Today In Issues:
FDD Research & Analysis
The Must-Reads
Netanyahu, in tough election fight, embraces those who stopped FlyDubai attack JPost Editorial: As elections loom, voters must choose the right pilot to navigate political turbulence Iran’s top security official warns of dire economic crisis Ukraine will hit Russian refineries in response to Moscow's 'new doctrine' of airstrikes, Zelenskiy says Turkey says Mecca pact committee to meet in Riyadh on October 5 Saudi-backed Yemeni government declares war against Houthis Ukraine believes Russia shared jet-drone technology with North Korea, says Zelenskiy India, Pakistan summon top diplomats over border incident Japan protests after U.S. marine accused of murder Bloomberg’s Gearoid Reidy: Japan wants the US close. Just not too close WSJ Editorial: The latest Russian sabotage in Europe Flávio Bolsonaro surges past Lula, setting up a bitter Brazil election runoffIn The News
Israel
A central mystery of this week’s attempted downing of FlyDubai Flight 1073 has been how the co-pilot managed to smuggle a weapon into the plane to carry out his attack. It turns out he didn’t. The weapon he used is a cockpit fixture. – Wall Street Journal
The FlyDubai attack fits into Netanyahu’s campaign pitch that Israel is under attack from all sides and only his right-wing coalition can protect it. He is also benefiting from a wave of optimistic nationalism set off by the passengers who rushed the cockpit and seized back control. – Wall Street Journal
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for a thorough review of “all aspects” of security of foreign civil flights to Israel, in the wake of the attack on a flight bound for Tel Aviv on Wednesday. – Washington Post
The flydubai co-pilot who stabbed his captain in an alleged attempt to crash the plane last week told UAE interrogators he planned the attack before being hired by the airline, according to two Israeli officials with knowledge of the probe. – Reuters
Three years since Hamas’ October 7 attack, at least nine Israelis from families directly caught up in the deadliest day in the country’s history are running for parliament in an election this month. They represent parties running the gamut of political views, but all say they aim to heal Israel’s wounds. – Reuters
The United States issued additional sanctions on Friday targeting Hamas’ financial network, including targeting a member of the Palestinian militant group’s military wing, two France-based fundraisers and two entities, the Treasury Department said. – Reuters
An Israeli airstrike killed at least five Palestinians, including four women, in an apartment building in Gaza City early on Saturday, health and civil defence service officials said. – Reuters
The head of a left-wing Arab party dropped out of Israel’s election after the Supreme Court indicated judges were likely to disqualify him for an article that described the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led attacks as an “important historical event”. – Reuters
The IDF announced Friday that the commander of Hamas’s Northern Gaza Brigade, who it killed in Gaza City earlier this week, had overseen the holding of at least 15 Israeli hostages during the war. – Agence-France Presse
Dvir Rubinstein, the Transportation Ministry official responsible for overseeing security arrangements involving foreign airlines flying to Israel, received payments from flydubai for private training services he provided to the carrier, N12 reported on Monday. – Jerusalem Post
Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir convened senior officers on Sunday for a conference on the lessons learned from the October 7 attack, three years on. – Times of Israel
Editorial: We’ve written on these pages that just as Israeli citizens had to take action due to government agency failure on October 7, 2023, Israeli citizens had to spring into action in the sky above Saudi Arabia to prevent a preventable tragedy from occurring. That’s not the way things should work. As the euphoria over the midair rescue and achievements dissipates, it’s vital not only to conduct a proper investigation into the security gaps that enabled the hijacking, but also for all of the relevant authorities to stop shirking responsibility and work together to quash the likelihood that such a horrific event is ever able to get off the ground again. – Jerusalem Post
Editorial: This is the cycle Israel needs to break. The passengers aboard the flydubai flight did not have the luxury of leaving the cockpit unresolved. They knew that if they did not take action to save their own lives, no one would. Israeli voters will have their own chance to take control and choose who sits in the cockpit. After that, it will be up to the pilots to put their differences aside and form a coalition capable of keeping the plane on course. – Jerusalem Post
Iran
Disruptions to a vital shipping route in the Middle East have created an energy shock. Now, a global food security crisis is brewing, warns the secretary-general of the International Chamber of Commerce. The monthslong conflict between Iran and the U.S. has curbed the flow of goods through the Strait of Hormuz, a waterway many countries rely on for imports of critical inputs like fertilizers and natural gas. – Wall Street Journal
