Inside the Marine Corps Plan to Stop the Next Benghazi

Chinese government plans to forestall an impending environmental disaster call into question whether the solutions coming from Beijing aren’t worse than the problems they seek to resolve. Washing coal to limit air pollution dirties China’s water, yet the proposed answer — converting coal to synthetic natural gas — would massively increase the amount of greenhouse gases China emits.

Israel now has an anti-missile defense system ready to attach to its jetliners, a decade after one of its passenger planes in Africa was nearly destroyed by shoulder-launched missiles. A belly-fired laser that can deflect an incoming missile is ready after successful tests. If the system proves its mettle, the laser maker is eyeing sales to other airlines that fly over dangerous territory.

Conventional wisdom holds that Russia’s intervention in Ukraine is the most destabilizing event in Europe since the Soviet era and an indication that Vladimir Putin will use military force against eastern Ukraine and other former Soviet republics. Another possibility, however, is that Crimea is a one-time event and that Putin now seeks what U.S. President Barack Obama has called an “off-ramp” to end tensions.

Special Economic Report
by Peter Warburton, PhD

The price of copper dropped to its lowest level in more than three years in March. A perfect storm of weak China data, a Chinese corporate default and a surge in Shanghai copper inventory precipitated the downward move. Overlaid on the fundamental demand for and supply of copper is a complex web of financial transactions. The extensive use of copper as collateral in the Chinese financial system is a recurring source of rumor and speculation, and could signal imminent trouble.

In a March 18 speech announcing the annexation of Crimea, Russian President Vladimir Putin made the case that the people of Crimea had the right to determine their political fate and strongly hinted that ethnic Russians outside the Russian Federation had the same right. That logic now can be applied by Moscow to Western allies on the periphery of Russia, in line with Putin’s presumed long-term goal: destabilizing NATO along Russia’s borders.

In the speech, Putin reiterated Moscow’s concerns regarding NATO, saying that it “remains a military alliance, and we are against having a military alliance making itself at home right in our backyard or in our historic territory.” Absent a firmer response from the West than mild economic sanctions, it appears that Putin has made Crimea’s new status a fait accompli and a powerful argument to further test Western resolve.

Russia’s blithe reaction to Western sanctions following the annexation of Crimea makes clear the impotence of such limited moves in the face of Russian realpolitik on the ground. Russia is simply not susceptible to trade or financial sanctions that the West might impose, especially not from Europe, which remains dependent on Russian energy supplies.