Good morning, and welcome to the Global Situation Report for Tuesday, 30 July 2024.
- PH-U.S. 2+2 MEETING: INVESTMENT PLANS AND POTENTIAL INTEL SHARING: At the latest Philippines 2+2 Meeting between the Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and their Filipino counterparts, the U.S. a $500 million military aid package, a new investment roadmap, and an in-the-works intelligence-sharing agreement.
- Secretary Austin announced a finalized Security Sector Assistance Roadmap that lays out future joint investments.He also announced that the allies are currently negotiating a General Security of Military Information Agreement (GSMOIA), intending to finalize it by the end of 2024.
Why It Matters: A GSMOIA is specifically about protecting classified information, including weapons capabilities. If achieved, the U.S. could officially share highly capable weapon systems with the Philippines, such as the Typhon missile launcher and its associated missiles and higher-end versions of the F-16. – J.V.
- Global Rollup
- Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz is calling on NATO to “immediately expect Turkey,” after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan implied that Turkey could invade Israel. Katz went on to accuse Turkey of joining the Iranian “axis of evil, along with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis in Yemen.”
- When asked about a potential arms race around the Typhon missile-launcher, Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Enrique Manalo said that the missiles are “meant for our own defensive capabilities” despite being deployed by the U.S. for the April Balikatan exercise. The Philippines Army said they may extend the deployment beyond September. (What the Philippine officials are saying sounds like the U.S. has unofficially given them the Typhon launchers. This would be a highly significant escalation against the Chinese as the launchers are compatible with SM-6 and Tomahawk missiles. – J.V.)
- India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar told reporters after the Quad (U.S., Australia, Japan, India) Foreign Ministers meeting that, “Right now, I have to be honest, our relations with China are not doing very well.” This comes after meeting his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, last week, where he said, “The state of the border will necessarily be reflected on the state of our ties.” (Strongly suggests that the China-India border is still hotly contested despite recent agreements to remove troops and de-escalate. – J.V.)
- Russian lawmakers in the State Duma, their lower chamber, introduced a bill to legalize cryptocurrency use. Russia intends to use this for international payments and internal business-to-business transactions. The head of the Duma Financial Market Committee said he expects the bill to pass both chambers and be signed by President Vladimir Putin in time for it to go into effect on 01 September.
- Venezuela’s Foreign Minister Yvan Gil ordered diplomatic ties cut and personnel withdrawn from Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay after they refused to recognize Venezuela’s recent election results.
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.