Airstrikes are unlikely to deter the Houthis

Airstrikes are unlikely to deter the Houthis

Post By Politics Aid and development, Conflict, David Cameron, Defense, democracy, diplomacy, Grant Shapps, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Israel Hamas war, Joe Biden, Lebanon, Maritime, Middle East, military, Palestine, Safety, Saudi Arabia, Security, shipping, Syria, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Unpacked, War, War In Ukraine, Yemen

Jamie Dettmer is opinion editor at POLITICO Europe.

TEL AVIV — In a preemptive bid to warn off Iran and its proxies in the wake of Hamas’ October attacks on southern Israel, United States President Joe Biden had succinctly said: “Don’t.” But his clipped admonition continues to fall on deaf ears.

As Shakespeare’s rueful King Claudius notes, “when sorrows come, they come not single spies but in battalions.” And while exasperated Western powers now try to halt escalation in the Middle East, it is the Iran-directed battalions that are bringing them sorrows.

Raising the stakes at every turn, Tehran is carefully calibrating the aggression of its partners — Hezbollah in Lebanon, Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in the Red Sea —ratcheting up to save Hamas from being destroyed by a vengeful Israel. And out of all this needling, it is the Houthis’ more then two dozen attacks in the Red Sea that crossed the line for Western powers — enough to goad the U.S. and the United Kingdom into switching from a defensive posture to launching strikes on dozens of Houthi targets.

As far as Washington and London are concerned, Western retaliation is meant to give teeth to Biden’s October warning, conveying a clear message to Iran: Stop. But why would it?

Privately, the U.S. has reinforced its warning through diplomatic channels. And U.K. Defense Minister Grant Shapps underscored the message publicly, saying the West is “running out of patience,” and the Iranian regime must tell the Houthis and its regional proxies to “cease and desist.”

Nonetheless, it’s highly questionable whether Tehran will heed this advice. There’s nothing in the regime’s DNA to suggest it would back off. Plus, there would be no pain for Iran at the end of it all — the Houthis would be on the receiving end. In fact, Iran has every reason to persist, as it can’t afford to leave Hamas in the lurch. To do so would undermine the confidence of other Iran-backed groups, weakening its disruptive clout in the region.

Also, from Iran’s perspective, its needling strategy of fatiguing and frightening Western powers with the prospect of escalation is working. The specter of a broadening war in the Middle East is terrifying for Washington and European governments, which are beset by other problems. Better for them to press Israel to halt its military campaign in Gaza and preserve the power of Hamas — that’s what Tehran is trying to engineer.

And Iranian mullahs have every reason to think this wager will pay off. Ukraine is becoming a cautionary tale; Western resolve seems to be waning; and the U.S. Congress is mired in partisan squabbling, delaying a crucial aid package for Ukraine — one the Europeans won’t be able to make good on.

So, whose patience will run out first — the West or Iran and its proxies?

Wearing down the Houthis would be no mean feat for the U.S. and the U.K. In 2015, after the resilient Houthis had seized the Yemeni capital of Sana’a, Saudi Arabia thought it could quickly dislodge them with a bombing campaign in northern Yemen. But nearly a decade on, Riyadh is trying to extricate itself, ready to walk away if the Houthis just leave them alone.

The United Arab Emirates was more successful in the country’s south, putting boots on the ground and training local militias in places where the Houthis were already unpopular. But the U.S. and the U.K. aren’t proposing to follow the UAE model — they’ll be following the Saudi one, albeit with the much more limited goal of getting the Houthis to stop harassing commercial traffic in the Red Sea.

Moreover, Western faith in the efficacy of bombing campaigns — especially fitful ones — has proven misplaced before. Bombing campaigns failed to bring Iraq’s Saddam Hussein to heel on their own. And Iran-aligned militias in Iraq and Syria have shrugged off Western airstrikes, seeing them as badges of honor — much like the Houthis, who, ironically, were removed from the U.S. terror list by Biden in 2021. They seem to be relishing their moment in the big leagues.

War-tested, battle-hardened and agile, the Houthis are well-equipped thanks to Iran, and they can expect military replenishment from Tehran. They also have a firm grip on their territory. Like Hamas, the Houthis aren’t bothered by the death and destruction they may bring down on their people, making them particularly difficult to cajole into anything. And if the U.S. is to force the pace, it may well be dragged in deeper, as the only way to stop Iran replenishing the Houthis would be to mount a naval blockade of Yemen.

Few seasoned analysts think the Houthis will cave easily. Tom Sharpe, a former Royal Navy captain and specialist anti-air warfare officer, said he’d suggest “just walk[ing] away.”

“Make going round the Cape the new normal,” he wrote last week, albeit acknowledging he’d expect his advice to be overruled due to the global economic implications. But degrading the Houthis enough to make the Red Sea safe again, he noted, would be “difficult to do without risking a wider regional conflict in which the U.S., U.K. and friends would be seen as fighting on the Israeli side.”

And that is half the problem. Now ensnared in the raging conflict, in the eyes of many in the region, Western powers are seen as enabling the death and destruction being visited on Gaza. And as the civilian death toll in the Palestinian enclave mounts, Israel’s Western supporters are increasingly being criticized for not doing enough to restrain the country, which is determined to ensure Hamas can never repeat what it did on October 7.

Admittedly, Israel is combating a merciless foe that is heedless of the Gazan deaths caused by its actions. The more Palestinians killed, the greater the international outrage Hamas can foment, presenting itself as victim rather than aggressor. But Israel has arguably fallen into Hamas’ trap, with the mounting deaths and burgeoning humanitarian crisis now impacting opinion in the region and more widely.

A recent poll conducted for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy found that 96 percent of the broader Arab world believe Arab nations should now sever ties with Israel. And in Britain, Foreign Secretary David Cameron told a parliamentary panel he feared Israel has “taken action that might be in breach of international law.”

Meanwhile, in addition to issuing warnings to Iran, Hezbollah, and others in the Axis of Resistance to stay out of it, Biden has also cautioned Israeli leaders about wrath — urging the Israeli war Cabinet not to “repeat mistakes” made by the U.S. after 9/11.

However, according to a poll by the Israel Democracy Institute, 75 percent of Jewish Israelis think the country should ignore U.S. demands to shift to a phase of war with reduced heavy bombing in populous areas, and 57 percent support opening a second front in the north and taking the fight to Hezbollah. Additionally, Gallup has found Israelis have lost faith in a two-state solution, with 65 percent of Jewish Israelis opposing an independent Palestinian state.

So, it looks as though Israel is in no mood to relent — and doesn’t believe it can afford to.

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Taiwan’s new president: Five things you need to know about William Lai

Post By Politics Aid and development, Asia, Bridges, Business and competition, China, Courts, Defense, democracy, Disinformation, Elections, Exports, history, hong kong, Innovation, Japan, Joe Biden, military, Nancy Pelosi, Parliament, Policy, Resilience, Risk and compliance, Security, Stability and Growth Pact, Taiwan, tariffs, TPP, trade, United States, War, xi jinping

TAIPEI — Forget Xi Jinping or Joe Biden for a second. Meet Taiwan’s next President William Lai, upon whom the fate of U.S.-China relations — and global security over the coming few years — is now thrust.

The 64-year-old, currently Taiwan’s vice president, has led the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) to a historic third term in power, a first for any party since Taiwan became a democracy in 1996.

For now, the capital of Taipei feels as calm as ever. For Lai, though, the sense of victory will soon be overshadowed by a looming, extended period of uncertainty over Beijing’s next move. Taiwan’s Communist neighbor has laid bare its disapproval of Lai, whom Beijing considers the poster boy of the Taiwanese independence movement.

All eyes are now on how the Chinese leader — who less than two weeks ago warned Taiwan to face up to the “historical inevitability” of being absorbed into his Communist nation — will address the other inevitable conclusion: That the Taiwanese public have cast yet another “no” vote on Beijing.

1. Beijing doesn’t like him — at all

China has repeatedly lambasted Lai, suggesting that he will be the one bringing war to the island.

As recently as last Thursday, Beijing was trying to talk Taiwanese voters out of electing its nemesis-in-chief into the Baroque-style Presidential Office in Taipei.

“Cross-Strait relations have taken a turn for the worse in the past eight years, from peaceful development to tense confrontation,” China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokesman Chen Binhua said, adding that Lai would now be trying to follow an “evil path” toward “military tension and war.”

While Beijing has never been a fan of the DPP, which views China as fundamentally against Taiwan’s interests , the personal disgust for Lai is also remarkable.

Part of that stems from a 2017 remark, in which Lai called himself a “worker for Taiwanese independence,” which has been repeatedly cited by Beijing as proof of his secessionist beliefs.

Without naming names, Chinese President Xi harshly criticized those promoting Taiwan independence in a speech in 2021.

“Secession aimed at Taiwan independence is the greatest obstacle to national reunification and a grave danger to national rejuvenation,” Xi said. “Those who forget their heritage, betray their motherland, and seek to split the country will come to no good end, and will be disdained by the people and sentenced by the court of history.”

2. All eyes are on the next 4 months

Instability is expected to be on the rise over the next four months, until Lai is formally inaugurated on May 20.

No one knows how bad this could get, but Taiwanese officials and foreign diplomats say they don’t expect the situation to be as tense as the aftermath of then-U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the island in 2022.