Infighting among Iranian government officials escalated this week with the jailing of a prominent hard-line lawmaker who is a vocal opponent of a diplomatic deal with the United States to end the war. – New York Times
Iran’s national security adviser has warned that the rapidly deteriorating economy has plunged the country into one of the most difficult periods in its history. – New York Times
Iran’s Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad has resigned for personal reasons, and Hamid Bovard, chief executive of the government-owned National Iranian Oil Company, will be acting minister, state media said on Sunday. – Reuters
The Strait of Hormuz will not reopen until seven Iranian conditions set out in a June interim agreement with the US are met, state media reported Iran’s parliament speaker Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf as saying on Sunday. – Reuters
Iran has executed a man detained during protests in January for allegedly firing at police, the judiciary said on Saturday. – Reuters
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi insisted Sunday that there was no military solution to his country’s conflict with the United States, with talks on ending the war apparently at an impasse. – Times of Israel
Richard Gray writes: These emerging transit corridors also carry political risks. In the Red Sea, renewed attacks by the Houthis on the Yanbu port and East-West pipeline endanger Saudi Arabia’s capacity to transit goods to the Asia-Pacific. The viability of pipeline projects connecting the Gulf and Europe is likely contingent on a politically stable Levant. New alignments are forming. Syria is re-emerging as a critical node in the Gulf-Europe energy corridor. The Mecca Joint Defence Agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey reflects shared interests among states in neighboring regions and the potential for future plurilateral architectures. This emerging ecosystem is coalescing around recalibrated interests and nascent blocs defined by regional actors, not the United States. – The National Interest
Russia and Ukraine
A Russian drone hit Kyiv’s North Bridge on Saturday morning — the fifth strike within three days on bridges in the Ukrainian capital, which is split down its center by the wide Dnieper River. – Washington Post
The Russian defence ministry said on Monday its forces struck two Ukrainian cargo vessels in the Black Sea. It said it hit fuel storage facilities at the port of Chornomorsk that were intended to supply Ukrainian armed forces, as well as a dry cargo vessel carrying military equipment. – Reuters
Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, is struggling to survive. Russian airstrikes have brought the city’s huge steel plant and mines to a standstill, dragging the local economy to its knees. – Reuters
Ukraine’s military has again used drones to deliver food and medicines to the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in southern Ukraine, Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said on Sunday. – Reuters
Russia will intensify strikes on Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Sunday, responding to an interview with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in which he vowed increased attacks on Russian refineries. – Reuters
Ukraine will double down on attacking Russian oil refineries in response to a new policy of airstrikes by Moscow designed to force people to abandon Kyiv and other cities, but will not target civilians, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said. – Reuters
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz announced a new aid package for Ukraine worth more than 1.3 billion euros ($1.5 billion) during a visit to Kyiv on Sunday, as Russia escalated its attacks on Ukrainian cities. – Associated Press
India is taking a more direct role in efforts to end the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, engaging both sides on issues including shipping and reducing hostilities, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said. – Bloomberg
Domestic farmers’ worries are trumping EU solidarity with Kyiv as the Black Sea blockade threatens to fuel a global food crisis and stunt Ukraine’s next harvest. Ukraine needs help getting millions of tons of grain exports out of the country, as attacks on ports and ships continue into a third month. – Politico
Andreas Umland and Lesia Bidochko write: Ukraine has demonstrated the ability to strike deep into Russia. If Russia used WMD and international reaction were insufficient, Ukraine might consider developing retaliatory capabilities, including “dirty bombs,” ie, conventional warheads with material emitting radiation from its nuclear plants. While such a retaliation would be more effective than a proper nuclear counterstrike, a possible radioactive contamination of Russian state territory will be consequential for Russia. – The National Interest
Syria
Young people in Syria’s Sweida province are unable to progress through school and university due to a deepening rift between the post-Assad Islamist government and the Israel-aligned Druze leaders of the last area outside central control. – Reuters
IDF soldiers shot and killed a suspect whom they determined was attempting to infiltrate an Israeli military post in the southern Syria Security Zone on Sunday night, the military stated. – Jerusalem Post
