Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Netanyahu orders Hebron sealed off, full West Bank closure after Hamas terror attack IDF report asserts Hamas can only be dismantled through renewed fighting in Gaza Iran threatens wider strikes on economic and civilian targets if U.S. attacks Trump claims Iran is 'making up fake hits' on tankers to drive up oil costs ahead of elections WINEP’s James Jeffrey: An emboldened Iran could trigger an IS comeback Israeli intelligence helps Saudi Arabia target Houthis as IDF prepares for potential escalation WaPo Editorial: Oil’s great escape from the Middle East Trump called Musk and asked him to lift Ukraine Starlink restrictions Palantir says it cannot shut off NATO AI system as Europeans fear US tech dependence Arms Race Intensifies in Korea as the North Is Emboldened by Russia Alliance Taiwan says China using militia boats to expand 'battlefield preparation' in western Pacific US Treasury drops Venezuela from countries facing outbound US investment restrictionsIn The News
Israel
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the city of Hebron to be cordoned off and for the entire West Bank to be blocked from entry and exit starting on Friday morning, after five people were wounded in a terror attack in the area carried out by Hamas terrorists. – Jerusalem Post
Israeli strikes and gunfire killed at least four people in the Gaza Strip in separate incidents on Thursday, health officials in the enclave said. – Reuters
Nine of the 10 suspects arrested in an investigation into militant settler attacks on a US journalist and European diplomats have been released from custody and placed under house arrest, a law firm that represents settlers said. – Reuters
Israel must act in the coming years to take a lead in the global nuclear fusion industry before supply chains take shape, Israel’s Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure said on Thursday. – Reuters
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee is questioning whether the Board of Peace can deliver on President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Gaza without more planning and resources from the U.S. government, according to a cable the embassy sent to State Department leadership Thursday that was obtained by POLITICO. – Politico
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said during a recent private meeting that he does not currently see an operational need to strike Iran before next week’s Knesset election, Channel 13 reported on Thursday. – Times of Israel
Israel’s Ministry of Defense announced that its National Bureau for Counter Terror Financing (NBCTF) has imposed sanctions on Coral Oil, a Lebanese-owned energy company registered in the United Kingdom, for supplying approximately 130,000 liters of diesel and gasoline to a company owned by the Hezbollah terrorist organization. – Arutz Sheva
The IDF presented U.S. Army officers and Israeli government officials with an intelligence report concluding that Hamas is preparing for renewed fighting in the Gaza Strip and asserting that the group can only be disarmed through a return to combat, as it cannot be disarmed by an international body. – Haaretz
Shay Gal writes: The EU and Israel should conclude separate Europol and Eurojust agreements, backed by one Israeli law binding every recipient of European personal data, including security agencies and onward recipients, to agreed territorial, purpose, retention, and onward-transfer restrictions under independent oversight […] Israeli law alone cannot resolve EU legal objections. Israel retains its final-status positions and lawful powers over independently obtained intelligence. To distinguish the West Bank from sovereign Israel is to defend Israel’s sovereignty, not condemn it. Secure, negotiated borders are an Israeli strategic interest: they establish jurisdiction, delimit security responsibilities, and anchor enduring partnerships. – Jerusalem Post
Iran
Iran’s message is stark: If the U.S. and Israel restart their air campaign, Tehran will respond with strikes not only on American bases and warships but on airports, pipelines and other civilian targets in the neighboring countries of the Persian Gulf. – Wall Street Journal
The Greek finance ministry said on Thursday it was implementing sanctions in place linked to Iran and that it backed efforts to effectively combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism. – Reuters
Iran’s state television reported on Thursday that seven oil tankers were either struck by attacks or hit naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz overnight, possibly the largest single-day number of vessels damaged in the waterway since the Iran war started on Feb. 28. – Associated Press
US President Donald Trump accused Iran of fabricating reports of attacks on oil tankers and naval mines in the Strait of Hormuz to drive up oil prices ahead of the November midterm elections in a Truth Social post on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post
IRGC spokesperson Hossein Mohabi told the Iranian Young Journalists Club news agency that “We are in the preparatory stages of unveiling the ‘Father of All Bombs.’ This is something new for the enemy.” – Jerusalem Post
