FRIDAY NEWS ROUNDUP — NOVEMBER 20, 2020
Our Political COVID Failure, The Future of the Political Parties, UK Cyber Force & Defense Spending Hike, U.S. Special Operations’ Chain of Command
Happy Friday from Washington, DC. This week, we started to feel the weather turn in the nation’s capital and a little frost could be seen on our windows. The approach of meteorological winter underscores the approaching winter of political discontent. Nearly three weeks after the election, the president and his allies have made loud and repetitive claims of fraud, but little headway in courts. Now they are trying to directly influence local officials to prevent or delay the certification of vote totals.
While President Trump has the right to pursue all legal options, the rights of those who cast their ballots are paramount. As these efforts move to disenfranchise voters and delegitimize American democracy, we hope that leaders on both sides of the aisle recommit to and act towards the orderly and peaceful transition of power.
Our colleague Chairman Mike Rogers, the former GOP chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, has been resolute in his calls for the transition of power to President-elect Biden to go ahead. What’s increasingly at stake is not just the security of our nation but also the fundamental confidence Americans, and people all over the world, hold in our system.
This week at CSPC, we hosted an excellent panel with the diverse perspective of political journalists and election analysts breaking down the 2020 results and what we’re seeing on the ground in the pivotal Georgia run off. CSPC Abshire Chair Mike Rogers also wrote about action we can take to protect 5G networks, while Joshua reviewed a recently-released analysis of ISIS efforts at radicalizing Americans.
This week in the Roundup, as case numbers again spike Michael laments our continued failure to control COVID-19 due to politics. Dan assesses the state of the two major parties after the 2020 election and asks what the election and its aftermath portend for their future. The permanent campaign never ends and it rarely even pauses. Joshua investigates what the UK’s new defense budget tells us about how that country seeks to reinvent its global influence after Brexit. Ethan looks at what a Pentagon reorganization means for the special operations community. As always, we end with News You May Have Missed.
We’ll be off next week for the Thanksgiving, and wish you and yours a very happy holiday.
Eight Months Later, What Have We Learned?
Michael Stecher
On Wednesday, it was announced that the New York City public school system, the largest public school system in the country and one of the few large systems to attempt large-scale, in-person instruction in the current academic year, would be closing due to the rising COVID-19 cases in the city. As a writer, I know better than to write impersonal verb constructions like “it was announced,” but I hope you will indulge me in this case, because the announcement, such as it was, did not come from Mayor Bill de Blasio, Governor Andrew Cuomo, or even Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza. Instead, the information was relayed to the public when an email from Chancellor Carranza to school principals leaked to the press and Mayor de Blasio confirmed it in a tweet late in the afternoon.
One of New York’s major failings when the first wave of the outbreak was rippling through the city in March was the haphazard approach taken by its elected leaders, undergirded by the long-running and barely hidden loathing between Mayor de Blasio and Governor Cuomo. That clearly has not changed. The fact that, as of this writing, New York’s schools are closed, while its restaurants, bars, and gyms are open demonstrates how misaligned our revealed policy priorities are and how little our leaders appear to have learned from months of fighting this pandemic.
A report published in the New York Times yesterday shows that there is a very strong relationship between states that “neglected to keep up forceful virus containment efforts or failed to implement basic measures like mask mandates in the first place.” South Dakota, which currently has the fewest containment measures, has the most COVID-related hospitalizations. According to independent estimates, nearly 9% of the state’s population is currently infected and 30% of people in the Mount Rushmore State have had the disease, but the reproduction number — the average number of people infected by each infected person — remains above 1, meaning that “herd immunity” has not been reached and the caseload will continue to grow.
Leaving to one side people like South Dakota’s Governor Kristi Noem who appear to be “objectively pro-virus,” many other political leaders are trapped in very normal political binds that they cannot seem to shake. In New York, the “trigger level” above which the school system would close was reportedly set in response to pressure from the United Federation of Teachers, and against the advice of the city’s top public health officials. Similarly, in Washington, DC, the teachers’ union rejected a plan that would reopen schools because it might force teachers to lead in-person classrooms starting in February.
