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India-Pakistan
Pakistan developing missiles that eventually could hit US, says White House official
2024-12-20
[GEO.TV] A senior White House official on Thursday said nuclear-armed Pakistain is developing long-range ballistic missile capabilities that eventually could allow it to strike targets outside of South Asia, including the United States.
Could, yes. Probably? I’d vote probably no. They’d use them on India long before turning their attention to faraway America, and India would trounce them as they’ve done every time before.
"Candidly, it's hard for us to see Pakistain's actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States," Finer said in a speech to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

The latest statement comes only a day after the US State Department said it was imposing additional sanctions related to Pakistain's ballistic missile programme, targeting four entities that it said were contributing to the proliferation or delivery of such weapons.
A good idea as a matter of principle — Pakistan can be trusted to be untrustworthy, just like the Palestinians can be trusted to miss an opportunity.. If only the State Department had taken the same approach to Iran…
The statement, issued on the State Department's website, said that the decision was taken "in light of the continuing proliferation threat of Pakistain’s long-range missile development".

It added that the four entities were being designated for sanctions pursuant to Executive Order (EO) 13382, which targeted proliferators of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery.  

"Pakistain’s National Development Complex — which is responsible for Pakistain’s ballistic missile program and has worked to acquire items to advance Pakistain’s long range ballistic missile program — and Affiliates International, Akhtar and Sons Private Limited, and Rockside Enterprise — which have worked to supply equipment and missile‐applicable items to Pakistain’s ballistic missile program, including its long range missile program — are being designated pursuant to E.O. 13382 Section 1(a)(ii) for having engaged, or attempted to engage, in activities or transactions that have materially contributed to, or pose a risk of materially contributing to, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction or their means of delivery (including missiles capable of delivering such weapons), including any efforts to manufacture, acquire, possess, develop, transport, transfer, or use such items, by Pakistain," read the statement.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
After taking out Sinwar, Israel aims to lock in strategic gains before US election
2024-10-19
Just in case.
[IsraelTimes] Biden expected to use Hamas chief’s killing to pressure Netanyahu to end Gaza war, though latter may choose to wait him out as Israeli leaders seek to reshape regional order

The killing of Hamas
..the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
 chief Yahya Sinwar, criminal mastermind of the terror onslaught through southern Israel that ignited the war in the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with a rusty iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
 Strip, marked a major triumph for Israel. But Israeli leaders are also seeking to lock in strategic gains that go beyond military victories — to reshape the regional landscape in Israel’s favor and shield its borders from any future attacks, sources familiar with their thinking say.

Before thousands of Hamas-led murderous Moslems stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and abducting 251, Israel had been "willing to tolerate a high-level threat," responding to rocket fire from the Paleostinian terror group and other foes with limited strikes, Schenker said. "No longer."
With United States presidential elections approaching, Israel is rushing to inflict maximum damage on Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Leb
...an Iranian satrapy until recently ruled by Hassan Nasrallah situated on the eastern Mediterranean, conveniently adjacent to Israel. Formerly inhabited by hardy Phoenecian traders, its official language is now Arabic, with the usual unpleasant side effects. The Leb civil war, between 1975 and 1990, lasted a little over 145 years and produced 120,000 fatalities. The average length of a ceasefire was measured in seconds. The Lebs maintain a precarious sectarian balance among Shiites, Sunnis, and about a dozen flavors of Christians, plus Armenians, Georgians, and who knows what else? It is the home of the original Hezbollah, which periodically starts a war with the Zionist Entity, gets Beirut pounded to rubble, and then declares victory and has a parade. The Lebs have the curious habit of periodically murdering their heads of state or prime ministers...
, and seizing the moment to carve out de facto buffer zones in a bid to create an irreversible reality before a new US president takes office in January, eight sources told Rooters.

By intensifying its military operations against Hezbollah and Hamas, Israel wants to ensure that its enemies and their chief patron, Iran, don’t regroup and threaten Israeli citizens again, according to Western diplomats, Lebanese and Israeli officials, and other regional sources.

US President Joe The Big Guy Biden
...46th president of the U.S. Too old and senile to be prosecuted, not too old and senile to set national policy...
 is expected to use Sinwar’s killing to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to wind down the war in Gaza. But Netanyahu may prefer to wait out the end of Biden’s term and take his chances with whoever wins the election — the Democratic candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris
What can be, unburdened by what has been
, or Republican rival Donald Trump
...The tack in the backside of the Democratic Party...
, with whom Netanyahu has had close ties.

Before considering any ceasefire agreements, Israel is accelerating its military campaign to push Hezbollah away from its northern border while thrusting into northern Gaza’s densely packed Jabaliya refugee camp in what Paleostinians and United Nations
...an idea whose time has gone...
 agencies fear could be an attempt to seal off northern Gaza from the rest of the enclave.
The smart thing, of course, would be for Hamas to sue for peace before Israel accomplishes separation, so that Hamas might get something instead of nothing. It’s a sure bet, though, that Hamas will choose to miss this opportunity, depending on an undefined deus ex machina to reset all 10/6/2023. To be fair, President Biden is trying his best.
Israel is also planning a response to a ballistic-missile barrage carried out by Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
on October 1, its second-ever direct attack on Israel.
Iran prefers to play puppet master rather than risk its fingers directly.
"There is a new landscape, a new geopolitical change in the region," said David Schenker, a former US assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs who is now a senior fellow at the Washington Institute think tank.

Before thousands of Hamas-led murderous Moslems stormed southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and abducting 251, Israel had been "willing to tolerate a high-level threat," responding to rocket fire from the Paleostinian terror group and other foes with limited strikes, Schenker said. "No longer."

"This time Israel is fighting on many fronts. It’s Hamas; it’s Hezbollah, and Iran is coming soon," he said.

Formally announcing that IDF troops had killed Sinwar in Gaza’s Rafah, Netanyahu said in a statement on Thursday that the terror chief’s death "settled the score," but he warned that the Gaza war would continue with full force until Israel’s hostages were returned.

