Russian state hackers hijacked rival servers to spy on targets in India, Afghanistan

Daryna Antoniuk

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Russian state-sponsored hackers exploited the servers of Pakistani threat actors to target organizations in South Asia, according to a new report.

In a campaign that began two years ago, the Moscow-backed hacker group Secret Blizzard, also known as Turla, infiltrated infrastructure used by the Pakistan-based cyber-espionage group Storm-0156 to spy on victims of political interest to the Kremlin.

The targeted organizations included government and intelligence agencies in Afghanistan, as well as military and defense-related institutions in India, researchers from Microsoft and Lumen Technologies' threat intelligence arm, Black Lotus Labs, revealed in a report published on Wednesday.

It remains unclear how Secret Blizzard initially gained access to Storm-0156’s infrastructure or whether the Pakistani hackers were aware of the intrusion and allowed the attacks to be launched from their servers.

For Secret Blizzard, this strategy is not new. Since 2017, researchers have identified at least four instances where the group embedded itself in another threat actor’s operations. The group previously infiltrated the infrastructure of the Iranian state hacker group OilRig and a Kazakhstan-based threat actor.

Who’s Afraid Of George Soros? – OpEd

M.K. Bhadrakumar

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The raging controversy over the Bharatiya Janata Party’s allegation that the Congress Party leadership is hand in glove with the famous US financier George Soros with an infamous track record of funding the colour revolutions and regime change projects is snowballing.

Congress Party may use the floor of the parliament to fuel its public tirades against the government, borne out of the proverbial folklore of Kerala, “Whether the leaf falls on a thorn or a thorn on a leaf, the leaf is always harmed.”

Congress calculates that the Modi government and the BJP would be the losers if this controversy remains in focus. These are early days and how all this pans out is hard to tell, as there are many variables in play. Look at the reticence of the SP and TMC, for instance, to wade into the Adani file. Besides, BJP is a peerless champion for diversionary tactics in Indian politics.

From foreign policy angle, the outcome of the slugfest between India’s two mainstream parties, is going to depend on an “X” factor, namely, George Soros’ clout with the incoming US administration and the attitude of President Donald Trump toward the Deep State’s advancement of a regime change agenda in Delhi as happened in Bangladesh.

The BJP has quietly backtracked from its spokesman’s accusation at the press conference in New Delhi on December 6 that “It has always been the US State Department behind this agenda”.

The Taliban’s Self-Delusion And Afghanistan’s Path To Recovery – OpEd

Iqra Awan

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Afghanistan’s recent history has been defined by the struggles of its people, their resilience amid chaos, and the unrelenting forces that have shaped their fate. Yet, the self-perception of the ruling Taliban regime, known as the Interim Afghan Government (IAG), is both delusional and dangerous. The IAG, led by a group that claims divine legitimacy, projects an image of being the rightful, ordained rulers of the country. This vision, however, is at odds with the principles of justice, peace, and governance upon which Afghanistan’s future should be built.

The Taliban’s ideological framework is an increasingly rigid distortion of Islam, manipulated for political control rather than the upholding of justice or compassion. Their policies are a striking contradiction to the core values of the religion they claim to represent. Despite claiming to govern in the name of Islam, the IAG’s actions—from the denial of girls’ education to public executions and the stripping of women’s rights—are antithetical to Islamic teachings, which promote knowledge, dignity, and the sanctity of human life. These acts have drawn condemnation from scholars across the Muslim world, including from the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), making it clear that the global Muslim community sees the Taliban’s actions as a betrayal of the very faith they purport to protect.

Wargaming Nuclear Deterrence and Its Failures in a U.S.–China Conflict over Taiwan

Mark F. Cancian, Matthew F. Cancian, and Eric Heginbotham

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Background 

Why This Report? 