School-aged children appear to be a lower risk for catching and spreading the virus, but forcing teachers to commute to and from schools probably does increase their risk relative to staying at home, teaching remote classes (and continuing to draw their paychecks). The teachers’ union represents teachers, so it is not really a surprise that they are protective of their members’ health, and they are extremely powerful in urban Democratic politics. Their power has warped this political outcome in a way that is detrimental to the broader polity — especially in New York, where Mayor de Blasio appears to have preemptively surrendered to their pressure without extracting any apparent concessions.
Small business owners — like the owners of bars, restaurants, and gyms — are another extremely powerful interest group in local politics and they have been getting hammered. A major restaurant trade association estimates that 100,000 bars and restaurants will close this year and employment in the food/drink services industry has fallen dramatically. Unlike this spring, there is no prospect of help coming for them: the states are all facing the prospect of sharp spending cuts in the face of diminished tax revenues; Congress has continued to put off another round of economic relief; and the executive branch is missing in action. These businesses are pressuring their elected leaders to let them stay open because the alternative is bankruptcy. Again, this makes sense from their perspective, even if it is detrimental at-large because it preserves a major vector of infection.
And so the contours of local politics, combined with the total abdication of federal responsibility, has left us with very limited options to combat the virus. There are too many cases extant in the population and not enough tests for the test-trace-isolate strategy that South Korea deployed successfully. Nor are we an island like Taiwan that can force incoming visitors and returning citizens to spend two weeks in a “quarantine hotel”away from the general public. We are even struggling to take the limitedly targeted measures that France has implemented — closing non-essential shops, bars, and restaurants, while keeping primary and secondary schools open — that appear to have put the breaks on their scary second wave.
Instead, after a long stretch of half-measures that left many people inconvenienced but still vulnerable to infection, many states will invariably need widespread lockdowns again. The difference is that this will come during the holidays, when people want and expect the comfort of family and friends. Yesterday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended against traveling for Thanksgiving, but their announcement carries little weight as long as our political system remains incapable of creating and enforcing rules or promoting strategies that would change the incentives for state and local governments, allowing them to take effective action.
A year or so ago, I created a “wargame” for the college-aged CSPC fellows who came (in simpler times) to Washington to learn about the nature of American politics from practitioners, journalists, and scholars. In this game, loosely based on the 2008 financial crisis, the players are forced to balance their cynicism and electoral imperatives against their understanding that failing to act will cause harm to their “constituents.” Both times we have run this game, idealism has triumphed for the students and they chose to help. I never imagined I would get to see it play out in real life, or that actual politicians would choose death over and over.
What’s Next for the Parties
Dan Mahaffee
Reading the 2020 results is very much like a choose-your-own adventure novel. In a year of record turnout, where the electorate was additive rather than zero-sum everyone has reason to highlight a shift or swing in their favored demographic. In breaking down the 2020 election, there was an excellent conversation with some of the best young reporters and analysts in the field for CSPC’s presidential fellows on Tuesday night. Available to watch on our YouTube channel, this conversation broke down how many of the unique dynamics of 2020 — the pandemic, the economy, the protests, and the candidates themselves — and what the early data tells us about the election and its aftermath.
Their excellent analysis started to hint at some of the issues that the parties will face as they look to 2022, 2024, and beyond. For the Democrats, even a presidential victory has not addressed more fundamental issues of party identity. Questions about the shape of the future electoral coalition remain, while structural headwinds of electoral mechanics will likely grow. The GOP, on the other hand, will see its future defined not by the election results, but how the aftermath unfolds.
For the Democratic Party, one of the challenges has been frankly how the election night unfolded and the impact of the “red mirage” on much of the early conventional wisdom. The success of President-elect Biden did not come with very long coattails. Combined with rosier-than-reality polls, disappointment, as it often does, gave way to recrimination. Since the election, the tensions between progressives and centrists have come to the fore, and this even comes to the critiques levied at the (very early) personnel selections for the incoming administration.
What these debates between centrists and progressives address is a more fundamental question that Democrats face about the brand of their party. The common lament of Democrats who lost close races in swing districts is that the rhetoric of “socialism” and sloganeering like “defund the police” served as political albatrosses. While these slogans reflect a highly energized, activist, progressive base, they are shocking to lots of Americans who do not spend their time in the political twitterverse enjoying the leftist agita of Brooklyn, Bucktown, and Berkley in feats of performative “wokeness.” Slogans that appeal in urban bubbles and college campuses serve as barriers to accomplishing their goals elsewhere. Results, not rhetoric, are needed to bridge the gaps between political and cultural elites and the electorate.
