After an earthquake reportedly killed at least 1,000 people in Afghanistan on Wednesday, the international community, including the UK and European Union, kick-started its provision of aid. Even an Indian air force jet landed in Taliban-controlled Kabul with supplies marking a potential overture by New Delhi, which was a longtime critic of any negotiations with the Taliban.
Meanwhile, Pakistan dispatched convoys of essential aid. Iran also pledged to provide assistance. Our partners around the world are engaging with reality in Afghanistan. The regionalization of aid and humanitarian relief to the country should be welcomed by Western capitals because it is far more sustainable and efficient.
But Washington’s risk averse approach to engagement with Taliban-led Afghanistan falls short despite being the largest provider of aid.
As Afghanistan reels from the loss of life, Washington continues to further “assess” its aid options, signaling a continued resistance to working with the Taliban directly. Why doesn’t the U.S. government have a clear and immediate response to a human tragedy of this scale in a country we occupied for two decades? How can Americans and the world hope for a more engaged and nuanced U.S. diplomacy if Washington cannot respond with clarity to such black-and-white situation?
The potential influence of the United States should not be exaggerated. Even the previous Afghan government would have struggled to respond to an earthquake of this magnitude despite substantial support from the United States and its allies. The Taliban also have agency and have adopted policies that make it difficult for foreign governments to engage in good faith. But the chilling effect of U.S. sanctions hinder Afghanistan’s development and frozen foreign exchange reserves prevent the economy from stabilizing.
The White House’s hand-wringing over engagement with Taliban-led Afghanistan feels contrived when one considers that in the not so recent past, U.S. diplomats posed for photo ops with the Taliban, laughed together, and ultimately excluded the Afghan government from negotiations with them.
This earthquake presents a test for the Biden administration. Will it take additional steps to engage with Afghans at a moment of crisis, or will it sit on the sidelines as our partners and foes alike lend a helping hand?
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.
A Taliban helicopter takes off after bringing aid to the site of an earthquake in Gayan, Afghanistan, June 23, 2022. REUTERS/Ali Khara
U.S. Army Soldier from the 331st Transportation Company, 11th Trans. Battalion, 7th Trans. Brigade (Expeditionary) walks down the causeway pier before while anchors are being laid out on deck, March 09, 2020.
There is no way that the floating causeway the U.S. military wants to build connecting to the beach at Gaza won’t require “boots on the ground” say experts, putting another major question mark on the humanitarian surge project announced by the administration last week.
Details have emerged in recent days that the Pentagon plans to build a floating “trident” style causeway out of modular pieces that are en route from Ft. Eustis, Virginia, to Cyprus as we speak.
But according to experts like Sal Mercogliano, a former merchant mariner, professor, and host of the “What’s Going on with Shipping” podcast, the floating causeway project is going to be a massive endeavor to build and will require daily maintenance from personnel on the beach once put into place.
“The problem with this one it is not as durable (as a permanent non-floating elevated causeway system) and it has to be maintained. You can’t just set it up and leave it alone, you got to be constantly monitoring it, resetting anchors on it. It takes a lot to keep this system up and running. It is not something you just set up and walk away. You also got to have people ashore for it,” he said on an earlier podcast before the Trident floating option was actually confirmed by the Pentagon.
“I’m not sure how the DoD is going to get away with this without having people on the beach,” he continued. “There’s got to be some interaction here. You can have some people maybe do it for you, but I’m telling you, to do this right, and professionally, you got to put people ashore.”
There have been numerous reports that private contractor Fog Bow has been tapped to help “organize the movement of aid after it arrives on the Gaza shore.” This has not been confirmed by the DoD and the press office did not return a request for comment by RS. Fog Bow, which is run by retired Marine Corps Lt. General Sam Mundy, and Mick Mulroy, former CIA and Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East under the Trump administration, has been mentioned in several stories as talking with the Biden administration (if not already on board), and already raising money to start assisting with both private and government aid deliveries to Gaza.
Looking at its team page, Fog Bow certainly has the background for providing logistics and even security for deliveries, but the question remains who might be providing the construction and maintenance support for the floating causeway on the beach that Mercogliano mentioned in his podcast.
