Diplomacy & Crisis News

The political divisions and military rivalries that sparked civil war in Khartoum could erupt in post-Biya Yaoundé.

C'est connu : la culture, c'est beau, c'est grand, c'est l'outil idéal du vivre-ensemble. D'ailleurs, elle est sacralisée — la preuve, on a inventé l'« exception culturelle ». Qui oserait attaquer les démarches qui tendent si vertueusement à en favoriser l'accessibilité, la visibilité, l'appropriation, (...) / France, Idéologie, Capitalisme, Culture, Idées, Inégalités - 2018/05

New Delhi isn’t a party to the U.N. Refugee Convention—leaving migrants in legal limbo.

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Even in times of polarization, consensus has prevailed.

Regional unity amid Russia’s war in Ukraine was the top priority at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit.

Warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence are ubiquitous. Last March, Elon Musk signed an open letter stating that AI threatened the future of humanity. The United Kingdom is planning to host a summit meeting this fall to discuss AI. What are the perils and promises of this new technology?

The Center for the National Interest invited two experts on AI to discuss the issue on Thursday, July 6.

Samuel Hammond is a resident senior fellow at the Niskanen Center. His research focuses on the effectiveness of cash transfers in alleviating poverty, and how free markets can be complemented by robust systems of social insurance. He previously worked as an economist for the Government of Canada specializing in rural economic development, and as a graduate research fellow for the Mercatus Center at George Mason University.

Dr. Keegan McBride is a departmental research lecturer at Oxford University, where he studies topics such as digital government, digital innovation, the use of AI in the public sector, digital well-being and happiness, and government interoperability and data exchange. Outside of these academic interests, Keegan is actively working with NGOs, particularly those that focus on reimagining a better, open, human-centric, and equitable digital future. He can also be found consulting and working with governments and private sector organizations on the topic of governmental digitalization.

Jacob Heilbrunn, editor of The National Interest, moderated the discussion.

Image: Shutterstock.

Over the weekend, two men from the town of Bcharre in Lebanon’s Qornet al-Sawda region were shot dead with little understanding of the cause. Their names were Haitam Tawk, thirty-eight, and Malek Tawk, in his fifties. The town erupted in anger and mourned the loss of their fellow residents. Developments are still unfolding and rumors about why it happened are circulating across social media. Reports say the killers came from the Danniyeh region. The Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) was deployed in the area to restore order and calm. But for how long can the army keep the peace if the judiciary fails to deliver appropriate legal action?

There is a combined effort by the LAF and those in a place of authority to mitigate further potential harm resulting from these killings. The press office of Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said action will be taken to apprehend the culprits. “We condemn this incident and those responsible will be arrested, so that justice can be done.”

Lebanese Forces member of parliament (MP) Sethrida Geagea, who represents the constituency of Bcharre, reached out to the Lebanese Army commander, General Joseph Aoun, to discuss the situation and how best to respond to secure justice for the victim’s families and maintain peace. Geagea and her fellow MP William Touk, who represents the same municipality, released a joint statement of condemnation, demanding judicial and military intervention.

“I contacted the army commander and asked him to send a force as soon as possible to the area where the crime occurred to conduct all necessary investigations.” As of now, the LAF is performing exceptionally well with local support.

Nevertheless, the greatest concern of the town’s residents is that the perpetrators may escape without ever seeing a moment in court. However unlikely, this consternation is warranted. Lebanon’s judiciary has failed countless times to serve its role as an independent arbiter of the law, allowing criminals of all kinds to walk away. A lack of justice and lawlessness persist across Lebanon with few exceptions. However, there is another fear that this round of violence will only cause greater mistrust among different religious communities and deepen sectarian suspicion.

Religious leaders quickly came out to express their own condemnation and add that this horrific act should not be seen through sectarian eyes. The mufti of Tripoli and the North district, Sheikh Mohammad Imam, and Archbishop of the Maronite Archdiocese of Tripoli, Bishop Youssef Soueif, released a statement asking residents of both towns to respond with patriotism and give the authorities time to work. They called on "our dear people in both regions to deal with this tragedy with spiritual and humanitarian consciousness, as well as with a high sense of national responsibility, based on full confidence in the Lebanese Army, security forces, and competent judiciary." 

This problem has its historical roots in a land dispute between the two towns. Bcharre and Donieh are geographically located in a mountainous region where there are quarrels about property and water rights, especially after the snow begins to melt. Former Minister of Social Affairs Dr. Richard Kouyoumjian spoke with the National Interest on the old land feud and what course of action should be taken regarding the killers.

