Recommended Weekend Reads

October 6 - 8, 2023

Here are our recommended reads from reports and articles we read in the last week. We hope you find these useful and that you have a relaxing weekend.   And let us know if you or someone you know wants to be added to our distribution list.

United States

• “Support for Third U.S. Political Party Up to 63%”  Gallup

  Sixty-three percent of U.S. adults currently agree with the statement that the Republican and Democratic parties do “such a poor job” of representing the American people that “a third major party is needed.” This represents a seven-percentage-point increase from a year ago and is the highest since Gallup first asked the question in 2003. However, the current measure is not meaningfully different from the prior highs of 61% in 2017 and 62% in 2021, shortly after the January 2021 Capitol Hill riots.

 China 

• “China’s Law of the Sea”   War on the Rocks

  In this podcast, Isaac Kardon, author of China’s Law of the Sea: The New Rules of Maritime Order, discusses how the Chinese Communist Party thinks about maritime sovereignty and how it applies to individual disputes in its surrounding seas, and what it means for the US and its allies – and for overall global supply routes.

• “Microsoft Digital Defense Report”  Microsoft Corporation

  Microsoft’s latest report detailing major cyber-attacks globally reveals that Chinese hackers are increasingly turning their efforts toward espionage-related breaches of critical networks in Taiwan.   The report goes on to report Russia and China “this year pivoted away from high-volume destructive attacks and instead directed the bulk of their activity toward cyber espionage.”  

Italy

• “Has Italy’s Right-Wing Leader Left Fascism Behind?   Der Spiegel

• Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni began her career as a fan of Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini.  Her domestic policies are considered nationalist by many observers.  But on the international stage, she plays a moderate.  Who is the real Meloni?

Russia/Ukraine

• “Assessing the Russia-Iran Partnership”  Rand Corporation

  The ongoing war in Ukraine has cast new light on the strategic partnership between Russia and Iran. Since February 2022, Russia and Iran have increased their defense and economic cooperation and publicly explored options that could transform the relationship into a broad-based strategic partnership. To inform assessments of the implications of Iranian military assistance to Russia, the authors of this Perspective describe the factors that drive Russian-Iranian cooperation and examine how the relationship might evolve. First, they briefly survey Russian-Iranian relations prior to February 2022 and describe Tehran's initial response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Next, they examine how the relationship has evolved since the summer of 2022 and explore how the conflict has led to the deepening of ties between the two countries. Lastly, they identify indicators that U.S. analysts and military planners can use to assess the degree of cohesion within the Russian-Iranian relationship as it evolves.

• “Should the West Threaten the Putin Regime Over Ukraine?”  The New Yorker

   Noted historian Stephen Kotkin, who has authored the award-winning three-volume biography of Josef Stalin, speaks of the possibility of a Russian “Tet Offensive” that could alter the course of the American elections. He also questioned the Biden Administration’s seeming decision to “take regime change”—a threat to Putin’s rule—“off the table.

• “Russia’s Crimean Red Line has Been Erased”  Foreign Policy

  In December 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin stood in the middle of the Kremlin’s St. George’s Hall, delivering his annual address to the country’s Federal Assembly. Nine months removed from his formal annexation of Crimea, the Russian president unspooled a historical overview of Crimea’s supposed importance to the Russian body politic.  Crimea, as Putin claimed, was far more than simply a wayward chunk of rightfully Russian land. Rather, the peninsula was the “spiritual source” of the entire Russian nation—a province that presented “invaluable civilizational and even sacral importance” for all Russians.  Few in Russia disagreed.  But now, as Ukraine unleashes near-daily assaults on the peninsula, the notion that Crimea presents some kind of Temple Mount—or even any kind of red line—for Russians has crumbled.

Chart of the Week

Former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy’s Tenure is the 3rd Shortest in U.S. History

Washington is still gasping at the ejection of Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) from the Speakership of the U.S. House of Representatives this past week.  It was a short tenure – but not the shortest historically.  McCarthy comes in 3rd place.  The shortest tenure was in 1869 when Representative Theodore M. Pomeroy (R-NY) served one day.  The reason he only served one day was that then-Speaker of the House, Schuyler Colfax (R-IN), stepped down to be sworn in as Vice President (Ulysses S. Grant was President).  The House voted in Pomeroy as Speaker as a symbolic honor for him, and he retired the next day.   

Interestingly, while in office, Pomeroy concurrently served as an attorney for the Merchants Union Express Company in 1866 (back then, you could be a congressman and hold down another job).  Merchants went on to merge with American Merchants Union, now known as American Express. Pomeroy stayed on and served as First Vice President and General Counsel, along with the American Merchants Union co-founder, William Fargo (who also founded Wells Fargo), and his brother, James Fargo (who went on to serve for 30 years as the CEO of American Express).

Representative Michael Kerr (D-IN) comes in second for holding the Speakership for the shortest period of time.  He was also the first Democratic Speaker of the House after the Civil War.  He was also a staunch “War Democrat” (a Democrat who supported the Union in the U.S. Civil War).  He died in office from Tuberculosis after the first session of the 44th Congress.