Friday News Roundup — March 1, 2024
Once again the theme for this week is that the nation’s capital dawdled while the world descended further into dangerous chaos and violence.
Facing yet another imminent government shutdown, the U.S. House did what it has recently done best when confronted with its inability to conduct even the mundane business of keeping the lights on — kick the can down the road. The House thus passed at the last minute a one-week stopgap measure to avert a shutdown, which the Senate is expected to quickly second, extending funding for six agencies until March 8, and for another six agencies until March 22. Once again the culprit in the gridlock was intense infighting within a Republican caucus that has a razor-thin majority in the House, where Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., continues to face immense pressure from the hard-right Freedom Caucus to advance conservative policies through brinksmanship, lacking majority backing. Expect to be right back here in a week.
In a preview of what promises to be a historically negative presidential campaign, President Joe Biden and former president and presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump both traveled to the southern border this week, trading barbs and blaming each other for an illegal immigration crisis that is shaping up as a pivotal issue in the general election. Biden blamed Trump for intimidating Senate Republicans into backing away from a recent bipartisan border bill they helped negotiate, which would have provided $20 billion for extra border enforcement. “Show a little spine,” he told Congressional Republicans. On the same day, Trump told an audience in Eagle Pass, Texas, that “the United States is being overrun by the Biden migrant crime. It’s a new form of vicious violation of our country.” Stay tuned for similar policy debates in the coming months.
With heroic Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny scheduled for burial today, his widow Yulia Navalnaya chastised Western politicians this week for continuing to conduct business-as-usual with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose opponents continue to meet suspicious and untimely deaths on a regular basis. Rather than treat Putin like a normal head of state or statesman, Navalnaya suggested he should be approached more like a mafia don, albeit one with the world’s largest arsenal of nuclear weapons with which he continues to threaten the West. Meanwhile, on the recent two-year anniversary of Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, leaders from Belgium, Italy, Canada and representatives of the European Commission traveled to Kiev to lay wreaths at a wall commemorating the tens of thousands of Ukrainians who have lost their lives in the war.
This week more than 100 Palestinians were reported killed, and another 700 wounded, after a chaotic stampede for food aid that witnesses claim turned deadly following Israeli soldiers opening fire. The exact circumstances of the tragedy are still under investigation, but it comes as the death toll in the Gaza fighting topped a reported 30,000 people, with over 70,000 wounded, according to Gazan health officials and U.N. representatives. The bloody milestone lent urgency to Biden administration efforts to negotiate a temporary ceasefire and a return of Israeli hostages held by Hamas terrorists in Gaza following their bloody October 7, 2023 attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis.
Recently, CSPC President & CEO Glenn Nye published an Op-Ed in The Hill, warning that this presidential election year already shows signs of pushing our democracy to the brink, raising profoundly troubling questions about the nature of our politics and governance. He notes that our greatest leaders foresaw the dangers that now gather all around, beginning with Founding Father George Washington, who in his farewell address presciently warned that partisan tribalism and the resultant government dysfunction could be the nation’s undoing.
CSPC Senior Fellow James Kitfield will be a guest today on National Public Radio’s 1A Program, participating in the Friday News Roundup, International Hour, where experts will discuss renewed nuclear saber rattling by Russian dictator Vladimir Putin; the advances by Russian forces in Ukraine, whose defenders are outgunned and low on ammunition in large part because of a U.S. military aid package stalled in Congress for many months; the funeral of Russian opposition leader Alexi Navalny, who recently died under suspicious circumstances in an Arctic gulag; the continued blood-letting in Gaza, and prospects for a U.S. brokered ceasefire; and continued U.S. military strikes against Houthi missile and drone sites in Yemen that continue to threaten international shipping in the Red Sea.
Senators Reveal “Grave Skepticism” over Biden’s Houthi Response
By Kurt Johnston
In an alleged attempt to force an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza, Yemen’s Houthis have attacked 57 ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to date. The Houthis first escalated their campaign on November 19, when they hijacked vehicle carrier Galaxy Leader and took its crew hostage. To avoid missile strikes, many ships have since been diverted around the Cape of Good Hope, a much longer and more costly route. The United States has also bombarded multiple targets inside Yemen to protect Red Sea shipping lanes — even as Houthi missiles continue to strike cargo ships. With the conflict showing increased signs of escalation, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s Subcommittee on Near East, South Asia, Central Asia, and Counterterrorism held a hearing this week to discuss the American response to the situation.
Tuesday’s lively hearing, titled “Yemen and Red Sea Security Issues,” focused on three key elements of the U.S.–Houthi conflict. Most notable was the Senate’s insistence that the Biden Administration’s air strikes constitute “acts of hostility.” Continued military action, in the eyes of some committee members, necessitates congressional approval. The senators also bemoaned the United States’ lack of allies in operations against the Houthis. While the Red Sea attacks are a threat to the global economy, for instance, only the United States and Great Britain have risked open warfare in Yemen. Finally, members of both parties criticized the Biden Administration’s military strategy to defeat the Houthis. Citing the thousands of air strikes committed by Saudi Arabia since 2015, senators questioned if further attacks would be enough to deter Houthi militants.
A definitive answer, however, requires further information on the Houthis and their rise to prominence. While Houthi ideology has recently grown to include a general anti-government platform, the militant group officially practices Zaydi Shiism. Zaydi leaders ruled Yemen for a millennium until 1962, when a military coup sparked the North Yemen Civil War. The Zaydis — a minority both within Yemen and Shia Islam — were removed from power.
In subsequent decades, Zaydi Shiites sought to restore their cultural and religious practices, leading to clashes with the newly established, majority-Sunni Yemeni government. The Houthis were born out of this decades-long religious struggle, indicating a fervor unlikely to be diminished by Western military action.
