Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Gaza ceasefire still elusive as negotiators try to hammer out deal Bloomberg’s Marc Champion: A Gaza cease-fire deal would be Trump’s win Iran's navy unveils its first signals intelligence ship The Atlantic’s Arash Azizi: Iran’s return to pragmatism AFPC’s Lawrence J. Haas: Beware of premature talks with Iran US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken: Putin’s plan for peace is no peace at all North Korea's suicide soldiers pose new challenge for Ukraine in war with Russia China blacklists seven US firms for involvement in Taiwan arms sales Biden in late push to boost Indo-Pacific ties sends three pacts to Congress Puerto Rico asks Trump for help after Venezuela’s Maduro threatens invasion NYT’s Bret Stephens: Depose Maduro Trump inauguration ‘potential target’ for threats, agencies warnIn The News
Israel
Negotiators were trying to hammer out the final details of a ceasefire in Gaza on Wednesday after marathon talks in Qatar, and U.S. and Egyptian leaders promised to stay in close contact about a deal over the coming hours. – Reuters
At least six Palestinians were killed and several were injured on Tuesday in an Israeli strike on Jenin in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, a statement by the Palestinian health ministry said. – Reuters
An Israeli airstrike on Gaza’s Deir al-Balah killed at least 10 Palestinians and wounded others, medics told Reuters on Tuesday. – Reuters
The United Nations said on Tuesday it was busy preparing to expand humanitarian assistance to the Gaza Strip under a potential ceasefire but uncertainty around border access and security in the enclave remain obstacles. – Reuters
The ceasefire deal that is close to being agreed in Gaza has left families of the 98 hostages still held in the enclave facing a mix of hope, apprehension, and, in some cases, anger as negotiators make a final push to seal an agreement. – Reuters
Argentinian President Javier Milei has been awarded Israel’s prestigious 2025 Genesis Prize in recognition of his support of Israel, organizers announced Tuesday. – Associated Press
Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a last-minute case Tuesday for a plan for the post-war reconstruction and governance of Gaza as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas appears tantalizingly close to completion. – Associated Press
The International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor has told judges that Israeli objections to the investigation into the 13-month war in Gaza should be rejected. – Associated Press
A majority of Israelis support a complete hostage deal with Hamas in exchange for the terrorist organization’s demand to end the war, according to the December 2024 Israeli Voice Index. – Jerusalem Post
Many Israelis headed out to the streets Tuesday evening to make their voices heard regarding the emerging ceasefire and hostage deal with Hamas in Gaza, including thousands who rallied to support it and hundreds who decried it as creating grave future dangers. – Times of Israel
Pete Hegseth, the veteran and Fox News personality turned President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be secretary of defense, testified at his Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday that his Christian faith dictates his commitment to supporting Israel and that he wants to see the U.S. ally kill “every last member of Hamas.” – Jewish Insider
Marc Champion writes: Getting agreement to all that from the current Israeli government remains a tall order. As I’ve written before, in his second term Trump faces a very different Middle East, in which the priorities of Israel and its Arab neighbors are much less closely aligned. If he can succeed in turning a ceasefire into a permanent settlement, while completing the process of integrating Israel into regional security, energy and trade structures that he began in his first presidency, he’ll deserve the peace prize he so clearly wants. – Bloomberg
David M. Weinberg writes: Otherwise, they will bolster the Iranian-backed military machine that terrorists have already built in these areas and expand them. Either way, the danger of mass-releasing Palestinian Arab terrorists is clear. A deal that frees vicious murderers of Israeli Jews, including or not the Nukhba killers and rapists of Oct. 7, in exchange for Israel’s innocent suffering hostages endangers even more Israeli lives down the road, and that road is not notably long. – Arutz Sheva
Dr. Michael Milshtein writes: In Gaza, it’s worth scrutinizing the nature of these clans (some of which are criminal groups with jihadist ideologies) and mulling the consequences of relying on numerous tribal entities instead of a single centralized authority. The test of the oversight division demands an immediate challenge to dominant thought patterns regarding all these issues. In many cases, this involves opposing ideas widely supported by politicians and military figures who conceived them and are eager to prove their success — just as happened with the cease-fire arrangements that collapsed on October 7. – Ynet
Iran
