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No, AOC: “Woke” Wasn’t “Crazy” the Way You Say It Was

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Natasha Lennard
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No, AOC: “Woke” Wasn’t “Crazy” the Way You Say It Was


Democrats have a lot to be embarrassed about when it comes to their actions during 2020. Like when Democratic members of Congress, including Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Sen. Chuck Schumer, and then-Sen. Kamala Harris, clad in kente cloth stoles, took a knee on Capitol Hill after introducing the 2020 Justice in Policing Act.

That bill, which contained pretty fangless policing reforms, stalled in the Senate along party lines and never became law. The legislative story was predictable. Law-and-order Democrats genuflecting in kente stoles was laughable and lambasted at the time. Or, remember when Pelosi thanked George Floyd for “sacrificing” his life “for justice”? Shameful. 

You could fairly call such gestures “crazy” if we are relitigating Democrats’ political priorities around that time. These were the scrambling acts of Democratic leaders failing to robustly respond to the largest protests in U.S. history — powerful uprisings against a system of policing and prisons that treats Black people’s lives as disposable. 

But when Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., quipped on Sunday, in an apparent nod to New York City Council Member Chi Ossé, that “woke 1 was crazy,” she wasn’t mocking the empty gestures of her colleagues. She wasn’t criticizing the recuperative tendencies of a liberal establishment that treats racism and sexism as a problem of individual performances and representation. 

There was nothing “crazy” about more than 20 million people taking to the streets in righteous, militant protests against a racist, necropolitical order.

She was responding to a question about whether Democrats, herself included, who have in the past called to defund the police, still stood by those positions, or whether they went “too far.” She giggled, dismissed the idea of defunding police as a part of  “crazy” “woke 1,” but noted, at least, that “during Covid, there was a huge opening of the Overton Window” on policy considerations, and that “the discussions that were had in that time were quite fruitful.” She also said they changed how we talk about crime.

Ocasio-Cortez did not even mention the George Floyd uprisings. 

There can be little doubt that certain “woke” tendencies hurt the project of building a powerful multiracial, working-class left. Movement collectives and organizations became mired in in-fighting. Too often, anti-racist performances by institutions took precedence over building strategies to fight the structures of racial capitalism. 

Centuries of accumulated material advantages and disadvantages, forged along colonialism’s racial lines, were not undone by social-media shamings, diversity trainings, or pro forma land acknowledgements. 

But there was nothing “crazy” about more than 20 million people taking to the streets in righteous, militant protests against a racist, necropolitical order. And it was not crazy that politicians on the left saw good sense in the reasonable demand that the armed forces maintaining this racist order be abolished, or at least that tax dollars go instead to housing, healthcare, and education. 

If Ocasio-Cortez is running for president, or even just the Senate, treating the serious and significant intervention and event that was the 2020 uprisings as “crazy,” like it was an overreaching social-media furor, would be an appalling campaign orientation and an unacceptable erasure of historic Black struggle. 

The number of people killed by police in the U.S. every year has risen most years since 2020, and a disproportionate number of those killed are still Black. The facts about U.S. policing and prisons have not changed since the heady years of so-called “woke 1.” It remains the case that police do not stop or prevent crime. The mythic alignment of policing with public safety is nonetheless still treated as unquestionable common sense, despite ample evidence to the contrary. 

White supremacist backlash was aided by liberal cowardice, which softened and then erased the abolitionist calls at the heart of the rebellions.

The George Floyd uprisings represented a brief rupture in that flawed common sense. One 2020 poll, for example, found a majority of Americans, 54 percent, believed that burning down a Minneapolis police precinct building following George Floyd’s murder was justified. 

The massive uprisings, in the words of writer Tobi Haslett, “came hurtling into view and exploded against the surface of daily life in the U.S.” They were, however, met with extraordinary repression from police forces nationwide, in both blue and red states and cities. 

Republicans under President Donald Trump’s first term prosecuted a successful campaign of law-and-order fearmongering. This white supremacist backlash was aided by liberal cowardice, which softened and then erased the abolitionist calls at the heart of the rebellions. The fractured left also bears its own responsibilities for failing on multiple fronts to take up and continue the uprisings’ militant challenge to racial capitalism. 

Under Trump’s second term, certain Democrats might be willing to call for abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) but are silent when it comes to challenging the system of racist policing of which ICE is an extension. This is not because “woke 1 was crazy”; it is because the far-right backlash was successful, and centrist Democrats were all too happy to shrink away or fall fecklessly in line with law-and-order talking points. 

“The least we can do is remember ,” wrote Haslett, reflecting on the rebellions one year later. “[T]o try, after the riots, after the speeches, after the backlash and elections, and after this latest (livestreamed) liturgy of American ‘criminal justice,’ to recall what really happened, extracting and reconstructing the whole flabbergasting sequence.” AOC is failing at this basic requirement of faithful remembrance.

This may seem minor, but it performs something akin to what W.E.B. Du Bois called the post-Reconstruction “propaganda of history” — the erasure of the historical record of Black struggle and power to establish white supremacist rule as some transhistorical, unchallenged norm. 

Ocasio-Cortez is well aware of the discursive reality she must navigate should she run for higher office. Republicans will indeed dismiss any gesture toward progressive criminal legal system reform — let alone moving funding from police coffers to public goods — as radical, “crazy” acts. They will fearmonger and scapegoat. And, as has been the case with border policies and trans rights, Democrats bending rightwards only offers legitimacy, and often votes, to the right.

I do not expect AOC to run on an abolitionist line; I have no such delusions about the office of president, or, for that matter, Ocasio-Cortez, a politician who is yet to apologize for her intolerable defense of the Biden administration’s role in the Gaza genocide. Nor do I expect any left-wing Democratic candidate to overturn the myths about policing and safety, deeply inculcated in all too much of American society, in any single campaign. “Defund” could very well be a losing electoral position at this juncture. 

