Fdd's overnight brief

Israel

Israel’s election next week may change its leader, but not its strategy: Iran will remain its chief adversary, military force will continue to be its preferred tool and Palestinian statehood a ​distant prospect, regional policymakers and analysts say. – Reuters

President Isaac Herzog is backing senior IDF commanders in taking decisive action against violent extremist settler attacks in the West Bank, he told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. – Jerusalem Post

The Transportation Ministry has notified United Airlines on Wednesday that one of its pilots has been barred from entry to Israel as a crew member because of his history of Iranian sympathies. – Jerusalem Post

IDF soldiers and Border Police officers mapped the residence of the terrorist responsible for a September 23 ramming attack at the Bell checkpoint on Route 443 in the West Bank, the military confirmed on Wednesday, noting that the mapping occured overnight. – Jerusalem Post

Israel condemned on Wednesday a decision by divided Libya’s eastern-based parliament to ratify a memorandum of understanding with Turkey on maritime demarcations in the Mediterranean. – Times of Israel

Russia and Ukraine

Steve Witkoff’s salute of Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “humanitarian” on Wednesday shocked Ukraine and its supporters, but it didn’t surprise close watchers of Witkoff’s handling of the Russia file. – Wall Street Journal

Russian authorities released a former American schoolteacher who was imprisoned in the early days of Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, in a sign of warming ties between the Trump administration and Moscow. – Wall Street Journal

A senior Ukrainian commander said he had dozens of armed drones soaring toward Russian military targets last week when, all at once, the video feeds streaming their flight paths went fuzzy. – New York Times

Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to resume US-mediated peace talks with Ukraine as soon as next month, ​the Kremlin said on Wednesday, after Putin met US envoy Steve Witkoff in Washington’s latest push to stop Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War Two. – Reuters

Russia has deepened a crackdown on European companies in response to Europe’s support for Ukraine, while largely sparing US firms as Moscow courts business ties with Washington, Russian officials and US ​business people said. – Reuters

Missiles struck Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday, a Reuters witness said, and Ukraine sent hundreds of ​drones towards Moscow overnight, as the two sides kept up a barrage of ‌attacks despite the latest US mediation attempts to end the war. – Reuters

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Ukraine supported a US proposal ​for three-way talks with Russia and the United ‌States at the level of negotiators to be held as soon as possible, preferably no later than early November. – Reuters

Russia prides itself on its digital advances — from an extensive e-commerce services sector to ambitious plans for developing artificial intelligence. – Associated Press

Tensions between Poland and Ukraine flared up after a major city council voted to dedicate the year 2027 to the memory of controversial World War II-era Ukrainian fighters. – Bloomberg

Nato will allow Ukraine to buy weapons, ammunition and military equipment via its centralised procurement agency, potentially allowing Kyiv to obtain defence supplies faster and more cheaply. – Financial Times

Editorial: Mr. Putin is raining death in missiles and jet drones from the air on women and children on a nightly basis. He is helping Iran target and kill Americans in the Middle East. He wants to help China break U.S. alliances in Europe, the Middle East and the Pacific. Give Mr. Trump credit for the release of Mr. Hubbard. And a Kremlin foreign affairs official said Wednesday, after meetings with Mr. Witkoff, that Mr. Putin has agreed to return to negotiations with Ukraine next month. But we have heard this before. We’ll believe in a new era of peaceful coexistence with Russia when the Kremlin ends its relentless hostility to U.S. interests, including its resort to hostage geopolitics. – Wall Street Journal

David Ignatius writes: The signs from the Kremlin were “positive,” Zelensky told reporters. In the November talks, he said, “the agenda, naturally, is to end the war, bring peace closer, and — as I understand it — lay the groundwork for a meeting at the level of the leaders.” Still, despite the encouraging talk in St. Petersburg, my fear is that Putin may be leading Americans down a path of delay with hints of concessions that he is not actually prepared to make. But for now, at least, Putin is in the hot seat. If in the end he quits the peace process that began in St. Petersburg, everyone will know whom to blame. – Washington Post

Ludovic Hood writes: Beijing has also reportedly pressed for gas through the proposed Power of Siberia-2 pipeline to be priced near Russia’s domestic rate. This has deadlocked a project that the Kremlin needs far more than Xi does.  Treating Putin like a loser does not mean underestimating him. Putin may well outlast his country’s decline. That is the case for deterrence, not concessions. Russia is not a peer to be courted but a declining, dangerous power to be contained. Every month the West keeps up the pressure, the bill for Putin’s war grows — a bill he cannot pay without Beijing and cannot escape by being invited back into the club. – The Hill

