The World That Was

Adrian Olivier,

Sunday 21 July – Sunday 28 July:

On Sunday, Russia said its warplanes prevented two bomber aircraft belonging to the United States from crossing its border over the Barents Sea in the Arctic. “The crews of the Russian fighters identified the aerial target as a pair of US Air Force B-52H strategic bombers,” Russia’s Defence Ministry wrote on the social media platform Telegram. The ministry said the Russian military scrambled MiG-29 and MiG-31 fighter jets, which identified the U.S. planes as В-52Н strategic bombers. “As the Russian fighter jets approached, the American strategic bombers adjusted their flight course … and subsequently turned away from the state border of the Russian Federation,” the ministry said. The Russian warplanes carried out the flight in compliance with international rules on the use of airspace over neutral waters, it added. The Pentagon did not immediately respond to Russia’s claims.

On Monday, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris began her first full day of campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination following Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 election race. A growing number of Democrats, including Biden, have now endorsed Harris to become the party’s nominee in the November 5 election. Harris said she was going to meet with staff in Wilmington, Delaware, as her push for the Democratic presidential nomination gets into full swing. “One day down. 105 to go,” she wrote on social media. “Together, we’re going to win this.” The Harris campaign has raised significant funds already. “We raised $81 MILLION in the first 24 hours of her campaign,” Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Harris campaign, said in a social media post. “That is the LARGEST 24 hour raise in history.” In a statement, the campaign also said 880,000 donors made contributions in the last day. Sixty percent of those donors were making their first contribution of the 2024 election cycle, it added.

On Monday, the Pentagon announced a new strategy to build up its presence in the Arctic region, which is becoming more contested militarily as climate change drives the melting of sea ice and opens up new passageways. The Defense Department, pushing to counter Russia and China in the Arctic, outlined a new effort that includes a multi-pronged approach: investing in more Icebreaker ships, training forces for the Arctic, investing in regional bases and building out advanced technology for Arctic-based missions such as aircraft and communications infrastructure. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks, in announcing the new strategy, said “this new Arctic strategy is an important step forward in ensuring that the Arctic remains stable and secure, now and into the future.” “The strategic can quickly become tactical, ensuring that our troops have the training, the gear and the operating procedures for the unique arctic environment, [which] could be the difference between mission success and failure,” Hicks said at a press conference. “It is imperative that the joint force is equipped and trained with what they need to operate in the Arctic.” The 2024 Department of Defense Arctic strategy, packaged into a 28-page report, comes a couple of weeks after the U.S. announced the Icebreaker Collaboration Effort, a multibillion-dollar and multiyear pact with Finland and Canada to build more Icebreaker ships that can navigate the region. The Defense Department plan focuses on a strategy to improve sensors, intelligence and information-sharing; engage with allies and partners to strengthen the U.S. presence; and launch more training and exercises in the Arctic to accustom troops to the cold and deploy new technology designed for the icy region. That includes modernizing the network of radars and sensors under the command of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and investing in satellites to provide coverage of the Arctic. The Pentagon also aims to invest in Arctic-specific manned aircraft and drones, along with investments in cold weather equipment and technology to enable troops to deploy in temperatures of minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Iris Ferguson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Arctic and global resilience, whose team crafted the new strategy, said they were looking at the “art of the possible” when it comes to building out new drones and aircraft, including research and development.

On Tuesday, President Biden tested negative for COVID-19 and soon after left isolation to return to the White House. The president took a Binax rapid antigen test and is negative, his doctor, Kevin O’Connor, said in a letter. Biden’s “symptoms have resolved,” he said. Moments before the negative test was announced, Biden’s motorcade left his Rehoboth Beach home to return to the White House. The White House had planned for Biden to return Tuesday afternoon, before the official letter from O’Connor that he was COVID-19 free. O’Connor said that Biden “never manifested a fever” during his infection and that his vital signs “remained normal” and his lungs “clear.” The doctor said he will monitor for any recurrence of illness and keep the White House updated with changes to Biden’s condition. 

On Tuesday, Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned amid bipartisan outrage over her agency’s failure to stop a 20-year-old gunman from opening fire on former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally. Cheatle’s departure came after a congressional hearing in which she offered minimal new information about the July 13 assassination attempt in western Pennsylvania, which marked the Secret Service’s most stunning failure since President Ronald Reagan was shot in 1981. The director vowed to get to the bottom of what she acknowledged was a colossal security lapse, but lawmakers on both sides of the aisle said her assurances didn’t inspire confidence and urged her to step down. Cheatle in an internal email told employees she was resigning “with a heavy heart,” saying she didn’t want calls for her to quit to become a distraction. “The scrutiny over the last week has been intense and will continue to remain as our operational tempo increases,” she wrote. “However, this incident does not define us.” Ronald Rowe, the agency’s deputy director and a 24-year-veteran of the service, will serve as its acting head, Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkassaid. Rowe previously led the Secret Service’s legislative affairs and held a top role in the office of protective operations, a division that oversees the work most commonly associated with the agency. 

