in Ireland and composed of countries which are far more familiar with the downstream consequences of mass migration this seems like a way to reduce immigration while avoiding the shame of Ireland being seen as racist (whether or not Europeans actually think that about us doesn't matter as much as whether Irish people think they think that).

Edit One more story: Chainsaw-wielding man jumped out of van and threatened security guards at Dublin 4 building earmarked for migrants.

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.

I'm not too versed with Guatemala and it's issues, what's the likelihood he gets assassinated by some cartel or whatever criminal equivalent they have there if he reaches too far?

Other than that, I am somewhat hopeful that his is legitimately successful in cleaning house as an example that it may be possible in the US as well.

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.

The real question will be how China reacts.

Indeed. I don't have quotes, but I heard that they threatened to invade, and while that is standard rhetoric, there are some signs that this time they might actually not be bluffing. Minihan's warning, for instance, predicted (a year ago) that this would be used as casus belli. There's also the hair-raising Paul Symon interview in roughly the same timeframe where he implied that "a linear path" leads to "major-power conflict"; the most obvious explanation for that comment is that the Five Eyes had detected preparations for a major Taiwan play, although I suppose there could be something else similarly dire.

The simple fact of the matter is that in the 2010s they had reason to hope for Taiwan agreeing to One Country, Two Systems (the "charm offensive" is clearly visible in polls of Taiwanese attitudes toward unification), but that died a horrible screaming death in 2019-20 when Xi did his little Darth Vader stunt to Hong Kong. So they have the motive to try to force the issue, and they have the opportunity with the USA reeling from the CW and this election being predictably a mess a long time in advance; why wouldn't we expect them to be quietly preparing? They could still definitely call "no-go", but we live in Interesting Times.

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.

Yeah, I mean the clue is in the numbers. 1000 members is nothing, Bukele jailed 4% of the male population, that would be 350,000 people in Ecuador.

Bukele actually adopted a variant of the classic crime solving strategy, which is just capturing the majority of violent and antisocial young men. The problem for him is that the traditional solution (execution or exile) isn’t viable for El Salvador, so he has to keep them locked up indefinitely.

Colombia has seen some substantial successes against cartel violence over the years, if not against cartel activity itself. And that’s all Noboa needs, Ecuador is fine as a drugs transit hub, they just want the violence turned down. Amusingly, the Netherlands has faced a (much milder) version of the same issue in recent years, what with the murder of Wiersum and other high profile Mocro mafia drama.

Unfortunately the only demographic even capable of controlling, policing and neutralizing violent young men is other violent young men. In a more or less ideal society, most of them will be social instead of antisocial violent young men, of course, but that presupposes a society that successfully integrates and indoctrinates them i.e. a patriarchy, which these stagnant, violent, modern, post-patriarchal Latin American societies aren't. In fact, many of them may be antisocial themselves; this isn't much of an issue if the political leadership recruits them as its future goons one way or another. To what extent are these governments are capable of this long-term, I wonder.

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.

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.

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.

Pakistan-Iran attacks updates: 9 killed near Iran’s southeast border

For those not following along, Iran seems to have picked a bone with Pakistan for sheltering militants and has launched airstrikes within their territory. In retaliation, the Pakistanis seem to have launched their own attack on Iranian soil.

I'm not a very good Indian, by any standard, but even I am chortling at the whole affair. The US was far too timid about striking the Taliban when they fled over the porous border, and it took goddamn Bin Laden for them to take off the kid gloves and send Gravy Seals in. 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.

Honestly, I don't even see much in the way of downsides for a hot war between the two, whoever loses, the rest of us win.

shame on you, @Soriek, for missing such salacious events on the world stage and leaving something for me to add that is semi-informative haha

What are the odds that it actually turns into war? Pakistan is pretty close to being a failed state and Iran isn’t trying to start a major war as opposed to some border skirmishes.

My modestly (un)informed opinion is that it is quite low. At least going by the old tradition of India and Pakistan occasionally lobbing shells at each other or taking potshots, which doesn't usually go hot. In this case, it was likely more of a face saver than the Pakistanis genuinely wishing to up the ante.