How Democrats look to craft their future “brand” is the challenge they face of building a big tent. President-elect Biden has provided some framework for this — but for many of those ticking the top line of the ballot, that was a referendum on President Trump rather than an endorsement of the broader Democratic Party. Yet, Biden has demonstrated what such a coalition could look like, but disagreements on policy threaten to fracture that. Stand by to see how these disagreements serve as ways for those with 2024(?) on their mind.
What seems to plague Democrats, finally, is their inability to accept or to address the asymmetry they face in many ways. All of us in think tanks appreciate thoughtful policy discussions, but retail politics is now far more about negative partisanship. When Democratic candidates are forced to defend the most outlandish stance taken by someone elsewhere in the party, can they tie the GOP to QAnon adherence? Will they start to hold GOP candidates in suburban purple swing districts general elections to something uttered by another candidate in the ruby red primary of a rural district? Or will these suburban voters who leaned Democratic in the face of a Trump re-election swing back toward more conventional Republicans? In the suburbs, buying versus renting is often the question, with voters and real estate.
The structural asymmetries that Democrats face are also clear. The underperformance in state legislature races means that some vulnerable 2022 Democrats may simply see their seats disappear. Plenty of ink has been spilled elsewhere — and it is true for both parties — but Georgia is a big deal. For the future of the Democratic Party’s electoral politics, it wasn’t so much about control of the senate for judges, filibusters, etc., but rather a range of measures designed to address voting rights, gerrymandering, campaign finance, and so on. These were designed to address some of the structural issues that serve as headwinds for Democratic candidates.
For Republicans, the future of their party will be defined by the Trump transition and how far they are willing to contest the outcome. Compared to 2016 and 2018, the Republican Party was buoyed by high turnout in this election as well. President Trump drove voters to the polls, but he underperformed Republicans in several key areas. At the ballot box, it appears that traditional Republican politics outperformed “Trumpism,” yet the Trump brand has subsumed the GOP brand.
What remains to be seen is whether the limitations of Trumpism in retail politics are a matter of the platform or limitations of the candidate who gave his name to the ideology. Notable in the Trump tenure was and is his continued focus on his base, rather than the expansion of the electoral coalition. While the GOP lauded inroads into minority communities in key areas, the broader Trump messaging has been focused on rural white identity politics and right-populist themes. Though there can be a chicken-and-egg debate in interpreting this data, the result is that the counties that President Trump won accounted for only 30% of U.S. GDP. The future of a Republican Party that is increasingly divorced from American cultural and economic centers faces a range of other questions about influence, fundraising, and demographics, and raises questions about how future GOP leaders will balance questions of economic growth and redistribution.
Since President Trump descended the escalator in 2015, what party elites viewed as a political stunt morphed into a takeover of the voting base of the Republican Party. Far from when William F. Buckley pushed back against the John Birch Society to defend conservative principles, the winds of QAnon, conspiracism, and armed militias are now pushing their way closer to mainstream Republican politics. To be fair, with the forces unleashed by social media, dark money, and grassroots organizing, it is unlikely that party elites will ever enjoy the power they once did.
All of these factors combine for the most important challenge that the GOP now faces. Of course there has been plenty of attention to what role President Trump plays in Georgia; what kingmaker role he might have in the future; and who harbors 2024 ambitions if President Trump, and the Trumps, make an unlikely exit from the political stage. All of that, however, now pales before how the party addresses President Trump’s continued efforts to delegitimize the 2020 election and disenfranchise voters.
Whether others join Senator Romney remains to be seen. Elected Republicans find themselves playing a dangerous game as President Trump is ever desperate to remain in office. Already, President-elect Biden’s electoral legitimacy has been thoroughly tarnished among Trump voters.
This narrative of rigged and cheated elections serves to delegitimize not just the 2020 results but elections of the future. How will elected Republicans fare if they face primaries from the right who are inspired by conspiracy theories and unwilling to accept the legitimacy of any outcome but victory for their favored candidate? If President Trump is going to create his own narrative of betrayal, what happens when elected officials, courts, and the fundamental rule of law are all in the crosshairs of his ire?
In the long-run, there will always be changes in the parties as the course of politics ebbs-and-flows. Party realignment happens and it can be messy. While the Democratic debate over policies will be noisy, something more fundamental will be revealed about Republicans in the coming days and weeks. What hangs in the balance now is not only our political parties’ future prospects, but whether both remain stewards of the American system.
