This is The Prophecy. The Prophecy is much more than seeing into the future. For The Prophecy sees without the limits of time. For The Prophecy sees what is, what was, and what always shall be.
said Randall Jibson, USGS scientist and lead author of this study. “Not every earthquake will trigger landslides, but we can use landslide distributions to estimate characteristics of earthquake energy and how far regional ground shaking could occur.”
“Scientists are confirming with empirical data what more than 50 million people in the eastern U.S. experienced firsthand: this was one powerful earthquake,” said USGS Director Marcia McNutt. “Calibrating the distance over which landslides occur may also help us reach back into the geologic record to look for evidence of past history of major earthquakes from the Virginia seismic zone.”
This study will help inform earthquake hazard and risk assessments as well as emergency preparedness, whether for landslides or other earthquake effects.
“What makes this new study so unique is that it provides direct observational evidence from the largest earthquake to occur in more than 100 years in the eastern U.S,” said Jibson. “Now that we know more about the power of East Coast earthquakes, equations that predict ground shaking might need to be revised.”
It is estimated that approximately one-third of the U.S. population could have felt last year’s earthquake in Virginia, more than any earthquake in U.S. history.
About 148,000 people reported their ground-shaking experiences caused by the earthquake on the USGS “Did You Feel It?” website. Shaking reports came from southeastern Canada to Florida and as far west as Texas.
In addition to the great landslide distances recorded, the landslides from the 2011 Virginia earthquake occurred in an area 20 times larger than expected from studies of worldwide earthquakes. Scientists plotted the landslide locations that were farthest out and then calculated the area enclosed by those landslides. The observed landslides from last year’s Virginia earthquake enclose an area of about 33,400 km2
, while previous studies indicated an expected area of about 1,500 km2
from an earthquake of similar magnitude.
“The landslide distances from last year’s Virginia earthquake are remarkable compared to historical landslides across the world and represent the largest distance limit ever recorded,” said Edwin Harp, USGS scientist and co-author of this study. “There are limitations to our research, but the bottom line is that we now have a better understanding of the power of East Coast earthquakes and potential damage scenarios.”
DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Some of Israel’s closest allies on Tuesday condemned the deaths of seven aid workers who were killed by airstrikes in Gaza — a loss that prompted multiple charities to suspend food deliveries to Palestinians on the brink of starvation.
Ships still laden with some 240 tons of aid from the charitable group turned back from Gaza just a day after arriving, according to Cyprus. Other humanitarian aid organizations also suspended operations in Gaza, saying it was too dangerous to offer help. Israel has allowed only a trickle of food and supplies into Gaza’s devastated north, where experts say famine is imminent.
The dead from Monday night’s strikes included three British citizens, Polish and Australia nationals, a Canadian-American dual national and a Palestinian. Those countries have been key backers of Israel’s nearly 6-month-old offensive in Gaza, and several of them denounced the killings.
A man displays blood-stained British, Polish, and Australian passports after an Israeli airstrike, in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, April 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)Read More
Israel already faces growing isolation as international criticism of the Gaza assault has mounted. On the same day as the deadly airstrikes, Israel stirred more fears by apparently striking Iran’s consulate in Damascus and killing two Iranian generals. The government also moved to shut down a foreign media outlet — Qatari-owned Al Jazeera television.
The hit on the charity’s convoy also highlighted what critics have called Israel’s indiscriminate bombing and lack of regard for civilian casualties in Gaza.
Israel’s military chief, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, announced the results of a preliminary investigation early Wednesday.
“It was a mistake that followed a misidentification – at night during a war in very complex conditions. It shouldn’t have happened,” he said. He gave no further details. He said an independent body would conduct a “thorough investigation” that would be completed in the coming days.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had earlier acknowledged the “unintended strike … on innocent people” and said officials would work to ensure it does not happen again.
World Central Kitchen said it had coordinated with the Israeli military over the movement of its cars. Three vehicles moving at large distances apart were hit in succession. They were left incinerated and mangled, indicating multiple targeted strikes.