The United States and China have profound interests in peace, but conflict is far from unthinkable. The United States has five treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific and commitments to their security, as well as broader interests in maintaining a regional balance of power. China, for its part, seeks to redress what it views as historical grievances. Both states now openly acknowledge that they are engaged in strategic competition with each other. They highlight the other as their primary strategic competitor and operate military forces in close proximity. Nowhere is the risk of conflict higher than Taiwan. China seeks reunification with the island, peacefully if possible but through force if necessary. It has employed diplomatic and military tools to signal its unwillingness to see Taiwan move toward independence. 

Taiwan is not a treaty ally of the United States, which maintains a policy of “strategic ambiguity” toward events there.5 But Washington insists that any change to the status quo be peaceful and that the United States might intervene in the event of Chinese attack. Because both the United States and China are nuclear powers, the question of nuclear use or threats of nuclear use would loom large if a conflict over Taiwan were to pit U.S. and Chinese forces against each other. Coupled with China’s ongoing nuclear modernization, this creates an important area for study.

Navigating Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan In A Post-Coup Era – Analysis

Phyo Thura Aung

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Introduction

Myanmar, a developing country, approved the Myanmar Sustainable Development Plan (MSDP) in 2018 to guide its efforts toward achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using 2017 as a baseline, Myanmar achieved notable progress across various SDG sectors during 2018 and 2019. However, in 2020, numerous challenges and crises severely hindered its progress. The country now ranks 120th out of 166, with stagnating progress, data gaps, and declining trends in the peace and environmental sectors. Only slight improvements have been observed in SDG Goals 1, 6, 8, 9, and 12, reflecting significant areas for improvement in government management and leadership.

1. Governance Sector

1.1 State Administration Council (SAC)

Since the military coup in 2021, the State Administration Council (SAC) has forcibly seized power, overturning the democratically elected government and violating agreements with Ethnic Armed Organizations (EAOs). The military has conducted violent campaigns against civilians and EAOs, deploying bombs, airstrikes, and other heavy weaponry. These actions have caused significant loss of life, widespread property destruction, and displaced over three million people, creating a nationwide crisis of internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Perfect Storm: The Rising Risk of China-US Conflict Over Taiwan

William Matthews

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Following Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te’s return from a trip to the South Pacific, China conducted what appeared to be its most extensive military exercises around Taiwan in decades. These marked the third round of extensive drills targeting Taiwan this year, though the exercises have yet to be officially announced by China.

Such drills are intended to intimidate Taiwan while providing the opportunity to rehearse joint operations of the kind that would be conducted in a full-scale blockade or invasion. But they are also intended as a demonstration to the United States of China’s capability and resolve, particularly ahead of a hawkish Trump administration taking office in January – as has been suggested by Taiwanese officials.

In response to a question from an AFP journalist about the current drills, Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Mao Ning stated that “the Taiwan question is the number one red line which cannot be crossed in China-U.S. relations.”

What role for US extended deterrence in Northeast Asia under Trump?

Chelsey Wiley

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On 4 November, the United States Department of Defense confirmed that 10,000 North Korean soldiers had been deployed in Russia’s Kursk oblast as a part of Moscow’s war against Ukraine. In late October, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said that the US would view such a development as a ‘very serious issue’, with implications reaching beyond Europe. This development has alarmed Japan and South Korea (Republic of Korea – ROK), who fear that some dimensions of the conflict in Europe will spill over into their neighbourhood.

In recent years, US collective-defence commitments to its allies – including Japan and the ROK – have helped to stabilise the regional security environment, which has seen North Korean ballistic-missile tests (the latest occurring on 5 November), China’s nuclear buildup and overflights around Taiwan, and a proliferation of joint Chinese and Russian military exercises. Critically, these defence commitments include a nuclear umbrella in an arrangement known as extended nuclear deterrence. While President Joe Biden has taken several steps since 2021 to deepen Washington’s defence relations with its Northeast Asian allies and increased the credibility of US extended deterrence, these relationships will face new tests after Donald Trump assumes the presidency in January 2025.

Why did China hack the world’s phone networks?

