Weekly Overview Cables - Ukraine war, Israel - Hamas war escalates, and reader questions on post-Hamas political order in Gaza.
Ukraine War Updates.
1) Ukraine continues to repel Russia’s counteroffensive in Avdiivka - inflicting dozens of losses in tanks and armored vehicles.
In the meantime, it appears like many fighters of the former Wagner units have now been recruited into the counteroffensive - fighting on behalf of “Arbat” special unit.
In addition, the commander of “Akhmat” special forces (Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov’s militia) had confirmed that a “massive” number of Wagner soldiers have joined various units of Akhmat - fighting in the frontlines of Ukraine.
There are two things of note here:
1) Akhmat, and therefore the Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov has been bestowed with additional status and prestige - and in return for this gesture, Putin expects them to actually fight in the most active areas of combat (it appears like the days of Akhmat doing nothing but posting TikTok videos are numbered - or at the very least, that is certainly Putin’s hope).
2) It is not clear what proportion of Wagner soldiers were deployed to the Defense Minister Sergei Shoygu’s own private military corporation (PMC) militia (like “Patriot”).
There is of course a practical matter to this: most Prigozhin (former leader of Wagner PMC, organizer of a June coup - who later died in a “plane crash”) fighters hated the defense minister Shoygu - many would thus refuse to fight under his banner.
On the other hand, Putin sending ‘‘massive’’ numbers of Wagner fighters to Kadyrov vs dispersing them into other PMC’s (controlled by leaders closer to the Kremlin) is yet another attempt to divide & conquer the internal political landscape.
The risk is of course, that it is Akhmat that will now become too powerful - but then again, so what?
Chechens can never pose a direct threat to Putin’s political power - unlike a unit led by an ethnic Russian (like Prigozhin) with a huge public support.
In Putin’s calculation therefore, if anyone is going to get too powerful from this redeployment, then it is better that Chechens (with little sway over the rest of Russia, and totally dependent on the Federal budget controlled by Putin) do so.
2) North Korea delivers on its promise to Russia.
According to the Estonian Defense Forces, North Korea is reportedly supplying Russia with approximately 350,000 artillery shells on a monthly basis.
The scale of this aid is concerning - with some assessments indicating that if North Korea were to sustain this level of support over a year, it would provide Russia with an artillery shell quantity surpassing Moscow's own production capabilities (meaning an estimated 2.5 million shells per year of the Soviet 152mm class).
Despite this significant influx of arms, Ukraine's military has demonstrated resilience in the southern region.
The strategic Robotyne bulge remains under their control, and they continue to maintain a presence on the left bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson.
Additionally, there is some good news for Ukraine: just one western Defense company - Germany’s Rheinmetall, is poised to deliver 100k 155mm artillery shells a month to Ukraine starting this year.
In other words Ukraine’s wish for 250k shells a month is close to becoming a reality.
To be clear Russia would still retain a significant firepower advantage (at least until late 2024), but the ratio of dominance would continue to remain in the 2-3x range vs 10x range that we had at the beginning of the war.
3) New house speaker: unclear on Ukraine.
At first, it appeared like the bad news coming from the new government of Slovakia (which announced an end to all military aid to Ukraine) got even worse with the election of the new house speaker: Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana.
This is because Johnson previously (and from the very outset of the war in Ukraine) opposed to back large packages in support of Ukraine - voting against a $40 billion in aid in May of 2022.
But on the other hand, Johnson changed his tune drastically since becoming a house Speaker.
Asked (last week) whether he supports more assistance to Ukraine, he responded with “We all do. We are going to have conditions on that, so we’re working through”.
Later on (in his interview to Fox News), Johnson reaffirmed support for Ukraine, and spoke like a true cables reader: “We can’t allow Vladimir Putin to prevail in Ukraine because I don’t believe it would stop there.”
What do we make of these contradictions?
This could be a genuine reversal in policy - it is possible that Johnson can see now that his initial position was wrong.
That would be the optimistic (and yet, most probable) take.
Another possibility is that Johnson is accumulating political capital (by showing goodwill/good intentions) to then attach deliberately strenuous conditions to make it practically impossible for Ukraine to receive any actual aid.
That would be the cynical (and admittedly, unlikely) view.
Time will tell.
Some may respond with “well, at least we have a house speaker now”..
Maybe… but then again: it was also possible to empower Patrick Mchenry (via simple majority vote) with an ability to bring bills to the floor and pass most important legislation (including Ukraine funding) without even having a long-term elected speaker in place.
In fact, and perversely, not having a speaker could in practice make things much easier - less challenging to overcome entrenched minority blocking the necessary bills from going through.
Reader Questions on Hamas, Gaza and Palestinian Authority.
We have now ended another week in the Israel vs Hamas war where the possibility of a major all-out conflict in the Middle East (that would involve Iranian proxies and Iran itself) is ever-looming.