Already, days before the election, China sent several spy balloons to monitor Taiwan, according to the Taiwanese defense ministry. On the trade front, China was also stepping up the pressure, announcing a possible move to reintroduce tariffs on some Taiwanese products. Cases of disinformation and electoral manipulation have also been unveiled by Taiwanese authorities.

Those developments, combined, constitute what Taipei calls hybrid warfare — which now risks further escalation given Beijing’s displeasure with the new president.

3. Lai has to tame his independent instinct

In a way, he has already.

Speaking at the international press conference last week, Lai said he had no plan to declare independence if elected to the presidency.

DPP insiders say they expect Lai to stick to outgoing Tsai Ing-wen’s approach, without saying things that could be interpreted as unilaterally changing the status quo.

They also point to the fact that Lai chose as vice-presidential pick Bi-khim Hsiao, a close confidante with Tsai and former de facto ambassador to Washington. Hsiao has developed close links with the Biden administration, and will play a key role as a bridge between Lai and the U.S.

4. Taiwan will follow international approach

The U.S., Japan and Europe are expected to take precedence in Lai’s diplomatic outreach, while relations with China will continue to be negative.

Throughout election rallies across the island, the DPP candidate repeatedly highlighted the Tsai government’s efforts at diversifying away from the trade reliance on China, shifting the focus to the three like-minded allies.

Southeast Asia has been another top destination for these readjusted trade flows, DPP has said.

According to Taiwanese authorities, Taiwan’s exports to China and Hong Kong last year dropped 18.1 percent compared to 2022, the biggest decrease since they started recording this set of statistics in 1982.

In contrast, Taiwanese exports to the U.S. and Europe rose by 1.6 percent and 2.9 percent, respectively, with the trade volumes reaching all-time highs.

However, critics point out that China continues to be Taiwan’s biggest trading partner, with many Taiwanese businesspeople living and working in the mainland.

5. Lai might face an uncooperative parliament

While vote counting continues, there’s a high chance Lai will be dealing with a divided parliament, the Legislative Yuan.

Before the election, the Kuomintang (KMT) party vowed to form a majority with Taiwan People’s Party in the Yuan, thereby rendering Lai’s administration effectively a minority government.

While that could pose further difficulties for Lai to roll out policies provocative to Beijing, a parliament in opposition also might be a problem when it comes to Taiwan’s much-needed defense spending.

“A divided parliament is very bad news for defense. KMT has proven that they can block defense spending, and the TPP will also try to provide what they call oversight, and make things much more difficult,” said Syaru Shirley Lin, who chairs the Center for Asia-Pacific Resilience and Innovation, a Taipei-based policy think tank.

“Although all three parties said they wanted to boost defense, days leading up to the election … I don’t think that really tells you what’s going to happen in the legislature,” Lin added. “There’s going to be a lot of policy trading.”

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Israel’s ‘refuseniks’: ‘I will never justify what Israel is doing in Gaza’

Post By World Binyamin Netanyahu, Features, Gaza Strip, Hamas, Israel, Israel Hamas war, Middle East, military, Palestinian Territories, PLO, protest, War, West Bank

from our special correspondent in Israël – On December 26, Israel’s first conscientious objector since the start of its war against Hamas, Tal Mitnick, was sent to prison after refusing to serve in the army. Mitnick, however, is not alone. A small group of Israelis are refusing to take part in the “oppression of the Palestinians” by refusing to serve in the Gaza conflict. FRANCE 24 met with some of them in Israel.

Young people refusing to serve in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are known as “refuseniks” in Israel. The term dates from the Soviet era and once referred to Jews denied the right to emigrate to Israel from the Soviet bloc.

Although military service in the Jewish state is compulsory for both men and women – with many seeing it as an important part of their national identity – the refuseniks are increasingly speaking out.

“On February 25th (my enlistment date) … I will refuse to enlist and go to military jail for it,” Sofia Orr, an 18-year-old Israeli woman, told FRANCE 24 in the Pardes Hanna-Karkur municipality of the Haifa district.

“I refuse to take part in the violent policies of oppression and apartheid that Israel enacted upon the Palestinian people, and especially now with the war,” Orr said in English. “I want to fight to convey the message that there is no military solution to a political problem, and that is more apparent than ever now. And I want to be part of the solution and not the problem.”

Orr’s words echo those of her friend Tal Mitnick, the jailed 18-year-old who was sentenced on January 2 to 30 days in prison by a military court.

In a statement published on social media before his incarceration, Mitnick said that a lasting solution will not come from the army. “Violence cannot solve the situation – neither by Hamas, nor by Israel. There is no military solution to a political problem. Therefore, I refuse to enlist in an army that believes that the real problem can be ignored, under a government that only continues the bereavement and pain.”

Full statement from Tal Mitnick, the Israeli 18-year-old sentenced to prison for refusing to enlist:

“I do not want to take part in the continuation of the oppression and the continuation of the cycle of bloodshed, but to work directly for a solution, and therefore I refuse.” pic.twitter.com/TbkCTAPieR

— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) December 26, 2023

“I’m very proud of him (Mitnick) and also inspired by his courage,” Orr said. “Everyone has different beliefs. But in the general sense, yes, I absolutely stand behind his open letter and behind his stand.”

She said the political situation in Israel has made it harder than ever to conscientiously object.

“Right now, it’s more difficult than ever to refuse and to take this stand, because the political environment in Israel has gotten way tougher since the war started. There has been a strong shift to the right, and the entire political sphere has become a lot more violent and aggressive,” Orr said.

The Israeli army relies almost exclusively on reservists. Men are required to enlist for 32 months and women for 24, after which they can be mobilised until their 40th and 38th birthdays, respectively.

Following Hamas’s surprise attacks on October 7 that left more than 1,100 Israelis dead, the army mobilised more than 360,000 reservists, about 4 percent of the country’s population of 9.8 million, representing Israel’s largest mobilisation since the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

‘A politically motivated decision’

Orr, who describes herself as an “activist” and a “political person”, said it was already clear to her that she would conscientiously object at the age of 15. And she has not wavered since.

“The 7th of October changed nothing in either direction,” she said. “It should have been expected, because when you put people under extreme violence, extreme violence will rise back at you. It’s inevitable.”

She said the attacks in southern Israel “only made me surer in my decision”.

“Since the war started, and the horrible violence that is enacted on the Gazans in Gaza and the destruction of the whole place, it made me surer that we must fight for a different option and that this will never solve anything. And that I have to resist this cycle of bloodshed or it will never end,” Orr said.

The Israeli army rarely accepts refusals to enlist on grounds of pacifism or ethics.

Apart from the ultra-Orthodox and Israeli Arabs, who are automatically exempt from military service, only young Israelis suffering from physical or mental problems can be declared unfit after a medical examination.

Exemption was, however, out of the question for Orr.

“I choose to be part of the rare few who do have political motivations behind [not serving] … more than that, [who] choose to make it public [as] a public statement and a political statement,” she said. Orr chooses “to resist” and to do so publicly, “to raise awareness for the situation as a whole”.

With the support of her parents and sister, Orr is convinced that she can make a difference.

When a classmate rallied to her cause, Orr said, it “made me believe that I can change things, and that as small an impact that I have, it’s still an impact and it’s still worth it”.

Violence only leads to more violence

Seeking to bring the plight of Palestinians to public attention in Israel, Orr travelled to the West Bank to meet Palestinians.

“I went to the West Bank and talked to settlers, and then went and talked to Palestinians. And I think it’s an important experience, to see for yourself … how the settlers live and how the Palestinians live, what the settlers say and what the Palestinians say,” Orr said.

“We’ve seen for the past 70 years that the military using military means leads us nowhere. The only progress we’ve ever made on this piece of land has been by political means and negotiations and trying to make peace. So again, there is no military solution to a political problem. And this problem is both political and humanitarian. And the military does not solve either of those things,” she said.

Surprisingly mature and filled with conviction, Orr has stuck by her words and refused to abandon her beliefs even though talk of peace in Israel has mostly been silenced since the October 7 massacres.

“Israel’s attempts to eradicate Hamas is only making Hamas stronger, because if you offer no alternative to the Palestinians and they think that violent resistance is the only way … and [if they think] it’s the only language that Israel knows how to speak and … their only chance at freedom … Then, yes, of course they will join Hamas and try violent resistance,” Orr said.

The violence wrought by Hamas was also counter-productive, she said. “I don’t think that the horrible attack on October 7 made any progress for the Palestinian cause.”

But Israel’s war on Gaza pushes any hopes for a solution farther away.

“I will never justify what Israel does right now in Gaza. Violence only leads to more violence. So I think the only way to really weaken the violent resistance is to offer an alternative. And that has to come from inside Israel, and that has to come from Israel, because Israel is a much stronger side in the equation,” Orr said, adding that both Israelis and Palestinians should try to make peace amid the increasingly brutal Gaza war.

“It’s the only viable solution.”

While Orr’s words have, for the most part, fallen on deaf ears in Israel, some have resorted to calling her a “traitor” and a “self-hating Jew” while others even threatened to murder or rape her.

Orr said she has also suffered other consequences of her choice to go public, whether while job hunting or in the social sphere.

“People aren’t supposed to ask if you went to the army – and definitely not why you didn’t, if you didn’t,” she said. But of someone Googles her, her decision not to serve comes up.

