WORLD ROUNDUPThe Day After Netanyahu | Turkey Faces an Inflection Point | Taiwan’s Upcoming 2024 Presidential Election, and more
· Why Can’t the West Stop Supplying Technology for Russian Weapons?
Some countries are starting to crack down on exports, but they need to do more
· This War Won’t Solve the Israel-Palestine Conflict
After all the death and destruction, the situation will be no closer to a resolution than it was before Oct. 7
· The Day After Netanyahu
Israel has long succeeded in spite of its leaders, not because of them
· Turkey Faces an Inflection Point
In the same way Atatürk dragged Turkey struggling and screaming into the Western world, Erdogan has exerted every effort to drag Turkey in the opposite direction.
· Taiwan’s Upcoming 2024 Presidential Election and the Biden-Xi Summit in San Francisco
The Xi government has not concealed its strong antipathy for Taiwan’s incumbent Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) administration, which they viewed as essentially pro-independence
Why Can’t the West Stop Supplying Technology for Russian Weapons? (Maria Shagina, Foreign Policy)
As Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its third winter, Western regulators enforcing sanctions on Moscow are finally turning their attention to Russia’s production and procurement of weapons and their components. Despite Western export controls on military goods and critical components, Russia has ramped up weapons production all across the board, from the drones and cruise missiles that rain death on Ukrainian civilians to the combat vehicles and artillery used to batter Ukrainian troops at the front. There are abundant reports of newly produced Russian weapons filled with Western components, such as powerful Kinzhal and Iskander missiles made with Texas Instruments chips and German coils.
The objective of Ukraine’s Western supporters is to disrupt every node in Russia’s military supply chains, deprive the Kremlin of its ability to procure military technology, and impose higher costs on the Russian military-industrial complex. As the war threatens to deplete Western stockpiles of some items, such as ammunition, the pressure is on to shift the balance between what the West can provide to Ukraine and what Russia can build on its own or procure from other sources, including Iran and North Korea. Thus, preventing Russia from circumventing export controls to access the supplies it needs to continue waging the war has become a top priority for Western regulators.
This War Won’t Solve the Israel-Palestine Conflict (Steven A. Cook, Foreign Policy)
The Biden administration is embarking on a path that it studiously avoided during its first three years—and for good reason. It is now going to discover that, despite its efforts, when the war between Israel and Hamas ends, the region will look more like a version of the status quo that existed on Oct. 6 than a new Middle East.
As Blinken crisscrossed the Middle East, he seemed of the mind that this war is a paradigm-shifting event. This is a misplaced hope, however. No doubt there is a place for U.S. diplomacy in the conflict, but the secretary of state is approaching it with a set of assumptions—about the likely effects of the war on Israeli and Palestinian politics, the interests of regional actors, and Washington’s influence—that are defective. (Cont.)
