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Israel prepares Lebanon cease-fire plan as ‘gift’ to Trump, officials say C.I.A. official charged in leak of classified documents about Israeli military plans Chatham House’s Renad Mansour: The axis of resilience UN nuclear watchdog chief Grossi arrives in Iran for talks Bloomberg’s Hal Brands: Iran is much weaker than the last time it faced Trump The ‘deathonomics’ powering Russia’s war machine Blinken helms last-minute rush of support to Ukraine before Trump takes office Ukraine Prioritizes Security, Not Territory, as Trump Pushes Truce Talks BRICS offered Turkey partner country status, Turkish trade minister says Council on Foreign Relations’ Ray Takeyh: What does Donald Trump 2.0 mean for the Middle East? How China capitalized on U.S. indifference in Latin America Trump is recruiting a team of China hawks. So why is Beijing relieved?In The News
Israel
A close aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Donald Trump and Jared Kushner this week that Israel is rushing to advance a cease-fire deal in Lebanon, according to three current and former Israeli officials briefed on the meeting, with the aim of delivering an early foreign policy win to the president-elect. – Washington Post
An Israeli court on Wednesday rejected a new request by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to delay testifying at his corruption trial, ruling that he must take the stand next month even as the country is at war in Gaza and Lebanon. – New York Times
A C.I.A. official has been charged with disclosing classified documents that appeared to show Israel’s plans to retaliate against Iran for a missile attack earlier this year, according to court documents and people familiar with the matter. – New York Times
A militant group in Gaza released a video on Wednesday showing Sasha Troufanov, an Israeli Russian dual citizen who has been held hostage since the Hamas-led attack on Israel 13 months ago. It was the first video of Mr. Troufanov since Palestinian Islamic Jihad, the second most powerful militant group in Gaza after Hamas, released two videos of him in May. – New York Times
Israeli airstrikes pounded Beirut’s Hezbollah-controlled southern suburbs for a second consecutive day on Wednesday, as Lebanon waited to hear Washington’s latest ceasefire proposals after a U.S. official expressed hope a truce could be reached. – Reuters
Israeli officials are insisting on maintaining a capacity to strike Lebanon at any moment as part of conditions to secure a ceasefire with Iran-backed Hezbollah, France’s foreign minister said on Wednesday. – Reuters
US President Joe Biden met with families of American hostages taken by Hamas on Wednesday afternoon. According to a White House statement, the president updated the families on US efforts to secure the release of their loved ones, and assured them that the administration’s efforts to secure a deal would continue. – Jerusalem Post
Iran
European powers are pushing for a new resolution against Iran by the U.N. atomic watchdog’s board next week to pressure Tehran over its poor cooperation, as the world awaits the return of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, diplomats say. – Reuters
U.N. atomic watchdog chief Rafael Grossi arrived in Iran for talks on Wednesday, Iranian state media reported, a day after he appealed to Iran’s leadership to take steps to resolve longstanding issues with his agency over its nuclear programme. – Reuters
A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday threw out a $1.68 billion judgment against Iran’s central bank that had been won by family members of troops killed and injured in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut. – Reuters
Iranian bank cards are now operational in Russia as the two nations link their banking systems to bypass international sanctions, Iranian state television announced Monday. – Jerusalem Post
Hal Brands writes: Finally, the risk of escalation is real. Iran is weak but not impotent. It won’t sit passively as Washington crushes its economy and Israel bludgeons its allies. Iran could respond by lobbing more missiles at Israel, targeting US allies or military bases in the Persian Gulf, or perhaps even making a break for the nuclear bomb. Any of these moves could trigger the big, ugly war Trump aims to avoid. The Middle East has changed, but it’s still the Middle East — where the most ambitious plans so easily go awry. – Bloomberg
Russia & Ukraine
President-elect Donald Trump has styled himself a master dealmaker who can leverage his warm relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin to end the war in Ukraine, cool tensions between the world’s biggest nuclear powers and realign global politics. – Wall Street Journal