“It can have consequences,” she acknowledged. “The biggest consequences are social because it’s a very militaristic society, and I’m very publicly not a militaristic person … but I believe that it’s worth it no matter what … I will endure [the consequences].”

When asked if she’s afraid of going to prison, Orr, who planned on studying literature after serving her sentence, didn’t equivocate. “It’s scary. I know it will be hard … but it’s part of the whole thing. I’ve made peace with it long ago.”

Avital Rubin, a young Israeli, has already served a total of four months in prison. Then 19, Rubin was sentenced for refusing military service in 2021.

Quietly seated on the terrace of a café in Haifa, Rubin said he was born into a family that he described as “dovish Zionist” – both liberal and conciliatory in their attitude.

Evyatar Rubin, 20, spent four months in prison for having refused to enroll with the Israeli military. © Assiya Hamza, FRANCE 24

“I remember as a kid, my mother bought me these mini biographies of Martin Luther King and Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. And I always viewed these people as heroes. But the moment [Donald] Trump won, there was this shift on the internet and it all of a sudden became much more right-winged or much more bigoted, homophobic, sexist. And so I had to find places that I felt comfortable being … I had to [find] more and more leftist places,” Rubin said.

Rubin, who currently works in IT, educated himself by watching videos of Noam Chomsky and calls himself “anti-Zionist”.

Rubin took part in 2021 demonstrations by Jews and Arabs in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood in East Jerusalem that has been the centre of a heavy legal battle over the past 20 years between Palestinian families and Israeli settlers.

Without knowing how to exempt himself from military service, Rubin hesitated on whether to enlist.

‘Each time, the solution is to bomb Gaza’

Rubin was introduced to a member of Mesarvot – “Those who refuse” in Hebrew – at one of the group’s gatherings.

The NGO informs and advises young people without necessarily discouraging them from joining the army.

Like Mitnick and Orr, Rubin saw that it was possible to refuse military service on political grounds.

Mesarvot provided him with legal support and even visited him in prison.

“I’m happy I didn’t do it (military service) and I refused. Not because I’m a pacifist, but because I always grew up viewing the occupation and the Nakba (“Catastrophe” in Arabic; Nakba refers to the forced exodus of Palestinians in 1948) with disgust. And so to be part of the IDF would be to be part of this thing. And I think that is what, more than anything, pushed me away from enlisting in the military,” Rubin said.

While clearly disapproving of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories, Rubin admitted to having discovered the realities of the West Bank only when he was 16.

“When I was in prison, and I told people I’m refusing because of the occupation … they were like, ‘what is the occupation?’ I said, you know, over the Green Line (the pre-1967 border from before the Six-Day War). And they were like, what is the Green Line? Honestly, I didn’t blame them because three years prior to that, I didn’t know what the Green Line was either,” he said.

Rubin has since chosen to isolate himself, likening his isolation to the mark of Cain, a visible mark placed by the Abrahamic God on the biblical figure Cain’s forehead, so that others would recognise him as the murderer of his brother Abel.

This self-isolation has allowed Rubin to distance himself from the Nakba and Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.

“The only thing I actually sacrificed was an easy job because, if I enlisted, I would have gone to some intelligence [unit], done like three years – maybe signed for an extra two years – then I would have left and found some cushy job in high tech and gotten paid like six figures for doing nothing. Which is basically what all my high school friends are going to do,” he said.

Rubin said his family and friends didn’t try to persuade him otherwise, as they saw that he stood by his convictions, which remained unchanged even after the October 7 attacks.

“Israel has this spectacular capability of never learning from anything. It’s like, for 100 years, we’ve been bombing and murdering and occupying, and then a massacre happens, and then we bomb and occupy and kill. Then a massacre happens. But every time something happens, the solution is to bomb Gaza. This time it will work. This time it will be different … And that’s what people say,” Rubin said.

“[The PLO] committed acts of terror and massacres, but ultimately they wanted, at the beginning, a one-state secular democratic solution, then a two-state solution. And then, in the 80s, Israel didn’t want to deal with the PLO. So we invaded Lebanon to try to push PLO [out] and instead we got Hezbollah, which is like a million times worse. And then Israel didn’t want to deal with the PLO in the occupied territories in Gaza. So it helped raise Hamas, which is a million times worse … The history of Israel is just like [a series of] military solutions that just make the situation worse time and time and time again,” he said.

When asked about the future, Rubin didn’t attempt to hide his pessimism.

“I think the situation is going to become noticeably worse. Israel is in a death spiral … There’s no room left for personal agency in Israel. I feel it has all been determined by by the currents of history. The same way that the earth revolves around the sun and slowly sinks into it – the same way that Israel cannot help but fulfill its historic destiny,” Rubin said, adding that even a change in premiership wouldn’t bring about a significant change in Israel.

“It doesn’t matter who is the next prime minister – who will it be? Probably [Israeli opposition leader Yair] Lapid or no, probably Benny Gantz most likely,” referring to the MP and onetime challenger to Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

“But it doesn’t matter. He’s the same as Binyamin Netanyahu,” he said.

Despite his pessimistic outlook, Rubin said he would remain in Israel.

Citing Oskar Schindler, the German industrialist who saved hundreds of Jews from Nazi extermination camps, Rubin said he hoped to sacrifice himself in some way to save others.

“That’s the most heroic thing a man can do. The most correct thing a man can do. And that’s what matters for me most. And there’s no other place in the world where I can actually do it, other than Israel. So I will. My place will always be here,” he said.

This article has been translated from the original in French.

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The Middle East is on fire: What you need to know about the Red Sea crisis

Post By Politics Africa, Asia, Benchmarks, borders, Business and competition, Cargo, Conflict, drones, Energy, Exports, foreign policy, France, Insurance, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Israel Hamas war, Lebanon, Maritime transport, Markets, Middle East, military, missiles, Missions, Naval vessels, oil, Risk and compliance, Saudi Arabia, Sébastien Lecornu, Security, shipping, Syria, Terrorism, trade, United Kingdom, United States, War, Yemen

On October 7, Hamas fighters launched a bloody attack against Israel, using paragliders, speedboats and underground tunnels to carry out an offensive that killed almost 1,200 people and saw hundreds more taken back to the Gaza Strip as prisoners.

Almost three months on, Israel’s massive military retaliation is reverberating around the region, with explosions in Lebanon and rebels from Yemen attacking shipping in the Red Sea. Meanwhile, Western countries are pumping military aid into Israel while deploying fleets to protect commercial shipping — risking confrontation with the Iranian navy.

That’s in line with a grim prediction made last year by Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, who said that Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza meant an “expansion of the scope of the war has become inevitable,” and that further escalation across the Middle East should be expected.

What’s happening?

The Israel Defense Forces are still fighting fierce battles for control of the Gaza Strip in what officials say is a mission to destroy Hamas. Troops have already occupied much of the north of the 365-square-kilometer territory, home to around 2.3 million Palestinians, and are now fighting fierce battles in the south.

Entire neighborhoods of densely-populated Gaza City have been levelled by intense Israeli shelling, rocket attacks and air strikes, rendering them uninhabitable. Although independent observers have been largely shut out, the Hamas-controlled Health Ministry claims more than 22,300 people have been killed, while the U.N. says 1.9 million people have been displaced.

On a visit to the front lines, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant warned that his country is in the fight for the long haul. “The feeling that we will stop soon is incorrect. Without a clear victory, we will not be able to live in the Middle East,” he said.

As the Gaza ground war intensifies, Hamas and its allies are increasingly looking to take the conflict to a far broader arena in order to put pressure on Israel.

According to Seth Frantzman, a regional analyst with the Jerusalem Post and adjunct fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, “Iran is certainly making a play here in terms of trying to isolate Israel [and] the U.S. and weaken U.S. influence, also showing that Israel doesn’t have the deterrence capabilities that it may have had in the past or at least thought it had.”

Northern front

On Tuesday a blast ripped through an office in Dahieh, a southern suburb of the Lebanese capital, Beirut — 130 kilometers from the border with Israel. Hamas confirmed that one of its most senior leaders, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed in the strike.

Government officials in Jerusalem have refused to confirm Israeli forces were behind the killing, while simultaneously presenting it as a “surgical strike against the Hamas leadership” and insisting it was not an attack against Lebanon itself, despite a warning from Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati that the incident risked dragging his country into a wider regional war.

Tensions between Israel and Lebanon have spiked in recent weeks, with fighters loyal to Hezbollah, the Shia Islamist militant group that controls the south of the country, firing hundreds of rockets across the frontier. Along with Hamas, Hezbollah is part of the Iranian-led “Axis of Resistance” that aims to destroy the state of Israel.

In a statement released on Tuesday, Iran’s foreign ministry said the death of al-Arouri, the most senior Hamas official confirmed to have died since October 7, will only embolden resistance against Israel, not only in the Palestinian territories but also in the wider Middle East.

“We’re talking about the death of a senior Hamas leader, not from Hezbollah or the [Iranian] Revolutionary Guards. Is it Iran who’s going to respond? Hezbollah? Hamas with rockets? Or will there be no response, with the various players waiting for the next assassination?” asked Héloïse Fayet, a researcher at the French Institute for International Relations.

In a much-anticipated speech on Wednesday evening, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah condemned the killing but did not announce a military response.