Updates from Across the Pond: UK Cyber Force Announced as Defense Budget Grows
Joshua C. Huminski
The UK’s National Cyber Force
On Thursday, the United Kingdom announced the creation of a National Cyber Force (NCF) — a government hacking unit that would carry out cyberattacks against criminals, terrorists, and foreign adversaries. The NCF, which had been in operation since earlier this year, is part of a broader pledge by Prime Minister Boris Johnson to increase the Ministry of Defence’s budget — the largest increase since the Cold War (more, below).
Addressing the House of Commons, Prime Minister Johnson said that the NCF combines “our intelligence agencies and service personnel” and is “already operating in cyberspace against terrorism, organised crime and hostile state activity”. The unit began operations in April and is believed to have several hundred staff in Cheltenham and other military sites around the country.
The announcement of the NCF formally declares that the United Kingdom has offensive cyber capabilities, a fact that was long assumed, but rarely acknowledged publicly. The NCF has and will continue to operate in secret — its director has not been publicly identified — and will seek ministerial approval prior to the launch of an operation. According to Her Majesty’sGovernment, “Past and future cyber operations have and will continue to operate under existing laws, including those granted by the Intelligence Services Act and the Investigatory Powers Act. This ensures UK cyber operations are responsible, targeted and proportionate, unlike those of some of our adversaries.”
Jeremy Fleming, the Director of Britain’s Government Communications Headquarters or GCHQ, the UK’s equivalent of the National Security Agency, said that the National Cyber Force “brings together intelligence and defence capabilities to transform the UK’s ability to contest adversaries in cyberspace, to protect the country, its people and our way of life.”
The announcement was somewhat marred by an ISC report that criticized GCHQ’s selection of a central London location for the National Cyber Security Center (NCSC). The National Cyber Force is separate from the NCSC. The ISC report noted that GCHQ prioritized image over cost, created inappropriate selection criteria, and then arbitrarily changed the criteria without reason. The location known as Nova South was named Britain’s ugliest building in 2017.
Largest Defense Budget Increase since the end of the Cold War
Saying his new budget will “end the era of retreat” Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced a £16.5 billion military spending boost for the armed forces. The Ministry of Defence (MOD) received a last-minute exemption from a one-year budget deal in lieu of the comprehensive budget review (canceled last month) on Prime Minister Johnson’s intervention. The government had planned to conduct a comprehensive and joint defense, security, and foreign policy review, but delays in budget discussions have pushed this to after the first of the year.
The MOD will receive the increase over the next four years on top of the £41.5 billion base budget this year, which is set to rise by 0.5% each of the subsequent years. The announcement of the budget was accompanied by the formal acknowledgement of the National Cyber Force (see, above), and the establishment of Britain’s new space command. The new command is expected to launch its first rocket by 2022 — a likely ambitious goal.
The Prime Minister said, “I have done this in the teeth of the pandemic, amid every other demand on our resources, because the defense of the realm, and the safety of the British people, must come first.” He added that “the international situation was “more perilous and more intensely competitive than at any time since the cold war”. According to the PM, “This is our chance to end the era of retreat, transform our armed forces, bolster our global influence, unite and level up our country, pioneer new technology and defend our people and way of life.”
While a fairly decisive decision on the budget, it is likely to meet some opposition as domestically the government has struggled to support social programs to alleviate the impact of COVID on businesses and families. It also does nothing to address the government’s historically abysmal record of managing the defense budget and controlling rapidly expanding costs. The Prime Minister noted that the increase would not come at the expense of foreign aid saying, “It bears absolutely no relation to discussions about overseas aid…This country is, has been, and will remain one of the biggest contributors to aid on earth.”
The budget increase and the announcement of both the National Cyber Force and the space command are likely partially aimed at reassuring the United States and other allies that Britain, while leaving the European Union, won’t be leaving the international stage. How effective this is remains to be seen. Recent statements by the Chief of the Defence Staff, General Sir Nick Carter, have effectively suggested that everything is a priority from high-intensity warfare to political warfare. If everything is a priority, nothing is a priority. Moreover, it remains unclear how an increase in the defense budget alone can address something that is inherently less kinetic and more soft power in nature.