Legendary Israeli spy Eli Cohen may have been buried near unidentified military barracks outside Damascus, Syrian security officer Saeed Jawish claimed in an interview with the Saudi-owned Al Majalla on Saturday. – Jerusalem Post
Iraq
The United States has granted Iraq an exemption from sanctions, allowing flights to resume between one of the country’s holy cities and Iran, Iraq’s prime minister said on Friday. – New York Times
Iraq’s state-owned Oil Tanker Company transported 2 million barrels of Iraqi crude aboard a very large crude carrier (VLCC) through the Strait of Hormuz, in what its director general described on Saturday as the company’s first such operation in decades. – Reuters
James Stavridis writes: The costs of the war were enormous and irrecoverable, above all to the families who suffered casualties. But consider the alternative. Saddam Hussein or his sons would likely still be running Baghdad. Their brutality against the population would have continued unchecked. Nor could anyone know whether Iraq would eventually have tried to reconstitute the weapons programs Saddam had pursued for decades in the past. Cold comfort, perhaps, but it’s worth fully and objectively understanding this chapter in our history as we look at other wars of choice, from Iran to Venezuela. – Bloomberg
Turkey
A committee of the Mecca defence pact between Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan will hold talks in Riyadh on Monday, with Turkish ministers among those attending, the Turkish foreign ministry said on Sunday. – Reuters
Pakistan’s foreign minister said Iran has suggested engaging Yemen’s Houthis politically after attacks by the group, an idea a committee of the Mecca defence pact will discuss at an emergency meeting in Riyadh next week. – Reuters
Turkish officials have begun to shop around the idea of a former foreign minister joining the list of candidates vying to lead the United Nations as the monthslong race for secretary-general continues with no clear victor. – Associated Press
Yemen
The Saudi-backed government of Yemen on Sunday announced a major military campaign against the Houthi militia, a key Iranian ally, plunging the Middle East deeper into war. – New York Times
Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthis said on Saturday they had targeted an Aramco facility in the Saudi capital Riyadh with ballistic missiles and drones, saying the attack was in retaliation for Saudi attacks on Yemen’s Sanaa and other provinces. – Reuters
Yemen’s armed forces said early on Sunday it was conducting strikes against the Iran-aligned Houthis in the capital Sanaa and the group’s stronghold Saada. – Reuters
Korean Peninsula
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Sunday he believed Russia may have shared jet-drone technology with its longstanding ally North Korea. In recent weeks, Russia has sharply increased its use of jet-drones against Ukraine, which so far has no effective means of countering them other than using combat aircraft. – Reuters
North Korea’s Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of leader Kim Jong Un, said in a statement on Saturday that her country had tested an intermediate-range strategic missile. – Reuters
South Korean President Lee Jae Myung ordered a thorough investigation and response measures over recent personal data leak incidents at banks, finance companies and public agencies, Seoul’s presidential office said on Sunday. – Reuters
China
Chinese officials made unusual demands that the U.S. accommodate Xi Jinping’s need for rest during a summit with President Trump, offering a rare glimpse of the 73-year-old leader’s emerging physical limitations, said people familiar with the visit planning. – Wall Street Journal
China on Saturday launched an anti-dumping investigation into imports of p-nitrotoluene, a chemical compound used in dyes and pharmaceuticals, from the European Union, as trade tensions between the two sides grow. – Associated Press
Zongyuan Zoe Liu writes: Future oil shocks may be less likely to trigger an immediate energy crisis in China and more likely to unfold as a managed industrial contraction, with the government attempting to compress the costs among refiners and industrial producers before the shock produces the wrong type of inflation. An import dependence ratio alone is therefore an incomplete measure to evaluate an economy’s vulnerability to an oil shock. What is at least equally important is how deeply a country can cut imports, and for how long, before an oil supply disruption spills over into industrial damage or the resulting costs become intolerable. – Foreign Policy
South Asia
India and Pakistan summoned each other’s top diplomats on Saturday over a border incident on October 2, with New Delhi rejecting Islamabad’s allegation that Indian forces had killed two unarmed Pakistani civilians and saying those involved had crossed illegally into Indian territory. – Reuters
Indian police detained several people in the capital New Delhi on Saturday, disrupting a second day of protests backed by the Gen Z-led Cockroach Janta Party and other opposition groups against changes to voter rolls. – Reuters
Hundreds of supporters of India’s “Cockroach” youth movement held new protests in the country’s financial hub of Mumbai on Friday to demand the resignation of the chief election commissioner over the revision of voter lists. – Associated Press