Blake Montgomery

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Chinese hackers have breached dozens of telecommunications companies around the world. The breach, christened Salt Typhoon by Microsoft cybersecurity researchers, has afforded the cybercriminals unprecedented access not only to information on who has been texting or calling whom and when, but also on the contents of some messages, a much higher technical bar to clear in a cyber-attack.

The cyber-attack hit three of the largest telecommunications networks in the US. The communications of government officials in Washington DC have been intercepted, as have internet browsing records kept by the same telecommunications companies. The hackers attempted and may have succeeded to crack the phones of Donald Trump and JD Vance as well as Kamala Harris’s campaign staff. Even the US’s wiretapping program was breached; call records stored there were stolen. A US senator called it the “worst telecom hack in our nation’s history”. The same week, UK telecom giant BT announced it had endured “an attempt to compromise” its conferencing service and circumvented it.

The group of hackers, sometimes known as FamousSparrow, has been active since 2020 and has gone after government organizations in Israel, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Canada, Guatemala and Burkina Faso in the past, according to cybersecurity firm Eset. It has another favorite target, one it has targeted even more aggressively than governments in the past: hotels. In all of those countries as well as the UK, France, Lithuania and Taiwan, the group has hounded the digital systems of hotels and stolen their data.

No Limits? The China-Russia Relationship and U.S. Foreign Policy

Robert D. Blackwill and Richard Fontaine

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Introduction

The growing quasi-alliance between China and Russia poses the greatest threat to vital U.S. national interests in sixty years. As this Council Special Report demonstrates, their joint efforts to undermine U.S. policies and international order have made marked progress in the past decade and will continue for the foreseeable future. Although the United States and its partners have not yet mounted an adequate response to this historic challenge, there are grounds for optimism about the West’s capacity to deal with strengthening China-Russia alignment. Thus, this report concludes with fourteen policy prescriptions that highlight the United States’ top priorities in managing Chinese and Russian influence.

Nearly thirty years ago, former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski issued a prophetic warning. “Potentially, the most dangerous scenario,” he said, “would be a grand coalition of China, Russia, and perhaps Iran, an ‘anti-hegemonic’ coalition united not by ideology but by complementary grievances. It would be reminiscent in scale and scope of the challenge once posed by the Sino-Soviet bloc, though this time China would likely be the leader and Russia the follower.”[1]

What China Must Do to Stop the Flow of Fentanyl

Raja Krishnamoorthi

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Since the turn of the millennium, the United States has been ravaged by an opioid epidemic that has killed nearly one million Americans. At first, most of these victims died after overdosing on heroin or various prescription painkillers. But over the last five years, the deaths have been largely driven by a single, synthetic drug: fentanyl. Since finding its way into the illicit drug market, fentanyl has steadily crowded out other opioids, to the point that it is now responsible for most opioid poisonings. In 2023, for example, roughly 81,000 Americans died from opioids. Fentanyl caused nearly 75,000 of those deaths.

It is hard to overstate how deadly fentanyl is. The drug is more than 30 times as powerful as heroin, and so its spread has helped drive the number of opioid deaths to record highs. The human cost of the spike is visible to anyone who knows someone who overdosed, and to plenty of people who don’t. It was very apparent to me at a recent congressional hearing on this epidemic, where a packed auditorium of grieving families brought pictures of loved ones who had succumbed to fentanyl poisoning.

Chinese Universities Are on the Rise

Connor Horsfall and Pippa Ebel

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China’s top two universities, Tsinghua and Peking, have edged closer to the global top ten; they are now ranked 12th and 13th respectively. Their ascent highlights China’s growing influence in global research and higher education. Both institutions have held the top positions in Asian university rankings for five years, underscoring China’s growing dominance in the region, with two-thirds of Asia’s top universities now based in Mainland China and Hong Kong.

