Undersea Cables.

German politics.

“Most mornings I learn more from New Items than I do from all of the traditional papers I read combined.” — Michael Blair, Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School and former presiding partner, Debevoise & Plimpton.

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1. President Trump’s landmark executive order designating major drug cartels as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs) marks a watershed moment in America’s approach to national security and strategic competition against China. This reclassification acknowledges an uncomfortable truth: the fentanyl crisis is not merely a law enforcement challenge but a sophisticated form of irregular warfare targeting American society, with cartels serving as proxies in a broader strategic campaign orchestrated by China against U.S. interests. (Source: smallwarsjournal.com)

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2. Sir Alex Younger, former chief if MI6:

Looking at Russia, the asymmetry in the relationship with Russia is, of course, all about capabilities and systems, but it is fundamentally about the fact that they think they are at war with us, and we do not think we are at war with them. (Sources: ctc.westpoint.edu, ukdefencejournal.org)

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3. The war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine is killing soldiers at a pace unseen in Europe since World War II. Calculating the scale of the casualties, and therefore the war’s trajectory, is difficult: The information is a state secret in both countries. The Ukrainian government has been especially secretive, restricting access to demographic data that could be used to estimate its losses. The most complete counts of Ukraine’s dead soldiers are made by groups abroad with biased or opaque motivations. Working with incomplete information, experts estimate that Ukraine has suffered about half of Russia’s irreplaceable losses — deaths and injuries that take soldiers out of battle indefinitely — in the nearly three-year-old war. Russia is still winning. Its much larger population and more effective recruitment have allowed it to replace losses more effectively, and to gradually push forward, said Franz-Stefan Gady, a Vienna-based military analyst. “The fat man grows thinner. But the thin man dies,” Mr. Gady said. Combining the estimates, with their caveats and shortcomings, analysts conclude that Russia loses slightly fewer than two soldiers to death and severe injury for every Ukrainian fighter who suffers the same fate. This ratio has not allowed Ukraine to overcome Russia’s population and recruitment advantages. At current trends, Ukraine is losing a larger share of its smaller army. (Source: nytimes.com)

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4. The death and disablement of hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers, acute strains in the defense budget and a looming shortage of military hardware make 2025 the year of truth for Moscow’s armed forces. With the full-scale war against Ukraine nearly three years-old, Russia’s armed forces have lost as many as 700,000 troops killed, injured or missing in action by October last year. Estimates by Russian and BBC researchers suggest at least 400,000 are dead or too seriously wounded to return to duty. Recruitment has barely covered these losses, forcing Russia to use draftees to counter Ukraine’s Kursk offensive in August 2024, import troops from North Korea, and extend the use of convicts and people under criminal investigation. By resorting to such desperate measures, Moscow was able to maintain combat pressure and slowly extend its occupation of Ukrainian territory, though its slow progress would not be considered a success when judged against Russian military theory. In 2025, recruitment will continue to be a significant challenge for the Kremlin, further degrading its ability to field a modern army. (Source: cepa.org)