The human rights organization Hiwa has petitioned Germany’s Federal Public Prosecutor General to initiate a structural investigation into possible crimes against humanity in Iran and the systematic use of violence against protesters of ethnic minority backgrounds, the human rights organization’s president told The Jerusalem Post on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post
James Jeffrey writes: It was never seen as an existential threat to the US, unlike al-Qaeda. Furthermore, President Barack Obama only decided to confront the group after he was reluctantly convinced it would be a low-cost operation. In a scenario where Tehran assumes greater regional dominance, should the US and Israel fail in their ongoing war on Iran, the possibility of an IS comeback would grow. For now, the group’s return is unlikely, but it cannot be entirely ruled out. – Washington Institute
Russia and Ukraine
President Trump called Elon Musk on Wednesday and asked him to lift restrictions on a military-grade version of Starlink in Ukraine that the SpaceX chief had throttled, U.S. officials said. – Wall Street Journal
At the start of the year, Russian troops began infiltrating deep behind Ukrainian lines several miles and a river away from their own positions. They hadn’t crossed through minefields or through treelines stalked by drones. They had gone under them. – Wall Street Journal
Last October, President Trump imposed significant sanctions on Russia’s two largest oil companies, complaining that negotiations with President Vladimir V. Putin over ending the war in Ukraine “just don’t go anywhere.” – New York Times
Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that future talks on a settlement of the war in Ukraine should focus on security guarantees for both countries and an overall framework for security throughout Europe. – Reuters
Russia-linked hackers used the volunteer-run Yggdrasil network to conceal communications during an attack on a Ukrainian grain logistics company, marking the first documented use of the technology by a state-linked hacking group, cybersecurity firm ESET said on Thursday. – Reuters
Russia looks more inclined to intensify its war in Ukraine rather than end it, Romanian President Nicusor Dan said, pointing to the rising number of provocations by the Kremlin inside the European Union. – Bloomberg
Ukraine is in talks with neighbouring EU member states about moving customs checks on its lorries that carry grain exports from the border to inside those countries, in an attempt to halt Russian drone attacks on the trucks. – Financial Times
Ani Chkhikvadze writes: Sadly, hopes that these discussions will bring an end to the Ukraine war are unfounded. Ukraine wants to end the war with a guarantee it can defend itself in the future alongside direct Western military support. Putin wants to bring Ukraine under Russian control, if not now, then in five or 10 years. Strong Western guarantees would prevent Putin from achieving that goal, while weak guarantees would leave him free to pursue it through another war. – Washington Examiner
Marc Champion writes: Those ties would be further damaged by any agreement made over their heads in China, especially if it were to trade their geopolitical loss for US commercial gain, as Trump is wont to do. Even if there were no attempt at a second Yalta and a three-way meeting took place in Shenzhen for purely symbolic value, it could still have costs in the form of distraction. For amid all the noise, the world would be led to believe something was being done to end Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its potential for escalation in Europe, when it wasn’t. That works only for Putin. – Bloomberg
Joseph Epstein writes: But Trump’s Russia policy has never run on a theory of Russia. It runs on whether the present course is working for him. In early 2025, appeasement looked like a fast win, so he tried it. Within months, it was clear Moscow would take nothing short of surrender, so he dropped it and handed Kyiv the targeting map. Now, diesel is $6.28 a gallon, up nearly 80 percent since January, and the midterms are two weeks out. Russian barrels look like relief, or at least the mirage of relief. – Newsweek
Turkey
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan will host his counterparts from Egypt, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Britain, France and Germany in Istanbul on Friday for talks on regional conflicts, a Turkish diplomatic source said on Thursday. – Reuters
Turkey is waiting for Qatar to send it a sale contract and a draft training programme as part of its deal with Britain to procure Eurofighter Typhoon jets, the Turkish Defence Ministry said on Thursday. – Reuters
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan plan to increase cooperation between their two countries with a focus on energy and defense, while negotiators will begin trade talks next month. – Bloomberg
Arabian Peninsula
Saudi state oil company Aramco has told staff to evacuate its headquarters in Dhahran on the Gulf, six people with knowledge of the matter told Reuters on Thursday, as fighting between the world’s largest crude exporter and Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis intensifies. – Reuters
IDF intelligence continues to provide Saudi Arabia with exceptional capabilities to assist its military operations against the Houthis through US mediation, a defense official confirmed on Thursday. – Jerusalem Post