If the United Kingdom continues to spend increasingly scarce resources on traditional heavy assets — though there is still undoubtedly a need for these — while paying only lip service to next generation capabilities or advanced technologies, the MOD may well end up with the worst of both worlds: anachronistic equipment that is unable to communicate in a joint environment. Right now, it certainly appears that the government wants both without making any sacrifices, which is not a strategy at all.
Special Operations Command Rises to Service Branch Prominence
Ethan Brown
Defense Secretary Christopher Miller has only been in the seat for a week, but he is hardly acting the part of a lame duck appointee. Following the ouster of Mark Esper, he’s already made a bold move to elevate the Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict command to near equal footing with the traditional service branches. Wednesday morning saw the SECDEF sign a memo (allowed under language in the 2017 NDAA) authorizing the SO/LIC office to report directly to the Secretary’s office, rather than navigating the bureaucracies of labyrinthine corridors for reporting to the Pentagon chief.
The Special Operations command now has the same access for reporting as do the civilian oversight leaders of the six services, which signals an important and necessary shift in perceptions, accountability, and oversight that have left something of a stain on the special operations community during the two-decade war on terror. The SO/LIC enterprise previously reported to an assistant staff — the undersecretary for policy planning, rather than SECDEF. Oftentimes, the SOCOM chain of command has not been effectively courtesy copied on policy issues emanating from the Pentagon Chief’s desk, according to Linda Robinson of the RAND corporation, a noted expert on special forces issues (and author of some outstanding books on the topic).
Reporting and accountability then, are the key takeaways from this move. Over the course of the GWOT era, special operations have perpetually been the calling card for defense policy when it comes to pursuing non-state threats to our nation, rising to unrivaled primacy in the climes of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. The previous beleaguered reporting system used by the SOCOM chain of command left little wiggle room for civilian oversight, and the constant rotational deployments certainly took their toll on the operator community. Unfortunately, this meant that a deterioration in culture stained the legacy of some of our nation’s most valiant warriors, with such controversy as drinking and drug use on deployments, hazing and murder, trafficking, and war crimes.
It is absolutely critical to note in this space that the aforementioned misconduct by special operators are EXTREME exceptions to the norm in the community. However, with the constant use of the enterprise to carry on the forever wars in the Middle East without clear strategic objectives (read: no end in sight), it stands to reason that such detrimental conduct would arise. The politically sensitive nature of the special operations missions and its teams is such that when this ilk of incidents occur, they are guaranteed to become a viral issue. The Special Operations Command conducted a culture review in 2019, whose report stated that “special operations culture is overly focused on force employment and mission accomplishment, creating contexts or situations that allow misconduct and unethical behavior to develop.” SOCOM has known that there is a problem in the community (and it isn’t unique to the United States, as our Australian partners are facing similar issues), and efforts are ongoing to resolve it.
Revising the mechanisms of oversight signals a policy shift which places the SO/LIC on equal footing with the other services, and the narrative from Secy. Miller is a welcome change on another front: top-down emphasis on vectoring the SOF enterprise away from the counter-terror paradigm towards great powers competition. I’ve been arguing for this necessity for quite some time (pardon the log-rolling), given the changes to global threat apertures as well as the continually expanding budget, forces, and influence of the Special Operations Command.
Positive though this shift may be, the drama resides in the lame duck construct that hangs over Secretary Miller ahead of the incoming Biden administration. The apparatus of the policy office will have 30 days to submit plans to the secretary on how the shift will be carried out, as well as how the new reporting process will be implemented. The SOCOM hierarchy will presumably be able to coordinate directly with the Pentagon chief on matters of training, equipping, and organizing SOF, as well as provide direct input on sensitive matters like secret raids on high priority targets. However, after those 30 days, there will only be a month for the Biden admin defense team to decide on whether or not to carry on with the memo and institutionalize the new paradigm.
The parting thoughts here are bleak, IF the new administration foregoes the changes. As a former operator, and staunch advocate of realigning the enterprise away from counter-terrorism, should the new administration squash Secy. Miller’s plan in favor of the old methods, it signals that the status quo will remain intact for the SOF enterprise. And we have already seen what the SOF-driven GWOT construct is capable of doing to the culture and community of special operations.