Thus far, Washington has done an excellent job in balancing deterrence - deploying aircraft carriers, deploying THAADS and Patriot air defense SAMs, shooting down 19 missiles and drones, warning Iran directly and following up with retaliatory air strikes against IRGC ammo depots in Syria, Biden’s visit to Israel, legislation to allocate further $14.3 billion of aid to Israel - with de-escalation: calls to open humanitarian corridors, provide humanitarian aid to Gaza, and urging Israel to adhere to the laws of armed conflict.
And on its part, Israel too was rather circumspect: the intensity of air strikes were reduced and the IDF launched a second ‘‘incursion’’ into northern Gaza on Friday - taking out logistics/infrastructure and anti-tank capabilities of Hamas.
This could be ‘‘shaping operations’’ to soften up the targets for a full-on ground invasion.
On the other hand however, Israel could simply conduct more of such brief (lasting from 1 day to up to a week) land attack missions without declaring an official ‘‘ground invasion of Gaza” (indeed, IDF’s official line is denial of such an invasion).
One could see how over the time, this could degrade Hamas significantly, and possibly (and in combination with continuous air strikes) even attrit it to a level where it is no longer a potent terrorist force.
Such a strategy could also be more favorable to the objective of preserving lives of the maximum number of hostages.
Moreover, such brief incursions without an official ground campaign (previous strategy) could maintain the current tenuous balance - where Iran gets an excuse to stay on the sidelines since there is no official ‘‘invasion of Gaza”.
But this strategy isn’t without its own major risks: Hamas could withstand such attacks to an extent not previously anticipated by war planners of the IDF.
In addition, time is not on Israel’s side, the longer this conflict goes on, the higher will be the toll on civilians, and thus, the harder will it be for Israel to continue it at the current levels of intensity.
So it is not at all clear that this strategy will be pursued in favor of a previous one.
But perhaps the biggest story of the week was Biden’s talk with Netanyahu - where Biden told his counterpart that what comes after/at the conclusion of the Gaza crisis must be a pathway for a permanent peace between Israel and Palestinians - leading to a two-state solution.
To be clear, we are still far away from such a scenario being at all viable.
But by merely signaling this, Biden is gaining enormous geopolitical capital with the Arab world: it allows the US to maintain strong support for Israel while demonstrating clear concern for the future of the Palestinian people.
With all that said, we shall now address the two most emailed questions by the cables readers:
1) Hamas on Qatar’s territory: US tolerance and Israeli objectives.
This is the #1 popular question: why are the US and Israel tolerant of Hamas’s political leadership residing comfortably in Qatar?
Here, we need to separate the interests of the US and Israel - for there are not necessarily the same.
For Washington, negotiating with a political wing of Hamas (who, by all accounts were also to a large extent caught off-guard by the October 7th attack) based in Qatar is necessary to release hostages.
And in this regard, US/Israeli interests are aligned - the more hostages are released, the freer hand IDF gains in prosecuting the war in Gaza.
But if we presume (and we need to presume this based on stated Israeli goals) that Israeli leaders seek the total destruction of Hamas, then aligned interests end here.
For America (which is not necessarily pursuing policy based on assumption of a total eradication of Hamas - mainly because they are not confident that Israel can pull it off), the alternative to Qatar hosting Hamas is quite clear: an adversarial nation will take on the role of a host instead.
Indeed, prior to the Syrian civil war (which started in 2012), most of the leaders of Hamas’s political wing were based in Damascus.
And if Qatar was to kick them out, they would have to move to either Syria or (if there were no other options left) to Iran.
So for Washington, it is better that a major non-Nato ally is a host vs an enemy state.
For Israel, the opposite is true.
Again, and assuming they are indeed seeking total destruction of Hamas, going after the political leaders (via Mossad targeting/hits) in adversarial nations is going to be politically less costly than doing so in Qatar - a US ally.
There is also a symbolic aspect to this: when Hamas is based in Qatar (the very same country that hosts around 10k American troops), it inadvertently gains political legitimacy.
And for Israel, time is running out before Hamas gains even more legitimacy: every time their political leaders give an interview to reputable media institutions or go on political trips to third countries (like they did with Russia), the association with barbarism and brutality weakens.
Can you imagine a leader of ISIS or al-Qaeda traveling to Moscow?
No - even Putin would not stoop that low.
But Hamas is able to pull this off - precisely because (at least perceptually) they have managed to position themselves as pro-independence “warriors” in large swathes of the Middle East and non-EU/non-NATO world.
And this is bad news for Israel.
With that said however, it is not likely that Israeli special ops would go after the political leadership of Hamas anytime soon.
Firstly, because there is a practical matter of hostage negotiations.
Indeed, even Netanyahu’s own national security adviser thanked Qatar for its role in hostage negotiations - thereby implying that talks with Hamas’s political wing will continue (meaning that any potential assassination operations are at the very least, on hold).
Secondly, and more importantly: there is simply not enough political capital to pull this off.
It has been only a few weeks since the October 7th attacks, and Israel is already facing major pressure from its allies (including the US) to tone down the tempo of indiscriminate attacks.
