“The delay by the US Congress in approving a vital aid bill means Ukraine is now struggling to fight back Russian advances, a former US military official said.
In an interview with CNN, retired US Air Force Col. and military analyst Cedric Leighton discussed Ukraine’s increasingly desperate attempts to hold back Russian advances near Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second biggest city.
He said that the delay in passing the $61 billion US aid bill, which was approved in April after being blocked for months by Republicans, had placed Ukraine at a disadvantage.
“The delay in aid was, frankly an inexcusable pause in the ability of the Ukrainians to fend off Russian advances. And right now what it means is that the Ukrainians are on the backfoot,” said Leighton.”
“Israeli Foreign Affairs Minister Israel Katz said it was up to Egypt to open the Rafah crossing, going as far as saying he addressed that need with some of his European counterparts. “The key to preventing a humanitarian crisis in Gaza is now in the hands of our Egyptian friends,” Katz said in comments released by his office.
That did not sit well with Egyptian foreign ministry officials, who issued a statement decrying “the desperate attempts of the Israeli side to hold Egypt responsible for the unprecedented humanitarian crisis facing the Gaza Strip,” and adding, “The foreign minister called on Israel to fulfil its legal responsibility as the occupying power, by allowing aid to enter through the land ports under its control.”
Though it worries about a large influx of Palestinians fleeing the violence, Egypt has maintained its side of the crossing has been open since the war started.”
“Jordan has foiled a suspected Iranian-led plot to smuggle weapons into the U.S.-allied kingdom to help opponents of the ruling monarchy carry out acts of sabotage, according to two Jordanian sources with knowledge of the matter.
The weapons were sent by Iranian-backed militias in Syria to a cell of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan that has links to the military wing of Palestinian group Hamas, the people told Reuters. The cache was seized when members of the cell, Jordanians of Palestinian descent, were arrested in late March, they said.”
“our current political moment is arguably farther away from having anything resembling a uniparty than at any other time in modern U.S. history. Based on their voting records, Democratic and Republican members of Congress have become increasingly polarized, and both the more moderate and more conservative wings of the congressional GOP have moved to the right at similar rates. Meanwhile, polling suggests that Americans now are more likely to view the parties as distinct from one another than in the past, an indication that the public broadly doesn’t see a uniparty in Washington. Although there are areas where the parties are less divided, the broader uniparty claim is at odds with our highly polarized and divided political era.”
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Beijing’s publicly released military budget is inaccurate and does not adequately capture the colossal scope and scale of China’s ongoing military buildup and wide-ranging armed forces modernization.
After accounting for economic adjustments and estimating reasonable but uncounted expenditures, the buying power of China’s 2022 military budget balloons to an estimated $711 billion—triple Beijing’s claimed topline and nearly equal with the United States’ military budget that same year.
Equal defense spending between the United States and China plays to Beijing’s benefit. As a global power, the United States must balance competing priorities in the Indo-Pacific and elsewhere, which spreads Washington’s budget thinly across multiple theaters. Meanwhile, each yuan China invests in its military directly builds its regional combat power in Asia.
America’s spy community has confirmed that Beijing’s defense spending is on par with Washington’s, but questions remain. The intelligence community’s estimate of China’s $700 billion in annual military expenditures needs more transparency to better convey Beijing’s military budget breakdown and inform policy debates regarding US defense spending investments, gaps, and imbalances.”
“A new study out of Finland reaffirms this general rule in a very specific way. The Finnish government randomly awarded work subsidies to men and women. The finding is a bit awkward in these days of gender equity: If you subsidize work for men, birthrates go up. If you subsidize work for women, birthrates go down.”
“Southern Yemen’s stability is a more recent phenomenon than Somaliland’s, but it is just as real. While the Saudis struggled unsuccessfully to push back the Houthis, Emirati forces working in tandem with local forces drove out Al Qaeda elements who had occupied Aden, Mukalla and other towns and ports. Multiple flights depart Aden each day for Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or Djibouti; the Sana’a airport handles at most a single flight daily. Hotels in Aden thrive. Security has returned. Aden is safer today than Karachi, Peshawar, and many Latin American and African capitals. An American is more likely to be taken hostage in Beijing or Moscow than Aden.
That the United States has not at least temporarily relocated its Yemen embassy in Aden is itself an acknowledgment that Yemeni unity is a fiction. American diplomats know that northern Yemenis consider southern Yemen a foreign land and vice versa. Southern Yemen has more in common with Somaliland, with whom many southern Yemeni families share blood, than with the Houthi-dominated areas.
