Welcome back to Foreign Policy’s SitRep after what has been an insane news week. A glimmer of good news for Washington insiders? That miserable heat wave we’ve been enduring is over. (For now…)
Alright, here’s what’s on tap for the day: Trump’s vice presidential pick is in, a former top Senate Democrat is convicted of corruption, and North Korea goes online.
In February, top security officials from around the world flocked to Germany for the annual Munich Security Conference. Nearly all attendees were staunch Ukraine supporters—with one notable exception: U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance.
Vance, an avowed MAGA Republican, made waves by casting doubt on continued U.S. aid for Ukraine and pushing peace negotiations with Russia to a (politely) hostile audience. Vance even pointedly refused to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as the rest of the Senate delegation in Munich did.
“There are a lot of bad guys all over the world. And I’m much more interested in some of the problems in East Asia right now than I am in Europe,” Vance said at the time.
Flash-forward to five months later, and Vance is former U.S. President Donald Trump’s new running mate.
Fresh blood. Vance represents a faction of the GOP that is “pushing for a halt to the United States’ foreign adventures,” as we wrote back in 2021, to redirect Washington’s military might to countering China. This faction is a minority in Congress among Republicans, but it is ascendant.
If Trump and Vance win in November, Vance is likely to double down on hawkish policies on China and advocate a halt of U.S. support to Ukraine. During his 2022 campaign for Senate, Vance said that he didn’t care what happened to Ukraine “one way or the other.”
European allies, meanwhile, are showing up in droves at the Republican National Convention (RNC) in Milwaukee this week to make inroads with the Vance camp of the party, as Robbie reports. Around 20 European ambassadors are there.
Unlikely appeal. The Vance pick is being welcomed in one European capital, though: Moscow. Vance has echoed fake stories that Ukrainian officials bought luxury yachts with U.S. aid money, though in other op-eds and public speeches he has clarified that he doesn’t want Russia to win, even as he advocates for cutting off U.S. aid.
“He stands for peace, for cessation of aid [to Ukraine],” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said of the pick at a press conference at the United Nations on Wednesday. “We can only welcome this because, in fact, it is necessary to stop pumping Ukraine with weapons, and the war will end.”
Trump advisors have pushed a peace proposal if he wins the White House that calls for cutting off weapons to Ukraine if it doesn’t agree to peace talks but also notably calls to flood Ukraine with weapons if Russia doesn’t negotiate.
The Vance pick leaves Republican boosters of Ukraine—even those in Trump’s camp—in the potentially awkward position of facing a U.S. administration that might be pushing Kyiv to the negotiating table with Russia without much leverage. “I want to end this war in Ukraine, and it’s going to be a diplomatic solution,” Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally who also frequently visits Kyiv, said at a sideline event at the RNC. “But if [Russian President Vladimir] Putin is seen as being rewarded for dismembering Ukraine, China will get the wrong signal.”
Does it matter? There’s a question of how much a vice presidential pick actually matters for foreign policy. Foreign policy is a sideshow at the RNC in Milwaukee, while domestic policy has driven the agenda, as Vance’s speech to the RNC showed.
Vance didn’t mention Ukraine once during his speech. He went after Biden for his past support of the North American Free Trade Agreement and sending “countless good [American manufacturing] jobs to Mexico.” (The United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that succeeded NAFTA during the first Trump administration is considered a slight update of the Clinton-era deal.)
But foreign policy will still be a theme on the campaign trail. Before Vance spoke on Wednesday night, the RNC called several Gold Star families of U.S. service members killed during the Biden administration’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan to the stage. Several foreign policy-focused events were also organized on the sidelines of the convention.
No matter who the Democratic nominee is—and it seems to be up in the air with doubts in Congress mounting about Biden’s ability to win given voter concerns about his fitness to serve another term—expect Vance to use similar talking points between now and Election Day in November.
Ursula von der Leyen has been reelected as president of the European Commission.
Former National Security Council Senior Director Fiona Hill will join the British government’s review of U.K. defense capabilities, which is being led by former NATO Secretary-General George Robertson.
