Sentinel minutes for week #41/2024
Status: Greenish 🟢. We decided to lower the Sentinel status, because it looks as though Israel won’t be bombarding nuclear sites in Iran.
Geopolitics
Middle-East
Officials in the US and Israel are signaling that an Israeli attack on nuclear sites in Iran is unlikely, and might not even succeed without direct US support. According to these sources, Israel is more likely to focus on targeting conventional military and intelligence infrastructure, and perhaps energy facilities, in line with forecasts made by our team last week.
One of the significant risks in relation to the expanding conflict in the Middle-East is the possibility that the US and Iran could find themselves in direct military conflict. Forecasters believe that leaders of neither country desire a war with the other, but nevertheless estimate a 2.5% probability that there will be direct military action by the US against Iran this year, on Iranian soil, and 8% by July 2nd 2025.
Israel's Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, says that Israel's response will be "lethal, precise and especially surprising... [Iran] won't understand what happened to it, or how". While Israel’s next move will likely harm specific targets in Iran, one of our team members wonders whether Israel might attempt to change the regime in Iran over the coming year.
Israeli forces targeted bases manned by UN/Italian peacekeepers in southern Lebanon.
The US deployed a defensive missile system, and associated US crew, to Israel.
US intelligence still assesses that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon.
At the same time, second-tier news media, like the Economic Times, the Times of India, or Agenzia Nova, are reporting that large cyber attacks struck Iran’s nuclear facilities and government agencies. Forecasters aren’t sure how much credence to lend to these reports.
Gulf states are lobbying the US to stop Israel from attacking Iran’s oil sites, as they’re concerned it could prompt Iranian proxies to attack their own sites.
Hezbollah rockets hit Haifa. Hezbollah say their priority is defeating Israel militarily, but they are open to efforts to “stop the aggression”. Israel expands offensive against Hezbollah in south Lebanon. As seems to be the pattern in recent conflicts, initial incursions and special operations later expand, such that there is no clear line for “full-blown conflict”.
French President Macron has said ending arms exports to Israel is the only way to stop the conflict, and leaders of 9 Mediterranean EU states have called for an immediate ceasefire.
Over 3000 Sunni scholars praised Khamenei over Iran’s military action on Israel. This is relevant because it shows religious unity and consensus building, which is predictive of further actions in the same direction.
Asia-Pacific
Taiwan’s President Lai gave a speech in which he said he will “uphold the commitment to resist annexation or encroachment upon our sovereignty”, adding "We are willing to work with China on addressing climate change, combating infectious diseases, and maintaining regional security to pursue peace and mutual prosperity for the well-being of the people on the two sides of the Taiwan Strait". Beijing denounced the speech, threatening further trade measures against Taiwan.
China conducted military drills around Taiwan.
Taiwan said it detected 34 naval vessels and 125 aircraft in formation around the island on Monday. Maps published by Chinese state media indicated its forces were positioned around the whole island. It said later on Monday that the drills had been successfully concluded. The Chinese military, known as the People's Liberation Army (PLA) said the drills involved all wings of the army and were designed to simulate attacking Taiwan by land, sea and air. Senior Captain Li Xi, spokesperson of the PLA Eastern Theater Command said the drills ‘fully tested the integrated joint operation capabilities’ of its troops.
Trading relations between China and Taiwan are deteriorating.
Since 2020, the US has been discouraging countries from contracting with Chinese companies to lay or repair undersea cables in the South China Sea.
The Balochistan liberation army in Pakistan staged an attack at the airport of Karachi that killed two Chinese nationals. Also in Balochistan, armed terrorists killed at least twenty miners, ahead of an international summit, and security forces stop a suicide attack
Russia-Ukraine
Russia says that its emergency hotlines with the US and NATO remain open as Putin threatens the use of nuclear weapons.
The EU is expected to impose sanctions on 14 individuals and organizations in connection to Iranian ballistic missile transfers to Russia.