A talented and principled politician should, however, be able to present a democratic socialist platform that insists on marshaling funds where they in fact belong: housing, healthcare, education, and other social welfare programs. A politician on the left, who lived through the powerful and vast George Floyd uprisings, should not be able to dismiss and erase them so easily. 

Natural Resources: The Middle East’s Hidden Map of Abundance and Scarcity

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IwPost
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Natural Resources: The Middle East’s Hidden Map of Abundance and Scarcity


The Middle East, North Africa, and South Africa form a region of extremes: giant oilfields and gas hubs, world-leading phosphate mines and platinum deposits, some of the planet’s driest landscapes, and coastlines rich in fish

When people talk about natural resources in the Middle East and North Africa, they usually mean one thing: oil. It’s true that this region pumps out roughly 30% of the world’s oil and close to a fifth of its natural gas, thanks largely to Gulf producers such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, and Qatar. But the real picture is much more complicated—and, in many ways, more surprising.

Across the region, some countries sit on world-class mineral deposits, others have enviable coastlines teeming with fish, and many struggle with a far more basic resource problem: not enough water or fertile land. How those pieces fit together helps explain why some economies boom on exports, while others worry about food and water first, and revenue second.

Oil and Gas: The Giant That Shapes the Gulf  

IThe six Gulf Cooperation Council states—Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Oman, and Bahrain—collectively hold some of the largest and cheapest-to-produce oil and gas reserves on the planet. Saudi Arabia alone has an estimated 267 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, Kuwait has more than 100 billion, and the UAE has close to 100 billion. At current production rates, those reserves are expected to last many decades.  

This abundance has clear economic effects. Gulf governments fund a large share of their budgets from oil and gas revenues. Those earnings pay for everything from public-sector salaries to infrastructure, schools, and generous social benefits. When oil prices rise, Gulf fiscal surpluses swell; when prices fall, budgets tighten, and diversification talk returns to the table.

But even within the Gulf, there are contrasts. Bahrain has very modest oil reserves compared with its neighbors and produces only a small fraction of the barrels Saudi Arabia does. Oman has less oil than the big Gulf exporters, but more gas and minerals, and it has invested in logistics and industry. The smaller resource base has pushed both countries to lean harder into non-oil sectors such as finance, logistics, and tourism.

Outside the Gulf, Algeria, Libya, and Egypt are the heavyweights of North African oil and gas. Algeria is Africa’s largest natural gas producer and a major exporter to Europe; Libya’s oil reserves are among the biggest in Africa; Egypt has turned newly discovered offshore gas fields into a growing export business. In all three, hydrocarbons have shaped politics, foreign policy, and economic fortunes—and created vulnerability to price swings and domestic unrest affecting output.

Israel, in contrast, illustrates a different kind of energy story. It barely produces any oil, but recent offshore gas discoveries, such as the Tamar and Leviathan fields, have transformed it from a gas importer into a regional supplier. Israeli gas now helps power its own economy and is exported via pipelines and liquefied natural gas deals that link it to neighbors such as Egypt and Jordan. For a small country without major oil, that shift reduces energy dependence and creates a new export stream.

Water and Land: The Quiet Crisis Beneath the Sand

If oil is the headline resource, water is the quiet crisis. The Middle East and North Africa region has about 6% of the world’s population but less than 2% of its renewable water supply. It is the world’s driest region, with 12 of the world’s most water-scarce countries—including Algeria, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Libya, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

On average, people in the region have just over 1,100 cubic meters of renewable water per person per year, compared with a global average of roughly 7,000 to 8,500 cubic meters. That figure is projected to drop further as populations grow and demand rises. In Jordan, per capita renewable water availability is only about 60 cubic meters per year—far below the 500 cubic meters threshold often used to define absolute water scarcity.

This scarcity has direct economic consequences. Agriculture, which in many countries uses more than 80% of available water, becomes harder to sustain. In places like Morocco, Syria, and Yemen, farming consumes nearly all accessible water resources. Governments respond by investing heavily in dams, desalination plants, and water-saving technologies, and by importing more food.

The contrast is clear when comparing resource maps. Saudi Arabia may look rich in oil, but it has very little arable land and almost no renewable freshwater. Jordan depends on a handful of overdrawn aquifers and the shrinking Jordan River. Israel, too, is water-stressed, but it has invested in large desalination plants and advanced irrigation, turning water scarcity into a driver of technology and policy innovation.

North Africa has more surface water than the Gulf, especially in the Nile and some river systems in Morocco and Algeria, but large stretches of land are still arid or semi-arid. The region is overwhelmingly desert—about 84% of its land—which limits how much cropland can expand. Between 2003 and 2018, cropland in the wider Middle East and North Africa shrank by 2.4% while the population grew by about 35%, increasing pressure on land and water. The population is forecast to increase by an additional 40% by 2050, according to the World Bank.

Minerals: The Less Visible Treasure

Oil and gas may dominate headlines, but minerals quietly underpin both local economies and global supply chains.

Morocco is a striking example. Beneath its soil lie roughly 50 billion metric tons of phosphate rock, about 70% of the world’s known reserves. Phosphate is an essential fertilizer ingredient, which means Morocco’s deposits are indirectly tied to global food production. A state-owned company, OCP Group, has turned this resource into a massive export industry, making Morocco a key player in global fertilizer markets and a magnet for investment in chemical processing.

South Africa, which sits just beyond the traditional Middle East and North Africa boundary, is another mineral superpower. Its Bushveld Complex holds about 75% of the world’s platinum-group metals—key ingredients for catalytic converters, hydrogen fuel cells, and various high-tech applications. US Geological Survey data indicate that South Africa accounts for the majority of global platinum-group metal reserves and a large share of annual production. It also has enormous manganese resources—primarily a steel-making metal—with estimates suggesting roughly 70% of the world’s manganese resources are located there.

