North Korea’s New Satellite: A Threat? | Battling the Cartels Requires a Refocus | Javier Milei Is the World’s Latest Wannabe Fascist, and more

Javier Milei Is the World’s Latest Wannabe Fascist  (Federico Finchelstein, Foreign Policy)
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, and Santiago Abascal of the far-right Vox movement in Spain will be in Buenos Aires this weekend for the inauguration of the newly elected Argentine President Javier Milei. Former U.S. President Donald Trump and Dutch politician Geert Wilders also received invitations but apparently can’t make it. While Wilders told Milei that he is busy trying to form the country’s government—which will likely be the most extreme since World War II—Trump, who first told Milei that he was going to be there, is facing numerous court cases and might be impeded from leaving the United States.
In the country where populism first came to power in 1946 with Juan and Eva Perón, the elected president represents a new, 21st-century century form of populism, one that is closer to fascism than ever before. And as in Argentina and other parts of the world, a reconstituted fascism is a clear and present danger in the United States, but it appears under the guise of a new breed of politician whom I call the wannabe fascist.
Like the fascists and dictators of my youth, this new political archetype aspires to destroy democracy from within democratic institutions, yet has, so far, failed to succeed. Leaders such as Trump are still experimenting with how to effectively destroy democracy. Trump has been continually trying out a combination of populist and fascist strategies and then repeating those that seem to appeal most to his base supporters. His natural instinct is to increase the danger to democracy while affirming his power and his cult.
These basic tendencies make him a wannabe fascist. The same patterns apply to former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro—and also to Milei.

What’s Wrong with Biden’s Venezuela Policy  (Ryan C. Berg, Foreign Policy)
The Biden administration recently shifted its Venezuela policy—and it’s already in trouble. Whereas the previous administration heaped a pile of sanctions on the Maduro regime in an effort to stymie its human rights abuses and corruption, the Biden administration has presided over a significant softening of the Venezuelan sanctions architecture.
This softening amounts to a major test of the administration’s ability to reach what has been a bipartisan goal of freer and fairer presidential elections in Venezuela, on a longer road to full re-democratization. But now Maduro is returning to his old antics of arresting opposition figures and is even threatening to annex Esequibo, a region administered by neighboring Guyana but long disputed by Venezuela. It’s clear that the Biden administration must reboot its Venezuela policy or face strategic insolvency against an adversarial regime.

Why Gaza Won’t End Up Like East Timor or Kosovo  (Marc Weller, Foreign Policy)
While Formally Opposing Continued Occupation, the United States is at risk of serving Israel’s doomed strategy by bringing together external actors to help facilitate that strategy. But international governance, however well-intentioned, will quickly take on the mantle of occupation. And continued occupation, in whatever guise, will breed continued violence aiming to overcome it. The only difference is the hypothetical international mission would become its target alongside Israel.
The only way out of this dilemma is to be serious about embedding arrangements for post-war Gaza in a clear path toward a settlement of the Palestine issue, once and for all. In fact, all relevant actors other than Israel’s present leadership seem to accept that there is no chance for post-conflict governance in Gaza unless there is a clear and credible path toward a comprehensive settlement.

North Korea’s New Satellite: A Threat?  (Bruce E. Bechtol, National Interest)
North Korea recently conducted a successful launch of a satellite from its Sohae facility. The satellite and the rocket are both, by North Korean standards, the most advanced to date. Much has been made of this launch and the fact that it went off (at least as far as most analysts can tell) without a hitch, put a satellite into space, and at least according to the North Koreans, was able to send back images of U.S. military facilities successfully. Thus, amid all of the discussion about this event, I believe it is important to focus on the actual threat this poses to the ROK-U.S. alliance and why the North Koreans are apparently pushing hard for a “space program.”
According to the North Koreans, the launched satellite provides new intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities for the regime. The system in orbit appears to capture images of American facilities located around the world and, of course, in the region. While the satellite technology is primitive by modern standards, it does add another capability to Pyongyang’s toolkit, providing intelligence needed during or before wartime. Of course, this is only one satellite. North Korea would have to launch several more to give the regime any kind of significant additional capability.
As all North Korea analysts know, Pyongyang has recently (particularly in the past year) grown closer economically and militarily with Russia. That is to say, North Korea is now sending (for a price, of course) significant shipments of artillery shells and rockets to Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. In addition, in recent months, Kim Jong-un visited Russia, where one of his key stops was a space launch facility. Reportedly, the Russians assisted the North Koreans with rocket engine challenges and may have even assisted with communications and command and control capabilities vital to launching and utilizing a satellite system in orbit. We should not be surprised if this assistance continues and, in fact, increases in terms of scope, focus, and technology.

Battling the Cartels Requires a Refocus  (Brent Sadler and James Di Pane, National Interest)
The United States is suffering from a pandemic of illicit narcotics, notably fentanyl, which killed over 73,000 Americans last year. Putting an end to this deadly trade will require strangling the narco-cartels by cutting their illicit smuggling networks connecting Latin America, China, and the United States.
Defeating the cartels behind the drug trade requires more than just cutting off the trade in fentanyl to the United States. After all, the cartels deal in more than one drug and more than one market. Their trafficking services North American and European customers who have not lost their appetite for cocaine, a drug now experiencing a post-COVID surge in production.
Hitting the cartels’ bottom line will require intercepting both shipments of cocaine and the precursor chemicals needed for fentanyl production. Critically, the cartels rely on several sea routes to move 90 percent of their drugs. The most important sea routes cross the Pacific with precursor chemicals from China and cocaine from South America to intermediary stops before moving into the United States or via Europe’s most porous border in French Guiana. Smugglers are attracted to French Guiana since, once inside, they can use local drug mules to access direct flights to Europe with fewer customs and immigration restraints.