Indian Strategic Studies: 09/28/24

28 September 2024

Central Asia’s High-Stakes Gamble With The Taliban – Analysis

Farangis Najibullah and Khursand Khurramov

Central Asian countries are taking steps to broaden relations with their southern neighbor, the Taliban-led Afghanistan, despite the hard-line group’s increasingly restrictive policies, particularly toward women.

Kyrgyzstan removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations earlier this month, Turkmenistan resumed work with Afghanistan on a major gas-pipeline project, and Uzbekistan signed $2.5 billion worth of cooperation agreements with Kabul during the Uzbek prime minister’s high-profile visit to Afghanistan in August.

Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev said on September 6 that the measure aims to “secure regional stability and further develop ongoing dialogue.”

On September 11, Turkmen and Taliban officials held a ceremony to mark the resumption of the much-delayed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas-pipeline project, which is designed to transport up to 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Turkmenistan to South Asia each year.

The ceremony in the Turkmen border town of Serhetabat was attended by former President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the head of the powerful People’s Council of Turkmenistan, while the Taliban delegation was led by its prime minister, Mohammad Hassan Akhund, who is on a UN sanctions list.

President Muizzu’s Recipe For Maldives’ Economic Recovery – Analysis

P. K. Balachandran

“Mend fences with India and maintain ties with China to revive Maldives’ economy and protect its independence.”

The Maldivian economy is going through a bad patch even as there is political stability in the country. President Mohamed Muizzu is firmly on the saddle in Male and is duly propped up by a Majlis (Parliament) where his party, the Peoples’ National Congress (PNC), has a super majority.

Furthermore, there is no credible challenger, as rivals Ibrahim Solih, Abdulla Yameen and Mohamad Nasheed are now pale shadows of their former selves.

And yet, the Maldivian economy is showing strains, needing urgent infusion of foreign exchange and corrections in policies to avoid a debt trap, even a default.

Muizzu’s actions early in his tenure that were meant to implement some hyperbolic election promises, combined with the effects of some of the policies of his predecessors, caused economic problems.

Compelled to address the grave issues confronting the country, Muizzu made radical departures from policies he was identified with. Most strikingly, he shed his pronounced anti-India stance. But the remarkable thing is that he did this without alienating China, relations with which were exceptionally strong when Abdulla Yameen was in power from 2013 to 2018.

Pentagon Says China’s new H-20 bomber has concerning attack range

Kris Osborn

(Washington D.C.) A quick look at available renderings of China’s emerging H-20 bomber reveals a striking, if not surprising, resemblance to the US B-2 Spirit bomber with its sleek blended wing-body, curved engine inlets and apparently “buried” engine with indented exhaust ostensibly for reducing the aircraft’s “heat” signature. Certainly China is well known for its publicly documented efforts to copycat or simply “steal” US military technology, designs and weapons specs, however as of yet there is likely still very little known about the still in development H-20.

One documented area of concern, however, was cited as far back as 2018 in the Pentagon’s China Military Power Report which said that the H-20 would potentially be able to reach a paradigm-changing range of 8,500km. While this may appear slightly less than the B-2 reported range of 6,700 miles, this H-20 range, if true, would present a comparable like ability to hold large areas of the globe at risk on a single mission. Specifically, the 2018 report discusses the H-20 range with a mind to Asia, explaining that the H-20s reported range would “expand long-range offensive bomber capability beyond the second island chain,” placing areas such as the South China Sea at risk.

There’s More to China’s Politics than Xi Jinping

Michael Mazza

Over the course of three Chinese Communist Party Congresses—the eighteenth in 2012, the nineteenth in 2017, and the twentieth in 2022—Xi Jinping has cemented his position atop the CCP pyramid, eschewing old norms and rules governing elite politics in favor of his preferences. Pundits and politicians alike have been left to grapple with myriad new questions regarding the future trajectory of the regime’s power dynamics, policy priorities, and its role on the global stage. The ripples of these changes extend far beyond the Great Wall, threatening to reshape the contours of great power competition in the years to come.

A clear lesson from the nineteenth and twentieth Party Congresses is that personal loyalty to Xi is now a key factor—perhaps the weightiest factor—in the Party’s leadership ascension playbook, but even as personal allegiance has grown increasingly important, it has not completely supplanted the influence of legacy factors in leadership selection. Age, experience, and regional origins still play roles—to varying degrees—in determining who rises to the Party’s senior ranks. These long-standing criteria remain significant at more junior levels, even as loyalty takes center stage at the pinnacle of the CCP power structure. Aspiring leaders must navigate a complex terrain where demonstrating loyalty is crucial, but not at the expense of neglecting other, traditionally required qualifications.