Going to war is now a rational economic choice in Russia’s impoverished hinterlands. Facing heavy losses in Ukraine, Russia is offering high salaries and bonuses to entice new recruits. In some of the country’s poorest regions, a military wage is as much as five times the average. The families of those who die on the front lines receive large compensation payments from the government. – Wall Street Journal
Among Ukraine’s European allies, there is a quiet but growing shift toward the notion that the war with Russia will end only through negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow involving concessions of Ukrainian territory. – Washington Post
The Biden administration will rush as much military assistance as possible to Ukraine while it remains in office, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday as he met a slew of European security officials in Brussels to prepare a strategy of support for Kyiv before President-elect Donald Trump enters the Oval Office. – Washington Post
Russia ramped up its deep strikes into Ukraine on Wednesday with a volley of missiles aimed at Kyiv and a northeastern border area, ending a more than two-month pause in such attacks on the capital, the Ukrainian air force said. – New York Times
North Korean soldiers have engaged in combat operations against Ukraine alongside their Russian allies, South Korea’s spy agency said on Wednesday. – Reuters
Ukraine’s border guard force cannot register a trademark in the European Union on its wartime insult “Russian warship, go fuck yourself” because it is a political slogan, the EU General Court said on Wednesday. – Reuters
A bomb planted under a car blew up and killed a senior Russian naval officer in occupied Crimea’s city of Sevastopol on Wednesday, in what a Kyiv security source said was a Ukrainian hit on one of its highest-ranking targets to date. – Reuters
A top Russian defense official has attended China’s premier military showcase in a show of unity between the countries as Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine. – Associated Press
Josh Rogin writes: Zelensky is right. If Trump pushes for a rushed deal on Putin’s terms, the outcome would probably be neither stable nor lasting. But by committing to steady, smart support for Ukraine, Trump can build the leverage needed to negotiate a fair deal — one that secures Ukraine’s sovereignty, protects American interests and keeps our alliances strong. In doing so, he has the chance to be remembered not as a president who immediately capitulated to Putin, but as one who turned a precarious moment into a historic achievement. – Washington Post
Tom Rogan writes: Trump can achieve real and highly significant results for U.S. interests if he deals with Putin with a firmer understanding of who the tyrant is and what he really wants. He can get a Ukraine peace deal worth a Nobel Peace Prize and Ukraine’s confident support. However, if the president tempts himself to believe he’s dealing with a leader who wants the best for both of them, the U.S. and some of its best allies will pay dearly for it. In another way, Trump should aim to replicate the Reagan-Gorbachev meeting in 1986 in Reykjavik, not his 2018 meeting with Putin in Helsinki. – Washington Examiner
Hezbollah
Israeli forces launched airstrikes on Hezbollah-controlled areas in Beirut for a third consecutive day on Thursday, hitting locations in the capital’s southern suburbs early in the morning after a night of heavy bombardments. – Reuters
Lebanon’s Iran-aligned Hezbollah said on Wednesday that it had launched an attack on Tel Aviv’s Hakirya military base, for the first time with drones, however there were no warning sirens heard and no immediate reports of any impact in a busy area of the city. – Reuters
The Israeli military said on Wednesday that a heavy barrage of rockets was fired from Lebanon at Israel. Following sirens that sounded in a number of areas in central Israel, approximately five projectiles were identified crossing from Lebanon, the military said in a statement. – Reuters
Israel would reject any ceasefire that does not push Hezbollah back behind the Litani River, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Wednesday amid reports that such an agreement was near. – Jerusalem Post
The military said Wednesday that it has further expanded its ground operation in southern Lebanon, as it continued to carry out airstrikes in Beirut while Hezbollah fired rockets and drones at northern Israel. – Times of Israel
Turkey
Turkey was offered partner country status by the BRICS group of nations, Trade Minister Omer Bolat said, as Ankara continues what it calls its efforts to balance its Eastern and Western ties. – Reuters
Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani will visit Turkey on Thursday for high-level meetings, Turkey’s trade minister said on Wednesday, after Doha said at the weekend it stalled its Gaza mediation efforts for now. – Reuters
