Fdd's overnight brief

Hezbollah

Lebanon’s Hizbollah has vowed to do “battle” against coronavirus, as the paramilitary and political group seeks to burnish its legitimacy by helping the country’s battered economy. – Financial Times

Unknown gunmen fatally shot and stabbed a member of the militant Hezbollah group in southern Lebanon and an investigation was launched, Lebanese security officials said Sunday. – Associated Press

After a Hezbollah commander in charge of pursuing spies and collaborators was found killed in southern Lebanon over the weekend, Lebanese and Iranian media began reporting that the Mossad “and its mercenaries” were suspects in the assassination. – Jerusalem Post

Turkey

Turkey said on Sunday it would minimise its troop movements in operation zones in neighbouring Syria in response to the coronavirus outbreak as the Turkish death toll and infections in the country rose. – Reuters

A member of a popular folk music group that is banned in Turkey has died on the 288th day of a hunger strike. The singer and a colleague had started the strike while imprisoned to protest at the government’s treatment of their band, according to a post on the group’s Twitter account. […] The government accuses Grup Yorum of links to the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP/C. The militant group is designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. – The Guardian

Isaac Chotiner writes: Opposition politicians have called for harsher measures against the coronavirus, including the types of lockdowns that have gone into effect around the world, but they have been increasingly besieged and marginalized in recent years, as Erdoğan has extended his power and thrown his rivals in prison. […]During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed how Erdoğan’s privatization of the medical system affected coronavirus preparation, how the Syrian refugee crisis has changed Turkish society, and the dangers of an outbreak in Turkey’s prisons. – New Yorker

Iraq

At least three rockets hit near the site of an American oil field service company in southern Iraq early on Monday, Iraq’s military said, the first such attack in recent months to target U.S. energy interests in Iraq. – Associated Press

Brigadier General Esmail Qa’ani (Ghaani) visited Iraq this week for the first time since his appointment as the commander of the IRGC’s Qods Force and was secretly welcomed at Baghdad Airport under tight security measures. – Radio Farda

The Iraqi Foreign Ministry received a letter from the US State Department suggesting that the two countries renegotiate the Strategic Framework Agreement concerning bilateral economic, trade, cultural and security relations, announced Iraqi FM Mohamed Ali Alhakim on his Twitter account on Sunday night. – Jerusalem Post

Biner Aziz writes: For Kurds, the virus has demonstrated that good governance goes a long way towards tackling even the most potentially overwhelming threat. And for the rest of the world, the willingness of the public to abide by its government’s efforts before catastrophe strikes, even when those efforts are significantly disruptive to daily life, demonstrates the value of this symbiotic relationship between governmental transparency and public trust. – Washington Institute

Katherine Lawlor and Brandon Wallace write: Iran advanced multiple lines of effort in Iraq to compel the U.S. withdrawal from the country. Iran successfully organized political opposition from the most powerful Iraqi Shi’a blocs to deny parliamentary backers to Prime Minister-designate Adnan al-Zurfi. Zurfi, who enjoyed tacit U.S. and international support, is now unlikely to win a vote of confidence[…]. The Patriot deployment is necessary force protection for Coalition forces but signals that the Iraqi government will not take meaningful action to hold proxy militias accountable for killing U.S. and Coalition personnel. – Institute for the Study of War

Middle East & North Africa

German media reported that the Federal Security Council approved the delivery of another submarine, the S43, to the Egyptian navy and that it was already seen in Kiel after it was taken to sea to ensure it is in top shape. – Jerusalem Post 

An eastern Libyan military plane was hit on Sunday by forces allied to the internationally recognised government near the capital Tripoli, both sides said. – Reuters

Hundreds of thousands of Palestinian and Syrian refugees living in overcrowded and rundown camps in Lebanon are bracing for the novel coronavirus as aid groups mobilise to help. – Agence France-Presse 

