welcome home foreign policySitRep.
Here’s what’s planned for the day: Washington gears up. taiwan army Regarding the porcupine diet, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said: A high-stakes visit to Chinaand Congress (finally) passes it. Further military aid to Ukraine.
Porcupine gets a quill
For years, the United States has done everything it can to get Taiwan into its “Porcupine Strategy,” making it a thorny target that could make China consider an attack.
U.S. officials have armed Taiwan with asymmetric tools of coastal defense cruise missiles, loitering munitions, and shoulder-fired weapons that can sink Chinese ships before they land and mire the PLA in block-by-block combat. They are asking you to buy a kit. When I landed. Instead, Taiwan has largely opted for a more conventional diet of submarines, fighter jets, and tanks.
On Tuesday, after six months of bitter political wrangling, Congress passed a massive foreign aid bill allocating $8 billion to the Indo-Pacific region. The bill includes massive changes worth $2 billion for arms purchases by Taiwan and other allies. . Although this policy does not legislate what will happen, the Biden administration may ultimately succeed in forcing Taipei to permanently submit to the Porcupine Strategy.
defense diet. “This is American taxpayer money, so the United States has more say in how that money is spent,” said Ivan, a nonresident senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and a former National Security Council official.・Kanapathy said. Trump administration and Biden administration.
said a Congressional aide who spoke on condition of anonymity about the ongoing military sales. foreign policy The United States says it has succeeded in accelerating part of a $19 billion military sale to Taiwan that had been stalled for years. The list includes 66 F-16 fighter jets, Patriot air defense batteries and other big-ticket items. They caused concern in Washington as they were clearly not porcupines.
A new pot of money. But going forward, Taiwan will be able to use presidential withdrawal authority (the same mechanism the Biden administration used to provide weapons on the shelves of the Pentagon to Ukraine) and foreign military financing, a program run by the state and government. We will get more military aid. The Department of Defense, which provides grants to fund foreign militaries.
Moving Taiwan into the focus of U.S. military assistance would give the Pentagon more leverage to keep arms supplies to Taipei off Washington’s priority list. Just as Taiwan has attempted to build a submarine fleet, the U.S. government is also considering building additional weapons on the island.
“The challenge Taiwan has is that it essentially needs two types of militaries,” said Heino Klinck, a former U.S. assistant secretary of defense for East Asia. “One that addresses steady-state operations such as countering the People’s Liberation Army’s incursions into China.” [air defense identification zone]. And to deal with the worst-case scenario, an invasion, a different kind of military is needed. ”
Growing pains. Building both of these capabilities is difficult for obvious reasons, not least because they are expensive. U.S. officials have long urged Taiwan to increase military spending. Spending rose by more than a fifth to about 2.6% of GDP, the highest figure on record. Taiwan also acquired a U.S.-made high-mobility artillery rocket system launcher and a Sea Guardian unmanned aerial vehicle.
But as China’s military exercises in the region intensify, pressure is mounting on Taiwan to do more. Its origins date back to then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. The number of Chinese aircraft that crossed the Taiwan Strait median line or entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone jumped 50% in the first six months of 2023, according to Taiwan’s Ministry of Defense.
“The Chinese are establishing this new normal,” Klink said. “We don’t have any more time to warn the Chinese in case they do something.”
Let’s gather human resources
US President Joe Biden wiretapped Liese Grande Appointed as the new special envoy for humanitarian issues in the Middle East. Grande runs the U.S. Institute of Peace and previously served as the United Nations head of humanitarian and development operations in Yemen.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak named general gwyn jenkins, currently Deputy Chief of Defense Staff, will become National Security Advisor.he takes over from Tim Barrowwho will succeed him as the next British ambassador to the United States. Dame Karen Pearce.