Iran’s navy received its first signals intelligence ship on Wednesday, semi-official Tasnim news organisation reported, a few days after the country’s army took delivery of 1,000 new drones. – Reuters
A strategic partnership treaty that Russia and Iran are poised to sign will govern the two countries’ relations for the next two decades, the TASS state news agency reported on Tuesday, citing Iran’s ambassador to Moscow. – Reuters
Iran never plotted to kill Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said in an NBC News interview on Tuesday, denying past claims from Trump and the U.S. government. – Reuters
Iran’s navy received its first signals intelligence ship on Wednesday, semi-official Tasnim news organisation reported, a few days after the country’s army took delivery of 1,000 new drones. – Reuters
Azerbaijani secret service (DTX) thwarted a terror attack targeting a prominent member of the Jewish community. Sources within the Jewish community confirm that the intended victim is a senior figure, highly respected both in Azerbaijan and internationally, particularly in Israel, for his significant efforts to strengthen ties between the two nations. – Jerusalem Post
Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was foreign minister when Iran and world powers agreed to the 2015 nuclear deal and is now vice president for strategic affairs, alleged in a recent interview that Israel once planted explosives in Iranian centrifuge equipment, according to a translation of his remarks by Iran International. – Times of Israel
Arash Azizi writes: The Iranian presidency seems to be a cursed position. Of the eight men who have held it before the current president, five eventually found themselves politically marginalized after their term finished. Two others fell to violent deaths in office (a bomb attack in 1981, a helicopter crash in 2024). The only exception is Ali Khamenei, who went on to become the supreme leader. Hassan Rouhani, Iran’s centrist president from 2013 to 2021, could be poised to break the spell and stage a political comeback. – The Atlantic
Lawrence J. Haas writes: For now, he should reimpose his “maximum pressure” campaign of financial restrictions on Iran (as he’s promised), make clear that he’ll take all necessary military and other steps to prevent a nuclear Iran (as he’s hinted), rally like-minded nations behind more aggressive action against the Houthis to protect global shipping, and hold Tehran responsible for the destructive behavior of its Houthi clients. The time for diplomacy is not yet at hand. – National Interest
Russia & Ukraine
The latest round of U.S. sanctions against Russian oil, announced last Friday, could significantly disrupt Russia’s oil supply and distribution chains, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its monthly oil market report on Wednesday. – Reuters
Russian troops pressing their slow advance through eastern Ukraine took control of two settlements in Donetsk region, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Tuesday. – Reuters
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will visit Warsaw on Wednesday, the Polish prime minister’s office said, following what Poland has called a breakthrough in a historical dispute on wartime exhumations that has stood between the allies. – Reuters
Ukraine introduced emergency power cuts in six regions amid what authorities described as a “massive” Russian missile strike, the national grid operator said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Australia summoned the Russian ambassador over reports a Melbourne man had been killed after being captured by Russia while fighting for Ukraine, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that he has held further discussions with French President Emmanuel Macron about the possibility of Western troops deploying in Ukraine to safeguard any peace deal ending the nearly three-year war with Russia. – Associated Press
Russia’s top diplomat said Tuesday that Moscow is open for talks with President-elect Donald Trump and praised him for pointing to NATO’s plan to embrace Ukraine as a root cause of the nearly 3-year-old conflict. – Associated Press
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aide Nikolai Patrushev warned in an interview published on Tuesday that Ukraine may “cease to exist” in 2025. – Newsweek
Russia has broken its silence on the investigation into the data from the Azerbaijan Airlines (AZAL) aircraft’s black box after the flight crashed on December 25 on its way to Grozny. – Newsweek
Lloyd J. Austin III and Antony J. Blinken write: Pursuing a policy of peace through strength is vital to Ukraine’s survival and America’s security. The United States and its allies and partners must continue to stand by Ukraine and strengthen its hand for the negotiations that will someday bring Mr. Putin’s war of aggression to an end. – New York Times
Elena Davlikanova writes: For Ukraine, that would mean the final confirmation of a world where criminals prosper and ordinary people can be raped, murdered, and oppressed without any prospect of justice. That is a recipe for decades of anger and bad feeling. That’s not how peace is made. The risk is that a new and nasty multipolar world is being built on the graves of Ukrainians. But while Ukraine may be the first victim of such a system, we know it would not be the last. – Centre for European Policy Analysis