Frederic Wehrey writes: What makes this shock to the Middle East different and more severe is that the usual fire-brigades — a bailout by the Gulf states, international organizations or great powers — may not arrive as they have before. […]The Arab world’s leaders are on their own, and if the past is any guide, that is not ground for widespread hope. Seismic changes can have small beginnings, especially in a region hobbled by economic stagnation, political sclerosis, proxy wars and an unfounded confidence in the endurance of the status quo. – New York Times 

Michael Horowitz and Nick Grinstead write: The recent escalation in attacks against coalition forces in Iraq which resulted in the killing of two U.S. and UK soldiers in the Taji military base is one example of what could become a trend: namely, the growing need for countries weakened by the outbreak to project strength. […]All of these factors suggest the coronavirus pandemic will turn into a defining moment for the region, not simply because of its magnitude, but because it came at a time when most countries were experiencing their own political crises—and failed to build any immunity to the one that suddenly knocked at their doors. – The Daily Beast

China

A large group of prominent American foreign-policy experts, including former high-ranking White House officials from both parties, is calling on the Trump administration to work more closely with China to stem the coronavirus epidemic. – Wall Street Journal

Since Chinese officials disclosed the outbreak of a mysterious pneumonialike illness to international health officials on New Year’s Eve, at least 430,000 people have arrived in the United States on direct flights from China, including nearly 40,000 in the two months after President Trump imposed restrictions on such travel, according to an analysis of data collected in both countries. – New York Times

The Trump administration is seizing the opportunity of the coronavirus pandemic to push a cause that has long been an irritant in U.S. relations with China: Taiwan. The virus has added yet another dimension to U.S.-China tensions that were already wracked by a trade war and heated discussions over intellectual property, human rights and Chinese policies in Hong Kong and the South China Sea. – Associated Press

China’s largest state-owned mobile carrier has turned almost entirely to homegrown telecoms vendors Huawei and ZTE to build out its next-generation 5G mobile network, which is expected to facilitate everything from instant film downloads to self-driving cars. – Financial Times

Amber Athey writes: China has tried to restore its image after lying to the world about the seriousness of its coronavirus outbreak, but its attempts at humanitarianism have turned out to be as slippery as its wet markets. […]China taking advantage of Italy’s generosity is just the latest example of its disastrous diplomacy in the wake of the pandemic.  – Spectator 

Leading US manufacturers of medical safety gear told the White House that China prohibited them from exporting their products from the country as the coronavirus pandemic mounted — even as Beijing was trying to “corner the world market” in personal protective equipment, The Post has learned. Now, the Trump administration is weighing legal action against China over its alleged actions, a lawyer for President Trump said Sunday. – New York Post 

An online petition calling for the resignation of World Health Organization director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has gained traction lately, garnering over 718,000 signatures, claiming that the United Nations health official and the organizational efforts towards the coronavirus outbreak were unacceptable. […]The main point of contention was the failure of Tedros to designate the coronavirus outbreak in China as a global health emergency in late January. – Jerusalem Post

Editorial: Congress should investigate how WHO performed against the coronavirus and whether its judgments were corrupted by China’s political influence. Of all international institutions, WHO should be the least political. Its core mission is to coordinate international efforts against epidemics and provide honest public-health guidance. If WHO is merely a politicized Maginot Line against pandemics, then it is worse than useless and should receive no more U.S. funding. And if foreign-policy elites want to know why so many Americans mistrust international institutions, WHO is it. – Wall Street Journal

Cui Tiankai writes: As the two biggest economies in the world, China and the United States need to lead international efforts in collaborative research into treatments and vaccines, and explore the sharing of pharmaceutical technologies among nations. We need to help countries with underdeveloped medical systems and contribute to better global health governance. – New York Times 

Minxin Pei writes: The events of the past few months have shown that CCP rule is far more brittle than many believed. This bolsters the case for a U.S. strategy of sustained pressure to induce political change. Washington should stay the course; its chances of success are only getting better and better. – Foreign Affairs

Anthony Vinci and Nadia Schadlow write: Power and geostrategic influence depends as much on speed and agility as on any weapons system. COVID-19 has shown us and the world America’s manufacturing weakness. Agile manufacturing is one way to become stronger. In the long competition with China, it could mean the difference between winning and losing. – Washington Examiner