Red Sea boils over

For months now, sailors navigating the narrow Bab- el-Mandeb Strait that links Europe to Asia have faced a growing threat of drone strikes, missile attacks and even hijackings by Iran-backed Houthi militants operating off the coast of Yemen.

The Houthi movement, a Shia militant group supported by Iran in the Yemeni civil war against Saudi Arabia and its local allies, insists it is only targeting shipping with links to Israel in a bid to pressure it to end the war in Gaza. However, the busy trade route from the Suez Canal through the Red Sea has seen dozens of commercial vessels targeted or delayed, forcing Western nations to intervene.

Over the weekend, the U.S. Navy said it had intercepted two anti-ship missiles and sunk three boats carrying Houthi fighters in what it said was a hijacking attempt against the Maersk Hangzhou, a container ship. Danish shipping giant Maersk said Tuesday that it would “pause all transits through the Red Sea until further notice,” following a number of other cargo liners; energy giant BP is also suspending travel through the region.

On Wednesday the Houthis targeted a CMA CGM Tage container ship bound for Israel, according to the group’s military spokesperson Yahya Sarea. “Any U.S. attack will not pass without a response or punishment,” he added.

“The sensible decision is one that the vast majority of shippers I think are now coming to, [which] is to transit through round the Cape of Good Hope,” said Marco Forgione, director general at the Institute of Export & International Trade. “But that in itself is not without heavy impact, it’s up to two weeks additional sailing time, adds over £1 million to the journey, and there are risks, particularly in West Africa, of piracy as well.”

However, John Stawpert, a senior manager at the International Chamber of Shipping, noted that while “there has been disruption” and an “understandable nervousness about transiting these routes … trade is continuing to flow.”

“A major contributory factor to that has been the presence of military assets committed to defending shipping from these attacks,” he said.

The impacts of the disruption, especially price hikes hitting consumers, will be seen “in the next couple of weeks,” according to Forgione. Oil and gas markets also risk taking a hit — the price of benchmark Brent crude rose by 3 percent to $78.22 a barrel on Wednesday. Almost 10 percent of the world’s oil and 7 percent of its gas flows through the Red Sea.

Western response

On Wednesday evening, the U.S., Australia, Bahrain, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom issued an ultimatum calling the Houthi attacks “illegal, unacceptable, and profoundly destabilizing,” but with only vague threats of action.

“We call for the immediate end of these illegal attacks and release of unlawfully detained vessels and crews. The Houthis will bear the responsibility of the consequences should they continue to threaten lives, the global economy, and free flow of commerce in the region’s critical waterways,” the statement said.

Despite the tepid language, the U.S. has already struck back at militants from Iranian-backed groups such as Kataeb Hezbollah in Iraq and Syria after they carried out drone attacks that injured U.S. personnel.

The assumption in London is that airstrikes against the Houthis — if it came to that — would be U.S.-led with the U.K. as a partner. Other nations might also chip in.

Two French officials said Paris is not considering air strikes. The country’s position is to stick to self-defense, and that hasn’t changed, one of them said. French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu confirmed that assessment, saying on Tuesday that “we’re continuing to act in self-defense.”

“Would France, which is so proud of its third way and its position as a balancing power, be prepared to join an American-British coalition?” asked Fayet, the think tank researcher.

Iran looms large

Iran’s efforts to leverage its proxies in a below-the-radar battle against both Israel and the West appear to be well underway, and the conflict has already scuppered a long-awaited security deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

“Since 1979, Iran has been conducting asymmetrical proxy terrorism where they try to advance their foreign policy objectives while displacing the consequences, the counterpunches, onto someone else — usually Arabs,” said Bradley Bowman, senior director of Washington’s Center on Military and Political Power. “An increasingly effective regional security architecture, of the kind the U.S. and Saudi Arabia are trying to build, is a nightmare for Iran which, like a bully on the playground, wants to keep all the other kids divided and distracted.”

Despite Iran’s fiery rhetoric, it has stopped short of declaring all-out war on its enemies or inflicting massive casualties on Western forces in the region — which experts say reflects the fact it would be outgunned in a conventional conflict.

“Neither Iran nor the U.S. nor Israel is ready for that big war,” said Alex Vatanka, director of the Middle East Institute’s Iran program. “Israel is a nuclear state, Iran is a nuclear threshold state — and the U.S. speaks for itself on this front.”

Israel might be betting on a long fight in Gaza, but Iran is trying to make the conflict a global one, he added. “Nobody wants a war, so both sides have been gambling on the long term, hoping to kill the other guy through a thousand cuts.”

Emilio Casalicchio contributed reporting.

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#Middle #East #fire #Red #Sea #crisis

Sydney, Auckland are first major cities to kick off 2024 New Year’s celebrations

Post By World Asia / Pacific, Australia, Gaza Strip, New Year, new york, new zealand, Police, Ukraine, War

Sydney and Auckland have become the world’s first major cities to ring in 2024, with more than a million revelers cheering spectacular fireworks displays that lit up the skies over Sydney Harbor and New Zealand’s tallest structure, Sky Tower.

As the clock struck midnight in Australia‘s largest city, tons of explosives erupted in a 12-minute display that focused on the Sydney Harbor Bridge. More than 1 million people, a number equivalent to one in five of the city’s residents, watched from the shore and from boats in the harbor.

“It’s total madness,” said German tourist Janna Thomas, who had waited in line since 7:30 a.m. to secure a prime waterfront location in the Sydney Botanic Garden. “It’s not so easy to find a good place to sit, but the view is incredible.”

In Auckland, the light rain that fell all day had cleared as forecast by midnight over the city of 1.7 million people before the countdown began on an illuminated digital display near the top of the 328-meter (1,076-foot) communications and observation tower.

The ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and heightened tensions in parts of the world, are affecting this year’s New Year‘s Eve celebrations in a myriad of ways. Many cities were deploying extra security, and some places canceled New Year’s Eve events altogether.

More police than ever were deployed throughout Sydney. The waterfront has been the scene of heated pro-Palestinian protests after the sails of the Sydney Opera House were illuminated in the colors of the Israeli flag in response to the Oct. 7 attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that triggered the war.

Eight tonnes of fireworks launched in Sydney to celebrate the New Year

00:40

At the Vatican, Pope Francis recalled 2023 as a year marked by wartime suffering. During his traditional Sunday blessing from a window overlooking St. Peter’s Square, he offered prayers for “the tormented Ukrainian people and the Palestinian and Israeli populations, the Sudanese people and many others.”

“At the end of the year, we will have the courage to ask ourselves how many human lives have been shattered by armed conflict, how many dead and how much destruction, how much suffering, how much poverty,” the pontiff said. “Whoever has interest in these conflicts, listen to the voice of conscience.”

In New York City, officials and party organizers said they were prepared to ensure the safety of tens of thousands of revelers expected to flood Times Square in the heart of midtown Manhattan.

Mayor Eric Adams said there were “no specific threats” to the annual New Year’s Eve bash, which was set to feature live performances from Flo Rida, Megan Thee Stallion and LL Cool J, as well as televised appearances from Cardi B and others. Organizers said in-person attendance was expected to return to pre-COVID levels, even as foot traffic around Times Square remains down slightly since the pandemic.

Amid near-daily protests sparked by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, New York City police said they would expand the security perimeter around the party, creating a “buffer zone” that would allow them to head off potential demonstrations.

Officials also planned to monitor any protests with drones, the mayor said.

“We will be out here with our canines, on horseback, our helicopters, our boats,” Adams said. “But as we saw last year, after having no specific threats, we get a threat.”

During last year’s New Year’s Eve party, a machete-wielding man attacked three police officers a few blocks from Times Square.

Paris celebrations to highlight 2024 Olympics

Security also will also be heightened across European cities on Sunday.

In France, 90,000 law enforcement officers were set to be deployed, domestic intelligence chief Céline Berthon said Friday.

Of those, 6,000 will be in Paris, where French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin said over 1.5 million people are expected to attend celebrations on the Champs-Elysees.

Darmanin cited a “very high terrorist threat” because, in part, of “what is happening in Israel and Palestine,” referring to the Israel-Hamas war.

Darmanin said that police for the first time will be able to use drones as part of security work and that tens of thousands of firefighters and 5,000 soldiers would also be deployed.

New Year’s Eve celebrations in the French capital will center on the 2024 Paris Olympic Games, including DJ sets, fireworks and video projections on the Arc de Triomphe, highlighting “changes in the city and faces of the Games,” according to the press service of the City of Paris. Other planned events include “the largest Mexican wave ever performed” and a “giant karaoke.”

New Year celebrations a ‘test’ for Paris ahead of 2024 Summer Olympics

The security challenge ahead of the Olympics was highlighted when a tourist was killed in a knife attack near the Eiffel Tower on Dec. 2. Large-scale attacks — such as that at the Bataclan in 2015, when Islamic extremists invaded the music hall and shot up cafe terraces, killing 130 people — also loom large.

In Berlin, some 4,500 police officers are expected to keep order and avoid riots like a year ago. Police in the German capital issued a ban on the traditional use of fire crackers for several streets across the city. They also banned a pro-Palestinian protest in the Neukoelln neighborhood of the city, which has seen several pro-Palestinian riots since the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas.

In Russia, the country’s military actions in Ukraine have overshadowed end-of-year celebrations, with the usual fireworks and concert on Moscow’s Red Square canceled, as last year.

