July 31 2024
Olympics; US unprepared for war; US debt hits $35 trillion; US girls gymnastics team wins gold; Middle Eastern tensions rise; Venezuela
Paris 2024 Medal Count
1 Bipartisan report concludes US may lose a war with China
2 US debt exceeds $35 trillion
3 US girls gymnastics team wins gold
4 Middle Eastern tensions rise as Israel strikes urban Beirut, top Hamas leader assassinated in Iran
5 Venezuelan unrest grows as opposition claimed to have proof of election fraud
7/31/1975 Labor leader Jimmy Hoffa goes missing
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Paris 2024 Medal Count
1 Bipartisan report concludes US may lose a war with China
The U.S. military “lacks both the capabilities and the capacity required to be confident it can deter and prevail in combat”. A Congressional panel advocateed for massive defense buildup, saying the US is unprepared for war. A bipartisan panel reviewing U.S. defense strategy has reported that the nation’s odds of fighting a major war are the highest in 80 years, and yet the military is not prepared. For more than a year, the former lawmakers, military leaders, and policy experts on the Commission on the National Defense Strategy have studied how well the U.S. military is executing the 2022 national defense strategy.
“Unclassified public wargames suggest that, in a conflict with China, the United States would largely exhaust its munitions inventories in as few as three to four weeks, with some important munitions (e.g., anti-ship missiles) lasting only a few days. Once expended, replacing these munitions would take years,” the report states.
The group released their report on Monday and will present its findings to the Senate Armed Services committee on Tuesday. The nearly 100-page report criticizes the Pentagon for being too slow, Congress for being too partisan, and past administrations for complacency in addressing dangers from China, Russia, and Middle Eastern countries. The report suggests that Washington faces more international threat actors, with competitors more willing to go to war, and argues that the country has failed to grow stronger in response. Issues include small budgets, delayed spending bills, reliance on outdated weapons, and a lack of public awareness. The National Defense Strategy’s call for “integrated deterrence” was found to be unclear and uncoordinated. The panel, comprising equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, agreed on these conclusions.
Of the commission’s many recommendations, most are similar to efforts the Pentagon is already undertaking, including reaching out more aggressively to the private sector, particularly new information-technology focused startups, to establish a new industrial base, and reevaluating counterproductive regulatory impediments to buying and selling defense technology.
Other recommendations for change include reassessing the Pentagon’s acquisition and innovation systems, changing buying practices to work more with innovative companies, and immediately passing a supplemental defense bill. The panel also suggests politically unpopular measures to fund these changes, such as higher taxes and reforming entitlement programs. The goal is a military capable of fighting in multiple theaters simultaneously.
Sources: Defense One, Cipher Brief
2 US debt exceeds $35 trillion
America’s gross national debt topped $35 trillion for the first time on Monday, a reminder of the nation’s grim fiscal predicament as legislative fights over taxes and spending initiatives loom in Washington. The Treasury Department noted the milestone in its daily report detailing the nation’s balance sheet. The red ink is mounting in the United States more quickly than many economists had predicted as the costs of federal programs enacted in recent years have exceeded initial projections. The leading presidential candidates, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump, have said little about the nation’s deficits on the campaign trail, suggesting that the economic problem will only worsen in the coming years. Deep differences between Republicans and Democrats on policy priorities and resistance within both parties to enacting cuts to the biggest drivers of the national debt — Social Security and Medicare — have made it difficult to reduce America’s borrowing.
Article Source: NYT
3 US girls gymnastics team wins gold
At the very end of Tuesday’s team final at the Paris Games, even before Simone Biles had finished her dangerously difficult floor routine and the crowd roared in appreciation of the most decorated U.S. Olympic gymnast in history, the U.S. team knew that it had accomplished what it came here for. And that was to reclaim the title of Olympic champion. Led by Biles and the defending all-around champion, Sunisa Lee, the United States won the gold medal with a dominant performance of 171.296 points, finishing ahead of second-place Italy by almost 6 points. Brazil won the bronze. Three years ago in Tokyo, the U.S. team won silver, behind the Russian team, after Biles withdrew from the event because of a mental block that made her disoriented in the air. It was the first time that the Americans didn’t finish in first place since 2008, when they won silver at the Beijing Games.
