Sentinel minutes for week #45/2024

Status: Greenish 🟢. Russia revealed to cover 3-5% of North Korea's yearly calorie consumption in exchange for soldiers. The Russia-Ukraine war might see a ceasefire with the Trump administration.

Top items:

• Forecasters think that there is a ~58% chance (range 40% to 65%) that there will be a ceasefire or an end to the Russia-Ukraine war by the end of 2025.

• An agreement between North Korea and Russia includes an annual supply of 600K to 700K tonnes of rice to North Korea, $200M, space technology. 

Geopolitics

Europe

It’s unclear how Trump’s plans for the Russia/Ukraine plan will play out. Trump wants a quick peace deal, but Zelensky doesn’t seem amenable. Zelensky previously argued for either joining NATO or getting nukes. Meanwhile, Musk joined Trump’s war call with Zelensky, after Zelensky tweeted warm congratulations to Trump. Putin says he is ready to talk to Trump, but that his demands on Ukraine remain unchanged. Forecasters think that there is a ~58% chance (range 40% to 65%) that there will be a ceasefire or an end to the Russia/Ukraine war by the end of 2025.

There is chatter about any peace plan giving Putin the territory he has already occupied, with the establishment of a UK- and European-led buffer zone in Ukraine to prevent Putin from taking the rest.

North Korean troops are engaging Ukrainian troops for the first time—and may be getting hooked on pornography. 

Following the election of Trump in the US, the future role of the US in NATO is less clear. Because Trump has complained previously about low rates of defense spending among NATO countries, defense spending may again become a focus point. 

It is possible that Russia may test NATO during Trump’s presidency by trying to seize former Soviet territory in the Baltics. If Russia were to do so, and NATO’s defense of any member country were lackluster, then NATO would be rendered toothless – and a long-term goal of Putin would have been achieved. 

In this environment, Germany has introduced a bill to institute a draft, and the leaders of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia congratulated Trump on his election. Lithuania was quick to point out that it “currently allocates 3.5% GDP to defense & will continue increasing our investment.”

Germany’s governing coalition collapsed, as the market-liberal party isn’t willing to back social spending, green spending and military spending at the same time.

Following up on previous reports, the WSJ reports that Western officials speculate that two incidents earlier this year attempting to ship incendiary devices into planes in Leipzig and Birmingham might have been intended as test runs for a US attack.

The Americas

With the election of Trump to the US presidency, there is much speculation about the future shape of US domestic politics. One potentially large change concerns illegal immigrants. Trump has said that he plans to launch a program to deport millions of illegal immigrants on day 1. The scale of such an operation would require far more personnel to be involved in immigration policing than are currently available; it is unclear where the personnel, facilities or funds would come from for such a large-scale operation, although Trump has said that he would be willing to use the US military.

Brian Hook, a foreign policy hawk and proponent of an aggressive stance toward Iran, is reportedly going to lead the transition team at the State Department. 

Mike Rogers, who generally holds a pro-Ukraine and pro-Taiwan stance, is reportedly being considered for the position of US Defense Secretary. He was also once involved in a heated argument with Matt Gaetz on the House floor. 

The US has charged a man alleged to be part of an Iranian plot to assassinate Donald Trump. The Iranian foreign ministry said it was a plot by Israel and Iranian opposition outside the country to "complicate matters between America and Iran."

Canada's National Cyber Threat Assessment classified India as a "state adversary."

A commander overseeing nuclear missile maintenance at Malmstrom Air Force Base in Montana has been fired because of a “loss of trust and confidence.” Details of the probe remain unclear, but the commander was responsible for more than 500 airmen and was in charge of overseeing maintenance and modernization of all 150 Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missiles at Malmstrom.

Middle East 

Serious Gaza ceasefire talks might wait until President-elect Trump's inauguration. It seems that Qatar will no longer act as a mediator, with the US demanding that Hamas representatives be expelled from the country.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defence Minister Yoav Gallant and appointed Israel Katz as his successor. The move comes following open disagreements between Netanyahu and Gallant over the management of Israel’s wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Thousands protested the move in Tel Aviv. Netanyahu replaced him with a more pliant alternative.

Israel has ended an agreement that enabled the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees to operate, citing alleged infiltration by Hamas, a claim the agency denies.

UN peacekeepers say Israel’s destruction of their property breaches international law.

Amsterdam has banned protests for three days, after overnight attacks on Israeli football supporters, which the mayor called “antisemitic hit-and-run squads.”

The Houthis have developed what they call a “marching submarine”, something between a movable landmine and an unmanned submarine. They also pledge to continue attacks in the Red Sea despite Israeli asset sales, as the group alleges that Israeli shipping companies are transferring assets to avoid detection.

Africa

There are ongoing jihadist insurgencies in Chad, Libya, Sudan, the Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Niger. These are typically attacking Christians and are causing large population movements.

The Sudan conflict is spiraling into civil war, if it wasn’t already.

Asia

South Korean intelligence reports that an agreement between North Korea and Russia includes an annual supply of 600K to 700K tonnes of rice to North Korea, $200M, space technology, and provisions for Russian involvement in potential conflicts on the Korean Peninsula. The rice is about 3% to 5% of the North Korean population’s caloric intake for a year, out of an estimated 5% to 10% shortfall.

Biorisks

H5N1

Scientists tracked the emergence of a novel H5N1 flu reassortant in Cambodia. The novel reassortant virus combines genes from two H5N1 clades and has worrisome mutations, including one linked to adaptation to mammals and airborne transmission. Mutations such as these are a worrying step on the way to H5N1 becoming a pandemic virus.

Mpox

Another case of the new, more infectious mpox strain (clade 1b) has been detected in the UK, bringing the total confirmed number of cases in the UK to four. All of the cases are from the same household.

Other biological risks

The UK government announced plans to create an early-warning surveillance system for future pandemics.

A paper from CSER looks at the UK government’s response to COVID-19. The response assumed a flawed conceptual model: that spread was inevitable and hence, implicitly, that postponing cases wouldn't buy society time to prepare; advisors fell to groupthink, and formal preparedness exercises did not necessarily translate into actual preparedness.

Tech

A recently published Epoch AI report estimates that the gap between open- and closed-source AI models is about one year. An article in TIME quotes Elizabeth Seger of UK think tank Demos, explaining why the narrowing of this gap would pose a unique regulatory challenge. In essence, if closed-source models are ahead, we can learn from them in regards to anticipating, e.g., biothreat enabling, and then pass legislation to put requirements on AI developers. If open-source reaches parity, and we find that these AI models are actually very useful for aiding in the development of bioweapons, then it will be too late — the models are already out there.

Amazon is considering another multi-billion dollar investment in Anthropic.

The UK government has said it will legislate for AI risks, with an exclusive focus on the most powerful AI models being developed.

A copyright lawsuit by news outlets against OpenAI was dismissed.

ChatGPT went down for about half an hour. The unreliability of service raises questions about the potential integration of such systems within critical infrastructure.

TSMC is suspending production of advanced AI chips for China.

Palantir shares have jumped 17% to a record high.

Climate

Scientists project substantially more global warming under Trump than would have occurred with a Harrris presidency.