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.

This latest episode of Iran just kind of attacking all its neighbors is pretty uncharacteristic at least.

I dunno—isn't Iran attacking it's neighbors something Leonidas would be familiar with?

Fair play, fair play

I thought that the framing of this as "Iran attacking Syria" by Western media was somewhere between misleading and downright manipulative, considering that the Syrian government is still facing an insurrection backed by a myriad of internal separatists and outside interests and not in control of its entire territory, the attacks were targeted at one of those insurrectionist factions, and if anything Iran is now geopolitically on the same team as the Syrian government (via Russia). This is like framing the Battle of Manila as the US attacking the Philippines, or the landing at Incheon as the US invading South Korea.

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.

This latest episode of Iran just kind of attacking all its neighbors is pretty uncharacteristic at least

Iran just kind of attacking all its neighbors isn't uncharacteristic at all, it's the acknowledgement of it that represents a departure from historical norms.

Usually they launder things through proxies though, directly lobbing bombs in all directions is unusual, especially at their allies - they like their plausible deniability.

That being said, how far is Iran from nukes? I know they're not Japan-level "could be any time in the next month if they put their mind to it", but they've been working on it for a while.

There's more to it than just throwing together some plutonium for warheads. You really want hydrogen bombs for good yields, lower mass and higher cost-efficiency, they're less irradiating too. You need a secure delivery mechanism, long range missiles of the kind Japan isn't supposed to have. You need warhead miniaturization for practicality. Gravity bombs won't be all that useful - why would you need to use nuclear weapons if you have that kind of air superiority? It'd take a while to turn a technical nuclear weapon capability into practical nuclear arms.

The Israelis and Israeli-adjacent media have been fearmongering that Iran is months away from nuclear weapons for the last 20-30 years, nobody knows the real status of the Iranian nuclear program except the Iranians. Iran nuclearizing induces ugly dynamics, Saudi nuclearization amongst other things.

You need a secure delivery mechanism, long range missiles of the kind Japan isn't supposed to have.

Point of order: Japan already has long-range missiles that, as today's events have demonstrated, can accurately deliver a payload to targets roughly 400,000km away. It is as trivial to make a missile of that sort deliver a payload onto an arbitrary spot on the Earth as it is to deliver a car to an arbitrary orbit.

The Iranian space program is... a bit less developed by comparison.

Your average space-rocket makes a poor long range missile. They're extremely big and obvious targets, not protected in siloes or road-mobile. They take a long time to be readied for firing, many are liquid fuelled and need that to be pumped in. I'd imagine they'd have absolutely enormous radar signatures and would be relatively slow by ICBM standards - ideal targets for missile defence.

The Iranians have real experience firing off long-range missile into contested airspace, combatting missile defence. They have a lot of missiles and launchers, hidden and defensible.

I have no doubt that Japan has the technical capacity to produce long-range missiles but there's more to establishing practical capabilities than converting civilian rockets.

Hard to say for certain but I suspect that it's a lot closer than official narratives would have you believe. The Disconnect between CNN's estimates and Janes' is one of the reasons Obama's "Iran Deal" was so contentious.

Just spit-balling but I'd guess 3 months to a Year if they decide to go for it in earnest and Israel doesn't respond with a preemptive strike. In contrast I'd put estimate the Japanese at something like 6-8 weeks if the cultural baggage and budgetary issues were to be hand-waved away.

In contrast I'd put estimate the Japanese at something like 6-8 weeks

How would that work out with the need to refine enough weapons grade plutonium / uranium?

The time needed to gather/refine the materials is part of why my estimate is 6 - 8 weeks instead of 36 hours to a week.

Probably with Japan accepting design compromises to build a working nuke off of reactor-grade uranium- IIRC South Africa did that back in the day, and a shitty gun-type nuke is a lot better than nothing.