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said he remains hopeful that a reconciliation with Syrian President Bashar Assad can be achieved to end more than a decade of tensions between their two neighboring countries, state-run media reported on Wednesday. – Associated Press
Middle East & North Africa
An Israeli attack targeted the area of Qusayr in the southern countryside of Homs province in central Syria, Syria’s state media said on Wednesday. Later on Wednesday, the Israeli military said it attacked routes between Syria and Lebanon used to smuggle weapons to Hezbollah from Syria. – Reuters
Saudi Arabia has scaled back lofty ambitions for its NEOM gigaproject to prioritize completing elements essential to hosting global sporting events over the next decade as rising costs weigh, three sources told Reuters a day after the sudden departure of the project’s longtime CEO. – Reuters
Ray Takeyh writes: Trump’s most significant asset is his record of achievement in the Middle East from his previous term and his unpredictability that unsettled the theocratic state. He took the extraordinary step of ordering the killing of Iran’s terrorist mastermind, General Qasim Soleimani, and he proved that he could impose debilitating sanctions on Iran despite European reservations. At this late juncture, only an America that stands with its allies and makes its red lines clear can deter a mushroom cloud over an already turbulent Middle East. – The National Interest
Korean Peninsula
South Korea’s military said it will hold a three-day joint exercise with the United States and Japan starting on Wednesday, featuring fighter jets and marine patrol aircraft as well as the U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington. – Reuters
South Korea’s Supreme Court upheld on Thursday the conviction of the former head of an advocacy group representing victims of Japan’s wartime sexual abuse for embezzlement and sentenced her to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years. – Reuters
South Korean police have arrested 215 people on suspicion of stealing 320 billion won ($228.4 million) in the biggest cryptocurrency investment scam in the country. – Reuters
China
Chinese leader Xi Jinping arrives this week in a region where China has replaced the U.S. as the dominant trading partner for most big economies, with the exceptions of Mexico and Colombia. Beijing has signed up most of Latin America and the Caribbean to an infrastructure program that excludes the U.S. In Peru, Xi will inaugurate a megaport to speed trade with Asia. – Wall Street Journal
In ways big and small, Beijing’s takeover of Hong Kong’s financial sector is looking irreversible. With stunning speed, the world’s pre-eminent East-meets-West investment hub has become more Chinese as international financial institutions, corporations, and expatriates retreat. – Wall Street Journal
U.S. President Joe Biden will meet Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for likely the final time on Saturday, senior administration officials said, as Beijing prepares for a potentially more confrontational period with Washington under Donald Trump. – Reuters
Former Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen is planning to visit Canada next week, two diplomatic sources told Reuters, in a highly watched visit for a senior Taiwan politician who has a become a symbol of the island’s defiance against China’s military threat. – Reuters
Taiwan does not have a “concrete list” of new arms deals to put to the United States’ incoming Trump administration but is keen to discuss how to boost the island’s defence, senior Taiwan security officials said. – Reuters
In a series of war games in the seas and skies around Taiwan last month, China deployed some of its newest strike aircraft, warships and missile forces. However, one of the most menacing weapons used in the drills: an updated version of a bomber that first flew in the early years of the Cold War. – Reuters
The Chinese military hardware on display at the country’s largest air show in Zhuhai illustrates its ambitions, and in some cases may show breakthroughs in capability, experts say. – Reuters
It is up to the United States to decide what to do with Taiwan’s decommissioned HAWK anti-aircraft missiles, the island’s Defence Minister Wellington Koo said on Wednesday, when asked if they would be transferred to Ukraine. – Reuters
Craig Singleton writes: But achieving lasting success will require more than pressuring China for pressure’s sake. It will demand a wider peace-through-strength approach that combines American domestic renewal, enhanced military spending, entrepreneurial dynamism and, critically, the alliance network that Mr. Biden revitalized across Asia and Europe. The incoming administration needs to grasp that this is a crucial piece of the puzzle in confronting China and ensure that a renewed “America First” approach focuses on fair burden sharing among allies rather than excessive tariffs on allies or questioning American commitments to mutual defense arrangements. These would only undermine deterrence and create diplomatic rifts that China would be quick to exploit. – New York Times