ISRAEL-HAMAS WAR
At least one of the vehicles had the charity’s logo printed across its roof to make it identifiable from the air, and the ordnance punched a large hole through the roof. Footage showed the bodies at a hospital in the central Gaza town of Deir al-Balah, several of them wearing protective gear with the charity’s logo.
Israeli TV said the initial military investigation found that the army identified the cars carrying World Central Kitchen’s workers arriving at its warehouse in Deir al-Balah and observed suspected militants nearby. Half an hour later, the vehicles were struck by the air force as they headed south. The reports said it was not clear who ordered the strikes or why.
Throughout the war, Israel has said it seeks to avoid civilian casualties and uses sophisticated intelligence to target Hamas and other militants. Israeli authorities blame them for civilian deaths because they operate in populated areas.
The body of a person wearing a World Central Kitchen t-shirt lies on the ground at the Al Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah, Gaza Strip, April 1, 2024. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)Read More
At the same time, Israel has also insisted that no target is off-limits. Israeli forces have repeatedly struck ambulances and vehicles carrying aid, as well as relief organization offices and U.N. shelters, claiming that armed fighters were in them.
Israeli forces have also shown a readiness to inflict widespread destruction on suspicion of a militant presence or out of tactical need. Homes with Palestinian families sheltering inside are leveled by strikes almost daily with no explanation of the intended target. Videos of strikes released by the military often show them hitting individuals without visible weapons, while identifying them as militants.
More than 32,900 Palestinians have been killed in the war, around two-thirds of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants in its count.
Celebrity chef José Andrés, who founded the World Central Kitchen charity, said he was “heartbroken” by the deaths of the staffers.
“The Israeli government needs to stop this indiscriminate killing. It needs to stop restricting humanitarian aid, stop killing civilians and aid workers, and stop using food as a weapon,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
The U.S., Britain, Poland, Australia and Canada all called on Israel to give answers on the deaths. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant launched an investigation and ordered the opening of a joint situation room enabling coordination between the military and aid groups.
But anger among its allies could put new pressure on Israel.
The British government summoned Israel’s ambassador for a rebuke and called for an immediate humanitarian pause to allow more aid in and the release of hostages.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak told Netanyahu that he was “appalled” by the workers’ deaths and described the situation in Gaza as “increasingly intolerable.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby said the U.S. was “outraged” to hear of the strikes. He said the Israeli military “must do much more” to avoid conflict and ensure the safety of aid convoys.
A senior Canadian government official said there will be a joint formal diplomatic rebuke at the foreign ministry in Israel on Wednesday. The official also said a top official with Canada’s Global Affairs department made a formal representation to Israel ambassador’s to Canada on Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
The deaths sent a further chill through U.N. agencies and other aid groups that have said for months that sending truck convoys around Gaza — particularly in the north — has been extremely difficult because of the military’s failure to either grant permission or ensure safe passage. Israel has barred UNRWA, the main U.N. agency in Gaza, from making deliveries to the north.
The U.S. and other countries have been working to set up the sea passage from Cyprus to get around the difficulties.
Around 100 tons were unloaded before the charity suspended operations, and the rest was being taken back to Cyprus, Cypriot Foreign Ministry spokesman Theodoros Gotsis said.
Still, Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides said Tuesday that ship deliveries would continue.
Anera, a Washington-based aid group that has been operating in the Palestinian territories for decades, said that in the wake of the strikes it was taking the “unprecedented” step of pausing its own operations in Gaza, where it had been helping to provide around 150,000 meals daily.
“The escalating risks associated with aid delivery leave us with no choice,” it said in a statement.
Jamie McGoldrick, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said the strikes were “not an isolated incident.” The U.N. says more than 180 humanitarian workers have been killed in the war.
“This is nearly three times the death toll recorded in any single conflict in a year,” he said.
The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into southern Israel in a surprise attack on Oct. 7, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostage. Israel responded with one of the deadliest and most destructive offensives in recent history.
Two other Israeli strikes late Monday killed at least 16 Palestinians, including eight children, in Rafah, where Israel has vowed to expand its ground operation. The city on the Egyptian border is now home to some 1.4 million Palestinians, most of whom have sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.
