Hello,
Here are the five things you need to know today:
UNITED STATES. A shift from world police to Praetorian guard.
ISRAEL. SAUDI ARABIA. Leaders leap on another potential tragedy.
SOMALIA. YEMEN. A Houthi-Shabab partnership spooks shippers.
BRITAIN. Burnham eyes a Breturn, albeit à la carte.
KOREAN PENINSULA. Trump keeps chasing his white whale.
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UNITED STATES. Cops and robbers
A shift from world police to Praetorian guard.
Pete Hegseth pledged to go after woke generals, foreign meddlers and “testosterone deficiency” in a “State of the Force” speech. The last US troops left Iraq after 23 years. Elon Musk and Newt Gingrich were named to a new “future war” panel.
INTELLIGENCE. Should Democrats take the Senate, impeaching Hegseth will be an early legislative priority. But until then, the former Fox News host and National Guard major is attempting the biggest cultural change in the Pentagon since Goldwater-Nichols. It reflects a wider subordination of US institutions to partisan aims, and likewise may not last beyond the Trump administration, but unlike other bureaucratic shifts, the reputational legacy could be enduring.
FOR BUSINESS. US military power is a pillar of US economic might. Sacking senior talent – as the Pentagon pivots from an expeditionary force that polices the global commons to a personal retinue conducting politics by other means – could be as damaging as any Middle East forever war. The system Hegseth wants to replace may be flawed, but like the global trade system, or any other facet of the post-1945 rules-based order, it will likely be missed once gone.
ISRAEL. SAUDI ARABIA. Flight or fight
Leaders leap on another potential tragedy.
Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to get to the "root" of how a Dubai-Tel Aviv flight was forced to land in Saudi Arabia after an alleged hijacking attempt. Andy Burnham said there were "strong indications" Iran was part of an incident at RAF Fairford.
INTELLIGENCE. Flydubai 1073 has already been claimed to have been “an attempted