These minerals give South Africa an outsized role in global mining and metal markets, even though it doesn’t have the oil wealth of Gulf states. Mining contributes significantly to South Africa’s GDP and export earnings, shaping its foreign trade and industrial base.

Elsewhere in North Africa and the wider Middle East, mineral resources are more modest but still important. Algeria and Tunisia have various metal and nonmetal deposits, though not on South Africa’s scale. Jordan, for instance, has phosphates and potash that feed into fertilizer exports and the chemical industry more than they do into raw material exports alone.

Fisheries and Coastlines: An Overlooked Source of Wealth

The Middle East and North Africa may look like a stretch of desert on a map, but along its coasts the sea tells a different story. In several places, the waters teem with fish, turning long shorelines into a valuable, if often overlooked, natural resource.

Morocco, with its long Atlantic and Mediterranean coastline, has built a sizable fishing industry. Recent analyses by the Food and Agriculture Organization and academic sources show that Morocco produces around 1.4 million tons of seafood annually and ranks as Africa’s top fish producer and leading fish exporter by value. Sardines alone make up well over half of the capture production. This steady flow of fish supports tens of thousands of jobs, from fishing crews to processing plants, and earns foreign currency, diversifying Morocco’s export base beyond phosphates and agriculture.

Other North African states, including Egypt, Algeria, and Tunisia, also benefit from fisheries, though not on Morocco’s scale. Egypt’s Nile-based aquaculture and Mediterranean fisheries contribute to domestic food supplies and rural employment, even as the country struggles with water scarcity and pollution.

In the Eastern Mediterranean, fisheries are smaller and more pressured. Coastal countries such as Lebanon and Syria have access to maritime resources, but overfishing, pollution and, in Syria’s case, war have limited their potential. Here, fisheries play more of a role in local food and livelihoods than as a major export engine.

When Resources Don’t Guarantee Prosperity

One of the most surprising lessons from looking at this resource map is that abundance does not automatically translate into broad-based prosperity—and scarcity does not doom a country to poverty.

Resource-rich economies such as Libya and Algeria show how political instability, conflict, or governance problems can blunt the benefits of oil and gas wealth. Production disruptions, uneven revenue distribution, and weak institutions can leave citizens feeling little of the theoretical riches beneath their feet.

On the flip side, countries with fewer traditional resources have learned to specialize. Israel and Jordan, both short on oil and water, have invested in technology sectors, services and, in Israel’s case, high-tech agriculture and desalination. Gulf states with oil wealth but limited land have poured money into transport hubs, tourism, finance, and renewable energy projects to prepare for a future in which fossil fuels may play a smaller role.

Across the whole region, water and land constraints force hard choices. Governments decide how much scarce water to allocate to farmers versus cities, how much food to produce domestically versus import, and how to manage environmental risks such as salinization and land degradation. Those decisions, more than the size of an oilfield or mineral deposit, shape the daily lives of most citizens.

A Region of Extremes

Put together, the Middle East, North Africa, and South Africa form a region of extremes: giant oilfields and gas hubs, world-leading phosphate mines and platinum deposits, some of the planet’s driest landscapes, and coastlines rich in fish. The mix of abundance and scarcity is what makes the region’s resource picture so striking.

Oil and gas revenues in the Gulf and North Africa power budgets and exports. Phosphates in Morocco and minerals in South Africa tie the region into global food and clean-energy supply chains. Water and arable land shortages constrain agriculture and push countries to innovate or import. Fisheries provide jobs and food where geography is favorable.

The map of natural resources under and around these countries is not just a backdrop—it’s one of the main reasons their economies look the way they do, and why their futures will be shaped as much by invisible aquifers and mineral seams as by the oil wells that have long dominated the headlines.

UN officials: Occupied West Bank at ‘breaking point’

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IwPost
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UN officials: Occupied West Bank at ‘breaking point’

UN officials said Tuesday that the occupied West Bank has reached a critical “breaking point,” citing a record surge in violence by Israeli occupiers and a systematic unraveling of Palestinian statehood, Anadolu reports.

“Humanitarian organizations cannot create the political conditions that children need to be safe,” UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Hannan Sulieman told the Security Council. “That responsibility rests with member states who have the power to change them.”

She presented four urgent requests to the international community: prioritizing the protection of children by ending administrative detention, halting forced displacements through diplomatic pressure, ensuring safe access to schools and hospitals, and allowing vital humanitarian supplies to move without delay.

Sulieman reported a harrowing toll on minors, noting that 174 Palestinian children have been verified killed in the occupied West Bank since January 2024. “That is more than one child every week,” she noted.

She revealed that at least 355 Palestinian children are being held in military detention, the highest in eight years, with nearly half detained without charge or trial.

Systematic displacement

Deputy Special Coordinator Ramiz Alakbarov echoed the alarm, describing the situation as an emergency requiring immediate action to prevent de facto annexation. He said that in 2026, dozens of Palestinians have been killed and approximately 3,800 displaced due to demolitions, evictions and attacks by occupiers.

READ: Israeli army evicts Palestinian family, turns West Bank home into military post

“Settler violence has reached unprecedented levels,” Alakbarov emphasized, citing more than 1,400 documented incidents this year affecting 260 communities. He warned of a clear pattern where Palestinian populations are forcibly removed from their villages before occupiers seize the vacated land. The official noted that for the first time, land was explicitly seized in “Area A” to build infrastructure for occupiers.

Fiscal, political instability

Alakbarov also highlighted the acute fiscal crisis facing the Palestinian Authority (PA), which reportedly lacks $6 billion in clearance revenues withheld by Israeli authorities. Amid the turmoil, he welcomed preparations for legislative elections scheduled for Nov. 28.

Alakbarov concluded that they are “interconnected steps, not isolated developments,” aimed at weakening Palestinian governance.

He said if the situation continues to unravel, it will undermine implementation of resolution 2803 (2025) and erode the prospects for realizing a negotiated Israeli-Palestinian peace based on the two-state solution, urging an immediate “and in full” implementation of resolution 2803, together with the New York Declaration.