Catherine Thorbecke writes: Ultimately, Trump’s return to the White House and another trade war causes major headaches for companies on both sides. But it’s worth remembering that the president-elect’s past policies didn’t stymie Beijing’s high-tech ambitions. And while Trump is caught up with short-term and transactional wins, Xi has been laser-focused on coming out on top in the long run. – Bloomberg
South Asia
India’s Supreme Court on Wednesday outlawed a practice widely called bulldozer justice, in which state governments raze the homes and businesses of people — most often Muslims — as rapid retribution after communal conflicts or acts of political dissent. – New York Times
Sri Lankans began voting on Thursday in a snap election to decide if the Indian Ocean island will give its new leftist president greater strength to help the poor as it recovers from a financial meltdown. – Reuters
Toxic smog blanketed northern India on Thursday, becoming too thick to see through in several places, as high levels of pollution combined with humidity, low wind speed, and a drop in temperature, officials said. – Reuters
Indian political parties are increasingly targeting women voters with fiscally draining handouts of cash around the time of elections to counter wider worries about inflation and the lack of jobs, analysts say. – Reuters
India’s central bank should cut interest rates to boost economic growth and look through food price while deciding on monetary policy, the trade minister said, the first time a government minister has backed calls to re-examine the nation’s inflation targeting framework. – Reuters
A powerful explosion ripped through a house in a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban on Thursday, killing at least two children and wounding some others, police said. – Associated Press
Pakistani security forces faced off with insurgents in two separate raids hours apart on their hideouts in two troubled areas in the country killing 12 militants and wounding six others, the military said Wednesday. – Associated Press
An association of editors and rights groups has condemned a decision by Bangladesh’s interim government to cancel press accreditations for 167 journalists, calling it a threat to press freedom in the country. – Associated Press
Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus said Wednesday that world leaders shouldn’t be negotiating at United Nations climate talks this year, and countries responsible for warming up the planet should instead just simply provide the funds to deal with the climate crisis. – Associated Press
Harsh V. Pant and Kalpit A. Mankikar write: It will not be easy to establish India’s economic security in the shadow of its giant northern neighbor. But Modi can use his third term to make this shift. After ensuring that Beijing gets the message clearly that New Delhi will forcefully push back any Chinese aggression, he must find consistency in his China policy and break the silos of business and national security. If his government does not manage to do so, India’s desire to play a greater role in the international system will be confounded by China’s overweening presence, both at the border and within the country. – Foreign Affairs
Asia
New Zealand’s parliament was briefly suspended on Thursday after Maori members staged a haka to disrupt the vote on a contentious bill that would reinterpret a 184-year-old treaty between the British and Indigenous Maori. – Reuters
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr said on Thursday his government would not block the International Criminal Court (ICC) if former leader Rodrigo Duterte wants to be investigated for alleged crimes against humanity in his anti-drugs crackdown. – Reuters
Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto said he would “always safeguard our sovereignty” when asked about the issue of the South China Sea, adding partnerships are better than conflicts and that “we respect all powers”. – Reuters
The Philippines’ foreign ministry said on Wednesday it summoned China’s ambassador to protest Beijing’s drawing of baselines around the disputed Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea. – Reuters
Karishma Vaswani writes: There is strength in unity; working with partners ln Asean like Manila and Hanoi would help. Elevating Jakarta’s strategic partnership with the US without becoming a proxy for American interests in Southeast Asia is possible even in what is likely to be an ill-defined American foreign-policy environment. It will require deft diplomacy, but also a clear message the archipelago is not in anyone’s pocket. Indonesia’s voice carries weight. For decades, the bedrock of Jakarta’s approach to international affairs has been to pursue a self-reliant and independent foreign policy. Changing that would risk not only the nation’s sovereignty, but also stability across Southeast Asia. – Bloomberg