Samuel Ramani writes: Despite repeated entreaties for assistance from Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the U.S. has declined to join Riyadh’s military campaign to reassert Yemeni government control over the Red Sea coast. Negotiations on reopening the Strait of Hormuz continue under the shadow of renewed war. America’s depleted stocks of Patriot interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles have pushed the Pentagon toward an industrial rebuild that a wider war would undermine. – Washington Examiner
Middle East & North Africa
The United Arab Emirates’ Ministry of Climate Change and Environment said on Friday that its monitoring system had detected a tanker oil spill affecting beaches in Umm Al Quwain. – Reuters
Tunisian police fired tear gas to disperse protesters in Ettadhamen, a suburb of the capital, after the death of a man detained on suspicion of drug dealing, amid clashes with police in two towns in southern Tunisia. – Reuters
Acting as president Trump’s envoy, with the weight that his personal connection to the President lends to his mission, Massad Boulos has an opportunity to contribute to the resolution of two of the Arab world’s most consequential and sanguine crises. But with that opportunity comes a responsibility that extends beyond securing agreements between rival political and military factions. – Jerusalem Post
Editorial: Finally, high prices cause people to use less oil. Electric vehicles become more attractive. So does public transit. The IEA forecast in August that global oil demand would decline 1.6 million barrels per day this year. The lesson for long-term energy security is that government should welcome abundance, competition and trade. Let prices rise when oil gets scarce. Let producers profit by finding more of it. Let consumers decide when substitutes make sense. Free markets cannot prevent wars, but they can make their fallout much harder for adversaries to dictate. – Washington Post
Korean Peninsula
An intensifying arms race is gripping the Korean Peninsula, as both sides trade missile tests and North Korea supercharges its weapons development, moving aggressively toward the ability to launch more lethal warheads and attack drones at its southern neighbor. – New York Times
US and South Korean officials see the chances fading of a meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this year, according to five people with knowledge of the situation. – Reuters
South Korea’s defence ministry again proposed on Friday military talks with North Korea in order to agree on the exact location of the land border between the two Koreas and to reduce the risk of accidental clashes. – Reuters
South Korea’s international aid agency has decided to bring back one of its two staff members from its office in Ukraine’s capital on safety grounds, the Yonhap news agency reported on Thursday. – Reuters
China
Four years ago, the United Nations human-rights agency said China’s abuses in its far western Xinjiang region were so severe that they potentially amounted to “crimes against humanity.” – Wall Street Journal
An earthquake of magnitude 7 struck China’s southwestern region of Tibet at around 10:33 p.m. (1433 GMT) on Thursday, killing 16 people and injuring 32 others, state news agency Xinhua reported, citing Nagqu City’s emergency management bureau. – Reuters
China is combining militia vessels with coast guard ships to expand “battlefield preparation” around Taiwan and into the western Pacific, Taiwan’s Coast Guard said, warning the operations were also putting pressure on Japan and the Philippines. – Reuters
China’s ruling Communist Party will gather some 300 of its highest-ranking members next week to discuss tightening discipline among its ranks, a conclave analysts say could be the last major party gathering before its 2027 leadership reshuffle. – Reuters
Michael Schuman writes: Profitability was never a top priority of the Chinese Communist Party. Economic planners have assumed that a large manufacturing base is essential to China’s national security, technological advancement, political stability, and global influence. China’s leaders therefore value the production, exports, and jobs that factories generate far more than any financial return on their investments. As a result, China’s economy has long been cluttered with “zombie” companies: effectively bankrupt firms that are kept alive by creditors. – The Atlantic
South Asia
Nepal will receive $20 million in aid from the United Nations’ climate loss and damage fund after the devastating flood along its border with China’s Tibet region in August, the government said late on Thursday. – Reuters
India’s proposed free-trade agreement with the European Union could become operational within four to five months after it is signed, trade minister Piyush Goyal said on Thursday. – Reuters
India’s imports of Middle Eastern crude oil surged in September, returning to pre-war levels, while its refiners cut back purchases of Russian oil amid stiff competition with China, ship tracking data showed. – Reuters
Myanmar’ s detained former leader Aung San Suu Kyi on Thursday was allowed her first telephone call in more than five years with her son, Kim Aris, who announced the occasion on his Facebook page. – Associated Press
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi criticized opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, saying attempts to create “disorder” at home risk damaging the country’s standing at a time of growing global economic and geopolitical tensions. – Bloomberg
