Good morning, and welcome to the Global Situation Report for Friday, 18 October 2024.
- EU COUNCIL CALLS FOR URGENT LEGAL MIGRANT DEPORTATION: During this week’s EU Summit, the European Council called for “determined action at all levels to facilitate, increase, and speed up” deportation operations in Europe and recommended new measures to prevent and counter illegal migration.
- European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen released a lengthy memo ahead of the summit with a ten-point plan to address the EU’s migration strategy, explicitly endorsing a controversial proposal to establish offshore asylum processing and deportation hubs.
Why It Matters: This marks a major shift in sentiment toward immigration, and strengthens the position of a nine-country coalition that has been pushing for dramatic reforms to immigration policy for years. – M.N.
- CHINA’S UNSTABLE NUCLEAR DOCTRINE: Tong Zhao, a Chinese expert on China’s nuclear doctrine, released a report and participated in a panel this week on China’s latest nuclear weapons use and development.
- Zhao said China has no grand nuclear strategy and perceives itself as entirely reactive to the United States’ actions. He specifically confirms this by pointing out Chinese operational planners had not thought through what the best operational doctrine was to achieve a strategic counterbalance.
- Zhao also said that China believes the U.S. is deliberately lowering the threshold of nuclear use by emphasizing low-yield tactical nuclear use and that the U.S. is moving onto embracing limited nuclear warfare.
- To this end, China is attempting to deter the U.S. through capability development. Part of this was recognizing a Western reaction to dual-use missiles (conventional and nuclear warhead compatible launch vehicles). Zhao asserts that to this end, China’s interest in a conventionally armed intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is likely to counter the U.S.’ conventionally-armed theater-range systems in an attempt to reciprocate homeland strikes.
Why It Matters: Being reactive with very little operational thought can lead to grand mistakes such as launching conventionally-armed ICBMs at the U.S. which will likely trigger a nuclear response. – J.V.
- Global Rollup
- Tong Zhao, the Chinese expert above, said that China worries about North Korea’s increased reliance on tactical nuclear weapons and believes North Korea will use them very early, if not immediately, in a regional war.
- Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum reportedly ended a diplomatic pause with the U.S. Ambassador last week. Ken Salazar, the U.S. Ambassador to Mexico, denied yesterday that there was ever a pause in relations.
- NATO announced a new data-sharing system to help the alliance rapidly adopt dual-use technologies. The system will roll out in stages from unclassified information up to space operations and multi-domain operations. (AC: Explicitly adopting dual-use tech is a good indicator that NATO is looking to get the members’ economies and industries on a wartime footing. Data-sharing would ensure better coordination among the members, a critical preparation for an alliance-wide war. – J.V.)
THAT’S A WRAP: This does it for today’s edition. Thank you for reading. If you know folks who would also like to receive this email, would you please forward it to them? We appreciate you spreading the word. – M.S.