Patrick Turner will be NATO’s senior representative in Kyiv starting in September, the alliance announced on Tuesday. He was formerly NATO’s assistant secretary-general for operations and a senior civil servant in the British government.
Zygimantas Pavilionis is now the deputy speaker of Lithuania’s Parliament, responsible for European affairs.
What should be high on your radar, if it isn’t already.
Convicted. Sen. Bob Menendez was found guilty in his corruption trial on Tuesday, marking what is expected to be an ignominious end for the longtime lawmaker and former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The jury found Menendez guilty on all 16 counts, including acting as a foreign agent for the Egyptian government, bribery, obstruction of justice, extortion, and conspiracy. Prosecutors said Menendez wielded his role atop the powerful Senate panel to make decisions favorable to Egypt and Qatar in exchange for cash, gold bars, and a Mercedes-Benz for his wife.
The three-term senator, who is (at least for now) still running for reelection in New Jersey as an independent after he was shunned by Democrats, will be sentenced in October and faces decades in jail. He’s also facing losing his state and federal pensions. He is reportedly telling allies he will resign from the Senate.
New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is slated to take over as the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after this election cycle, multiple congressional aides confirmed to SitRep.
Extremely online North Koreans. Some citizens of the Hermit Kingdom are more connected to the worldwide web than one might think, according to a new report on North Korea by the threat intelligence firm Recorded Future.
Despite strict international sanctions on North Korea, researchers at Recorded Future found that people within the country continue to use foreign technology—including devices from Apple, Samsung, Windows, and Huawei—and individuals with internet access use platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), Japan’s LINE, and China’s WeChat. They also “very likely” play video games and watch pornography, the researchers wrote. The report also captured 35 different virtual private network (VPN) services—most commonly used to evade internet censorship and surveillance—interacting with North Korean IP addresses.
While much of this isn’t new information, Recorded Future said it’s the first snapshot of North Korean internet behavior without any foreigners in the country who may skew the data, as it was compiled after the reclusive regime expelled all foreign visitors during the COVID-19 pandemic. It also shows the regime’s continued ability to get around Western sanctions.
“North Koreans will likely continue to acquire foreign technology despite sanctions imposed on North Korea due to its ongoing trade relations with China and Russia, limiting the future effectiveness of outside actions.”—Rishi Iyengar
Kaspersky shuts U.S. operations. The prominent Russian-owned cybersecurity firm Kaspersky announced this week that it would wind down all its operations in the United States, less than a month after the U.S. Department of Commerce banned it from selling its services to U.S. customers, citing potential threats to national security.
Kaspersky said in a statement on Thursday that it will start closing down its U.S. operations and terminate all U.S.-based employees from July 20 onward in order to comply with the Commerce Department’s September deadline. The company is going out on a defiant note, however. “Kaspersky maintains that the U.S. Department of Commerce decision was based on the geopolitical climate rather than on the evaluation of the integrity of the company’s solutions and deprives U.S. users and companies of best in class protection,” the statement said.—Rishi Iyengar
“Before you know it, you have a bright future behind you and you are left wondering whether you can credibly be an older statesman at the age of 44.”
—Former British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gives advice to his successor, Keir Starmer, in Sunak’s first official speech as the U.K.’s opposition leader in Parliament on Wednesday. He’s set to be replaced as leader of the Conservative Party in the coming weeks after the party’s major election loss.
Thursday, July 18: Trump is set to accept his party’s nomination on the final day of the RNC in Milwaukee.
Britain hosts the European Political Community’s fourth annual summit at Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire. The Pacific Islands Leaders meeting wraps up in Japan.
Sunday, July 21: The foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, are set to start a six-day meeting in Laos.
Monday, July 22: Biden is set to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. The 80th anniversary of the Bretton Woods Conference is marked.
Wednesday, July 24: Netanyahu is set to address a joint session of the U.S. Congress.
“Freedom of speech is not for children. Go away.”
—Polish Law and Justice party leader and former Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski responds to a question from 12-year-old reporter Sara Malecka-Trzaskos, the youngest accredited journalist in the country’s parliament.
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