Resolution 2803 endorses a peace plan proposed by US President Donald Trump for the Gaza Strip and a temporary international force in the enclave following two years of war.

Since the start of Israel’s genocide in Gaza on Oct. 8, 2023, Israeli forces and occupiers have escalated attacks in the West Bank, killing more than 1,183 Palestinians, injuring 13,000 and arresting nearly 25,000, according to Palestinian figures.

Palestinians warn that the escalation is part of Israeli efforts to impose facts on the ground, paving the way for annexation of the occupied West Bank and undermining the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders under relevant UN resolutions.

READ: Israeli occupiers establish illegal settlement outpost in yard of Palestinian home in West Bank

DEF CON crowd suspected in fake-hotspot attack on Delta flight

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IwPost
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DEF CON crowd suspected in fake-hotspot attack on Delta flight

On Monday, passengers aboard Delta flight 591 going from Las Vegas to Atlanta allegedly spoofed the onboard Wi-Fi, raising the attention of federal law enforcement.

The incident came one day after the DEF CON security conference concluded in Las Vegas, and was first described on social media accounts that follow publicly available air-to-ground messages, known as ACARS.

According to the “ACARS Drama” account, a message was sent by pilots from the plane stated: “NO INFO AS OF NOW WE HAVE A BUNCH OF PAX THAT WERE AT A CYBER CONFERENCE IN LAS THEY WERE ABLE TO JAM OUR WIFI AND BROADCAST THEIR SIGNAL.”

A description of the incident posted to Reddit further stated that these passengers created a fake hotspot (“Delta WiFi Fast”), with a phishing landing page “designed to harvest passengers’ personal credentials.”

This technique, sometimes known as an “evil twin” attack, has been long-known to the IT security community. It involves setting up a fake Wi-Fi network and then capturing login credentials and other data.       

Morgan Durrant, a Delta spokesperson, confirmed the details to Ars.

“One initial finding is an unauthorized WiFi network, which was not provided, operated, or supplied by Delta, was present onboard the aircraft for a short time during the flight,” Durrant told Ars via email.

Delta further noted that the flight’s safety was “never in question and no aircraft operating systems were affected,” and that no emergency was declared.

The actual onboard Wi-Fi was disabled for 30 minutes.

The Atlanta Police Department referred all inquiries to the FBI. Atlanta’s FBI bureau told Ars that it is looking into the matter.

Officials there noted that no arrests were made, and that FBI agents did not meet the flight at the gate.

“FBI Atlanta is aware of reports regarding a potential Wi-Fi-related incident involving Delta Flight 591,” Tony Thomas, a spokesperson for FBI Atlanta, emailed Ars in a statement. “We are in contact with our local and corporate partners on this matter. We have no additional information to provide at this time.”

Do main battle tanks have a warfare future?

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IwPost
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Do main battle tanks have a warfare future?

By the early 2030s the US will have a “new” tank to replace the Abrams M1.

The M1 was designed between 1972 and 1976, although many changes have been made over the years. The Abrams is the main heavy battle tank deployed by the United States.

Whether having a “replacement” makes sense is open to question. The era of the main battle tank may have reached an end.

The recent battlefield record helps us understand the current situation. The Abrams turned out to be something of a failure when deployed in small numbers in Ukraine. Out of the original 31 tanks sent by the United States, open-source intelligence tracking and defense assessments indicate that a vast majority—approaching or exceeding 25 to 27 vehicles—have been documented as destroyed, severely damaged, or abandoned/captured.

An American Abrams tank that burned down is seen at an exhibition in Moscow, in May 2024. Photo: Poklonnaya Gora Park VICTORY Exhibition Trophies of Russia.

Similar bad results came for the German-designed Leopard (all models) and the British Challenger 2. Over 70+ Leopard 2s (various models like the 2A4 and 2A6) were pledged and delivered by European partners (including Germany, Poland, Canada, Sweden, Spain, and others). Open-source trackers (like Oryx) and military analyses confirm that at least a couple of dozen Leopard 2s have been visually confirmed as destroyed, abandoned, or heavily damaged, maybe more. Earlier Leopard models suffered even higher losses.

Out of the 14 Challenger 2 British tanks originally donated by the United Kingdom to Ukraine in 2023, open-source intelligence trackers (such as Oryx) and defense reports confirm that multiple units have been lost or destroyed in combat. How many, exactly, isn’t known. The tanks were, in any case, hard to support and its non-standard ammunition (120mm rifled as opposed to NATO’s 120mm smooth bore) was a supply problem, already complicated by poor logistical support and inexperience in servicing western hardware.

In Ukraine, western main battle tanks proved vulnerable to FPV drones and anti-tank weapons, plus landmines and other kinetic weapons. Tanks were generally too heavy for muddy roads and fields, lacked adequate armor and were not equipped with active protection systems.

loading tank ammunition

The new version of the Abrams is supposed to get around some of the problems of current-day tanks. It will be far lighter than the existing Abrams, which weighs between 64 and 66 metric tons (71 short tons). It will scrap the existing turbine power plant for a hybrid power pack (although lithium batteries add a new vulnerability). It will have “built in” active protection. The tank turret will no longer be manned, and the tank will (for the first time) have an autoloader (standard equipment on Russian tanks).

We won’t know much more about the survivability of the “new” Abrams for many years, as the design itself still is unproven and the Army has no combat experience with the new model, even prototypes.

Meanwhile tanks have suffered significant attrition in the Ukraine war and there is some question whether a manned heavy tank, no matter how sophisticated, can live and be effective on the modern battlefield.

What tanks bring to the battlefield

Tank operations have not evolved very far since World War II. The main use is to rapidly punch through the heavily fortified enemy lines, trench networks and prepared defenses where light infantry and wheeled vehicles stall.