After shelling in the center of the Russian border city of Belgorod Saturday killed 24 people, some local authorities across Russia also canceled their usual firework displays, including in Vladivostok. Millions throughout Russia are expected to tune into Russian President Vladimir Putin’s New Year’s address.

In Muslim-majority Pakistan, the government has banned all New Year’s Eve celebrations as an act of solidarity with the Palestinians.

In an overnight televised message, caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar urged Pakistanis to “show solidarity with the oppressed people of Gaza” by beginning the new year with simplicity.

Kakar said Muslims across the world were saddened over Israel’s attacks on Gaza that resulted in the killings of thousands of innocent people.

(AP)

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Russia launches 122 missiles in one of biggest attacks on Ukraine since start of war

Post By World drones, Europe, Kremlin, Kyiv, Odesa, rishi sunak, Russia, Ukraine, USA, Volodymyr Zelensky, War

Russia launched 122 missiles and 36 drones against Ukrainian targets, officials said Friday, killing at least 18 civilians across the country in what an air force official said was the biggest aerial barrage of the 22-month war.

AFP reporters in Kyiv heard several powerful explosions in the early hours of Friday and saw thick black smoke billowing from a warehouse.

“We haven’t seen so much red on our monitors for a long time,” said Yuriy Ignat, a spokesman for Ukraine‘s air force, explaining that Russian forces had first launched a wave of suicide drones followed by missiles.

The Ukrainian air force intercepted 87 of the missiles and 27 of the Shahed-type drones overnight, Ukraine’s military chief Valery Zaluzhnyi said.

Air Force commander Mykola Oleshchuk wrote on his official Telegram channel: “The most massive aerial attack” since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.

According to the Ukrainian air force, the previous biggest assault was in November 2022 when Russia launched 96 missiles against Ukraine. This year, the biggest was 81 missiles on March 9, air force records show.

“There are people killed by Russian missiles today that were launched at civilian facilities, civilian buildings,” presidential aide Andriy Yermak said.

“We are doing everything to strengthen our air shield. But the world needs to see that we need more support and strength to stop this terror,” he said on Telegram.

Two people were confirmed dead in the capital Kyiv, with more people thought to be trapped under rubble at a warehouse damaged by falling debris, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram messenger.

He also said the capital’s air defences were working intensively.

A metro station whose platforms were being used as an air raid shelter was damaged, he said.

Sergiy Popko, head of Kyiv’s military administration, said a warehouse with an area of around 3,000 square metres (32,300 square feet) was burning in the northern Podil district.

“There are many wounded, the number is being clarified,” he said.

In other districts of the city, an uninhabited multistorey block of flats also caught fire and a private house was damaged, Popko said.

Maternity hospital struck

In the central Shevchenko district, a residential building was damaged and there was also a fire in a warehouse with six believed to be injured, Popko said.

Klitschko wrote on social media that there appeared to be three people still under rubble of the warehouse while three others had been rescued.

The overnight attacks came days after Ukraine struck a Russian warship in the occupied Crimean port of Feodosia in a major setback for the Russian navy.

Drones and missiles struck at least five other Ukrainian cities on Friday, including Kharkiv in the northeast, Lviv in the west, Dnipro in the east and Odesa in the south, the cities’ mayors and police said.

“So far we have counted 22 strikes in different districts of Kharkiv,” the mayor, Igor Terekhov, said on television.

“There are currently seven injured in hospital. Unfortunately one person has died.”

In Lviv, governor Maksym Kozytsky said that “one person was killed and three wounded”.

In Dnipro, the mayor, Borys Filatov, said there were injured and dead. The health ministry said that a maternity hospital in the city had been “severely damaged”.

Two people were killed in the Black Sea port city of Odesa and at least 15 were injured, including two children, as missiles hit residential buildings, the regional governor said.

Ukraine’s southern command said 14 attack drones had been destroyed in the south of the country and there were no casualties reported.

The Polish army said a Russian missile passed through Polish airspace on Friday, entering from and then back into Ukraine, as Russia pummelled Ukraine with the barrage.

“Everything indicates that a Russian missile entered Polish airspace … It also left our airspace,” General Wieslaw Kukula, chief of the general staff of the Polish armed forces, told reporters.

“The object arrived from the Ukrainian border,” Colonel Jacek Goryszewski, spokesman of the operational command of the armed forces, earlier told news channel TVN24.

“There was intense shelling of Ukrainian territory at night so this incident could be linked to that.”

He said the airspace violation occurred near the Polish border city of Zamosc.

Crucial Western support

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Friday said Moscow’s latest missile strikes on Ukraine showed Russian President Vladimir “Putin will stop at nothing to achieve his aim of eradicating freedom and democracy”.

“We will not let him win. We must continue to stand with Ukraine – for as long as it takes,” he added on X, formerly Twitter.

These widespread attacks on Ukraine’s cities show Putin will stop at nothing to achieve his aim of eradicating freedom and democracy.

We will not let him win.

We must continue to stand with Ukraine – for as long as it takes. https://t.co/cf6aDNwPjD

— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) December 29, 2023

On Thursday, President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked the United States for releasing the last remaining package of weapons available for Ukraine under existing authorisation, as uncertainty surrounds further aid to his war-torn country.

Zelensky had warned that any change in policy from the US – Kyiv’s main backer – could have a strong impact on the course of the war.

“I thank President Joe Biden, Congress, and the American people for the $250 million military aid package announced yesterday,” Zelensky said on social media.

In an interview published on Friday, Christian Freuding, a German general who oversees the German army’s support for Kyiv, said Russia was severely weakened but was showing greater “resilience” than Western allies had expected at the start of the war.

“We perhaps did not see, or did not want to see, that they are in a position to continue to be supplied by allies,” he told the Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, Reuters, AP)

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‘Unprecedented’ weapons seizures in Myanmar boost anti-junta resistance morale

Post By World Asia / Pacific, Coup, military equipment, myanmar, War

A military operation launched in late October has turned the tide in the ongoing civil war between the Myanmar military junta and allied opposition forces throughout the country. Photos and videos shared online during December show significant weapons caches seized by resistance fighters who have taken over military outposts around the country. The seizure comes amid new anti-junta alliances and “unprecedented” major territorial gains, according to an expert on the conflict.

Issued on: 20/12/2023 – 14:58

5 min

Operation 1027 began on October 27, 2023 and has since led to significant strategic gains for Myanmar’s anti-junta opposition.

The operation is conducted by the Three Brotherhood Alliance, made up of the Arakan Army, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army. These ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) make up just a small part of the anti-junta resistance in Myanmar, which has been in the throes of a civil war since a military coup overthrew its democratically elected government in February 2021.

Operation 1027 has brought new energy to the anti-coup movement as resistance fighters take over key military outposts and capture territory around the country. Images shared online show fighters posing victoriously with weapons, ammunition and heavy artillery.

Amazing achievement as #Myanmar #ethnic army #TNLA, 1 of 3 “Brotherhood Alliance” forces attacked/conquered #military camps in #Namsan northern #Shan state & seized massive haul of weapons & ammunition. This no doubt a major blow to military coup regime #WhatsHappeninglnMyanmar pic.twitter.com/JHwbI99xG5

— May Wong (@MayWongCNA) December 18, 2023

Images shared on X show members of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army with weapons and ammunition captured from Myanmar military outposts in Namhsan, Shan State between December 10 and 15, 2023.

More victories of resistance forces in #Myanmar. TNLA seized all miliatry bases in and around Namh San Town including Division Commander based military base in Dec 15; and captured weapons, ammunitions and heavy artillery including 4 howitzers. #WhatsHappeningInMyanmar pic.twitter.com/JnaVJT1UBl

— Spokesperson, NUG President Office (@NUGPressSPOX) December 18, 2023

The official account of Myanmar’s opposition government in exile shared these images of the Ta’ang National Army with heavy artillery captured from military bases in Namhsan.

‘They were able to take them by surprise and take over a lot of territory’

The FRANCE 24 Observers team spoke to Erin Murphy, a senior fellow with the Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a Myanmar expert.

What’s been happening in Myanmar in the last couple of months is that you’ve seen unprecedented cooperation among the ethnic armed groups. They combine forces to counter the Myanmar junta. They were able to take them by surprise and take over a lot of territory, junta outposts, take their equipment and their military materiel and really kind of breathe life into the anti-junta forces that have been in place since the coup.

And so you see these photos of large caches of weapons, whether it’s semi-automatic weapons, rifles, pistols. They’ve taken over a lot of Myanmar military weaponry by taking over these outposts.

Outposts, border towns and police stations

The three groups making up the Brotherhood Alliance operate primarily in Shan State, which borders China, and Rakhine State, on the western coast. The groups have carried out coordinated attacks, mostly in northern Myanmar.

The Arakan Army represents the Arakan ethnic group in Rakhine State, engaging in conflict with the Myanmar Armed Forces since 2009 for Arakan sovereignty. The Ta’ang National Liberation Army has been active in Shan State since the 1990s, primarily focusing on combating drug production and trade. The Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, rooted in Communist ideology, has opposed the Burmese government since 1989 and shifted focus to anti-junta resistance in 2021.

The Arakan Army declared that they have been able to capture 142 military bases – including camps, outposts, border posts and police stations – in Rakhine State since the operation began. The FRANCE 24 Observers team was unable to independently verify this information.

