Israel-Hamas Conflict Is Also a War Over Water | Mine Warfare in Taiwan’s Porcupine Defense | Disrupting South Korea’s Two-Party System, and more

The water situation in the occupied West Bank is slightly less problematic. But there are water shortages here too. According to information on the platform GlobalWaters.org, which is run by the American development agency USAID, water is often lost in the West Bank due to outdated infrastructure and damaged pipes.
Only 31% of Palestinians living in the West Bank have connections to a sewage network, and only between 5% and 10% of wastewater there is ever cleaned. Experts say this only further pollutes and depletes available groundwater.

Expanding Surveillance Powers? Israel’s Draft Bill to Revise Shin Bet Law  (Amir Cahane, Lawfare)
On Dec. 11, 2023 the Israeli Ministry of Justice published a draft bill to amend the Israel Security Agency (ISA) Law, which governs the authorities conferred to the ISA—also known as Shin Bet, Shabak, or the General Security Service (GSS). The draft bill, which focuses primarily on the agency’s surveillance powers, extends the scope of the ISA’s statutory duty to perform security vetting—adding to its ambit third parties, which are not directly employed by government bodies but nonetheless are exposed to classified materials—and authorizes the ISA to employ malware measures, among other changes.

Learning from the War on Terror (Karen M. Sudkamp, War on the Rocks)
At the height of the “Global War on Terror,” I spent over 10 years as an intelligence analyst. My work informed military counter-terrorism operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and supported the development and implementation of counter-terrorism policy at the Pentagon.
As I watched Israel’s operations in Gaza against Hamas — designated as a terrorist organization by not just Israel, but also the United States, the European Union, Britain, and NATO — I couldn’t help but be stunned. The invasion of Gaza proceeded as if combatting a terrorist group in an urban environment was a novel experience. Frank Sobchak recently pointed out in these pages how Israel’s war echoes the U.S. failure to plan how to manage Iraq after the fall of president Saddam Hussein. My perspective is similar, but I might go further: What’s been happening in Gaza suggests none of the lessons from 20 years of global counter-terrorism conflicts were implemented.
After almost six months of military operations in Gaza, the lessons below are relevant whether a ceasefire is eventually reached between Hamas and Israel or not. (The latest reporting indicates negotiations are stalled.) In the event of a pause in fighting and hostage release, Israeli forces can review operations in Gaza and revise military strategy and doctrine using the lessons learned in two decades of the Global War on Terror. If hostilities continue, Israeli forces should learn from these same lessons and prioritize reducing civilian harm — which includes limiting civilian casualties and destruction of civilian infrastructure — in their operations.

Delay, Disrupt, Degrade: Mine Warfare in Taiwan’s Porcupine Defense (Jonathan Dorsey, Kelly A. Grieco, and Jennifer Kavanagh, War on the Rocks)
In October 1884, as part of the wider Sino-French War, a contingent of heavily armed French warships sailed toward the harbor of Tamsui, in northern Taiwan. When the fleet approached the estuary of the Tamsui River, nine naval mines and boats loaded with stones blocked its path. Prevented from sailing into Taipei, French commanders dispatched their marines, but they fared little better. After several hours of fighting on land they were driven back into the sea.
Today, Taiwan again faces the threat of invasion — this time from China. As Taiwan’s leaders consider their defensive options, the Battle of Tamsui may also hold answers.
U.S. officials and Taiwanese strategists have argued that Taiwan’s best defense is to become a “porcupine,” bristling with “a large number of small things.” Military analysts have proposed denying air superiority to China via mobile surface-to-air missiles and drones and creating a “prickly fortress of sea denial” with road-mobile anti-ship missiles. What is largely missing is a similarly detailed discussion of the concepts and tactics for mine warfare. The naval mine, however, as RAND’s Scott Savitz has argued, is one of the most potent and cost-effective denial weapons available to Taiwan.
Strategically placed naval mines would allow Taiwan to leverage its natural geographic advantages to strengthen deterrence by denial and build a formidable defense in depth. Exploiting Taiwan’s shallow waters and treacherous coastline, mines employed at different water depths and locations would offer Taiwan a low-cost and effective means to delay, disrupt, and degrade Chinese forces. Taiwan could integrate these concepts, slowing down a Chinese invasion and interfering with its timing and tempo by channeling Chinese movements into corridors for Taiwan’s anti-ship missiles, gun batteries, and drones, inflicting significant attrition.
Sea mines are, of course, not a panacea to solve all the security threats facing Taiwan, which include gray-zone activities and a blockade of the island. Protective mining would likely be less useful to defend Taiwan against these other forms of Chinese coercion, but to the extent that China might employ such means to weaken Taiwan in advance of an amphibious invasion, mining would still offer Taiwan a valuable line of defense. To exploit mine warfare in this way, however, Taiwan would need to make it an investment priority, expanding the size and diversity of its mine stockpile and minelaying capabilities and improving its readiness to execute such a campaign.