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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   637 thread views

Transnational Thursday for October 10, 2024

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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Stuff I've been tracking this week so far:

The US approved $110M worth of radar & other equipment to Romania

...as Romania's top court bans a pro-Russian candidate from running in the presidential election next month

Russian arms dealer is attempting to broker a deal with the Houthis

The Japanese Prime Minister suggested a Japanese base in Guam, to the dismay of the Guam population.

Over 3000 Sunni scholars praised Khamenei over Iran’s military action on Israel. This is relevant because it shows religious unity and consensus building, which is predictive of further actions in the same direction.

Israel expands offensive against Hezbollah in south Lebanon. As seems to be the pattern in recent conflicts, initial incursions and special operations later expand, such that there is no clear line for "full-blown conflict"

Israel also kills Hassan Nasrallah's successor

Kazakhstan to build nuclear power plant

Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa

More than 130 projectiles fired into Israel on anniversary of Oct 7 attack

A dispute in Nigeria seems small scale now but in the worst case scenario could snowball into a civil war. Details are unclear but the dispute seems between the central government of Nigeria, controlled by one party, and the governorate of an oil rich region, controlled by another.

Mpox spreads in a DRC megacity, Kinshasa (formerly Leopoldville, with 17M inhabitants, largest city in Africa)

An interview with John Sullivan, former US ambassador to Russia, has this snippet on Putin's possible use of nuclear weapons:

I’m not a nuclear weapons expert, but I did spend a lot of time in Russia, observing Putin and his government and how they approach this war. And I also spoke to military experts in the US while I was Ambassador. The use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine isn’t in the interests of Russia. A tactical nuclear weapon destroys things. Putin would be destroying territory that he says is part of Russia.

The only time I thought he might use an unconventional weapon was in the spring of 2020 when you'll recall, the Russian military surrounded Mariupol, an important port. And there was a large Ukrainian military contingent in a large steel factory. They were dug in. The Russians had expended a huge amount of resources [and] personnel to try to crush the Ukrainian resistance. I thought Putin might use chemical weapons the way Assad used chemical weapons in Syria to kill those who were resisting so that he wouldn't have to spend the lives of as many Russians as it would take to ultimately dig out those Ukrainian resisters. Huge Russian casualties [and] even then, he didn’t use a nuclear weapon.

The way I think of it, Putin has to be threatened personally. And there was a moment last year with [former Wagner mercenary chief, Yevgeny] Prigozhin. Instead of it being Wagner, Russians who were committing what they characterised as a mutiny against the Minister of Defence […] imagine that’s the Ukrainian armed forces and they’re marching north toward Moscow, the capital of the Russian world. If Ukrainians were threatening that, that’s where I would not rule out the possibility that Putin would use or threaten in a much more overt, destabilising way – through a nuclear test, for example – nuclear weapons. But it would have to be a threat to his regime in the Kremlin, not battlefield losses in Ukraine or even public support starting to diminish in Russia.

A BBC documentary claims that on 8 June 1967, during the Six-Day War, America considered launching a nuclear attack against Egypt

Saudi Arabia under MBS is carrying out around 200 executions a year

The mayor of a city in southwest Mexico was beheaded

Dominican Republic starts mass deportations of Haitians and expels nearly 11,000 in a week

Rwanda introduces partial travel ban to fight Marburg spread

Doctors without borders warns that Israeli mass evacuation orders are creating catastrophic conditions

Mongolian police seize around 290 dead marmots, in effort to stop spread of bubonic plague. Although hunting marmots is illegal in Mongolia, many locals regard the rodent as a delicacy and frequently disregard the law.

China seems to have hacked the mechanism that US telecoms use to assent to US court-authorized wiretaps.

Given the novelty, proliferation and overall significance of combat drones in the Ukrainian war and other recent conflicts, I wonder if it's only a matter of time until some combatant somewhere deploys nuclear warheads for EMP effect as a countermeasure.

I doubt that'll work since it's essentially same as EMPing your own positions given that drones are offensive, not defensive forces. If you had enough space between for your own units and positions being affected over a very large area, you wouldn't be having a drone problem in the first place.

I love these news roundups: a lot of these things weren't on my radar, and I appreciate you bringing them to my attention.

A dispute in Nigeria seems small scale now but in the worst case scenario could snowball into a civil war. Details are unclear but the dispute seems between the central government of Nigeria, controlled by one party, and the governorate of an oil rich region, controlled by another.

I wonder if there are common triggers for civil wars vs just political disputes? My impression is that these things are happening all the time in Africa, but also that civil wars are happening all the time in Africa, so I guess that makes sense.

Thanks! I'm basically doing this professionally now, and the infra behind that list is kind of insane.

I haven't given much thought about whether this one will turn into a civil war or remain as a political dispute; at this point I'm just flagging it to keep an eye on it.

Thanks! I'm basically doing this professionally now, and the infra behind that list is kind of insane.

What's your job description? Please do tell us more.

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