It is therefore politically inconceivable that Israel could go after Hamas’s political leadership unscathed.
This will not land well with the US, other Western allies, and Arab states that were very close to full normalization with Israel.
With that said, it is also quite clear that Hamas’s political leadership gaining further global legitimacy harms Israel’s national security interests.
As such, it would be wholly appropriate for Israel to lash out at foreign leaders (like Putin) who welcome Hamas leadership for talks.
And in that, leaders of all allied western states should join Israel in these condemnations.
And this goes beyond Israel’s interests: when autocrats of the world normalize terrorists of the world, then this is a threat to the entire world order, and every single civilized society must speak up against it.
2) Post Hamas questions: will PA take over Gaza?
In previous cables, we have outlined all of the unpalatable options to Israel once Hamas was wiped out completely.
Assuming that this was the goal, there were several bad options for the post-Hamas political order.
We concluded that both: 1) withdrawing without a proper administrative replacement of a political order, and 2) long-term occupation, would come with enormous costs.
Either another terrorist organization would grow to replace Hamas, or (if Israel remained as an occupying force) there would be significant political, economic and military costs to remaining in charge and fighting a counter-insurgency campaign.
As such, we had previously suggested that a UN-led administration could be the way out of this mess.
There is a good precedent for this - following the Kosovo war in the late 1990s, the UN-administered period began in 1999 and lasted until 2008: during this period, the UN’s Interim Administration Mission was directly responsible for the governance of Kosovo.
NATO’s peace keeping force provided further security aid to the UN administration in place.
Naturally, a UN-approved administration would require a Security Council mandate - where Russia and China can always veto such a move.
But this is unlikely to happen if Arab states show initiative and push for this.
Countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Bahrain and Jordan (the key stakeholders/regional players) are not interested in a Muslim Brotherhood-aligned and Hamas-run Gaza.
Neither are they interested in an Israeli occupation - this would make it impossible to normalize relations with Israel - domestic public pushback would be too strong.
In other words, a UN-led administration, where Arab states play an active role (and ideally, contribute their own security forces to do local policing/uphold public order) would be the most ideal solution.
Moreover, with the consent and desire of Arab states to implement such a plan, neither Russia nor China are likely to stand in the way.
And once stability and good governance was in place, Gaza residents could make their own choice in who runs them in the future (in a UN-administered and monitored election).
So that was proposed as the best plan of action among many unpalatable and sometimes, outright unworkable options.
And with that, we come to the often-asked question: why not invite the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority (PA) to take back political control of Gaza?
The short answer is that this would not in practice be possible: the PA is a totally discredited and politically impotent organization, which is alive in name only.
Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah faction have long been perceived as corrupt - in fact, this was one of the main reasons why Hamas could defeat Fatah so decisively in 2006/2007 period: first in elections and then in a civil war which ultimately led to Fatah being driven out from Gaza strip altogether.
Hamas was seen as a group that would push for Gazans’ interests in earnest - whereas Fatah was perceived as a bunch of apparatchiks in it for personal gain.
And that assessment isn’t totally wrong: PA’s main authority comes from its ability to pay public sector salaries to 30k+ Palestenians in the West Bank.
But this ability is coming under strain with a major budget shortfall.
PA’s fiscal woes are exacerbated due to Israel’s decision (following October 7th attacks) to shut its borders with the PA: which precludes tens of thousands of Palestinians working in Israel and paying income taxes in the West Bank.
Moreover, a further strain on PA’s legitimacy comes from its inability to protect Palestinians in the West Bank from Israeli settler expansions and attacks.
And whenever there is a security vacuum, other non-state actors will rush to fill it.
In this case, Kata’ib Jenin and the Lions’ Den in Nablus are West Bank militias that challenge PA’s monopoly on the security services.
So we have a situation where an already weak and perceptually illegitimate Fatah is struggling to pay public sector salaries and provide security: two basic functions of a state/state-like institution.
Add to this mix, public perception that PA leadership is too weak to stand up to the Israeli bombing in Gaza: when there were first reports of Ahli Arab hospital bombings (which, it was later determined was most likely caused by an errant missile fired by the Islamic Jihad militias) thousands of West Bank residents poured to the streets, called for the toppling of the PA, and chanted “The people want the fall of the president”.
So it is hard to see how PA could come to power in Gaza - on the back of Israeli tanks.
A political group that is already perceived as weak, ineffectual, and corrupt, cannot possibly gain public consent from Gazans - if in addition to all of its shortcomings, it is also seen as an Israel-installed puppet regime.
PA taking over administration and governance of Gaza is therefore not a viable option - in fact, just like a prolonged occupation by Israel, it is also likely to lead to an insurgency and formation of yet another Hamas-like terrorist organization: all the key ingredients for that - poverty and misery, perception of a brutal and illegal occupation, perception of a corrupt leadership collaborating with an enemy - would be there for an upstart organizations to exploit - and we would be back to square one.