Today the U.S. Treasury Department announced a general license (read: sanctions exemption) that permits the payment of taxes, fees, import duties, or the purchase or receipt of permits, licenses, or public utility services for all transactions–even commercial ones–so long as they aren’t for luxury goods or services that do not support basic needs.
Ok, why is this a big deal?
In practical terms, General License No. 20 opens up commercial transactions and cross-border trade in Afghanistan by allowing for the kinds of incidental payments listed above that are necessary to conduct business. This allows for commercial transactions related to imports from and exports to Afghanistan, including financial transfers to governing institutions such as Da Afghanistan Bank (central bank of Afghanistan).
Previously these types of payments were only permitted for non-commercial humanitarian activities. For example, General License No. 19 permits certain transactions and activities involving the Taliban so long as they are “ordinarily incident and necessary” to carry out specified humanitarian and development projects which includes the “payment of taxes, fees, or import duties, or the purchase or receipt of permits, licenses, or public utility services.” This implied that similar payments related to commercial activities were still subject to sanctions. This severely reduced critical cross-border trade between landlocked Afghanistan and its neighbors.
Is this going to attract big international banks or projects to Afghanistan anytime soon? Probably not. Afghanistan isn’t that lucrative for them to begin with and now that they’re left with Afghanistan’s real economy, it just doesn’t make sense from a business perspective. But this will be a game changer for regional traders and Afghanistan’s domestic commercial sector. The Biden administration has clearly recognized that Afghanistan cannot stay afloat through aid alone.
U.S. sanctions that were intended to limit the Taliban and Haqqani Network as non-state actors have now extended far beyond this limited scope to effectively sanction the de facto Afghan government. Today’s general license will reduce some of this harm but more still needs to be done to inject liquidity into Afghanistan’s economy and assuage the chilling effect of sanctions that no longer serve a purpose.
Adam Weinstein is Deputy Director of the Middle East program at the Quincy Institute, whose current research focuses on security and rule of law in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq.
Afghan people walk past a Kabulbank branch in Kabul September 14, 2010. Afghanistan's central bank has stepped in to take control of the troubled Kabulbank, its governor said on Tuesday, after suspected irregularities raised concerns over the country's top private financial institution. REUTERS/Andrew Biraj (AFGHANISTAN - Tags: BUSINESS)
President Joe Biden is seen with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson as he departs from the Friends of Ireland ceremony on the House steps of the Capitol Building in Washington, D.C., on March 15, 2024. (Photo by Aaron Schwartz/NurPhoto)
The House Republicans released three of the bills on Wednesday. The supplemental package includes approximately $26 in aid for Israel, $60 billion for Ukraine, and $8 billion for the Indo-Pacific. The fourth bill, which Johnson says will include the "REPO Act, TikTok bill, sanctions and other measures to confront Russia, China, and Iran," has not yet been introduced. The legislation will reportedly include an "open" amendment process and is expected to be voted on on Saturday night.
After months of waiting, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-La.) is expected to unveil an ambitious foreign aid plan this week.
According to a one-pager that contained an incomplete list of the items in the bill posted on X on Monday by PBS News correspondent Lisa Desjardins, the plan includes at least $48 billion for Ukraine and $14 billion for Israel, as well as money for allies in the Indo-Pacific and operations in the Red Sea.
As far as the foreign aid is concerned, details of the plan are remarkably similar to the bill that the Senate passed in February, and which Johnson has thus far refused to bring to the House floor for a vote. That bill contained roughly $60 billion in aid for Ukraine, and $14 billion in security assistance for Israel.
Johnson’s plan is reported to also include other Republican sweeteners such as legislation that could ban TikTok and permit the U.S. to seize Russian assets to increase the scale of aid for Kyiv.
The House is planning to vote on each of the elements separately later this week, and then send one single package to the Senate containing each approved piece. While the aid for the Indo-Pacific figures to be uncontroversial and a version of the TikTok ban has already passed the House, the other parts of the legislation face a more complicated situation.