The governor of Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province on Friday denied a claim by Pakistan that he had hosted senior militant figures for talks on escalating attacks inside Pakistan. – Associated Press
More than 5,000 supporters of imprisoned former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan began a dayslong march toward Islamabad on Sunday to demand his release, after talks between the government and the opposition fell through. – Associated Press
Nearly 1,500 Myanmar nationals who were sent back from Malaysia arrived in the country’s largest city on Sunday, despite warnings from the United Nations refugee agency and rights groups that conditions for return remain unsafe. – Associated Press
Asia
Japan lodged a formal protest with the U.S. after police arrested a 20-year-old Marine on suspicion of robbery and murder following the death of a woman in Okinawa. The alleged killing risks rekindling tensions over the presence of the U.S. military on the Japanese island, where crimes committed by American servicemen have been a source of anger for years. – Wall Street Journal
Taiwanese Foreign Minister Lin Chia-lung is visiting the US state of Arizona for the opening of a new de facto consulate in Phoenix, his office said on Sunday. The US is China-claimed Taiwan’s most important international partner and arms supplier, despite the absence of formal diplomatic ties. – Reuters
The Philippine Coast Guard said on Sunday Chinese vessels obstructed a Philippine law enforcement operation against a foreign fishing vessel suspected of dynamite fishing near the Manila-held Thitu Island in the South China Sea. – Reuters
Gearoid Reidy writes: US requests can sometimes be used as a screen for what Japan wants to do anyway, but finds politically tough. Even today, Trump’s demands for Japanese investment in the US are now being used for Tokyo’s own goals of rare earths and energy security by steering investment toward such projects, while his demands to boost defense spending give cover to break decades of taboos. The Bush-era pressure worked to open the market to Toys R Us and other major retailers. The irony is that many of the American chains that subsequently arrived didn’t last, either retreating or selling out to local owners; much of the benefit accrued to local big-box retailers. Japan can similarly let Washington apply pressure, without allowing it to determine the outcome. With Trump and Bessent both, that’s the skill Takaichi now needs. – Bloomberg
Europe
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on Monday called an early election for November 29 of this year. – Reuters
Spanish police on Sunday cleared a migrant camp on a beach in the North African enclave of Ceuta, where tens of thousands crossed the border from Morocco over two months ago, the Spanish government said. – Reuters
Britain is considering imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicle imports amid concerns that Beijing is flooding the market with state-subsidised cars, the Times newspaper reported on Sunday. – Reuters
British police said on Friday that a man accused of murdering former minister Ann Widdecombe had now also been charged with preparing acts of terrorism, including against Nigel Farage, the leader of the populist Reform UK party. – Reuters
A Bosniak left-leaning moderate, a pro-Russian Serb nationalist and a Croatian nationalist are leading Sunday’s election for Bosnia’s inter-ethnic tripartite presidency, the election commission said early on Monday, based on ballots from 96.31% of polling stations. – Reuters
Latvians are electing a new parliament on Saturday as pro-Ukraine Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs seeks a full term. The vote comes as the small republic on NATO’s eastern flank contends with growing concern about potential Russian aggression. – Associated Press
Moldovan President Maia Sandu on Saturday hit out at Moscow after saying debris from five Russian air attack weapons violated the country’s airspace and exploded on the country’s territory. – Politico
French officials proposed a large release of strategic oil and diesel reserves during emergency talks Friday after Washington urged European capitals to tap stockpiles or face a potentially crippling ban on fuel exports, according to two officials briefed on the meeting. – Politico
Governments should change laws to allow defense companies to take down suspicious drones overflying their plants, said a senior executive at Franco-German arms-maker KNDS. – Politico
Editorial: Credit the Estonians for calling Russia out. Mr. Putin’s trouble-making in Europe is growing more brazen, and the public needs to know about the increased threat, not least so voters can understand the importance of increased defense spending. These incidents are also ample reason for the Europeans at long last to seize Russian assets stranded on the continent and hand them over to Ukraine. – Wall Street Journal
Editorial: Luckily, if you can call it that, Britain is tied to the Labour Party’s 2024 manifesto, because that’s what the party ran on in gaining power. Departing from it to pursue much of what Burnham floated at the party conference would require a new mandate. That would entail calling a general election, which Burnham has said he won’t do until at least 2029. Britain is now on its seventh prime minister in the past 10 years. All promised to put the nation on a better path. None meaningfully succeeded. If Burnham is to be different, he’s going to need a better plan. – Washington Post