China’s success is no longer confined to a few elite institutions. Whereas only Tsinghua and Peking appeared in the top 100 in 2018, today, four Chinese universities have made it into the top 50, seven are in the top 100, and 13 are in the top 200. Such progress is no accident; it reflects deliberate government investment and policy efforts to elevate the academic and research quality of Chinese institutions. Yet this increasing investment still lags behind rival countries like the U.K., U.S., Australia, and New Zealand, which spend over 5 percent of GDP on the sector. China spends 4 percent. Funding alone does not explain China’s success.

Beijing’s focus on education is longstanding, but progress has accelerated markedly under Xi Jinping. Deng Xiaoping, in his drive to modernize China, emphasized the importance of learning from other nations. Xi echoed this vision at the recent national science and technology conference, highlighting “sci-tech modernization” as key to China’s ambitions of becoming a global leader by 2035.

While international support is crucial, Syrians must lead their country’s political transition

Dr Neil Quilliam

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The dramatic collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime following an offensive led by Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces has presented Syria with a pivotal opportunity for change. Although the political transition must be Syrian-led and Syrian-owned, the international community – meaning here the US, EU, Turkey, Jordan and Gulf Arab states – must step up and offer support as Syria passes through a new challenging phase.

There is neither time nor space for handwringing or standing back and watching events unfold – crowing from the sidelines helps nobody. Too many lives have been lost, and too many Syrians have become displaced or refugees because of indifference.

What happens next will not only determine Syria’s future but will affect the Middle East region and have repercussions on the emerging world order. The US, EU, Turkey and Gulf Arab states must engage immediately with the emerging transitional government and help ensure that it represents a coalition of all Syrian parties and groups.

That will mean dealing with the proscribed group HTS. This will prove challenging at the outset, but failure to recognize the group’s role in the overthrow of Assad and its popularity among a segment of Syrian society will only alienate and radicalize its leadership and supporters.

Syria: Will The Real Al-Jolani Stand Up? – Analysis

James M. Dorsey

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Ahmad Hussein al-Shara, aka Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, would like you to think he is a changed man. These days, al-Jolani, a 41-year-old one-time al-Qaeda and Islamic State operative with a $10 million bounty on his head, no longer spews jihadist fire and brimstone. Instead, he preaches pluralism, religious tolerance, diversity and forgiveness as his Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebels take control of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

With the toppled President Bashar al-Assad’s departure to Moscow, Russia, the entire Assad family’s 54-year hold on Syria has reached its end. Now many in the country and the international community ask which one is the real al-Jolani.

In a recent interview, al-Jolani, the face of the Syrian rebels, insistedthat his evolution was natural. “A person in their twenties will have a different personality than someone in their thirties or forties, and certainly someone in their fifties. This is human nature,” al-Jolani said.

The real al-Jolani will likely emerge in the way he approaches the formation of a post-Assad transition government, as well as the rights, security and safety of minorities. These include the Shiite Muslim Alawites from which the Assads hail and who long supported their brutal rule.

Ukraine Situation: Assad’s Loss Of Power In Syria Could Mean Russian Naval Assets May Be Stranded In Mediterranean – Analysis

Can Kasapoğlu

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1. Ukraine Attacks Russian Black Sea Gas Platforms

The Ukrainian Navy executed a successful attack on Russian oil and gas platforms in the Black Sea. Kyiv has long targeted these platforms, which Moscow uses for maritime intelligence gathering. In September 2023, Ukrainian Defense Intelligence (GUR) forces seized the Boyko Towersoffshore oil rigs, depriving the Kremlin of crucial facilities for monitoring the region.

Last week, in a novel approach, first-person-view (FPV) drones took off from sea drones before zeroing in on a Russian oil platform. The sea drone used in the offensive demonstrated two innovations: a three-hulled, trimaran design and a new type of warhead. These new features highlight the Ukrainian Navy’s ability to adapt and refine its operational concepts.