A number of congressional Democrats have raised concerns about approving more unconditional aid to Israel as it continues to carry out its war in Gaza which has killed more than 33,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children. But, in the aftermath of Iran’s strikes on Israel over the weekend, a sufficient number of Democrats are likely to vote in favor of the aid. And, as Politico noted this morning, “there’s an understanding that [sending aid to Israel] will be the price of finally securing Ukraine funding.”
The biggest holdup, as has been the case since Johnson assumed the speakership, is additional assistance for Ukraine. Regardless of the “important innovations” that Johnson hopes to include in the legislation, getting a package through while surviving politically remains a difficult needle to thread.
The problem for Johnson has never been procedural or substantive — the Speaker will likely need Democratic support to bring the legislation to a vote, and each element of the package should have enough votes to pass on its own. But none of Johnson’s maneuvering over the past few months is likely to relieve him of the accompanying political headache.
After the House passed a bill to fund the government last month, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) filed a motion to vacate, a process that could result in a vote to remove Johnson from the speakership. Following Johnson’s announcement to the GOP conference that he was moving forward with his foreign aid proposal, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said that he would co-sponsor Greene’s motion. Massie has told reporters that there will be more GOP votes to remove Johnson than the eight that voted to oust then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy last October.
Some members of the Freedom Caucus, who have been opposed to continued funding for Kyiv, have also expressed concern over Johnson’s plan, but it is unclear whether they would support removing him.. The group put out a statement on Monday saying that “under no circumstances will the House Freedom Caucus abide using the emergency situation in Israel as a bogus justification to ram through Ukraine aid with no offset and no security for our own wide-open borders”
Johnson appeared Tuesday to take on his detractors. “I am not resigning,” he said after a morning meeting of fellow House Republicans on Capitol Hill. Calling himself a "wartime Speaker," he called efforts to oust him “absurd ... not helpful.”
The Republican Party’s margin in the House is so narrow — it will drop to 217-213 when Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) resigns on Friday — that Johnson can only afford two GOP “no” votes before having to rely on Democratic members to save his job. Some Democrats have already said that they were open to helping Johnson if the Speaker allows a vote on Ukraine aid.
Massie, who has already called on Johnson to resign, said that this outcome would not work for Johnson. If he relies on Democrats, “He goes further in the hole with Republicans. He becomes toxic to the conference,” Massie said, according to NBC News’ Sahil Kapur. “For every Democrat who comes to his aid he’ll lose 2-3 more Rs.”
The Biden administration and prominent Senate Democrats have so far reserved judgment on Johnson’s proposal, saying that they wanted to see the final details before weighing in, but they appeared open to supporting the eventual package. “It does appear at first blush that the Speaker’s proposal will in fact help us get aid to Ukraine, aid to Israel and needed resources to the Indo-Pacific,” National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said. “We just want to get more detail.”
Biden and Johnson spoke by phone on Monday night, and, given the hurdles that the speaker will have to overcome to get his plan through the House, he is likely to want to ensure that whatever does get through has support in the Senate and White House. Johnson also met with former President Donald Trump over the weekend in Florida, but the presumptive 2024 GOP nominee’s praise for the Speaker does not appear to have won over skeptical Republican members. Trump was noncommittal about supporting Johnson’s aid request, though he maintained that any future money sent to Kyiv should be "in the form of a loan rather than a gift."
Some Republicans may be determined to advance a foreign aid bill to the floor regardless of how the votes on the looming legislation go. “One House Republican made the point to me that if this GOP plan doesn’t pass, the floodgates will open and they’ll just sign the Senate bill discharge petition,” said Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman on X.
The discharge petition, which would send the bill to the floor over the Speaker’s objections, currently has 195 of the necessary 218 signatures. Only one Republican, the recently retired Rep. Ken Buck, has signed on so far.
House rules typically allow 72 hours for members to review bill text before voting. If that procedure is followed, Johnson’s foreign aid bill could be brought to a vote as soon as Friday night.