Europe
In an unusual move, Italy’s president sharply rebuked Elon Musk for weighing in on Italy’s immigration debate in a series of posts on Mr. Musk’s X platform. – New York Times
Technology company executives could be held personally liable for allowing illegal knives to be advertised on their platforms, under new British government plans to combat a recent rise in crime with weapons, some of which are readily available online. – New York Times
Police detained pro-Palestinian protesters rallying in central Amsterdam on Wednesday in defiance of a ban imposed after violence stemming from a football match between Ajax and Israeli club Maccabi Tel Aviv. – Reuters
The Paris prosecutor on Wednesday requested a five-year prison sentence and a five-year ban from public office against far-right leader Marine Le Pen, at a trial where she and 24 others are accused of embezzling European Union funds. – Reuters
British news publisher the Guardian said on Wednesday it will no longer post to X, citing “disturbing content” on the social media platform, including racism and conspiracy theories. – Reuters
Liz Truss writes: Mr. Trump can help Europe help itself. When negotiating trade agreements, he can refuse carbon border taxes—tariffs based on greenhouse-gas levels emitted during production. Also on the chopping block should be the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s disastrous minimum-tax agreement, which imposes a tax floor of 15% on multinational corporations. Mr. Trump can do more than end wokeism and kickstart the American economy. He can also export America’s economic model to Europe and give us our confidence back. In short, as well as saving America, he can save the West. It’s a big task, but if anyone can do it, he can. – Wall Street Journal
Agathe Demarais and Abraham Newman write: Such a network would also boost Europe’s credibility with adversaries. By cementing cohesion, it would check the ability of foes to play European member states off one another in a bid to water down the effectiveness of EU economic statecraft. It could, likewise, boost the EU’s bargaining power vis-à-vis the United States by making it more difficult for Washington to pressure individual member states or cut bilateral deals with Trump-friendly countries, such as Hungary or Italy. Without significant institutional investments, the EU’s economic security ambitions will likely fail. Its members will be vulnerable to adversaries looking to cause harm and allies prioritizing their own interests. – Foreign Affairs
Africa
Zambia’s central bank raised its key lending rate by 50 basis points to tame runaway inflation in Africa’s second-biggest copper and cobalt producer, the central bank said Wednesday. – Wall Street Journal
Voters in Somaliland flocked to the polls on Wednesday to choose a president at a time when the breakaway Somali region sees international recognition within reach after three decades of de facto self-rule. – Reuters
Sudan’s sovereign council said on Wednesday it would extend the use of the Adre border crossing with Chad, seen as essential by aid agencies for the delivery of food and other supplies to areas at risk of famine in the Darfur and Kordofan regions. – Reuters
Senegal will vote in legislative elections on Sunday that will determine whether the new president and government can gain control over the national assembly and push through their agenda for reforms. – Reuters
Nigeria’s state oil firm, NNPC Ltd said on Wednesday one of its subsidiaries has agreed to supply 100 million standard cubic feet of gas per day to the Dangote oil refinery for the next 10 years. – Reuters
Veteran Mauritian politician Navin Ramgoolam was sworn in as prime minister for his fourth term on Wednesday, a decade after he last left power, following his coalition’s dramatic triumph in a general election. – Reuters
Russia has deployed up to 200 military instructors to Equatorial Guinea in recent weeks to protect the presidency, sources told Reuters, showing Moscow is expanding its footprint in West Africa despite a recent defeat in Mali. – Reuters
Mali’s ruling junta arrested one of the country’s top politicians Wednesday for criticizing the military rulers of neighboring Burkina Faso, according to his son and a judiciary source. – Associated Press
The Americas
Some 700 yards deep in Colombia’s richest gold mine, private security guards crouch behind sandbags, trapped in a failing battle with a drug-trafficking gang that has commandeered 30 miles of tunnels worth hundreds of millions of dollars. – Wall Street Journal
Two explosions took place near Brazil’s Supreme Court on Wednesday night, prompting an evacuation of the area and killing one person, who the police said was believed to be the attacker. – New York Times