His office said it had nothing to add.
*Mic drop*
Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, the IDF front man, said Sinwar’s elimination marked a "great achievement" in efforts to destroy Hamas’ military apparatus, but added there were other commanders in Gaza.

On Friday, top Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya confirmed Sinwar’s death and said the hostages would not be returned until Israel ended its "aggression" and withdrew its forces.

Israeli forces have inflicted other big blows on its enemies: a series of high-profile strikes have wiped out Hamas’s military chief Mohammed Deif, Hezbollah’s longtime leader His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...>
, and Nasrallah’s military deputy Fuad Shukr. An explosion in Tehran in July also killed Hamas’s then-leader Ismail Haniyeh
...became Prime Minister of Gaza after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas festivities, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues as the PM of Gazoo while Abbas maintains a separate PM in the West Bank...
. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its role in the blast.

In addition, Israel says its has eliminated thousands of the groups’ fighters, captured deep tunnel networks and severely depleted their weapons arsenals.

In September, thousands of booby-trapped communications devices used by Hezbollah members were detonated — an attack for which Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

But Israel’s ambitions are broader than short-term military victories, however significant, the sources who spoke to Rooters said.

BROADER AMBITION
On September 23, Israel launched ground operations in Lebanon with the stated goal of driving Hezbollah back around 30 kilometers (20 miles) from its northern border, to behind the Litani River, and ensuring the Shi’ite terror group is fully disarmed after 30 years of military support from Iran. Israel says Hezbollah’s withdrawal is required by a UN resolution intended to keep peace in the area and protect residents from the terror group’s cross-border attacks.

Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted after Israel’s last war with Hezbollah in 2006, empowered international peacekeeping force UNIFIL to help Lebanon’s army keep the area south of the river free of weapons and armed personnel, other than those of the Lebanese state. Israel complains the two forces never gained control of the area from Hezbollah, long regarded as Lebanon’s most potent military force and a key player in its government.

Hezbollah has resisted disarming,
…that’s one way to described massively up-arming until almost every house in every village has its own rocket launcher and/or weapons stash hidden under the roof or in the spare bedroom, not to mention hidden access to Hezbollah’s tunnel network…
claiming the need to defend Lebanon from Israel. Since last year, it has used the border strip as a base for near-daily attacks on Israeli towns and military posts along the border. The terror group has said its attacks, which began a day after the Hamas onslaught, are in solidarity with Gaza
…solidarity is pronounced pincer movement…
amid the war there. Israeli officials say the only way to enforce resolution 1701, and ensure the safe return of some 60,000 residents evacuated from northern Israel, is through military action.

"At the moment, diplomacy is not enough," an Israeli diplomatic source told Rooters.
Given that the 2006 war was to enforce the provisions of the first Lebanon War — that Hezbollah be disarmed south of the Litani River, it certainly appears that diplomacy was never enough.
Lebanese authorities say the offensive against Hezbollah has displaced more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon, mostly members of the Shi’ite community from which Hezbollah draws support.
Don’t start a serious war against Israel, and you’ll get to keep your nice things.
Israel has also faced international criticism over incidents in which its forces fired at UN peacekeepers’ posts, injuring several of them. A Lebanese security official and a diplomat familiar with the situation in southern Lebanon said it appeared that Israel wanted to drive UNIFIL from the area along with Hezbollah.
UNIFIL’s job is to guard the region south of the Litani so that Israel feels no need to return. UNIFIL failed completely.
The security official said Israeli forces were fighting for access to strategic overlook points, which are where UNIFIL bases are located.

"Their goal is to clean up this buffer zone," the diplomat said.

This could take a few weeks, if Israel aims to clear Hezbollah positions and infrastructure from a narrow band of Lebanese territory along the border, they said, but anything deeper would take much longer at the current pace.
President Biden objects to Israel bombing Hezbollah sites in Beirut. He’s not complaining about Israel plowing up the empty countryside….
On Monday, Netanyahu rejected accusations that Israel was deliberately targeting UNIFIL’s peacekeepers, but said the best way to assure their safety was to heed requests to temporarily withdraw from combat zones. The IDF says Hezbollah has been operating from sites within and adjacent to UNIFIL posts for years. The UN has said its peacekeepers will not leave their positions in southern Lebanon.

"We have to stand against ... every suggestion that if Resolution 1701 was not implemented it’s because UNIFIL did not implement, which was never its mandate," UN peacekeeping chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix told news hounds on Monday, stressing UNIFIL has a supporting role.
Supporting who to do what? Because right now it looks like they’re acting as human shields for Hezbollah, which ought not to have been the original plan.
UN, US and other diplomatic envoys agree that reviving the resolution could provide the basis for a cessation of hostilities, but better implementation and enforcement mechanisms are needed. Danny Danon, Israel’s ambassador to the UN, told Rooters on Monday that he wanted to see "a more robust mandate for UNIFIL to deter Hezbollah."
What will happen to the various 7NIFIL national units should they choose not to deter and enforce?
Any changes to the mandate would have to be authorized by the UN’s 15-member Security Council, and diplomats said there were no such discussions at the moment.
At minimum Russia and China won’t agree to change.
Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has said his government is prepared to deploy troops to enforce Resolution 1701 as soon as a truce takes hold.
What percent of the Lebanese army is actually on the Hezbollah payroll?
The US and La Belle France have said that strengthening Lebanon’s army would be crucial to this endeavor.

Buy-in from Iran will also be needed, said the diplomat familiar with the situation in southern Lebanon. But they said Israel did not appear ready to start negotiating any truces.

"They want to push their advantage, to be in an even stronger position to negotiate," the diplomat said.

PURGING BORDERS
Israel informed several Arab states last year that it also wanted to carve out a buffer zone on the Paleostinian side of Gaza’s border. But it remains unclear how deep Israel would like it to be or how it would be enforced after the war ends.