Article Source: NYT
4 Middle Eastern tensions rise as Israel strikes urban Beirut, top Hamas leader assassinated in Iran
Israel launched a deadly strike in a densely populated Beirut suburb on Tuesday in retaliation for a rocket attack in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights that it blamed Hezbollah for and that killed 12 children and teenagers on a soccer field. The target of the Israeli strike in a southern suburb of Lebanon’s capital was Fuad Shukr, a senior official who serves as a close adviser to Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, according to three Israeli security officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive details.
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The assassination of Ismail Haniyeh, one of Hamas’s most senior leaders, in Iran’s capital threatens to ratchet up tensions in the Middle East and could further imperil any prospect of a breakthrough in the already stalled negotiations to stop the war in Gaza. Mr. Haniyeh was killed while he was in Tehran with other senior members of Iran’s “axis of resistance” — which includes Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen — to attend the inauguration of Iran’s newly elected president. Hamas and Iranian state media on Wednesday blamed Israel for the death of Mr. Haniyeh, the militant group’s political leader, who was central to its high-stakes negotiations and diplomacy. Israel’s military has not commented on the assassination.
Ed note: these two events, coming less than 24 hours apart, are significant escalations and could foreshadow a wider regional war
Article Source: NYT
5 Venezuelan unrest grows as opposition claimed to have proof of election fraud
Venezuela’s opposition can prove that Edmundo González won Sunday’s election, according to María Corina Machado, who led the campaign against President Nicolás Maduro. She told supporters at her party’s campaign headquarters on Monday evening that the opposition has enough of the “actas,” or voting tabulations to prove they won the election. Sunday night, they had access to about 40% of them, now they say they have over 70%. The figures show a categoric and “irreversible” triumph: 6.2 million votes for González compared to 2.8 million for Maduro.
Bloomberg
Ed note: good background on the fall of Venezuela:
Just 25 years ago, Venezuela had a functioning, if flawed, democracy. Then it elected Hugo Chávez, who helped pioneer a new form of Latin American socialism. His style antagonized Western powers but inspired hope among millions at home — and, at first, he helped many out of poverty. Then things began to change. How did the country fall so far? I’ve been covering the country since 2019, including the mass exodus of frustrated Venezuelans.
In the 1970s, Venezuela prospered from an oil boom. Politics were stable, as two major parties competed in democratic elections. But a decade later, petroleum prices dropped. As the cost of living rose, voters came to see the two-party system as entrenched and self-serving.
In 1998, Chávez, a charismatic former military officer, ran for president as a popular insurgent. He promised his followers a more inclusive democracy, a system that would transfer the levers of power from the political elite to the people. He started building a system of direct democracy. A new Constitution added the referendum as a political tool. He created programs to deliver aid, and encouraged citizens to go directly to him for help. Thousands wrote him letters every year pleading for a home, a job, a scholarship. Chávez answered their pleas on his television program, “Aló Presidente.” Eventually, he began to call his movement a socialist revolution — and it was enormously popular. Oil prices had rebounded by the 2000s, and the country was flush with cash. The state expanded free education and medical care. Poverty declined. His movement won election after election. In 2013, Chávez died. But he left behind a hollowed-out democracy.
Maduro took over after Chávez. But the movement’s luck had run out. The price of petroleum was plummeting, and the economy spiraled. People lost faith.
Rather than allow democracy to run its course, Maduro cracked down. His government jailed dissidents, crushed protests and eventually crafted a parallel legislature that would compete with the opposition-held National Assembly — and implement the laws he wanted. In 2018, he barred major political parties and some opposition figures from running for office. The United States responded by issuing harsh sanctions that strangled what was left of the economy.
NYT
Article Source: Bloomberg, NYT
7/31/1975 Labor leader Jimmy Hoffa goes missing
Sources
1. https://www.defenseone.com/threats/2024/07/us-might-lose-war-china-congressional-commission-says/398418
2. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/29/us/politics/national-debt-35-trillion.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
3. https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/07/30/world/olympics-gymnastics-simone-biles?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
4. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/world/middleeast/israel-hezbollah-lebanon.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/30/world/middleeast/ismail-haniyeh-hamas-tehran.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
5. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-29/venezuela-s-machado-says-opposition-has-enough-proof-of-fraud; https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/31/briefing/venezuela-election-nicolas-maduro-protests.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb
Thanks for reading!