Rhetoric from the Pentagon and the arms industry suggests that integrating artificial intelligence, or AI, into U.S. weapons, communications, and surveillance systems will improve efficiency, innovation, and national security.
The Pentagon is beginning to back its rhetoric on emerging technology with resources. The department’s Office of Strategic Capital now has the authority to grant executive loans and loan guarantees to invest in firms researching and developing 14 “critical technologies,” including hypersonics, quantum computing, microelectronics, autonomous systems, and artificial intelligence.
Meanwhile, the Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act authorizes the Advanced Defense Capabilities Pilot, which contains a mandate to establish public-private partnerships with the goal of “leverag[ing] private equity capital to accelerate domestic defense scaling, production, and manufacturing.”
Proponents argue that the rapid development and deployment of autonomous systems, pilotless vehicles, and hypersonic weapons will shorten the time between recognizing a potential threat and destroying it — a process analysts and military leaders often refer to as shortening the "kill chain." This shift is portrayed as a positive development, when in fact it could easily enable deadly escalations by accident or design.
A case in point is Israel’s use of targeting systems incorporating AI to generate targets for military strikes in its brutal seige on Gaza. A recent investigation revealed the use of “Lavender,” an AI-based program developed by the Israeli army designed to identify all suspected operatives in the military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad as potential bombing targets. Rather than using this capability to focus on discrete targets and spare civilians, the Israeli Defense Forces are using Lavender to multiply the number of targets to attack in a given time frame, increasing the pace of attack and the number of casualties, which now stand at over 33,000 deaths and tens of thousands injured.
The investigation revealed that the Israeli army preferred to only use unguided missiles, commonly known as “dumb” bombs (in contrast to “smart” precision bombs) to target alleged junior militants marked by Lavender. These bombs can indiscriminately destroy entire buildings and cause significant casualties.
“You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people — it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs],” said C., one of the intelligence officers speaking to +972 Magazine, which broke the story on Lavender.
The Lavender machine is not the first time the Israeli military has used AI. “The Gospel,” another system largely built on AI, is said to generate targets at a fast pace. As noted by +972 Magazine, “A fundamental difference between the two systems is in the definition of the target: whereas The Gospel marks buildings and structures that the army claims militants operate from, Lavender marks people — and puts them on a kill list.” Far from enabling more precise strikes that reduce civilian harm, the AI-targeted attacks increased impunity in the bombing of Gaza. As a member of the Israeli military posted to Gaza put it, “I don’t know how many people I killed as collateral damage … the focus was on creating as many targets as quickly as possible.”
The U.S. Congress has demonstrated its commitment to spurring on “collaborative defense projects between the United States and Israel in emerging technologies” through bills such as the United States-Israel Future of Warfare Act, which is just one avenue through which the United States continues to fund and support Israeli military operations. In February, the Senate approved an additional $14.1 billion for Israeli military operations via a supplemental funding package, but the fate of that aid package awaits action by the House.
But some members of Congress have pushed back against the risks of emerging technologies by introducing legislation to establish governance and regulations of AI. The Federal AI Governance and Transparency Act, for example, aims to ensure that “the design, development, acquisition, use, management, and oversight of artificial intelligence in the Federal Government… [is] consistent with the Constitution and any other applicable law and policy, including those addressing freedom of speech, privacy, civil rights, civil liberties, and an open and transparent Government.”
Accidents in the use of AI systems have their own potentially dire consequences, as pointed out by Michael Klare in a report for the Arms Control Association: “many analysts have cautioned against proceeding with such haste until more is known about the inadvertent and hazardous consequences of doing so. Analysts worry, for example, that AI-enabled systems may fail in unpredictable ways, causing unintended human slaughter or uncontrolled escalation.”
The Pentagon has given lip service to the potential dangers posed by widespread weaponization of AI, but its calls for responsible use of these systems ring hollow in the face of its public commitments to deploy advanced technology as quickly as possible. Last August, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks unveiled her department’s “Replicator Initiative” in front of an audience of arms-producing companies, pledging to deploy large numbers of new systems by late 2025, possibly including “swarms of drones” designed to overwhelm Chinese defenses in a potential U.S-China conflict.