Area where Buddhist monastery stood now under water

Tenzin Pema

Rising waters from a new dam in central China have submerged the area where a 135-year-old Tibetan Buddhist monastery once stood, as well as a nearby village, according to experts who viewed satellite photos and two sources inside Tibet.

The Atsok Monastery, built in 1889, was demolished earlier this year to make way for the expansion of the Yangqu hydropower station in Qinghai province.

Tibetans have decried the dam’s construction, saying it is yet another example of the Chinese government’s disregard for their culture, religion and environment.

After floodgates for the dam were closed around Aug. 10, reservoirs filled and water levels rose in upstream areas of the Machu River, or Yellow River in Chinese, experts who saw the satellite imagery said.

Iran’s Russia Problem

Arash Azizi

Iran’s newish president and foreign minister could hardly be more different in demeanor. President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks informally, often goes off script, and loves to crack jokes. Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, a career diplomat who earned his Ph.D. in Britain, chooses his words with painstaking precision. But the two men have been saying the same things about the direction they want to see foreign policy take in Iran.

The pitch goes something like this: We would like to make amends with the United States and Europe so that we can get the sanctions lifted from our economy. But we will not sacrifice our relations with Russia and China—the partners that have stood by us. Nor will we give up our support for the Axis of Resistance, the collection of Arab anti-Israel militias that plague the West and many regional Arab countries.

In his first press conference as president last Monday, Pezeshkian put it bluntly: “Those guys sanctioned us,” he said, referring to the West. “These guys helped us,” referring to Russia and China. But he also promised a peaceful approach to the West, even suggesting that the United States and Iran could be “brothers.” A few days earlier, Araghchi said in a televised interview: “We approach relations with Europe from a new angle and a new perspective,” but “our priority lies elsewhere.”

In the Arab-Israeli War, Intentions Matter

George Friedman

With the situation in northern Israel now escalating, it’s imperative to take stock of the purpose of the Oct. 7 attacks and what it might mean for the future of the conflict. Hamas’ intent that day was not only to kill Israelis but to take Israeli hostages. Strategically, the purpose was unclear. Hamas knew the attacks wouldn’t force Israel to capitulate to its demands or withdraw from positions that shield Israel proper from direct assault, nor was it surprised that Oct. 7 was answered by a bloody counterattack.

The Hamas operation was not intended to damage Israel so much as it was intended to enhance the group’s standing. Hamas would lose troops, but it would gain status in the broader Sunni-Shiite conflict, or so the thinking went. But there were rumors of ulterior motives. Early in the conflict, some believed other actors would reinforce Hamas in its offensive. The only real candidate for that job would have been Hezbollah, which is either aligned with Iran or Tehran’s puppet, depending on your point of view. Iran supports Hamas, but Hamas is Sunni and, therefore, not generally considered the influencer Hezbollah is. Iran is certainly hostile to Israel, but its bigger goal is the disassembly of Sunni hegemony and replacement of it with a Shiite sphere of influence. There was a rumor suggesting Hamas had known Hezbollah would not join in the attack because doing so would jeopardize its own standing. In other words, the purpose of the Oct. 7 attacks was to draw Israeli troops into a fight against a fixed urban force while weakening the Shiites.

Hezbollah pagers were detonated individually; attackers knew who and where the target was

Each of the pagers that exploded on their Hezbollah owners across Lebanon on Tuesday, injuring thousands of the terror group’s operatives, was individually detonated, with the attackers knowing who was being targeted, where he was, and whether others were in close proximity, Channel 12 claims.

In a lengthy report quoting Israeli and foreign sources, the TV channel says those behind the attack were determined to ensure that only the person carrying the pager would be hurt by the blast.

“Each pager had its own arrangements. That’s how it was possible to control who was hit and who wasn’t,” it quotes an unnamed foreign security source saying.

The report says: “They knew who he was with and where he was, so that the vegetable seller in the supermarket would not be hurt” when a pager exploded on a man alongside him. This is a reference to footage from the pager explosions in which a man is apparently blown up by his pager next to a fruit and vegetable stand.

The weaponization of everything has begun

Mark Lacy

The attacks on pagers and walkie-talkies (and possibly even solar panels) in Lebanon is one of those events that many have speculated was on the horizon: the weaponization of everyday objects in 21st-century conflicts.