Another big question mark is the timing. As Mercogliano mentioned, there are are series of Army cargo watercraft sailing what will be an arduous journey from the U.S. to Cyprus. The craft are weighed down with supplies for the construction and will take at least 30 days to arrive (the clock started ticking on March 12). There are two massive Army ships called Landing Support Vehicles (Besson and Loux) which are traveling at about nine knots to Cyprus and are being accompanied by three smaller Landing Craft Utility ships carrying equipment (most likely the modules) and a roll-on roll off vessel that can also serve as a “mother ship,” according to Mercogliano. Timing for the project depends on the ships with the slowest speeds and those are the big LCVs.
Once the ships get to Cyprus, they will have to be inspected no doubt before the construction process — for the floating pier two miles off the Gaza coast, and then the floating causeway at the beach — can take place.
Then there are the security issues, which Mercogliano says are real and haven’t been fully accounted for in any Pentagon briefing. Right now there is no guarantee that Hamas will not attempt to attack the pier and no clear answer of who, if U.S. troops won’t be on the ground, will be providing that security. Fog Bow? Another private contracting outfit?
Biden said last week that Israel was to provide the security but that has yet to be confirmed by Israeli officials. Then this report Friday indicated that Israel was also exploring the use of private security contractors, with the U.S. Neither side would confirm that.
It makes one ask, why all the trouble? Why not get the Israelis to open up and let in the upward of 2,500 aid trucks waiting at the Al-Arish gate in Rafah (as witnessed by Gen. Michael Kurilla, US. Central Command, on March 7)? Why wait 60 days or more to build structures and create new security dilemmas when the population in Gaza is slipping into famine as each day goes by?
“It is not easy. It's going to take a long time to do we're talking about weeks if not months to set this up. It's going to be expensive," said Mercogliano. "This is going to be millions of dollars to go ahead and get this up, let alone the food supply. And then there's the security issue, the risk, because even though you heard (DoD spokesman) Gen. Ryder say they're not gonna put American, you know, boots on the ground, they're gonna be right there There's a lot of issues associated with this.”
Interestingly, both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee were raising concerns last week about the lack of information provided by the military.
“I hate to say it, but I think this decision was politically driven by the president after Michigan,” said Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) said noting the president's poor showing in the primary elections there. “And he’s trying to be forward-leaning to try to do something to help the folks in Gaza from a humanitarian standpoint, but this is moving really fast and nobody can explain how it’s gonna work.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, senior Democratic member of the committee from Connecticut, said he is “convinced that this kind of humanitarian effort is absolutely necessary,” but he has “very serious questions about how the construction will be done, with the assurance of safety to our troops.”
Chief Warrant Officer Three Jason West shared what he told his three children, ages 15, 9 and 6. "We told them that we're going to provide humanitarian aid for people that are in need. And that we're going across the ocean. We'll be back as soon as we're done."
Pope Francis drew sharp backlash this week for a comment calling on Ukraine to demonstrate “the courage of the white flag” and enter into negotiations with Russia.
“When you see that you are defeated, that things are not going well, you have to have the courage to negotiate,” the pope said in an interview recorded last month but only publicized this week.
European leaders quickly rebuked the pontiff, and Ukrainian officials summoned the Vatican’s envoy to Kyiv for a diplomatic dressing down. “The head of the Holy See would be expected to send signals to the world community about the need to immediately join forces to ensure the victory of good over evil,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
The Vatican subsequently insisted that Pope Francis meant that both sides should lay down arms and come to the table, not that Ukraine should unilaterally surrender, as the “white flag” comment suggests. “First of all it should be the aggressors who stop firing,” said Cardinal Pietro Parolin, a top Holy See official. “The same human will that caused this tragedy also has the possibility and the responsibility to take steps to end it and to open the way to a diplomatic solution.”
This back-and-forth says a lot about Europe’s rose-tinted views on the war. Many Western officials and commentators suggested that the pope was taking Russia’s side, but they ignored the meat of his critique: The war is going badly for Ukraine, and it does Kyiv no favors to delay negotiations as momentum shifts in Moscow’s direction.
