WORLD ROUNDUPHow to (Not) Be a Pacific Power | China’s Middle East Ties Go Far Beyond Iran | Islamic State Crowdfunding, and more
· Netanyahu’s Very Useful War
· How America and Israel Built Vast Military Targeting Machines
· Islamic State Crowdfunding Donations for Jihadists’ Wives
· Cuba Has Survived 66 Years of US-led Embargoes. Will Trump’s Blockade Break It Now?
· Ground Down by War, Hezbollah’s Loyal Base Shows Cracks
· An Attack on the World Economy
· How to (Not) Be a Pacific Power
· China’s Middle East Ties Go Far Beyond Iran
· A Blank Check for Israel and the War with Iran
Netanyahu’s Very Useful War (Yair Rosenberg, The Atlantic)
The Israeli leader is trying to make the Iran war work to his political advantage. He may not succeed.
How America and Israel Built Vast Military Targeting Machines (Economist)
Software is supercharging the process of finding things to bomb.
Islamic State Crowdfunding Donations for Jihadists’ Wives (Sophia Yan, The Telegraph)
IS supporters raise money on social media for terrorists’ families.
Cuba Has Survived 66 Years of US-led Embargoes. Will Trump’s Blockade Break It Now? (James Trapani, The Conversation)
After toppling Venezuela’s leader earlier this year, the Trump administration has turned its sights on Cuba. The near-total blockade of the island is now posing the greatest challenge to the government since the Cuban missile crisis in 1962.
Cuba is quickly running out of oil, creating a dire political and economic crisis for the island’s 11 million residents.
US President Donald Trump’s embargo has prevented any oil tankers from reaching the island for months. A ship carrying Russian fuel is now reportedly on the way to the island to attempt to break the blockade, but the US has seized other ships that have previously tried.
The Trump administration has also threatened tariffs on any nation that tries to send Cuba fuel, putting Latin American leaders in an uncomfortable position. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has called out the embargo as “very unfair”, but she’s been careful not to antagonize Trump by putting an emphasis on the Cuban “people”, not the government.
This is not the first time the US has isolated Cuba, or coerced Latin American leaders to take part. Cuba has been under a US embargo for the past 66 years, which has stunted its economy and caused widespread human suffering.
The island has always found a way to get by, but can it survive this new round of American pressure?
Ground Down by War, Hezbollah’s Loyal Base Shows Cracks (Christina Goldbaum, New York Times)
“We just want to be back in our homes,” said a Lebanese man who, like many others in the latest round of fighting, has to flee.
An Attack on the World Economy (Economist)
Whatever happens in the Strait of Hormuz, energy markets have been changed for ever.
How to (Not) Be a Pacific Power (Henryk Szadziewski and Alan Tidwell, Foreign Policy)
Washington has yet to recognize that mobility is an essential part of regional security.
China’s Middle East Ties Go Far Beyond Iran (Henry Tugendhat,Foreign Policy)
Beijing is as concerned about Gulf partners as Tehran.
A Blank Check for Israel and the War with Iran (Farah Jan, War on the Rocks)
The United States did not enter the war with Iran because it was attacked or was about to be attacked. It seems to have entered after concluding that once Israel moved, American involvement would be unavoidable. When Secretary of State Marco Rubio briefed congressional leaders last week, three days before the strikes began, the debate, as later reported by the Washington Post, was not whether to fight but whether to strike alongside Israel or wait until Iran retaliated against American forces in the region. The choice was not between war and peace. It was between two pathways into the same war.
Rubio said to the press: “We knew that there was going to be an Israeli action. We knew that that would precipitate an attack against American forces.” The administration’s rationale was framed in terms of timing and force protection, not in terms of an independent American casus belli.
That distinction is consequential. When a great power justifies entry into a conflict as unavoidable because an ally is acting, control over escalation and, indeed, foreign policy writ large has shifted. The United States was not responding to an attack on the homeland. It was responding to an ally’s decision to strike. Scholars of alliances call this entrapment. History suggests it rarely ends where its architects expect.