But there were probably those who thought this “weaponization of everything”– as security analyst Mark Galeotti puts it – was the stuff of Hollywood movies or cyberpunk crime thrillers.

Transforming pagers or phones into explosive devices, in their view, was probably not possible both in technological or logistical terms. It was the type of scenario that only the most paranoid would think could actually become a reality.

Yet it has now happened. And it has claimed the lives of 37 people, injured thousands more, and has created the possibility of catastrophic organizational disruption.

The ability to communicate across your army or terrorist network has always been fundamental to warfare. And the ability to communicate – and to communicate quickly – is even more important as the geographical scale of war expands.

Concerns Grow as Conflict Escalates Between Israel and Hezbollah

Anna Gordon

U.S., U.K. and United Nations officials urged restraint as tensions ramped up between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon. Lebanon’s health ministry reported that at least eight people were killed and 59 people were wounded in an Israeli airstrike in Southern Beirut on Sept. 20. The strike was a targeted assassination aimed at top Hezbollah commander Ibrahim Aqil, who was killed in the attack, according to Reuters.

After days of escalating conflict, Israel carried out extensive airstrikes targeting Southern Lebanon on Sept. 19 and Hezbollah retaliated on Sept. 20, prompting fears of further conflict and a wider Middle East war. It comes just days after thousands of pagers and other wireless devices, many of which were used by Hezbollah, exploded in Lebanon and parts of Syria in an unprecedented deadly attack that killed at least 37 people and wounded 3,000. While Israel has not claimed responsibility for the attack, Hezbollah officials and multiple news outlets have suggested that the Israeli government was responsible.

Hezbollah said on Sept. 20 that it had launched multiple strikes targeting Israel’s military in the north of the country. Around 140 rockets were launched at northern Israel, the IDF said, with some fired at the occupied Golan Heights, Safed, and Upper Galilee areas intercepted. The IDF later said that it had launched an airstrike on Lebanon’s capital Beirut. In a post on social media platform X earlier in the day, the Israel Foreign Ministry wrote, “Make no mistake: those who harm the people of Israel will pay the price.”

Hezbollah pager explosions put spotlight on Israel’s cyber warfare Unit 820

The mass attack that saw pagers held by Hezbollah members across Lebanon explode has turned the spotlight on the secretive Unit 8200, the Israel Defense Forces’ intelligence unit, which a Western security source said was involved in planning the operation.

Israeli officials have remained silent on the audacious intelligence operation that killed 12 people on Tuesday and wounded thousands of Hezbollah operatives. Dozens more people were killed on Wednesday when handheld radios used by Hezbollah members detonated.

A senior Lebanese security source and another source told Reuters that Israel’s Mossad spy agency was responsible for a sophisticated operation to plant a small quantity of explosives inside 5,000 pagers ordered by Hezbollah.

One Western security source told Reuters that Unit 8200, a military unit that is not part of the spy agency, was involved in the development stage of the operation against Hezbollah, which was over a year in the making.

Middle East on the precipice again after Hezbollah leader vows retribution and Israel launches strikes. Here’s what we know

Helen Regan

Israel launched one of its most intense bombardments against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon this year Thursday, hours after the militant group’s leader condemned deadly twin device attacks that he said crossed “all the red lines.”

Israel’s audacious, coordinated attacks, which targeted Hezbollah members with explosives hidden inside pagers and walkie-talkies, have once again brought the Middle East to the brink of a wider conflict nearly a year after Palestinian militant group Hamas’ October 7 assault on Israel that resulted in the ongoing war in Gaza.

Focus is now on what Hezbollah and Israel’s next moves will be, with the United Nations Security Council due to hold an emergency meeting Friday to discuss the situation.

Uncertainty remains over whether Israel’s attacks are a precursor to a ground invasion across its northern border into Lebanon and to what extent Iran-backed Hezbollah, one of the most powerful paramilitary forces in the region, is capable of responding even as its leader vowed that a “reckoning will come.”

The Rule Of Law, Democracy, And Economic Growth: Navigating Complex Interdependencies – Analysis

Simon Hutagalung

The relationship between the rule of law, democracy, and economic growth constitutes a subject of extensive debate within political and economic discourse. Each of these three concepts plays an essential role in shaping the developmental trajectories of nations.