Ukraine has also begun to incorporate short-range air defenses into its unmanned naval warfare systems. In recent engagements, Ukrainian Sea Baby drones were spotted firing anti-aircraft guns and interceptors at Russian helicopters, likely damaging the aircraft and injuring the onboard personnel.

Fallout from Syria: Q&A with RAND Experts

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The rapid collapse of the 50-year rule of the Assad family December 7 ended a brutal regime in Syria, but also precipitated bombings and attacks by Israel, the United States, and Turkey, where each is worried about what might happen in a power vacuum. Abandoning Assad's regime will also have ramifications for Iran and Russia.

We invited a group of RAND experts to discuss the rebel group that led the overthrow, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, as well as the regional and global implications.

Q: Russia, through air strikes, and Iran, through Hezbollah's ground forces, had helped keep Assad in power for years. Why did they abandon the regime this time? Was it simply that they were stretched thin by other conflicts?

Raphael Cohen Both Moscow and Tehran would have preferred Assad to remain in power. Assad's downfall puts the future of Russia's military bases there in play and HTS has explicitly stated that it wants Syria to stop being a “playground for Iranian ambitions.” As to why they didn't get involved, a lot of it comes down to both Russia and Iran being tied down by the war in Ukraine and war in the broader Middle East.

Karen Sudkamp An additional calculation could be that protecting the Assad regime was no longer worth the investment. In addition to supporting proxy militias, Iranian forces spent years training the Syrian army. During HTS's advance from Idlib Province, the army often did not exhibit a will to fight against HTS forces or to protect the Assad regime. Russia and Iran likely considered the effort and capabilities of the Assad regime and its inability to protect itself and made a strategic calculation.

Assad’s fall has Iran desperately searching for a new proxy

Jonathan Sweet and Mark Toth

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Syrian rebels forced President Bashar al-Assad to flee Syria for his life on Sunday. Russian President Vladimir Putin granted Assad asylum on humanitarian grounds. After 53 years of tyranny first begun by his father Hafez al-Assad, the end of the brutal Assad family regime in Syria had finally arrived.

Iran and Russia now find themselves on the outside of Damascus looking in. Both are facing the loss of significant bases of operations.

Russia has withdrawn some of its naval forces from Tartus, its strategic warm weather seaport of Tartus in the Eastern Mediterranean. Moscow has used the facility to project and logistically sustain Russian influence throughout the Middle East, the Sahel region of Africa, Sudan, and Equatorial Guinea.

Likewise, the Russian air force is preparing to withdraw assets from Khmeimim Air Base in Syria – Moscow’s primary airfield, which has been used to strike Syrian rebels and civilians in population centers in support of the Assad regime for the last 13 years.

Has Syrian rebel leader al-Golani really shaken off his al Qaeda past?

Jamie Dettmer

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In the not so distant past, Syrian rebel leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani sported a long unkempt beard, wore a style of turban favored by jihadis and looked like he was auditioning for the role of a young Osama bin Laden.

But the man who toppled the regime of Bashar Assad on Sunday cuts a very different figure today. Like a political chameleon, he wears green fatigues in the style of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or preppy blazers and chinos, and his beard is neatly trimmed. He even recently dropped his nom de guerre and reverted to using his real name, Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a.

But how convincing is the makeover? Should Syrians be worried that a man who once made the pledge of allegiance — or bay’ah — to al Qaeda, and fought Western forces in Iraq, is now the most powerful man in their country, and is poised to play a major role in the transition from the 54-year-long autocracy of the Assad dynasty?

He could even lead the country.

Is this a case where the apparel really does proclaim the man? Has the Damascus medical school dropout genuinely transitioned from being a jihadi, or is his embrace of toleration a ruse?

The Second Trump Term And The ‘Sanctions Industrial Complex’ – OpEd

Hekmat Aboukhater

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As the Washington drawbridge lowers for a second Trump administration, the world attempts to glean any insights that might indicate the direction of his second term. At the top of the list of concerns is the topic of sanctions.

