Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega is set to win a fourth-term in office following elections on Sunday.
Rolando Espinosa, a Philippine mayor, was killed in a prison shootout with guards on Saturday after President Rodrigo Duterte had him jailed for drug trafficking.
Katherine Zimmerman and Jennifer Cafarella write: The US does not have a global strategy to eliminate the safe havens that al Qaeda uses to design and execute attacks abroad. American airstrikes to disrupt imminent al Qaeda attacks from Syria and Afghanistan are necessary but insufficient. The US needs a plan to deprive al Qaeda of the terrain it holds in Syria, Afghanistan, and elsewhere in order to deprive the group of continued ability to regenerate its attack capability. The US must also recognize that the foreign fighter problem transcends ISIS and take immediate steps to address al Qaeda recruitment abroad, including in US allies in the Middle East as well as Europe. – American Enterprise Institute/Institute for the Study of War
Bill Gertz reports: China’s military is developing ships, submarines, aircraft, intelligence systems and foreign bases in a bid to become a global military power, according to a forthcoming congressional China commission report. – Asia Times
Editorial: [T]he recent rush to Beijing shows that whether the next U.S. president likes it or not, the contest for influence in Asia won’t just be about trade or military might. The United States must also defend democratic principles. – Washington Post
Emanuele Ottolenghi and David Weinberg write: Taking action against Mahan and Syrian Air could be a smart step for the Gulf states. It could be a simple way to pressure the IRGC’s Quds Force, Hezbollah, and the Assad regime. It also may be the only way to avoid embarrassing sanctions against local firms. – The National Interest
South African President Jacob Zuma told supporters on Saturday that he was not afraid to go to jail over corruption allegations.
Against a backdrop of rising political acrimony, Theresa May, the British prime minister, warned critics on Sunday not to thwart her timetable for withdrawal from the European Union, as she prepared for a standoff with lawmakers that could prompt calls for an early general election here. – New York Times
Crowds of Muslims attacked Hindu homes and temples in eastern Bangladesh this week, raising concerns that the authorities are not taking steps to curb rising religious tensions. – New York Times
Interview: In this Q&A, Christopher A. Ford, chief legislative counsel for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, discusses the idiosyncratic characteristics of Chinese strategic culture. He argues that although the Chinese Communist Party’s official narrative depicts China’s strategic culture as essentially pacifistic and disinclined toward violence, its basic orientation is fundamentally realist – National Bureau of Asian Research
Relations between Beijing and Pyongyang have become strained in recent years, as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has repeatedly defied and snubbed Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, who is three decades his senior and many multiples his power. But even as economic and political ties wobble, tourism has become an important source of foreign revenue for North Korea, and it is more easily extracted from Chinese tourists, who tend to be obedient and sympathetic, than, say, Americans, who have proved less so. – Washington Post
The commander of U.S. forces in South Korea said on Friday a U.S. Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-missile system battery would be deployed to South Korea within eight to 10 months, an official from the U.S. forces in South Korea said. - Reuters
Jerrica Goodson, Simon Chin, and Valerie Lincy write: The United States and its allies have interdicted five separate weapons shipments from Iran to the Houthis in Yemen since April 2015—shipments that violate U. N. Security Council resolutions….This lethal aid violates an arms embargo that was imposed as part of U.N. Security Council resolution 2231 implementing the nuclear agreement with Iran and the resolutions it replaced – Iran Watch
Lee Smith writes: Year upon year, Obama has dismantled a security order laboriously constructed in the Middle East over decades. Old friends no longer trust Washington, and old enemies are on the march. Destruction, alas, is more efficient than creation. Even a president determined to restore American credibility and order—and who knows when we will have such a leader—is unlikely to undo all the damage. – The Weekly Standard
Indonesia and Australia are considering joint patrols in the contested South China Sea, with Australia’s Foreign Minister Julie Bishop saying exercises in the flashpoint area could help bring “peace, stability and security in the region.” – Wall Street Journal (subscription required)
Malaysia’s prime minister, miffed by a Justice Department investigation into his nation’s sovereign wealth fund, arrived in Beijing on Monday ready to buy Chinese military hardware, a deal that will rattle his relationship with the United States. – New York Times Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi arrived in Japan on Tuesday to court investment and aid, as an upsurge in violence against a persecuted Muslim minority at home posed the worst crisis of her six months in power and brought U.S. criticism. - Reuters The U.S. State Department halted the planned sale of some 26,000 assault rifles to the Philippines' national police after Senator Ben Cardin said he would oppose it, Senate aides told Reuters on Monday. - Reuters [W]hat infuriates many South Koreans about the Choi affair is not merely that Ms. Park had a secret adviser, or even the possibility that the adviser turned a profit from the relationship. It is the notion that their president has been in thrall for decades to a family of religious charlatans — a shameful throwback, in their view, to ancient stories of Korean kings and queens brought to ruin by deceitful monks or fortunetelling shamans. – New York Times The woman at the center of President Park Geun-hye’s worst leadership crisis was jailed on Tuesday, as prosecutors grilled her overnight over allegations that she had manipulated important government affairs from the shadows. – New York Times
Jerry Hendrix writes: The United States must begin analyzing a geostrategic environment in which China’s emerging anti-access/area denial weapons (which have the aim of pushing American forces back, outside of the range of their power projection weapons), based in the Philippines, can reach even farther into the Pacific. We must also begin actively casting about for other strategic relationships — such as a new security relationship with Taiwan — to make up what might be lost. To do otherwise would be to both accept surprise and invite defeat. – National Review Online
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