Keith Kellogg writes: None of this will happen quickly. Afghanistan’s divisions are substantial and development will take years. Those difficulties warrant careful engagement, not indifference. The 2020 Doha Agreement established a framework for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan to end America’s longest war. It was never a determination that Afghanistan had ceased to matter to American security or economic interests. China is making its calculations about Afghanistan’s future. The U.S. should be making its own. – Washington Post
Asia
The authorities in Indonesia are investigating what they say is space debris found on Monday in Indonesian Borneo at a palm oil plantation […] Indonesians are no strangers to the issue. They have documented about three cases of space debris landing in their country in about five years, including this week’s incident. – New York Times
Japan’s government is considering scaling back gasoline subsidies from as early as December amid growing concerns that funding for the costly measure could eventually run short, two ruling party officials familiar with the matter said on Friday. – Reuters
Japan has yet to meet the conditions for officially declaring victory over deflation, Economy Minister Minoru Kiuchi said on Friday, exposing a divide with the Bank of Japan as it sees the economy on the cusp of durably achieving its 2% inflation goal. – Reuters
Indonesian authorities seized 1.16 tons of ketamine on a Mongolian-flagged vessel from Malaysia in the waters of North Sumatra province earlier this week, the country’s national police chief Suyudi Ario Seto said on Friday. – Reuters
Taiwan’s TSMCis exploring alternatives to rare-earth components in factory equipment, three people familiar with the matter said, aiming to reduce the risk that Beijing’s export controls could disrupt operations at plants that make the world’s most advanced chips. – Reuters
A Malaysian court has halted the deregistration of the country’s main opposition coalition, effectively allowing it to contest the upcoming Malacca state election, The Edge reported on Thursday. – Bloomberg
Daniel Moss writes: Nor is Destry the person who bears ultimate responsibility for MSCI’s dour view. That’s for the regulators as well as Prabowo, who sets the overall tone of governance. The central banker is, however, the person in charge of the cleanup. This isn’t 1998, when a currency implosion and hardball tactics from the International Monetary Fund forced autocrat Suharto to quit. But the moment isn’t inconsequential. The central bank had a chance to shine. It can do better. – Bloomberg
Europe
The worst unrest in years has swept France, as rioters have attacked government buildings and stores while hundreds of thousands protest rising living costs. – Wall Street Journal
The U.K. energy regulator said it has taken steps to preserve underused underwater gas pipelines connecting the country’s energy grid to continental Europe, preserving the ability to import European gas in case of emergencies. – Wall Street Journal
The French authorities banned gatherings in some cities on Thursday and over the coming days in an attempt to avoid a repeat of the riots that rocked the country last weekend. – New York Times
On Thursday afternoon, Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, announced that the national government would allocate the equivalent of about $200 million for truckers, farmers, and fishermen affected by high fuel costs. – New York Times
Hunting for ways to rally voters, the media machine of Serbia’s embattled strongman Aleksandar Vucic has been accusing his rivals of smearing a notorious Serb general, who was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity. – New York Times
The International Criminal Court and its officials won the EU’s 2026 Sakharov human rights prize, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said on Thursday, less than two weeks after former ICC Judge Navi Pillay was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. – Reuters
A Ukrainian national has been arrested in the German state Brandenburg on suspicion of spying for Russia, a statement by federal public prosecutors said on Thursday. – Reuters
US software company Palantir sought to reassure Europeans that its military AI system used by NATO has no “kill switch”, after disruptions to Ukraine’s Starlink services heightened concerns about reliance on US tech firms. – Reuters
Italy and Spain have agreed to lift border controls on each other’s citizens, the interior ministry in Rome said on Thursday, ending a three-month dispute triggered by the rush of migrants into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. – Reuters
The Ceuta migration crisis put human rights at the bloc’s external borders to the test, the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights warned in a report Thursday. – Politico
The president of Cyprus wrote to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calling for the EU to resume talks on its mutual defense clause. – Politico
The Danish government plans to buy two types of “long-range,” precision-strike missiles, one air-launched and one ground-launched, to retaliate against adversaries after an attack on the country, officials announced on Thursday. – Defense News
