The Inside Story: Global Flashpoints
Episode 128 – January 25, 2024
Show Open:
This week on The Inside Story…
A new year unfolds with continuing conflicts around the world
Israel's war on hamas spills beyond its borders as the U.S. retaliates against Iran-backed militias supporting Hamas.
In Ukraine, with the war at a stalemate, military experts warn Russia could be considering tactical nukes
And in the Pacific, China and Taiwan continue their tense decades-long standoff.
Our correspondents explain the latest…
Now on The Inside Story... Global Flashpoints
The Inside Story:
CARLA BABB, VOA Pentagon correspondent:
Welcome to the Inside Story, I’m Carla Babb, VOA’s Pentagon correspondent. As the New Year opens, the United States finds itself responding to a number of global threats... striking Houthi rebels in Yemen and militant groups in Iraq... all this while trying to help Ukraine fight a war against Russia and managing increased tensions in the Pacific after recent Taiwan elections. We’ll examine how the U.S. is responding to these global challenges. This week, on the Inside Story.
On Wednesday alone, the United States military hit Iranian-backed targets in Iraq and Yemen in a span of about two hours. Strikes hit a headquarters, storage center and training location for Kataib Hezbollah militants in Iraq (pause) and knocked out Houthi missiles in Yemen that the military says were ready to launch into international shipping lanes.
Now militant groups have hit U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria more than 150 times since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel in October. Eighty-three Americans were injured in those attacks. Fortunately the military says these were almost all minor injuries, and all but two have returned to duty. But there are now growing concerns that the U.S. may soon be entangled in another war in the Middle East, even as it aims to prevent the expansion of the Israel-Hamas war there and attempts to stop Russian aggression in Europe through its support of Ukraine.
From Iraq to Yemen, U.S. forces, sometimes aided by British forces, are striking back against Iranian-backed groups.
The Houthis have launched more than 30 attacks on international vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden in what they say is a response to the war against Hamas in Gaza, although many of their attacks have targeted ships not associated with Israel.
The strikes in Yemen this week hitting weapons facilities, radar sites and missiles the U.S. said were ready to launch at international vessels.
Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon Press Secretary:
Our goal here is to ensure that the Red Sea is safe and secure for international shipping and mariners. That is our only goal.
CARLA BABB:
The international community is calling for an immediate end to the violence.
Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General:
I urge all parties to step back from the brink and to consider the horrendous human cost of a regional conflict.
CARLA BABB:
The White House says regional conflict is exactly what the U.S., Britain and other allies are trying to avoid by conducting these strikes.
John Kirby, National Security Council:
If you're in a scrap with somebody, and you can find a way to tie one or both of their hands behind their back, that's not escalating. That's de-escalating. That's taking ability away from the other party to inflict harm.
Brad Bowman, Foundation for Defense of Democracies:
Full points for not wanting a regional war and trying to avoid a regional war. But news flash, we appear to have one.
CARLA BABB:
Brad Bowman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies says the U.S. isn’t hitting Iranian proxies hard enough in the Middle East…
Brad Bowman, Foundation for Defense of Democracies:
They are repeatedly trying to kill Americans. And the only reason why we haven't had more American casualties is because we've taken measures to defend ourselves and we've gotten lucky.
CARLA BABB:
And, he says, the United States’ lackluster response is not holding to account the ultimate aggressor: Iran.
Brad Bowman, Foundation for Defense of Democracies:
And the more we talk about the Houthis, or Hamas or Hezbollah, the more we play right into Iran's grand strategy where they're the puppet master. They attack us via their puppets. They conceal their actions via their puppets, and then when we counterpunch, we hit the puppet, not the puppet master.
CARLA BABB:
Tensions rise as Congress has stalled additional U.S. funding for Israel Defense Forces, as well as more funding for its European partner, Ukraine, whose forces have fought a nearly two-year war against Russian invaders.
While recovering from a hospitalization earlier this month, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hosted dozens of nations Tuesday in the first Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting since the Pentagon ran out of congressional-approved funds to send to Kyiv. The group aims to continue coordinated military support.
Unidentified Journalist:
Ambassador, can Ukraine win this war?
Sergiy Kyslytsya, Ukraine’s UN Ambassador:
Ukraine will win this war, but not only Ukraine but the whole democratic world.
CARLA BABB:
The U.S. is still training Ukrainian pilots on F-16s in the Western state of Arizona, in hopes the additional capability will give Ukraine an advantage as it fights for survival.
A massive Russian airstrike on Tuesday killed several people and wounded about 50 others.
Russian media reported that a cargo plane carrying 74 people crashed last night.
The Russians say it was carrying flying 64 Ukrainians captured in the fighting back to Ukraine, to be released as part of a prisoner swap.
