Month: March 2024

NATO’s Debate Over Whether To Conventionally Intervene In Ukraine Shows Its Desperation

NATO is planning for a possible Russian breakthrough across the Line of Contact later this year but isn’t yet sure how to react if that happens.

French President Macron hosted over 20 fellow European leaders in Paris on Monday to discuss their next moves in Ukraine, including the possibility of a conventional NATO intervention, which he said they hadn’t ruled out for reasons of “strategic ambiguity” despite not reaching a consensus on this. His Polish counterpart Duda also confirmed that this subject was the most heated part of their discussions. The very fact that this scenario is being officially considered shows how desperate NATO has become.

The U.S. Should Sanction Mohammed Mushanish

Turkey is notorious for harboring Hamas terrorists and affiliated entities, and it is unclear why the U.S. government does not take a tougher stance.

Following the October 7 terror attacks in Israel, carried out by Hamas, Ankara has increasingly come into focus, for the many ways in which it provides material support to the Gaza-based terror organization. Hamas’ senior, as well as rank and file members have found a second home inside the borders of a NATO ally, free to organize, spread their message, backed by the open political and diplomatic support of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

U.S. And UK Target Additional Hamas Finance Officials and Representatives

Today, the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) imposed a fourth round of sanctions on Hamas since the October 7 terrorist attack on Israel. Today’s action targets key officials who perpetuate Hamas’s violent agenda by representing the group’s interests abroad and managing its finances. OFAC closely coordinated with the United Kingdom to concurrently designate several key Hamas officials.

Pro-Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) Media Outlet Publishes Infographic Posters Highlighting Features Of New ‘Kamikaze’ Drones And Tips To Avoid Them

On February 22, 2024, the pro-Syrian Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), Al-‘Askari Media, published on Telegram a set of infographic posters titled “The Kamikaze – The Weapon That Will Change Future Wars.” The images inform the group’s fighters on how to avoid being targeted by “kamikaze” drones, also known as suicide drones.[1]

Houthis Claim Attacks On U.S. Ships In Gulf Of Aden, Red Sea; Assert Use Of ‘Submarine Weapons;’ Ability To Seal Bab El-Mandeb Strait

On February 25, 2024, the armed forces of the Yemeni Houthi Ansar Allah movement claimed responsibility for firing several “appropriate naval missiles” at the American ship the MV Torm Thor, and also for a drone attack on American warships in the Red Sea. This claim was made just three days after the group took responsibility for a series of drone and missile attacks on American and British vessels in the Red Sea, and on targets in Israel.[1]

Europe’s Inner Demons

If you take a tram out of Vienna and climb to the top of the Leopoldsberg, you can see a series of memorials to the successful defence of Vienna in 1683 against the invading Ottomans. Looking out over the Danube to the East, you can see an awful lot of not very much at all, going on and on and on. It’s from these empty eastern spaces that the threat to Europe always seems somehow to appear. From the Mongols through the Turks to the Slavs, it’s always the same basic fear. Civilisation as we know it can’t really be guaranteed east of a line drawn roughly between Berlin and Vienna. Beyond lies barbarism, changing in its details, but always a menace that has to be met with military force. It’s not an accident that the medieval Teutonic Knights, who fought the heathens in what is now Poland and the Baltic States, were role-models for extreme nationalists in Germany, including the Nazis. And they served right up to the present day as inspiration for extreme right-wing nationalists in Europe as a whole, some of whom are probably not coming back from Ukraine. And it’s probably not a coincidence either, that the great economic threats to Europe—Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China—are all in the East.

A Clash Of Symbols

Living through the Cold War wasn’t without its moments of anxiety, and even fear: there were times when you went to bed wondering if you would wake up a radioactive crisp in the morning. Yet for all the angst and the serial crises, there was actually something quite comforting about those days: the moral certainty with which the West felt able to view the world. After all, generally speaking, standards of living in the West were higher, there was more political freedom, and there were no fences keeping people in. (Indeed, few even of the fiercest critics of western policy ever seriously thought of going to live in the Soviet Union.)

Kissinger and the True Meaning of Détente

Reinventing a Cold War Strategy for the Contest With China

Few words are more closely associated with the late Henry Kissinger than “détente.” The term was first used in diplomacy in the early 1900s, when the French ambassador to Germany tried—and failed—to better his country’s deteriorating relationship with Berlin, and in 1912, when British diplomats attempted the same thing. But détente became internationally famous only in the late 1960s and 1970s, when Kissinger, first as U.S. national security adviser and then also as U.S. secretary of state, pioneered what would become his signature policy: the easing of tensions between the Soviet Union and the United States.