Britain announces largest naval and air warfare deployment in a generation
HMS Queen Elizabeth - The £3 billion aircraft carrier will head the group with eight RAF F35B stealth fighter jets on board. Getty Images
HMS Defender (above) and HMS Diamond - The Type 45 air-defence destroyers are two of the most advanced warships ever built, appearing virtually invisible on enemy radar.
Getty Images
HMS Diamond moored in Portsmouth Naval Base. Getty Images
HMS Kent (above) and HMS Richmond - Two anti-submarine frigates will join the voyage. Getty Images
Family members wave to loved ones aboard HMS Richmond as she returns home to Portsmouth. Getty Images
Advertisement
Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Lucas Kuo – senior analyst at C4ADS and co-author of “Black Gold: Exposing North Korea’s Oil Procurement Networks,” a collaborative publication between the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) in Washington, D.C. and Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London – is the 269th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”
Briefly explain North Korea’s fuel-procurement strategy.
North Korea is completely dependent on foreign sources of fuel for its economy, military, and weapons program. The U.N. Security Council first imposed caps on North Korea’s fuel imports in 2017, but it has breached them every year since.
The balance in Afghanistan seems weighted more towards opportunity than challenge for China. Beijing might believe it knows how to avoid pitfalls, but history is littered with powers that thought they could control the Eurasian region.
WhatsApp
IN 2016 JACK LEW, America’s then treasury secretary, reflected on how his country had, over decades, “refined our capacity to apply sanctions effectively”. But he also gave a warning: overuse “could undermine our leadership position within the global economy, and the effectiveness of our sanctions themselves”.
If the message was “proceed with caution”, it was lost on Donald Trump, who became president soon after. The screw was turned against China, Iran, Russia, Venezuela and others. The steady increase in sanctions “proved to be a rare constant” on Mr Trump’s watch, says Adam M. Smith of Gibson Dunn, a law firm. During Mr Trump’s four years in office, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), which oversees American sanctions programmes, targeted roughly twice as many entities and individuals a year as it had during the two-term presidencies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama (see chart).
SHARE
A deal allowing parliament to debate expelling the French ambassador from Pakistan appears to have quelled violent stand-offs between police and anti-blasphemy protesters
, but left the government facing accusations it
caved in to extremists.
Imran Khan s government agreed to allow the national assembly to discuss kicking out the envoy for his country s defence of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed
.
At least four policemen and an unknown number of protestors have been killed and hundreds injured in the confrontation between Imran Khan s government and the far-right Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) party.
Announcement of the parliamentary motion was hailed as victory by TLP supporters, who called off their protests. “Praise be to God our main demand has been fulfilled,” said one TLP leader.