Ukraine says the plane was carrying missiles for Russian air defense systems.
Neither report has yet been independently verified.
Meanwhile, a new report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies says Moscow may be turning towards non-strategic nuclear weapons, or N-S-N-Ws, as a means of deterrence and a way to defeat NATO in a possible future conflict. Henry Ridgwell has more.
HENRY RIDGWELL, VOA Correspondent:
In February 2022 – as he announced the invasion of Ukraine – Russian President Vladimir Putin warned the world of “consequences you have never faced in your history” if the West tried to stop Russia.
A report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies says fear of escalation has caused the West to hesitate in supplying arms to Kyiv.
But nearly two years on, U.S. intelligence officials estimate Russia has lost more than 300-thousand military personnel in Ukraine - nearly 90 percent of its pre-war army – much of it at the hands of weapons donated by the West. Report author, William Alberque.
William Alberque, International Institute for Strategic Studies:
Russia has less confidence now in their conventional capabilities because of everything they’ve lost in the Ukraine war.
HENRY RIDGWELL:
That means Moscow’s shorter-range atomic weapons, known as Non-Strategic Nuclear Weapons – designed for use on the battlefield – are becoming increasingly important to the Kremlin, according to Alberque.
William Alberque, International Institute for Strategic Studies:
Russia has basically short range and medium range, air-launched, ground-launched and sea-launched missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads throughout the theater and able to hold all of NATO at risk. NATO itself lacks sort of a countervailing capability to match the Russian capability.
The report highlights a June paper published by Russian analyst Sergei Karaganov, in which he endorsed a tactical nuclear strike on a European state supportive of Ukraine, in order to restore deterrence against NATO.
At an October political conference in Russia, Putin himself picked out Karaganov among the audience.
William Alberque, International Institute for Strategic Studies:
Putin said, ‘Yes, I read all of your papers. And I don't think we need to strike NATO but I do think I need additional options in terms of escalation with the U.S. and NATO in order to maintain deterrence.’ So, for them, they're constantly thinking about what sort of dosage of nuclear weapons would they need to make us acquiesce, to make us basically sue for peace, without escalating the conflict beyond their control.
HENRY RIDGWELL:
Russia believes NATO does not have the resolve to respond with its own nuclear weapons, according to the report – which says it’s vital for the West to re-calibrate its own deterrence.
NATO has said the use of any nuclear weapon by Russia in Ukraine would “fundamentally change the nature of the conflict” and would have consequences.
Henry Ridgwell, VOA News, London.
CARLA BABB:
The world has largely focused on the Middle East since the Hamas attacks of October 7th as well as the ongoing military conflict in Ukraine. But in the east regional tensions are simmering over Taiwan and in the Koreas. VOA’s Bill Gallo explains from Seoul.
BILL GALLO, VOA Correspondent:
With so much of the world's attention on Ukraine in the Middle East, it's easy to forget about Asia. The United States has over 80,000 troops here in this region. Where I'm at here in Korea, the United States has about 30,000 troops. Those are officially there to determine North Korea and the weapons of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. Now North Korea has actually rapidly expanded the number and type of weapons it has, many of which actually do pose some sort of threat to the United States. And it does seem that we are entering a more provocative phase and North Korea has entered more of a provocative Phase testing many more weapons issuing many more threats. One specific threat and as mentioned more recently, many times is the possibility of a war with South Korea. Now most experts do not think that is about to happen. There are many reasons why it wouldn't happen, mainly because the United States military is vastly more powerful than North Korea's and if North Korea were to attack the United States, I think everyone basically assumes that the North Korean regime would not be very long for this world.
However, North Korea has sort of toyed around with talking about the idea of a war with South Korea, and some experts questioned the extent to which the United States would get involved in a war with North Korea.
If it were to attack the South Korea and have the ability to hit the United States with nuclear weapons. It's far from certain that North Korea does have that capability, but that's what it's marching towards, and rather steadily However, even if North Korea were to attack the South, I think there is a great expectation that the United States would get involved. That's because as I mentioned, they have 30,000 US troops here. There are many more US citizens here. And in fact, the US and South Korea have a mutual defense treaty that obligates the United States to defend South Korea in the event of an attack.
One of the other big hotspots here in East Asia is of course the democratic island of Taiwan. China claims that self-ruled Island and in fact has stepped up its military threats and other forms of coercion against Taiwan. In recent years, we've seen Chinese warships, Chinese planes get closer really than ever before to that island, as part of efforts to sort of force the island to accept its claims of sovereignty.
Now, of course, the big question here is the role that the United States would play if China were to actually invade. US President Joe Biden has on four separate occasions said rather explicitly that the United States would defend Taiwan if it were attacked. However, US officials have subsequently walked those comments back every time basically to say look, our policy hasn't changed.