“It’s a chronic conflict; it’s been there for many years now. Every year after it stops snowing, there are conflicts over water between the two areas. It happens that one is Sunni Muslim and the other is Christian. But it is a land conflict over the ownership of a territory called Qornet al-Sawda, where there is plenty of water and everyone wants to benefit from it.”

Kouyoumjian further added that violence cannot be a legitimate tool to end this problem. “Using weapons and armed conflict is not the solution.”

Both towns say the water resources belong to them, and until this is independently arbitrated by the local magistrate and backed by the government, tensions will continue to grow with a high risk of more violence occurring. The former minister said to TNI, “Definitely, the criminals must be brought to justice, so that the victims can rest in peace and that the families can have closure. Also, to prove that there is some form of government left in Lebanon.”

Everyone is now waiting for what will happen next. For now, the army’s presence is the guarantor of stability in the region. But if the fallen are not honored and the courts fail to resolve this dispute, can everlasting peace be truly secured?

Adnan Nasser is an independent foreign policy analyst and journalist with a focus on Middle East affairs. Follow him on Twitter @Adnansoutlook29.

Image: Shutterstock.

We are now over two months past SpaceX’s historic Starship test launch. The massive rocket blasted off from Texas on April 20, but exploded several minutes after liftoff. SpaceX is already preparing for its next mission; CEO Elon Musk initially predicted a next test in 1–2 months, and a Federal Communications Commission application requested a six-month window beginning June 15.

But the launch blasted a hole into the pad and scattered debris across the launch site and nearby towns. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded Starship and opened an investigation. Environmental groups sued the FAA, claiming the agency violated the National Environmental Policy Act by not conducting a thorough enough review of the project.

It is litigation, not engineering or manufacturing, that could be the biggest imminent threat to Starship’s next test. Given that NASA’s impressive but costly Space Launch System lacks viability as a long-term, super heavy-lift option, the lack of a private-sector peer competitor in the near-to-medium-term, and the rapid rise of China as a space power and its in-development Starship equivalent, the United States heavily depends on Starship succeeding to ensure long-term civil and military leadership in space. A major, years-long delay—or license revocation—would be devastating to both SpaceX and the United States.

It is thus imperative that the parties work to produce a timely resolution of the legal and regulatory issues that engages with the local community on environmental impact, ensures that SpaceX has taken steps to ensure such damage to and around the site does not occur again, and allows for testing to move forward this year.

Go for Launch

In 2014, SpaceX chose Boca Chica to be Starbase, its next rocket development and testing facility. SpaceX rapidly developed the site, located just a few miles from the Rio Grande, and began testing Starship prototypes. The orbital test launch explosion was not the company’s first run-in with the FAA, which had previously said that a 2020 test of a prototype violated SpaceX’s launch license for the mission. But the FAA approved the next test after investigating the launch and approving corrective steps taken by SpaceX.

The FAA began an environmental review of Starship’s orbital launch plan, and by June 2022 the FAA released a Programmatic Environmental Assessment, requiring SpaceX to take over seventy-five actions to mitigate the environmental impact, including on wetlands and wildlife, and noise pollution. Just six days before the Starship test, the FAA granted Starship a five-year launch license, having determined that SpaceX had met all of its requirements. But the FAA did not conduct an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), which could have added years to the application, finding it unnecessary.

Starship self-destructed a few minutes into its mission—a reminder that not even any nation or company as experienced as SpaceX avoids failure. In fact, CEO Elon Musk downplayed expectations by saying that the mission would be successful if it got off the pad. Given this context and Starship’s iterative design process that accounts for failures, this test was rightly considered progress.

The explosion rained debris across land and sea, affecting nearby towns and nature reserves and starting a fire in a state park. The rocket also blasted a crater into the launch pad that sent chunks of concrete, dust, and debris flying. There was no flame trench on the pad, which directs flames and exhaust away from the pad during launch. Musk said that SpaceX was taking steps to prevent damage during future launches.

The FAA grounded Starship and launched an investigation, which could stretch many months. Environmental and cultural groups sued the FAA, claiming the agency did not properly consider the environmental impact of Starship. The suit calls for the FAA to revoke the launch license. Weeks later, SpaceX sought to join the lawsuit as a defendant, and warned that the suit could result in the program being “significantly delayed.”

The FAA did conduct an extensive environmental assessment. The legal delays sought by the environmental groups, and a full EIS itself, are completely at odds with SpaceX’s typical breakneck development and iteration speeds. Relocating to other existing launch sites, like Cape Canaveral in Florida, Vandenberg in California, or Wallops in Virginia, would likely require investment, development, environmental reviews, and licenses, costing time and money.