As of 2024, the US is actively sanctioning a third of all nations on earth. As the American populace grew more wary of military entanglements and forever wars, consecutive administrations have exponentially escalated the use of the economic weapon. The Obama administration averaged a total of 500 new sanctions a year, while the first Trump administration doubled it to 1,000 a year, and the Biden administration sextupled the figure—imposing more than 12,000 sanctions in 4 years. Now, many wonder whether a second Trump admin will continue or curb this trend.

US Sanctions: Past and Present

Leading a nascent nation, Thomas Jefferson pushed the US congress to pass the Embargo Act of 1807 to punish the United Kingdom for harassing US ships, and impressing American sailors. A century later, shortly after the conclusion of the first world war—in his failed attempt to whip up support for the League of Nations—Woodrow Wilson advocated for its ability to sanction intransigent global actors by stating, “A nation that is boycotted is a nation that is in sight of surrender.” However, the unilateral coercive measures—or financial sanctions, as we know them in the modern era—trace to a much more recent origin.

Democrats Need a Foreign Policy That Can Work—and Win

Ben Rhodes

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After Donald Trump’s first election, it was easy for Democrats to cast him as an aberration from the norms and practices that had broadly oriented American foreign policy for decades. But Joe Biden’s presidency now feels like an elegiac effort to restore U.S. leadership of a rules-based international order. Trump’s second term, meanwhile, is poised to usher in a full embrace of the zero-sum transactionalism that order was created to supersede. Democrats must adjust to this new reality: the old United States is not coming back, and the rest of the world does not expect it

The American university is rotting from within

Joel Kotkin

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The Western world has many enemies – China, Russia, Iran, North Korea – but none is more potentially lethal than its own education system. From the very institutions once renowned for spreading literacy, the Enlightenment and the means of mastering nature, we now see a deep-seated denial of our common past, pervasive illiteracy and enforced orthodoxy.

The decay of higher education threatens both the civic health and long-term economic prospects of Western liberal civilisation. Once a font of dispassionate research and reasoned discussion, the academy in recent years has more resembled that of the medieval University of Paris, where witch trials were once conducted, except there is now less exposure to the canon.

American universities face an unprecedented challenge with the return of Donald Trump. His administration seems likely to attack such things as diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, while pushing to defund programmes favourable to terrorists, expel unruly students and deport those who are in the US illegally. Loss of federal support to universities, the educrats fear, could cause major financial setbacks, even among the Ivies. Like medieval clerics, the rapidly growing ranks of university administrators, deans and tenured faculty have grown used to living in what one writer describes as a ‘modern form of manorialism’, where luxury and leisure come as of right.

Has WWIII Already Begun?

Shane Croucher

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Are we already in WWIII, even if most of us haven't realized it yet? It is a scary thought, but one weighing heavily on a few minds.

Sir Richard Dearlove, former chief of the British foreign intelligence service MI6, recently suggested in a Sky News interview there is an "actual war" underway with the Russians, albeit through non-military "hybrid conflict" such as acts of sabotage.

Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, said in an October speech that WWIII had "already begun," citing multiple conflicts in different countries and the risks this all posed: "We run scenarios that would shock you. I don't even want to mention them."

NATO's European states are quietly preparing for it. Russia's President Vladimir Putin and his allies are warning of it. And the Ukraine war is already a global affair, as international partners support either side with personnel and materiel.

Conflicts are brewing or breaking out everywhere, from Europe to the Middle East and the Far East, some interrelated to Russia's war on Ukraine.

Ukraine Targets North Korean Troops With Psychological Warfare

Ryan Chan

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The Ukrainian military is conducting psychological warfare against North Korean troops fighting alongside Russian forces, seeking to persuade them to surrender rather than needlessly lose their lives on the battlefield.

Euronews reported on Tuesday that under a project called "I Want to Live," the Ukrainian military produced leaflets and videos to encourage North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's troops to surrender. Newsweek contacted the Ukrainian and Russian defense ministries, as well as the North Korean embassy in Beijing, by email for comment outside of normal business hours.

