OUR PICKSISIS Made Africa Its Second Home | How to Stop the Next World War | Mexico’s Dying Democracy, and more

Published 5 December 2022

··‘We Need to Wake Up’: How ISIS Made Africa Its Second Home
ISIS increasing its activities in Africa

··How to Stop the Next World War
A strategy to restore America’s military deterrence

··Russia’s Assault on Ukraine Exposes US, Allied Gaps in Preparing for Great-Power War
The extraordinary Russian offensive served as a necessary wakeup call for the United States and the West to prepare for the ugly necessities of this new era of great-power competition

··Turkey’s Future Drone Carriers
Ankara is now pursuing the development of fully-fledged drone carriers

··A Plan to Push Back Against China’s Practices
China’s illegal fishing fleet has made large, capable vessels readily available to its maritime militia

··Mexico’s Dying Democracy
AMLO and the Toll of Authoritarian Populism

··Militant Democracy Stages a Comeback in Brazil
Brazil’s judiciary has successfully employed the latest tools in a long tradition of militant democracies

‘We Need to Wake Up’: How ISIS Made Africa Its Second Home  (Shola Lawal, Vice)
The terror alert was as specific as it was alarming. In the upcoming weekend in one of Johannesburg’s wealthiest areas, terrorists were planning an attack on large gatherings, the alert from the US, the UK and others said. The unexpected warning shocked people in South Africa. The South African government too, scrambling, issued advisories of its own and flooded the streets with police officers. That alert was for the 29th of October. In the end, thick as the tension was, no attack happened and details of the threat’s nature are virtually non-existent, with US and South African authorities giving little away. But experts have told VICE World News that information in the alert indicated something serious and that all fingers point to an unlikely-sounding perpetrator in South Africa: ISIS. The US must have had “solid evidence” of an attack, said Martin Ewi, a lead analyst with the Institute for Security Studies (ISS). Vague as it was, the warning included disturbing details. “This was one of the most precise alerts; they told you when and where the attack was going to happen,” Ewi said. “Very few alerts have those kinds of details.” In a dramatic turn of events, South African authorities first downplayed the threat, then they accused the US of hoarding intelligence and being too forward, before turning around again to say the US blew up weeks of undercover work, although this is uncorroborated. But even as the country went into panic mode, analysts said it was already infiltrated.

How to Stop the Next World War  (Eric Schmidt and Robert O. Work, The Atlantic)
Our efforts to help restore the technological prowess of the U.S. military started six years ago in a Pentagon conference room. One of us, a former executive and tech innovator in Silicon Valley, was then serving as the head of the Defense Innovation Board, created to match the needs of the Department of Defense with America’s most advanced technologies. (Cont.)