The rule of law ensures that legal frameworks are respected and enforced, fostering stability and fairness. Democracy empowers citizens by providing them with a voice in political decision-making, while economic growth focuses on increasing a nation’s wealth and enhancing the living standards of its populace. This essay contends that, although the interplay among the rule of law, democracy, and economic growth is complex and context-dependent, a robust legal system combined with democratic governance is generally indispensable for fostering sustainable economic development.

The rule of law is foundational to economic growth as it creates an environment of predictability and security crucial for both domestic and international investments. By ensuring that laws are applied equally to all citizens and businesses, the rule of law promotes fairness and reduces corruption. When property rights are safeguarded and contracts are enforceable, businesses are more likely to invest in long-term projects, which consequently leads to job creation, innovation, and wealth generation. In nations where the rule of law is weak, economic uncertainty prevails, as businesses cannot trust that their investments will be protected.

What Constitutes a Winning Strategy in Ukraine

Stephen Blank

Washington’s continuing inability or refusal to formulate let alone execute a winning strategy in Ukraine impedes Kyiv’s efforts to do so and risks achieving defeat despite Russia’s abysmal strategic leadership. Yet Washington continues to pressure Ukraine to declare a negotiation program and endgame even while denying it the means of defense let alone victory, arguably the sole possible acceptable ending for this war. Therefore this essay aims to redress this strategic malfeasance by postulating the elements of a victorious Ukrainian and Western (not only American) strategy for this war.

First the objective cannot be “as long as it takes” which has long since become an outdated, empty slogan. Rather we must aim at a Ukrainian victory since, despite foreign mediatory initiatives, Putin cannot negotiate and stay in power. Likewise, Ukrainian public opinion will not negotiate under Russian occupation. Victory entails restoring Ukraine’s full territorial integrity, complete sovereignty, including the right to join the EU and NATO, and if possible, war crimes trials and reparations. To achieve these goals both Kyiv and the West must formulate and implement a strategy employing the canonical instruments of U.S. power embodied in the U.S. military’s DIME: diplomatic, informational, military, and economic power.

West Point Needs a Reset, Part 2: In Their Own Words

Tony Lentini

On Sept. 12, Real Clear Defense published my commentary, “West Point Needs a Reset,” detailing why I and many fellow graduates believe the United States Military Academy has lost its way and needs to get back to the basics of educating future Army officers to fight and win our nation’s wars. Almost immediately, the piece went viral, shared across many platforms, including STARRS (Stand Together Against Racism and Radicalism in the Services) and the MacArthur Society of West Point Graduates.

It also attracted the attention of West Point, which up to now has refused to discuss or even acknowledge serious graduate concerns over wokeness, politicization, divisive and battlefield-irrelevant course materials, merit-based admissions, and advancement, undermining of the cadet Honor Code, unanswered Freedom of Information Act filings and other such issues.

The day after publication, Real Clear Defense Editor and former Marine David P. Craig received the following email from West Point’s Director of Communications, Colonel Terence M. Kelley:

Envisioning a better peace in Ukraine

Carl Bildt

With Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war of aggression against Ukraine now well into its third year, there are mounting questions about whether any sort of peace or victory is possible.

Much depends, of course, on how one defines those terms. For Putin, the explicitly stated objective is to eliminate Ukraine as an independent nation-state and subject it to Russian control. Yet after two and a half years and a massive mobilisation of military resources and manpower, Russia controls only around 18 percent of Ukraine’s territory, and most of that was grabbed in 2014. Set against Putin’s war aims, the invasion has been a miserable failure.

Could this change? For a Russian victory to be even remotely possible, the West would need to end all forms of support—financial as well as military—to Ukraine, and the Ukrainian people would need to lose their will to resist. Absent either—or probably both—of these outcomes, Putin’s war aim seems unachievable.

There are no signs of a loss of will on the Ukrainians’ part. While a minority of respondents in opinion polls say they could accept some territorial concessions as a price for ending the war, these losses would fall far short of anything that would eliminate Ukraine from the map.

Is It Time To Stop Insisting on U.S. Global Primacy? | Opinion

Juan P. Villasmil

The time following the Cold War was what foreign policy wonks now, somewhat dolefully, refer to as the "unipolar moment." The term, coined by columnist Charles Krauthammer, described an era in which the world was clearly led by a sole superpower: the United States of America.

With power came responsibility, as Spider-Man once said, but accompanying it was the particular challenge of overconfidence. Notably, influential thinkers like Robert Kagan and Bill Kristol successfully advocated for primacism (what's usually called neocon foreign policy). Their logic was that the U.S. had to proactively assert its dominance, even if it meant intervention "when we cannot prove that a narrowly construed 'vital interest' of the United States is at stake."

