WORLD ROUNDUP – 10-16 FEBRUARY 2025Why India Isn’t Winning the Contest with China | America’s Soft-Power Retreat | America’s Economic Warfare Is Sowing Its Own Demise | Illusions of Containment, and more
CHINA WATCH
· Why Is Trump Trying to Lose Our New Cold War with China?
· How Edward Snowden’s Leaks Benefited China
· China’s Stunning New Campaign to Turn the World Against Taiwan
· Why India Isn’t Winning the Contest with China
· China is Infiltrating Taiwan’s Armed Forces
MIDDLE EAST
· The Madness of Donald Trump
· Illusions of Containment
· Jordan, Home to Millions of Palestinians, Fears Trump’s Gaza Proposal
· “Riviera of the Middle East”: How Trump Sees Gaza as a Real Estate Deal
· Trump Says He May Cut Aid to Jordan and Egypt if They Don’t Take Gazans
· US Approves Sale of $7.4B in Bombs, Missiles to Israel
· Inside Trump’s Hastily Written Proposal to “Own” Gaza
· Trump’s Gaza Takeover Plan May Sound Death Knell for the Two-State Solution
· The Challenges the U.S. Would Face in Gaza
THE LONG VIEW
· Trump’s Trade Wars Are Self-Defeating
· Italy Is Trump’s New Bridge to Europe
· Can Europe Defend Itself from Russia?
· America’s Soft-Power Retreat
· Trump’s Tariff Tactics Are an Unpromising Foreign Policy Anomaly
· America’s Economic Warfare Is Sowing Its Own Demise
· France’s Bitter Retreat from West Africa
MORE PICKS
· Ben Wallace: Trump’s Ukraine Peace Talks Have Echoes of Nazi Appeasement
· Donald Trump’s Super Bowl Tariffs Are an Act of Self-Harm
· Europe Cannot Rely on U.S. Protection, Pentagon Chief Tells NATO Allies
· How Venezuela Helps Fuel the Violence in Colombia
· Starmer’s Security Excuse for Chagos Deal “Blown Out the Water” –by His Own Science Minister
· Nato Allies Discussed Sending Troops to Greenland After Trump Threats
· The White House’s Wildly Inaccurate Claims About USAID Spending
· Turkey is building a spaceport in Somalia
CHINA WATCH
Why Is Trump Trying to Lose Our New Cold War with China? (Michael McFaul, The Dispatch)
He doesn’t care about the policies or ideals that helped us prevail against the USSR.
How Edward Snowden’s Leaks Benefited China (Dan McKivergan, The Dispatch)
The CCP shuffled its tech and infrastructure priorities following his disclosures.
China’s Stunning New Campaign to Turn the World Against Taiwan (Economist)
Seventy countries have recently backed “all Chinese efforts” to take the island
Why India Isn’t Winning the Contest with China (Economist)
A series of setbacks suggest that new policies are needed.
China is Infiltrating Taiwan’s Armed Forces (Economist)
And Taiwan is struggling to deal with the growing number of spies.
MIDDLE EAST
The Madness of Donald Trump (David Remnick, New Yorker)
To Benjamin Netanyahu’s delight, Trump proposes the wholesale ethnic cleansing of Gaza and the creation of a new “Riviera.”
Illusions of Containment (Tom Stevenson, London Review of Books)
Hamas had been able to take power in Gaza because Israel had failed to circumscribe Palestinian politics within the Oslo boundaries. But in the event, Hamas was useful to Israel’s larger strategy of occupation.
Jordan, Home to Millions of Palestinians, Fears Trump’s Gaza Proposal (Claire Parker, Washington Post)
The push by Trump has turbocharged a reckoning over Jordan’s reliance on U.S. aid and revived existential questions over the country’s identity.
“Riviera of the Middle East”: How Trump Sees Gaza as a Real Estate Deal (Matt Viser, Jacqueline Alemany and Michael Birnbaum, Washington Post)
A former developer of skyscrapers, resorts and golf clubs around the world, the president in some ways has reduced one of the most enduring political conflicts in recent history to a construction challenge.
Trump Says He May Cut Aid to Jordan and Egypt if They Don’t Take Gazans (Zolan Kanno-Youngs and Shawn McCreesh, New York Times)
The president turned up the pressure on the two nations to agree to his proposal for them to house the Palestinian population of Gaza and said the Palestinians would not have the right to return to the territory.