Simply put, Ukraine now faces a mix of political and military challenges that make near-term battlefield success unlikely. On an annual basis, Russia now makes three times more artillery shells than NATO can send to Ukraine, giving Moscow a major advantage in what many experts now describe as a war of attrition.
And there’s little chance of this changing soon. The U.S. Congress is unlikely to pass new aid for Ukraine in the near future, according to Punchbowl News. Ukraine’s congressional backers have pitched last-ditch efforts to get a spending package through the House via a special procedure that bypasses Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) — a prominent Ukraine skeptic who has blocked previous attempts to get a vote on new spending. But disagreements over whether to include U.S. border security measures — and the fact that Ukraine aid is tied to new funding for Israel — make this moon-shot effort that much more difficult.
Kyiv has already seen the consequences of delayed aid on the battlefield, according to the State Department. “We have seen Ukraine suffer battlefield losses in recent weeks that either they would not have suffered, or would not have been as severe, if they had the U.S. support, the U.S. ammunition that we [...] have committed to provide them,” argued Matthew Miller, a State Department spokesperson.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is struggling to keep morale high at home after replacing Gen. Valery Zaluzhny, a highly visible and popular leader of Ukraine’s defense who is now being shipped off to London to serve as the Ukrainian ambassador to the United Kingdom.
All of this helps to make clear why, especially outside the U.S. and Europe, the pope’s comments sound closer to reality than a lot of the pontification coming from European capitals. The question facing Western leaders is simple: Are you willing to bet on a sudden reversal of battlefield momentum even if it risks the collapse of Ukrainian forces and, thus, Ukraine’s future as an independent state? If not, then maybe it’s time to start pushing for talks before a bad situation gets that much worse.
In other diplomatic news related to the war in Ukraine:
— Former President Donald Trump will “not give a penny” to Ukraine if he wins reelection in November, said Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban following a meeting with Trump last Friday, according to Reuters. “If the Americans do not give money and weapons, and also the Europeans, then this war will be over,” Orban said over the weekend. “And if the Americans do not give money, the Europeans are unable to finance this war on their own, and then the war will end.” While Trump has long argued that he could end the conflict rapidly if given the chance, he has yet to publicly confirm that he would cut off all funding for Kyiv.
— Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country is “ready” to use nuclear weapons if necessary but added that he sees the possibility of a nuclear exchange over Ukraine as unlikely, according to CNN. The comment comes on the heels of new revelations about U.S. estimates that Russia was considering using a nuclear weapon in late 2022 if Ukrainian forces breached Russian defenses and made a run toward Crimea.
— Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told Zelensky that he is ready to host a peace summit between Ukraine and Russia, according to AP News. “Since the beginning, we have contributed as much as we could toward ending the war through negotiations,” Erdogan said. “We are also ready to host a peace summit in which Russia will also be included.” The Turkish leader reiterated later in the week that “peace plans excluding Russia will not yield any results.”
— In Foreign Policy, Harvard professor and Quincy Institute board member Stephen Walt made the case that NATO should not bring Ukraine into its alliance. Walt’s argument focuses on the fact that NATO states have already made clear that they are not willing to enter a direct confrontation with Russia over Ukraine. “If we were willing to do so, we would have troops there already. Does it make sense to tacitly promise to fight for Ukraine five or 10 or 20 years from now, if you’re unwilling to do so today?”
“Ukraine’s supporters in the West need to think creatively about alternative security arrangements that can reassure Ukraine in the context of a postwar armistice or peace agreement. Kyiv needs to be secure against Moscow renewing the war; it cannot agree to be disarmed or be forced to accept de facto Russian domination. Figuring out how to provide sufficient protection in ways that won’t provoke Moscow into renewing the war will not be easy. But rushing into NATO is not the best route to a safer Ukraine; it is more likely to prolong the war and leave that long-suffering country worse off than ever.”