US policy towards Taiwan is to be ambiguous on the matter of whether it would defend in the event of a Chinese invasion. The United States wants to maintain the status quo. It does not oppose a peaceful reunification if the people of Taiwan were to agree to unify with the mainland, however, sort of the big goals for the United States is to maintain the status quo. And of course, the United States does not have military forces on Taiwan. It has no permanent military presence there. However, the troops out here in Korea, troops nearby in Japan, all of those are sort of presumed to play a role in this sort of ambiguity of policy of ambiguity towards Taiwan, will we or won't we sort of come to Taiwan's defense in the event of an invasion? It all plays into this idea that this is a big military hotspot that honestly is getting more attention these days for good reason.
Thank you, Bill, and now back to the Middle East. As we mentioned earlier, the region has erupted in turmoil since Hamas military’s terror attack into Israel that resulted in 12-hundred deaths and the taking of hundreds of hostages.
The resulting Israeli counteroffensive has devastated the Gaza Strip, left tens of thousands of Palestinians dead and created a humanitarian crisis.
It’s been more than 100 days of destruction and despair.
More than 20 Israeli soldiers died Monday when a building collapsed on a group of soldiers fighting in Southern Gaza.
The military is still investigating the exact cause of the attack, but Israeli Defense Force officials say it was likely the result of a rocket propelled grenade setting off explosives that had been set by Israeli troops.
Earlier this week, I spoke with VOA’s Celia Mendoza in Tel Aviv about the situation in the region..
Celia, thank you so much for joining us from Tel Aviv. It's now been more than 100 days since this war began. What are the feelings that you're getting when you talk to people
CELIA MENDOZA, VOA Correspondent:
Definitely is the sentiment of tiredness, people are tired of what happened in the sense of the pain that they keep feeling the trauma that they have. They're tired that the work continues. But also we have seen how their minds have shifted. People that were pacifists, people that were against any kind of war. believe that this needs to be done because of what happened on the seventh of October was so horrific, and that is very important for them, but at the same time, they don't know what is the end goal. When is it going to end? We're four months almost into this is not an outside constitutes this deal in Gaza.
Is that becoming a big problem for Netanyahu as of right now, but also the international pressure inside Israel? We don't hear a lot about what is happening in Gaza in terms of the humanitarian crisis as the United Nations has declared. But the international community has made it very clear that now that they outgrew the Palestinian Authority, I'm talking about over 25,000 people killed inside of Gaza. Many more missing, people that are heard families that are constantly destroyed.
That is something that they want to make sure that it stops and that's why we have proposals coming from the European Union from Middle Eastern countries, even the United States. As they're trying to broker a possibility of the political solution in the middle of this. But for Israelis, it's very, very clear that they need to end this and as you mentioned, Hamas is still being a threat and that is something that definitely is a big question mark for the Israeli government but also for their population that is growing tired of what is happening, and we have seen divisions, divisions within the government, even the word Cabinet members have been publicly speaking about it. As a possibility of early elections, the possibility of a change. So far is that yeah, Netanyahu has kept his course and he says that he basically won't stop until this is completely done. In that sense Hamas eliminated, completely elimination of the threat.
CARLA BABB:
And Celia, you've spoken to some of the family members of the hostages. There are still dozens of Israeli hostage students in Gaza. Some of those are even American. What are the people that you spoke to what are those family members telling you? Is there any hope for that they'll get their family members back?
CELIA MENDOZA, VOA Correspondent:
just today I spoke to the wife of one of the producers of the Nova festival in the border between Israel and Gaza. She details what happened that day but also how she feels that her life has been stocked on October 7 And everyday continues. To be the same. She has hope. She believes that if she loses her hope that it is impossible to hide her husband back home. And that is one of the things that she explains, keeps her going and then she's doing everything possible with her husband's family to try to get to politicians and to local leaders and international community to make anything and everything possible to bring their family members home. But they are clear that the conditions that they're facing are horrible. And as every day goes by, the more they're worried about their health and also the conditions in which they're kept and the possibility that they will not be the same person that went in on October 7 And that is something that this particular case the wife said, we will have to do a lot of healing not only him but also her.
CARLA BABB:
You've spoken to some people in the West Bank as well. What are they doing to try to pressure the Israeli government to stop the fighting.
CELIA MENDOZA, VOA Correspondent:
The Palestinians in the West Bank are very aggressively pushing for a ceasefire. They're asking the international community that's what we have heard and then their sights, but also we have seen a sense of growing hate.
The Israeli forces are more present within the West Bank. checkpoints have been closed. People have less possibility of movement internally.
The IDF has confirmed operations in different cities and refugee camps within the West Bank where they claim they have neutralized or detained alleged terrorists. But for Palestinians, all of this is part of a growing tension that they believe will not have a solution until their state is recognized.