Defense Secretary Christopher Miller has only been in the seat for a week, but he is hardly acting the part of a lame duck appointee. Following the ouster of Mark Esper, he’s already made a bold move to elevate the Special Operations/Low Intensity Conflict command to near equal footing with the traditional service branches. Wednesday morning saw the SECDEF sign a memo (allowed under language in the 2017 NDAA) authorizing the SO/LIC office to report directly to the Secretary’s office, rather than navigating the bureaucracies of labyrinthine corridors for reporting to the Pentagon chief.
The Special Operations command now has the same access for reporting as do the civilian oversight leaders of the six services, which signals an important and necessary shift in perceptions, accountability, and oversight that have left something of a stain on the special operations community during the two-decade war on terror. The SO/LIC enterprise previously reported to an assistant staff — the undersecretary for policy planning, rather than SECDEF. Oftentimes, the SOCOM chain of command has not been effectively courtesy copied on policy issues emanating from the Pentagon Chief’s desk, according to Linda Robinson of the RAND corporation, a noted expert on special forces issues (and author of some outstanding books on the topic).
Reporting and accountability then, are the key takeaways from this move. Over the course of the GWOT era, special operations have perpetually been the calling card for defense policy when it comes to pursuing non-state threats to our nation, rising to unrivaled primacy in the climes of Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and elsewhere. The previous beleaguered reporting system used by the SOCOM chain of command left little wiggle room for civilian oversight, and the constant rotational deployments certainly took their toll on the operator community. Unfortunately, this meant that a deterioration in culture stained the legacy of some of our nation’s most valiant warriors, with such controversy as drinking and drug use on deployments, hazing and murder, trafficking, and war crimes.
It is absolutely critical to note in this space that the aforementioned misconduct by special operators are EXTREME exceptions to the norm in the community. However, with the constant use of the enterprise to carry on the forever wars in the Middle East without clear strategic objectives (read: no end in sight), it stands to reason that such detrimental conduct would arise. The politically sensitive nature of the special operations missions and its teams is such that when this ilk of incidents occur, they are guaranteed to become a viral issue. The Special Operations Command conducted a culture review in 2019, whose report stated that “special operations culture is overly focused on force employment and mission accomplishment, creating contexts or situations that allow misconduct and unethical behavior to develop.” SOCOM has known that there is a problem in the community (and it isn’t unique to the United States, as our Australian partners are facing similar issues), and efforts are ongoing to resolve it.
Revising the mechanisms of oversight signals a policy shift which places the SO/LIC on equal footing with the other services, and the narrative from Secy. Miller is a welcome change on another front: top-down emphasis on vectoring the SOF enterprise away from the counter-terror paradigm towards great powers competition. I’ve been arguing for this necessity for quite some time (pardon the log-rolling), given the changes to global threat apertures as well as the continually expanding budget, forces, and influence of the Special Operations Command.
Positive though this shift may be, the drama resides in the lame duck construct that hangs over Secretary Miller ahead of the incoming Biden administration. The apparatus of the policy office will have 30 days to submit plans to the secretary on how the shift will be carried out, as well as how the new reporting process will be implemented. The SOCOM hierarchy will presumably be able to coordinate directly with the Pentagon chief on matters of training, equipping, and organizing SOF, as well as provide direct input on sensitive matters like secret raids on high priority targets. However, after those 30 days, there will only be a month for the Biden admin defense team to decide on whether or not to carry on with the memo and institutionalize the new paradigm.
The parting thoughts here are bleak, IF the new administration foregoes the changes. As a former operator, and staunch advocate of realigning the enterprise away from counter-terrorism, should the new administration squash Secy. Miller’s plan in favor of the old methods, it signals that the status quo will remain intact for the SOF enterprise. And we have already seen what the SOF-driven GWOT construct is capable of doing to the culture and community of special operations.
News You May Have Missed
European Rocket Launch Fails (Again)
Oscar Bellsolell
A European Vega rocket — the launch vehicle jointly developed by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the European Space Agency (ESA) — launching from French Guyana crashed almost ten minutes into the mission when a failure happened after the ignition of the fourth stage. The launcher was supposed to put two satellites into orbit: the Spanish SEOSAT-Ingenio Earth observation satellite and the Taranis research probe from the French space agency CNES. The combined value of the destroyed satellites is estimated at $400 million. The Vega program kicked off in 2012, accomplishing 14 consecutive successful flights. However, two of the last three flights have failed: in July 2019, a rocket malfunction prevented the placement in orbit of the Falcon Eye 1 military spy satellite for the United Arab Emirates. The last successful mission launched on September 2 and delivered 53 small satellites to orbit.