One strike hit a family home, killing 10 people, including five children, according to hospital records. Another hit a gathering near a mosque, killing at least six people, including three children.
Early last month, the US Navy nuclear hunter-killer submarine USS Indiana muscled her way up through the Arctic ice to the snowy surface. The sub was there as part of ICE CAMP 2024, a regular exercise in which the US and its allies establish a temporary presence on the surface of the Arctic ice, pushing back against Russian encroachment.
To find ice thin enough to rupture, the submarine’s planesman will have held the boat creeping along with a gap of just 15-20ft between the ice and the top of its conning tower – usually dubbed the ‘fin’ by submariners.
Once a suitable spot was found, the boat will have held still in the water before the ballast tanks were blown to lift it upwards.
It’s always a tense evolution: rise too quickly and firmly and you’re in danger of compressing and damaging the fin.
Sailors from Australia, Canada and France were on board the Virginia-class submarine for the exercise, as was the UK Naval Attache to Washington, Commodore Roger Readwin.
The US carries out an ICE CAMP, formerly known as an ICEX, about every two years in response to Putin’s claims to the Arctic and its natural resources, confident in the knowledge that the Russian Northern Fleet will have its beady eyes on the evolution throughout. Apart from the participation of a submarine, ICE CAMP 2024 was supported by ski planes from Canada. It involved the creation of a temporary 60-person village on the floating ice of the Beaufort Sea.
While civilians enjoy their Easter break at home, tense underwater skirmishes are being played out even around our own shores, as well as in the further Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.
The last Cold War, as is now well known, saw these underwater confrontations intensify to the verge of hot warfare on many occasions.
The tempo of the present Cold War is now at a similar level, with UK Chief of Defence Staff Admiral Sir Tony Radakin speaking of a “phenomenal increase in Russian submarine and underwater activity” when he took office in 2021.
Russia’s Northern Fleet submarines sail from bases in the Barents Sea, round the North Cape and down into the Atlantic through pinch-points between Greenland, Iceland and the United Kingdom, dubbed the “GIUK gap”.
The Russian boats don’t tend to head down through the North Sea, as this would require them to transit the Dover Straits on the surface and reveal themselves. They usually prefer the wider waters of the Atlantic. Finding and tracking them is, once again, an important activity for the navies of Nato – led by those of the US and UK.
The Royal Navy is still a world premier league force in Anti-Submarine Warfare, despite this capability now having to be carried out by ageing Type-23 frigates, which have required expensive refits to remain seaworthy. However their towed array sonar and specialist Merlin ASW helicopters make them a welcome addition even to a USN task force if it faces a submarine threat.
Nonetheless the Royal Navy has suffered in recent times from a lack of funding. This lack of investment dates back to the height of OP HERRICK in Afghanistan when, despite the continuing strategic conflict with Russia, pitching sonar programmes to MOD investment appraisal boards left one naval officer feel like he was “being patted down for my lunch money in the playground by the bigger kids”.
British Astute Class attack submarines are highly capable, but our hunter-killer flotilla currently numbers a mere six boats and includes HMS Triumph of the previous Trafalgar class, still in service 32 years after she was commissioned into the fleet.
The US Navy, meanwhile, packs a much heftier punch underwater.
One openly-available way of measuring the US Navy’s increased Cold War commitment in recent years is the frequency with which its submarines are seen visiting HMNB Clyde at Faslane, Scotland.
A Los Angeles class boat, said to be USS Albany, visited between February 19 and March 2. A Virginia class submarine came alongside last November, while the Ohio-class SSGN boat USS Florida visited in both August and October.
Submariners heartily dislike their activities being known, much in the same way that vampires loathe sunshine, but each visit does still message US intent to Russia.
More importantly, given these boats are operating 3,500 miles from their home naval bases on America’s east coast, Faslane, with its X-berths for nuclear submarines, presents welcome respite where sailors may take on stores and enjoy time alongside.
Atlantic Anti-Submarine Warfare is a complex web of capabilities involving frigates, Merlin helicopters and long ranging shore-based Maritime Patrol Aircraft, though submariners still insist that the best way to find a boat is with another one – despite this sort of comment bringing your average frigate captain out in an itchy rash of irritation.
