Life takes us in many strange directions and wonderful discoveries. It never turns out the way we thought it would.
Tuesday, December 31, 2024
Was A Small Tactical Nuclear Weapon Detonated In Syria Yesterday?
There was a cause of great panic in Syria yesterday. Israel was involved in a military operation that resulted in a giant explosion. A mushroom cloud was seen. There was serious concern that a tactical nuclear warhead had gone off. Who owned the atomic weapon? Perhaps Syria had someway somehow gotten a nuclear weapon. Maybe it was Iran. Israel has nuclear weapons. It is implausible that they would use one in Syria.
Israel reported that its military forces in the process of neutralizing Syrian military capabilities had fired on a huge ammunition depot. A giant explosion followed. A mushroom cloud resulted. Nuclear weapons experts do not agree that it was a conventional explosion. Some say that there was a small nuclear explosion. Here is a link for those who are curious:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UGsBLDwhHg
What is going on here? Let us assume that Israeli forces had discovered a small tactical nuclear warhead in the ammunition depot. Immediately a team of their nuclear weapons experts would have been at the scene of the discovery. The weapon would have been disarmed and quietly returned to Israel for careful examination.
More likely is that some low-yield nuclear device had been stored at the ammunition depot. When Israeli artillery opened fire and shells dropped on the ammunition depot the horrific conventional explosion detonated the small nuclear device.
If a nuclear device was stored here, we must assume that the Assad regime found some corrupt individuals and bought a small nuclear weapon. Pakistan would be a suspect. Most of its nuclear arsenal is small tactical nuclear weapons. Russia is another suspect with massive corruption and a large arsenal of small tactical nuclear weapons. This nuclear weapon would have been used by the Assad regime to intimidate potential adversaries.
When the white minority government was in power in South Africa, they built 6 Hiroshima-type nuclear bombs. Their objective was to deter potential powerful invaders. These weapons were turned over to an international nuclear agency that dismantled them and destroyed the components.
Strangely Admiral Kirby and US authorities are remaining silent on this matter. I wonder why.
Monday, December 30, 2024
China Faces A Tough 2025
Rocks, and Hard Places
China
Dear Readers,
Over the holidays, GlobalPost is collaborating with our sister publication, World Politics Review, to bring you special coverage of the key geopolitical issues facing some of the major countries and regions of the world in 2025.
Today, Mary Gallagher takes a look at China.
And if you’d like to read more of WPR’s excellent, in-depth global affairs coverage, you can sign up for free here.
We wish you happy holidays and best wishes for the New Year.
Your GlobalPost Team
In 2025, China will face three key challenges that will present President Xi Jinping with difficulties, contradictions, and hard choices.
First, and most obviously, is the state of the economy, which is beset by low consumer-demand and deflation. Second is Xi’s desire to enact the structural reforms promised at last year’s Third Plenum, which will place China in a more advantageous position to move from a middle- to a high-income country, but may conflict with the more immediate need to juice the economy.
Third, China is facing an external environment that is becoming more dangerous and complex. The imminent return of US President-elect Donald Trump to the White House will upend the attempts to stabilize bilateral relations made by outgoing President Joe Biden, setting China up for a trade war with the US in short order. Beyond that, the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, the failed coup in South Korea, and the ongoing war in Ukraine present China with more complications and few opportunities.
These challenges are all interrelated. The first two are most importantly about Xi’s power in relation to China’s state bureaucracy, business sector, and society. Xi’s challenge, fundamentally, is to restore trust and confidence in his leadership: These have been gravely undermined by a series of policy decisions and campaigns that have centralized power in his hands while eliminating elite and societal challenges to his rule. In solidifying his position, however, Xi has sacrificed trust in his leadership and confidence in his policy decisions.
The immediate problem of the economy boils down to anemic growth. Necessary limits on investment-led expansion and the property sector have cut off traditional avenues of growth, while China’s household consumption did not make the comeback that many expected with the end of Beijing’s draconian “Zero COVID” policy. On the contrary, in the wake of the pandemic, China’s consumers felt less wealthy due to a decline in property values and felt less secure given the pandemic shock and China’s worsening relationship with its major trading partners. As a result, they are understandably holding back from purchases and, instead, they are preparing for a future that looks less rosy and full of risks. Complicating the picture even more is that the brightest areas of the economy are in sectors, such as the automotive industry, which are now targeted by foreign governments – from the US and the European Union to Brazil – with tariffs and other restrictions to stop China from exporting its overcapacity.
In the latter half of 2024, the Chinese government announced a swath of measures designed to prop up the stock market, stabilize the property market, recapitalize banks, and shore up local government finances. And recently, the government signaled being more open to more expansive fiscal and monetary policies. At the Central Economic Work Conference, consumption and domestic demand were listed first and foremost among the government’s key priorities. All of this demonstrates that the government knows the economy is doing far worse than it is publicly acknowledging.
Stabilizing the economy around the government’s 5 percent growth target is probably achievable with these measures, especially if the government follows through on its recently stated intention of taking steps to increase the incomes of middle- to low-income groups. It would be particularly beneficial if efforts to boost consumption and domestic demand were accomplished by structural reforms to redistribute incomes and increase the fiscal revenue streams of local governments, which are ultimately responsible for social welfare in China’s governance system.
Ambitious structural reforms along these lines were proposed at the much-anticipated Third Plenum of the 20th Party Congress, which was originally slated to be held in 2023 but ultimately took place in July 2024. But scant details have emerged about implementation since then. More distressingly, many of the 2024 reforms were variants of the reforms promised at the Third Plenum in 2013, which was the first such gathering held under Xi’s rule.
Needed structural reforms include more adequate measures to redistribute income from high-income earners to low-income earners, and from the protected state sector to the private and informal sectors. Fiscal reform is necessary to increase the amount of revenue that flows to local governments, which are burdened with providing most of the services available in China’s fragmented and incomplete welfare state. Finally, the liberalization of China’s household registration system would grant rural Chinese greater rights to settle permanently in the cities where they are employed.
But measures taken so far to boost the economy have mainly been designed to build confidence in the stock market, the state banks, and local governments, without addressing the distributive issues that structural reform requires. In fact, deep structural reforms would place greater burdens on powerful entities, such as state-owned enterprises, banks, and local governments. It will be dangerous for China if the most difficult reforms are further delayed in 2025 because they threaten the status quo at a time when no interest group is satisfied or confident about its future.
This gets to the heart of Xi’s challenge in 2025 – how to restore confidence and trust in his leadership. The bureaucracy has been cowed into submission by a decade-long, anti-corruption campaign that removed the traditional incentives for entrepreneurial government action. Civil society has been thwarted by waves of crackdowns on anything that smacks of social or political activism – including efforts to promote labor rights, legal protections, and environmental protection. Space to advocate for social and legal change has disappeared.
In addition, urban citizens who once thought that their personal freedoms were safe as long as they weren’t political have been traumatized by the COVID-19 lockdowns. Finally, China’s business elite were disciplined through the “regulatory storm” of 2021, which launched investigations into – and crackdowns on – China’s most successful technology companies, such as Alibaba, Didi, and JD.com.