I’m Not Like Other Rockets

Starship is critical to both civil and military U.S. presence in and leadership of space. In the short term, NASA selected a variant of the Starship spacecraft as a lander to bring Artemis astronauts to the lunar surface, needed for the Artemis III mission as soon as 2025. But the impact of a long-term license suspension or revocation would go far beyond a lander.

Starship’s launch came five months after NASA tested its own new super-heavy lift rocket, the Space Launch System (SLS), that intends to transport humans back to the Moon and ultimately to Mars. So far, NASA has spent twelve years and over $20 billion on the Artemis Program, the SLS, and Orion crew capsule. Each SLS launch is estimated to cost an eye-watering $4.1 billion. SpaceX envisions each Starship launch costing under $10 million. In other words, Starship will likely make Artemis obsolete. The Starship test mission is another reminder that beyond low-earth orbit (LEO), Artemis and SLS are here to stay for now. But Starship’s future role in cost reduction beyond LEO makes each delay now even more costly in the future.

Beyond NASA, Starship is part of a rapidly expanding private sector launch industry, Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket launches small satellites and its in-development Neutron will deliver larger payloads. Relativity Space’s forthcoming heavy-lift, partially-reusable Terran R, comes closer to Starship but is still smaller and can carry less payload.

But these launch systems developed by smaller start-ups are closer to competing with Falcon 9 than with Starship; mega-rockets are much more expensive and riskier. Mission failures can doom smaller companies. Virgin Orbit, which provided an operational launch system via air-launched rockets to deliver small satellites to orbit, went bankrupt this year, months after a failed test. It took many years and billions of dollars for Starship to reach this year’s test, and SpaceX must still contend with, and iterate after, an explosion.

Blue Origin’s forthcoming heavy-lift New Glenn has already won government launch contracts and should be commercially successful. But it can carry half of Starship’s cargo tonnage to orbit. There is no current private sector equivalent that could rapidly deploy satellite mega-constellations or deliver major logistical infrastructure to orbit like satellite and vehicle refueling stations, which could be critical as geopolitical tensions on Earth escalate into space. There may be a future peer commercial competitor to Starship, but surveying the current landscape, and understanding how much time and money goes into building a rocket of any kind, that is unlikely anytime soon.

The Chinese space program has grown rapidly in recent decades. The PRC launched its first astronaut into space in 2003 and built a space station, Tiangong, completed last year. Longer-term plans include building a permanent settlement on the Moon called the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), which it aims to build with Russia and other partner countries.

While the ILRS aims to rival NASA’s multilateral Artemis Program, China is closely watching Starship’s development. China is building its own next-generation super-heavy-lift rocket, the Long March 9. Starship development is still far ahead, but it is clear which rocket China is emulating, and it is not NASA’s SLS. Initially, Long March 9 was expendable. In November 2022, designers switched to a version with a reusable first stage. By March 2023, China announced that it will be fully reusable.

In other words, the result of the Starship test has geopolitical implications as well. Without Starship, it is not unreasonable to think that China could have a reusable super heavy-lift rocket capable of quickly delivering crew, cargo, and infrastructure to low-Earth orbit and beyond–and not the United States.

The Stakes

Falcon 9 was revolutionary, but revolutionary for the private sector. Starship could be revolutionary for humanity, with the potential to win the race to Mars, ahead of any government or other private-sector player. And it is important to the United States for its cargo capacity, reusability, and rapid turnaround capabilities. The Starship test certainly exceeded the expectations set by SpaceX. But the mid-air explosion has created a cloud of uncertainty over Starship’s immediate future. There is a lot at stake over the next few months—for SpaceX, for NASA, for South Texas, for Artemis partners, and for China, as the next Starship prototype is developed and investigations continue.

Policymakers should be closely watching the FAA investigation into the test mission and legal action against the agency. U.S. national security interests will be harmed by an investigation and litigation that stretch out over many years. The FAA had already investigated and cleared Starship initially, and it is not in SpaceX’s interest to have its launch complex cratered and incinerated with every test. It is critical that the sides are able to reach a resolution that addresses the environmental damage and remediation from the test, engages the local community, and allows for a resumption of testing later this year.

Alex Dubin is an Endless Frontier Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation focusing on space policy.

Image: SpaceX.

For the last seventeen years, U.S. companies that invested internationally in critical minerals, particularly lithium, had one clear choice: Australia, where U.S. mining investment often averages $35 billion annually.

Those days are over. With the approval of the U.S.-Chile Bilateral Tax Treaty (BTT), Chile is poised to become a primary destination for critical mineral investment and an even greater ally for the United States in the region. Latin America’s economy will never look the same.