German Chancellor Scholz has announced a $1.5B military aid package for Ukraine.
Ukraine’s military says it struck an airfield in Russia’s North Caucasus.
The US approved $110M worth of radar & other equipment to Romania, as Romania’s top court bans a pro-Russian candidate from running in the presidential election next month
An interview with John Sullivan, former US ambassador to Russia, has this snippet on Putin's possible use of nuclear weapons:
I’m not a nuclear weapons expert, but I did spend a lot of time in Russia, observing Putin and his government and how they approach this war. And I also spoke to military experts in the US while I was Ambassador. The use of a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine isn’t in the interests of Russia. A tactical nuclear weapon destroys things. Putin would be destroying territory that he says is part of Russia.
The only time I thought he might use an unconventional weapon was in the spring of 2020 when you'll recall, the Russian military surrounded Mariupol, an important port. And there was a large Ukrainian military contingent in a large steel factory. They were dug in. The Russians had expended a huge amount of resources [and] personnel to try to crush the Ukrainian resistance. I thought Putin might use chemical weapons the way Assad used chemical weapons in Syria to kill those who were resisting so that he wouldn't have to spend the lives of as many Russians as it would take to ultimately dig out those Ukrainian resisters. Huge Russian casualties [and] even then, he didn’t use a nuclear weapon.
The way I think of it, Putin has to be threatened personally. And there was a moment last year with [former Wagner mercenary chief, Yevgeny] Prigozhin. Instead of it being Wagner, Russians who were committing what they characterised as a mutiny against the Minister of Defence […] imagine that’s the Ukrainian armed forces and they’re marching north toward Moscow, the capital of the Russian world. If Ukrainians were threatening that, that’s where I would not rule out the possibility that Putin would use or threaten in a much more overt, destabilising way – through a nuclear test, for example – nuclear weapons. But it would have to be a threat to his regime in the Kremlin, not battlefield losses in Ukraine or even public support starting to diminish in Russia.
Europe
Poland’s Prime Minister is talking about suspending right to asylum, as Belarus has been weaponizing it to tie up Poland's resources. After Germany's reintroduction of border control last week, it seems like the geopolitical equilibrium in Europe is shifting.
Africa
A dispute in Nigeria seems small now but in the worst case scenario could snowball into a civil war. Details are unclear but the dispute seems between the central government of Nigeria, controlled by one party, and the governorate of an oil rich region, controlled by another.
Bio
Africa CDC says mpox is still a major health issue, as cases continue to rise. 15 countries now have an active outbreak.
Mpox continues to spread in Kinshasa, the capital of the DRC, a megacity with 17M inhabitants and largest city in Africa. The WHO issued an mpox situation update.
Rwanda introduced a partial travel ban to fight Marburg spread.
H5N1 bird flu continues to spread in dairy farms in the US; California has confirmed its 100th infected herd. In addition, a sixth human case has been confirmed in California, and a possible seventh is under investigation. California has been monitoring for H5N1 infections in cattle and dairy workers very proactively. The risk of reassortment with a human seasonal flu virus will increase over the coming flu season.
One feature of the spread in dairy cattle should be noted: “At least half of new herd infections, however, have not involved movement of live cows, presumably through contaminated equipment such as trailers or potentially visitors.” Some affected dairy farms have shared workers in common. It is also notable that H5N1 has not been detected in any cattle herds outside dairy farms. These facts, taken together, suggest two possibilities. First, it looks likely that H5N1 likely does not spread easily among cattle in the absence of the milking process, which is known to generate large amounts of aerosols; otherwise, given cattle movements, it is difficult to understand why outbreaks outside dairy farms would not yet have been detected. If H5N1 does not easily spread among cattle outside dairy farms, then the virus may not have adapted substantially to the species yet. Second, it is possible that infected cows could be causing zoonotic infections in humans, who then, in turn, have infected cows at new dairy farms. Transmission of viruses among multiple species is not without precedent; for example, H5N1 transmission from dairy herds to poultry flocks has been observed previously.