U.S. State Department news:
In a Monday press conference, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller reiterated U.S. support for Ukraine’s peace plan, which Russia has rejected. “We support [Ukraine’s] peace formula, and we would support its efforts to peacefully end this war, but that requires Vladimir Putin to stop attacking, to stop trying to take and claim and hold Ukrainian territory, and to agree to negotiations – and he has so far not been willing to do so,” Miller said.
keep readingShow less
Rep. Thomas Massie speaks on House floor before vote. (Photo: C-SPAN)
The House of Representatives passed a bill on Wednesday that could lead to the banning of video sharing platform TikTok. The legislation, which passed by a vote of 352-65, would require the Chinese tech company ByteDance to divest its holdings in the social media platform, or see TikTok be banned from U.S. app stores.
The bill was widely expected to pass after it made its way through a House Committee on Energy and Commerce committee markup by a unanimous 50-0 vote last week. But opposition to the legislation gained some steam in recent days, with lawmakers spanning the political spectrum expressing concerns over the rushed process, possible first amendment violations, and privacy.
Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wisc.) entered a briefing from the Biden administration yesterday “open” to supporting the legislation, which the president has said he will sign if it reaches his desk. But according to NBC News’ Sahil Kapur, Pocan found the briefing “so uncovincing” and he eventually voted against it. “"It's very big brother-ish,” Pocan said.
In the end, 50 Democrats and 15 Republicans opposed the legislation. An overwhelming majority of Republicans supported the bill despite last-minute opposition from former president and presumptive 2024 GOP nominee Donald Trump.
Supporters of the bill say that it would allow the president to designate certain social media apps and websites that are owned by foreign adversaries as a national security threat. But many Republicans who spoke during the floor debate argued that it was a way to increase the power of the national security state.
“[Supporters of the bill have] described the TikTok application as a Trojan horse. But there are some of us who feel that, either intentionally or unintentionally, this legislation to ban TikTok is actually a Trojan horse,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said during a statement on the floor on Wednesday. “Some of us are concerned that there are First Amendment implications here. Americans have the right to view information. We don’t need to be protected by the government from information. [...] We also think it’s dangerous to give the president the power to decide what Americans can see on their phones and their computers.”
Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), the ranking member of the House intelligence committee, agreed. “One of the key differences between us and those adversaries is the fact that they shut down newspapers, broadcast stations, and social media platforms,” he said in a statement shortly before voting. “We do not. We trust our citizens to be worthy of their democracy. We do not trust our government to decide what information they may or may not see.”
“Really what you're saying here is if you're not fully engaged with America's three-letter agencies in content moderation, we plan to TikTok you,” added Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio). “And this bill isn't just limited to TikTok. It's a coercive power that can be applied to others.”
Some progressive Democrats, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Sara Jacobs (D-Calif.), and Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) spoke out against the rushed process, as the bill went from committee markup to floor vote within four days, arguing that more overarching data privacy laws were needed. “There are serious antitrust and privacy questions here, and any national security concerns should be laid out to the public prior to a vote,” Ocasio-Cortez said in a post on X.
“This is a blunt instrument for serious concerns, and if enacted, would mark a huge expansion of government power to ban apps in the future. Instead, we need comprehensive data privacy legislation, alongside thoughtful guardrails for social media platforms – whether those platforms are funded by companies in the PRC, Russia, Saudi Arabia, or the United States,” said Jacobs in a press release.
“We can’t credibly hold other countries to one set of democratic values while giving ourselves a free pass to restrict freedom of speech. The United States has rightly criticized others for censorship and banning specific social media platforms in the past,” she added. “Doing so ourselves now would tarnish our credibility when it matters most and trample on the civil liberties of 150 million Americans.”
The bill will next head to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. Following the vote, Senate Intelligence chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) and vice chairman Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) put out a statement endorsing the legislation, saying they were “encouraged” by the vote and “looked forward to working together to get this bill through the Senate and signed into law.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has so far not committed to bringing the legislation to the floor for a vote.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has vowed to work against any effort to push the bill through the Senate quickly, saying the bill “makes no sense whatsoever,” adding that it was a First Amendment violation. Paul blocked a similar effort to ban the app last year.