Lebanon

French President Emmanuel Macron said Wednesday that his country would organize a conference to support the Lebanese army after Israeli elections this month, decrying what he called untenable pressure on Beirut. – Agence-France Presse

Hezbollah is rebuilding its military capabilities in Beirut, while the IDF is preparing for the possibility of renewed fighting with the terrorist organization if it attacks the Israeli home front during an escalation involving Iran, a security official told Walla on Wednesday. – Jerusalem Post

Washington must urge Beirut to repeal Lebanon’s 1955 Boycott Law, which criminalizes social and business ties with Israel, and ensure that Hezbollah does not regain the explosives seized from the group several weeks ago, the American Mideast Coalition for Democracy said in an open letter to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Monday. – Jerusalem Post

Middle East & North Africa

Oil rose and Asian equities were lower as the spotlight returned to Middle East geopolitical developments after artificial-intelligence jitters eased. Oil strengthened early Thursday amid concerns over a re-escalation of the Middle East conflict. – Wall Street Journal

Senior UAE diplomat Lana Nusseibeh entered the race ​to become the next United Nations secretary-general on Wednesday, injecting a prominent Middle Eastern candidate into a contest that has ‌struggled to produce a consensus choice among the Security Council’s most powerful members. – Reuters

Egypt’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday rejected the maritime boundaries deal that Libya’s eastern parliament ratified with Turkey, saying in a statement that the ​ratification will have no legal impact on Cairo. – Reuters

A Tunisian military court sentenced opposition politician Olfa Hamdi to four years in ​prison on charges of plotting against state ‌security and inciting the military to disobey orders, her lawyer said on Wednesday, the latest move against opponents of ​President Kais Saied. – Reuters

President Emmanuel Macron said France will receive liquefied natural gas from Qatar during the winter months and will work to lower fuel transport costs from the Persian Gulf as it seeks to curb soaring energy prices. – Bloomberg

Noam Raydan writes: The new gas platform is expected to begin operations by mid-2027, and implementation will require close monitoring given its importance to both Iraq’s energy security and U.S. energy priorities—especially if military tensions persist in the Strait of Hormuz. Meanwhile, some U.S. and Iraqi officials have been encouraging the construction of pipelines to neighboring countries, including to the Syrian port of Baniyas. The idea is to give Iraq a second outlet for its southern exports and avoid overreliance on the Hormuz route. Yet it is unclear whether Baghdad can overcome the financial, political, and bureaucratic hurdles encountered with past pipeline plans, and the Syrian project would require several years to complete even if it does get off the ground. – Washington Institute

South Asia

China has tried to mediate, unsuccessfully. So have Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. And yet the conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan shows no sign of ending, and each side appears to have abandoned diplomacy. Proxy groups are also playing a growing role in the fighting. – New York Times

An Indian court on Wednesday ordered the release of two “cockroach” movement leaders, local media reported, after ​they were detained last week for demonstrating at a ‌historic protest venue in violation of a ban. – Reuters

Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani and his son Anant Ambani held discussions ​with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio about ‌the global energy landscape and the intersection of energy and digital infrastructure, including data centres, the Ambani-run Reliance Industries said on ​Wednesday. – Reuters

Sadanand Dhume writes: Mr. Ambani also enhances India’s geopolitical clout. On Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio called India “a refining superpower” ahead of a meeting the following day with Mr. Ambani in Jamnagar, in the state of Gujarat, where Reliance has built the world’s largest oil refinery—one of the few facilities that can efficiently process Venezuelan crude oil. Reliance is also backing the construction of a massive refinery to process shale oil in Brownsville, Texas. Starlink is available in more than 160 countries. Perhaps it will be available in India one day. But if Mr. Musk wants to compete with the Ambani family in providing internet access to Indians, he will need to rethink his approach to public diplomacy. – Wall Street Journal

David Fickling writes: Musk’s Starlink can promise capability, but not local control. OneWeb offers some leverage via Mittal’s shareholding, but has far more limited ability to invest. Ambani might offer the best of both worlds: A willingness to spend on a SpaceX-style scale, combined with $164 billion of assets on the ground in India that could give New Delhi influence it could never have over Starlink and Starshield. That’s a decisive point in favor of Reliance and Jio. Countries have no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. That’s as true in space as it is on the ground. – Bloomberg

Europe

French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday criticized foreign leaders he said were using France’s unrest for their own political purposes, making “unacceptable and even stupid comments.” – Washington Post