Meanwhile, venture capital firms like Andreesen-Horowitz and the Founders Fund are pouring billions of dollars into emerging military tech startups, hoping to cash in when some of them become major Pentagon contractors. In addition, these firms have been rushing to increase their lobbying clout by hiring dozens of ex-military officers as advisers and advocates for higher Pentagon spending on AI-driven systems.
The promoters of these new battlefield technologies are marketing them with evangelical fervor, suggesting that not only are they central to being able to “beat” China in a conflict, but that they are the key to restoring U.S. global military dominance. At a time when cooperation between Washington and Beijing is essential for addressing urgent threats like climate change, pandemics, and global poverty, cheerleading for a new high-tech arms race with China is both dangerous and counterproductive.
So what is to be done? First, there needs to be greater transparency about new weapons systems in development, how they might be used, and whether the technology is being shared with other nations. Also, the revolving door between the military, the Pentagon, and the emerging tech sector needs to be carefully regulated, including prohibitions on direct lobbying of former colleagues still in government.
In addition, Washington should consider the calls of scientists and advocates for a ban on robotic weapons and in the meantime, increase transparency, regulation, and oversight of these technologies. And all this needs to be coupled with a rethinking of U.S. global strategy that reduces reliance on military intervention and prioritizes diplomacy in U.S. interactions with governments, organizations, and individuals.
Developing a new generation of military technology will not solve our world’s most pressing problems, and there is a strong chance that it will make them worse. The time to push back against the illusions promoted by the people who will profit from taking AI to war is now.
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Refugees from Sudan wait to be transported to the transit camp in the town of Renk near the border after crossing the border into South Sudan, April 4, 2024 via Reuters
On the morning of April 15, 2023 in Khartoum, the capital of Sudan,the country’s de facto national army, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF), and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) took up arms against one another. Through temporary ceasefires and multiple attempts by foreign countries and international bodies to mediate an end to the war, the fighting persists.
Over the past year, the civil war has created one of the world’s most severe humanitarian crises. Thousands have been killed and over eight million have been displaced. With over 6.5 million people internally displaced, Sudan is home to the highest number of internally displaced people in the world. Relentless fighting has forced many to leave Sudan entirely, with 1.5 million having fled to neighboring states as refugees.
The regionalization of this conflict is risking further destabilizing the wider Horn of Africa and Gulf regions, with regional powers now becoming involved. The UAE has reportedly provided military weapons to the RSF while Egypt has reportedly supported the SAF. A recent report suggests Iran is providing drones to SAF forces, which has helped them regain lost territory in and around Khartoum.
As more players become implicated in the military outcome of the war and as the humanitarian crisis deepens, the war is becoming increasingly complex and layered. Yet, at its most basic level, this conflict is of a genre as old as war itself. Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, who heads the SAF, and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo (commonly called “Hemedti”), who leads the paramilitary RSF, are vying for power. Each is hoping to be the sole leader of Sudan.
Though now rivals engaged in a vicious war, Al-Burhan and Hemedti were once allied military leaders. In 2019, the two worked jointly to overthrow the country’s long-time dictator, Omar al-Bashir, who had led the country since 1989. Following the successful coup, street protests erupted calling for a rapid transition of power to a civilian-led government. On June 3, 2019, the SAF and RSF responded violently, killing over 100 people in Khartoum. During the massacre, over 70 men and women were raped by RSF personnel.
Following international pressure, in August 2019 the military leaders agreed to allow for the formation of a transitional military-civilian government — the Transitional Sovereign Council — with elections scheduled to be held in 2023. But in October 2021, just over two years after the formation of the transitional government, the two military leaders again worked together to overthrow the government and regained full control over Sudan.
As the two sought to establish a governing structure in the months after this second coup, differences emerged between the two leaders’ visions for the future of Sudan’s government.