Clayton Seigle writes: U.S. policymakers should anticipate these foreseeable market reactions and prepare for a game of cat and mouse to maintain pressure on Moscow. This medium-term campaign must target an evolving list of Russian and offshore entities requiring sanctioning and continuously expand the list of banned shadow fleet ships as evidence of their malign involvement develops. The campaign should also consider even more powerful sanctions against other Russian oil companies and their customers, and potentially lowering the price cap. An increasingly tougher approach is feasible given moderate oil prices and ample global spare production capacity. – Center for Strategic and International Studies
Luke Rodeheffer writes: None of these faults register with Putin, who nonetheless continues to trumpet the EEU as a major economic center in a multi-polar world. This reflects a broader problem with Putin’s mentality. Throughout his quarter-century in power, Putin has evolved from technocrat and fiscal reformer to national conservative and, finally, to neo-imperial gatherer of Russian lands. However, he has never truly donned the mantle of a modernizer. The failure to present Russia as a modernizing model to its former satellites is proving fatal to all of his efforts to keep post-Soviet Eurasia oriented around Moscow over the next decade. – National Interest
Syria
The children of Darayya, scattered across Syria by war, grew up with secrets: why only their mothers ever came to the school gates; that their fathers had been killed, and who killed them. – Washington Post
Some governments are hesitant to boost funding for urgent humanitarian needs in Syria under the country’s new interim rulers after the fall of former President Bashar Assad, the director of the U.N. World Food Program said Tuesday. – Associated Press
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk arrived in Syria’s capital, Damascus, on Tuesday for the first ever visit of the global body’s rights chief to the country. – Reuters
More than 100 children were killed or wounded in Syria last month alone after setting off mines and other unexploded ordnance littering the country after nearly 14 years of civil war, the UN said Tuesday. – Agence France-Presse
Omar Dhabian writes: It is crucial to assess the political and security realities Jolani has imposed in Syria without succumbing to emotional or one-sided religious ideological discourse. Decision-makers must take necessary steps to ensure security and peace by working with regional and international partners to combat terrorism and prevent the resurgence of ISIS or any other extremist organization. Iraqi security agencies should adopt a more flexible approach, leveraging the opportunity to curtail ISIS’s current influence in the Syrian desert and its potential expansion. This can include opening communication channels with HTS and cooperating on counterterrorism efforts. – Washington Institute
Lebanon
Nawaf Salam, who has been designated as the new Prime Minister of Lebanon, has resigned as a member of the International Court of Justice, said the ICJ on Tuesday. – Reuters
Lebanon’s Prime Minister-designate Nawaf Salam said on Tuesday his hands were “extended to everyone”, in a gesture to the Iran-backed Hezbollah militant group that accused opponents of seeking to exclude it by nominating him for the post. – Reuters
French leader Emmanuel Macron is due to visit Lebanon on Friday, both countries said, in the second such trip by a head of state since Lebanon elected a president last week. – Agence France-Presse
Zina Rakhamilova writes: His election reflects a shift in the political dynamics that have long empowered Hezbollah, but the tasks of disarming the group and re-establishing state sovereignty are daunting. Aoun must navigate Lebanon’s entrenched sectarian divides, restore international trust, and fortify the Lebanese Armed Forces. While there is room for cautious optimism, the path ahead demands unwavering resolve and resilience. – Jerusalem Post
Middle East & North Africa
The United Arab Emirates signed trade agreements with Malaysia, Kenya and New Zealand on Tuesday, the final step before the deals can be ratified and implemented, as part of efforts by the Gulf state to strengthen its post-oil economy plans. – Reuters
Hopes of a ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza lifted the region’s government bond markets and Israel’s shekel on Tuesday as investors sensed relief after 15 months of conflict. – Reuters
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s nationalist ally on Tuesday urged jailed PKK militant group leader Abdullah Ocalan to announce the group’s disbandment after his next meeting with the country’s pro-Kurdish political party. – Reuters
Iraq and Britain have agreed on a trade package worth up to 12.3 billion pounds ($14.98 billion) and a bilateral defence deal, the Iraqi and British prime ministers said in a joint statement on Tuesday. – Reuters