A tank combines heavy composite armor, all-terrain mobility and a large-caliber cannon that can fire high-explosive or kinetic-energy rounds to demolish concrete bunkers, pillboxes and enemy armor with pinpoint certainty. This creates immediate physical and psychological shock among opposing forces.

Tanks are typically used in combined tank and infantry operations and modern tanks are increasingly networked to make them more effective. Tanks play a significant role any time there is a battlefield breakthrough because they can break up enemy formations using their firepower and mobility.

T-90 hit in Ukraine

One of the facts of life for Russia, for Ukraine and for NATO is that battle tanks will play a reduced role in any realistic scenario of a future war in Europe. Europe simply has too few tanks, most widely dispersed, to add much offensive weight to the battlefield. The US would have to ship Abrams tanks from inventory and get them forward to battle zones, a major logistical challenge.

The poor record of all NATO tank platforms suggests that current generation tanks probably cannot successfully withstand the combined arms of a well-equipped adversary.

The Russians are not in much better shape. Their tank losses in the Ukraine war have significantly depleted Russian war reserves. The loss of experienced and well-trained tank operators is also a limiting factor on Russia, especially if Russia’s leaders decide to expand the Ukraine war into eider war in Europe. With half their active army tied down in Ukraine, and with armor supplies limited, predictions that Russia will fight in Europe soon seem unconvincing. Russia losses of tank crews estimates place total tank crew casualties (killed, wounded, or captured) in the 10,000 to 12,000+ range.

Active protection systems

Most European, American and Russian tanks used in Ukraine do not have active protection systems (APS). The US has bought around 400 Israeli-made Trophy active protection systems for Abrams tanks, but (so far as is known), none of the tanks supplied to Ukraine were so-equipped. Very recently, the Russians have been shipping the Arena-M APS on tanks to be deployed in Ukraine. At present not much is known about how effective Arena-M is in that war and there are only a handful of Arena-M equipped tanks in the field so far.

Components of the Arena-M APS

Israel originally developed the first successful APS to deal with Russian anti-tank weapons. Trophy was designed to destroy these weapons before they could explode and damage or destroy a tank. Trophy has a reported operational success rate exceeding 90% to 95%. Since its first combat interception in 2011 and extensive use across multiple conflicts in Gaza and other high-intensity environments, it has successfully thwarted hundreds of incoming projectiles.

Trophy recently has been upgraded to make it capable against drone threats, by improving detection and tracking and making Trophy more capable against drop-down FPV drones. This is still a work in progress and, as Israeli companies are demonstrating, needs to be combined with other counter-drone technologies including jammers, cope cages, nets and emerging technology to deal with fiber optic drone threats.

Future combat

It is clear that modern battle tank tactics must be revised to deal with modern battlefield threats, especially suicide drones used in large numbers. The shortcoming of Arena-M, for example, is that once it exhausts its ammunition it cannot be reloaded in the field, leaving the tank vulnerable to multiple FPV drone strikes. Estimates are that between 10 and 20 FPV drone hits will severely damage or destroy a tank.

Another Arena-M problem (less so with Trophy) is that it intercepts threats very close to the tank hull, meaning that a lot of shrapnel envelops the tank and the area around it. This makes close coordination with infantry nearly impossible.

Given today’s technology and the evolution of the battlefield, today dominated by drones and fire and forget weapons, the use of manned heavy tanks as frontline weapons may no longer be feasible because of the vulnerability of the platform and the loss of competent and experienced tank operators.

The U.S. Army next generation combat vehicle medium size option.

While there are many experiments with robotic platforms to supplement or replace tanks, neither the US nor Europe nor Russia has firmly committed to them. The US Army, for example, is looking for networked, cheaper, semi-autonomous robotic combat vehicles that act as force multipliers, absorbing the highest risks of scouting, logistics and breakthrough assaults.

A Waymo vehicle on Seventh Street in Philadelphia in November 2025. Photo: Alan Yu / WHYY

One of the technologies likely to be used is autonomous vehicle sensors and software from civilian applications such as taxis and trucking routes. Top companies include Waymo and Zook (Amazon), Baidu (China) and Tesla. The challenge is to convert battlefield experience (including the lack of roadways and the challenge of automatically categorizing threats) with the technology developed for commercial use. Self-driving technology will have to become self-protection technology capable of recognizing and destroying threats.

Given the rise of AI, the significant improvement of sensors, and the potential to coordinate robotic systems with overhead loitering surveillance drones, fully robotic drones with firepower from guns and missiles could soon revolutionize the battlefield yet again.

Stephen Bryen is a former US deputy undersecretary of defense. This article can also be seen on his newsletter Weapons and Strategy.

Ebola virus behind massive outbreak in DRC could be mutating

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Ebola virus behind massive outbreak in DRC could be mutating


The virus causing a massive outbreak of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of the Congo could be mutating, health officials fear, as confirmed cases pass 4,000.

Africa’s public health watchdog said the time for incremental action was over as they announced plans to scale up every aspect of the response and go “door to door” looking for patients.

The Ebola outbreak, caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus, was first reported on 15 May, although there are suspicions the disease could have been spreading since January.

There have been 3,973 cases and 1,801 deaths recorded as of 4 August, according to the DRC’s national public health institute. Speaking on Thursday, Dr Jean Kaseya, director general of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC), told a press briefing cases had topped 4,000.

The outbreak is now the second-largest Ebola outbreak on record. There are eight times more cases, and six times more deaths than were recorded 11 weeks into the West Africa Ebola outbreak in 2014-18, which infected more than 28,000 people and killed at least 11,000.

Kaseya said he had spoken to the director general of the World Health Organization, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, and they planned studies “to check if there is no additional issue, or maybe if the virus is not mutating. Because the level of severity of this Bundibugyo outbreak is unprecedented.”

More than two-thirds of Ebola deaths are happening in the community rather than in treatment centres. In a treatment centre run by MSF in Bunia, the capital of Ituri province, 90% of admitted patients do not appear on authorities’ lists of contacts of known cases. Both factors indicate high levels of untracked transmission.