In total, the Brotherhood Alliance says it has seized more than 422 bases and seven towns since October 27. The coalition has operated mainly in Shan state, capturing more than 100 military installations on the Chinese border and effectively cutting off 40% of cross-border trade through important border crossings.

The Northern Brotherhood Alliance Forces are unstoppable as they have seized massive piles of Myanmar junta regime’s weapons at mile 105 military outpost near Muse – a border town with China in northern Shan state as their 1027 Operation continues across several fronts, including… pic.twitter.com/k7H1t168mV

— Chindwin News Agency (@TheChindwin) December 17, 2023

A video shared on X shows a stockpile of weapons captured from a military outpost near Muse, a northern border town with China in Shan State.

Murphy adds:

The Myanmar military is located throughout the country. So instead of being an outward-facing force, it’s really internal. It has border guard forces. It has a light infantry division. It has brigades located all throughout the country. Some of them are small, some of them are quite large, and they’re located in every state and region in the country.

Photo Essay: With the Myanmar military’s loss of the Sakhan Thit hill base on Monday, Namkham Township in northern Shan State is now fully under the control of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), one of the members of the tripartite Brotherhood Alliance along with the… pic.twitter.com/fgnHHFwGaI

— Myanmar Now (@Myanmar_Now_Eng) December 20, 2023

Images shared on X show the Ta’ang National Liberation Army at a military base in Namhkam, Shan State, captured on December 18.

So some of these outposts that these EAOs have taken over are relatively small, but some of them are about medium-sized. What they’re able to seize is pretty unprecedented and pretty impressive as well. But we also have to remember that the Myanmar military still is able to get much better equipment from the Chinese, from maybe the North Koreans, the Russians, and the Belarusians. But if these EAOs are seizing that equipment, then they might be able to have the same level of firepower.

Increasing weapons supply and quality

In addition to cutting off trade through border crossings, outpost attacks help the opposition movement seize military-grade weaponry and ammunition from junta caches.

#Myanmar (#Burma) 🇲🇲: Ta’ang National Liberation Army (#TNLA) raided and captured a Tatmadaw base along with a huge arsenal in Namsan, #Shan State.

Noteably a very rare Steyr SSG 69 sniper rifle, 76mm M1942 (ZiS-3) field guns, 122mm D-30M (2A18M) howitzers, Carl Gustaf/MA-84 &… pic.twitter.com/Cj8sUqcs7S

— War Noir (@war_noir) December 18, 2023

Photos shared on X detail some of the artillery seized by the Ta’ang National Liberation Army in Shan State.

Armed organisations and militias have been known to import weapons from trafficking networks or manufacture their own, sometimes even 3D printing them. However, these weapons fall behind in terms of quality.

Capturing military bases has allowed resistance fighters to add artillery cannons, Chinese-made anti-materiel rifles, and machine guns to their arsenals.

‘It’s also meant to show the junta that they’re weak, that they are taking over territory, that they’re taking their weapons’

Operation 1027 has also encouraged other ethnic armed groups and militias – as well as the People’s Defense Forces (PDFs), the main military wing of Myanmar’s opposition government in exile – to ramp up their assaults on the military junta around the country. While weapons seizures are a significant tactical gain for the opposition, they also serve to boost the resistance movement’s morale and regain international attention.

Murphy explained:

These photos are certainly used for public relations, for morale, and I think to show the world what they are capable of doing. It certainly helps with morale and this has been going on since the coup in February 2021. And that the EAOs, the PDFs and the anti-junta forces – and that includes the civilians who are fighting through protests and not in hand-to-hand combat – they are wondering if the world forgot them.

People Defense Forces and Karen National Liberation Army (KNLA) captured the Nyaung Pin Thar police station during an assault this morning, killing over 30 junta security personnel and seizing a large cache of junta weapons in Phyu township of Bago region located on the Yangon -… pic.twitter.com/lUWfcARg0d

— Chindwin News Agency (@TheChindwin) December 14, 2023

Two groups allied with the Brotherhood Alliance captured a police station in Nyaung Pin Thar, in southern Myanmar, on December 13. Photos shared on X show the weapons they captured.

And Ukraine, Gaza have certainly taken the the air out of the focus on Myanmar. So these types of photos kind of help boost morale. And I think it’s also meant to show the junta that they’re weak, that they are taking over territory, that they’re taking their weapons. I think it’s meant to spook them as well.

The Irrawaddy, an opposition media outlet in Myanmar, reports that more than 650 junta soldiers have surrendered or defected since Operation 1027 began.

China has helped facilitate talks and a temporary ceasefire between the ruling military and anti-junta groups. Despite a ceasefire announced on December 14, resistance fighters continued to seize key territory.

There are certainly opportunities here, and it is become very interesting in Myanmar. But I think the one thing that we all should remember is that there are millions of people getting caught in the crossfire of this and that they are without food, without shelter. They’re getting bombed by the junta trying to root out these EAOs and are getting caught in the crossfire. So we can’t forget the humanitarian issues that are happening here. And that’s unfortunately not unprecedented in Myanmar. But it is growing worse and worse by the day with this ongoing fighting and lack of peace.

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How Houthi rebels are threatening global trade nexus on Red Sea

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The U.S. is mustering an international armada to deter Iranian-backed Houthi militias from Yemen from attacking shipping in the Red Sea, one of the world’s most important waterways for global trade, including energy cargos.

The Houthis’ drone and missile attacks are ostensibly a response to the war between Israel and Hamas, but fears are growing that the broader world economy could be disrupted as commercial vessels are forced to reroute.

On Tuesday, U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin held a videoconference with 43 countries, the EU and NATO, telling them that “attacks had already impacted the global economy and would continue to threaten commercial shipping if the international community did not come together to address the issue collectively.”

Earlier this week, the U.S. announced an international security effort dubbed Operation Prosperity Guardian that listed the U.K., Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles and Spain as participants. Madrid, however, said it wouldn’t take part.

The Houthis were quick to respond.

“Even if America succeeds in mobilizing the entire world, our military operations will not stop unless the genocide crimes in Gaza stop and allow food, medicine, and fuel to enter its besieged population, no matter the sacrifices it costs us,” said Mohammed Al-Bukaiti, a member of the Ansar Allah political bureau, in a post on X.

Here’s what you need to know about the Red Sea crisis.

1. Who are the Houthis and why are they attacking ships?

International observers have put the blame for the hijackings, missiles and drone attacks on Houthi rebels in Yemen, who have stepped up their attacks since the Israel-Hamas war started. The Shi’ite Islamist group is part of the so-called “axis of resistance” against Israel and is armed by Tehran. Almost certainly due to Iranian support with ballistics, the Houthis have directly targeted Israel since the beginning of the war, firing missiles and drones up the Red Sea toward the resort of Eilat.

The Houthis have been embroiled in Yemen’s long-running civil war and have been locked in combat with an intervention force in the country led by Sunni Saudi Arabia. The Houthis have claimed several major strikes against high-value energy installations in Saudi Arabia over the past years, but many international observers have identified some of their bigger claims as implausible, seeing the Houthis as a smokescreen for direct Iranian action against its arch enemy Riyadh.

After first firing drones and cruise missiles at Israel, the rebels are now targeting commercial vessels it deems linked to Israel. The Houthis have launched about 100 drone and ballistic missile attacks against 10 commercial vessels, the U.S. Department of Defense said on Tuesday.

As a result, some of the world’s largest shipping companies, including Italian-Swiss MSC, Danish giant Maersk and France’s CMA CGM, were forced to reroute to avoid being targeted. BP also paused shipping through the Red Sea.

2. Why is the Red Sea so important?

The Bab el-Mandeb (Gate of Lamentation) strait between Djibouti and Yemen where the Houthis have been attacking vessels marks the southern entrance to the Red Sea, which connects to the Suez Canal and is a crucial link between Europe and Asia.

Estimate are that 12 to 15 percent passes of global trade takes this route, representing 30 percent of global container traffic. Some 7 percent to 10 percent of the world’s oil and 8 percent of liquefied natural gas are also shipped through the same waterway.

Now that the strait is closed, “alternatives require additional cost, additional delay, and don’t sit with the integrated supply chain that already exists,” said Marco Forgione, director general with the Institute of Export and International Trade.

Diverting ships around Africa adds up to two weeks to journey times, creating additional cost and congestion at ports.

3. What is the West doing about it?

Over the weekend, the American destroyer USS Carney and U.K. destroyer HMS Diamond shot down over a dozen drones. Earlier this month, the French FREMM multi-mission frigate Languedoc also intercepted three drones, including with Aster 15 surface-to-air missiles.

Now, Washington is seeking to lead an international operation to ramp up efforts against the Iran-backed group, under the umbrella of the Combined Maritime Forces and its Task Force 153.

“It’s a reinsurance operation for commercial ships,” said Héloïse Fayet, a researcher at the French Institute for International Relations (IFRI), adding it’s still unclear whether the operation is about escorting commercial vessels or pooling air defense capabilities to fight against drones and ballistic missiles.

4. Who is taking part?

On Tuesday, the U.K. announced HMS Diamond would be deployed as part of the U.S.-led operation.