President Gustavo Petro, Colombia’s first leftist leader, promised his government would acquire 3 million hectares (7.4 million acres) of land for victims of the country’s six-decade conflict, to meet the terms of a 2016 peace deal with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). – Reuters
Brazil’s incoming central bank chief Gabriel Galipolo said on Wednesday that pursuing its 3% inflation target is non-negotiable for policymakers, but that there are various paths to achieve that goal. – Reuters
Brazil’s Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said on Wednesday he is uncertain whether there is enough time to announce a spending containment package this week, adding that it will be released once President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva gives the go-ahead. – Reuters
The megaport of Chancay, a $1.3 billion project majority-owned by the Chinese shipping giant Cosco, is turning this outpost of bobbing fishing boats into an important node of the global economy. China’s President Xi Jinping inaugurates the port Thursday during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Peru. – Associated Press
Juan Pablo Spinetto writes: Of course, the US and China have no obligation to promote prosperity in Latin America — that’s the responsibility of its own governments and societies. But the problems of illegal migration, insecurity and drug trafficking in the US won’t go away if its hemispheric neighbors inhabit an increasingly unstable neighborhood. A US protectionist turn would undoubtedly work against the regional quest for prosperity and stability. – Bloomberg
North America
Two patients traveling in a Doctors Without Borders ambulance were killed after an attack by a vigilante group and police in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on Monday, according to a statement from the international humanitarian aid group. – Washington Post
Haitian gang leaders took to social media last weekend and promised trouble. They delivered. “If you are reckless in the streets, you will pay the consequences, as of tomorrow,” Joseph Wilson, a gang leader known as Lanmou Sanjou, said Sunday in a widely circulated recorded message. – New York Times
The newly elected mayor of Chilpancingo, Mexico, had appointed Germán Reyes as the man who would safeguard his city. But on Tuesday, the Mexican authorities arrested Mr. Reyes, a retired military officer and former prosecutor, accusing him of ordering the mayor’s brutal killing in southwest Mexico last month in a case that had already shocked a nation reeling from widespread violence against local politicians. – New York Times
The U.S. ambassador to Mexico, Ken Salazar, said on Wednesday that the country is not safe and criticized the previous president for a failed security policy and refusing to accept American assistance. – Reuters
But after U.S. aviation authorities on Tuesday blocked airlines from traveling to Haiti for 30 days following the shooting of a number of planes by gangs, 51-year-old Reed is once again cut off from her adoptive son, who lives in an orphanage in Haiti waiting for paperwork to go through a bureaucratic process hamstrung by Haiti’s spiraling crisis. – Associated Press
Mexico’s top economy official said that his nation can be a key intermediary as the US seeks to decouple from China. “The tension with China will be a central part of the United States’s strategic reflection,” Economy Minister Marcelo Ebrard said at an event in Mexico City. – Bloomberg
Patrice Deschenes writes: The situation in Haiti is more dire by the day. While civil society collapses further into complete chaos, the world is still hesitant to help. Kenya’s current efforts will likely not meet the challenge at hand. The U.N. mission needs all the help it can get. Employing the Joint Interagency Task Force–South as an integrator of a multinational naval effort could contribute to the effort by curbing the flow of narcotics and weapons that transits Haiti unimpeded today. Partner nations have an opportunity to contribute to the island’s security and the success of the U.N. mission at no risk to their own forces. – War on the Rocks
United States
With the nominations of Sen. Marco Rubio and Rep. Mike Waltz to cabinet positions, President-elect Donald Trump is putting together what some China hawks call a tough-on-China “dream team.” Both lawmakers are harsh China critics. If confirmed, Rubio, whose nomination was made official by Trump on Wednesday, would be the first sitting secretary of state under Beijing sanctions and banned from traveling to China. – Wall Street Journal
Gabbard — who President-elect Donald Trump said Wednesday is his pick for director of national intelligence — wrote in a blog post at the time that she went to the country to “see and hear directly from the Syrian people” impacted by the devastating civil war there. – Washington Post