Kaseya said contact tracing in the DRC was insufficient, with only 10 contacts identified for every Ebola patient, when about 40 would be the expected number.

Ebola is a viral haemorrhagic fever that can cause vomiting, diarrhoea, organ damage and internal bleeding. The outbreak is centred on the conflict-affected mining province of Ituri, but has spread to Nord-Kivu, Sud-Kivu, Haut-Uele and Tshopo. There were 20 cases recorded in neighbouring Uganda before it brought its outbreak under control.

Dr Wessam Mankoula, acting head of emergency preparedness and response at Africa CDC, said response teams planned a shift “from contact tracing to active case search”, which would mean community health workers “moving from door to door” asking households if they had anyone sick with Ebola symptoms.

He added: “I think the time for incremental action is over and we’re starting now the phase for scaling up.”

Kaseya promised a “village-centered response” that would involve communities, more use of digital tools and greater action in the camps for people who have been internally displaced by conflict in affected provinces.

Officials also said they planned to begin using antiviral remdesivir on a compassionate use basis to treat patients. They will also start testing whether Ervebo, a vaccine licensed for use against a different strain of Ebola, should be offered in the affected province, after receiving data suggesting that Bundibugyo caused less serious disease and “zero death” among people who had received that jab.

“Seeing the expansion of this outbreak, only the public health measure will not be enough to quickly control or stop this outbreak,” said Dr Placide Mbala Kingebeni, Africa CDC director of research, clinical trials and innovation.

DRC authorities said they were investigating a suspected Ebola death on a boat heading to the capital, Kinshasa, from the north-east of the country, and that the other passengers on board would be quarantined and tested.

Unicef warned that essential healthcare was being disrupted by the outbreak as fear of infection and service disruptions kept families away from clinics. In the outbreak’s centre, the mining town of Mongbwalu, the proportion of children receiving their first measles dose has fallen 69%.

Via The Guardian

Former Leader Sentenced to Death for Premeditated Murder

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Former Leader Sentenced to Death for Premeditated Murder


Former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad has been sentenced to death, nearly two years after his government collapsed and he fled the country for the safety of Moscow.

A court in Damascus handed Assad the death sentence Tuesday after convicting the ousted leader in absentia of war crimes and crimes against humanity committed during Syria’s devastating civil war.

Assad, who ruled Syria with an iron grip for more than two decades, fled to Russia with his wife, Asma, and their children after rebel forces toppled his government in December 2024.

Now, while Assad remains beyond the reach of Syrian authorities, a court in the capital has delivered one of the most dramatic judgments yet against the former regime.

Judge Fakhr al-Din al-Aryan convicted Assad of a series of crimes that included premeditated murder, the killing of children under the age of 15, torture resulting in death and unlawful imprisonment.

Assad’s younger brother, Maher al-Assad, was also sentenced to death in absentia. Maher commanded Syria’s powerful Fourth Division and was widely regarded as one of the most feared figures inside his brother’s government.

Several other former military and security officials received death sentences as well, including former Defense Minister Fahd al-Freij.

Most of the defendants were nowhere near the courtroom when the sentences were announced.

Former security official Atif Najib, Assad’s cousin, was the notable exception.

Najib was in custody and appeared in court before receiving his own death sentence over his role in the brutal crackdown on protesters in the southern city of Daraa in 2011.

The events in Daraa helped ignite the uprising that would eventually explode into Syria’s catastrophic civil war.

Pro-democracy demonstrations began spreading across the country in 2011 as part of the wider Arab Spring movement. Assad’s security forces responded with arrests and deadly force, helping transform the unrest into a sprawling conflict that lasted nearly 14 years.

By the time Assad’s government finally collapsed in December 2024, roughly half a million people had been killed, millions had been forced from their homes and countless families were still searching for relatives who vanished during the fighting.

Assad had repeatedly denied responsibility for atrocities attributed to his government, portraying his opponents as extremists and foreign-backed forces.

But his regime became internationally notorious for allegations of mass torture, executions, sieges and chemical weapons attacks. International investigations have attributed multiple chemical attacks involving sarin or chlorine to Syrian government forces.

Tuesday’s ruling marks an extraordinary reversal for a man who once appeared nearly impossible to remove from power.

Assad became president in 2000 following the death of his father, Hafez al-Assad, continuing a family dynasty that controlled Syria for more than five decades.

That dynasty came crashing down in late 2024 when rebel fighters rapidly swept across the country and captured Damascus, sending Assad fleeing to Russia.

He now remains in exile while Syria attempts to reckon with the enormous human toll left behind by his government.

The death sentence is largely symbolic as long as Assad remains outside the country and protected in Russia.

Still, for Syrians who spent years demanding accountability for the bloodshed, Tuesday’s verdict represents a remarkable moment: the former ruler who once commanded Syria’s sprawling military and security apparatus is now a convicted war criminal facing a death sentence in the very capital he once controlled.

Trump wants Big Pharma to split MMR vaccine; Big Pharma thinks it’s idiotic

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Trump wants Big Pharma to split MMR vaccine; Big Pharma thinks it’s idiotic

Backlash to Trump’s vaccine order on Monday has been swift and sharp, with various public health and medical organizations and independent experts calling it “dangerous,” “unscientific,” “false and misleading,” “so wrong,” and saying it is “putting children’s health at risk.”

The responses are unsurprising; the medical and health communities have consistently fought against the anti-vaccine, anti-science agendas pushed by Trump and his health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has no background in science, medicine, or public health. The American Academy of Pediatrics—which called the order “not only disheartening but dangerous”—is leading a lawsuit against previous changes to federal childhood vaccine recommendations under Trump and Kennedy. In March, the organization, along with other medical groups, won a temporary injunction reversing most of the changes.