These crackdowns have resulted in greater political and social stability. With the one exception of the White Paper protest movement, which was fueled by mass anger at pandemic lockdowns but lacked organization, social unrest under Xi has been far less concerning than it was under his two direct predecessors.
Instead, Xi is confronted with the opposite of social unrest – namely, social stasis. In the government, this is known as formalism and bureaucratism. Cadres are afraid to take risks when anti-corruption charges can end careers, and instead consider it better to do nothing. In society, this is known as “lying flat” or “going to rot,” as unemployed youth opt out of dead-end jobs and social activists withdraw from dangerous advocacy work. For business elites, capital flight and immigration abroad are the answer to their lack of confidence at home.
So far, the government has not made any announcements of radical shifts to rebuild confidence. If the economy continues to suffer, there are a number of consequential decisions Xi could take to demonstrate resolve. One possibility would be a major fiscal stimulus package. A second is a significant expansion of central government support for pensions and medical insurance. The government signaled plans for both of these measures in December, but details are still lacking.
Less likely would be the announcement of “victory” in the anti-corruption campaign and a clear signal to local governments that the central government is once again squarely focused on growth. This might align incentives, encouraging local governments and the private sector to pursue mutually beneficial policies. However, ending the anti-corruption campaign is unlikely, because it has been so important in shoring up Xi’s personal power base and limiting challenges to his rule.
Also less likely, but certainly possible given Trump’s dealmaking proclivities and his admiration of Xi, would be a major trade agreement that voluntarily restricts Chinese exports to the US while boosting Chinese imports from the US and opening its domestic market more widely to US high-end services in health care, finance, and education. However, such a deal appears unlikely given the China team that Trump has lined up so far, which includes many who see China as an existential threat to the United States.
In short, in the coming year, China will be beset by very knotty internal and external challenges. The need to achieve greater economic growth is chief among them, with both internal and external dimensions. It’s unclear what particular solutions to China’s challenges Xi will pursue, in part because he has no easy options. What is clear is that 2025 will be a pivotal year for both China and its most powerful leader since Mao.
Mary E. Gallagher is the Marilyn Keough Dean of the Keough School of Global Affairs at the University of Notre Dame and a columnist for World Politics Review.
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Jimmy Carter Classified Obituary
Jimmy Carter: A Declassified Obituary
Carter's handwritten comments
Highest-level national security documents reveal tough-minded, detail-oriented president
Handwritten notations could be severe — once chided Brzezinski: “Lying?” “You’ll be wasting your time”
President privately complained Kissinger was a “liar,” “irresponsible” over U.S. treatment of Shah
Published: Dec 29, 2024
Briefing Book #
881
By Malcolm Byrne with Autumn Kladder
For more information, contact:
202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
1978-09-05 - Carter greets Begin at Camp David (NLC-WHSP-C-07259-09A)
Carter greets Begin at Camp David (NLC-WHSP-C-07259-09A)
Jimmy Carter and General Omar Torrijos shake hands after signing the Panama Canal Treaty
President Carter shakes hands with General Omar Torrijos of Panama after signing the Panama Canal Treaty, September 7, 1977. (U.S. National Archive, ARC Identifier 176083)
Zbigniew Brzezinski, Jimmy Carter and Cyrus Vance
President Carter is flanked by his two famously divided advisers, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Cyrus Vance, August 14, 1977 (U.S. National Archives, NAID: 175908)
Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and U.S. President Jimmy Carter at Camp David
Carter, the mediator, observes an exchange between Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and Egyptian President Anwar Sadat during a break at Camp David, September 5, 1978 (White House photographer William Fitz-Patrick)
President Carter, former President Richard Nixon, and Chinese Deputy Premier Deng Xiaoping at the White House
President Carter, former President Richard Nixon, and Chinese Deputy Premier Deng Xiaoping at the White House, January 29, 1979, shortly after the two powers established formal diplomatic relations on January 1 (Bettman/Corbis reproduced at Richard Nixon Foundation)
President Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II treaty in Vienna
President Carter and Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks II treaty in Vienna, Austria, June 17, 1979. The subdued expressions on the American side reflect the ambivalence of many observers that accompanied the event. (Center for Strategic and International Studies (Flickr account))
Washington, D.C., December 29, 2024 – The late President Jimmy Carter, contrary to the views of some critics, was typically focused, knowledgeable, and strong-willed on matters of foreign policy, often responding sharply to attempts by his most senior aides to bend his thinking, according to a review of the voluminous documentary record on Carter’s presidency.
A case in point is Carter’s relationship with his national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski. Every week, Brzezinski sent the president a memo intended to combine both factual reporting and personal observations on global affairs. Carter often wrote brief marginal notes on those memos in reply, which in retrospect open a window into his own thinking about the world and approaches to foreign policy.
A revealing example is Brzezinski’s April 21, 1978, “NSC Weekly Report,” an 8-page memo that immediately launches into a page-and-a-half appeal to modify and toughen administration foreign policy by doing more than just “negotiating agreements and devising formulas.” What was missing in the U.S. approach, Brzezinski wrote, was a hardnosed effort to “influence attitudes and to shape political events.” Sounding for all the world like his famously realpolitik predecessor, Henry Kissinger, Brzezinski called for a slew of other tactics, including an occasional “demonstration of force ... to infuse fear;” “saying publicly one thing and quietly negotiating something else;” “letting problems fester until they are ripe for action;” and using “black propaganda to stimulate difficulties for our proponents.” “The world,” he ended, “is just too complicated and turbulent to be handled effectively by negotiating ‘contracts’ while neglecting the need also to manipulate, to influence and to compel.”
Carter’s handwritten replies to most of these ideas are no more than a few words but they are graphic in conveying the president’s disapproval and even sarcasm regarding Brzezinski’s ideas. Next to the mention of force, he writes “Like Malaguez?” – a reference to a forcible rescue operation of a merchant ship (the Mayaguez) off Cambodia in 1975 that ended disastrously. Next to “saying publicly one thing,” he scribbles “Lying?” – an allusion to his core campaign pledge to reject the public dishonesty of the Nixon/Kissinger years and never to lie to the American people. In other places, he simply underlines the passage and puts a question mark in the margin. Finally, reacting to Brzezinski’s statement that he plans to develop some of these ideas further for the president, Carter writes: “You’ll be wasting your time.”
Carter was no gentler on critics, like Kissinger. In a memo to the president, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance describes his predecessor as behaving in a “very heavy-handed manner” concerning the Shah’s situation shortly after the U.S. Embassy seizure in Tehran. (Kissinger was extremely outspoken in this period about the administration’s supposed failure to stand by an ally in need.) Carter responds in the margin, “H.K. is a liar & also irresponsible. We must prepare to tell the truth about him.”
These exchanges are among hundreds between the president and his most senior advisers that have been archived at the Carter presidential library and, over the years, declassified for posterity. Today, in the wake of Carter’s death, the National Security Archive is posting a sampling of these records to give some insight into Carter’s personality, his relationship with top aides, and his approach to foreign policy.
