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The latest Threat Status podcast explores whether Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi’s death paves the way for total Islamic Republican Guard Corps control in Tehran.
…Following Chinese Communist Party-aligned policy, Hong Kong officials just arrested six people accused of violating the once autonomous city’s new national security law.
…Beijing expressed outrage over the visit to Taiwan by a U.S. congressional delegation headed by House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul.
…Israel’s military claims it used only small munitions in a deadly Rafah airstrike, while residents in the Palestinian city say at least 45 people were killed when the strike caused a massive fire.
…Belgium says it will give 30 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, and the Netherlands vows to move quickly on assembling a new Patriot air defense system for Kyiv.
…American soldiers honor fallen heroes at Arlington Cemetery on Memorial Day, placing flags at the gravesites of the more than 260,000 U.S. service members buried there.
…And Toyota claims its futuristic internal combustion engine can run on green fuels such as hydrogen and bioethanol.
The fallout from the Iranian president’s death takes center stage in the latest episode of the Threat Status weekly podcast, which features an exclusive interview with longtime Mideast expert Michael Knights of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
Mr. Knights tells the podcast that Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash this month may have “surprisingly little effect” on other issues playing out in the Middle East, including the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
“[But] that tells you a lot about Iran, and tells you that the system is not of course run by the president. It’s run by the supreme leader … and the Revolutionary Guard,” says Mr. Knights. “And none of those are affected by this. In fact, they probably have gotten somebody out of the way who might have been a rival to Revolutionary Guard candidates to eventually one day replace the supreme leader.”
The podcast also features a discussion on Kenyan President William Ruto’s recent White House visit, Chinese military drills around Taiwan and potential changes coming for the U.S. defense industrial base.
North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, who took power after the death of his father in 2011, has thus far not promoted his own personality cult. But new imagery and a recent propaganda song circulated via state-controlled media in Pyongyang suggest that might be changing.
Washington Times Asia Editor Andrew Salmon reports from South Korea that if the trend expands, it will dash the hopes of those who believed that Mr. Kim might create a more normalized system than his father and grandfather. More worryingly, signals that the nuclear-armed Mr. Kim may be elevating himself above and beyond his predecessors could indicate a more hostile policy toward external enemies.
North Korea on Monday launched a rocket likely carrying its second military spy satellite on Monday night, according to South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, although officials in Pyongyang later said the rocket exploded shortly after takeoff and failed to deliver its payload into orbit.
The first China, Japan and South Korea joint summit since 2019 generated a diplomatic photo spray in Seoul on Monday, but failed to deliver significant breakthroughs.
Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed “serious concerns” about China’s military moves in the region, especially regarding Taiwan. Both he and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol also called for the removal of all nuclear arms from the divided Korean peninsula. Chinese Premier Li Qiang, who attended the summit on behalf of Chinese President Xi Jinping, said he hoped to “build consensus and resolve differences” through “equal dialogue and sincere communications,” but made no mention of the North Korea nuclear issue.
The geopolitical chasm dividing Communist-ruled China from the U.S. and its regional allies makes any political breakthrough tough, while deliverables on trade at the summit were equally underwhelming. The three economies are competitive across a range of sectors, including autos, electronic devices and shipbuilding. The prospect of a free-trade zone uniting the three remains far distant.
China’s military kicked off its largest war games around Taiwan in two years last week, with Chinese state media reporting that the games were intended as a punitive action against new Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te, who has embraced a notably pro-independence posture toward Beijing.
In his May 20 inaugural address, Mr. Lai said his administration marks 28 years of democratic rule in Taipei and signals to the world that Taiwan is an “independent nation in which sovereignty lies in the hands of the people.”
In response, Chinese military forces effectively encircled the island, carrying out drills that included mock missile strikes and joint operations, and revealing details of Beijing’s plan to reach a promised goal of taking over Taiwan. More than 20 Chinese warships and dozens of bombers and other warplanes took part in the war games.
State-run media showed video footage of the exercises, named Joint Sword2024A. Accompanied by stirring martial music, the video included PLA troops streaming out of a building to take up battle stations and fighter jets taking off.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has been saying that some cease-fire can be achieved in Ukraine, but his statements are belied by Russia’s renewed aggression, writes regular columnist Jed Babbin, who underscores the increasingly precarious situation now facing Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Mr. Zelenskyy’s term expired on May 20 amid a renewed Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine that has gained more ground than it had in the past 18 months, Mr. Babbin writes, adding that while “Russia has already called his presidency illegitimate, Mr. Zelenskyy can’t hold an election now or in the near future because Russia occupies at least 20% of Ukraine, not counting Crimea.”
At the same time, Americans “should be worried whenever our military leaders say much the same thing as Mr. Putin,” Mr. Babbin argues. “That is precisely what has happened in recent weeks,” he writes. “Both Air Force Gen. Charles Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Army Gen. Christopher Cavoli, NATO supreme commander, have said that Russia’s recent successes in gaining ground in Ukraine seem to be aimed at protecting Russian territory and tying down Ukrainian forces rather than a renewed effort to conquer all of Ukraine.”
• May 28 — Gender-based Violence in Mexican Politics, Wilson Center.
• May 29 — Lessons for an Unserious Superpower: The “Scoop” Jackson Legacy and U.S. Foreign Policy, American Enterprise Institute.
• May 31 — Asia-Pacific Regional Security Assessment 2024 Launch, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
• June 4 — Supreme Allied Commanders on the Past, Present, and Future of NATO, Hudson Institute.
• June 4 — Flashpoints and High Stakes: America’s Blueprint to Counter China, Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD).
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