The Houthis have remained steadfast, for instance, in the face of one of the most devastating civil wars in modern history. Yemen’s conflict erupted in 2014 after Houthi forces seized the capital city, Sanaa, demanding political power. The struggle soon expanded into a regional proxy war, with Iran backing the Houthis and a Saudi-led coalition supporting the internationally recognized government of the Republic of Yemen.
According to the United Nations, the war in Yemen caused “the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.” As of 2023, 21.6 million Yemenis — over 60% of the population — are “in dire need of” immediate aid. Over 4 million people are displaced, three-quarters of whom are women and children. Another U.N. report claimed that as of 2022, 377,000 Yemenis have died as a result of civil war — mostly due to famine, lack of medicine, contaminated drinking water, and disease. A temporary ceasefire was finally negotiated in April 2022; while the agreement officially expired six months later, fighting has largely paused between Houthi and Saudi forces.
However, the Houthis’ recent campaign against Red Sea trade — and the U.S. response — threatens to uproot an uneasy peace. Since January, the U.S. has conducted “almost daily strikes” in Yemen, including four joint operations with Great Britain. The Biden Administration also redesignated the Houthis as a terrorist organization, three years after removing the group for humanitarian reasons. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin recently reiterated the need to protect commercial shipping in the Red Sea, which facilitates about 12% of global trade every year. Some members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee disagreed, with several disputing the U.S.’s responsibility to protect commercial trade between other nations.
U.S. air strikes have not totally deterred the Houthis to date. The only significant pause in attacks was concurrent with a temporary ceasefire in Gaza. U.S.-led efforts to recruit other partners in the operation, most notably China, have fallen on deaf ears. Instead, shipping delays have blocked food and medicine from entering Yemen, Sudan, and Ethiopia while the Houthis have substantially increased their international profile.
A major reason for Yemen’s instability is Iran’s support for the Houthis. Unlike other members of Iran’s “Axis of Resistance,” the Houthis don’t align with Iran’s Twelver Shiism. However, Iran’s backing of the Houthis advances its expansionist goals in the region, particularly its proxy conflict with Saudi Arabia. Although Iran denies these allegations, their support reportedly includes sending funds, drones, ballistic missiles, and military trainers — invaluable tools for the Houthis’ operations in both Yemen and the Red Sea. As the Houthis’ Islamist reputation rises and Iranian weapons continue to flow through the Gulf state, Yemen’s catastrophic domestic war may not be dormant for much longer.
For now, the U.S. priority is to stop Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea. Although lasting peace in Yemen remains on the Biden Administration’s agenda, the focus has shifted to Red Sea security. However, Tuesday’s Senate hearing highlighted glaring differences between executive and legislative strategies. If Senators Chris Murphy (D-CT), Tim Kaine (D-VA), Todd Young (R-IN), and Mitt Romney (R-UT) are a reliable indication, Congress will continue to question the efficacy and legality of further air strikes in Yemen. The U.S. operation to deter the Houthis with military force thus continues with wavering confidence at home and a risk of escalation abroad.
Kurt Johnston is a student intern at CSPC.
News You May Have Missed
Breakaway Region in Moldova Seeks Russian Assistance
By Greyson Hunziker
Moldova’s breakaway region of Transnistria, a sliver of land between the Dniester River and the country’s eastern border with Ukraine, requested protection from Russia on Wednesday. The small, breakaway region was among the Russian-dominated enclaves in the former Soviet Republics, not unlike South Ossetia and Donbas. Transnistria obtained independence in 1992 with Russian military assistance. Transnistria has long benefited heavily from Russian imports, especially gas, though it is still claimed by Moldova and unrecognized by U.N. member-states.
Due to its history, Transnistria’s call for Russian support was hardly surprising. The meeting of the region’s Congress of Deputies, which led to the request for Russian protection, was only its seventh-ever. During the last session in 2006, the Deputies asked for Russian recognition of its independence. Largely because of Russia’s war in neighboring Ukraine, however, Transnistria’s ability to play Moldova and Russia off one another is declining. The Ukrainian border has been closed since the beginning of the war, for instance, crippling trade with Russia. Although Moscow’s focus has been on Ukraine, the war also impacted the 1500 Russian troops in Transnistria who lost their means of supplies, the port of Odessa. Furthermore, an emboldened Moldova, a European Union candidate as of 2022, has criminalized “separatism,” and required Transnistrian companies to pay duties. Moldova has also announced plans to ban Transnistrian license plates.
Biden Takes Executive Action to Protect Americans’ Data
By Greyson Hunziker
President Biden has issued an executive order that aims to protect the privacy of U.S. citizens primarily by preventing “large-scale transfers” of personal data to “countries of concern.” The order includes health, geolocation, and financial data that could be used for counterintelligence, election interference, blackmail, scams, or to track U.S. citizens’ movements. The executive order directed agencies, including the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security, to issue the pertinent regulations. However, the administration seeks to do so while still maintaining an “open Internet” and the “free flow of data.”
The executive order comes as privacy concerns rise in an age of widespread digital technology and data dissemination. In 2023, a Pew Research report showed that over 70 percent of Americans are concerned about how the government and private sector companies use their data. There is thus broad bipartisan support for further regulating consumer data usage, with 68 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats favoring it. The executive order focuses on data brokers and countries like China, Russia, and Iran. However, some view American companies and the American government as at least as concerning as their foreign counterparts. The U.S. government often legally buys data that some critics see as threatening to civil liberties.
Greyson Hunziker is a student intern at CSPC