WORLD ROUNDUPWhat Russia Got by Scaring Elon Musk | Separate U.S. Alliances in East Asia Are Obsolete | Parts of the World Already Too Hot for Human Survival, and more
· What Russia Got by Scaring Elon Musk
The billionaire isn’t the only one who’s been frightened into holding back help for Ukraine
· The Answer to Starlink Is More Starlinks
Elon Musk has become a national-security problem that the government can’t solve. Maybe private industry can.
· Amazon Deforestation Continues to Plummet
“This shows how an election can change the fate of the Amazon”
· Parts of the World Have Already Grown Too Hot for Human Survival
Even more areas will face such conditions as the planet continues to warm from fossil fuel combustion
· Can India Challenge China for Leadership of the ‘Global South’?
A rising India has moved aggressively to champion developing nations, pursuing compromise in polarized times and promising to make America listen
· IAEA Head Concerned at ‘Decrease in Interest’ in Iran Nuclear Escalation
IAEA concerned the international community was losing interest in holding Iran to account over its advancing nuclear program
· Separate U.S. Alliances in East Asia Are Obsolete
Even if a formal U.S.-Japan-South Korea pact is unlikely, tighter coordination is unavoidable
What Russia Got by Scaring Elon Musk (Anne Applebaum, The Atlantic)
Ukraine has relied on Elon Musk’s Starlink, the satellite-communications system, to guide lethal drones in Ukraine’s attacks on Russian forces. But beginning in September 2022, Musk has increasingly denied the Ukrainian military access to Strarlink.
Following his September 2022 decision, Musk called Walter Isaacson, his biographer, and told him there was a “non-trivial possibility” that the Ukrainian sea-drone attack on the Russian Navy in the Black Sea could lead to a nuclear war. According to Isaacson, Musk had recently spoken with Russia’s ambassador in Washington, who had warned him explicitly that any attack on Crimea would lead to nuclear conflict.
But Musk was wrong. Instead of inspiring World War III, the September sea-drone attack, which was launched without Starlink communication system, helped reduce violence, protected commerce, boosted Ukrainian farmers, and maybe even ensured that some people outside Ukraine didn’t go hungry. If not for Musk’s hubris, those effects might have been felt earlier. Maybe the first attack could have eliminated more of the ships whose missiles have been killing civilians in Ukrainian cities. Maybe fewer people would have died as a result. And maybe the war, which will be over when Ukraine takes back its own territory, and ends the torment of its own citizens on that territory, would be closer to its end.
This is a cautionary tale about the arrogance of a billionaire who has come to play a mercurial role in U.S. foreign policy. But it’s also a story about fear, seeded and promoted by the Russians, deliberately designed to shape broader Western perceptions of this war.
The Answer to Starlink Is More Starlinks (Steven Feldstein, The Atlantic)
The U.S. government faces a dilemma. Starlink, a private satellite venture devised and controlled by Elon Musk, offers capabilities that no government or other company can match. Its innovations are the fruit of Musk’s drive and ambitions. But they have become enmeshed with American foreign and national-security policy, and Musk is widely seen as an erratic leader who can’t be trusted with the country’s security needs. In other words, the United States has urgent uses for Starlink’s technology—but not for the freewheeling foreign-policy impulses of its creator. (Cont.)