Israel’s ongoing offensive in Jabaliya, an area that endured heavy bombardments early in the war, has raised concerns among Paleostinians and UN agencies that Israel wants to clear residents from northern Gaza. The Israeli military denies this and says it is trying to stop Hamas fighters from regrouping for more attacks.

In May, the IDF moved into the so-called Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip running along Gaza’s southern frontier with Egypt, giving Israel effective control over all of the Paleostinian territory’s land borders. Israel has said it will not agree to a permanent ceasefire without guarantees that whoever runs postwar Gaza will be able to prevent the corridor from being used to smuggle weapons and supplies to Hamas.

Iran is also in Israel’s crosshairs following the recent missile attack, launched amid Israel’s escalation in Lebanon. The Middle East has been on edge about Israel’s response, worried that it could disrupt oil markets and ignite a full-scale war between the arch-enemies.
Enjoy sleeping poorly. I recommend a go bag by the bed and sleeping fully dressed with your shoes on until the bad thing happens.
Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said last week the response would be "lethal, precise, and, above all, unexpected," although he has also said Israel was not looking to open new fronts. Iran has warned repeatedly that it will not hesitate to take military action again if Israel retaliates.

The US, Israel’s chief weapons supplier, has supported campaigns against Iran-backed targets like Hezbollah and Hamas, which it has designated foreign terrorist organizations. But tensions have grown as US officials have tried to persuade Israel to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza, curb Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s on residential areas and negotiate ceasefires. Biden’s attempts to engage with Iran through indirect talks about restoring a 2015 nuclear deal, and his opposition to any strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, have also been points of tension. Israel views Iran’s nuclear program as an existential threat.

Some diplomats suspect Netanyahu is also considering how a ceasefire might affect the election. Any breakthrough could help Harris, when Netanyahu would prefer to deal with Trump, whose hardline views on Israel, Paleostinians and Iran align more closely with his own, they say.

"There is no reason for Netanyahu to stop his wars before the American elections," said Marwan al-Muasher, Jordan’s former foreign minister, now vice president for studies at the US-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "He’s not going to give Harris any credit or gift before the polls."

For now, Netanyahu appears determined to redraw the map around Israel in his favor by purging its enemies from its borders.

"He put his win in his pocket and is pursuing his wars and imposing a new [regional] status quo," said the Lebanese political official.
Related:
Security Council Resolution 1701: 2024-10-14 25 Hezbollah launches at Israel from near UNIFIL positions in past month
Security Council Resolution 1701: 2024-10-11 Senior Hezbollah figure appears to escape as Israeli strikes rock central Beirut
Security Council Resolution 1701: 2024-09-30 Reports: Israel Sends Small Commando Missions into Lebanon
Link


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Lebanon says only US can stop fighting
2024-09-25
[GEO.TV] Lebanon's Foreign Minister Abdallah Bou Habib criticised Biden's address as "not strong, not promising" and said the US was the only country "that can really make a difference in the Middle East and with regard to Lebanon." Washington is Israel's longtime ally and biggest arms supplier.

The United States "is the key ... to our salvation," he told an event in New York City hosted by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Here's a suggestion: Surrender now, disband Hezbollah, execute all members above the rank of cannon fodder, expel all Paleostinians, expel all Persian colonists.
Do all that, and then we’ll talk about stopping the fighting.
Link


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Russian Ministry of Justice has declared the Carnegie Foundation and The Moscow Times undesirable in Russia
2024-07-19
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
[Regnum] The Carnegie Foundation (recognized as a foreign agent in the Russian Federation) will be added to the register of undesirable organizations, the Ministry of Justice reported on July 18.

“Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (USA),” follows from the Justice Department’s registry, published on its website.

The Moscow Times is also included in the list of non-governmental organizations whose activities are considered undesirable in Russia.

As reported by the Regnum news agency, on July 12, the Russian Ministry of Justice added the VChK-OGPU Telegram channel and the Russian Crime project to the register of foreign agents. It is noted that these resources disseminate false information about decisions made by Russian authorities and the policies they pursue.

On July 10, the Russian Prosecutor General's Office declared the activities of the online publication The Moscow Times, whose founder is a citizen of the Netherlands, to be undesirable. He also heads the organizations Stichting Potamos, Stichting 2 Oktober (included in the register of foreign agents) and TVR Studios BV (activities recognized as undesirable on the territory of Russia).
Related:
Carnegie Foundation: 2013-09-30 ElBaradei warns against 'fascist' media campaign in Egypt
Carnegie Foundation: 2013-08-22 Egypt ex-VP ElBaradei's party 'shocked' over lawsuit
Carnegie Foundation: 2013-08-17 Spokesman for Egypt's NSF quits group over support for 'police massacres'
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
US envoy: IDF killed Palestinian cops escorting Gaza aid convoy, leading them to refuse missions
2024-02-17
Even as the international crowd complains that supplies are not getting to the Gazans, Israel has approved 500 truckloads awaiting transshipment. Here is the latest excuse for why the trucks are not rolling:
[IsraelTimes] The top US diplomat involved in humanitarian assistance for Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
 says Israeli forces earlier this month killed Paleostinian police protecting a UN aid convoy in the enclave’s embattled southern city of Rafah.
Rafah being in Gaza, that means the police are either employed by Hamas or members of Hamas. Got it.
As a result, Paleostinian police have refused to protect convoys, hampering aid deliveries inside Gaza because of threats from criminal gangs, says David Satterfield, Washington’s special regional envoy for humanitarian issues.
The criminal gangs are also Hamas, making the whole thing ironic or symbolic of the human condition to a certain kind of mind
"With the departure of police escorts, it has been virtually impossible for the UN or anyone else, Jordan, the UAE, or any other implementer to safely move assistance in Gaza because of criminal elements," Satterfield tells an event hosted by the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
No matter whether they’re wearing Hamas police uniforms or Hamas gunny uniforms, the supplies will still end up under Hamas control, with the first cut going to Hamas and only what little is left over distributed among the suffering unconnected peons
Satterfield says the police escorts include Hamas
...the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
 members but also officers with no direct affiliation to the terror group.
So disingenuous. If they’re on the Hamas payroll, they’re under Hamas orders.
Israel’s military did not immediately provide comment on his remarks.
They were busy detailing a private to sweep up Envoy Satterfield’s fallen lips.
Satterfield is asked if there was any truth to a report that Israeli troops killed "Hamas operatives" protecting a UN aid convoy in Rafah earlier this month.