The U.N. Libya mission expressed on Tuesday its alarm over what it said was footage circulating on social media featuring “brutal torture and ill-treatment” of detainees at the Gernada detention facility in eastern Libya. – Reuters
Zvi Bar’el writes: Come January 20, the president-elect is hoping to inherit a Middle East desk that has been cleared of major crises. The web of relations involved in this effort erodes Israel’s exclusivity as a U.S. ally in the Middle East and puts it in competition with Saudi Arabia and Turkey, which could also have an impact on Israel’s chances of securing a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia, including the price that Israel will need to pay to make such an agreement happen. – Haaretz
Korean Peninsula
Yoon Suk Yeol became South Korea’s first sitting president to be detained, surrendering himself for questioning Wednesday after a weeks-long standoff that resulted in a dramatic predawn raid on the official presidential residence. – Washington Post
South Korea plans to alter structures near runways at several airports after last month’s Jeju Air crash, when a plane that landed on its belly skidded into a concrete wall before exploding into a fireball. – New York Times
After a battle in Russia’s snowy western region of Kursk this week, Ukrainian special forces scoured the bodies of more than a dozen slain North Korean enemy soldiers. – Reuters
Seth G. Jones and Benjamin Jensen write: The North Korean failure in Russia, combined with the fall of Iran’s proxies in Syria, Lebanon and Gaza, points to the axis’ weakness. As the failure of North Korea’s troops in Russia shows, coalition warfare requires more than ideological alignment. It requires shared operational capabilities and mutual trust—elements conspicuously absent in the Russia-North Korea partnership. If Ukraine and President Trump can continue to exploit these problems, then they can keep the axis on its heels. – Wall Street Journal
China
The European Union said Tuesday that a monthslong probe into China’s procurement markets found that it unfairly discriminates against European medical devices. China favors domestic suppliers and restricts the procurement of imported devices, the bloc said, leaving European companies at a disadvantage. – Wall Street Journal
The Chinese commerce ministry said on Tuesday that it had added seven U.S. companies to its so-called “Unreliable Entity List” for their involvement in arms sales to Taiwan, which China regards as part of its territory. – Reuters
For years, the U.S. government has urged China to show “restraint” in pushing its claim on Taiwan and to drop military threats to bring the democratically governed island under its control. – Reuters
U.S. imports from China finished the year strong after some companies stockpiled shipments of apparel, toys, furniture and electronics ahead of President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to impose new tariffs that could revive a trade war between the world’s economic superpowers. – Reuters
Editorial: This moment calls for increased collaboration to protect a global economy that remains tightly intertwined despite years of brewing hostility between its two dominant powers. China’s rise does pose a challenge to U.S. national security and its place in the world. But hammering China with tariffs is not the solution. A real trade war with China would only make it more difficult to deal with the world’s existential challenges. And it would undercut the world economy. – Washington Post
Elizabeth Economy and Melanie Hart write: But the index also shows that Washington is punching below its weight in the critical area of economic relationships, which measures a state’s ability to use economic interdependence to exercise influence and leverage over trade and investment partners. Here, the United States ranks a distant second to China. And if the United States is underperforming in this measure in Asia, the same is likely true in Africa and South America, regions where China is the largest trading partner and an increasingly dominant source of investment. – Foreign Affairs
South Asia
Pakistan’s prime minister on Tuesday ordered an investigation into how the country’s national airline approved an advertisement with an illustration that many on social media said was uncomfortably similar to imagery from Sept. 11, 2001. – New York Times
Bangladesh’s interim government should hold general elections by August in the “greater interest of the country,” the party of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia said on Tuesday, citing growing political and economic instability. – Reuters
India aims to boost its textile and garments industry in next month’s budget with financial support, tariff cuts on key inputs and incentives to produce locally, two government sources said. – Reuters
Bangladesh’s Supreme Court on Wednesday acquitted former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia in the last corruption case against her, paving the way for her to run in elections that an interim government says will be held either in December or in the first half of 2026. – Associated Press