In response to the Northern Fleet ramping up its submarine activity, the Americans also reopened Naval Air Station Keflavik, Iceland, in 2016, after a decade’s closure, so that Poseidon Maritime Patrol Aircraft can scour the North Atlantic from there.
The air base is a shore terminal for another important US capability, the Integrated Undersea Surveillance System. An upgraded version of the Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS) developed after World War Two, IUSS, as it was renamed in 1985, uses passive sonar arrays on the ocean floor to track movements.
It’s staggeringly accurate, as was shown by the information garnered when the Titan submersible was lost last summer.
War in Ukraine is having several repercussions on the new Cold War.
Keen to keep the pressure up on Nato, Putin’s admirals have ensured that the pace of sub-Atlantic activity has been maintained. Submariners on both sides sparring in the ocean’s depths must also remain hyper-vigilant so as not to make an unforced error which might trigger an escalation. The stakes are impossibly high.
A Russian Tu-142 “Bear-F” maritime patrol aircraft, intercepted by an RAF Typhoon fighter near UK airspace over the northern Atlantic in 2022. Russia’s increasing northern submarine activity means no Tu-142s can be spared for the war in the Black SeaCredit: RAF
Ideally, the Russians would like to bolster their maritime patrol capability in the Black Sea with powerful Tupolev Tu-142 maritime patrol planes but only a limited number of these big aircraft are serviceable and levels of activity in the Atlantic are such that none can be spared. This has probably been a major factor in Russian naval defeats in the Black Sea.
In the meantime, the secret struggle in the frozen waters of the North continues as we enjoy the Easter weekend.
When thinking about the Cold Wars and the submarine struggles in the northern seas, it’s also perhaps worth recalling thriller writer Tom Clancy’s take on submarines.
Prior to the publication of his famous novel ‘The Hunt For Red October’, later an unforgettable blockbuster movie, he undertook in-depth research for which he was given extraordinary levels of access to both the US and Royal navies.
One of his conclusions sparked discomfort.
Clancy wrote in his non-fiction book “Submarine” that it is the commanding officers of British boats who are the world’s most feared. He theorised that this was because a British captain has spent his entire career dedicated to manoeuvring and combat. The British captain and his executive officer have also managed to pass the tough “Perisher” sub command course, a cruel winnowing conducted after an officer is already well experienced in “the Trade” as a submariner, which ends many Royal Navy officers’ submarine careers before they ever get the chance to hold one of the top two positions aboard a boat.
An American captain, by contrast, will have spent much of his career in engineering-focused appointments. It was Clancy’s assessment that as a result, on average, Royal Navy submarine commanders have an edge over their US counterparts: though as we have seen, this is likely to be more than compensated for by better boats and more of them.
What’s for certain is that in today’s dangerous waters, both navies are playing an increasingly important part in keeping us all safe – even if we usually know nothing of their efforts on our behalf.
We should salute them for that, and we shouldn’t grudge them the expense of the tools they need to do that vital job.
The US’s long-held strategy to deter aggression entails, in part, providing support to allies who are under threat from shared enemies, and projecting power abroad to help keep the global commons safe. This strategy has kept the relative peace and maintained the international order that Americans and the world have benefited from since the Second World War. But Russia and China seek to supplant this international order by thwarting US strategy. They are developing weapons to target the US homeland in an effort to strong-arm Washington into pulling back support for its allies and to erode its ability to project power.
To strengthen the credibility of deterrence, Washington should update its missile defence policy and deploy additional missile defence capabilities. This will not only defend critical infrastructure, defences and public services, but it will also help to deter both Russia and China from considering such an attack, by increasing their uncertainty over whether it would succeed.