About buttons
What should we be paying attention to if it isn’t already?
cover story. Iran continues to say that last week’s Israeli retaliatory strike did not hit its target, a military facility near the city of Isfahan, with a simple switcheroo maneuver in which it replaced an air defense radar destroyed by an Israeli missile with another intact one. I tried. This is to give the impression that the Russian-made S-300 air defense battery at Natanz is still operational.
of economistcaught scoopalthough it was suggested that this deception was likely not enough to fool US and Israeli spies, who possess sophisticated satellites that could tell that defense weapons were missing critical elements. , in order to maintain among its own voters the fiction that Israeli attacks, which appeared convincing enough to enable the Iranian regime’s attacks, did not cause significant damage and therefore were not worthy of retaliation.
Let’s talk for a moment. US Secretary of State Antony Blinken arrived in China this week for high-stakes diplomatic talks with senior Chinese officials as part of the Biden administration’s ongoing campaign to ease relations with its top geopolitical rival. did. Among the many topics on the agenda is China’s economic support for Russia’s war against Ukraine.
“The fundamental view of how China is supporting Russia is changing, primarily through civilian support,” said Jacob Stokes, an Indo-Pacific expert at the Washington-based Center for a New So, in effect, this is military assistance.” American security think tank.
The other big question on everyone’s mind in Washington is whether Mr. Blinken will be able to secure a meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, or whether Mr. Xi will give him a diplomatic snub. “Whether he doesn’t meet with Mr. Xi is a clear barometer of where the relationship is,” Stokes said.
Is it better late than never? U.S. allies in Europe and Ukraine breathed a huge sigh of relief after Congress passed a military aid bill earmarking nearly $60 billion for Ukraine. But Western defense officials widely agree that this is not the last aid Ukraine needs, and as Roby and our colleague Rishi Iyengar report, the U.S. Allies are uncertain whether this support for Ukraine will continue.
It’s worth noting that most of the Republicans who supported the effort were members of the Old Guard, party elders who currently hold powerful committee chair positions but won’t hold them forever. It means that he is from there. Of the 112 House Republicans who opposed the aid package, 71 have been elected since 2018. politiko It points out that it represents a new generational shift that concerns U.S. allies.
In addition to the aid package, it was revealed yesterday that the Biden administration secretly sent a long-range version of the U.S. tactical missile system to Ukraine last week, which the Ukrainian military immediately used in an attack on a Russian airfield in Crimea.
snap shot
Maximilian Kula, a member of the European Parliament from the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party, spoke to journalists outside the Reichstag building after a meeting between Kula and key members of the AfD in Berlin on April 24. told. He assured that Mr Kula would remain a party member himself. Despite the recent arrest of one of its employees on suspicion of spying for China, the company is a strong candidate for the AfD in the upcoming European Parliament elections.Sean Gallup/Getty Images
Please put on the radar
Thursday, April 25th: Blinken is on the second day of a three-day trip to China.
Monday, April 29th: European Commission President candidates debate.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who is considering resigning following a corruption investigation into his wife, is expected to announce his future plans.
Parliamentary elections will be held in Togo.
Tuesday, April 30th: Daniel Krietenbrink, the State Department’s top official for East Asia and the Pacific, is scheduled to testify before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee about U.S. policy toward Taiwan.
Quote of the week
“It’s total bullshit. Pillar 2 is methane-enveloped fragrant bullshit. …Why call it bullshit? Because AUKUS is cobbled together to make it seem like there’s more to it than subs. But that’s not the case.”
– Former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr takes a dim view of the AUKUS alliance’s focus on cutting-edge technology.
Most read articles this week
whiskey tango foxtrot
Mr. Chairman, the second line is God. Profile of U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson by Elaina Protto Calabro atlantic ocean There are lots of gems, but this is our favorite“Friends still get excited about how Prime Minister Johnson once told President Trump he was praying for him, to which the then-president responded, ‘Thank you, Mike.'” Tell God you did. ”
I lost trust. As reported by the Associated Press, former U.S. Rep. George Santos is withdrawing his bid for re-election to Congress after failing to raise funds. Mr. Santos was expelled from Congress in December but still faces numerous federal fraud charges.
Speaking of failed bids, Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene pushed the proposal amid a battle in Congress over the foreign aid bill. correction Using “space lasers” to fight immigrants at the U.S. southern border. She did not elaborate on what that meant. The amendment was not passed.