Just as with Somalia and Somaliland, however, neither the White House nor State Department have the foresight to acknowledge the benefits of Yemeni disunity. Even short of recognizing southern Yemeni self-determination, maintaining a diplomatic office in Aden would bring huge diplomatic and security rewards at little cost. Southern Yemen may be secure now, but it was not long ago that Al Qaeda filled the vacuum. A U.S. presence tips the balance further by providing Yemenis hope and encouraging both Western and Arab investment. Intelligence also matters. Just as U.S. Embassy in Somalia reporting is risible given its blindness to dynamics in Somaliland where the State Department has no presence, the lack of a diplomatic office in Aden denies diplomats and intelligence analysts insight into local dynamics, including that across the de facto border in northern Yemen.
Revisionist powers are on the offensive, while the American presence erodes. In Yemen, this takes the form of Iranian support for the Houthis, while China operates its first overseas naval base just a couple dozen miles away in Djibouti. Rather than rectify the problem, the State Department appears aloof to it. If the State Department cares about the Yemeni people and consolidating stability in a region where it is elusive, there can be no further delay to an official diplomatic office or consulate in Aden.”
“A Russian victory is an Iranian victory. Moscow and Tehran have formed a military bloc with the aim of defeating the United States and its allies in the Middle East, Europe, and around the world. Russian and Iranian military forces have been fighting alongside one another in Syria for nearly a decade. The Russians have given Iran advanced air defenses and access to other military technologies and techniques, in addition to a front-row seat observing their efforts to defeat American and NATO missile defenses in Ukraine.[1] The Iranians in turn have given the Russians drones and access to drone technologies, including assisting with the construction of a massive factory to turn out thousands of Iranian drones in Russia.[2] Furthermore, Russian support to Iran has been limited in part because of the setbacks Russia has suffered in Ukraine. A victorious Russia will be free to give Iran the advanced aircraft and missile technologies Tehran has long sought.[3] If Russia gains control of Ukraine’s resources, as it seeks to do, it will be able to rebuild its own military and help Iran at the same time. Those concerned with the growth of Iran’s military power, ambitions, and aggression in the Middle East must recognize the degree to which Iran’s fortunes rise and fall with Russia’s.
The Russo-Iranian military coalition was formed in 2015 when Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) Quds Force Commander Major General Qassem Soleimani went to Moscow to seek help in keeping Bashar al Assad in power in Syria.[4] The Russians sent their own combat aircraft, intelligence and electronic warfare assets, and SPETSNAZ (special forces), along with a limited contingent of ground forces to help Soleimani.[5] Russian forces provided air support to Iranian troops and proxies, including Lebanese Hezbollah and Iranian-controlled Iraqi militias, fighting against the anti-Assad opposition—especially the part of that opposition that the United States supported.[6] Russian forces remain in Syria to this day, operating in support of the expanding Iranian presence there.[7]
The Iranians learned a great deal from the combined military operations they conducted with the Russians in Syria, including how to plan and conduct complex ground campaigns and how to incorporate fixed-wing air support with ground troops.[8] The Russians benefited in turn by establishing a major airbase near Latakia and a naval base at Tartus, both effectively defended by the ground forces of Assad, Iran, and Iranian proxies.[9] Russian air and naval forces remain in both locations.”
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“Russo-Iranian military cooperation has expanded dramatically since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The Iranians began sending hundreds of reconnaissance and long-range attack drones to Russia in August 2022 as the Russians exhausted their supply of missiles.[14] Those drones let Russia maintain and increase its pressure on Ukrainian air defenses even as it worked to expand production and modification of its own missile systems. The Iranians even helped Russia build a massive factory in the Republic of Tatarstan able to produce thousands of such drones.[15] Iran will use that system to defend against any US or Israeli operation should conflict escalate in the Middle East. The Russians have given Syria short-range air defense systems such as the Pantsir, which Syrian forces reportedly used in vain attempts to shoot down Israeli aircraft.[16]”
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“Constraints on Russia’s ability to supply Iran with advanced weaponry will also begin lifting if Russia defeats Ukraine.”
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“The primary constraint on Russian support to Iran, therefore, is Russia’s weakness. A Russia battered by failure in Ukraine, licking its wounds, and facing a strong and independent Ukrainian state will have limited resources and energy to devote to helping Iran. A Russia triumphant over the United States and NATO in Ukraine and with the resources of Ukraine at its disposal, on the other hand, will have ample capacity to repay its friends and support them in their efforts to achieve an aim Russia shares — defeating the United States and expelling it from the Middle East.
The notion that the United States should allow Russia to win in Ukraine in order to resist Iran in the Middle East is thus indefensible. Americans must internalize the unpleasant reality that the Russo-Iranian military bloc is a real and vibrant thing, that Moscow will support Tehran against us and our allies as best it can, and that Russia’s victory is Iran’s victory. Russia’s loss, contrariwise, is Iran’s loss. Those wishing to contain Iran therefore must also support helping Ukraine against Russia.”