News: Questions for the Aspen natsec royalty

Monday, July 17, 2023

Questions for the Aspen natsec royalty

Jul 17, 2023

Many of the world’s top foreign policy officials will gather this week for the Aspen Security Forum. It’s an ideal venue for the CIA chief, defense industry honchos and whatever remains of the Netherlands’ leadership to make news, catch some Colorado sun, and hold a secret side meeting or two.

Your lead host today has never been asked to moderate a panel at Aspen. To remedy this injustice, Nahal and several colleagues brainstormed some suggested questions for the event’s moderators to ask the leading participants.

Props to any moderator who uses this list, because these are hard questions. But they should provoke some interesting answers. (These people are listed in no particular order.)

Jake Sullivan, White House national security adviser

— What’s more important: winning the war in Ukraine or merely ending the war in Ukraine?

Antony Blinken, U.S. Secretary of State

— Some critics deride you as a “staffer,” not a principal. Would you be more effective if you were a bit more swashbuckling? Less boring?

James Cleverly, British foreign secretary

— You’ve been described as a “stooge” for China who dances to Beijing's tune. Discuss.

William Burns, CIA director

— Revelations about a Chinese spy base in Cuba were big news recently. But wouldn’t the real news be if the Chinese, Russians, Iranians, and others weren't all trying to surveil the U.S. from Cuba? Why the pearl clutching when the U.S. intensely surveils China from whatever vantage possible?

Alejandro Mayorkas, U.S. Homeland Security secretary

— Are U.S. sanctions part of the reason for migration to the United States from places like Venezuela? After all, those sanctions cripple economies, leaving people desperate. Should the U.S. rethink its sanctions policies?

Adm. John C. Aquilino, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command

— Your man Gen. Mike Minihan has predicted a war with China by 2025 and instructed troops under his command to intensify their marksmanship (“Aim for the head”) for an imminent clash with the People’s Liberation Army. Have you talked to him about his, erm, views? And what is your latest estimate for when China will invade Taiwan?

Gen. James Dickinson, commander of U.S. Space Command

— What role will Space Command play in addressing future threats from space including massive killer asteroids or a discovery that a whack of unidentified aerial phenomena are, in fact, alien spacecraft with intentions unknown?

Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations

— Put aside your usual talking points, please, and give an unvarnished assessment of Israel’s future and the state of the U.S.-Israeli relationship.

U.S. Sen. Chris Coons, Democrat from Delaware

— Was the Biden administration right to try to restore the Iran nuclear deal and withdraw from Afghanistan?

Mark Esper, former U.S. secretary of defense

— It’s the afternoon of Jan. 20, 2025, and Donald Trump is president again. Any advice for his defense secretary?

U.S. Sen. Jim Risch of Idaho, top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

— How do you assess Turkey’s relationship with the West now? What further steps should Turkey take in terms of its relations with Greece and helping Ukraine beyond the drones it has sent?

Mike Pompeo, former secretary of State and former CIA director

— Would you serve in another Trump administration, and in what role?

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The Week Ahead

U.S. climate envoy John Kerry is in Beijing through Wednesday meeting with Chinese officials. He is expected to discuss climate cooperation and continued work after last year’s COP28 summit in Egypt. Our colleague Phelim Kine breaks down the debate over U.S. diplomatic strategy with such visits.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is visiting India for the G-20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meetings. This is Yellen’s third trip to India in the last nine months and comes on the heels of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s state visit last month. Yellen will also visit Vietnam to discuss clean energy, supply chains, and other issues with officials there.

MONDAY:

The U.N. Security Council will meet twice Monday in New York. Ukraine and Syria are on the agenda for the two sessions as Russia is expected to pare down its humanitarian commitments, WSJ’s Jared Malsin and William Mauldin report.

Today through Tuesday, heads of state from the EU, Latin America and Caribbean countries are meeting in Brussels for a summit where shared economic interests and the war in Ukraine are expected to dominate discussions. Among those in attendance: Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Germany’s Olaf Scholz, France’s Emmanuel Macron, Argentina’s Alberto Fernández.

TUESDAY

The Aspen Security Forum kicks off in Aspen, Colorado and runs through Friday.

Muslims around the world will be celebrating the Islamic New Year and Muslim countries will be commemorating the beginning of the year 1445.

Israeli President Isaac Herzog meets with U.S. President Joe Biden — a trip that comes amid ongoing tension with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

WEDNESDAY:

Israel’s Herzog will address a joint session of Congress, becoming the first president from his country to do so since 1987. Herzog is expected to commemorate the 75th anniversary of the statehood of Israel and reaffirm the U.S.-Israel relationship in his speech. But as our colleague Nicholas Wu reports, some progressive members of Congress, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), are expected to boycott the speech in protest of Israeli government policy.

THURSDAY:

In the U.S. Congress, the House China Select Committee holds a hearing on "The Biden Administration's PRC Strategy.”

END OF THE BLACK SEA GRAIN DEAL

The Russian government announced today that it will no longer participate in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, the U.N.-brokered deal that has allowed Ukrainian grain to travel through the Black Sea amid the war, our colleague Susannah Savage reports.

The deal, brokered by Turkey between Russia and Ukraine back in May 2022, had been given a short extension in May of this year as negotiations stalled. U.N. officials have voiced concerns that many countries in the Global South could enter into famine conditions if Ukrainian grain and oilseeds cannot exit the Black Sea.

Grain exports had already begun declining in the run-up to today’s deadline to renew the deal, with shipments in May dropping to 1.3 million tons – down from 4.2 million tons in October. Global wheat prices also rose three percent. Ukraine says it is looking into alternative shipping routes, but experts worry that would increase logistical costs and possibly reduce production.