Republicans cemented their control of the House on Wednesday after holding onto a handful of critical seats in Arizona and California and defeating incumbent Democrats in key battleground districts, handing the G.O.P. a governing trifecta in Washington to enact President-elect Donald J. Trump’s agenda. – New York Times
US dockworkers are set to meet with their employers in New Jersey, resuming negotiations on the key issue of automation that sparked a three-day strike at major East and Gulf Coast ports last month. – Bloomberg
Editorial: Like Mr. Rubio, he has tempered support for Ukraine of late. But he wrote this month that “If [Vladimir Putin] refuses to talk, Washington can, as Mr. Trump argued, provide more weapons to Ukraine with fewer restrictions on their use.” Their voices will be needed to counter some of the isolationists surrounding Donald Trump Jr. who carry sway in the White House. Mr. Trump’s first term was a security success because he followed a policy of peace through strength. But the world is more dangerous now, and the mix of his nominees suggests his second term is likely to be a wilder ride. – Wall Street Journal
Cybersecurity
A federal investigation into Chinese government efforts to hack into U.S. telecommunications networks has revealed a “broad and significant” cyberespionage campaign aimed at stealing information from Americans who work in government and politics, the FBI said Wednesday. – Associated Press
OpenAI is calling for the US and its allies to work together to support the infrastructure needed to develop artificial intelligence systems and compete with China. The AI startup said Wednesday that the US and neighboring countries should form a “North American Compact for AI” that can streamline access to talent, financing and supply chains for building out the technology. – Bloomberg
In its first 100 days, the Trump administration should build a framework for minimum cybersecurity standards for critical infrastructure companies, establish cybersecurity grants for those in need and deepen international partnerships, said Anne Neuberger, Biden’s deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technology. – Cyberscoop
Defense
The United States opened a new air defence base in northern Poland on Wednesday, an event the European nation’s president said showed the country was secure as a member of NATO even as Russia wages war in neighbouring Ukraine. – Reuters
Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team are drawing up a list of military officers to be fired, potentially to include the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two sources said, in what would be an unprecedented shakeup at the Pentagon. – Reuters
The Pentagon unveiled a new round of aerial and maritime drones for Replicator, a massive effort to fast-track the delivery of unmanned weapons systems to the services. – Defense News
Mike Gallagher writes: Assuming China sticks to its Taiwan timeline, the next secretary has two years to prevent World War III. To do so, he must put the Pentagon on a war footing, firing any bureaucrat unable or unwilling to work at a wartime pace. The lack of accountability at the Defense Department—after the shameful Afghanistan withdrawal, the failure to deter Russia from invading Ukraine, and the current secretary’s disappearance without informing the White House—has undermined confidence in military leadership. Armed with a bold agenda, the next secretary can regain the trust of the American people and the fear of America’s enemies. – Wall Street Journal
Bruce Stubbs writes: He suggested, instead, that the Navy build upon its 1980s achievements by identifying “the key organizing concepts and arguments behind those achievements” and examining whether they could be refined and applied for the 1990s. He did not propose the Navy rest on its laurels, as circumstances always change. O’Rourke, however, noted that the Navy “cannot afford to discard powerful concepts arbitrarily, simply because they are not new, particularly if they might be applicable, with refinements, to emerging circumstances.” His 1988 advice for strategic consistency still rings true for the Navy in 2024. I continue to blame the chiefs. – War on the Rocks
Elizabeth Buchanan writes: Deterrence requires dialogue just as much as it demands preparatory defense contingencies. Trump 2.0 will inherit an empty Arctic pantry. Obama did the same, handing Trump 1.0, a U.S. Arctic position gutted of regional leadership and respect. Of course, back then, Washington didn’t have to contend with the Chinese Navy or Chinese Coast Guard operating on Alaska’s Arctic doorstep. Trump 2.0 now has the difficult task of prying apart Beijing and Moscow to locate a mutual interest between Russia and the United States in reviving any semblance of “low tension” in the Arctic. – The National Interest