Conflict Erupts in Disputed Western Sahara Region
Eric Dai
The day after Morocco undertook a military operation to regain control of a road between Mauritania and the Moroccon-claimed territory of Western Sahara, the Polisario Front — a separatist group fighting for the independence of Western Sahara — declared war on Morocco, ending a 29-year ceasefire. After Spain withdrew its colonial presence from Western Sahara in 1975, Morocco claimed the 103,000-square mile region as its own, but the indigenous Sahrawi people and the Algeria-backed Polisario Front launched an insurgency, proclaiming the region as the independent Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic. The fighting ended with a truce mediated by the United Nations in 1991, which called for an independence referendum. Due to disagreements over who would be eligible to vote, however, the referendum was never held, leaving the dispute over Western Sahara unresolved. This week’s flareup of tensions may signify a return to armed conflict for the region.
Bolsonaro-backed Candidates Lose Big in Brazil Municipal Elections
Eric Dai
Last Sunday, Brazil held municipal elections for mayor and city councilor positions across the country, the first time under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro’s tenure. The results were a setback for Bolsonaro — although Bolsonaro did not campaign extensively on their behalf, only 9 of the nearly 60 candidates he endorsed managed to win or secure positions in the upcoming November 29 runoffs. In stark contrast to the anti-establishment wave in 2018 that brought Bolsonaro to power, this year’s municipal elections showed that Brazilian voters “trended toward more experienced and moderate politicians,” according to Mauricio Santoro, a political science professor at the State University of Rio de Janeiro. Although Bolsonaro remains relatively popular and enjoys an approval rating of around 50 percent, the recent municipal elections suggest that his populist, anti-establishment ideology may not hold the sway it did two years prior.
Palestinian Authority to Resume Cooperation with Israel
Thomas Triedman
The Palestinian Authority (PA) announced that it would resume security cooperation with Israel after a call between Netanyahu and President-elect Joe Biden on Tuesday and following Israel’s stated intent to abide by previous written agreements. The Palestinian Authority had ceased cooperation in May after Israel, backed by the Trump Administration’s proposed peace plan, announced plans to annex the West Bank. The cooperation between Israel and the Palestinian Authority consists of joint counterterrorism measures and transfers of tax revenue that Israel collects on the PA’s behalf. Many suspect the fiscal and economic pinch in the West Bank was a major driver in this decision. The resumption of cooperation may also signal the PA’s willingness to engage in peace talks, as they hope the incoming Biden administration will oppose Israeli settlement building in the West Bank and support a two-state solution.
Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite Recommends Establishing a 1st Fleet based out of Singapore
Thomas Triedman
Delivering remarks at the Naval Submarine League’s annual symposium, Navy Secretary Kenneth Braithwaite called to establish a new 1st Fleet, which would probably be based out of Singapore and patrol closer to the border of the Indian and Pacific oceans. Hopefully, the 1st Fleet would alleviate strain on the existing 7th Fleet and spur allies like India and Singapore to help reinforce American security efforts in the Indo-Pacific. Braithwaite’s recommendation comes amid increased assertiveness from China in the region. He notes that China’s presence in the Arctic, in particular, is unprecedented, and claims that “not since the War of 1812 has the United States and our sovereignty been under the kind of pressures that we see today.”
Pigeon Sells for $1.9 Million
Oscar Bellsolell
In the sport of pigeon racing (you read that right) birds are acclimated and trained in their lofts before being released hundreds of miles away for a frenzied race back home. And just like in other big sports, the superstars of the game are worth millions. That is the case for New Kim, a 2-year-old Belgian female Racing Homer who on Sunday sold for $1.9 million at the pigeon auction house PIPA. The buyer — a Chinese person who goes by the name of Super Duper in the bird-racing community — is also the owner of the previous record holder, Armando, a 5-year-old male. The sport is becoming increasingly popular in China, with most highest-priced bids being made from that country. Sadly, cheaters have also made an appearance in this sport: in 2018, a court in Shanghai sentenced two men for trying to rig a high-stakes race by putting their pigeons on a bullet train.
The views of authors are their own, and not that of CSPC.