Good morning, and welcome to the Global Situation Report for Tuesday, 13 August 2024.
- MIDDLE EAST WAR INDICATORS: White House Homeland Security Spokesman John Kirby said that the U.S. is prepared for a significant set of attacks that could come as soon as this week.
- At a talk between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, the U.S. called on Turkey to pressure Iran into de-escalation. Fidan blamed Israel for the state of the region and told Blinken that Israel also needed to de-escalate.
- Israeli media reports that anonymous senior Iranian officials are willing to withhold the attack until after Thursday’s peace talks. However, if the peace talks fail or Iran perceives Israel as stalling, the attacks will commence. Meanwhile, the Hamas spokesman said about the peace talks, “Even if we agree to [Israeli Prime Minister] Netanyahu’s new conditions, he will set additional conditions.”
- The Theodore Roosevelt Carrier Strike Group (CSG) pulled out of the Persian Gulf less than a week after entering and moved to a position off the southern coast of Yemen. (The Navy has long known that any CSG in the Persian Gulf when a war kicks off with Iran is extremely vulnerable to destruction. Its new location suggests it is not heading home but awaiting the Abraham Lincoln Strike Group’s arrival. – J.V.)
- Global Rollup
- In response to the announcement that a U.S. submarine would head to the Middle East, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Navy’s (IRCGN) fifth Martyr Lieutenant General Haj Qassem Soleimani fleet told Iranian media that the IRGCN “sent a message to Americans that we are able to reach the closest point to you,” with a deployment of its largest vessel earlier this summer. (This is actually a shakeup of Iranian naval responsibilities. Previously, the IRGCN and the Islamic Republic of Iran Navy [IRIN] divided responsibility for the Persian Gulf and outer seas. The IRGCN is considerably more aggressive on the water and more likely to conduct dangerous or reckless maneuvers. – J.V.)
- Japan has a delegation of parliamentary ministers in Taiwan. Among them is a candidate for the Prime Minister’s office, Shigeru Ishiba, to whom Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te said Taipei will “stand shoulder to shoulder with the democratic camp to exert the power of deterrence.” Ishiba and Lai agreed to continue deepening economic and security cooperation between the two nations.
- Taiwan announced it is set to receive 29 sets of High-Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) from the U.S. over the next 28 months. Taiwan also announced that it will receive 84 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and 864 rockets in 2026.
- Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) head claims that the U.S. is preparing to replace Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky with the former Ukrainian Interior minister. The SVR says this is to support negotiations with Russia, appease Ukraine aid skeptics in the West, and cease “reckless steps that threaten to escalate tensions.”
- Indian and Russian Central Bank senior personnel are meeting in Moscow this week to circumvent trade in dollars and the barriers imposed by U.S. sanctions on Russian goods. Part of this is setting an exchange rate for the Rupee and Ruble.
- Workers at Chile’s Escondida copper mine, the largest global copper supplier, are expected to strike this morning. Workers rejected mine owner BHP Group’s offer for a new three-year labor contract after five days of negotiations.
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.