This was one of the recommendations of the bipartisan US Strategic Posture Commission, on which both of the authors served. The reportrecommends that ‘The United States develop and field homeland IAMD [Integrated Air and Missile Defense] that can deter and defeat coercive attacks by Russia and China…’
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened Western countries over many years, including with nuclear force. And Putin’s Russia has conducted missile training near US shores, against which Washington has little defence. Moscow is also developing and deploying new armaments such as nuclear long-range torpedoes, nuclear cruise missiles, hypersonic missiles, cyber weapons, and unmanned aerial systems. China’s advances in these areas are in many ways more significant, and could be used to subjugate democratic Taiwan by military force.
Adversaries can threaten US targets with either nuclear or non-nuclear precision and limited strikes against which we have little defence, with the aim of frightening but not enraging Washington. Putin and Xi Jinping believe that such ‘coercive’ strikes could deter the US from defending its allies.
Coercive strikes would be designed to not be so immediately deadly as to provoke a nuclear or large-scale response, but destructive enough to cause US leaders to back down from the fight. Russia or China may calculate that attacking the US directly would spark fear in the electorate and paralyse Washington. Their aim would be to convince the US to stand down or forgo assistance to an overseas ally rather than risk further escalation with a nuclear-armed adversary. This would help Russia and China achieve their long-sought aim of breaking the US-led order that Americans have benefited immensely from since the Second World War.
America’s vulnerability could affect an adversary’s perception such that it may believe an offensive missile strike would be effective. To bolster the credibility of its deterrence architecture, the US should, adapt its missile defences in three ways.
US missile defence policy has adapted once before to defend the homeland against rogue threats; it must adapt once again to defend against peer coercive threats
First, Congress should officially amend US missile defence policy to defend the homeland from coercive strikes no matter the source. When former President George W Bush withdrew the US from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, he initiated the development of a missile defence system that was not meant to defend the US homeland against Russian and Chinese missiles. The layered system was designed to defeat limited strikes from rogue states and only accidental or unauthorised attacks by peers.
But even this more modest plan was met with criticism. Some public officials denounced the plan as potentially ‘destabilising’ the US’s relationship with Russia. Then Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Joe Biden said, ‘Are we really prepared to raise the starting gun in a new arms race in a potentially dangerous world?’
There was an arms race, but the US was not a participant. The US did not deploy an advanced system to defend against peer threats, while Russia and China raced to build highly sophisticated defences. US missile defence policy has adapted once before to defend the homeland against rogue threats; it must adapt once again to defend against peer coercive threats.
Second, the US must identify the areas, facilities and capabilities an adversary is most likely to strike. These include sensors; bases responsible for sealift; significant components of the defence industrial base; and civilian infrastructure sectors critical to the functioning of society, such as energy, water and transportation.
Third, the Commission agreed that the ‘DOD [Department of Defense] must look at new approaches to achieving US missile defence goals, including the use of space-based and directed energy capabilities, as simply scaling up current programs is not likely to be effective’. The Commission did not recommend specific technologies. But we believe that thanks to rapid technological advancements and the lower cost of satellite launches, space-based solutions are feasible and should be considered. Directed energy technology is finally maturing and may provide non-kinetic options for US defence.
Strengthening US homeland missile defences would be a boon for US strategy: making conflict, even nuclear conflict, less appealing to adversaries; limiting damage should conflict still occur; and safeguarding US leaders’ ability to resist coercion and act in the national interest. Deterrence consists of the ability to impose costs on an adversary (offense), to deny benefit to the adversary (defence), and to communicate both credibly. The US has not taken full advantage of the defence element of deterrence, and it is time it started.
The views expressed in this Commentary are the authors’, and do not represent those of RUSI or any other institution.
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Solovyov, an ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin and a state TV host, issued the warnings during two separate broadcasts of his shows Evening with Vladimir Solovyov, and Sunday Evening with Vladimir Solovyov. The Daily Beast’s Julia Davis shared excerpts of the broadcasts on X, formerly Twitter. Newsweek has contacted Russia’s Foreign Ministry for comment by email.
The notion that Russia could strike NATO membersin response to the aid and weapons they’ve provided Ukraine in the ongoing war has been floated by Solovyov, and many other Russian officials, regularly since the conflict began in February 2022.