Many of these documents are part of a just-released publication in the award-winning Digital National Security Archive series (from the academic publisher ProQuest). The collection, U.S. Foreign Policy in the Carter Years, 1977-1981: Highest-Level Memos to the President, features every declassified daily or weekly memo to the president from his national security advisor and from his two secretaries of state, Cyrus Vance and Edmund Muskie. The collection also includes every publicly available meeting record of the National Security Council and its two subgroups – the Policy Review Committee and the Special Coordination Committee – in an effort to reconstruct the daily flow of events at the top rungs of U.S. policymaking during a tumultuous period in world history.
The top-level records in this posting are not just snapshots of the administration’s foreign policy agenda, they are often detailed expositions of the personal worldviews, attitudes, and inclinations of the most senior U.S. officials -- Carter's foreign policy alter egos -- of that time. As such, they are rich with insights into how the United States approached an array of global crises (not all of the president's own making, by any means): the Arab-Israel conflict; revolutions that ousted loyal American allies in Nicaragua and Iran; the subsequent Tehran hostage crisis and failed rescue mission; the decline of détente with Moscow culminating in the invasion of Afghanistan; instability in the Horn and elsewhere in Africa; the rise in global activism by Moscow’s partner, Cuba; the energy crisis; and more.
The sampling of records selected for this posting are artefacts of a turbulent period and emblematic of how Jimmy Carter approached the foreign policy trials of his presidency. While not a complete portrait of the former president, this selection of documents provides a fascinating glimpse into Carter’s character and his approach to the issues. Regardless of one’s views of his policies or choices, it is no longer in doubt that his presidency and its consequences were far more sweeping and significant than was once assumed.
The Documents
19770218 - Christopher to JC re Panama Canal
Document 1
Warren Christopher to the President, Secret, February 18, 1977
Feb 18, 1977
Source
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLJC-07-003
As President Carter’s nominally senior foreign policy adviser, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance took to sending a weekly series of memoranda to keep the president abreast of issues occupying the secretary’s attention. Sometimes the topics were broad, at other times highly specific. Carter was obviously a close reader and used these messages to give direct, immediate feedback, as evidenced here.
In this case, the memo is actually from Vance’s deputy, Warren Christopher, who used to step in as correspondent while serving as acting secretary. The main topic of the day – and one of the new president’s highest foreign policy priorities early in his administration – was to return the Panama Canal to Panamanian control, thus relieving the U.S. of an increasingly costly and politically controversial burden. In fact, during the 1976 presidential campaign, Carter had spoken against returning the canal. It was Vance and other diplomats who persuaded him after the election to reconsider. While he was pilloried by the right wing in the United States for eventually signing the treaty because it was cast by some as a sign of weakness, Carter sounds anything but frail as he reacts irritably to the report that the Panamanians are adopting a “tough ... attitude,” writing by hand to Christopher, “We can’t let them push us around.”
Presidential Directive / NSC-6, Subject: Cuba, March 15, 1977, Secret, 2 pp.
Document 2
Presidential Directive / NSC-6, Subject: Cuba, March 15, 1977, Secret, 2 pp.
Mar 15, 1977
Source
The National Security Archive Press Alert from May 15, 2002
This declassified Presidential Directive, signed by Jimmy Carter less than two months after his inauguration, reflects his pursuit of normalized relations towards nations deemed enemies of the United States--in this case Castro's Cuba. The directive marked the first time a U.S. president had made normalization of U.S.-Cuba ties an explicit foreign policy goal. Twenty-five years later, on May 12, 2002, Carter became the first U.S. leader, current or former, to visit the island since the 1959 revolution. He returned to Cuba a second time in April 2011. His visits unofficially continued a dialogue that formally began with the distribution of this two-page document in March 1977. Carter's efforts helped lead to the restoration of full diplomatic relations and the reopening of embassies under Barack Obama in 2015.
19770503 helsinki violation
Document 3
Cyrus Vance to the President, Secret, May 3, 1977
May 3, 1977
Source
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-128-12-8-2-6
In this memo to his secretary of state, after responding to most of Vance’s points, the president raises one of his own that spotlights a political and personal priority from his presidential campaign – human rights. After the realpolitik years of Nixon and Kissinger, Carter had planned to put human rights at the center of his foreign policy. (That he repeatedly gave a pass to serial civil rights offenders like the Shah of Iran left him open to widespread criticism.)
In his closing comment to Vance, Carter refers to a bill proposed by Massachusetts Democratic Congressman Father Robert Drinan to amend the stridently anti-Communist McCarran Act, a relic of the 1950s Red Scare. The president can be seen here exploring ways to avoid the very charges the U.S. was leveling at the Soviets – that they were in violation of the Helsinki Final Act. Signed in 1975 by most of Europe, including the USSR, as well as the United States, the Helsinki Accords committed signatories, at least in principle, to wide-ranging codes of conduct abroad and at home. It became a key lever for applying pressure on the Kremlin to observe the rights of Soviet citizens, and Carter was understandably anxious not to give away the moral high ground.
19771028-34 neglect defense
Document 4
Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, “NSC Weekly Report #34,” Top Secret / Sensitive / Contains Codeword, October 28, 1977
Oct 28, 1977
Source
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-15-126-1-6-9
In February 1977, Carter’s national security advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, proposed submitting weekly reports to the president on the state of the world, along with Brzezinski’s own thoughts on a variety of foreign policy topics. In total, he wrote 162 such reports over four years, some of them marked by their attempt to provide not-so-subtle counsel to the commander-in-chief on the intricacies of foreign affairs or the principles of grand strategy – a favorite pastime of Brzezinski’s.
In this memo, several months into the administration, Brzezinski sounds out his boss on how he thinks the NSC process is working and how his senior White House foreign policy aide has been handling his job. “Rather than offering an opinion this week, I would like to ask yours. Specifically, I would like to ask you to comment on the operation and activities of the NSC, my role and your involvement.” He adds: “The truth may hurt, but it will assist us in assisting you.”
Brzezinski’s wording is uncharacteristically self-deprecating, perhaps because he knows Carter is not shy about being direct. The president does answer bluntly in a couple of instances but overall seems pleased. Asked if he is receiving too much material, he writes: “Not too many items,” but then adds: “Often too verbose.” But he finds Brzezinski’s weekly reports useful and the opinions they often contain are “good.” Reflecting his attention to detail, Carter gets quite specific in some of his comments. In his final handwritten notation, he shows that he understands his aide pretty well: “You & your top staff are much more interested in strategy & foreign affairs. Defense matters are neglected, & because of [the] nature of DOD (closed) vs. State (more open to scrutiny) this is a mistake.”
19780421-55 lying
Document 5
Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, “NSC Weekly Report #55,” April 21, 1978
Apr 21, 1978
Source
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-128-9-14-10-4
In this memo, he holds forth on an issue that “has been gnawing at me recently,” his weakly disguised impatience with the president for failing to make use of some of the more Machiavellian tools of statecraft. These included the “demonstration of force,” the need to “infuse fear,” to “manipulate,” and to utilize “black propaganda.”