Riley Walters writes: Some in Washington would like to see a further decline in trade, but that is unlikely. Americans will continue to benefit by trading hundreds of billions worth of goods every month—including with China. But decreasing imports and exports suggests troubling economic times ahead. – The Daily Signal

Mike Gonzalez writes: Aylward’s performance revealed the great degree to which China controls the World Health Organization, even to the point that one of its top officials will kowtow to Beijing rather than take up such a topic. Aylward and other WHO leaders cannot even find a way to answer an honest question. Whether China ordered Yau to act in this manner or the Hong Kong government acted on its own, we don’t know. But clearly things have gotten to the point that censorship, whether ordered by Beijing or self-imposed, is now a cloud over Hong Kong. – The Daily Signal

Bruno Macaes writes: Forget about “mask diplomacy.” It is no more than a distraction. There are other ways for China to use the coronavirus pandemic to upturn the existing global order. I see three main levers. […]To put it more bluntly: There was always an argument that the existing world order cannot change because only a momentous war has done that in the past and world wars have become impossible. But in pandemics — and soon in climate change — we may have found two functional equivalents of war. – National Review

Asia

United States military officials have outlined a spending request to bolster deterrence against China after the coronavirus pandemic ebbs, a sign of how national security leaders are already studying ways to shore up the country’s standing in the Asia-Pacific region once the outbreak ends. – New York Times

Pakistani authorities issued an emergency order to prevent the release of prisoners who had their convictions for kidnapping and killing Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl overturned by an appeals court earlier this week. – Wall Street Journal

China rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing vessel in the disputed waters of the South China Sea and detained the crew, according to Vietnamese officials. – Washington Examiner  

Michael Rubin writes: Ceasing “endless wars” might be the slogan of the day, but how wars end matter. Progressives and liberals say that diplomacy should be the strategy of first resort. They are right. But when the United States loses credibility on the battlefield and adversaries concluded that Washington neither has the will nor the way, they will run roughshod over American interests. Pakistan’s release of Pearl’s killer is only the beginning. – The National Interest

Patrick Gerard Buchan and Benjamin Rimland write: This reality puts Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his HNS team in a bind. As if the Covid-19 pandemic and the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics were not enough, Japan must also contend with a Washington seeking higher demands of its allies and a major weapons procurement program in its infancy—with both the U.S government and U.S industry keen for a larger slice of the pie. – Center for Strategic and International Studies

Europe

Britain’s main opposition Labour Party, smarting from its worst election result in decades, chose London-born lawyer Keir Starmer as its new leader, a choice that is expected to move the party toward the center after years of pursuing a staunch left-wing agenda. – Wall Street Journal

European Union governments have pushed the bloc’s stringent data privacy rules to their limits by tapping the biggest telecom and tech companies for data to tackle the coronavirus outbreak. – Bloomberg 

German officials have accused the US of “modern piracy” after a consignment of masks on its way to the Berlin police was intercepted in Thailand and diverted to the US. – Financial Times 

Europe needs debt mutualisation and a common “Marshall Plan” to recover from the coronavirus pandemic, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez told newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, even as Germany dismissed calls for the debt-pooling idea. – Reuters 

The European Commission has approved a series of multi-billion-euro state support packages for Greece, Poland and Portugal to help soften the economic impact of the coronavirus through grants and loan guarantees. – Reuters

While the interruptions may seem to many like trivial inconveniences for a well-heeled jet set, they may have significant implications for matters of war and peace, arms control and human rights. […]As the global crisis threatens to alter the world balance of power, NATO’s top diplomats abandoned plans to meet in person this past week, the European Union has scaled back its schedule, a major international conference on climate change in Scotland was called off, and many lower-level U.N. gatherings have been scrapped entirely. – Associated Press

Editorial: That deal was supposed to advance the warmer economic ties with China that were a central plank of Mr. Johnson’s post-Brexit trade agenda. Beijing’s dangerous virus cover-up could scupper those plans by forcing British leaders to question whether an authoritarian China is a trustworthy economic partner. – Wall Street Journal