"The IDF (Israeli Defense Force) 10 days, two weeks ago, did indeed strike at seven, eight, or nine police officials, including a commander whose units had been involved in providing escorts," he replies.
Hamas operatives, in short.
Such escorts were needed because of attacks on aid convoys first by "desperate" Paleostinians and "then by criminal elements," Satterfield says.

The police "certainly include Hamas elements. They also include individuals who don’t have a direct affiliation with Hamas who are there as part of the Paleostinian Authority’s remnant presence and security," he says, referring to the Western-backed body that exercises limited governance in the occupied West Bank.

On Feb. 10, Hamas and Gaza medics said that two Israeli Arclight airstrike
...KABOOM!...
s had killed five members of Rafah’s Hamas-run police force, including a senior officer. The same day, Israel’s military said it had struck and killed three Hamas button men in Rafah, including two senior operatives in the area.

It is not clear if Satterfield was referring to the Feb. 10 incident. Hamas has not said if it has stopped police escorts of aid convoys.
If they have not said so, they haven’t stopped.
Satterfield says the US is working with the Israeli government and military to determine "what solutions can be found because everyone wants the assistance to continue."

They aren’t refusing all missions:
Palestinian teen trying to grab humanitarian aid said shot dead by Hamas police

[IsraelTimes] A Palestinian teen named Muhammad al-Araja who tried to grab from a humanitarian aid shipment at the Rafah Crossing was shot dead earlier today, apparently by Hamas police, according to unconfirmed Arabic media reports.

After the shooting, many members of the victim’s large extended family began rioting at the crossing, setting fire to parts of the complex and clashing with authorities there.
Related:
David Satterfield: 2023-10-17 White House names ex-ambassador to Lebanon, Turkey as US special envoy to Middle East 'humanitarian issues'
David Satterfield: 2022-01-21 US says aid to Sudan won’t resume after recent violence
David Satterfield: 2021-02-16 'PKK terrorists' responsible for deaths of Turkish hostages: US
Link


China-Japan-Koreas
That's one way to avoid being shot by a firing squad! Kim Jong Un's sycophantic flunkeys applaud as he tries on their headwear at launch of nuclear attack submarine
2023-09-09
A Soviet retrieval?
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] A laughing Kim Jong Un stole a Navy Admiral's hat to manic applause as he heralded the launch of North Korea's first nuclear attack submarine.

In scenes uncomfortably reminiscent of a children's birthday party, the dictator removed his own hat and giggled as he plonked Admiral Kim Myong Sik's one on instead. The move prompted his other naval chiefs to break out in a round of enthusiastic clapping, beaming like excitable infants as they lauded the tyrant.

The clip perfectly encapsulates the cult of personality surrounding Kim and cut a sharp juxtaposition with the seriousness of the event at which it unfolded.

Kim described the launch of the new submarine as a crucial step in his efforts to build a nuclear-armed navy to counter the United States and its Asian allies.

The North's official Korean Central News Agency said the vessel - named 'Hero Kim Kun Ok' - is designed to launch tactical nuclear weapons from underwater but did not specify the number of missiles it could carry and fire.

South Korean officials were sceptical that the submarine would work as North Korea described and said it likely wasn't ready for operational duty.

But its launch underscored the North's commitment to extending the range of its nuclear arsenal with systems that are harder to detect in advance.

Based on Kim Jong Un's comments and photos by North Korean state media, it's likely the submarine is the same one Kim inspected in 2019 while it was under construction, which experts then assessed as an effort to convert an existing Romeo-class submarine. The submarine appears to have at least 10 launch tubes - four of them apparently larger than the other six - that are possibly designed for missiles.

North Korea previously had only one known submarine capable of firing a missile, but that vessel has a single launch tube and analysts had considered it a test platform.

North Korea has an estimated about 70-90 diesel-powered submarines in one of the world's largest submarine fleets. But they are mostly ageing subs capable of launching only torpedoes and mines, not missiles.

'This submarine, though heavily modified, is based on 1950s Soviet-origin technology and will have inherent limitations. Nevertheless, in terms of complicating the targeting challenges that the U.S. and its allies will face, the submarine will serve North Korea's purposes,' said Ankit Panda, an expert with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Link


Israel-Palestine-Jordan
Once representing hope, an EU mission in Gaza is symbol of sputtering Western vision
2023-07-07
[IsraelTimes] EUBAM unit was deployed to border crossing in preparation for Paleostinian independence, but two-state vision is increasingly losing out to notion of a single, shared entity

It’s been 16 years since the borders of the Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamaswith about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response...
 Strip slammed shut after Hamas, the well-beloved offspring of the Moslem Brotherhood, seized control of the territory from Fatah.

The takeover forced the European Union
...the successor to the Holy Roman Empire, only without the Hapsburgs and the nifty uniforms and the dancing...
 to withdraw monitors who had been deployed at a Gaza border crossing to help the Paleostinians prepare for independence. Yet the EU has regularly renewed funding for the unit since then, most recently late last month.

The continued existence of the unit known as EUBAM
... European Union Border Assistance Mission — they hang out at a bunch of borders in interesting places...
is an extreme example of the West’s willingness to keep pumping hundreds of millions of dollars a year into the moribund vision of a two-state solution between Israel and the Paleostinians.

Proponents say this approach remains the best chance for securing an eventual peace deal. Critics argue that opting for such costly conflict management helps keep the 56-year-old Israeli military control of other Paleostinian territories in place and allows Europa
...the land mass occupying the space between the English Channel and the Urals, also known as Moslem Lebensraum...
and the US to avoid making the hard political decisions needed to end the conflict.