Alberto Núñez Feijóo writes: As many know, I aspire to become the next prime minister of Spain. Consequently, it is my duty to seek the support of the European Union and all of its member states for my country at this crucial moment. The first duty of a leader is to guarantee the safety of citizens, defend national sovereignty and uphold the credibility of institutions. But this also reflects a commitment to a certain way of understanding Europe, one that I personally share with all our allies: the responsibility to safeguard its territorial integrity and its values is a shared one. Now it is our turn to defend Ceuta, Spain and Europe. – Politico
Africa
On a hilltop town in eastern Congo, work has started on a new Ebola center. When completed, it will anchor an effort to contain the virus in the town and its surrounding villages. Local health workers here say the center is too late. – New York Times
The Tigray Peace Forces, a pro-government militia, said in a post on Facebook that its fighters controlled Mekelle. A source close to the militia had earlier told Reuters it entered the centre of the city on Saturday afternoon, followed by the Ethiopian military. – Reuters
Ethiopia’s federal military has recaptured the main airport in the capital of the northern Tigray region, three sources said on Saturday, dealing a major setback to an opposition alliance in its stronghold. – Reuters
Suspected Boko Haram militants killed at least 15 farmers and firewood gatherers in the Marte local government area of Nigeria ‘s northeastern Borno State, police and human rights officials said Friday. – Associated Press
The Americas
Flávio Bolsonaro dealt President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva a bruising first-round defeat Sunday, finishing ahead of the leftist leader and putting Brazil’s right within reach of taking back power in Latin America’s largest nation. – Wall Street Journal
President Javier Milei of Argentina has been touring the world, trying to attract international investment to his country. On Friday he unveiled his latest move to lure foreign dollars as he announced a so-called golden passport program. – New York Times
The candidate for Paraguay’s ruling Colorado Party lost the mayor’s race in the country’s capital on Sunday in municipal elections widely seen as a midterm test for the right-wing government ahead of the 2028 general election. – Reuters
Mary Anastasia O’Grady writes: Mr. Trump’s Venezuelan oil-gusher narrative is, for now, mostly rhetoric. Even contracts and memorandums of understanding, Messrs. Szabo and Pacheco write, “signed with solid companies such as TotalEnergies and Continental Resources, as well as the many contracts signed with companies lacking any real operating, technical, or financial track record, will take time to translate into investment plans, and even longer to contribute to incremental production.” This means that “for the rest of 2026 and much of 2027, these agreements will likely remain in the stage of evaluating fields and weighing options before reaching a final investment decision, conducting baseline audits, carrying out detailed reservoir studies, and resolving logistical and talent bottlenecks.” – Wall Street Journal
North America
Last month, after Prime Minister Mark Carney visited the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, and announced that Canada and the European Union would pursue a closer relationship, we asked for your questions about the topic. – New York Times
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney plans to visit Turkey this month to meet President Tayyip Erdogan in what would be the first dedicated bilateral visit to the country by a Canadian leader, four sources with knowledge of the visit said. – Reuters
A Mexican constitutional reform to require presidential candidates to renounce any dual citizenships is fast-tracking toward final approval, despite criticism that the measure backed by the ruling party infringes on political rights and aims to block opposition rivals. – Reuters
Nicaragua is withdrawing from the Central American Parliament, furthering its isolation on the international stage as the country is accused of rampant human rights abuses. – Reuters
The US Coast Guard said on Friday it had intercepted a large cargo ship carrying fuel bound for Cuba, as the Trump administration’s crippling oil embargo against the island nation continued. – Reuters
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel on Friday accused the United States of hypocrisy for promoting private enterprise on the island while imposing new restrictions against privately-owned Cuban businesses. – Associated Press
Marsha Lederman writes: Of course not. I’m not going anywhere. But if you had told me three years ago me that I would even be asking these questions; that I would travel to Oklahoma of all places to see how former Canadian Jews are living there, and where more want to join, I would have said: you’re crazy. Or you’re joking. We’re good at that, joking. And wandering […] Antisemitism is not simply a Jewish problem. It is a global problem, and right now, it is a serious Canadian problem. I knew the fallout from Oct. 7, 2023 would be bad, and it has been – catastrophic for Gazans, first and foremost. But this, in Canada, I did not expect. – The Globe and Mail
