WORLD ROUNDUPAmerica Is a Heartbeat Away from a War It Could Lose | Libertarianism Is Rising in Latin America | France Issues Arrest Warrant for Syrian President Assad, and more
· America Is a Heartbeat Away from a War It Could Lose
Global war is neither a theoretical contingency nor the fever dream of hawks and militarists
· Nuclear Strategy “Through a Glass Darkly”
More nuclear weapons do not necessarily mean greater security
· France is Fueling the Flames of Conflict in the Middle East
French arms sales to Lebanon should be considered indirect shipments to Hezbollah
· Why Libertarianism Is Rising in Latin America
The region’s economic conditions are ripe for radical change—and U.S.-backed influence networks see an opening
· France Issues Arrest Warrant for Syrian President Assad
An Interpol ‘Red Notice’ is expected to follow
· South Korea and Members of the US-led UN Command Warn North Korea Over Its Nuclear Threat
North Korea warned over its nuclear ambitions and threats
America Is a Heartbeat Away from a War It Could Lose (A. Wess Mitchell, Foreign Policy)
The United States is a heartbeat away from a world war that it could lose. There are serious conflicts requiring U.S. attention in two of the world’s three most strategically important regions. Should China decide to launch an attack on Taiwan, the situation could quickly escalate into a global war on three fronts, directly or indirectly involving the United States. The hour is late, and while there are options for improving the U.S. position, they all require serious effort and inevitable trade-offs. It’s time to move with real urgency to mobilize the United States, its defenses, and its allies for what could become the world crisis of our time.
Describing the United States’ predicament in such stark terms may strike many readers as alarmist. The United States has long been the most powerful nation on earth. It won two world wars, defeated the Soviet Union, and still possesses the world’s top military. For the past year and a half, the United States has been imposing gigantic costs on Russia by supporting Ukraine—so much so that it seemed conceivable to this author that the United States might be able to sequence its contests by inflicting a decisive defeat-by-proxy on Russia before turning its primary attention to strengthening the U.S. military posture in the Indo-Pacific.
But that strategy is becoming less viable by the day. As Russia mobilizes for a long war in Ukraine and a new front opens in the Levant, the temptation will grow for a rapidly arming China to make a move on Taiwan. Already, Beijing is testing Washington in East Asia, knowing full well that the United States would struggle to deal with a third geopolitical crisis. If war does come, the United States would find some very important factors suddenly working against it.
Nuclear Strategy “Through a Glass Darkly” (Lawrence J. Korb, National Interests)
More nuclear weapons do not necessarily mean greater security, and a trade-off between next-generation conventional and nuclear weapons is almost inevitable unless defense budgets are completely open-ended.