This week’s Israeli military operation in the Jenin refugee camp, a West Bank terror stronghold, following numerous deadly attacks by Paleostinians from the area, and previous eruptions of violence also underscore the limits of international efforts to contain the conflict.

"The international community, in my view, understands the reality that the two-state solution is gone," said Marwan Muasher, a one-time Jordanian foreign minister and former ambassador to Israel. "It does not want to acknowledge this publicly, because acknowledging it publicly is going to have to force the international community to start talking about alternatives, all of them problematic."

Muasher, now a vice president at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, is unusual among his peers. The legions of diplomats and politicians who have devoted their careers to Mideast peacemaking remain committed to the two-state vision, even as the ground around them has shifted.

"I am still a believer," said Ehud Olmert, the former Israeli prime minister who led the last round of substantive peace talks with Paleostinian leaders before leaving office in 2009.

"There is no other solution. Everything else is almost inevitably a prescription for disaster," Olmert said.

The two-state approach has guided international diplomacy since the 1993 Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Paleostine Liberation Organization. The interim accords were meant to lay the groundwork for the establishment of a Paleostinian state alongside Israel.

Paleostinians seek the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, areas Israel captured in the 1967 Six Day War, for their state. The land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River, made up of pre-1967 Israel and the other three area lands, is populated in roughly equal parts by Paleostinians and Israeli Jews. Pollsters predict an eventual Paleostinian majority because of higher birth rates.

Proponents of partition say it would create a democratic Israel with a clear Jewish majority in defined borders and enable Paleostinians to realize their national aspirations.

Without partition, the default is a reality in which a shrinking Israeli minority controls a growing Paleostinian majority with few political rights. Leading rights groups claim an apartheid system is already in place. Israel rejects any allegation of apartheid, saying its own Arab citizens enjoy equal rights, while its limitations on Paleostinians are a necessity born of the need to protect itself from violence. Israel also notes that it granted limited autonomy to the Paleostinian Authority at the height of the grinding of the peace processor in the 1990s and withdrew all its soldiers and settlers from Gaza in 2005.

Since the Oslo Accords 30 years ago, the US and EU have spent billions of dollars on development projects and direct aid to the Paleostinian Authority to promote the two-state vision. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell both pledged support for a partition deal.

Yet the West has little to show for its efforts. Peace initiatives led by successive US presidents were derailed by violence, Israeli settlement expansion and mutual distrust.

Hamas, shunned by the West as a terrorist group, has fought four wars against Israel and remains entrenched in Gaza. The Paleostinian Authority, which governs semi-autonomous enclaves in the West Bank, is weaker than ever. Israel’s hard-right government opposes Paleostinian independence and is racing to expand a settler population that has ballooned to over 700,000 people.

Preoccupied with the war in Ukraine and its rivalry with China, the Biden administration has done little more than condemn Israeli settlement plans and call for de-escalation.

Recent opinion polls show that only about one-third of Israelis and Paleostinians still favor a two-state solution.

Even some members of the Paleostinian Authority, which has the most to gain from independence, have begun to speak publicly about equal rights between the river and the sea, rather than two states.

"The basis for us is ending the occupation, obtaining freedom," said Mahmoud Aloul, an aide to Paleostinian Authority President the ineffectual Mahmoud Abbas
...aka Abu Mazen, a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial. While no Yasser Arafat, he has his own brand of evil, just a little more lowercase....
. He said it does not matter if the conflict ends with two states or a single binational state for Israelis and Paleostinians.

In academic and human rights
...which are usually entirely different from personal liberty...
 circles, many now speak about a "one-state reality" — in which Israel wields overall control over Paleostinians. Muasher said given this environment, it is time for the world to focus on Paleostinian human rights instead of unrealistic peace plans.

Ines Abdel-Razek, executive director of the Paleostine Institute for Public Diplomacy, an advocacy group, said calls for a two-state solution are "comfortable" for the international community, but insincere.

She said that if the US were serious about peace, it would force Israel to reverse its settlement enterprise. Instead, she said, Washington gives Israel billions in military aid, allows settlement groups to raise funds in the US, engages with institutions promoting the annexation of the West Bank and pushes for normalization with other Arab countries.
Link


China-Japan-Koreas
On China's Peace Plan for Ukraine
2023-03-03
[Carnegie Endowment for International Peace]
Link


China-Japan-Koreas
How China's Covert Operations Fooled the World
2022-11-25
[American Thinker] The biggest deception China has successfully perpetuated in the West is that it would rise peacefully, gradually liberalize and present enormous business opportunities. Behind that veneer of reform, Beijing has played a masterful influence game, ensnaring governments, academia, think tanks, cultural groups, and businesses in the West to further its goal of global preeminence.
"Fooled" some of the world. Everyone else was simply forced to shop at Walmart, Depot, or Target.
Analyst Alex Joske’s revealing book, Spies and Lies: How China’s Greatest Covert Operations Fooled the World, explains how China’s intelligence apparatus, the Ministry of State Security (MSS), revamped espionage from cloak-and-dagger ops alone to a sophisticated collection of innocent-seeming front groups. He shows how these groups, speaking the language of transparency, globalism, and cultural, academic, and business exchanges, influenced key persons in every sphere of endeavor in the West, masking China’s quest for world dominance, its military build-up, its stealing of technology, its human rights violations, and its territorial expansionism. Appearing eager for cultural and business reciprocity, China presented intelligence operatives as journalists, scholars, and trade and tourism representatives. The U.S. — and other western governments — engaged with China, mistaking it for a useful partner, and often acting under pressure from businesses that sought lucrative deals with Beijing.
Insert your favorite tech mogul, Henry Kissinger, or Biden crime family graphic here.
According to the book, billionaire George Soros, who is still in quixotic and dangerous pursuit of his flawed notion of an ’open society,’ was one of China’s earliest dupes. Chinese intelligence and its numerous fronts used Soros and his funds as an entrée to the West, creating what has grown into a omnipresent cloud of influence, ubiquitous yet impossible to pinpoint and hence combat or dislodge. But more on Soros later.