Carter’s responses in the margins of these memos are often highly revealing of his own thinking but also of his relationship with his controversial aide. Here, the president poses several blunt, one-word ripostes in the form of questions next to Brzezinski’s suggestions. Next to the idea of a “demonstration of force,” he writes “Like Malaguez?” a (misspelled) reference to the Mayaguez incident, an utterly disastrous 1975 forcible rescue operation of a merchant ship off the Cambodian coast that resulted in over 40 U.S. soldiers losing their lives while the ship’s crew were already being released somewhere else.
Then commenting on Brzezinski’s recommendation about “saying publicly one thing” while “negotiating something else,” Carter writes simply: “Lying?” The allusion would have been excruciatingly obvious to Brzezinski – a harkening back to Carter’s frequent campaign promise in the wake of the public dishonesty of the Nixon/Kissinger years: “I will never lie to you.”
Finally, when Brzezinski volunteers to develop some of these notions further, the president tells him: “You’ll be wasting your time.”
19781202-81 everyone wrong except you
Document 6
Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, “NSC Weekly Report #81,” Secret, December 2, 1978
Dec 2, 1978
Source
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-96-122
Carter’s overall satisfaction with Brzezinski (see Document 03) does not mean that his national security advisor is exempt from reproach. In this memo, Brzezinski vents his frustration at what he sees as significant problems with the way other U.S. officials are conducting key international negotiations, but Carter is not in the mood for this passing of the buck: “Zbig, you comment as though you’ve not been involved in the process & that everyone has been wrong except you. J”
Further down, his comments continue to sound terse and annoyed. He points out that an approach to Cuba which Brzezinski disparages was in fact “your proposal.” When Brzezinski complains the U.S. has “failed to respond in any concrete way” to Israeli actions in the West Bank, Carter wants to know: “What have you suggested?”
Curiously, the president does not respond at all (at least on this document) to a commentary from Brzezinski that takes up almost a page-and-a-half and will become one of his signature concepts – the existence of an “Arc of Crisis” across Southwest Asia, including Iran, which is already engulfed in revolution although top U.S. officials are only just focusing on the prospect of the Shah’s collapse at this time. A few weeks earlier, U.S. Ambassador to Tehran William Sullivan sent a famous cable entitled “Thinking the Unthinkable,” which raised the possibility of the end of Pahlavi rule. It came as a shock to the White House and Carter almost fired Sullivan for not warning Washington sooner. It’s possible the subject was still too uncomfortable to deal with (or a distraction from the Camp David process); it would be another month before the administration finally decided it was time to part ways with the Shah.
19791120 Black Room Report on influencing situation in Iran (JCL)
Document 7
Special Coordination Committee, Summary of Conclusions, “Iran,” Top Secret, November 20, 1979
Nov 20, 1979
Source
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-SAFE 39 B-30-94-13-0
On November 4, 1979, the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran by a group of student followers of Ayatollah Khomeini brought changes to Iran, the region, U.S. politics, and American foreign policy that continue to resonate today. In this summary of a high-level administration meeting, the anxiety is unmistakable as the group has cleared its normal calendar of business to concentrate entirely on the fate of dozens of American hostages.
Of main interest here is Carter’s reaction to a slew of proposals for “influencing the course of political developments” in Iran. These options came out of a meeting of a deputies-level group, known by various labels including the Black Room, to discuss possible covert action opportunities. The choices are stark, ranging from cooperating with local tribes or exile groups in establishing a new government to “direct overt US intervention.” Even though Brzezinski, who wrote the attachment to the SCC summary, declares flatly that “We are never going to be able to work with the Khomeini regime [and] might as well recognize that fact,” Carter is hesitant at this stage. “Be extremely cautious about U.S. action for now,” he writes at the bottom of the memo, “but assess options within CIA. Let them give me analysis of all potential Anti-Khomeini elements. J”
Neither Carter nor any of his successors as president, as far as is known, ever approved a direct campaign or operation to oust Khomeini or subsequent rulers of the Islamic Republic of Iran. In April 1980, Carter did authorize Operation Eagle Claw to rescue the hostages, but that ended in disaster, very much like the Mayaguez incident, as Carter recognized more than 18 months earlier in another handwritten note to Brzezinski (see Document 01).
19791123pla hk is liar
Document 8
Memorandum from Cyrus Vance to the President, Secret, November 23, 1979
Nov 23, 1979
Source
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-128-14-13-17-2
Iran was not the only country where the U.S. faced a violent diplomatic crisis in this extraordinary period. Shortly after the seizure of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, demonstrators in Pakistan attacked the Embassy in Islamabad. In that instance, the Pakistani government pledged to work with Washington to investigate and try to resolve the incident, a far cry from the response of the Khomeini government.
But the principal point of interest in this memo relates not to Pakistan but to Iran. Specifically, it shows the depth of Carter’s anger at the actions of Henry Kissinger, the one-time secretary of state and national security advisor to Carter’s predecessors, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Kissinger, along with other Republican luminaries such as David Rockefeller, had put enormous pressure on the Carter administration to back the Shah both before and after his departure from Iran, often through public statements designed to restrict Carter’s political options. Going against his instincts, Carter finally agreed to admit the Shah to the United States for medical treatment for lymphoma, a decision that led directly to the taking of American hostages two weeks later.
In his comment on page 2 of this memo regarding the Shah’s current medical state and his possible departure for Mexico, Carter reacts bitterly to the characterization that Kissinger has been acting “in a very heavy-handed manner” in demanding U.S. government action on the Shah’s behalf. “HK is a liar & also irresponsible,” the president writes. “We must prepare to tell the truth about him.”
A week later, Mexico surprisingly refuses to permit the ailing monarch to enter the country. He eventually travels to Panama then to Cairo where he dies on July 27, 1980.
19800129 2 minorities
Document 9
Zbigniew Brzezinski to the President, “Daily Report,” Secret, January 29, 1980
Jan 29, 1980
Source
Jimmy Carter Presidential Library, NLC-2-25-2-2-8
While this posting focuses on foreign affairs, it is worth remembering that Jimmy Carter had many accomplishments on the domestic front. He developed a sweeping energy policy including establishing the Department of Energy, created the Department of Education, undertook major civil service reform and promoted economic deregulation. He also invested significant capital in advancing the roles of women and minorities, notably on the federal bench.
In this memo, Carter takes Brzezinski to task for what he sees as (at best) an anemic attempt to boost minority employment on the NSC staff. Among his comments is the notation “B.S.” where Brzezinski pleads powerlessness because of the requirement to keep the staff “under 100.” At the end of the memo, the president writes: “Zbig – This is an inadequate [he initially adds “& evasive” before crossing it out] answer. Do not propose the filling of any vacancies without minority representation being at least 50%. J”[1]
Note
[1] Similarly, in a marginal note to Secretary of State Vance during the first week of his presidency, Carter demanded greater gender equality in the U.S. ambassador corps: “Cy – In future we need many more women. J.C.” (See Cyrus Vance memorandum to the President, Secret, January 26, 1977.)