On June 22, after years of delay, the U.S. Senate finally approved the BTT, thus addressing double taxation issues that currently hinder U.S. companies operating in Chile with up to 44 percent in income taxes. Beyond reducing tax barriers related to cross-border investment such as withholding tax rates on dividends, interest, and royalties, the treaty creates a framework to resolve international tax disputes, strengthen information-sharing mechanisms, and promote cooperation among the fiscal authorities of both countries. Unsurprisingly, the mining and energy sector is expected to benefit the most from this new treaty.

Latin America’s mineral extraction industry dates back hundreds of years. During the nineteenth century, when the world’s developing economies were industrializing, Latin America still relied principally on the export of raw commodities with critical minerals among them. But, compared to mining superpowers like Australia, Chile’s industrial development and technological advancements stagnated over much of the twentieth century.

Advances, hence, relied heavily on foreign expertise. The scene changed in the 1970s and 1980s when an increase in foreign investment, privatization, technical expertise, and stable legal mining operation frameworks transformed Chile into a country able to actively compete in the global minerals market.

Today, Chile’s reliance on critical mineral mining is no secret. Chile’s industry currently constitutes approximately 11 percent of GDP and represents more than half of the country’s total exports. Chile is also responsible for over 21 percent of the global supply of lithium and 28 percent of the global supply of copper.

What sets Chile apart from the rest of the mineral-rich region? It does, after all, compose only one-third of the renowned “lithium triangle” shared with Bolivia and Argentina. The answer is infrastructure, commercial viability, and institutional frameworks. A far greater percentage of Chile’s total critical mineral reserves are exploitable compared to Argentina and Bolivia. Additionally, the stability and predictability of Chile’s carefully curated institutional framework has enhanced the rule of law and attracted substantial investment in infrastructure and technology, ultimately fostering the favorable business environment that exists today.

Beyond this, the approval of the BTT makes Chile the most beneficial destination for U.S. investments, particularly for U.S. companies investing in the mining and energy industry that have now become the principal beneficiaries of the foreign tax credits provided by the treaty. The combination of the BTT and the Inflation Reduction Act, which provides a $7,500 tax credit to electric vehicle companies that source raw materials from free-trade partners like Chile, presents even more incentive for U.S. investments in the sector. In other words, more bang for your buck. Not only will Chile become a magnet for U.S. investment, but its commitment to high environmental, social, and governance (ESG) standards will elevate the country’s place in the global industry for years to come, surpassing regional and global competitors, setting a new industry standard, and reshaping the global market for critical minerals.

Of course, this process is not without its challenges. In April, President Gabriel Boric presented the government’s new lithium strategy to assert state control in the industry. Despite Chile’s relative success with the state-owned copper company Codelco, Boric’s proposal has raised concerns about the government’s capabilities to efficiently run lithium operations or attract the foreign investment needed for the successful scaling of the industry. The plan, as it stands, still holds a degree of uncertainty about where and to what extent private companies will be encouraged to invest their resources.

Successful sustainable exploitation of this critical industry depends fully on Chile’s capability to collaborate with the international community to further spur innovation, acquire new technology, and attract operational expertise. The BTT is directly conducive to this and will propel Chile to the forefront of the green energy transition. Nonetheless, the influx of investment clears the way for Chile to scale up its sustainable mining operations, foster innovation, and create a robust supply chain that caters to the growing global demand for clean energy solutions, including electric vehicles and energy storage systems. By capitalizing on its natural resources, leveraging U.S. expertise, and making the most of its strong institutions, Chile can solidify its position as a pioneer in the green energy sector. Against a backdrop of political instability in neighboring South American governments, Chile could emerge as a beacon of stability and a catalyst for positive change across the continent, making significant contributions to the broader green energy transition.

This could—and likely should—change perceptions of Chile in Washington. As the 2024 U.S. elections draw nearer, it will be important to U.S. political leaders to strengthen ties with Chile. Indeed, many energy companies that stand to benefit from the BTT are important political players in the United States. Partnership on critical minerals has the potential to enhance Chile's bargaining power in future bilateral negotiations with the United States and solidify its position as a global leader in critical minerals and green investments within the region.

As Chile charts its path forward following the final adoption of the BTT and the potential surge in U.S. investments, key questions arise regarding the future of Chile's mining development and its collaboration with the United States. How will Chile navigate the growing global demand for critical minerals while maintaining a balance between economic prosperity and environmental sustainability? Will the influx of resources and expertise from U.S. investments pave the way for technological advancements and innovation within Chile's mining sector? As Chile solidifies its position as a pioneer in the green energy sector, these questions will shape the nation's trajectory and influence the broader global market for critical minerals.

Ignacia Ulloa Peters is an assistant director at the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

Isabel Chiriboga is a program assistant at the Atlantic Council's Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center.

Image: Shutterstock.

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