Editorial: But the politics around climate policy in Europe is shifting. Kemi Badenoch, the Tory leader, plans to campaign on a “drill, baby, drill” platform—after her party enshrined net-zero in law less than a decade ago. Mr. Burnham and Labour centrists are admitting more domestic fossil-fuel production is necessary. Markets and political reality come for us all in the end. – Wall Street Journal
Joseph C. Sternberg writes: Should French youth recoil once and for all from the fiscal burden of those infernal pensions (and, if you think about it, why haven’t they yet?), France will be able to heal itself. But this requires a cultural revolution, one built not on Ms. Le Pen’s aspiration to bolster faith in French civilization but rather on a reorientation of the relationship between the individual and the state. It might happen, and perhaps one could even say that it probably will at some point. But it won’t be on the ballot next spring. – Wall Street Journal
Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt writes: That is why my concern is not only for Jews. France is the keystone of Europe’s political and economic order. If Paris cannot keep the peace, Europe’s confidence in its own institutions will crack with it. Order is not the enemy of liberty. It is the condition for it. Three things must follow. Those who burned and looted must face justice, swiftly and visibly. The ransacking at Ohalei Yaakov must be fully investigated, whatever the motive turns out to be. And French leaders across the spectrum must stop treating the street as a legitimate extension of parliament. France gave Europe the Rights of Man. It must now prove it can guarantee them on an ordinary Saturday night. – Jerusalem Post
Africa
A radical cult televangelist in Kenya who led more than 400 people, including children, to their deaths through fasting and forced executions has been convicted of the murders, which came to light in 2023. – Washington Post
Hundreds of Ethiopians have fled into Kenya following fighting in the border town of Moyale, Kenya Red Cross and local government officials said on Thursday. – Reuters
South African police said on Thursday they were investigating the killing of a foreign national by a crowd of about 50 people in the city of Durban. – Reuters
The Americas
Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets on Thursday in the first nationwide opposition protest in nearly two years, as demonstrators demanded free elections and other political changes with a notably thin presence of security forces. – Reuters
Brazilian Senator Flavio Bolsonaro and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva are about even heading to Sunday’s election runoff, a Datafolha poll showed on Thursday. – Reuters
A prominent leftist politician in Ecuador who was runner-up to President Daniel Noboa in the last two elections has been arrested, the head of her party said on Thursday. – Reuters
The US Treasury Department on Thursday announced proposed rules for screening outbound investment in China, Russia and other countries, a list that no longer includes Venezuela now that the country’s former president Nicolas Maduro is not in power. – Reuters
The Trump administration imposed visa restrictions on dozens of Colombians and Bolivians, including former Ecopetrol SA Chief Executive Officer Ricardo Roa, as Washington expands a regional campaign against corruption and drug trafficking. – Bloomberg
Monica de Bolle writes: They tell voters who have unstable employment and little economic security that their policies will bring prosperity. But their populism rarely wins the confidence of investors. Like its peers, when the Brazilian far right says it can overcome the country’s substantial problems with institutional demolition and a threadbare economic agenda, what it really offers is empty promises. – Foreign Affairs
North America
Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele sent 200 special operations soldiers to strife-torn Haiti to rescue four military personnel after gangs attacked their armored vehicle earlier this week. – Wall Street Journal
A fast-moving grass fire that killed at least four soldiers at a western Canadian military base on Saturday was sparked by an exercise using live grenades, a senior defense official said on Thursday. – Reuters
Grupo Mexico said on Thursday it will push ahead with major investments at its US mining unit Asarco, expanding the Ray and Silver Bell mines in Arizona and aiming to restart the Hayden smelter and refinery, after copper output fell in the third quarter. – Reuters
Cuba’s Transportation Minister Eduardo Rodriguez Davila faces daily what appears to be mission impossible: moving millions of people by plane, train and automobile across an island nation that spans 780 miles (1,250 km) — with virtually no fuel. – Reuters
United States
The Federal Communications Commission said on Thursday it had blocked two devices from the US market that contain foreign surveillance chips produced by a subsidiary of China’s Huawei, the first time it had exercised authority under new rules. – Reuters
The US government will increase measures aimed at preventing entry by people exposed to Ebola with a new requirement for US-bound air travelers to attest they have not been in the Democratic Republic of Congo in the prior 21 days, according to a memo on Thursday seen by Reuters. – Reuters
