Poland, Belarus, Russia: Close to the edge.
Also: the US, Niger, India, Iran and Sweden.
POLAND. BELARUS. RUSSIA. Close to the edge.
Russia’s proxies goad NATO amid attacks on Moscow.
Warsaw sent troops to the Belarus border on Tuesday after accusing Minsk of violating Polish airspace. Last week, Vladimir Putin said Poland was “dreaming of Belarusian lands”. Wagner mercenaries have held drills close to the border.
INTELLIGENCE. As Putin’s war in Ukraine leads to greater attacks within Russian territory, the Kremlin wants to distract NATO with provocations close to the Polish border and the Suwalki Gap, a 70-kilometre stretch of land along the Polish-Lithuanian border that separates Russia’s exclave Kaliningrad from Belarus. The Kremlin also wants to highlight tensions between Poland, which has been outspoken on Wagner in Belarus, and more cautious NATO allies.
FOR BUSINESS. While Russia plays puppet with Belarus, others are calling its bluff in the Black Sea. On Monday, an Israeli ship defied Russia’s, entering a Ukrainian port on the Danube. Vessels from Greece, Turkey and Georgia are in transit. Moscow will be loath to attack ships from states that are relatively friendly, but may think otherwise of vessels from more hostile countries, which in any case may be unable to secure commercial insurance, or willing seafarers.
UNITED STATES. Down and dirty.
Fitch notes a 'steady deterioration' in governance over 20 years.
Rating agency Fitch downgraded the US’s credit rating on Tuesday to AA+, a move Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen described as “arbitrary”. Donald Trump was indicted on Tuesday with four more charges relating to the 2020 election.
INTELLIGENCE. Symbols of US decline will only encourage Washington’s adversaries. They will also encourage Donald Trump, who is gaining in the polls and is using what he calls a “witch hunt” to keep in focus 2016 “Russiagate” controversies and the Biden family’s links to Ukraine, on which Republicans are advancing a separate probe. Whether or not Trump is re-elected, such moves are also casting doubts on the durability of the US’s commitment to Ukraine.
FOR BUSINESS. Fitch’s downgrade is largely meaningless but will have a propaganda effect, including among proponents of alternative currencies, from Bitcoin to the BRICS. The dollar remains dominant for now, but cracks are appearing. The yuan exceeded the greenback in China's foreign trade for the first time this year, thanks in part to sanctions on Russia. Bolivia last week said it had joined Brazil and Argentina in accepting the yuan for trade.
Written by former diplomats and industry specialists, Geopolitical Dispatch gives you the global intelligence for business and investing you won’t find anywhere else.
NIGER. Gang of four.
West Africa’s juntas vow to protect one of their own.
The military leaders of Burkina Faso and Mali on Monday said any armed intervention in Niger would be a “declaration of war” against them too. Guinea, also under military rule, expressed its solidarity on Tuesday with the putsch in Niger.
INTELLIGENCE. The threat of intervention from the Economic Community of West African States was possibly a feint, but it has stirred animosity between Nigeria, which chairs (and dominates) ECOWAS, and Francophone West Africa, whose populations have grown more anti-Western. Watch for the response of Senegal, which led an ECOWAS intervention in The Gambia in 2017, but today faces its own turmoil, charging an opposition leader with insurrection.
FOR BUSINESS. Niger is not just a worry for France, which is evacuating its citizens and has been barred from Nigerien uranium, but for Nigeria and other regional economies hoping to turn a corner. Under reformist President Bola Tinubu, Nigeria is trying to remedy decades of misrule, but neighbourhood instability could distract its focus. As for Senegal, once a leading light, the internet went dark on Monday amid more violent protests in the streets.
INDIA. Communal disharmony.
Ethnic and religious tensions mar India’s rise.
An imam was killed on Tuesday after a mob stormed a mosque near New Delhi, hours after deadly clashes in a nearby district. A Sikh guard allegedly killed four on a train to Mumbai after a political argument with a Hindu colleague.
INTELLIGENCE. Rising communal violence risks alienating middle-class supporters of Narendra Modi, who over a decade have helped elevate his Bharatiya Janata Party from the Hindu extremist fringe to national dominance. Ahead of elections in 2024, the BJP is taking no chances. It asked the Supreme Court this week to revoke a stay of conviction for opposition leader Rahul Gandhi, sentenced to two years in prison for defamation. Gandhi appeals on Friday.
FOR BUSINESS. At the height of his popularity, Modi’s move to neutralise Gandhi, the Congress Party’s ineffective scion, first seemed unnecessary. It now seems to have backfired, with Congress forming an alliance with regional parties and gaining ground on rising food prices and uneven growth. Ethnic unrest, from Manipur to Kashmir, is now being felt in India’s major centres, offering a new threat to Modi and his narrative of geo-economic success.
With the brevity of a media digest, but the depth of an intelligence assessment, Daily Assessment goes beyond the news to outline the implications.
IRAN. The heat is on.
Domestic and external pressures build for the regime.
Iran declared a two-day holiday on Tuesday due to an “unprecedented heatwave”. Hundreds protested in the province of Sistan-Baluchistan on Monday over Tehran’s failure to deal with sandstorms and diminishing water supplies.
INTELLIGENCE. After mass protests in late 2022, Iran’s clerical establishment has largely reasserted control, but bad weather and rising living costs may prove harder to deal with than enforcing Islamic dress codes. The US continues to apply pressure too. While weaker sanctions enforcement has bolstered oil sales, an increased Western military presence in recent weeks has sent a warning on Tehran’s vessel seizures in the Gulf and its growing nuclear program.
FOR BUSINESS. Arms exports to Russia are also bolstering Tehran’s revenues, but unless gains can be spread throughout the economy, Iran could face renewed unrest on the street. Amid political jockeying as the health of Iran’s supreme leader deteriorates, Tehran must walk a narrow path between defiance, which lends it credibility in the Islamic world, and pragmatism, which ensures the economy doesn’t completely collapse.
SWEDEN. SOS.
It used to be so nice, it used to be so good.
Stockholm said it would “intensify” border controls after two Iraqi refugees set fire to a Koran outside Sweden's parliament on Monday. On Tuesday, an employee at Sweden's honorary consulate in Izmir was shot and wounded.
INTELLIGENCE. There’s no proof yet to link the shooting in Izmir to the recent spate of Koran burnings, but Sweden’s relations with Islamic countries are in crisis. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemned Sweden on Monday, which has seen its liberal migration and free-speech laws collide. The incidents are leaving locals unhappy too. The far-right Sweden Democrats have risen in the polls at the expense of the prime minister’s Moderate Party.
FOR BUSINESS. By blaming outsiders, Stockholm hopes to deflect the crisis, but Muslim politicians will be hard-pressed to find a better scapegoat – rich, Western, progressive – than Sweden. So far, Turkey hasn’t used the events to backpedal on ratifying Sweden’s NATO bid, but as if anticipating such a move, fellow holdout Hungary adjourned its own ratification on Monday. The pain could otherwise be economic. Informal boycotts began last week in Egypt.
Emailed each weekday at 5am Eastern (9am GMT), Daily Assessment gives you the strategic framing and situational awareness to stay ahead in a changing world.