However, less expected among the scorn for Trump’s order is the immediate pushback from the pharmaceutical industry.

Trump’s executive order for his so-called “gold standard” vaccine policy focuses on reducing the number of vaccines children get. But contrary to that goal, it also called for splitting the combination measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine into three separate shots. The MMR vaccine is given in two doses, so the change would mean six shots for children instead of two.

More impractical, individual vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella do not exist in the US. For Trump’s order to be realized, pharmaceutical companies would need to make hefty investments in developing, testing, and bringing to market entirely new vaccines—and they would have to do all of that based on no scientific reasoning whatsoever. The current MMR combination vaccine has proven extremely safe, effective, and convenient based on data from decades of use.

Within hours of Trump signing the order, PhRMA—the leading pharmaceutical industry group representing big players, such as GSK, Sanofi, Pfizer, Merck, Johnson & Johnson, and Novo Nordisk—put out a statement saying the order debases America’s vaccine policy.

Industry pushback

PhRMA’s Chief Medical Officer Michael Ybarra said that previous federal vaccine recommendations were “built on decades of rigorous scientific research and public health expertise,” and any changes should be based on “the same high standard of evidence.”

“Simply imposing a narrower schedule by importing recommendations from foreign countries wouldn’t reflect gold standard science—it would mean accepting a lower bar of protection against diseases that remain serious and, in some cases, life-threatening for children in the United States,” Ybarra said.

Merck and GSK, which make MMR vaccines used in the US, also pushed back on the order, pointing out that it is nonsensical. Merck provided a statement to Stat News saying it supports vaccine policy “rooted in rigorous, evidence-based science” and that “There has been no published scientific evidence that shows any benefit in separating the combination MMR vaccine into three individual shots.”

A GSK spokesperson told Stat that its MMR vaccine is “backed by decades of global use and robust scientific evidence.” The spokesperson similarly noted that “There is no scientific evidence that separate measles, mumps, and rubella shots improve safety or efficacy compared to combined MMR.”

While seemingly tame, the statements reflect the industry’s immediate public resistance to an order from a US president, which is not the norm. Other organizations, meanwhile, were more direct with their criticism.

Robyn Blumner, president and CEO of the nonprofit scientific advocacy organization Center for Inquiry, blasted the order in a statement:

“There are very few people less qualified than Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be making decisions about vaccine policy. Donald Trump is at the top of that very short list. This new executive order is just the latest example of the administration’s complete disregard [for]—and overt hostility toward—evidence-based science. Public health policy should be based on rigorous science backed by data, not the personal beliefs and suspicions of one highly unqualified individual.”

How polarised is European politics? Here’s how your generation, gender and where you live affect what you believe

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How polarised is European politics? Here’s how your generation, gender and where you live affect what you believe

Across Europe, the political debate has rarely looked more polarised. Media narratives frequently describe societies as becoming sharply divided between younger progressive and older conservative generations.

A growing body of research also suggests that political attitudes are becoming more divided by gender, particularly among younger cohorts. Young women seem to be adopting more liberal positions than young men on issues such as climate change and immigration.

Using data from the European Social Survey, which I have led since 2013, my team has examined the truth of these claims. We’ve done this by looking at long-term trends across eastern, western and northern Europe between 2002 and 2023 in relation to political orientation, climate change fears and attitudes towards immigration.

Political orientation over time by age and gender

A series of line graphs showing changes in political orientation over time across different areas of Europe.

Younger respondents consistently place themselves further to the left on the political orientation scale than older respondents across all country groups. European Social Survey, CC BY-NC-ND

Across all country groups, younger respondents consistently place themselves further to the left on the political orientation scale than older respondents.

Yet while older respondents’ political views have been relatively stable in northern and western Europe, in eastern Europe we’ve seen more fluctuation and a clearer shift towards the right in recent survey rounds.

Younger respondents in eastern Europe are shifting in the opposite direction. This suggests an emerging generational divide in political orientation within the region.

Gender patterns in political orientation also vary considerably across age groups in Europe as a whole. Among older respondents, men and women generally mirror one another in their ideological positioning over time. Among younger cohorts, however, gender gaps are substantially wider.

The divide is most pronounced in northern Europe. Young women there consistently position themselves further to the left than young men. By contrast, young men and women in eastern Europe appear to be becoming somewhat more ideologically aligned over time – though young women there are still more leftward aligned.

The political views of young women, particularly in western Europe, also fluctuate more across survey rounds. These shifts have coincided with major political and economic events, including a modest movement towards the right around the period of the global financial crisis in 2008 and a shift leftwards during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Worry about climate change over time by age and gender

A series of line graphs showing how worry about climate change has changed over time across Europe.

Worry about climate change is less strongly divided along generational lines. European Social Survey, CC BY-NC-ND

Across all regions, survey rounds and age groups, women have consistently expressed greater worry about climate change than men. The size of this gap differs between regions and by age.

Between the generations, we see moderate differences in climate concern. But our findings do not consistently follow the common expectation that younger people are more worried than older generations. In eastern and western Europe, older respondents have often reported levels of worry equal to, or marginally exceeding, younger groups.

Overall, however, worry about climate change appears either stable or gradually declining across most demographic groups. But while gender gaps among older cohorts remain relatively small, they are substantially wider among younger respondents – particularly in northern Europe.

Young women in this region are the only group for whom worry about climate change shows a modest upward trend over time. This reflects a growing divide between young men and young women in this region. Climate concern among young men has declined while concern among young women has remained stable or increased slightly.

Levels of worry in eastern and western Europe display greater similarity across age and gender groups, with men and women showing declining levels of climate concern in recent years.

Taken together, these findings suggest that worry about climate change is not strongly divided along generational lines. Instead, it is structured through gender differences within younger cohorts, particularly in northern Europe.

Immigration tolerance over time by age and gender

A series of line graphs showing changes in immigration tolerance across Europe over time.