India’s foreign secretary, Vikram Misri, met acting Afghanistan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai last week, making a strong leap forward in bilateral relations. – Fox News
Asia
A long-planned business zone in southern Malaysia aims to draw billions of dollars in investment into a hub twice the size of London, building up sectors ranging from artificial intelligence to technology manufacturing in a region fast-becoming a data-center powerhouse. – Wall Street Journal
Chinese authorities have asked Thailand to inspect dozens of factories before opening negotiations to lift a ban imposed last month on sugar syrup and premixed powder exports from the Southeast Asia nation, Thai officials said. – Reuters
Hong Kong officials held rare talks in Bangkok this week with Thai counterparts to find ways to bring home those lured from the Asian financial hub and trapped in illegal work in Southeast Asia, seeking to combat a growing trend. – Reuters
Taiwan will step up the surveillance and management of ships carrying flags of convenience, including boarding them, after a Chinese-linked cargo vessel was suspected of damaging an undersea communications cable, the government said. – Reuters
Japan is gravely concerned about actions being repeated in the South China Sea that are raising tensions, and strongly opposes any unilateral attempt to change the status quo, its foreign minister said on Wednesday. – Reuters
The Biden administration is seeking to shore up ties with countries in the Indo-Pacific in its waning days in office by sending to Congress three key agreements that would cement relations with critical allies and partners in a region increasingly dominated by China. – Associated Press
Vietnam and Russia inked Tuesday an agreement to boost cooperation on nuclear energy during Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin’s two-day visit to Hanoi. – Associated Press
Karishma Vaswani writes: Readying the reserve forces by training them and offering better pay would be another easy win and help to boost numbers. More reconnaissance aircraft and unmanned drones would allow the military to monitor the PLA while also taking the pressure off soldiers, exhausted by Beijing’s relentless activity. This would show China that it won’t be easy to seize Taiwan. Xi is loathe to fight a war he won’t win outright. The trick is to keep convincing him that today is not that day. The new US president may well want to leave a legacy. History won’t judge him well if he abandons Taiwan. – Bloomberg
Europe
The people of Greenland, the Inuit, the people of the farthest north, are famously quiet. At church, you can barely hear them when they sing. In conversation, you have to lean in. This doesn’t mean they are passive. They eat polar bears. – Washington Post
NATO is launching a new patrol and surveillance operation to protect critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea region bordering Russia, the alliance said Tuesday after several breaches of undersea cables have put European authorities on high alert. – Washington Post
Prime Minister Keir Starmer of Britain suffered a new blow on Tuesday when his anticorruption minister, Tulip Siddiq, quit her post weeks after being named in an embezzlement investigation in Bangladesh. – New York Times
France is “far from ready” to build six nuclear reactors, the state’s top audit body said on Tuesday, underlining the challenges the country faces in rejuvenating its ageing fleet of nuclear power plants. – Reuters
The Polish army’s operational command said on Tuesday an incident described in a media report about a Russian ‘shadow fleet’ ship circling near the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline “did not happen”. – Reuters
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s opponents on Tuesday said a proposed tax on property purchases by non-European Union residents was “xenophobic” and they would not apply the levy in the regions where they govern. – Reuters
Slovakia’s opposition parties will call a no-confidence vote against the government, a party chief said on Tuesday, accusing Prime Minister Robert Fico of dragging foreign policy closer to Russia while failing to tackle problems at home. – Reuters
Germany’s cabinet is set to approve plans on Wednesday authorising the armed forces to shoot down illegal drones following repeated reports of illegal flights over critical infrastructure, a draft amendment seen by Reuters showed. – Reuters
Governments across Europe need to immediately take action against a precipitous rise in antisemitism that’s driving thousands of Jews to abandon the continent, the leader of a prominent European Jewish organization said Monday. – Associated Press
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte called on members of the alliance to either increase their defense spending targets or start taking “Russian language courses.” – Newsweek