Zoltan Simon, Ian Wishart, and Arne Delfs write: Hungary’s actions should bear “financial consequences” in the budget talks because it was “unacceptable” for member states to exploit the crisis to reduce civil liberties, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas said on April 3 after a video conference of EU foreign ministers. For now, though, few in the EU are willing to call Orban out publicly. – Bloomberg 

North America

The U.S. this week invoked a Korean War-era law and ordered 3M Co. to halt exports of its protective masks to Canada and Latin America and prioritize sales to the federal government. Meanwhile, German officials said a shipment of face masks ordered from a U.S. manufacturer and destined for Germany was seized at Bangkok airport and diverted to the U.S. – Wall Street Journal

The controversy is arising amid pressure on Canadian officials to rein in or halt the cross-border trips of medical personnel to the U.S. as the epidemic spreads in Michigan. – Wall Street Journal

At California State University, San Bernardino, in the fall, Mr. Schoep, who led America’s largest neo-Nazi organization for two and a half decades, shared that he had only recently renounced his racist views. The event was his first public appearance in the United States since making the announcement, and some members of the audience were skeptical. – New York Times

The Trump administration’s moves to restrict the export of critical medical supplies are pushing Canada to turn to China. – Politico

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he would not retaliate for U.S. President Donald Trump blocking 3M Co’s (MMM.N) exports of N95 respirator masks that protect doctors and nurses from the spread of coronavirus. – Reuters

Henry A. Kissinger writes: The world’s democracies need to defend and sustain their Enlightenment values. A global retreat from balancing power with legitimacy will cause the social contract to disintegrate both domestically and internationally. Yet this millennial issue of legitimacy and power cannot be settled simultaneously with the effort to overcome the Covid-19 plague. Restraint is necessary on all sides—in both domestic politics and international diplomacy. Priorities must be established. – Wall Street Journal

Cybersecurity

Western governments aiming to relax restrictions on movement are turning to unprecedented surveillance to track people infected with the new coronavirus and identify those with whom they have been in contact. – Wall Street Journal

Thousands of personal Zoom videos have been left viewable on the open Web, highlighting the privacy risks to millions of Americans as they shift many of their personal interactions to video calls in an age of social distancing. – Washington Post

Government bodies in the U.S. and Europe have spent years debating or advancing tighter safeguards on the handling of people’s personal data, driven by revelations of abuses by intelligence agencies and big tech companies. But now privacy concerns on both sides of the Atlantic are at risk amid the urgent fight against the coronavirus pandemic. In some cases, it’s with at least grudging acceptance from privacy advocates. – Politico

Zoom, the videoconferencing app that has recorded an explosion in growth during the coronavirus pandemic, has said it will deploy all of its engineering resources to tackle data privacy concerns after coming under fire for lax practices, as European and US regulators begin to circle. – Financial Times

William Crumpler writes: In China, concerns around computing power are a major factor driving the government’s recent focus on AI chips and high-performance computing, and in Europe, policymakers recently released a Data Strategy outlining the bloc’s plans to leverage data and cloud computing resources to promote Europe’s global competitiveness. Policymakers in the United States must come to understand that compute will become as important a factor as talent or data in preserving national competitiveness in AI, and ensure that America’s advantages in cloud services are able to be leveraged by the university labs that our AI future depends on. – Center for Strategic and International Studies

Long War

French prosecutors opened a counterterror probe on Saturday, after a man stabbed two people to death and wounded five others in southeastern France. – Wall Street Journal

A secretive court that oversees national security surveillance ordered the F.B.I. on Friday to conduct a searching review of 29 wiretap applications in terrorism and espionage investigations, after an inspector general uncovered pervasive problems with how the bureau prepared them. – New York Times

French police have arrested three Sudanese nationals in a terror probe after a stabbing spree in the southeast left two people dead, investigators said on Sunday. – Agence France-Presse

Steven Stalinsky writes: Jihadist groups are closely following the spread of the new coronavirus. In their publications and on social media their members post analyses, threats and even sanitary guidelines. Counterterrorism officials should monitor these communications for a window into their thinking. – Wall Street Journal