North Korea, which is an ally of Russia, has reportedly deployed up to 12,000 soldiers to the western Russian region of Kursk, where Ukraine has seized some of the territory, to support Moscow's war effort, according to South Korean, United States and Ukrainian intelligence.

While confirming the first North Korean troops had been killed in the conflict, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that they will be "cannon fodder." This came after a Russian military blogger claimed that the "highly trained and motivated" forces were not being deployed for combat directly.

The Age of Decentralized Information Warfare is Here

David Kirichenko

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Since February 2022, Russia has focused its war effort across numerous fronts, one of which is informational warfare. Throughout the past two years, Russia has found success in spreading disinformation to undermine support for Ukraine in the West. The information battlefield is equally as important as the physical battlefield, as the capture of the hearts and minds of the Western public directly connects to the battlefield aid given to Ukraine. One online group that has been trying to fight Russian disinformation and rally support for Ukraine has been the North Atlantic Fellas Organization (NAFO).

Modern military battlefield strategy today is always accompanied by irregular warfare efforts such as disinformation campaigns. NAFO offers a valuable asymmetric approach to undermining Russia’s vastly superior state-sponsored propaganda, demonstrating the potential of internet movements as unconventional methods. For future battlefields, NAFO offers a useful case study in irregular warfare, particularly in the informational environment.

Russia’s Information Offensive

US House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul previously said that “Russian propaganda has made its way into the United States.” Arguably, it played a role in delaying US aid to Ukraine at a critical juncture in the war earlier this year, enabling a series of battlefield gains by Russia that Ukraine is still struggling to stall. Without US aid, Ukraine was forced to withdraw from the stronghold of Avdiivka in February 2024.

Will Trump be a Lightning conductor?

Douglas Barrie

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Israel remains the only country in the Middle East to have received the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II combat aircraft, but could president-elect Donald Trump’s return to office reopen the door to sales with some of the Gulf States? In 2017, his first year in office, he trumpeted arms sales to Saudi Arabia worth hundreds of billions of dollars over a ten-year period; might he now try to do the same with the F-35?

Irrespective of the recent anti-F-35 musings by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, one of Trump’s picks for a role in his government, there remain opportunities for considerable F-35 sales in the region. Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have been interested in the aircraft, with the last coming closest to a deal during Trump’s first period in office.

In the run-up to the United States election, UAE officials reportedly said that even if Trump were to be re-elected, they did not expect discussions to be reopened. The extent to which such comments, however, were down to political propriety remains unknown. But there are indications that the F-35 continues to be of interest to the UAE, almost a decade after it first indicated it wanted to purchase the advanced combat aircraft. In the final days of the Trump administration in January 2021, a letter of agreement was finalised for the purchase of up to 50 F-35s.

Clown Commandant

Josiah Lippincott

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In recent comments at the Ronald Reagan Foundation and Institute’s National Defense Forum, General Eric Smith, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, stated that America could defeat China in a war because of our combat experience in the Middle East.

“The advantage lies with us because our last combat was captured on somebody’s iPhone 14… The Chinese’ last combat was captured on oil and canvas, and they should not forget that… I would not undersell the value that our combat experience brings to this fight.”

Smith went on to praise America’s “warrior culture”:

“It is easy to bluster. But it’s another thing when you actually have to go toe-to-toe and go in harm’s way. And we have a lengthy history of going in harm’s way—in Iraq, Afghanistan. We’ve built a culture of warrior excellence, warfighting, and interoperability in the joint force. The PRC has not yet had to deal with that. They haven’t had to deal with that in decades.”

These claims are remarkably stupid. For one, the Chinese’ last combat was not captured on “oil and canvas.”

The United States fought—and lost—a war with China in living memory! That combat was captured not in paintings but in photos and videos. Communist China intervened in the Korean War after UN troops pushed to the Yalu River on the border of North Korea and China in 1950.