How Do You Solve a Problem Like North Korea? | The War on Terror Is Back | Number of Chinese Workers in Africa Drops Substantially, and more

The United States must be realistic. The world is very different from when the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas came together in the 2000s for negotiations to denuclearize North Korea. The country is now a formidable nuclear power, and its leader sounds increasingly belligerent. The president needs to get the wheels of diplomacy turning before it’s too late.

China Gives Warnings on Vietnam-Australia Strategic Relationship  (An Hai, VOA News)
A new, closer diplomatic relationship between Australia and Vietnam is drawing warnings from China against forming “exclusive circles” in the Indo-Pacific region.
Longtime observers of Vietnam’s diplomacy say Beijing’s response to the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) reveals its unease with Hanoi’s push to upgrade ties throughout the region.
In August, Vietnam signed a CSP with the United States, China’s rival.
A CSP is the highest level in Vietnam’s diplomatic hierarchy, a relationship Hanoi maintains with China, India, Japan, Russia and South Korea. A CSP commits partners to cooperation on a wide range of concerns and typically contains a military dimension.

Number of Chinese Workers in Africa Drops Substantially  (Kate Bartlett, VOA News)
The number of Chinese workers across Africa has hit its lowest level in more than a decade, new data from China’s National Bureau of Statistics show.
From a record high of 263,696 workers on the continent in 2015, only 88,371 were recorded in 2022, the most recent year on record.
The China Africa Research Initiative at Johns Hopkins University, which analyzed data from 2009 to 2022, attributed the drop in numbers partially to the pandemic as Chinese workers left during that period and the country only reopened in early 2023.
But the plummeting numbers are also due to a variety of other factors, experts said, including oil prices and the downscaling of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s global Belt and Road Initiative, which initially saw thousands of Chinese sent out across the continent to work on large infrastructure projects.

Which Terrorist Organization Suffers More Casualties in Its Attacks? Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hamas, or Iran-backed Militia Groups?  (Mahmut Cengiz, HSToday)
Terrorism, since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, remains the most significant security threat to date. Despite new security risks, none have surpassed the severity and impact of terrorism. Today, the United States government appears to face a dilemma regarding which security threats to prioritize. These threats range from Russia’s aggressive behavior, China’s expansion to become a global superpower, and the growing danger posed by Iran-backed militia groups in the Middle East to the risks of violent attacks from right-wing extremist groups and jihadist terror groups. 
Despite being a top priority on government agendas for the past few decades, it appears that no counterterrorism policies have been successful in combatting terrorist groups. Thousands of terrorist attacks and fatalities are still being recorded each year by terrorism databases. For instance, in 2023, the Global Terrorism and Trends Analysis Center (GTTAC) Records of Incidents Database (GRID) documented 7,480 terrorist attacks that led to the death of 23,119 individuals. 

The Earthquake That Could Shatter Netanyahu’s Coalition  (Yair Rosenberg, The Atlantic)
Since Israel was founded in 1948, it has fielded a citizens’ army with mandatory Jewish conscription—and one very notable exception: Ultra-Orthodox, or Haredi, yeshiva students do not serve. This dispensation dates back to David Ben-Gurion, the country’s first prime minister. A secular Jewish socialist, he saw Israel’s ultra-Orthodox as the dying remnant of an old world, and when the community’s leadership requested an exemption from the draft, Ben-Gurion calculated that it was a small price to pay for their support. At the time, the ultra-Orthodox constituted about 1 percent of Israel’s population, and the exemption applied to just 400 young men in religious seminaries.
That was then. Today the Haredi community numbers some 1.2 million, more than 13 percent of Israel’s total population. And because this community has the highest birth rate in the country, its ranks will only swell. In other words, the fastest-growing group in Israeli society does not serve in its armed forces. Since October 7, the divide has been thrown into stark relief. After Hamas massacred 1,200 Israelis and kidnapped hundreds more, the country initiated one of the largest mobilizations in its history. Children and spouses departed their families for the front, leaving fear and uncertainty in their absence. Nearly 250 soldiers have since been killed, and thousands more injured. Many Israelis spend their evenings at home fretting about that ominous knock on the door.
Recent polls show that Israeli Jews—including majorities on the political right and center right—now overwhelmingly oppose blanket Haredi exemptions. A February survey found that an astonishing 73 percent were against exemptions—up 11 points from November. A poll released this week similarly found that 73 percent of Israeli Jews, including a majority of people who voted for the Netanyahu government, oppose the billion-shekel subsidies to Haredi institutions that are included in the government’s current budget proposal.
With the public incensed at what many see as Haredi privilege, Netanyahu is facing revolt within his ranks. Most notably, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has publicly called for an end to the exemptions and said he will not support any legislation on the matter that is not also approved by Benny Gantz, a centrist opposition lawmaker and rival to Netanyahu who sits in the country’s war cabinet. But any Haredi-draft bill that satisfies Gantz and Gallant is unlikely to satisfy the Haredi parties, who perceive enlistment as a threat to their cloistered way of life. And if no new legislation is passed, the IDF will be required to begin drafting the ultra-Orthodox on April 1.

The War on Terror Is Back  (Ilan Berman, National Interest)
Within the Beltway, February and March tend to be busy months, when high-ranking military commanders and senior intelligence officials descend on Capitol Hill to update lawmakers on the assorted threats facing the United States. This year, however, interspersed with the usual briefings about Russia (reenergized by what it sees as flagging Western support for Ukraine) and China—with its persistent desire to dominate Taiwan—Members of Congress also heard a different and deeply unwelcome message. The conflict once called the “War on Terror” has well and truly returned.