You can't build a deployable nuke out of reactor-grade uranium. Even for highly enriched uranium, you need tens of kilograms of it. Plutonium is much more efficient, which is why everyone who can uses it. A "shitty gun-type nuke" needs even more of the material than implosion type weapon since it's significantly less efficient at getting enough of the material to go critical before the whole thing blows up.

There was a scandal a while back that makes me uncomfortable about putting the United States of America on the list of countries that can make advanced hydrogen bombs.

I'd imagine the destructive power of any bombs our adversaries could field top out at Hiroshima, and mostly are “dirty bombs.”

For what that's worth, which ain't much.

I thought Japan was ‘in theory 36 hours, but they’d have to get all their people in a room together so more like a week in practice?’

I definitely agree that if Iran decided they needed a nuclear weapon now, they could have one in less than a year. But 3, 6, and 8 months are very different timeframes with very different implications.

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.

My estimation for Japan is basically, 1 week to finalize a design (assuming they don't already have one on file), a second week to gather the necessary materials/personnel, and then 4 - 6 weeks to actually build, test, and deploy a handful of functional bombs.

The timeline for Iran is a lot hazier simply because the available information is far less reliable. Though I do agree with you regarding the implications.

The mantle has now passed to you to lead Transnational Thursdays

oh god oh fuck

Uh.. A good leader leads from the the rear delegates responsibilities, I'll let you have it back, for now.

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.

I do think the odds of a hot war on a larger scale are modest, if only because Pakistan does have nukes (and this is closer to posturing). I do wish they'd fire said nukes in a direction that wasn't mine, if they had to, but it does seem unlikely to me.

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.

Makes me think - what's life like for a Nork? Does anyone happen to have a good source on the matter?

I lived in North Korea in 2015 and 2016 in order to teach computer science at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. I have a pretty detailed journal of my trip posted online. From that I think you should get a decent sense of what life as a university student in North Korea is like.

Unfortunately, Trump instituted a travel ban to North Korea in 2017 (and Biden has kept the ban in place), so I haven't been back. I still have regular zoom calls with the faculty/students there. Some examples of successes that have come from this work are facilitating only open source contributions from North Koreans and helping North Koreans fix their internet infrastructure. But this sort of work is obviously much harder without being able to go in person, and these days I have much less insight to what the average North Korean thinks.

In my opinion, "no longer pursuing reconciliation with the south" is a huge deal. This pursuit of reconciliation was one of the main pillars of legitimacy for the Kim regime. Whenever I talked to a North Korean about their country, they always brought up that they want reunification. Literally on every street corner in Pyongyang were maps of a unified Korea and propaganda posters saying things like "We want to hug our brothers in the South". So I am very curious how this will be spun for the domestic audience.

I'm reading through your journal at the moment. It's quite interesting, though I can't help but notice you often insert small nods and nudges that seem to say "see, it's not as bad as foreigners think!". It looks out of place for a letter to the family. Do you always write like this, even when not recounting your experiences in countries often blamed for censorship?

Re: reunification, the word itself does not hold much good vibes behind it to me. According to Russia, what it's doing right now is reunification with Ukraine, for example. Some say they wish to restore Russian-Ukrainian brotherhood, others claim that there should not be such a thing as Ukraine.

I kind of read them in the sense that this seems like your ordinary travelogue of any East Block country in the Cold War era - which would probably mean it's not as bad as the Western common view is, but of course also not as good as North Korea fanboys, such as there still are, would present it.

My audience at the time (maybe a 200 or so friends/family) consisted of plenty of skeptical people, and so the small nods were directed towards them. This is a pretty common format for people doing overseas NGO work in non-US friendly countries.

I lived in North Korea in 2015 and 2016 in order to teach computer science at the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology. I have a pretty detailed journal of my trip posted online. From that I think you should get a decent sense of what life as a university student in North Korea is like.

Thanks a ton for the insider account.

Is there any need by the DPRK to spin things for its own citizens? I imagine everyone will have to go along with the new direction whether they want to or not.

Though, realistically, I imagine the domestic shift might be more gradual.