Young Spaniards and Portuguese have pitched tents in their countries’ capitals to protest high rents. French and Italian students have marched en masse for better school conditions in demonstrations marred by looters. – New York Times

Germany’s armed forces classified the threat of ​Russian sabotage against their own troops and facilities as “significant” for the first time, the ‌second-highest level on their internal threat scale, according to a Bundeswehr assessment reported by German broadcasters WDR and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung on Wednesday. – Reuters

Sweden is examining whether it can refuse visas to Russian and Belarusian athletes seeking to ​compete in international sporting events on its soil, the country’s migration minister told Reuters on Wednesday, ‌potentially blocking competitors cleared to take part by their governing bodies. – Reuters

Hungary is considering replacing Russia’s Rosatom as the main contractor in the expansion of its Paks nuclear power plant and has ​started sounding out alternative suppliers as part of a review of the project, two people said. – Reuters

Slovakia will discuss Russian energy supplies in Moscow next week, resuming a cooperation process suspended after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, in the latest sign of divergence from its ​European Union and NATO allies. – Reuters

The European Public ‌Prosecutor’s Office raided on Wednesday the European Parliament premises of the Patriots for Europe far-right grouping, which includes several major political movements, as part of a ​funding probe. – Reuters

Germany’s financial regulator ​BaFin said on Thursday it ‌had revoked the license of Bank Saderat Iran’s Hamburg branch and was ​ordering its liquidation in the ​wake of sanctions. – Reuters

Paris Police banned protests and demonstrations in some areas of the city on Thursday, including around the presidential palace, along the Champs-Elysées and near other tourist sites, citing the risk of violence. – Bloomberg

Bulgarian shipbroker Yordan Petrov no longer sends his vessels into the Black Sea, calling the brave few who still do “kamikazes.” Seven commercial ships have been attacked by Russian drones off the coast of Bulgaria and Romania since the start of October. – Bloomberg

Italian officials are looking into whether outside actors such as Russia had a hand in violent protests that swept Milan and other European cities over the weekend, according to people familiar with the matter. – Bloomberg

Norway sees the European Union’s new Arctic strategy rewarding its intense lobbying efforts over polar oil drilling. The text of the strategy, presented on Tuesday in Strasbourg, no longer contains the highly contested word “moratorium,” to the satisfaction of Energy Minister Terje Aasland. – Bloomberg

The Polish parliament’s historic decision to ease the country’s strict abortion laws is likely to be struck down by President Karol Nawrocki, according to his aide. – Bloomberg

French Finance Minister Roland Lescure said he was confident France would be able to pass a budget for next year, citing the constitutional levers the government holds should parliament be unable to agree on a bill. – Bloomberg

Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni heads into next year’s election with no plans to broaden her coalition to include the new far-right National Future party, said one of the co-founders of her Brothers of Italy party. – Bloomberg

Barcelona’s former mayor Ada Colau on Wednesday accused U.S. President Donald Trump of barring her from a summit in Puerto Rico over her pro-Palestinian activism. – Politico

Germany’s foreign ministry summoned Iran’s ambassador after a German court convicted two men of spying for Tehran and plotting attacks on a leader of the country’s Jewish community and a prominent non-Jewish supporter of Israel. – Times of Israel

Ariella Noveck writes: This incident should serve as a warning because it captures how antisemitism often operates today. Jews are told they are welcome until their Jewish identity becomes visible, until Israel enters the conversation, or until someone decides their presence might be controversial. “Seventy rooms had been booked. Seventy people had been welcomed as guests,” Cohen said in Dublin. “The only thing that changed was what they were understood to be.” That is the heart of this story. A welcome that disappears once people are understood to be Jewish was never a welcome at all. – Washington Examiner

Philip Levy writes: The court faces a stark choice. It can continue its current course, risking further isolation and the loss of support from major global powers. Or it can undertake a profound, transparent review of its governance, the conduct of former officials, and its operational mandate. Without that transformation, the ICC risks being seen permanently not as an independent court but as a political instrument. That would signal the end of an era of international accountability that began at the turn of the century. The future of international justice itself is at stake. – Jerusalem Post 

Kersti Kaljulaid writes: The risk of inaction is clear from the headlines in the news. Intergenerational hopelessness brings revolutions. Even if people see that the proposals of populists or extremists are not going to work, they want to break the old system because it has failed them and their children. They have little to lose. But destroying the system will make it impossible to create widespread progress or face communal challenges such as climate change. That is the real downward spiral we must all avoid. – Foreign Policy