Sunday, December 29, 2024
Saturday, December 28, 2024
Friday, December 27, 2024
Thursday, December 26, 2024
Wednesday, December 25, 2024
Tuesday, December 24, 2024
1,000 North Korean Troops Killed And Wounded In Ukraine
The Price of Friendship
North Korea
More than 1,000 North Korean troops helping Russia fight Ukraine have been killed or wounded, South Korean military officials said Monday, with intelligence agencies warning of additional troop rotations and weapon shipments from Pyongyang to Moscow that could further prolong the conflict and complicate peace efforts, CBS News reported.
South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) confirmed that more than 11,000 North Korean soldiers have been deployed to fight Ukraine, primarily in the Kursk border region, where they have supported Russian forces in taking back territory Ukraine captured earlier this year.
Pyongyang has reportedly supplied 240mm rocket launchers, 170mm self-propelled artillery, and suicide drones, signaling a deepening military alliance with Moscow, the JSC noted.
The casualties mark North Korea’s first combat exposure since the Korean War ended in 1953.
Moscow and Pyongyang have deepened their military and political ties since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The two nations formalized their growing alliance through a landmark defense pact signed in June, enabling extensive cooperation on military strategies and technology.
Analysts say that North Korea views this partnership as an opportunity to gain access to advanced Russian military systems while bolstering its international relevance amid its continued isolation.
Reports from Ukraine allege Russia has used at least 60 North Korean ballistic missiles, and Pyongyang may expand production and supply of suicide drones for Russian use, according to Newsweek.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s intelligence agencies raised concerns that the presence of North Korean troops is part of Pyongyang’s plan to modernize its military capabilities using combat experience gained in Ukraine.
This development could escalate regional tensions in the Korean Peninsula, with the JCS warning of additional provocations from Pyongyang, such as more nuclear tests and the launching of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
On the domestic front, North Korea has intensified its border security measures, constructing a 25-mile electric barbed-wire fence to prevent defections. The country has also launched 7,000 trash balloons into South Korea since May in retaliation for propaganda efforts by South Korean activists.
The casualty figures come a month after South Korea and Ukraine pledged to strengthen security cooperation in response to the “threat” posed by the deployment of North Korean troops.
Even so, there has been no mention of potential arms shipment from Seoul to Kyiv.
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Monday, December 23, 2024
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Saturday, December 21, 2024
The Economist Magazine Cover For 12/21/1024
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December 21st 2024
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How we chose this week’s image
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Josie Delap
Christmas editor
Choosing the cover of the end-of-year double issue can feel odd. No matter how tumultuous the news (and events in Syria and Georgia are making sure that the holiday season brings little in the way of calm), it swerves away from it. Instead inspiration comes from myriad special features, which this year include everything from efforts to cancel Pushkin in Odessa, to the glories of the Triassic period, to the afterlife of aeroplanes.
It has become customary for our brilliant designers to come up with two types of cover. The first takes inspiration from just one story to create a single image that nods to the season in some way. The other incorporates all the stories for readers to discover (Christmas Easter eggs, if you like). Last year’s cover was an unapologetically festive version of the second variety: a Christmas tree in suitably seasonal green and red.
This year was no different. Our first idea drew on a piece about Paul Salopek, an American writer who is on a 38,000km journey across the planet, retracing the path of the first human migration—on foot. Our correspondent walked with Mr Salopek through the heat of a Japanese summer.
That didn’t seem quite the right weather for a cover at this time of year so the sketch showed him walking through the snow. In the first iteration he is rather small, dwarfed by the sheer length of his journey but also oddly overshadowed by a telephone pole.
The second idea drew on a story about the world’s greatest fish market, Toyosu, in the Japanese capital, Tokyo. Fish is more Christmassy than you might think. Many countries incorporate fish into their festive meals (herring in Denmark, shrimp on the BBQ in Australia, the feast of the seven fishes in Italy). And a fish market is an icy place, which also seemed to suit the season.
The illustrator, Xinmei Liu, took inspiration from a Japanese woodblock print, “Fish Market at Zakoba”, from the series, “Famous Views of Naniwa”, by Utagawa Hiroshige, which dates back to around 1834. It felt appropriate because apart from the fish market and Mr Salopek’s walk through Japan, we have two other stories about Japan in the issue this year: one about the rigours of Japanese child-rearing, and another about Godzilla, a classic of the Japanese film industry.
Ms Liu used the image as a starting point for a cover showing a fish market that featured references to all the stories in the issue. Her first version works well. A good Samaritan helps someone who has slipped over. An axolotl lurks in a tank (mournfully, I assume, given their status as a delicacy in Japan). A couple canoodle between crustaceans, a nod to the story about how little anyone actually knows about sex. A cat and a dog get under everyone’s feet, representing the tale of America’s abandoned pets and the network of volunteers rescuing them.
It’s all in black and white so it’s hard to imagine the mood of the final design. The colours of the original artwork are muted blues and browns. The blues would work but replicating those tones wholesale wouldn’t bring the cheer we want from a holiday cover. The Harvard pennant looks odd in a tank of water. We’re missing Pushkin, who made a late appearance in the issue in a piece about cancel culture in Ukraine. And there isn’t enough space to advertise the stories in the issue—crucial information to tempt readers.
In the redrafted first option, Mr Salopek looms much larger and the pole has gone. A heavily laden donkey has appeared, a nice allusion to the extent of his journey and the time of year. The balance of the image works far better and overall it is charming. But it might not hold readers’ interest for two weeks.
The reworked fish market is delightful. The colours are warm and cheerful. The fairy lights glow and now include a planetary bulb alluding to a story charting the entire contents of the universe. A new string of lights has been wound around the coppiced bonsai tree. Pushkin has joined the axolotl in the fish tank and the Harvard flag is pinned in a more fitting spot. The references to each story are distinct and cryptic enough to keep you poring over it, if not for a fortnight, then at least for the duration of a glass of mulled wine.
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Christmas specials
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A journalist retraces humanity’s journey out of Africa—on foot
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How do you fit everything in the universe on a chart?
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How better data could lead to better sex
→ A day in the life of Toyosu, the world’s greatest fish market
Friday, December 20, 2024
Thursday, December 19, 2024
Wednesday, December 18, 2024
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Monday, December 16, 2024
Sunday, December 15, 2024
Saturday, December 14, 2024
The Economist Magazine Cover For 12-14-2024
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December 14th 2024
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Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-in-chief
Our worldwide cover this week was devoted to the downfall of Bashar al-Assad.
A lot of commentary has warned that post-Assad Syria is doomed to descend into religious tyranny or civil war. Many fear that the country will once again export refugees, jihadists and instability.
That is indeed a danger. However, we wanted a cover which, without seeming naive, argued that the fall of the Assads is neither so bleak nor so hopeless.
We thought that such a momentous event would probably demand a news photograph. One choice was whether to feature Bashar al-Assad, the Moscow-based ex-tyrant, or the victorious rebels who deposed him. One looked back at a watershed, the other forward at what it might bring.
Here are some shots that focus on Mr Assad. The ripped poster is powerful, but it has been widely published. The decapitated statue is much fresher—and indeed we ended up using it in our briefing section. However, it features Bashar’s father, Hafez, and it is wrong for the cover. It looks as if the rebellion was taking place in Tallinn or Riga in 1989, rather than in Damascus today.