William A. Galston writes: As these bets failed, Europe’s citizens became dissatisfied with the dominant parties of the center left and center right and turned to right-wing populist-nationalists. For different reasons, voters in the U.K. and U.S. did as well. Joe Biden is the last U.S. president for whom the trans-Atlantic alliance was a visceral commitment. Mr. Trump’s return to power proves that for most Americans, the postwar world is no longer living history. Everything depends on what replaces it. – Wall Street Journal
Mohammed Soliman writes: Should the Trump administration proceed with bringing Greenland into the American fold—whether through a COFA, UMCA, or other mechanism of integration, or even full acquisition—it would mark the first territorial expansion of the American republic since the annexation of Hawaii in 1898 and its eventual statehood in 1959. Such a move would not only be historically unprecedented as a land acquisition, but it would also resurrect a long-dormant tradition of American territorial expansion. – Newsweek
Africa
Decades ago, Mozambique’s liberation party, Frelimo, easily attracted adoring crowds. The promise of salvation from Portuguese colonizers, and a life with jobs and housing for all, was an easy sell in a southern African nation that was suffering under racist rule. – New York Times
The Democratic Republic of Congo, the world’s top cobalt supplier, is courting new mining investors from Saudi Arabia to help it diversify and curb overreliance on companies from China, Marcellin Paluku, a senior government official, told Reuters. – Reuters
The World Bank has suspended its disbursements to Gabon due to debt arrears of 17 billion CFA francs ($27 million), the central African country’s public accounts ministry said. – Reuters
The Sudanese army on Tuesday condemned what it called “individual violations” in Sudan’s El Gezira in recent days after rights groups blamed the army and its allies for ethnically-targeted attacks on civilians. – Reuters
Comoros’ ruling party has won 28 out of 33 seats in Parliament, according to election results announced on Tuesday. – Associated Press
At least 120 people are reported to have been killed in random shelling on Monday in the Dar-Salam area of the Sudanese city of Omdurman, across the Nile from the capital, Khartoum, according to a local volunteer network. – BBC
The Americas
Days before President Biden’s term ends, his administration said it would remove Cuba from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism as part of a deal worked out with help from the Catholic Church to free political prisoners on the island. – Wall Street Journal
The migrant situation at the border was out of control, they said, and Mexico was not doing enough to stop it, according to officials from both countries. – New York Times
More than a million people, over half of them children, are now displaced within Haiti where gang violence continues unabated despite the start of a United Nations-backed security mission last year, U.N. data showed on Tuesday. – Reuters
Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Tuesday his government would “gradually” release 553 prisoners following talks with the Vatican, a decision announced just hours after the Biden administration said it would loosen a host of sanctions on the island. – Reuters
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, facing disagreements over how Canada should respond to threatened U.S. tariffs, will hold a cabinet retreat next week focused on defending Canadian interests, his office said on Tuesday. – Reuters
In late November, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump sent shockwaves through global trade by threatening 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, effectively ripping up a regional trade agreement, if the two countries didn’t do more to curb migration and the flow of drugs. – Reuters
Former central banker Mark Carney all but said he is running to be Canada’s next prime minister during an appearance on Jon Stewart’s ‘The Daily Show’ on Monday night. – Associated Press
Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González landed in Guatemala Tuesday, four days after the inauguration of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to a third term. – Associated Press
Puerto Rico’s new Republican governor is drawing attention to Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro’s military threats against the U.S. island in the wake of President-elect Trump’s calls for U.S. territorial expansion. – The Hill
Bret Stephens writes: The president-elect inspires a lot of nervousness, loathing and fear. Like it or, probably, not, that’s the man Americans elected. His choice for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, understands better than most Americans the real nature of these tropical despotisms. Ending Maduro’s long reign of terror is a good way to start their administration — and send a signal to tyrants elsewhere that American patience with disorder and danger eventually runs out. – New York Times
United States
Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday announced that American flags at the Capitol would be temporarily raised on Monday for President-elect Donald J. Trump’s inauguration, effectively defying a presidential order put in place last month to mourn the death of former President Jimmy Carter. – New York Times