Canadian diplomats working in the US have been directed to stay away from candidates running in the midterm elections, and to keep a low profile to avoid allegations by the Trump administration of political interference, people familiar with the matter said. – Bloomberg
US Ambassador to the UN Mike Waltz has accused UN Special Rapporteur Ben Saul of undermining America’s fight against narcoterrorist organizations, criticizing his opposition to US military operations and President Donald Trump’s Shield of the Americas initiative. – Arutz Sheva
Nolan Rappaport writes: The order directs the attorney general, the Homeland Security secretary, and state and local law enforcement agencies to work together “to end the presence of criminal cartels, foreign gangs, and transnational criminal organizations throughout the United States.” To date, there are 59 task force offices, with more than 9,000 personnel and 440 state and local law agency partners. Opponents of the Trump administration’s immigration policies should not be opposing every enforcement initiative the administration establishes. Prosecuting human smugglers and violent criminal organizations, protecting unaccompanied alien children, and preventing foreign workers from being exploited are objectives that should have bipartisan support. – The Hill
Sheri Biggs writes: Beijing is turning all of them into instruments of military power. U.S. national security policy must catch up. Cellular modules, advanced robotics, and biotechnology serve very different purposes, but they expose the same problem. While China has become adept at turning emerging technology into military advantage, many U.S. national security tools were built for a world where the line between commercial and military technology was clearer. – Washington Examiner
Cybersecurity
People’s online routines were disrupted around the globe on Wednesday and Thursday as governments and companies rushed to protect their websites, after security researchers found major flaws in a widely used programming language called PHP. – New York Times
The US Commerce Department said on Thursday it plans to award $389 million in research and development funding to four companies working on power semiconductor devices and critical materials to boost technologies like commercial fusion. – Reuters
A cyberattack likely caused intermittent internet outages in North Korea that took down several of the reclusive country’s state-managed websites this week, analysis by US network monitoring company Kentik found. – Reuters
Developers of a new US-backed undersea data cable linking Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore and Thailand will this month select a cable supplier between Japan’s NEC and France’s Alcatel Submarine Networks, a project executive told Reuters. – Reuters
Waze on Thursday rejected Malaysia’s claims that it collects sensitive government information or allows any entity to exploit personal user data, after the government banned civil servants from using the navigation app, citing its Israeli connection. – Associated Press
Centrist parties backing European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen clashed at Thursday’s European Parliament plenary over whether to hold artificial intelligence firms accountable for harm. – Politico
More than 1,400 suspected cybercriminals were arrested across Africa this summer as part of an annual crackdown on the gangs perpetrating online fraud, ransomware and business email compromise (BEC) attacks, Interpol announced Thursday. – The Record
Editorial: Meta plans to appeal, and it has a strong argument that it is being punished for exercising its First Amendment speech rights. Under New Mexico’s theory, right- or left-leaning media outlets could be sued for misrepresenting themselves as independent. One thing we’ve learned over the years is that lawfare that starts in one major political party often gets taken up by the other. Better to stop it before it spreads. – Wall Street Journal
Kian Vesteinsson writes: The costs of digital isolation are steep and borne by ordinary people. These efforts cut families off from their loved ones abroad, disrupt businesses and international commerce and subject people to mass censorship and surveillance. For officials in Iran and Russia, the prospect of long-term political control is worth the suffering inflicted on their people […] The U.S. government should expand its investment in the Open Technology Fund to ensure it has sufficient resources to continue this important work. The repressive leaders of Iran and Russia seek to carve their people off from the global internet to maintain their hold on power. Ensuring the people can remain connected is essential to breaking that grasp. – The Hill
Defense
From Balabac in the southern Philippines to Hokkaido in northern Japan, U.S. Army soldiers have stepped up their training with new long-range weapons along the first island chain, working with allies in exercises that have grown larger and more complex over the past half-decade. – Defense News
The Defense Department and Lockheed Martin agreed to a 10-year framework that the Pentagon says guarantees at least 850 F-35 Lightning II fighters for the U.S. military, pending congressional approval and funding. – Defense News
The U.S. Army is looking for new manufacturers to build barrels for 155mm howitzers amid concerns at the Pentagon that the government’s only plant for manufacturing them can’t keep up with the increased demand for artillery. – Defense News