After a video meeting between Austin and Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, Italy also agreed to join and said it would deploy the Virginio Fasan frigate, a 144-meter military vessel equipped with Aster 30 and 15 long-range missiles. The ship was scheduled to begin patrolling the Red Sea as part of the European anti-piracy Atalanta operation by February but is now expected to transit the Suez Canal on December 24.

France didn’t explicitly say whether Paris was in or out, but French Armed Forces Minister Sébastien Lecornu told lawmakers on Tuesday that the U.S. initiative is “interesting” because it allows intelligence sharing.

“France already has a strong presence in the region,” he added, referring to the EU’s Atalanta and Agénor operations.

However, Spain — despite being listed as a participant by Washington — said it will only take part if NATO or the EU decide to do so, and not “unilaterally,” according to El País, citing the government.

5. Who isn’t?

Lecornu insisted regional powers such as Saudi Arabia should be included in the coalition and said he would address the issue with his Saudi counterpart, Prince Khalid bin Salman Al Saud, in a meeting in Paris on Tuesday evening.

According to Bradley Bowman, senior director of the Center on Military and Political Power at Washington’s Foundation for Defense of Democracies, a number of Middle Eastern allies appear reluctant to take part.

“Where’s Egypt? Where is Saudi Arabia? Where is the United Arab Emirates?” he asked, warning that via its Houthi allies Iran is seeking to divide the West and its regional allies and worsen tensions around the Israel-Hamas war.

China also has a base in Djibouti where it has warships, although it isn’t in the coalition.

6. What do the Red Sea attacks mean for global trade?

While a fully-fledged economic crisis is not on the horizon yet, what’s happening in the Red Sea could lead to price increases.

“The situation is concerning in every aspect — particularly in terms of energy, oil and gas,” said Fotios Katsoulas, lead tanker analyst at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

“Demand for [maritime] fuel is already expected to increase up to 5 percent,” he said, and “higher fuel prices, higher costs for shipping, higher insurance premiums” ultimately mean higher costs for consumers. “There are even vessels already in the Red Sea that are considering passing back through the Suez Canal to the Mediterranean, even if they’d have to pay half a million dollars to do so.”

John Stawpert, a senior manager at the International Chamber of Shipping, said that while “there will be an impact in terms of the price of commodities at your supermarket checkout” and there may be an impact on oil prices, “there is still shipping that is transiting the Red Sea.”

This is not “a total disruption” comparable to the days-long blockage of the canal in 2021 by the Ever Given container ship, he argued.

Forgione, however, said he was “concerned that we may end up with a de facto blockade of the Suez Canal, because the Houthi rebels have a very clear agenda.”

7. Why are drones so hard to fight?

The way the Houthis operate raises challenges for Western naval forces, as they’re fending off cheap drones with ultra-expensive equipment.

Aster 15 surface-to-air missiles — the ones fired by the French Languedoc frigate — are estimated to cost more than €1 million each while Iran-made Shahed-type drones, likely used by the Houthis, cost barely $20,000.

“When you kill a Shahed with an Aster, it’s really the Shahed that has killed the Aster,” France’s chief of defense staff, General Thierry Burkhard, said at a conference in Paris earlier this month.

However, if the Shahed hits a commercial vessel or a warship, the cost would be a lot higher.

“The advantage of forming a coalition is that we can share the threats that could befall boats,” IFRI’s Fayet said. “There’s an awareness now that [the Houthis] are a real threat, and that they’re able to maintain the effort over time.”

With reporting by Laura Kayali, Antonia Zimmermann, Gabriel Gavin, Tommaso Lecca, Joshua Posaner and Geoffrey Smith.

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‘Too high a price’: Ukraine’s war widows forge a path towards an uncertain future

Post By World Europe, Features, Ukraine, Ukraine war analysis, War, women

Tens of thousands of Ukrainian military personnel have died since Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. The families left behind face building a new life amid an ongoing war with no end in sight.

Anastasia, 40, found out her husband had died while watching the news. Oleksii Dzhunkivskyi was well known in Ukraine as a champion boxer turned children’s coach who ran his own gym in Irpin, a satellite city outside of Kyiv.

When Russia invaded, the family decided that Anastasia and their daughter would leave Irpin while Oleksii stayed behind as a volunteer working with the military to help civilians. “He delivered food, water, medicine, and helped with the evacuation. In total he managed to save about 50 people,” Anastasia says.

As Russian forces occupied the city, intent on using Irpin as a stepping stone to capture the nearby Ukrainian capital, the “conditions were terrible”, Anastasia says. “There was no [internet] connection at all, constant shelling, no lights, no water.”

On March 23, Oleksii said he planned to leave Irpin and reunite with his wife and daughter – right after he helped one final family to evacuate.

But a day later the news reported that Oleksii was dead. Eyewitnesses said he had been shot after Russian soldiers entered his boxing gym.

Tens of thousands dead

Neither Kyiv nor Moscow releases official figures on military losses – Ukrainian officials say disclosing the figures could harm its war effort.

The United Nations estimates that 10,000 civilians have been killed as a result of war in Ukraine since February 2022 and 18,500 wounded.

The military death toll is thought to be significantly higher. A Ukrainian group that collects data about the war, the Book of Memory project, said in November it had confirmed the deaths of nearly 25,000 Ukrainian soldiers but expected the real death toll was more than 30,000.

A New York Times report in August estimated that 70,000 members of the Ukrainian military had been killed while Russia is thought to have lost 120,000 soldiers so far.

On both sides, the death toll surged in winter and spring 2023 during the battle for Bakhmut, an eastern city given the grim moniker the “meat grinder” as hundreds of troops were killed or injured there every day for weeks on end.

Watch more‘It’s always scary’: Medics in Ukraine’s ‘meat grinder’ city of Bakhmut

“Oleksiy often told me on the phone about military life in the trenches and about the fighting. In Bakhmut, he said the war was most intense in the air – the positions were constantly shelled, and there were huge losses of life,” says Juliya Selutina, 40.

Her late husband was a lawyer and entrepreneur living in Kyiv who, when the Russian invasion began, immediately decided to fight for Ukraine.

By May 2022 Oleksiy had completed army training and was sent to the front line in Bakhmut while Juliya and their teenage daughter fled to safety overseas, living in a village in northern England.

A couple stand together looking into the distance with blue sky behind them. — Juliya Selutina with her late husband Oleksiy. © Juliya Selutina

Oleksiy sustained a life-threatening injury from an aerial attack on July 2022 and died three days after being admitted to hospital. Juliya rushed back to Ukraine as soon as she found out he was wounded – a nine-day visit that ended up including her husband’s funeral.

Finding support

Juliya only truly started confronting her grief when she returned to live in Ukraine in late 2022. “I felt a new wave of pain. It was then that I finally realised that Oleksiy was gone,” she says.

Her 14-year-old daughter returned with her to Ukraine despite the danger, insisting she wanted to live in the country that her father died for. The project Juliya was working on in the IT sector lost funding and she became unemployed, so they now live off a state military pension granted to her daughter.

Military widows in Ukraine are entitled to a one-off financial payment from the state and other financial payments, such as monthly sums from regional authorities, depending on the region in which they live.

No such funding is available for Anastasia, whose husband was not in the military when he died. When he was alive, Anastasia did not work. During the Russian occupation of Irpin, Anastasia and her daughter lost their house and all of their possessions. Now she volunteers distributing goods to those in need and relies on her husband’s friends for financial support.

Watch moreWar in Ukraine: Irpin residents return to ruins after Russian withdrawal

Anna Tymoshenko, 33, has also not received any financial support since her partner, Serhiy, died in August 2023, as she and Serhiy were not married.

Serhiy had served in Ukraine’s army for years, working his way up the ranks to become a decorated officer. From February 2022, he was based in east Ukraine fighting in Mykolaiv, Kherson and Donetsk.

Anna was four months pregnant with Serhiy’s child when she received a phone call informing her that he had died from wounds incurred in a mine blast.

Since then, she has been living in a state of shock. “The whole family keeps waiting for him to come back from the war, for his messages or calls. Although we know it’s impossible, you can’t tell your heart what to think,” she says.

Anna works in the Odesa district as a family doctor, and would have liked some social support from the state. Her child will be eligible for financial support after it is born.

“Social workers could help families of fallen soldiers with the necessary documents, provide psychological and legal assistance, and not leave them alone with such a great grief,” she says.

Instead, she says, those left behind are “learning to cope with their problems on their own”.

“[But] it’s hard to be alone and pregnant when you had your whole life ahead of you and so many plans for the future.”

‘Life has been divided’

There is a state-run help line offering psychological support for widows in Ukraine, but both Anastasia and Juliya have found their children gave them the biggest sense of purpose in their grief. “The realisation that I was the only one left for our daughter helped me to hold on,” Juliya says.

For Daria Pogodaieva, 32, one of the hardest parts of her new life is helping her 4-year-old son understand that his father is gone. “He remembers his father, and that he loves him and is missing him,” she says. “But he doesn’t know what death is. He doesn’t know what forever is. He doesn’t understand that he will never see his father again.”

Daria met her late husband Dymtro in Kyiv, and he worked as an engineer at her family’s pharmaceutical business. When the Russian invasion began, they never spoke about whether Dymtro would join the army. “But I knew he had this feeling that he had to do it,” she says. “He was that kind of person.”

By January 2023, Dymtro was working as a scout in a marine brigade. He was on the front lines when Ukraine launched its counter-offensive in summer 2023.