The focus of MSS’s elite influence operations is on inveigling targets into promoting narratives of China’s choice, often making them believe they are being welcomed into the inner sanctum of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) — a route to proprietary access and mutually beneficial networks. In this the MSS draws on the party’s united front work tradition, which harks to the revolution. At that time, the party’s United Front Work Department (UFWD) sought to gain influence beyond party members, using networks to suppress dissent, indoctrinate those sympathetic to the cause, find and train leaders, and so on. Later, the same methods were deployed abroad, providing networks, covers, and institutions for furthering the party’s purposes.
Pandemics, cures, phony test kits, masks, etc.
Lulled into a false sense of security, many elites chose to cooperate with Beijing, underplaying all its atrocities, espionage, and aggression, and hoping perhaps that China, welcomed into the sphere of western nations, would reform. But the Chinese leadership, especially current president Xi Jinping, has always been clear on what it wants: global dominance, utter loyalty to the CCP, military victory, and weakening of rivals.

Joske’s book is based on open-source documentation and interviews with former intelligence operatives and experts. He himself has been at the receiving end of intimidatory united front activity. When his articles critical of China started appearing, he was followed around by Chinese student groups that accused him of racism. Indeed, a university alumni association is among the many fronts he names, with documentary proof, as being controlled by the MSS. Here's a partial list: four publishing houses, a Japanese magazine, a well-known think tank, an arts troupe, an international travel agency, a film production company, a California bookstore, a calligraphy competition, and countless international conferences.

After the Tiananmen Square massacre and the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CCP decided to both check the entry of western ideals into China and infiltrate foreign powers. The MSS began small, by monitoring and mobilizing Chinese communities abroad. But by 2000, it understood how the U.S. foreign policy system worked, and realized the benefit of focusing on targets who would escape the concern of the intelligence community – scholars, policy wonks, retired officials, business leaders and the like. So, MSS agents took on these very roles to mingle with American counterparts and influence them, and through them up-and-coming American politicians. Using this cadre, posing in the West as liberal reformists, Chinese intelligence struck at unprotected parts of the U.S. democratic system.
"Unprotected" or like-minded fellow travelers, those within accademia and the Washington D.C. beltway.
Having learned of the role and status of American think tanks – particularly the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Rand Corporation – and how they can provide connections to government, the bureaucracy, civil society, and academia, the MSS used them as a fertile arena of its influence operations. Many Chinese agents have held positions as visiting scholars and policy experts and used those positions to open doors, make introductions, gather intelligence in diverse venues, and push exactly the narrative the CCP chooses.

The MSS is keen on getting involved with politicians early in their careers for the advantages this will offer when they advance to higher office. Bribery and honeypot operations are par for the course. For example, California Congressman Eric Swalwell was targeted for an affair by Christine Fang, an attractive young MSS operative, when he was a city councilor. When he bid for a Congress seat, winning against a well-established incumbent, he received significant fundraising assistance from Fang. She also funded his re-election campaign. She arranged for an associate to intern at his office, and advantageously for the MSS, Swalwell was in 2015 appointed to the House Intelligence Committee that oversees the CIA.
Yes, Eric would have obviously been and possibly remains an MSS high priority target.
The turning of Soros, however, is perhaps the most interesting example of the MSS’s early successes, hinging on a fortuitous act of the billionaire. This was in 1984, when China was cash-strapped and desperately needed foreign investment even for basic development. Its intelligence operations then were poorly funded. (Now, they are run by some of China’s largest business empires.) Soros happened to read Liang Heng’s Son of the Revolution, a bestselling account of China’s reopening to the West. Inspired by a vision of a liberalized China, he contacted Liang and ventured forth with a China Fund, aimed at transforming the country along the lines of his ‘open society’ philosophy. Liang set up an office in Beijing for the new entity, seemingly with the support of CCP officials who had liberal, reformist ideas.

But the MSS was there right from the beginning. Liang was sidelined, and eventually, the fund was directed to work with the China International Culture Exchange Center (CICEC). Its head Yu Enguang was made the fund’s co-chair. Far from being a cultural institution, the CICEC was a division of the MSS and meant to gain the trust of people like Soros while posing as liberals within the party. There were artists, poets, scientists, a future CCP leader, a clergyman, victims of the Cultural Revolution and so on. In fact, these were trusted MSS assets, adept at projecting the image of an open, reforming China, to attract foreign interest and investments.

And Yu Enguang was in fact a high-ranking operative of the MSS’s 12th Bureau, a special spy unit whose official mission was to protect China from external threats and lay the groundwork for influence ops worldwide. The book claims that a secretive vice-minister in the MSS called Yu Fang looks exactly like Yu Enguang, who, through the 1970s and 1980s had posed as a journalist, heading Xinhua bureaus in London and Washington D.C. All the while he had run an entire bureau of MSS spies. Fang/Enguang had framed laws codifying the MSS’s powers and overseeing propaganda, censorship, and the rewriting of history. He also established the practice of direct engagement with targets like Soros, a practice that has since grown into a huge, well-funded worldwide operation – one that free democracies, including the U.S., are unfortunately blind to.
Blind to, or openly embraced ?
Joske ends his book warning the West to recognize united front activity for what it. He says it’s also important to stop viewing “open source” intelligence gathering, that is, the kind obtained through interaction with scholars, policy experts, business leaders, etc., as inconsequential as compared to blatant stealing of classified information. The MSS is everywhere now, and the earlier free democracies wake up, the better.
"Open source" intelligence gathering is certainly not "inconsequential." At least 95% (possibly more) of all raw intelligence collection is open source and unclassified. The analysis and assessments assembled from open sources then become classified.
Link


Home Front: Politix
How a New Pro-Israel Group Aims to Sway N.Y. Elections
2022-05-17
They got tired of keeping their mouths shut. Now they’re fighting to take back the Democratic Party in New York State, ink blotting one race at a time.
[NYTIMES] The organization, the New York Solidarity Network, views itself as a counterweight to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and the Democratic Socialists of America.