Read it all. Fascinating stuff. Thanks for sharing (again).

I still wonder what life is like elsewhere in the country, though.

I remember that! But back then I cynically dismissed it for some reason. Don't even recall why. Thanks for bringing it up again; I'll give it a read.

IIRC it had been trending this way for a long time. SK polls showed that the generations old enough to remember the Korean War (and who often had brothers, sisters, aunts, or uncles on the other side) still supported reunification, while the youngest generations (who have only ever seen NK as a bizarre, menacing foreign country) opposed reunification, partly due to lack of ties, but also due to an unwillingness to shoulder the inevitable economic and social damage to SK caused by absorbing the impoverished, uneducated, dysfunctional NK population.

Sad to see this finally formalized but I suppose it was unavoidable.

If the United States gets embroiled in simultaneous hot wars in Ukraine and the Middle East and the Taiwan strait, it massively changes the potential success calculus for a North Korean Invasion. Especially now that it’s starting to become apparent that ammunition stocks for Western advanced weapons are not very well supplied. That doesn’t mean that Kim will necessarily go for it, but at the very least it gives him a card to bluff with.

North Korea's dysfunction does extend to its air force, or so I've heard. It's hard to invade a country that has a vastly superior air force.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Korea_Air_Force#Aircraft

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_People's_Army_Air_Force#Aircraft

Even with the element of surprise, it's hard to imagine that North Korea could neutralize this disadvantage.

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.

South Korea could put up a good fight conventionally. The casualties would be immense because of the extreme volume of artillery pointed at Seoul, but much of NK’s weaponry and missile stock is extremely degraded, missile defense is antiquated and troops are poorly fed and trained. Leadership is extremely concentrated in Pyongyang. There are a lot of reasons to believe it would be a pretty quick war.

If the US pulled out China would be even less likely to intervene in support of Kim, and honestly even now I suspect they’d let SK take out the leadership (in the event of Kim making a move) and then step in to put someone in power in the north, and everyone would tacitly be fine with it because it’s better for China to pay for reconstruction.

South Korea unlike most of the countries in NATO actually has decent artillery capability and the ability to conscript. I suspect North Korean equipment is in better shape than expected. Most of the lines about their starving troops and rusted artillery sound suspiciously similar to the media line about Russia in the first year of the Ukraine war.

IMO the real danger is the Chinese armies in that theatre. They have the training and technology that North Korea lacks and no shortage in numbers. It's unlikely that North Korea would strike without Chinese approval and assistance, though they are wary of Chinese influence.

How would Trump stop the Russo-Ukrainian war in 24 hours? The obvious answer is that he wouldn't, but what if he actually tried? Are there any relatively plausible scenarios someone with Trump's temperament and reputation could try?

I think he might be able to do it simply by being elected.

The Ukrainian state is totally dependent upon US aid for funding everything: civil servants wages, pensions... All Ukrainian tax money goes to the war effort and they still need a great deal of foreign assistance to stay in the fight. Unless the EU steps up, Trump's plan to cut funding and arms will take the war from 'slow and steady Ukrainian defeat' to 'complete disaster + state disintegration'. Ukraine doesn't have the money to pay for a major war, why would they? Ukraine is a poor country. Even the combined resources of NATO are strained, look how the price of 155 mm shells has soared past 8,000 euros: https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2023/10/25/155-mm-shells-price-is-growing-8-6-million-for-1000-units/

The Ukrainian army is already in a lot of trouble regarding age and motivation. Their 'drag him away into the boot of our car' recruitment tactics indicate a certain level of desperation. The shock of a Trump victory might push them over the edge, though I admit I've underestimated Ukrainian stubbornness before.

what if he actually tried? Are there any relatively plausible scenarios someone with Trump's temperament and reputation could try?

No. Ukraine won't cooperate for any peace plan that doesn't result in Putin's head on a platter for losing a war.

If the alternative is going forward on their own, wouldn't they have some hard decisions to make? They are somewhere between holding the line and being gradually attritted into nothingness with brazillions of Western dollars and weapons flowing their way -- "make peace or else" would be a powerful threat to anyone who's thinking at all straight.