Two men pictured in military uniforms — Daria Pogodaieva’s late husband, Dymtro (left), and Anna Tymoshenko‘s late partner, Serhiy (right). © Daria Pogodaieva / Viktor Zalevskiy

With positive news of Ukrainian villages being liberated from Russian occupation came personal tragedy for Daria. Dymtro died on July 15 with two other troops in Makarivka, a recently liberated village, while helping to move large weaponry.

“His watch stopped at 13:45,” she says. “That was the moment when the bombs fell on them.”

Daria’s grief has made her question the war overall. “When Dymtro died, I couldn’t understand the purpose of his death. Was it worth giving his life for this? I still have some hope for victory but, at the moment, there is no clear perspective on when that could happen.”

For others, grief has made Ukrainian victory a necessity. “We have paid too high a price already,” says Anna. “We want to be a free people [so] we must defend ourselves to the last.”

“I have a great hope that we will see a quick victory because I really want to believe that these terrible losses have not been in vain,” adds Juliya.

For Daria, the only certainty is that war has changed her life – and the lives of so many others in Ukraine – irreversibly. After nearly two years of fighting, air raids, bombings, drone attacks and now grief have become daily realities.

“This is maybe the scariest thing to do to people,” she says. “You get used to this new life and there is not so much hope that things can be the same as they were. Life has been divided; before his death and after his death. And the life I had before is never coming back.”

Daria Pogodaieva translated accounts for this report.

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Ukraine needs a government of national unity

Post By Politics Aid and development, borders, Defense, democracy, Elections, foreign policy, Governance, history, Intelligence, Mark Milley, military, Munitions, National Politics, Petro Poroshenko, Russia, Security, Society and culture, Ukraine, Ukrainian politics, United States, Viktor Orbán, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, War, War In Ukraine

Adrian Karatnycky, a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council and the author of the forthcoming book, “Battleground Ukraine: From Independence to the War with Russia” (Yale University Press).

In recent weeks, discourse about the war with Russia has turned deeply pessimistic in Ukraine.

A difficult Ukrainian counter-offensive, with lesser results than anticipated, has fueled deeply dark discussions about a deadlocked and bloody long-term war with Russia. Meanwhile, analysts and politicians have started to snipe at Ukraine’s military and political leaders, blaming them for the war effort’s failure and even speculating about defeat.

Further feeding this atmosphere of pessimism is evidence of tension between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the country’s military command, as well as delays in military aid from the United States. And these pressures now need to be addressed.

Clearly, the period of euphoria propelled by major Ukrainian military victories and territorial advances is over. So, too, is the period of grandiose promises by Ukrainian officials.

Last winter, an official spokesman for the president had proclaimed he expected to spend the next summer in Crimea. No less extravagant a promise was echoed by the head of military intelligence, who predicted Crimea would be liberated within six months, bringing official promises of a major spring counter-offensive with significant territorial gains along with it.

Early battlefield success also contributed to near universal approval for Zelenskyy among Ukrainians. Despite slow Russian advances in the Donbas and scant Ukrainian victories later on, happy talk on the state-dominated TV “marathon” — joint programming produced by the bulk of the country’s main television networks — continued to promote frontline success, helping Zelenskyy maintain his popularity.

All this changed, however, when Ukraine’s 2023 counter-offensive stalled. The massive loss of fighters amid meagre gains and a slow-moving positional war eroded public trust in the president and his team for the first time since the war began.

A subsequent mid-November poll gave Zelenskyy a trust rating of only net 32 percent plus — meaning two-thirds of Ukrainians trusted the president, while a third now did not. This was a steep decline from polls earlier in the year, and far below the trust ratings of the armed forces and their commander, General Valery Zaluzhny.

A later poll conducted for the President’s Office and leaked to the Ukrainska Pravda news site showed Zelenskyy was neck and neck with Zaluzhny in a hypothetical race for president. Moreover, Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party — which currently holds over two-thirds of the seats in parliament — would see its presence shrink dramatically if elections were held today.

And as Zelenskyy’s support weakens, Ukraine now faces a number of challenges and difficult decisions. These include a deadlock on the front, a rapidly depleting supply of munitions, some erosion of support from Europe, and an impasse in the U.S. Congress over a bill to provide for the military needs of both Ukraine and Israel. His star power notwithstanding, Zelenskyy faces new difficulties in maintaining high levels of military and financial support for Ukraine both in North America and in Europe.

Additionally, the ranks of Ukraine’s armed forces — initially populated by experienced military professionals with combat experience and highly motivated volunteers — have suffered mass casualties during these brutal two years of war. Аs a result, military recruiters — now called “people snatchers” — are scouring cities and villages in search of males aged 18 to 60 for military service. Sometimes, these recruiters are not merely using coercive tactics against draft dodgers but detaining and pressuring those not called or exempt from service into signing on. And such tactics are contributing to justifiable public anger toward the authorities

In addition to such unpopular tactics, Zelenskyy will soon likely need to need to dramatically widen the national military mobilization and shift social spending toward military expenditures, if only to hedge against any decline in, or interruption of, financing from key allies. Both moves will be highly unpopular.

All this doesn’t mean Russia will prevail. Indeed, Ukraine has basically fought Russia to a standstill. Taking minor territorial losses in the Donbas, while gaining modest territory in the south and forcing Russia’s navy to the eastern reaches of the Black Sea, it has effectively restored freedom of navigation for commercial vessels in the sea’s west.

Zelenskyy has also been a courageous and successful wartime leader. But much of this was dependent on steadfast public support. Near-universal domestic approval gave him political carte blanche to shape policy and strategy. But while Ukrainians remain united in their aim of defending the country, unqualified support for Zelenskyy and his policies is declining. And the embattled democracy is subsequently witnessing a revival in national politics.

Zelenskyy’s team itself has contributed to this politicization. After Zaluzhny soberly spoke about the difficulties of Ukraine’s war effort, while providing a road map that could ensure victory, his public comments were shot down by officials from the President’s Office.

In early November, Zelenskyy’s foreign policy advisor Ihor Zhovkva went on national television to assert that Zaluzhny’s statement “eases the work of the aggressor” by stirring “panic,” adding there should be no public discussion of the situation at the front. Zelenskyy himself then chided the general in an interview, warning the military not to engage in politics.

Deputy Head of the Committee on National Security, Defense and Intelligence Maryana Bezuhla piled on, alleging Zaluzhny had ignored U.S. General Mark Milley’s recommendations to mine Ukraine’s border with Russian occupied Crimea back in 2021 — an act of negligence, she implied, that cost Ukraine large swaths of territory in the south. However, Zelenskyy is unlikely to seek Zaluzhny’s dismissal, as it would instantly launch the soldier on a political career.

And that’s not all. On the heels of this kerfuffle, Zelenskyy’s allies in parliament then blocked a visit to Poland and the U.S. by former Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko. The ostensible reason behind this was a report from Ukraine’s security service suggesting Poroshenko’s trip would be exploited by Russian propaganda. Of particular concern was a planned meeting between Poroshenko and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

The idea that a seasoned leader like Poroshenko, whose tenure as president earned Western praise for his diplomatic skills, could be manipulated is, on the face of it, preposterous. And it later turned out that Zelenskyy himself would be meeting Orbán and didn’t want to be preempted.

These clear fractures need to be dealt with now.

Furthermore, as importantly, as domestic support erodes, Zelenskyy’s term in office is due to formally expire in May 2024, while the parliament’s four-year term expired in October. New elections are well-nigh impossible with millions of voters outside the country, a million engaged at the front and millions more internally displaced or under Russian occupation. Elections amid bloody combat and constant missiles and drone attacks on urban centers are unlikely, and would require both legislative and constitutional changes.

This issue of expiring mandates would be moot were the ratings of Zelenskyy and his party unassailable, but polls show a creeping disenchantment with both.

In this context, the time is ripe for Ukraine’s president to consider establishing a broad-based government of national unity. Opening the government to opposition and civil society leaders in this way would instantly provide legitimacy to the leadership team, reduce opposition criticism and widen the circle of voices that have the president’s ear.

There are compelling precedents for such a step too. For example, as World War II began, Conservative Prime Minister Winston Churchill understood Britain faced an existential threat that required sustaining national unity and created a broad-based coalition government. Churchill installed his main rival — Labour leader Clement Attlee — as deputy prime minister, and added Labour’s Ernest Bevin, a former trade union leader, to the national unity cabinet.

Similarly, this practice was followed most recently by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who offered opposition party leaders a place in a unity government after Hamas’s brutal October 7 attacks. The proposal was accepted by centrist Benny Gantz.

Since the beginning of his presidency, Zelenskyy has relied on an exceedingly narrow circle of trusted advisors. But while he meets with his top military command, intelligence officials, visiting Western leaders and the media, he has largely shut himself off from civic leaders, political critics and rivals — including some with important foreign policy, national security and economic experience.

Their inclusion in leadership posts would offer Zelenskyy additional input on policy options, allow for discussions of alternative tactics and contribute to new approaches when it comes to external relations. With national unity showing signs of fraying, a government that includes the opposition would truly give it a boost.

The only questions are whether Zelenskyy is flexible enough to overcome his contempt for most opposition leaders, and change his style of governing from highly centralized decision-making to more broad-based consensus-building.

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