United States
In late August, NASA asked contractors to prepare to build a nuclear reactor that could survive a space voyage and run without maintenance near the moon’s south pole. That may sound like science fiction, but the agency wants it ready to be launched by December 2030. – New York Times
These teenagers are part of a network of American high school students and young adults who serve as key conduits in transnational gun trafficking, buying military-style rifles and selling them directly to Mexican cartel operatives. – New York Times
Law enforcement officials are still working to determine just what happened when a chaotic homecoming party spanning a four-block radius of a southern Georgia town erupted in gunfire early Sunday, leaving two people dead and nearly three dozen others injured. – Associated Press
The Group of Seven wealthy democracies said Friday that they plan to release 100 million barrels of oil and fuel products in the coming weeks, starting with “substantial” amounts of diesel after the fuel recently hit record high prices in the United States. – Associated Press
The FBI on Sunday arrested a 34-year-old California woman who has been charged with acting as an unregistered agent for China and allegedly surveilled the Taiwanese president’s son and his family, federal officials said. – CNN
Cybersecurity
Mexico’s government expects to issue a bill next week requiring social media platforms to remove content that incites violence, president Claudia Sheinbaum said on Friday. – Reuters
A suspected member of the ShinyHunters hacking group, which says it stole data on every FBI employee, was detained in Jordan this week and is cooperating with the FBI, three people familiar with the matter told Reuters. – Reuters
Norway’s government said on Monday it plans to propose a temporary ban on the use of AI glasses in selected places, saying it is concerned people could be photographed, filmed or audio-recorded without their knowledge. – Reuters
President Donald Trump on Sunday tapped Jay Clayton, his director of national intelligence, to lead a new government task force on artificial intelligence. – Associated Press
Denmark suffered a major data breach that gave unauthorized individuals access to names, addresses and personal identification numbers belonging to about 8.8 million people registered in the country’s central population database. – Bloomberg
Fareed Zakaria writes: AI will be the commanding technology of the 21st century. The U.S. should want to dominate it. But dominance will not belong simply to the country that builds the most powerful models fastest. It will belong to the country whose AI the world is willing to trust — with its data, infrastructure, businesses and perhaps even weapons. China will build AI that is very powerful. The U.S. should build AI that is powerful but also safe, with the human being at the center and in control. American technology combined with American values will be our best competitive advantage. – Washington Post
Nikita Shah writes: Moreover, it could also show how offensive cyber operations do not preclude, but rather help to set the conditions for, a longer-term, sustained response against adversaries in cyberspace. Although the ShinyHunters incident offers a clear-cut use case, it also leaves open a longer-term discussion about norms in cyberspace: At what point is it right to go after stolen datasets when states steal them? This incident raises longer-term ramifications for intelligence gathering and disruption in cyberspace that the cyber policy community must address if the United States is to maintain strategic advantage relative to its adversaries. – Center for Strategic and International Studies
Defense
The gear Gonzalez and his troops used that day is one small part of a gargantuan effort by the Army to bring its battlefield command and control into the modern era. The program, called Next Generation Command and Control, or NGC2, was designed to give troops the latest communication, mapping and artificial intelligence tools coming out of Silicon Valley. – Wall Street Journal
The U.S. removed all its B-1 bombers from the U.K.’s RAF Fairford air base, a decision made because of security concerns over suspected plots to attack the facility, American officials said Sunday. – Wall Street Journal
The U.S. military said it attacked a boat suspected of being used to smuggle drugs in the Caribbean Sea on Sunday, killing four people, as the Trump administration continues its yearlong campaign against alleged traffickers in Latin America. – Associated Press
Alex Kolbin writes: The Pentagon should therefore treat contested mobility in Eurasia not simply as a fleet-sizing problem, but as a network resilience problem. The task could be assessing the amount of usable lift after the sequential loss of airspace, hubs, political access, commercial carriers, and scarce aircraft types — along with pre-negotiating the alternative overflight rights, commercial capacity, and industrial options needed before a crisis begins. […] The relevant question should not be simply whether the United States possesses “275 strategic airlift aircraft,” but how much effective mobility those aircraft can deliver if access to Russian airspace, Gulf transit hubs, and major European or Asian hubs is degraded or denied simultaneously. – War on the Rocks