In the past year, the left-wing effort to boycott Israel over its treatment of Palestinians has won over The Harvard Crimson and the Irish novelist Sally Rooney. It’s even affected ice cream: Ben & Jerry’s has refused to sell its confections in the occupied territories.

It has also made inroads in New York, home to the world’s second-largest Jewish community, where the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement has gotten support from the local chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America, the influential far-left political group.

But now a new group, backed by a billionaire hedge fund manager,
Lots of those around nowadays. Which bankster Jooooo is it?
is seeking to counter that movement by creating a political action network to support candidates in state legislative and local races who embrace Israel, and oppose candidates who do not.

The group, the New York Solidarity Network, will act something like a local American Israel Public Affairs Committee, commonly known as Aipac,
...AIPAC, actually, which looks ever so much more substantial. No doubt the New York Times editor mistook the acronym for a simple name, like George...
according to several individuals who have spoken with its organizers. Like Aipac, the New York network is set up as a membership organization whose leaders will encourage donors to give to candidates they regard as being pro-Israel. It has not ruled out the idea of creating its own political action committee.

The organization will oppose candidates aligned with initiatives like the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which encourages the shunning of Israeli businesses to end “Israel’s apartheid regime.”

Appearing to be among the first Israel-focused organizations in the nation to seek to influence elections at the local level, the group has hired Moonshot Strategies, a lobbying firm with close ties to the administration of Mayor Eric Adams, to help it choose which races to focus on. (Fabien Levy, a spokesman for the mayor, said Mr. Adams has no knowledge of the group.)

Corey Johnson, the former City Council speaker, has signed on as a consultant. The board also has the backing of Daniel S. Loeb, the billionaire hedge fund manager,
...a typically lefty of his profession, Columbia classmate and Friend of Obama, with a penchant for sending caustically evaluatory letters to his target executives explaining what they are doing wrong. His Wikipedia page is a delight...
according to three people briefed on the organization.
New York Times journalists love basing reports on unnamed people who claim to have been told about things, as opposed to actual witnesses.
Mr. Loeb declined to comment.

The creation of the network highlights the growing fissure between the left-leaning and younger flank of the Democratic Party, which often aligns with the policies of the Democratic Socialists of America, and the party’s more traditional, centrist flank, which has long considered support for Israel an inviolable foreign policy plank. Its rise also points to the growing role that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict plays in state and local elections in the United States, where pro-boycott activists increasingly tussle with politicians who implement anti-boycott laws.

“I’m not aware of any similar organization on the state level — untethered from a national one — that has launched an effort to affect legislative elections by supporting (or not) candidates based on a litmus test of their pro-Israeli credentials,” Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in an email.

The group charges $1,000 for an individual membership and asks members to pledge at least $5,000 to a slate of “candidates, causes and projects aligned with our mission.” Its 501(c)(4) structure allows donors to remain anonymous.

The group is joining a growing field of well-funded entities, including a PAC allied with Mr. Adams, aiming to sway the New York State Legislature — whose entire body is up for re-election this year — toward more centrist politics.
Not that Hizzoner is that much more centrist — but he does find it profitable to campaign as pro-police, as far as I can tell.
The New York Solidarity Network held a kickoff cocktail party in March at the Greenwich Village townhouse of its chairman, Gary Ginsberg, a former SoftBank senior vice president.
The New York Times journalist does not mention his financial worth, so presumably he is a mere deci- or centi-millionaire. Mr. Ginsberg is a Clinton supporter...
Ritchie Torres, a congressman from the Bronx, spoke, as did Mr. Johnson, the former City Council speaker. Both declined to comment for this story.
No respect for The Old Grey Lady, it appears.
The group has cast itself as an explicit counterweight not just to the B.D.S. movement, but also to the Democratic Socialists of America, the anticapitalism group that counts Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez as a member.

“This is in response to rising political challenges from far-left D.S.A.-aligned candidates supporting B.D.S. and other anti-Israel positions,” Tyler Deaton, a Republican L.G.B.T.Q. activist serving as the group’s senior adviser,
... more specifically he’s been a gay marriage advocate, both within the Republican garden and reaching across the aisle...
wrote in an email, shared with The Times, that was distributed before a group event. “Anti-Israel candidates and elected leaders are on the rise, emerging from the extreme political margins on both sides.”

Mr. Deaton promised to update attendees on “recruitment of pro-Israel candidates and efforts to defeat anti-Israel candidates across New York.” He declined to share those details with The New York Times.
Quite right, too.
Jeremy Cohan, a co-chairman of the D.S.A. of New York City, took the group’s formation as a sign of his own movement’s strength.

“There is a thriving and deepening support by American Jews for Palestinian rights, and opposition to carte blanche support for Israeli policy in violating those rights,” Mr. Cohan said.

The question of Israel, its right to exist, and its treatment of Palestinians has percolated through state politics for years.
...greatly helped by the New York Times, as it happens, which objected to Israel’s existence from the beginning.
In 2016, Andrew M. Cuomo, then New York’s governor, signed an executive order barring the state from doing business with companies aligned with the B.D.S. movement. The executive order was renewed by his successor, Kathy Hochul, and remains in effect.

In 2020, the D.S.A. caused a local firestorm when it asked City Council candidates seeking its endorsement to “pledge not to travel to Israel if elected to City Council in solidarity with Palestinians living under occupation,” in a questionnaire.

“We know there’s a long tradition of boycotts and sanctions being used against persecutory regimes,” Mr. Cohan said last week. “The U.S. is sanctioning Russia right now for the crimes it’s committing, and so we think this is a perfectly legitimate and important tool in applying pressure on the Israeli state to change its political behavior.”

The Jewish community is, of course, not monolithic; Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street,
...Mr. Soro’s bespoke tool for undermining support of the Jewish state, like all his other tools pretending to be a grassroots movement...
described it as “a disputatious people.” And several Jewish activists noted the presence of other New York organizations with less Israel-specific aims.