The XEC covid strain, a recombination of two Omicron subvariants, is spreading in the US. It previously outpaced all other variants in Europe.
Mongolian police seized around 290 dead marmots, in an effort to stop the spread of bubonic plague. Although hunting marmots is illegal in Mongolia, many locals regard the rodent as a delicacy and frequently disregard the law.
Tech
Artificial Intelligence
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei has published an essay on how he sees AI transforming the future. Echoing Leopold Aschenbrenner’s Situational Awareness, Amodei proposes a western coalition race ahead in AI development and leverage this to effectively secure world domination.
My current guess at the best way to do this is via an “entente strategy”, in which a coalition of democracies seeks to gain a clear advantage (even just a temporary one) on powerful AI by securing its supply chain, scaling quickly, and blocking or delaying adversaries’ access to key resources like chips and semiconductor equipment. This coalition would on one hand use AI to achieve robust military superiority (the stick) while at the same time offering to distribute the benefits of powerful AI (the carrot) to a wider and wider group of countries in exchange for supporting the coalition’s strategy to promote democracy (this would be a bit analogous to “Atoms for Peace”). The coalition would aim to gain the support of more and more of the world, isolating our worst adversaries and eventually putting them in a position where they are better off taking the same bargain as the rest of the world: give up competing with democracies in order to receive all the benefits and not fight a superior foe.
This received substantial criticism from Max Tegmark, and other experts.
OpenAI say they are seeing continued attempts by threat actors to use their models for election interference.
A Bloomberg Intelligence analysis suggests Chinese AI firms are on track to narrow their gap with US firms, despite US chip export controls.
OpenAI is reportedly pursuing a public benefit corporate structure to fend off hostile takeover.
A key benefit of this PBC structure is its potential to thwart an unwanted acquisition or an activist’s demands, according to multiple people familiar with the company’s thinking. This means an existing investor such as Microsoft or another party could be frustrated if they mounted an effort to acquire OpenAI.
OpenAI has secured another media partnership, with Hearst, which owns “24 daily newspapers and 52 weekly newspapers, 175 websites and more than 200 magazine editions worldwide, making this one of OpenAI’s biggest media partnerships.” including The San Francisco Chronicle, Cosmopolitan, Men's (and) Women's Health, ELLE, and SFGate. Some members of our forecasting team expressed concern at the potential influence that OpenAI is accumulating with these media deals.
Russia says it is ramping up AI-powered drone deployments in Ukraine.
An article in Foreign Affairs argues that
Future wars will no longer be about who can mass the most people or field the best jets, ships, and tanks. Instead, they will be dominated by increasingly autonomous weapons systems and powerful algorithms.” While similar arguments have been made before, Russia invaded Ukraine with tanks, and jets, ships, tanks and troops are likely to remain important in warfare in at least the near term, even as AI and robotics rise in prominence. Moreover, we can expect that AI will increasingly be integrated into jets, ships, and tanks, in addition to weapons systems, robots and drones. Nonetheless, it is clear that the age of AI, robots and drones in warfare has arrived and is just getting started.
Cyberattacks
China seems to have hacked the mechanism that US telecoms use to assent to US court-authorized wiretaps.
Russia bans Discord, as does Turkey.
The NSA is now known to be spying on Israel, after the extent of its attacks on Lebanon caught it flat-footed.
Internet Archive hacked.
Natural disasters
The Sun
A G4 solar storm hit Earth. There were concerns that it could impact power grids and GPS, though we didn’t find reporting that this occurred in this case.
Hurricanes
The second hurricane in a row, Hurricane Milton, made landfall in Florida this past week and caused widespread flooding and destruction. While this Atlantic hurricane season has confounded dire predictions with a mid-season lull, strong hurricanes such as Milton are expected to happen increasingly often with climate change. Meanwhile, the remnants of Hurricane Kirk swept through southwestern Europe and into Germany.