We also looked for pictures of the rebels. This lot are brandishing their own version of the Syrian flag—with green instead of red at the top and three red stars instead of two green ones. The trouble is that this could have been almost any group with a grievance.
The other picture is too tasteful for a story packed with danger and human tragedy. As the regime collapsed Syrians impoverished under Mr Assad’s rule gawped at his abandoned palaces. Broken people emerged blinking from his prisons; some could no longer remember their own names.
And Syria’s future could very well descend into sectarian strife. In a country crammed with weapons, people have many reasons to seek vengeance. Syria’s new most powerful factions are hardly men of peace—their origins lie in al-Qaeda and Islamic state. Within a day of the regime’s collapse foreign powers were escalating their fighting in Syria so as to advance their own interests.
We were leaning towards focusing on Mr Assad, but we wanted to assess more news pictures to be sure.
This jihadist captures the mix of jubilation and menace that Mr Assad’s ousting inspires. Jubilation, because his benighted regime left behind nothing except ruin, corruption and misery. Menace, because the leading rebel group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, will struggle to unite Syria. Even if it does, HTS’s leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, who went by the nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, may end up resembling the dictator he has just toppled.
We also looked at another disturbing photograph. At first you register a celebration, as Syrians cheer their liberation after 53 years under the Assads’ yoke. But then you look at the young boy sitting astride the barrel of a tank and you realise that in his short life he has known nothing but war. That is not the only reason the country will be hard to put back together: Syria is a mosaic of peoples and faiths carved out of the Ottoman empire. They have never lived side by side in a stable democracy.
The daunting task of attempting to forge a new political settlement out of a fractured country could well fall to Mr Sharaa. This picture speaks to his violent inheritance.
As ruler of Idlib, a rebel province in the north, Mr Sharaa ran a competent government that nodded at religious pluralism and oversaw a successful economy. However, although he has distanced himself from more radical groups and courted the West, Mr Sharaa has become increasingly autocratic, and had taken to purging rivals and imprisoning opponents.
If he tries to run Syria permanently as a giant Idlib—a Sunni fief dominated by HTS—he will fail. Syria will remain divided between feuding warlords, many of them mini-dictators in their own right.
The shot-up face of Mr Assad was hard to recognise. This picture of contempt was much stronger. A boot is less extreme than a bullet, but seeing it is what counts.
We debated whether to use the photograph in colour or black and white. Some argued that colour was more newsy; others thought the fall of the house of Assad was a piece of history and that black and white would have more weight.
We went with weight. Much will go wrong in a traumatised place like Syria. The effort to rebuild the country is bound to entail a struggle for influence. But it was time to pause for a moment and share Syrians’ joy at bringing down a tyrant.
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Backing stories
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How the new Syria might succeed or fail (Leader)
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Syria has exchanged a vile dictator for an uncertain future (Briefing)
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The Assad regime’s fall voids many of the Middle East’s old certainties (Briefing)
→ Inside Bashar al-Assad’s dungeons (Middle East & Africa)
Thursday, December 12, 2024
My THoughts On The Killing Of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson
I love to get feedback from readers. Our reader Wayne White has been following my op-eds about the assassination of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson. Yesterday he asked me a smile and profound question as follows:
"Jack, how do you personally feel about this killing?"
I have a simple answer. It breaks my heart. This whole incident is a great tragedy for Mr. Thompson's family, his fellow workers at United Healthcare, and his close friends. Imagine what he could have accomplished had he even had 20 years more of life. He could have seen his sons grow up and start their lives. He could have had great achievements in the corporate world. He could have built beautiful memories with his treasured friends.
Luigi Mangione is just 26 years old. Imagine all the good things he could have done with the decades ahead of him. I can imagine being part of a SpaceX engineering team that designs and builds a nuclear rocket engine capable of taking humans to Mars in 35-45 days as opposed to the 180 days now required with chemical rockets. He could have married and brought some wonderful children into the world. He could have gone on to greater and greater achievement. As the saying goes: "The world was his oyster."
What we have building here is a perfect storm for an awful disaster. The Mangione family has fabulous wealth. They will hire the best criminal lawyers in the U.S. to defend their son. The legal team is already mounting a defense against the extradition request request from Pennsylvania.
Eventually, the extradition request will be approved. Luigi will be transported by U.S. Marshals to New York City. What happens next will be a show trial similar to the O.J. Simpson murder trial in 1995 or the Donald Trump hush money trial.
Luigi's high-powered legal team will fight tooth and nail for their client. The Manhattan District Attorney's office will have to spend a fortune on the trial and deploy their best prosecutors to the case. Other important cases will get scant attention. Like me, these prosecutors will be sure that Luigi did not act alone in this case. Despite his protestations that he acted alone, they will be sure that he had inside help from someone inside United Health Care.
Luigi's legal team will figure out that the best chance of saving their client from decades in prison is to mount an insanity defense. Such defenses have worked in high profile cases including the man who attempted to assassinate President Reagan in 1982.
The Thompson and Mangione families will go through an ordeal lasting many months. They will be under the constant glare of major media coverage and all sorts of questions and conspiracy theories. Regardless of how the case ends, a lot of people will be angry and unhappy.
This whole scenario raises a very troubling concern. Other unbalanced people will come to believe that it is alright "to take the law into their own hands." Many more assassinations will follow. Every business leader will have to surround themselves with security personnel.
I have devoted 53 years of my life to studying Russian history in the 20th and 21st centuries and special attention paid to Josef Stalin and Vladimir Putin. Assassinations of opponents and those considered problematical are frequent and considered "business as usual." The U.S. could be heading in this direction.
Wednesday, December 11, 2024
Tuesday, December 10, 2024
Syria-When Hope Came To Town
When Hope Came to Town
Syria
World leaders assumed Syrian President Bashar Assad enjoyed the upper hand in the bloody civil war that erupted in 2011, and continued in fits and starts until settling into a deep freeze.
After all, with Russian and Iranian help, the Syrian regime seemed to control most of the country.
But as the world saw over the weekend, it was all an illusion, an image projected and then shattered as the curtain was pulled back.
And that feat only took 11 days.
On Nov. 27, rebel fighters led by former al Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) began their offensive to defeat Assad’s troops, capturing Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, then Hama, and then Homs. They faced half-hearted Russian airstrikes and some Iranian proxies – Hezbollah sent fighters no longer battling Israel. But it wasn’t enough.
HTS entered the capital Damascus facing little resistance over the weekend as government soldiers melted away along with Assad’s allies. The intransigent, brutal leader was, in a last humiliation, forced to flee to Russia.
And just like that, everything changed.
Syrians poured into the streets of Syria crying and exclaiming, “Freedom,” while hoping for a new day. After all they had gone through for the past six decades of Assad family rule and its legacy of brutality and destruction, many still couldn’t process what happened, literally overnight.
“I feel as if I am in a dream,” Fatimeh, from the opposition bastion of Idlib, told the Guardian as she made her way to Damascus. “I haven’t slept and I can’t absorb what’s happened.”