Fast forward to 2024 and we are all very familiar with the problems of being "the world's police." A man even ran for president railing against the primacists in 2016—and won. Still, although most academics recognize the end of an era, a remnant of primacism remains. Maybe more than a remnant, actually.

Volodymyr Zelensky Has a Plan for Ukraine’s Victory

Joshua Yaffa

Volodymyr Zelensky’s situation room, where the Ukrainian President monitors developments in his country’s war with Russia, is a windowless chamber, largely taken up by a rectangular conference table and ringed by blackened screens, deep inside the Presidential Administration Building, in central Kyiv. On a recent afternoon, as I sat inside, waiting for Zelensky, I heard his voice—a syrupy baritone, speckled with gravel—before he entered, dressed in his signature military-adjacent style: black T-shirt, olive-drab pants, brown boots. He was in the midst of preparations for a trip to the U.S., where he is scheduled to address the United Nations General Assembly and, crucially, meet with Joe Biden at the White House, to present what Zelensky has taken to calling Ukraine’s “victory plan.”

Zelensky is saving the details for his meeting with Biden, but he has said that the plan contains a number of elements related to Ukraine’s long-term security and geopolitical position, which presumably includes joining NATO on an accelerated schedule, and the provision of Western military aid with fewer restrictions. (In the run-up to the trip, Zelensky has been lobbying his allies in the West to allow Ukraine to strike targets deep inside Russia with long-range missiles supplied by the U.S. and other Western countries.) Ukraine’s incursion last month into Kursk, a border region in western Russia—where Ukrainian forces currently occupy around four hundred square miles of Russian territory—is also part of this plan, according to Zelensky, in that it provides Kyiv with leverage against the Kremlin, while also demonstrating that its military is capable of going on the offensive.

Ukraine Hits 2 More Russian Munition Depots, Aiming to Disrupt War Effort

Constant Méheut

Ukraine said on Saturday that it had struck two large ammunition depots deep inside Russia overnight. It was the second such attack in less than a week as Kyiv seeks to escalate hits on Russian military bases and warehouses to try to disrupt Moscow’s military logistics and slow its troops’ advance on the battlefield.

The strikes announced on Saturday targeted ammunition depots near the towns of Toropets, in northwestern Russia, and Tikhoretsk, in the country’s southwest. The facilities are both more than 200 miles from Ukrainian-controlled territory, and one has been identified as a major storage facility for munitions Russia has acquired from North Korea.

Ukraine said its armed forces had struck the depot near Toropets with drones, but it stopped short of specifying the types of weapons used in the attack on Tikhoretsk, saying only that the arsenals had been “hit by fire,” raising the possibility that it had used a new kind of weapon.

The attack came as Kyiv has been pressing its allies for weeks to let it use powerful, Western-delivered missiles to strike targets deep inside Russia. That authorization has yet to be granted, according to Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, and in the meantime his country has sought to modify missiles and drones already in its arsenal for long-range use.

Who's Afraid of Vladimir Putin?

Lawrence Freedman

On 13 September 2024 President Vladimir Putin was asked by Russian state media about the possibility that Ukraine would be allowed ‘to strike targets deep inside Russia using Western long-range weapons.’ Putin’s answer was typically belligerent. The issue, he noted, was not whether Ukraine would be able to hit Russian territory. It had been doing that for some time. The vital point was that Ukrainians could not on their own use ‘cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West’ because they need ‘intelligence data from satellites’, and, even more important, ‘only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems.’

This led to alarmed headlines about threats of nuclear escalation and earnest warnings about the need to take Putin’s threats seriously, including from Josep Borrell, the EU’s chief diplomat. Putin is after all leader of a nuclear power currently engaged in a desperate war. In such fraught circumstances ill-considered decisions could lead to disaster. On 21 September the nuclear message was underlined by a test firing of its newest ICBM, the RS-28 Sarmat, although the effect was diminished when the missile exploded in its silo, destroying the test site.

Army testing how existing equipment can be used differently as it seeks to ‘transform-in-contact’

Mark Pomerleau

The Army is experimenting with different applications of its current systems to devise new concepts as a way to outpace emerging threats on the battlefield.

“Much of what we’re doing right now is just using what we have better and then experimenting within our units here to evolve with what we have today at the pace with which we’re observing change in the world,” Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, commander of 3rd Infantry Division, told reporters Friday during a media call. “Many of the innovations … were just using systems that we have, but in a much more efficient and commensurate way.”