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said on Tuesday he will create a new government agency called the External Revenue Service “to collect tariffs, duties, and all revenue” from foreign sources as he readies new import tariffs ahead of his inauguration next week. – Reuters
US President-elect Donald Trump would have been convicted for his alleged effort to overturn the result of the 2020 election if he hadn’t been elected four years later, said a report by then special counsel Jack Smith published by US media early Tuesday. – Agence France-Presse
U.S. national security agencies are warning that President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration will be “an attractive potential target” for violent extremists even as they say there are no specific credible threats. – Politico
Jason L. Riley writes: None of this is unique to the Golden State. Democrats also dominate New York and Illinois, where progressive overreach has manifested itself in everything from decriminalized shoplifting to sanctuary cities for illegal immigrants. Lack of serious political opposition has emboldened the left to take foolish risks without fear of paying a price. “You look at the folks who are in charge of public policy, all of whom are of one political party,” Mr. Simon said. “Maybe the chickens are coming home to roost.” – Wall Street Journal
Harlan Ullman writes: As no less an authority than Albert Einstein observed space was unbounded but finite, suggesting unlimited business opportunities for Trump to exploit. In these circumstances, would Trump have time to govern? Or would he deputize Vice President J.D. Vance to assume this role? Given his vision as a real estate developer and the authority the presidency would provide, are there any limits on how far the art of the deal could be extended and applied? Past presidents have brought to the Oval Office unique experiences from winning wars to holding high elective or appointive offices. Trump is unique. So let’s see what his second time as president will bring. – The Hill
Cybersecurity
The threat of a ban on TikTok this Sunday has young Americans migrating to an unexpected destination: RedNote, another Chinese-owned app, which is heavily censored and used almost exclusively by Chinese-speakers. – Washington Post
Brazil’s government said on Tuesday it is “seriously concerned” about Meta Platforms’ recently announced changes to its hate speech policy, adding that it believes they do not comply with the country’s legislation. – Reuters
The Australian head of the world’s largest volunteer firefighting force said on Tuesday a refusal by social media firms to give emergency services free access to its data was hindering responders globally, as wildfires continued to rip through Los Angeles. – Reuters
Indonesia plans to issue a regulation to set a minimum age for users of social media, a move aimed at protecting children, its communications minister has said. – Reuters
Foreign powers are using social media apps to recruit Swedish gangs and even children for violent attacks against targets like the Israeli embassy, Sweden’s police chief said on Tuesday. – Reuters
The European Commission said on Tuesday it was assessing its cases against Apple, Alphabet, X and Meta stressing that President-elect Donald Trump’s return to the White House did not affect its commitment to enforcing its laws. – Reuters
President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an ambitious executive order on artificial intelligence that seeks to ensure the infrastructure needed for advanced AI operations, such as large-scale data centers and new clean power facilities, can be built quickly and at scale in the United States. – Associated Press
Internet users in Russia reported widespread service disruptions on Tuesday, according to Russian media outlets. – Newsweek
Malware used by Chinese state-backed hackers has been removed from thousands of U.S. computers in an operation launched by the FBI and Justice Department. – The Record
Russia’s main electronic trading platform for government and corporate procurement confirmed on Monday that it had been targeted by a cyberattack after initially claiming that outages were caused by “maintenance work.” – The Record
President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Defense secretary vowed that he would end the “debate” on the policy of having one military official at the head of both the nation’s largest spy agency and top cyber digital warfighting command. – The Record
TikTok required an American executive to sign an oath supporting China’s “socialist system” and “national interests,” according to documents related to an employment discrimination lawsuit obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. – Daily Caller
Parmy Olson writes: A better approach would have been to focus on a few key objectives, like the growth of compute, or to mandate use of AI in government divisions, and provide greater specificity. Starmer would also do well to play up Britain’s leading role as a safety regulator, which benefits from the concentrated AI expertise in London, where Google DeepMind is based. Some 150 people work for the government’s leading AI Safety Institute, more than those working on these issues at the European Commission in Brussels. – Bloomberg
