WORLD ROUNDUPThe Geography of a U.S.-China War | The 6 Lessons Israel Overlearned After Oct. 7 | Should the US Walk Away from the NPT?, and more

The Geography of a U.S.-China War  (Henrik Stålhane Hiim and Øystein Tunsjø, Lawfare)
Conflict over Taiwan would promote escalation in ways U.S.-Soviet tensions in Europe never did.

Murder She Wrote  (Benjamin Wittes, Lawfare)
The Trump administration has sent a notice sent to Congress last week, asserting that the United States is in an armed conflict with various Venezuelan gangs. Over at Just Security, Marty Lederman has this very earnest explication of the grave deficiencies in the American position. 
I have little of substance to add to Lederman’s explanation of the legal nonsense of this notice, which boils down to two basic points: first, that the United States is manifestly not in an armed conflict with Venezuelan gangs; and second, that even if it were, there is no plausible domestic law authority for these types of strikes on an ongoing basis against targets that are not attacking the U.S. or its forces.
What Lederman leaves implicit, and I wish to emphasize, is that there is a word for killings outside of armed conflict for which there is no domestic legal authority. That word is murder.
A mob boss can declare a blood feud with a rival mob boss to be a “war,” but that doesn’t make the killings that take place under its auspices anything other than simple murder. Similarly, the Department of Defense can call itself the Department of War and declare that it is in an “armed conflict” with any number of Venezuelan gangs that are not, in fact, engaging in armed conflict against the United States, but that doesn’t make the pilots of alleged drug trafficking boats into “unlawful combatants.” And it doesn’t make targeting them with lethal force anything more elevated than murder. 

Ukraine’s Hellfire Is Intensifying the Kremlin’s Fuel Crisis  (Economist)
Almost half of Russia’s refineries have been hit by drones and missiles.

Who Holds the High Cards in Sino-American Supply Chain Poker?  (Graham Allison, Foreign Policy)
Beijing’s control of rare-earth minerals will force Trump to find new leverage.

The 6 Lessons Israel Overlearned After Oct. 7  (Daniel Byman,Foreign Policy)
Netanyahu has favored vengeance over vision since the Hamas attack.

Should the US Walk Away from the NPT?  (Henry Sokolski, National Interest)
The Non-Proliferation Treaty is still the Trump administration’s best means of preventing a ruinous nuclear arms race.

How the US Can Stay Ahead of China’s Tech Push  (Richard Weitz, National Interest)
China’s strategy of civil-military fusion requires the United States to adopt a more integrated technology policy.