But Jessica Haller, a former City Council candidate from the Bronx, said she was drawn to join the New York Solidarity Network because she felt ostracized from progressive circles as an environmentalist who also identifies as a Zionist and supports the existence of Israel. She argued it is imperative for activists like her to ensure there is a space for progressive supporters of Israel.

Ms. Haller still smarts when she recalls the backlash she experienced on an environmental justice email chain, when fellow members discovered she identified as a supporter of Israel.

“The conversation went something like this: ‘We’ve discovered she’s a Zionist so therefore she can’t possibly take racial justice seriously,’” Ms. Haller said. “I was really shaken to my core.”
Related:
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: 2022-05-15 UK government suspends funding for national student union over alleged antisemitism
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: 2022-01-08 PA leader's son accused of aiding terrorism released from Egyptian jail
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions: 2022-01-04 Egypt releases Palestinian activist Ramy Shaath; set to deport him
Related:
Democratic Socialists of America: 2022-05-15 UK government suspends funding for national student union over alleged antisemitism
Democratic Socialists of America: 2022-04-19 Defund NYPD group says police 'failed' after subway attack, offer 'holistic' alternative
Democratic Socialists of America: 2022-03-17 Questioning the Ukraine war does not make you a 'Putin apologist'
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China-Japan-Koreas
North Korea Tests New Weapons System To Improve 'Tactical Nukes'
2022-04-18
[NATION.PK] Kim Pudge Jong-un
...the overweight, pouty-looking hereditary potentate of North Korea. Pudge appears to believe in his own divinity, but has yet to produce any loaves and fishes, so his subjects remain malnourished...
 supervised the test-firing of a new guided weapons system to improve North Korea
...hereditary Communist monarchy distinguished by its truculence and periodic acts of violence. Distinguishing features include Songun (Army First) policy, which involves feeding the army before anyone but the Dear Leadership, and Juche, which is Kim Jong Il's personal interpretation of Marxism-Leninism, which he told everybody was brilliant. In 1950 the industrialized North invaded agrarian South Korea. Twenty-one countries of the United Nations eventually contributed to the UN force opposing the invasion, with the United States providing around 90% of the military personnel. Seventy years later the economic results are in and it doesn't look good for Juche...
’s "tactical nukes", state media said Sunday, capping days of celebrations surrounding the birthday of the country’s founding leader.

The launch was the latest in an unprecedented blitz of sanctions-busting weapons-tests this year, which included firing an intercontinental ballistic missile at full range for the first time since 2017.

It also came just ahead of US-South Korea military training exercises — which have always infuriated Pyongyang — that were due to begin on Monday.

The "new-type tactical guided weapon... is of great significance in drastically improving the firepower of the frontline long-range artillery units and enhancing the efficiency in the operation of tactical nukes," the North’s official KCNA news agency reported.

It said the test was successful, but did not specify when or where it took place.

South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected two projectiles fired late on Saturday, which flew 110 kilometres (68 miles) at an altitude of 25 kilometres, travelling at speeds of around Mach 4. The United States was "aware of the North Korean statement that they conducted a test of a long range artillery system", a Pentagon spokesperson said, adding it was monitoring.

Analysts had widely expected Pyongyang could conduct a nuclear test as part of events to celebrate Friday’s anniversary of the 110th birthday of North Korea’s founding leader — and Kim’s grandfather — Kim Il Sung.

Expectations were heightened because of indications that Pyongyang had restarted work at one of its known nuclear testing sites. Analysts said the weapon tested over the weekend appeared to be a new short-range ballistic missile — but no less significant.

"This is North Korea’s first tactical nuclear weapon delivery system, it would seem," said Ankit Panda, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "You don’t have to be particularly imaginative to put this two and two together."

Link


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Paul Gogle - Scope Of Russian Opposition To Putin's War Truly Breathtaking – OpEd
2022-03-02
[Eurasia Review] Because Vladimir Putin is a ruthless dictator, he can ignore at least for a time the views of his own population. But only for a time because the views of what remains of civil society about his aggression again Ukraine are spreading to the families of members of the elite and even to the elite itself.

The scope of opposition among the remnants of civil society in Russia to his war is breathtaking, with almost all groups, formed for whatever reason, voicing their outrage, holding demonstrations, and circulating petitions which are garnering an increasing number of signatures. (For the most comprehensive list to date, see zona.media/article/2022/02/27/vse and rosbalt.ru/russia/2022/02/28/1946296.html.)

This opposition has now spread into the families of members of the elite — for examples, see zona.media/article/2022/02/25/no-war — and even key members of Putin’s circle (rfi.fr/ru/россия/20220227-дерипаска-и-фридман-выступили-против-войны-в-украине and themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/28/some-of-russias-elite-oppose-war-in-ukraine-a76648).

And the liberal leaders of the ten million-strong Russian diaspora have now organized an Anti-War Committee. It too may not have immediate impact on the Kremlin dictator; but it will provide language and arguments too dangerous to make if one lives in Putin’s Russia but which will affect others (t.me/khodorkovski/5387 and newtimes.ru/articles/detail/209568).

Putin and his thugs are undoubtedly counting on the primal patriotism of the so-called "dark people" to see him through; but even they are less than enthusiastic. And unless Putin can win some key victories with minimal losses, it is unlikely that even this group in the population is going to stay in his corner for much longer.

At some point, he won’t be able to sustain his policies or even himself because those on whom he relies are drawn from portions of the population that are almost as anti-war as those who have already spoken out.

More on Russia from Paul A. Goble found at this link.

About the author:
Paul Goble is a longtime specialist on ethnic and religious questions in Eurasia. Most recently, he was director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy. Earlier, he served as vice dean for the social sciences and humanities at Audentes University in Tallinn and a senior research associate at the EuroCollege of the University of Tartu in Estonia. He has served in various capacities in the U.S. State Department, the Central Intelligence Agency and the International Broadcasting Bureau as well as at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr. Goble maintains the Window on Eurasia blog and can be contacted directly at paul.goble@gmail.com .
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