Putin has said since September 2022 that Russia was prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend its “territorial integrity,” declaring that “this is not a bluff.” More recently, in February, he warned during his annual state of the nation address in Moscow that his “strategic nuclear forces are in a state of full readiness.”
“Meanwhile in Russia: Vladimir Solovyov assured fellow propagandists that none of them will be tried after the war is over, because by then, the British will have been eradicated through nuclear strikes,” wrote Davis of the first state TV clip.
“Meanwhile in Russia: Easter would be incomplete without Vladimir Solovyov’s nuclear threats to France,” she wrote in another post, sharing the broadcast.
In the first state TV clip, Vladimir Kornilov, a political scientist, began by saying that the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph “openly wrote that the Russian people are responsible. After the war ends, absolutely everyone has to be tried, including Patriarch Kirill.”
Solovyov interjected: “Pardon, who is going to judge us?”
“The British,” Kornilov responded.
Solovyov continued by issuing his first nuclear warning. “The country that by that point in time will be buried under a radioactive wave?” he said.
Kornilov said he hopes “it won’t get to a nuclear war.”
“It won’t, the radioactive tsunami will just wipe it away,” Solovyov replied.
In the second state TV broadcast, Solovyov criticized Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo for saying over the weekend that Russian and Belarusian athletes “were not welcome” at this year’s Olympics, which is being held in the French capital.
“I want to remind this unpleasant ugly Nazi beast that today is the 210th anniversary of the Russian army entering Paris. Both back then and now, we couldn’t care less whether or not you are glad to see us. Whenever we need to destroy all of you, we will do it,” said Solovyov.
He added: “So Paris, you don’t want to welcome our athletes? Welcome our hypersonics! Fast, reliable, and very unpleasant.”
Putin warned in February that “Russia won’t let anyone interfere in its internal affairs.”
Tens of thousands of Israelis gathered outside the parliament building in Jerusalem on Sunday in the largest anti-government demonstration since the war in Gaza began. Read more here: http://apne.ws/qmU2iRcVideos
BY WAFAA SHURAFA AND MELANIE LINDMANUpdated 11:20 PM MDT, March 31, 2024Share
JERUSALEM (AP) — Tens of thousands of Israelis thronged central Jerusalem on Sunday in the largest anti-government protest since the country went to war in October. Protesters urged the government to reach a cease-fire deal to free dozens of hostages held in Gaza by Hamas militants and to hold early elections.
Israeli society was broadly united immediately after Oct. 7, when Hamas killed some 1,200 people during a cross-border attack and took 250 others hostage. Nearly six months of conflict have renewed divisions over the leadership of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, though the country remains largely in favor of the war.
Netanyahu has vowed to destroy Hamas and bring all the hostages home, yet those goals have been elusive. While Hamas has suffered heavy losses, it remains intact.
Roughly half the hostages in Gaza were released during a weeklong cease-fire in November. But attempts by international mediators to bring home the remaining hostages have failed. Talks resumed on Sunday with no signs that a breakthrough was imminent.
Correction: Phyllis Bennis said that an alternative structure to NATO could be modeled off the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe. A previous version of this article contained incorrect information.
The return of great power competition across the globe is forcing countries to adapt, spurring major changes to alignment and spending from Europe to the Indo-Pacific to the Middle East.
The change is everywhere on the map — but most evident in countries like Sweden and Japan as the nations make dramatic changes to meet rising threats from Russia and China.
In a breakdown by country, a majority of nations increased defense spending from 2021 to 2023.
European countries collectively drove spending up from about $350 billion in 2021 to more than $388 billion in 2023, while Asian nations bumped that from more than $500 billion to higher than $510 billion in the same time frame.
The spending bumps go hand-in-hand with public opinion. A November Ipsos poll of 30 countries found 84 percent of people believe the world is becoming more dangerous, up from 74 percent in 2018 (the poll was conducted before the Israel-Hamas war).
“I don’t think we’re days away from World War III, but I do think that the world is becoming more unstable,” said Joseph Shelzi, an analyst at the Soufan Group, a global security and intelligence firm.
“There’s a higher risk now, like peer adversaries engaging in high intensity conflict. We see that playing out now in Ukraine, and we see the possibility for that to play out in the streets of Taiwan.”