Like Fatimeh, Syrians in Lebanon and elsewhere began crossing the border to return home after years in camps and diaspora communities – about 7 million fled Syria after 2011. Other forced transplants, in Kuala Lumpur, Berlin, Cairo, and elsewhere around the globe, poured out into the streets in joyous celebrations.
In Damascus, after prison doors were shot open, videos showed freed prisoners, exhausted and stunned, stagger out into the night, unsure of what happened or what to do now. At the same time, family members began looking for their lost loved ones, the 100,000 people forcibly disappeared, some jailed for years or even decades, accused of crossing the regime.
Mayasa Marie, 40, said she was looking for her husband, Mohammed, arrested for his anti-government activism 12 years ago. “My son and his uncle went to Sednaya (prison) immediately … but still they didn’t find anything,” she told the Washington Post. “We are finally free but I need my husband with us again.”
Meanwhile, Iranian officials said that Assad was equally “stunned” at how his regime melted away. He shouldn’t have been, defense analyst Michael Clarke told Sky News, because “the army (was) in a complete state of collapse.”
However, the signs of the regime’s deterioration were there, wrote World Politics Review. The country was barely holding on.
Since 2011, more than 7 million Syrians were forced to flee their homes but remained in Syria, eking out an existence in cities and villages that have been reduced to rubble, even as the violence continued – from rebel groups, militants, and the regime.
The country’s economy has plummeted since the revolution, crippled by sanctions and war, but it worsened over the past four years, Foreign Policy wrote. Inflation has been catastrophic for families while basic necessities often became scarce. More than 90 percent of Syrians now live in poverty. Assad, his family, and members of his regime, however, have been earning an estimated $2.4 billion annually from selling a synthetic stimulant, fenethylline, under the name captagon.
And they bragged about their lavish lifestyles on social media.
Meanwhile, as many Syrians rejoiced, world leaders looked on dazed, wondering what’s to come. The US struck at Islamic State targets in Syria over the weekend, worried that the militant group might take advantage of the power vacuum to try to take over large swathes of the country again, as it started to do in 2014. Israel, worried about its security, ordered the military to seize the buffer zone that separates the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from the rest of Syria.
In the Middle East, officials from Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates who had mended fences with Assad wondered, “What now?” as they met on Sunday to discuss the ramifications of Assad’s fall. That’s because the rebels’ success added “a new layer of unpredictability” to the civil war, the New York Times wrote.
Much of that has to do with the HTS’s past connections to al Qaeda, which have raised concerns about the group’s plans for the country’s future, France 24 said. HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Golani is a former member of the Islamic State in Iraq, founded the ruthless Nusra Front rebel force in 2012, and pledged allegiance to al Qaeda in 2013 before breaking with the terrorist organization in 2016.
The US has designated the group as terrorists. Now, many wonder if they will create yet another version of Islamic State in the country.
Golani, however, has promised elections and freedom and inclusivity for all Syrians – Alawite, Sunni, Shiite, and Christian. For now, many Syrians want to believe him.
Others are not so sure.
“What kind of fresh start will (Syrians) get,” the Economist wondered. “Much depends on whether Syria’s multi-pronged opposition, suddenly bereft of its common enemy, will band together to form a pluralist, federal civilian government over all of Syria, or descend into infighting that plunges the country into a new civil war.”
After all, the magazine added, “Things in Syria have a habit of getting complicated.”
Still, the HTS is already trying to create order – instituting a curfew, beseeching police to remain in their posts, and begging Syrians to refrain from vigilante retribution. But Syria’s new victors face obstacles far stronger than Assad’s base: The country has over the years been partitioned into fiefdoms that include the Turkish-backed Sunni HTS rebels in the northwest, Kurds in the north and east, Jordanian-backed rebels in the south, and the Alawites in the west, all of whom have their own forces and interests.
Meanwhile, the Iranians and Russians, the big losers in this equation, are shut out for now. Russia may lose its only naval base on the Mediterranean that had allowed it a powerful hand in the region, noted Deutsche Welle.
Iran, meanwhile, lost its hub to transfer aid to its proxies, notably Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and with that much of its influence in the region. Analysts now wonder if it will regroup and rebuild.
It’s clear there is much to unpack from the dazzling events of the weekend and many questions that only time will answer, commentators say. But for a few days after this momentous change, “one of the biggest turning points for the Middle East in generations,” as Reuters called it, it’s hope that prevails on the streets of Damascus, Homs, and Aleppo and elsewhere in the country and among Syrians around the world.
“We are exhausted, but happy,” one resident of the northern town of Qamishli, on the border with Turkey, told El País as drivers honked and crowds cheered Assad’s departure. “We are very happy, we are free.”
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Monday, December 9, 2024
Sunday, December 8, 2024
Saturday, December 7, 2024
Someone With Big Money On The Line Or Facing 12 Years In Prison Hired The Hitman Who Killed Brian Thompson
As of the writing of this op-ed, the man who assassinated Brian Thompson has not been officially identified. He is still at large. The manhunt for him is of the intensity that one would find if a U.S. District Court judge had been assassinated, for example. No expense is being spared to find out who he is and where he is.
I have some preliminary conclusions that I would like to share with you. This young man is not a U.S., Canadian, citizen or permanent resident. His fingerprints, DNA, and facial recognition would have tied to somebody. We know he is a Caucasian of slender build and not very tall. He could have come from many different countries around the world. Law enforcement is madly checking Interpol and other databases around the world including Israel's and I suspect China's.
Firearms and criminal investigation experts have studied the videos of the assassination in detail. The man was not a professional killer with training from some military or law enforcement agency. His shooting style was odd and not conventional. A professional would have stood differently and gone right for a headshot. He made a lot of mistakes that left all sorts of clues to his identity.
United Health Care has a sad statistic. It rejects 33% of claims submitted. (In comparison Kaiser where Elena and I have medical coverage rejects 7% of the care applications.) Many people suspect that a relative of his was denied care and died. He was out to get revenge. I reject this supposition. Despite some of the amateur actions of the killer, I can tell you that a large sum of money was invested to get him into position to shoot Brian Thompson. Someone with a large amount of money at stake wanted him killed. I would urge the law enforcement agencies to look carefully at his estranged wife and senior executives at United Health Care. If Brian died, most likely the estranged wife and two of her sons would have received an estate valued in the range of more than $100 million. She would have received far less money in a divorce action. Law enforcement should look carefully to see if she has a new romantic interest who would encourage such an action.
There was a major criminal investigation underway against senior executives of United Healthcare. It is alleged that they used insider information illegally to sell $105 million in United Healthcare stock. One found guilty of insider trading at this level could expect to receive a prison sentence in the range of 12 years. Someone or a group of people may have decided that Brian would have agreed to testify against them. He had to be silenced. It is very odd to me that his security person was not made available to escort him from one hotel to another where he was shot dead.
I think that the assassin fled the US on some airline flight. He is now sitting in a country without an extradition treaty with the U.S.
Law enforcement professionals around the world will tell you that it is not easy to hire "a hit man or woman." These people do not advertise. Signal intelligence agencies like The National Security Agency, and civilian and military intelligence agencies listened in on voice calls, emails, and text messages, to detect such communications. Iranians repeatedly get assassination plots thwarted by vigilance on the part of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. Whoever put this assassination together was a real professional who outsmarted all these agencies.