Catherine Thorbecke writes: TikTok creators, meanwhile, have been flocking to another Chinese social media platform, Xiaohongshu or “RedNote,” and urging their followers to do the same. They’re using this protest to point out what many see as absurdities with the government’s move to single out just one app. […] Musk may be able to prevent TikTok from being banned due to Beijing’s threats, but his track record shows he likely won’t save it from being used to influence Americans or collect vast amounts of their data. Washington shouldn’t overlook these risks either. – Bloomberg
Paul M. Barrett writes: Meta said it would imitate X’s transfer of fact-checking responsibilities to its users in a program called “community notes.” X’s community notes at times have allowed corrections of dubious content to surface quickly, but skeptics have noted that the approach often leads to fact-checks never getting published or descending into partisan bickering. In any event, it’s not clear why Meta needed to kill fact-checking in order to experiment with crowdsourced commentary. The two methods are not mutually exclusive. Unless, of course, Meta’s primary goal was to make a splashy announcement that set it apart from its Silicon Valley rivals in the ongoing industry scramble to appeal to Trump and his allies. – The Hill
Anne Neuberger writes: As the United States faces growing rivalry to shape the future of the global order, it is urgent that its intelligence agencies and military capitalize on the country’s innovation and leadership in AI, focusing particularly on large language models, to provide faster and more relevant information to policymakers. Only then will they gain the speed, breadth, and depth of insight needed to navigate a more complex, competitive, and content-rich world. – Foreign Affairs
Radha Iyengar Plumb writes: Ultimately, the objective is to create a federated ecosystem that has the right technical foundation, is accessible to the best developers, and delivers timely solutions to the warfighters. To that end, within our office we have leveraged the acquisition authorities granted by Congress to develop a streamlined competitive selection process through the Tradewinds Solutions Marketplace. We created a single front door to the commercial sector through a formal partnership with the Defense Innovation Unit. And we have shared this information routinely with industry through quarterly industry days. – War on the Rocks
Defense
For the U.S. Navy to achieve a proposed plan to expand its fleet of battle force ships, the service would need to spend $40.1 billion on shipbuilding every year through 2054, for a total of more than $1 trillion, according to new analysis from the Congressional Budget Office. – Defense News
Stratolaunch, a California-based firm building a reusable hypersonic test vehicle, is modifying its carrier aircraft to support high-speed test missions around the globe. – Defense News
The Navy wants to buy its first next-generation guided missile destroyer by 2032, but first there are there are some details that need to be hammered out for replacing the trusty Arleigh Burke-class ships the service has fielded since the early 90s—and plans to keep in the water “likely into the 2070s,” the director of surface warfare said Tuesday. – Defense One
The Navy is already analyzing and training to prevent a repeat of a December friendly fire incident that saw USS Gettysburg (CG-62) shoot down a F/A-18 fighter jet. However, investigations into what happened are still underway and public details are few. – USNI News
In an often confrontational hearing today, Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth went toe-to-toe with Senate Democrats over the role of women in combat, diversity initiatives and, possibly, firing top generals. – Breaking Defense
Bryan Clark and Michael Roberts write: Growing the U.S. flag fleet would add thousands of experienced American mariners, while building these ships in American shipyards would provide enough work for hundreds of American businesses across the country, from naval architecture and design to steel and equipment production, and throughout the supply chain. The Ships for America Act provides a blueprint for smart, 21st-century reindustrialization policy to counter the geopolitical threats of today. Passing it should be one of the new Congress’s top priorities. – The Hill
Eli Lake writes: But the world is a different place now. Hegseth has allies in the conservative media and the broader MAGA movement. The narrative that Trump’s choice for secretary of defense was an unqualified womanizer who couldn’t manage a small charity has morphed into the tale of an embattled truth teller, taking on Big Woke at the Pentagon. And that’s why Hegseth triumphed at Tuesday’s confirmation hearing. With the help of Republican senators, he was able to portray himself as the victim of a smear campaign rather than a victimizer of women. A floor vote on Hegseth comes next. – Free Press