Russia brings war to Europe
In Europe, the threat from Russia has grown significantly since Russian forces invaded Ukraine in 2022. And it has become more acute with the war dragging into a long conflict that increasingly favors Moscow.
Smaller Baltic nations have pushed to bolster defenses against a potential, future Russian attack.
Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, who have been warning of a Russian military buildup on par with the Soviet Union, agreed this year to build a common defense line made up of bunkers and other defense structures.
Further north, Finland and Sweden joined the Western security alliance NATO following Russia’s invasion.
Sweden abandoned a policy of more than 200 years of neutrality to officially join forces with Western allies in NATO this month. Stockholm stuck with that policy of neutrality through World War I, World War II and the Cold War.
But Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said the inclusion of Sweden into NATO this year was a “natural” step to take.
“We are joining NATO to even better defend what we are and what we believe in: our freedom and our democracy,” Kristersson said in an address after inclusion into NATO. “This is an epoch-making event for our country.”
Minna Ålander, a nonresident fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), said it was “huge” for Sweden to join NATO. She said it was the result of a dangerous security environment with more uncertainty than even during the Cold War.
“During the Cold War, at least towards the end of it, you had a system” with reliable rules, she said. “The post-Cold War norms don’t seem to apply anymore in many places. But you also don’t yet have new rules for the game [and] that’s what’s so dangerous about this moment right now.”
Finland, which shares an 800-mile border with Russia, also motivated Sweden to act by applying to the alliance, said Shelzi from the Soufan Group.
“It’s concrete and you see it on the map today,” he continued. “Russia has brought war back to Europe and so this has been a wake-up call for European leaders throughout Europe.”
NATO members are also pledging to increase defense spending to meet the 2 percent of economic output target, a point of contention as nations other than the U.S. have historically not met that goal and for years relied on Washington for security.
Although a record number of NATO members are expected to meet the target in 2024 — 18 members — the riff over defense spending reached new levels this year. Former President Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential election, said he would let Russia do “whatever the hell they want” to countries that did not pay up in NATO.
Ålander, from CEPA, said there was a “total shockwave” in Europe after Trump’s comments, leading to a recommitment to meeting defense spending and ensuring individual national security, with some countries seeing the U.S. as a potential threat in the future if a hostile president abandons them.
“This isn’t really a Trump problem. It’s a much more longer-term problem with the volatility of American domestic politics and how that has started to swing foreign policy as well,” she said.
Along with NATO, the European Union recognizes the need for countries to boost their security and has called to increase collaboration on security challenges and ramp up defense spending.
European Council President Charles Michel called for a “real paradigm shift in relation to our security and defense” in a letter this month.
“Now that we are facing the biggest security threat since the Second World War, it is high time we take radical and concrete steps to be defense-ready and put the EU’s economy on a ‘war footing,” Michel wrote.
Some analysts see the U.S. and European military buildup as escalation rather than an effort aimed at securing peace.
Phyllis Bennis, director of the new internationalism project at the progressive Institute for Policy Studies, warned against “a massive escalation of power” through NATO and urged the implementation of more treaties that reduce the deployment of arms.
“We need a new structure for Europe that’s not defined solely or primarily as a security, military structure,” she said.
Bennis said that structure could be modeled off the Organization for Security & Cooperation in Europe, an organization funded by 57 member states from Europe, Central Asia and the Americas that provides a forum for arms control, human rights and election monitoring.
The U.S. “government should be trying to negotiate with Russia on things that are bilateral between the U.S. and Russia,” she said. “That could go a long way to reducing some of the tension. … You have to start somewhere because the alternative is permanent war.”
US-China competition roils Indo-Pacific
On the other side of the world, the U.S. and China are pushing to outcompete each other in the Indo-Pacific as a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan looms. And North Korea has grown more belligerent toward the U.S. and its ally South Korea.
Washington is building alliances in the region and bolstering the U.S. presence as it tries to deter Beijing from invading Taiwan, potentially in 2027, the date that Chinese leader Xi Jinping has told his forces to be ready.