Al-Burhan sought to allow many of the political elites formerly allied with al-Bashir to reenter government. Hemedti, a Darfuri Arab, opposed such a plan, concerned that reinstating the old political guard would eventually return Sudan to a governing structure too similar to that which they overthrew, and erode his standing in the face of political elites who look down on those, like him, who are from Darfur.
Another essential point of disagreement was in the plan to unify the two armed forces into a single national force. Al-Burhan, whose SAF serves as the de facto military of the country, demanded that Hemedti’s RSF force integrate into the SAF within two years. Hemedti, however, wanted the integration period to be spread out over a decade, giving his paramilitary more autonomy in case conflict resumed.
Following months of rising tensions, Hemedti deployed RSF forces to strategic locations throughout the country, including Khartoum, in anticipation of armed conflict. In the early hours of April 15, 2023, the RSF attacked SAF bases across the capital, including at the city’s airport, signaling the start of what would turn out to be the region’s most devastating conflict in many years.
Despite having fewer fighters, in the year since the civil war began, the RSF has successfully gained control over much of the capital and large portions of the country’s western provinces in the Darfur region.
As conflict has spread, civilian suffering has reached levels unprecedented even for a region well acquainted with war, displacement, and humanitarian disaster.
The humanitarian toll is hitting children the heaviest. UNICEF estimates that 24 million children are at risk of “generational catastrophe.” Of these, 14 million are in dire need of humanitarian support and 3.7 million are acutely malnourished. With 19 million children out of school, the long-term effects on the mental development of children will continue long after the war has ended.
Despite the massive humanitarian challenges facing the Sudanese people, international humanitarian support has fallen far short of what is needed. OCHA — the U.N.’s humanitarian agency — estimates that out of the $2.5 billion needed to fund a sufficient humanitarian response in 2024, only $155.2 million has been received thus far, amounting to just 6% of the needed support for this calendar year. The U.S. has provided 10% of that humanitarian aid. For 2023, OCHA says that 51% of the total funding needed for humanitarian relief was received.
The humanitarian crisis has been augmented by both armed groups committing widespread and severe human rights abuses across the country. Both forces have summarily killed civilians and ransacked cities, looting and then destroying unwanted property, including homes. The RSF and SAF have also both forcibly enlisted men and boys, threatening to kill them if they refuse to fight.
A U.N. report determined that between May and November of last year, the RSF committed at least 10 attacks against civilians in El-Geneina, the capital of West Darfur province, killing thousands, most of whom were part of the African Masalit ethnic group. The report also reveals that by mid-December, at least 118 people — including 19 children — had suffered from sexual violence, including being raped and gang raped by members of the military and paramilitary forces.
Throughout Darfur, the RSF has demanded that women leave their homes, forcing many to flee west to bordering Chad. The paramilitary also singles out men, and sometimes boys, systematically killing them one-by-one as they try to escape. Attacks specifically perpetrated against the Masalit community have spurred conversations about whether Darfur is again the site of a genocide.
Despite the remarkable levels of devastation and widespread displacement, the international community has been slow to respond. Relative to other conflicts, many far less devastating than the war in Sudan, this war has received limited media attention and has not been prioritized by countries outside the region. Yet, as the crisis worsens and as the effects spread beyond Sudan’s borders, foreign governments have increased their attention over the past few months.
On February 26, over 10 months into the war, the Biden administration announced the appointment of former congressman Tom Perriello as Special Envoy for Sudan. Tasked with leading the U.S. government’s efforts to resolve the conflict, Perriello — who previously served as U.S. envoy to the Great Lakes region during the Obama administration — has traveled on multiple occasions to the region where he has engaged civil society groups and regional governments in a dialogue with the hope of restarting peace negotiations.
As the war enters its second year of heavy fighting, Perriello will find it difficult to tie the conflict’s many threads together and mediate an end to the war. But with a growing chorus of Sudanese civilians and many throughout the region pleading for an end to the conflict, the Biden administration has done well to increase its focus on ending the war through diplomatic engagement — a sign to those in East Africa that the U.S. is committed to rolling up its sleeves and leading the effort to achieve long-term peace in the region.