WORLD ROUNDUPU.S. Courts India | The Strongman Syndrome | Russia’s EMP Weapons, and more

U.S. Seeks Closer Ties with India as Tension with China and Russia Builds

Treasury Secretary Yellen wants India to be part of the Biden administration’s “friend-shoring” agenda but trade tensions linger.

U.S. Midterm Results Are a Net Plus for National Security (Michael J. Green, Foreign Policy)
As Trumpism deflates, internationalist Republicans will press the Biden administration on China, defense, and trade.

The Strongman Syndrome (Patrick Wilcken, TLS)
Jair Bolsonaro’s loss in last week’s presidential elections was narrow: just over 58 million Brazilians voted for a man who has openly threatened democratic institutions, right down to his protracted, passive-aggressive silence and his grudging refusal to openly acknowledge the result in the aftermath of his defeat. Bolsonaro took the richer, more populated and developed states in the southeast and the south, comfortably winning both Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, and the advanced agricultural states of the central west. Elsewhere, powered by enormous pre-election giveaways, he ran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva close, falling just short (by a margin of 0.4 per cent) in the pivotal swing state of Minas Gerais. And this was not an apathetic election: turnout was high, at about 80 per cent.
Nowhere have the culture wars been fought as viciously as in Brazil. Bolsonaro and his committed, often fanatical base co-opted Brazil’s famous canary-yellow national football team jumper as they contested the street, the traditional space of left-wing protest. His crude, populist invective was poured on swathes of the population: women, Afro-Brazilians, indigenous peoples, LGBTQI groups – even, at one point, critically ill Covid patients, whom he mimicked in their struggle for air.
Beyond his boorish theatrics Bolsonaro succeeded in creating a solid electoral base that, even in defeat, has reconfigured Brazilian politics. This coalition is made up of the precarious lower middle classes and right-wing business elites in the cities; the booming agribusinesses of the interior and land-grabbers in the Amazon; the police and the military; and, above all, the county’s fast-expanding, socially conservative evangelical demographic.
Bolsonaro’s brand of left-baiting populism might feel familiar. He consciously copied Donald Trump, at times word for word, including the former US president’s repeated, baseless accusations of electoral fraud. His slogans – “Deus, pátria, família e liberdade” (“God, fatherland, family and liberty”) and “Brasil acima de tudo, Deus acima de todos” (Brazil above all, God above everyone; cf. “Deutschland über alles”) – echo those used in Mussolini’s Italy, Salazar’s Portugal and Nazi Germany. But in her new book, Brazilian Authoritarianism: Past and present (translated by Eric M. B. Becker), Lilia Moritz Schwarcz contends that Bolsonaro’s “aesthetic” is highly specific to Brazil: a troubling synthesis of some of the country’s darkest historical tendencies.

Russia’s Nuclear-Powered Torpedo “Failed Test on Technical Issues”  (Michael Evand, The Times)
Russia’s test of a nuclear-powered torpedo capable of carrying an atomic warhead 100 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb failed after suffering technical difficulties, US intelligence officials believe.
The technical failure, first reported by CNN quoting US intelligence officials, is a significant blow for Moscow as the Poseidon was touted as an “unstoppable” doomsday weapon system with an unlimited range.
The failure could be another sign of the Russian military suffering challenging times because of international sanctions, which have barred Moscow from acquiring western technology.

How Russia Could Use Electromagnetic Pulse Weapon to Cripple Ukraine  (Tom Ball, The Times)
Russian Spetsnaz forces in Ukraine are equipped with a weapon that allows them to knock out all electronic devices within an area of six miles or more, experts believe, and they may be ready to use it as frustration mounts over a series of battlefield defeats.
An electromagnetic pulse (EMP) strike would disable Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure and deal a hammer blow to its ability to defend itself, experts say.