Last year, the U.S. agreed with the Philippines to open four new bases on the island, while the White House in 2023 also cemented an agreement with Vietnam to deepen defense cooperation. There are also growing ties with Palau, Malaysia and Singapore.
The U.S. in 2021 forged a major new Indo-Pacific pact with Australia and the U.K., known as AUKUS, which aims to deliver nuclear-powered submarines to Canberra and increase advanced weapon development between all three nations.
But perhaps the most important ally for the U.S. in the region is Japan, which is emerging as a major partner to confront the threat from China and North Korea.
Tokyo has shifted away from pacifist defense policy enacted after World War II, now planning to double its defense budget by 2027 to potentially become the third largest military spender behind the U.S. and China.
Japan has also changed rules to allow for the export of lethal weapons and has released a strategy calling for the development of a counterstrike capability, another significant change from World War II-era policy that prohibited offensive military actions.
A Japanese Ministry of Defense official told The Hill this month that the shift in policy was necessary to increase deterrence and “to stop the intention of aggression.”
John Hemmings, senior director of Indo-Pacific foreign and security policy program at the Pacific Forum, said the diminishing influence of a pro-Beijing Japanese faction, along with a new generation more detached from the World War II-era Japanese empire, who have also grown up during the rise of China, has driven change in Tokyo.
“Over time, that support has become internally more military facing,” Hemmings said, and “the China threat became much more popular.”
Hemmings also noted that the U.S., Japan and South Korea set up a new trilateral alliance last year at Camp David, with Tokyo and Seoul settling historic differences to create a stronger relationship. He said Japan is growing into a powerful U.S. ally.
“Japan is becoming an enabler for U.S. alignment efforts,” Hemmings said. “A lot of critics will say they’re merely puppets of the United States. I don’t think that at all. If anything, I think Japan has been the intellectual leadership within the Indo Pacific concept.”
Tensions explode in Middle East
In the volatile Middle East, the threat from Iran is growing as experts are warning of a major regional war between Tehran, its proxies and their longtime foe Israel.
Tensions in the Middle East exploded last year amid a major war between Israel, the most important regional U.S. ally, and the Iran-backed Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza.
The Gaza conflict is driving Israel and the Iranian-backed Hezbollah military and political group in Lebanon closer to an all-out war, with both sides exchanging frequent artillery and rocket fire over the border.
“We are moving towards a greater conflict with Iran,” said Alp Sevimlisoy, a millennium fellow at the Atlantic Council. “It’s very likely in the next few years that we will have to take direct military action against Iran.”
The deadly Hamas attacks on southern Israel on Oct. 7, which triggered the ongoing war, left more than 1,100 dead with another 250 kidnapped, traumatizing the nation and forcing Israel to seek enhanced security around Gaza and in the north around Lebanon.
For Israel, having the threat of both Hamas and Hezbollah — and the wider problem of Iran, which also has proxies in Iraq, Syria and Yemen — close to home is becoming more and more unacceptable.
“We are fighting an axis, not a single enemy,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant told The Wall Street Journal in January. “Iran is building up military power around Israel in order to use it.”
The most immediate threat from Hezbollah could escalate to all-out war in the near future as Israel tries to resolve the border crisis. That could spark a regional, if not worldwide, crisis, according to a new Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report.
“A war [between Israel and Hezbollah] could dramatically raise tensions with populations across the Middle East and beyond—including in the United States and Europe—and lead to increased attacks by Iranian-backed groups against Israel, the United States, and commercial targets in the region and littoral areas,” CSIS concluded.
Sevimlisoy, from the Atlantic Council, said the U.S. may look to solidify its alliance with Arab nations in the region in preparation for a war with Iran.
“This is now an era that concerns alliances and coalitions,” he said.
“What we should be working towards are certainly conflict plans against Iran, together with our allies in the Gulf in the Middle East, in the event that Iran either chooses to heighten the use of its proxies in many of the countries where we see a lot of chaos at present, or in the event that Iran decides to utilize its position by nuclear weapons to challenge the hegemony of either the U.S. or the national security of individual Gulf countries.”
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