It would be a dangerous move even by Trump standards, because if they decided to call the bluff (?) he would either look very weak (if bluffing) or look like he was personally responsible for the hordes of orc marauders overrunning Rivendell -- but I'd say it would be more likely than not to work.

Trump cares a lot about what his constituents think, he's obsessed with polls. War in Ukraine is unpopular and especially unpopular among his populist right. He could make it clear Ukraine is getting no more money. Then release whatever info the spy agencies have on the 2014 coup to try and paint Ukraine as an illegitimate state owned by the globalists, which would give Europe a way out. Ukraine would be forced to concede quickly, or maybe they fight another month or two.

It's probably the only way to end the war, NATO involvement just ups the escalation, risks nuclear war or other powers entering the fray like China as they wouldn't want their backyard unstable and to be further isolated by western expansion. Though I've been surprised at how non aggressive China is so who knows really, they are a very introverted nation. It's logical though.

I doubt he will do it though, it'd take more calculation. Trump is more of a seat of his pants person. Deep state would immediately start to paint him as weak or a Russian puppet again and it's very easy to get under Trump's skin and manipulate him this way.

Basically the war will continue to the last willing Ukrainian.

War in Ukraine is unpopular and especially unpopular among his populist right.

That sounds like that American voters think that USA leadership has same or equal blame in starting war than Russia leadership.

NATO involvement just ups the escalation, risks nuclear war or other powers entering the fray like China as they wouldn't want their backyard unstable

Russia clearly winning is causing the same problems, but in even more significant and worse way

How so? Russia winning just resets things to the way they were pre 2014, except now they have a puppet state that is completely devastated economically with serious demographic issues to grapple with. I'm not sure they'd even want territory beyond kharkiv / odessa.

Yeah, it’ll be interesting gamesmanship. Trump likes deals, but he hates his deal overtures being rejected or thrown back at him. So the key for the American ‘deep state’ will be making his offer unpalatable to the Russians so Putin rejects it offhand (thereby cementing Trumps support for Ukraine), while the key for Russia will be offering Trump just enough that he considers himself to have won in a way that Biden etc would be incapable of.

In 24 hours, we're basically talking about Trump tweeting out:

As of TODAY, Ukraine is and always will be, a NATO ally of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! Any attack on Ukraine will be an ATTACK ON THE USA and will be responded to accordingly by the United States and our allies!

Which I'd give slightly better than 2/3 odds of ending the war on the spot, given that the other 1/3 is "significant portions of Europe are glassed." If Trump did something like that, obviously it would be illegal on multiple fronts, but calling his bluff would be costly that there is a good chance Putin would back down before anyone can tell Trump that isn't how NATO works.

From the beginning I've thought the best "off-ramp" for Putin would be direct NATO involvement, allowing Putin to pull out and claim to be the peacemaker even with minimal gains, though we may be past that by now. Let a couple Russian jets shoot down a couple F-35s and they can claim victory while pulling back.

If you give him his whole first year, I think Trump is the perfect guy to help execute Placing Harry Windsor on the throne of a restored Kiev monarchy:

War is simply the continuation of political intercourse with the addition of other means. We deliberately use the phrase 'with the addition of other means' because we also want to make it clear that war in itself does not suspend political intercourse or change it into something entirely different. In essentials that intercourse continues, irrespective of the means it employs. The main lines along which military events progress, and to which they are restricted, are political lines that continue throughout the war into the subsequent peace -- Do I really have to attribute this one?

The government of Ukraine cannot end the war with Russia in a position where Russia could renew the war in the future. As the permanent neutering of Russia is impossible or inadvisable, most commentators want to provide Ukraine with some kind of security guarantee from the USA/NATO/PRC that will prevent future Russian aggression, but negotiated in some unspecified way that it isn't just adding Ukraine to NATO, which it is basically assumed Russia wouldn't accept unless, as above, Russia was permanently neutered, which, as above, is impossible or inadvisable. So how do we tie Ukraine to the NATO powers in a way that is genuinely credible and will be viewed by Ukrainians as a binding guarantee, but isn't article 5?

