| | | | Why Is Trump Taking Credit for a Crisis?: Larison | | President Trump's effort to take credit for the diplomatic crisis surrounding Qatar might be comical if it wasn't so serious, writes Daniel Larison in the American Conservative.
President Trump's tweets on Arab allies' decision to sever diplomatic ties with Qatar over its alleged support for terrorism, "effectively endorses what the Saudis, UAE, Bahrain, and Egypt have done," Larison writes.
"That makes it less likely that there will de-escalation. Once again, there appears to have been no consultation with his top Cabinet members before making this statement, and I find it hard to believe that either Tillerson or Mattis thinks that Trump should have said this publicly right now (or at all). The Saudis et al. probably assumed that Trump's Riyadh speech gave them a tacit green light to do what they wanted, but Trump's latest remarks must have removed all doubt that they have Washington's support to blockade and starve Qatar into submission." - Saudis push Qatar closer to Iran. If the Saudi-led move was meant to force Qatar back into Riyadh's "fold and further isolate its key rival, Shiite Iran, then the opposite is happening," writes Ladane Nasseri for Bloomberg. "Qatar responded to the blockade by Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt by rerouting flights to Africa and Europe via Iran, which has rallied to its ally's defense."
| | About That Really Big Saudi Arms Deal… | | The big problem with the Trump administration's much-ballyhooed Saudi arms deal? It doesn't really exist, argues Bruce Riedel for the Brookings Institution.
"I've spoken to contacts in the defense business and on the Hill, and all of them say the same thing: There is no $110 billion deal," Riedel writes. "Instead, there are a bunch of letters of interest or intent, but not contracts. Many are offers that the defense industry thinks the Saudis will be interested in someday. So far nothing has been notified to the Senate for review. The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, the arms sales wing of the Pentagon, calls them 'intended sales.' None of the deals identified so far are new, all began in the Obama administration."
| | France Just Got Its Ronald Reagan: Mead | | | Emmanuel Macron has the look of a French Ronald Reagan – and an historic opportunity to not only transform his own country, but to reshape the European Union, too, argues Walter Russell Mead in the Wall Street Journal.
"For the first time since German unification after the Cold War, France can bargain with Germany over Europe's future on something like a level playing field. An opportunity like this may not come again. If Mr. Macron can push through real reforms in France and forge an agreement with Germany on a set of realistic policies for the euro and the EU, he could well be remembered as the greatest French president since de Gaulle." | | Meanwhile, Britain Looks Inward: Luce | | Don't blame populist rage against "globalist elites" and the Brexit vote for Britain's retreat from the rest of the world, writes Edward Luce for the New York Times. Blame the country's elites.
"Britain's withdrawal from the European Union is part of a more prolonged disengagement that started years before Brexit," Luce writes. "The political leaders of the 1970s, like Edward Heath, Denis Healey, Roy Jenkins and Harold Wilson, who took Britain into Europe had either fought in World War II or lived through it. Even Margaret Thatcher was, initially, an enthusiast for membership in Europe. They understood the prewar perils of a disunited Europe.
"Their heirs, who were elected to Parliament in the late 1990s and the first decade of this century, have had less experience of the world beyond Britain's shores than any political generation in decades, perhaps even centuries. They have become the leaders of a post-internationalist Britain, a new insularity that Churchill would have found unfathomable." - Trump makes it tough for May. President Trump's Twitter attacks aren't doing May any favors ahead of Thursday's general election, writes Kate Maltby for CNN Opinion.
"May is up for re-election, and she is under huge pressure to disassociate herself from the American President. That is, of course, diplomatically impossible," Maltby writes.
"At a news conference early Monday, when asked about President Trump's comments, the Prime Minister took the unusual step of praising a mayor from another party…But she stopped short of explicitly condemning Trump's tweets, clearly hoping the matter would go away. How did President Trump reward her? He doubled down on his tweets just three hours later, accusing Khan of a 'pathetic excuse' for his failure to prevent terror."
| | May's Misguided Cyber Plea? | | British Prime Minister Theresa May's call to better regulate cyberspace in the wake of Saturday's attack in London is misguided, argues Emily Dreyfuss in Wired. In fact, it could make us all less safe in a host of ways.
"[W]eakened encryption makes everything from world banking to travel and healthcare riskier," Dreyfuss writes.
"When May and other politicians call for encryption-busting protocols, what they really hope to do is turn back the clock to a time when the internet didn't connect everyone and everything and underpin how the world works. They need to realize that time is past. Regulation, fines, pleading -- nothing will return the world to the pre-internet era."
| | What a Board Game Tells Us About China's Military Plans | | | The defeat of two of the world's best Go players by computer programs is more than just a triumph of artificial over human intelligence – it has also offered an insight into the likely future path of China's military, suggests Elsa Kania on Lawfare. "AlphaGo's initial defeat of Lee Sedol appears to have captured the [People's Liberation Army's] imagination at the highest levels, resulting in the convening of high-level seminars and symposiums on the topic," Kania writes. "PLA thinkers' apparent fascination with AlphaGo presents early indications of its initial thinking on and potential future employment of AI in warfare, with applications ranging from autonomous unmanned systems and swarm intelligence to command decision-making. The PLA appears to see AlphaGo's mastery of the complex tactics associated with the game as an apt demonstration of its future military utility." | | Japan's Looming Health Crisis | | Japan's rapidly aging population is pushing the country toward a health crisis, writes Natsuko Fukue for AFP-Jiji. "Authorities are bracing for a dementia time bomb, and their approach could shape policies well beyond its borders."
"By 2025, 1 in 5 people over age 65 — around 7.3 million people — in Japan will have dementia, the health ministry estimates, up from around 4.6 million now." - Industrialized nations are at the center of the debate about aging populations, but a "massive demographic shift" is also taking place in middle-income countries, a new report from AARP says.
"These countries are aging at a much faster pace, and concurrent with urbanization and changing family structures. It took the U.S. 70 years to transition from 'aging' to 'aged,' 45 years for the UK, 40 years for Germany, and 25 years for Japan. Brazil and China are projected to complete the transition in about 20 years and then join the 'super-aged' society just 10 to 15 years later. Even Mexico, which will not become an 'aging' society until 2018, will see its older population more than triple through 2050." | | | | | | |
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