Attitudes towards immigration differ substantially by region. European Social Survey, CC BY-NC-ND

Attitudes towards immigration differ more by region than by gender and generation alone. In eastern Europe, attitudes towards migrants have shifted more substantially than other regions over time.

Tolerance of immigration in eastern Europe dropped around the period of the 2015-16 migrant crisis. A notable but relatively short-lived increase in tolerance is then visible around 2020.

This fluctuating pattern may reflect changing political and social contexts, including the COVID pandemic and subsequent displacement of Ukrainians following the start of the war there in 2022. It may also reflect what we call mode effects, which refers to differing opinions as a result of there being an interviewer or not.

Attitudes towards immigration in northern and western Europe have remained comparatively stable and, perhaps surprisingly given the anti-immigrant rhetoric of the media and politicians in some of these regions, are generally becoming more positive over time.

Gender differences over immigration are relatively small among older respondents across all regions, with older men and women tending to follow very similar trends. However, gender differences remain evident among younger cohorts.

Young women in northern Europe consistently express substantially higher levels of tolerance towards migrants than their male counterparts, reinforcing the broader pattern of a growing gender divide in views among younger people there.

Overall, our findings show that Europe’s political polarisation is indeed generational. But rather than being shaped by generation alone, political attitudes in Europe seem to be increasingly shaped by an interacting combination of generation, gender and regional differences.

Clock ticking down on Cambodia’s growth momentum

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Clock ticking down on Cambodia’s growth momentum

Cambodia and China recently agreed to fast-track four priority infrastructure projects under the Diamond Hexagon cooperation framework, deepening a partnership that already accounts for roughly 75% of Cambodia’s foreign direct investment.

The acceleration comes as Cambodia pursues its own ambitious development targets under the Pentagonal Strategy, which aims for upper-middle-income status by 2030 and high-income by 2050.

Reaching those milestones will require a broader economic base than any single partner can supply, and that is where the tension lies.

The high-income threshold currently sits at US$14,375, roughly six times Cambodia’s present per capita income of $2,520. That is a steep climb, but others in the region have managed comparable transitions, and Cambodia’s record offers reasons for confidence.

Between 2000 and 2019, Cambodia grew at an average of 8.2% annually, the fifth-fastest rate in the world. Investment approvals reached $10 billion in 2025, with growing diversification into electronics, renewable energy and agro-processing alongside the traditional garment and tourism base. The economy is among the world’s most trade-integrated, with total trade exceeding 140% of GDP.

The challenge is less about ambition than about whether the strategies meant to deliver on it are working together or at cross-purposes. Two transitions are arriving at roughly the same time, and they are pulling the economy in different directions.

The first is the approaching loss of preferential trade access. In December 2029, Cambodia is scheduled to graduate from least developed country status, a milestone that reflects real development progress but also removes the trade preferences that have underwritten the garment sector’s competitiveness.

The EU’s Everything But Arms scheme, partially withdrawn in 2020 over human rights concerns, grants duty-free access under rules of origin for least developed countries that require only a single transformation, a considerably lower bar than the double-transformation requirement Vietnam faces under the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement.

After graduation, that edge disappears. The UNDP has estimated that GDP growth could slow by 0.5 to 1.5 percentage points, with 165,000 jobs at risk, concentrated among women in the garment sector.

Phnom Penh is clearly aware of this. Cambodia applied for CPTPP accession in December 2025, and senior officials have framed membership as essential to replacing the preferential access the country will lose upon graduation.

A regulatory gap analysis commissioned by the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office found significant compliance gaps in cross-border data governance and environmental standards, areas where closing the gap before LDC graduation in 2029 will be difficult.

The second transition is the deepening of Cambodia’s relations with China. The Diamond Hexagon framework, established in February 2023, covers politics, manufacturing, agriculture, energy, security and cultural exchanges.

Chinese investment has delivered tangible results: expressways, airports, special economic zones and power infrastructure that Cambodia could not have financed independently.

But the concentration of Chinese investment carries its own risks. A NUS East Asian Institute analysis has noted that growing dependence on Chinese investment and financing is narrowing Cambodia’s policy flexibility in an increasingly contested region.

And the more concentrated the investment base, the harder it is to credibly pursue the kind of open-market commitments the CPTPP requires.

The World Bank has assessed Cambodia’s productivity growth at around 0.8%, less than half the 2% it estimates would be needed annually for 25 years to reach high-income status, a pace previously sustained only by South Korea.

GDP growth forecasts for 2026 sit between 3.9% (World Bank) and 4.5% (Asian Development Bank). Headline growth is respectable, but the gap between current productivity trends and what the 2050 target requires is wide.

Vietnam’s path offers a useful, if imperfect, comparison. The two economies are at different scales: Vietnam’s GDP exceeds $500 billion, more than ten times Cambodia’s roughly $50 billion, and its population of 102 million is six times larger. Vietnam’s industrial base extends into electronics and machinery in ways Cambodia’s does not yet match.

What makes the comparison relevant is sequencing. Vietnam joined the CPTPP and signed its EU free trade agreement before reaching upper-middle-income status, spreading its trade relationships early.

Its investment base is spread across Japan, South Korea, the EU, the United States and China. Even with those advantages, the World Bank estimates Vietnam needs sustained average annual growth of 6% for two decades to reach high-income by its own 2045 target.

Cambodia is not Vietnam, and the differences in scale, structure and development stage matter more than superficial parallels. But the sequencing question is relevant: it is easier to diversify trade and investment partnerships before the pressures arrive rather than after.

Of the three pressures Cambodia faces, LDC graduation is on a fixed timeline Phnom Penh cannot change. The China relationship deepens through deals that deliver visible results now.

The CPTPP bid is the only one that requires Cambodia to actively reform rather than passively receive, and it is the one with the weakest institutional momentum. That is where the gap between aspiration and delivery may show first.

Lam Duc Vu is a risk analyst writing on Indo-Pacific security and regional affairs.

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