Let's look at how the Concert of Europe in the 19th century handled this: Constitutional or absolute monarchy was held to be the best form of government, and when a new country was formed, they would simply install a monarch from another royal family. The monarch's had no necessary special relation to their new domain, the first king of Belgium was originally considered for the job of king of Greece, which went to another German monarch instead. King Charles and his sons are descended from the Greek royal family [through a switch in royal houses en route] on his father's side, so it's family tradition to say: Prince Harry should form a mercenary corps, join the UKR forces and take Crimea, then Harry and Meagan should be installed as Grand Prince and Grand Princess of Kiev while naming Archie as Ilkhan of Crimea and heir while engaging him to the daughter of Ukrainian General or politician.

Harry does have some military experience in combat, and he's still young enough at 38 and popular enough, that he could credibly recruit a military force of thousands of veterans from the USA, UK, Canada, and Australia to join him in this venture. I think there's still enough weird tradition to get guys from the Commonwealth countries to want to ride out with a rogue devil-may-care prince into combat. He could get the money to fund their equipment and training from his friends Oprah and Tyler Perry and by selling the TikTok rights, or the CIA could fund it covertly, whichever, just get all the money for the full shebang of western toys. Take his fully equipped brigade of western veterans, go to Ukraine, and put up a good show. I don't think Harry is actually that bright, but he could find a bored retired general to handle the actual conquering for him.

At the end of the war, like our ancestors before us, the international community gets together to name Harry and Megan Grand Prince and Princess of Kiev. Now if Russia invades again ten years from now, do you really think that the UK is going to sit idly by and watch their King's son, their heir's brother, Diana's son, get thrown out? Maybe the UK public doesn't much like Harry and Meggan, but watching a close relative get deposed is just getting cucked as a kingdom, no way Sunak lets that happen. And is the US public going to let a celebrity BIPoC diverse prince and his valid mentally suffering actress mum get tossed in the tower? No way. We often mock the 19th century Royalists obsession with installing monarchs, but this was the purpose. It tied the new country to the international community by blood. In the same way, by creating a British ginger king and a halfrican American queen, Ukraine can guarantee that the two most important countries in NATO will have their back. And we'll be free of their podcasting project.

In 24 hours, we're basically talking about Trump tweeting out:

As of TODAY, Ukraine is and always will be, a NATO ally of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA! Any attack on Ukraine will be an ATTACK ON THE USA and will be responded to accordingly by the United States and our allies!

Which I'd give slightly better than 2/3 odds of ending the war on the spot, given that the other 1/3 is "significant portions of Europe are glassed." If Trump did something like that, obviously it would be illegal on multiple fronts, but calling his bluff would be costly that there is a good chance Putin would back down before anyone can tell Trump that isn't how NATO works.

I see a non 0 chance of it actually literally going down exactly like this (or close enough).

Only with slightly higher odds of Europe getting glassed. I suspect tensions on the leadership side in Russia are running higher than most people believe, and, I suspect they have more limited access to effective methods for de-stressing and de-tensioning than most.

So my odds on [at least one person on the Russian side, capable of triggering this kind of event when stressed is running high enough on adrenaline or uppers or sleep deprivation to cause a catastrophic chain of events] are higher than 1/3

Also, I started laughing when I read this far into your post, am still chuckle-laughing, and I can't seem to stop. You made my day. Thank you!

Also, I started laughing when I read this far into your post, am still chuckle-laughing, and I can't seem to stop. You made my day. Thank you!

https://youtube.com/watch?v=6_Olf6smJ3s

Relatively generous terms of peace on one hand, and a threat of escalation if they're rejected on the other (backed by deploying the navy and air force to the relevant locations). It's all very LARPy in the end, and could backfire badly, but it's the only thing that comes to mind that would be on-brand with Trump.

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