The Kremlin had previously stated it would not support re-extending the deal. It argues that “hidden” Western sanctions have impeded its food and fertilizer exports, in violation of a separate U.N.-brokered deal. Russia says it will only return to implementing the deal when that changes.

TUCKER DEFENDS UKRAINIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

Long-simmering religious tensions within Ukrainian Orthodoxy earned some unlikely attention at a U.S. candidate forum in Iowa Friday: Tucker Carlson pressed former vice president Mike Pence on the Ukrainian government’s treatment of priests from the Ukrainian Orthodox Church in a tense 25-minute interview, according to our colleague Sally Goldenberg.

Carlson, who has been critical of U.S. support for Ukraine, insisted that the Ukrainian government “has raided convents, arrested priests, has effectively banned the Christian denomination of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church within Ukraine, has persecuted Christians.”

Pence said he raised concerns about religious liberty amid the conflict and was “reassured” by Orthodox leaders that the government of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was only acting against priests accused of collaborating with Russia.

The Ukrainian Orthodox Church, at the heart of the religious controversy in Ukraine, was once the main Orthodox Church in Ukraine. It operates under the purview of the broader Russian Orthodox Church based in Moscow, a relationship which has led many in Ukraine to see the church as a tool of influence for the Kremlin.

MEXICO’S PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION WOES

As Mexico’s populist President Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador prepares to leave office, concerns are mounting that drug cartels and Lopez Obrador may make unprecedented moves to influence the outcome of the 2024 election.

Cartels are beginning to flex their political and social muscle: Last week, according to The Washington Post, thousands of protesters descended on Chilpancingo, the capital of the state of Guerrero, after police arrested two alleged leaders of Los Ardillas, a cartel in the poppy-producing region of southern Mexico. The attack comes as the burgeoning criminal groups have diversified their business interests, per Spanish newspaper El Pais, and are committing more bombings, killings and other acts of terrorism.

Meanwhile, Lopez Obrador is breaking with a long-standing political norm in the country and is attacking the opposition frontrunner, Senator Xóchitl Gálvez. Gálvez is leading in the primaries that opposition parties are holding ahead of the election.

Mexican presidents, who can only serve one six-year term, have typically not weighed in on the elections to succeed them, given strict rules about what presidents can do in the political arena. Lopez Obrador has previously flaunted these rules, prompting rebukes from elections tribunals.

GLOBAL RISKS AND TRENDS

ICC INVESTIGATES SUDAN: International Criminal Court chief prosecutor Karim Khan announced he will investigate alleged new war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur, as Sudan’s security situation unravels and over 3 million people have fled their homes. Khan’s announcement follows reports that a mass grave with 87 bodies was found in West Darfur.

UNCERTAIN FUTURE FOR EU FISCAL REFORM: Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez forged an unlikely alliance and managed to overhaul the Stability and Growth Pact, the fiscal rules that limit EU member countries’ spending and constrain sovereign debt levels. But both their countries now face snap elections, raising worries that long-desired fiscal reforms could falter, according to our colleague Paola Tamma.

A TENUOUS PEACE: Four gang leaders, responsible for hundreds of murders in Cite Soleil, Haiti’s largest peripheral settlement, have reached a truce after widespread gang violence has rocked the embattled Caribbean country over the last two years and triggered extensive emigration, according to The Miami Herald’s Jacqueline Charles.

COMMITMENT ISSUES: As Washington and Tokyo draw up plans in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, Japan has been unwilling to commit its military to defending the island, WSJ’s Alastair Gale reports.

PYONGYANG WARNS: North Korea’s Kim Yo-Jung is warning that “foolish” acts from the U.S. could drive the DPRK further from the negotiating table, according to Reuters. The warning, the latest in a series of comments from the powerful ruling party figure and member of the Kim family, comes as the U.S. plans to send a nuclear submarine on a visit to South Korea as part of its “extended deterrence” strategy.

IRAN’S MORALITY POLICE RETURN: Iran’s morality police are once again enforcing the country’s hijab laws, resuming street patrols to make sure women are obeying dress codes and covering their hair in public, according to the BBC.

COSTLY BARGAINS: As Argentina suffers from over 110 percent inflation, Uruguayans are crossing the border to engage in “supermarket tourism,” taking advantage of a better exchange rate and buying products and services for less. But stores in Uruguay are suffering as a result.

PEOPLE AND POWER

Taiwan confirmed Monday that Vice President Lai Ching-te will transit in the U.S. to and from the inauguration of Paraguayan President-elect Santiago Peña next month. The Biden administration is getting ready for blowback, Phelim reports.

Ben Wallace will step down as U.K. defense secretary during the next cabinet reshuffle and not stand as an MP in the next election, he told The Sunday Times.

Israel’s Netanyahu is feeling “very well” and was discharged from a Tel Aviv hospital Sunday, according to his office. The prime minister had been hospitalized overnight Saturday after suffering from dehydration.

Former South African President Jacob Zuma is in Russia days after being released from prison on medical parole. A spokesperson for his foundation said he will stay in Russia until “the doctors release him.”

BRAIN FOOD

Many countries are expected to see record high numbers of older people, possibly shifting the economic balance of power in favor of countries with large young and working-age populations over the next two decades. Follow a visual demonstration of where and when those transitions could occur, from The New York Times.

The “Malaya Lolas,” some of the last surviving “comfort women” in the Philippines, spoke to the BBC as they continue fighting reparations from the Japanese government and singing their stories in their twilight years.

ONE FUN THING

Hundreds of golden retrievers gathered in the Scotland Highlands last week to commemorate the 155th anniversary of the breed’s founding.

Thanks to editors Emma Anderson and Heidi Vogt, and producer Sophie Gardner, as well as contributors Alexander Ward, Lara Seligman, Paul McLeary, Joe Gould, Josh Gerstein and Phelim Kine.

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