The division’s 1st Armored Brigade recently tested new concepts and applications of equipment during a rotation at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. Combat training center rotations are the most realistic combat scenarios the Army can create for units to train and to validate units.

The brigade sought to use drones, counter-drone technology and electromagnetic decoys in new and novel ways, some based off recent observations overseas.

Nuclear posture and cyber threats: Why deterrence by punishment is not credible - and what to do about it

Eva-Nour Repussard

The United Kingdom’s latest nuclear doctrine suggests that severe cyber-attacks on their national or critical infrastructure could provoke a nuclear response. Despite this, cyber-attacks against the UK have surged over the past decade. This increase can be partly attributed to the perceived lack of credibility in the UK’s nuclear retaliation threat towards cyber-attacks. With regard to cyber-attacks, the strategy of deterrence by punishment is ineffective for two main reasons: i) the threshold for transitioning from a cyber to a kinetic response remains hard to meet in times of relative peace between two countries, and ii) the inherent challenges in attributing cyber-attacks to specific state actors. Instead of deterrence by punishment, the UK should seek to increase its resilience to cyber-attacks and focus on a strategy of deterrence by denial regarding cyber threats.

Nuclear postures are increasingly explicit about the conditions under which nuclear weapon states might use nuclear weapons in response to non-nuclear threats, particularly from emerging technologies or emerging threats. This is evident in the United Kingdom’s 2021 Integrated Review, which states that they “will not use, or threaten to use, nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear weapon state party to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons 1968 (NPT)”, but then continues by stating that they “reserve the right to review this assurance if the future threat of weapons of mass destruction, such as chemical and biological capabilities, or emerging technologies that could have a comparable impact, makes it necessary”. Arguably, the French posture on “core interests”, Russia’s Principle on Deterrence, and the United States’ 2022 Nuclear Posture Review, all hint at a similar posture in regard to nuclear weapons and “emerging threats”.

The Latest “Poison Pill” in the Israel-Hamas Ceasefire Negotiations

Isaac Chotiner

The war in Gaza has been going on for almost an entire year. The Palestinian death toll has climbed to more than forty-two thousand people. More than thirteen hundred Israelis have died in the October 7th attack and the subsequent fighting. The U.S. has been pushing for a ceasefire deal that would free the remaining hostages in Gaza and some number of Palestinian prisoners in Israel, but neither Israel nor Hamas has managed to entirely agree to the proposed terms. Last week, Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, said that the Israel Defense Forces would not depart the Philadelphi Corridor, an approximately nine-mile-long strip of land near the border with Egypt. For Hamas, this is almost certain to be a non-starter for any deal.

I recently spoke by phone with Robert Blecher, the director of the Future of Conflict Program at the International Crisis Group. He was previously the head of the Israel-Palestine project and deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Program at the I.C.G. I wanted to understand the impediments to a ceasefire and the state of the population in Gaza, where people have been living in a nearly continuous state of siege since October. We also touched on the debates within Israel’s security establishment, the real reason Netanyahu wants control of the corridor, and why the status quo in Gaza could extend for years.

When Stalin Faced Hitler Who Fooled Whom?

Stephen Kotkin

Through the first four decades of his life, Joseph Stalin achieved little. He was born in 1878 to a poor family in Gori, Georgia, then part of the Russian empire. His father was a cobbler; his mother, a cleaning lady and seamstress. Stalin’s childhood, illnesses and mishaps included, was largely normal for the time. He received good marks in school and, as a teenager, got his poems published in well-regarded Georgian periodicals. (“To this day his beautiful, sonorous lyrics echo in my ears,” one reader would later recall.)

Meta fined €390m over use of data for targeted ads

Chris Vallance

Meta has been fined €390m euros (£346m) for breaking EU data rules.

The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) says the way Meta asked permission to use peoples' data for ads on Facebook and Instagram was unlawful.

Meta, which owns both platforms, has three months to change how it obtains and uses data to target ads.

Meta says it is "disappointed" and intends to appeal, stressing that the decision does not prevent personalised advertising on its platforms.

The regulator said that Facebook and Instagram can not "force consent" by saying consumers have to accept how their data is used, or leave the platform.

As Facebook and Instagram have European headquarters in Ireland, the DPC takes the lead in ensuring they comply with EU data law.

Privacy campaigners say the decision is a major victory and means Meta will have to give users real choice over how their data is used to target online advertisements.

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