The Americas

Venezuela’s government says 6,509 people died in the back-to-back earthquakes in June. But calculations from multiple sources, including a New York Times analysis of residential buildings and the U.S. Geological Survey, indicate that this is likely a severe undercount. – New York Times

British billionaire and Virgin Group owner Richard Branson said on Wednesday that Venezuela will attract more foreign ​investors once the country holds elections, as the ‌South American nation seeks to boost capital inflows in sectors like oil and gas. – Reuters

Brazilian presidential candidate Senator Flavio Bolsonaro imposed conditions on Wednesday to disclose his bank, tax and telephone records after a challenge from President Luiz ​Inacio Lula da Silva, his opponent in Sunday’s election runoff. – Reuters

Tech giant Meta said Tuesday it has complied with an order from Brazil’s electoral court for it to give equal treatment in its platforms to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and opposition candidate Flávio Bolsonaro before Sunday’s presidential runoff. – Associated Press

Brazil’s Supreme Court has suspended an environmental permit for a major gold mining project in the Amazon rainforest, dealing a setback to a Canadian company’s plans to develop an open-pit mine along a river already affected by one of the country’s largest hydroelectric dams. – Associated Press

Colombia’s President Abelardo de la Espriella replaced his interior minister after a setback over next year’s budget raised questions over his government’s ability to advance its fiscal agenda and reassure investors over the nation’s finances. – Bloomberg

Argentine President Javier Milei waded into Spain’s election during a visit to Madrid, attacking Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and backing the leader of far-right Vox. – Bloomberg

United States

New York Democrat Brad Lander said he was briefly detained and released by the Israeli military while he was supporting Palestinian farmers during an olive harvest in the occupied West Bank. – Wall Street Journal

Nicolas Maduro is one of just a handful of people to be charged in the US with violating a federal law criminalizing torture committed overseas, a Reuters review of court records found, as prosecutors seek to broaden their criminal case against the ousted Venezuelan president. – Reuters

The US Treasury Department imposed sanctions on Wednesday on Karnakis & Karnakis, a law firm ​based in Greece and Panama, saying it had for ‌years provided legal assistance to Iranian shipping networks. – Reuters

A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a Guatemalan man extradited to the U.S. over his role in a 2022 human smuggling attempt that ended in the deaths of 53 migrants who had been transported in a sweltering tractor-trailer in Texas. – Associated Press

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz urged US President Donald Trump to reconsider his decision not to invite South Africa to the Group of 20 in Miami in December. – Bloomberg

Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended the Trump administration’s support for Ukraine, saying the nation “would not exist” without US backing. – Bloomberg

Peter Rough and Ulrich Speck write: By correcting the balance of burden-sharing between Europe and the US, creating a common technological-economic space, and building a triangular relationship connecting the US, Asia, and Europe, the West would not only deter Putin and Xi from following their worst instincts. The US, Europe, and their Asian partners would also unchain the productive forces that could lead humanity into a new golden age. – Hudson Institute 

Rebecca Lissner and Turner Ruggi write: Washington should also seek greater nuclear coordination within and beyond NATO. One option would be to establish a mechanism linking the NATO Nuclear Planning Group with the French-led bilateral nuclear steering groups. […] The Trump administration is right that the traditional division of responsibility for European security was unsustainable. But NATO 3.0 rests on an unworkable and dangerous partition between conventional and nuclear capabilities, one that runs counter to the lessons of history and deterrence theory. A phased, consultative redistribution of responsibilities would better preserve deterrence, shift burdens, and protect U.S. influence. Pull back too quickly, and Washington risks leaving behind a weaker NATO and an emboldened Russia eager to test its seams. – Foreign Policy 

Defense

The head of the U.S. Army formation leading the charge for fielding the service’s next-gen command-and-control system said Oct. 13 that the timeline of implementing the tech hinged on factors above his pay grade. – Defense News

The U.S. Air Force says it needs 1,509 combat-coded fighters, or jets assigned to combat units, by 2035, according to a new force structure report the service sent to Congress Oct. 16. – Defense News

The Marine Corps announced a new licensing agreement that allows all commands and organizations across the service, including the reserves, to access the Maven Smart System, or MSS, through any applicable network. – Defense News

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has reportedly loaned the military’s so-called “heat ray” to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), handing civilian law enforcement a crowd-control weapon the Pentagon developed two decades ago. – Military.com 

A bipartisan group of 17 former senior national security officials, diplomats and intelligence professionals filed a legal brief on Tuesday urging the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit to rehear Anthropic’s challenge to the Pentagon’s designation of the company as a supply-chain risk. – Defensescoop