One day a best-selling book and blockbuster movie will be made about this event.
The Economist Magazine Cover For 12-7-2024
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December 7th 2024
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Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-in-chief
We had two covers this week. In Europe we examined the wreckage of French politics amid a government collapse. In America and Asia we reported on a boom in gambling.
As the week drew on, it became increasingly clear that Michel Barnier would become the shortest-serving prime minister in the history of the Fifth Republic. Sure enough, on Wednesday evening, his government was sacked by the parliament. With no party or alliance close to a majority in the National Assembly, France now faces a series of short-lived minority governments that will struggle to accomplish anything.
Amid the political implosion, 50 national leaders were due to assemble in Paris to witness France at its best. They would be celebrating the reopening of Notre Dame, Paris’s 12th-century Gothic cathedral, gutted by fire five years ago but now restored with astonishing speed and loving skill.
Our first thoughts were to bring these contrasting events together. We started with a cathedral rising from the rubble, but that was too triumphant for a country that is mired in crisis.
We tried France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, as a grimacing gargoyle. It was his terrible miscalculation to call a snap election six months ago that led to this impasse—which, the constitution says, cannot be broken by another poll until July at the earliest.
However, the drama goes broader than Mr Macron, and we thought that the allusion to Notre Dame’s roof-top statuary might be obscure.
This coq inattentif is an alternative. France’s underlying problem is that most voters are unwilling to face economic reality. This year the budget deficit is forecast to exceed 6% of GDP. Mr Barnier, at Mr Macron’s behest, was trying to fix that by bringing down the deficit by a percentage point or so. Yet even that was too much for the hard-right National Rally party and the left-wing alliance. They would rather chase power by fanning popular discontent.
This Metro sign was pithier. For the final cover, our artist did an excellent job of setting it in a Haussmannesque boulevard.
It is hard to see how France can resolve its problems. Until voters rediscover the merits of frugality, they will go on voting for the fantasies peddled by the extremes. President after president has failed to get the budget under control. An ageing population and growing threats to national security mean that the fiscal burden will grow. The country’s obstructive political theatrics are accelerating the drift to the extremes.
As our editorial observed, in one way or another, much of Europe is caught in the same wretched trap.
The surge in gambling in America is quite astonishing. This year Americans are on track to wager nearly $150bn on sports, having bet a paltry $7bn in 2018. Another $80bn is being bet in online casinos; in the few weeks when election gambling was legal before the presidential vote, hundreds of millions of dollars were placed on the outcome. Our cover was about what to make of it all.
In part America’s boom reflects the fact that it is catching up with the rest of the world. For decades Uncle Sam confined gambling to casinos, which themselves were restricted to Las Vegas, tribal reservations or riverboats.
This design illustrates the other reason for the boom, which is technology. The ability to bet using your smartphone, and from the stadium or the comfort of your own sofa, has boosted bookmakers and online casinos everywhere.
The design is clever, but the smartphone at the bottom of the pack is hard to make out—and besides, these hands seem to belong to a prestidigitator rather than a punter.
In this cover the bettor and the smartphone are much clearer.
Many people see gambling as a vice that ensnares the poor. For them, taking a punt is an indicator of economic immiseration, and the loosening of prohibitions is a mistake that must be corrected as soon as possible.
For us, freedom is not only measured by speech and political liberty, but also by the ability to spend your money as you wish. It is true that, for some, gambling is a ruinous addiction and that America has a habit of rushing into liberalisation before it has put enough guardrails in place. However, the lesson from other countries is not to ban gambling altogether, but to regulate it. That is how America treats other vices, like alcohol, which are responsible for far more catastrophic harm.
We were keen to get across the idea that the betting boom is partly about sports. Sports-betting is a far cry from sitting at a machine, alone, feeding quarters into a slot. Surveys show that 40% of Americans say they have taken part in what is often a communal activity.
The soccer players are not quite right, though. Although this boom is global, it is at its most exuberant in America. So we switched from soccer to American football and doubled the dice. Place your bets!
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France steps into deep trouble (Leader)
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Emmanuel Macron loses another prime minister (Europe)
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America’s gambling boom should be celebrated, not feared (Leader)
→ Gambling is growing like gangbusters in America (Briefing)
Friday, December 6, 2024
Thursday, December 5, 2024
Wednesday, December 4, 2024
American Civil War II's Closer Than You Think
A couple of years ago, the great hedge fund manager Ray Dalio predicted a 30% chance of a civil war here in the U.S. Ray has now raised that probability to 40%. The movie "Civil War" about a second U.S. civil war became a big hit.
This morning, I want to do a simulation of how such an event could take place. I conclude that actual deaths would be much lower than in American Civil War I. Property damage would be much lower than in 1861-1865. The economic consequences for the US and the rest of the world would be devastating beyond belief. It all centers around the U.S. national debt and the status of the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. Right now, we in the U.S. figuratively have a credit card without limit with low interest rates to service the massive $35 trillion debt. A default on that debt could come about if a civil war breaks out.
Here is how I see it falling apart. It starts with the massive program to round up between 11 million and 15 million illegal immigrants here in the U.S. When President Trump comes to power, he is going to direct massive resources to this undertaking. He will deputize law enforcement agencies in the states. He will call up national guards in all states. He will mobilize the U.S. military. He will get intense resistance here because US military personnel are prohibited by law from operating against US citizens in the US. The military will be allowed to put guards on the border, provide logistical support, provide temporary housing for illegal aliens rounded up, give medical care to illegal immigrants detained, and provide transport planes to send aliens back to their country of origin.
The Red States will eagerly respond to Trump's call for full mobilization, while Many Blue States will strongly resist this call. Let us focus on California, which has the fourth or fifth-largest economy in the world and could resist this command for a full mobilization. Trump would respond with threats of criminal prosecution under Title 8 of the US code and cut any money going to California. Governor Newsom could mobilize the California National Guard, California Highway Patrol, and local law enforcement agencies to resist this order.
Trump could not send battalions of US Marines, for example, to force compliance with his orders in California. He would assemble Red State National Guard units from Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, etc. to come to the California border.
A confrontation would follow. Miscalculations happen when large groups of heavily armed people face each other. Firefights could break out. Then the civil war starts. Financial markets would panic and crash. It could reach a point where California secedes from the US and declares itself "The Republic of California." Most likely Oregon and Washington would follow them. Some other Blue States could also "come to the party."
With these states away from the United States, the tax base would erode. There could be a default on the national debt. The US dollar could go from being the reserve currency of the world to a currency like the Argentine peso or the Russian Ruble.
If you are living in one of the Blue States no longer part of the US, you would suffer grievous economic consequences. Any payments you were receiving for Social Security, disability, health care, military retirement, etc. are gone. Your 401(K) would crash as the dollar crashed. This new country would have to be the most innovative and start using cryptocurrency. Let your imagination run wild here!
The conclusion is that a civil war must be avoided at all costs.
Monday, December 2, 2024
Sunday, December 1, 2024
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