CARLA BABB:
Celia Mendoza reporting from Tel Aviv, Celia thank you so much for speaking with us.
CELIA MENDOZA, VOA Correspondent:
Thank you Carla.
CARLA BABB:
So how is the Pentagon juggling these crises? I sat down with Pentagon press secretary General Pat Ryder to discuss how long the military can maintain this pace of operations.
We have seen relentless attacks on US forces on US interest in the Middle East. Is this unprecedented for us to see the US be attacked this frequently and not be at war?
PAT RYDER, Pentagon press secretary General:
Well, I think it's important to put all this into perspective. And certainly, to your point, we're seeing very, very high levels of tension in the Middle East right now. Much of this, of course, stems back to October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel killed over 1200 people took over 200 hostages. And of course, we're seeing that play out right now with Israel's war against Hamas in Gaza. Shortly after that, we deployed a significant amount of capabilities into the Middle East and broader region, in order to enable us to have capabilities that were available for a wide range of contingencies. But most notably to support our deterrence efforts. In the meantime, we do see groups like Iranian proxies attempting to exploit the situation and as you highlight conduct attacks against our forces that are deployed to Iraq and Syria, as well as Houthis, attacking international shipping, that's transiting the Red Sea. And so we are working very, very hard with our allies and partners to de escalate those situations, cognizant of the fact that we do have important missions, most notably the the defeat ISIS mission in Iraq and Syria, as well as our responsibility to ensure that those that are traveling are transiting the Red Sea, for example, can do so safely and securely. So we're going to continue to keep after that,
CARLA BABB:
There have been more attacks by the Houthis launched out towards American ships. Recently, the US military was able to shoot down some of these or let them fall to the sea. But is this a sign that deterrence isn't working with the Houthi?
PAT RYDER, Pentagon press secretary General:
As you highlight, we've continued to see these attacks. And so we have taken measures to disrupt and degrade Houthi capabilities to conduct those, of course, it's in all of our interests for them to stop the the attacks have affected over 50 nations in terms of their their vessels transiting this vital waterway, and if they don't stop will continue to take necessary action. But again, our goal here is not to see escalation. It's actually the opposite. It's to de escalate the situation, and ensure that international shipping and mariners can transit this waterway safely.
CARLA BABB:
There have been attacks against the Iranian proxies but this building and the White House, and many others have blamed Iran for all these attacks. What more can the Pentagon do at this point, to try to get Iran to stop?
PAT RYDER, Pentagon press secretary General:
Well, of course, this takes a whole of government approaches and what you've seen in terms of economic sanctions, diplomatic efforts, and of course, our presence in the Middle East region and the wider region are important, again, to reassure our partners and allies that the US is a dependable partner and a dependable ally. So we're going to continue in those efforts. Of course, we know that I ran funds, trains equips and helps to resource these proxy groups. It's it's a Long standing part of their way of conducting business to try to have deniable plausible deniability in terms of their hand in these things, we're obviously very well aware of that. At the same time, we recognize, again, that our goal here is to de escalate and prevent a wider regional war. And, you know, look, we're not looking for conflict with Iran, we don't seek war with Iran. But at the same time, we're going to stand beside our partners and our allies in the region to ensure security and stability.
CARLA BABB:
When you look at the globe, one of the reasons this building pulled out of Afghanistan was because they wanted to get out of a complex game, they could divert resources towards preparing for a future near peer conflict. And they came to that, and there were critics saying that the military was spread too thin. Since then, we've seen the US military send more troops to Europe, that are crushing it for Ukraine, and now we're seeing more US troops in the Middle East, is the US military starting to spread itself too thin?
PAT RYDER, Pentagon press secretary General:
Actually, I would take a different perspective on that it actually demonstrates the dynamic capability of the US military and our ability to respond to a variety of crises around the world. And that's exactly what the national defense strategy is focused on. You know, the, the fact of the matter is, is that, you know, the number one priority, which is China is our pacing challenge continues to be where we apply the majority of our resources, brushes and acute threat and support to our European partners in NATO, in terms of securing Europe, but also supporting Ukraine, then, of course, you've got North Korea, Iran, and counterterrorism. All of those fit into the national defense strategy. And what you're seeing right now is our ability to send forces to wherever we need in support of allies and partners to address those issues long term. So, again, we recognize that we live in a world where physics is a reality. And there's always going to be a need for more resources. But we also are confident that we have the capabilities that we need right now to address real national security concerns that are right in front of us.
Carla Babb:
Thank you for joining us on The Inside Story.
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For all of those behind the scenes who brought you today’s show, I’m Carla Babb.
We’ll see you next week for The Inside Story.
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