On Tuesday, top House leaders from both parties said they were setting up a bipartisan task force to investigate the attempted assassination. The panel, made up of seven Republicans and six Democrats, will have the power to issue subpoenas, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) said. Cheatle in her testimony acknowledged that Crooks had been identified as suspicious more than an hour before the shooting. Pressed by lawmakers, she said that Secret Service agents had received several notifications of a person acting suspiciously.

On Wednesday, Joe Biden gave a 10-minute presidential address from the Oval Office. Biden laid out why he abandoned his reelection campaign, warning about the risk of electing Trump (though he did not mention him by name) and making clear that Kamala Harris is his natural successor. “Americans are going to have to choose between moving forward or backward, between hope and hate, between unity and division,” Biden said. “We have to decide — do we still believe in honesty, decency, respect, freedom, justice and democracy.” That last item — democracy — and defending it is “more important than any title,” Biden said. The president says he’s going to keep working over his final six months in office. He said he’d work to end the war in Gaza, bring home the hostages and try “to bring peace and security to the Middle East and end this war.” He said he is going to continue to work to lower costs for families and defend personal freedoms, keep calling out “hate and extremism” and push to end gun violence. He also said he would continue to work on his initiative to end cancer as we know it and push for Supreme Court reforms. “I’m going to keep working,” he said. 

On Thursday, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis released second-quarter economic numbers which showed that GDP grew at a 2.8% annual rate in the second quarter, boosted by healthy consumer spending. This number was adjusted for seasonality and inflation, the Commerce Department said. That handily beat the 2.1% expected by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal. The second-quarter pace marked a sharp acceleration from a rate of 1.4% in the first quarter. Consumer spending rose at an inflation-adjusted, annualized rate of 2.3% in the second quarter, accelerating from the first quarter when it rose 1.5%. Americans boosted spending on goods. 

On Thursday, Mexican drug kingpin Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada was arrested by U.S. agents after a high-ranking Sinaloa cartel member tricked him into flying to Texas, Mexican and U.S. officials said. Joaquín Guzmán López, the son of imprisoned drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, was on the same plane and also arrested upon landing, a Homeland Security Investigations official said. Zambada, 76, co-founded the Sinaloa cartel three decades ago with the elder Guzmán. He leads a faction of the cartel that is considered the leading smuggler of fentanyl into the U.S. Zambada thought he was going to inspect clandestine airfields in Mexico, but was instead flown to El Paso, Texas, where he and the younger Guzmán were taken into custody on the tarmac, the HSI official said. The joint operation with the Federal Bureau of Investigation had been in the works for months, the official said. 

On Friday, France’s rail network was the target of a major act of sabotage hours before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, bringing services on several high-speed rail lines to a halt in disruptions that are expected to last for days. Officials said fires were set at around 4 a.m. local time at three sites around the country’s rail network in a coordinated and precisely targeted attack. The damage disrupted services on the high-speed lines connecting to Paris from the north, southwest and east. The saboteurs cut and then burned signalling cables, requiring laborious repairs that will take days, officials said. One team of saboteurs targeted a line that serves southeast France but was foiled by rail authorities, officials said. “What we know is that this operation was prepared, coordinated. That nerve centers were targeted—something that shows a level of knowledge of the network to know how to strike,” said Prime Minister Gabriel Attal. The sabotage marks a stunning breach of the sweeping security dragnet that France erected to shield the games from myriad threats, ranging from Islamist terrorist groups to sabotage by far-left activists or adversaries such as Russia or Iran. One French security official said authorities were also examining the possibility that far-left activists were behind the attack. The Paris prosecutor’s office said it opened an investigation on Friday. Western officials and security experts have worried the Kremlin would attempt to disrupt the games to embarrass Macron and the French government. French authorities said Tuesday they arrested and charged a 40-year-old Russian man with planning an operation to sow disorder at the Olympics. Officials suspect it was the latest in a series of operations launched by Moscow to foment unrest in France. Officials said 250,000 travellers were currently affected, and they expected the figure would rise to 800,000 by the end of the weekend. Long lines were forming at London’s St. Pancras International train station as the disruption in France affected Eurostar journeys between Britain and Paris. Several cross-channel services were cancelled and journeys were expected to take longer than usual, a spokesman for the operator said. “The places were chosen specifically to have the heaviest impact,” said Jean-Pierre Farandou, president of the SNCF, France’s state rail company. “This is a sad day.” The government has rolled out the largest peacetime security operation in its history, with more than 70,000 police, soldiers and security guards protecting the events. That is nearly three times as many security personnel as the number deployed for the London Olympics, the last one held in Europe. The banks of the Seine were sealed off to the public a week ahead of the ceremony. Police are also patrolling the city’s catacombs, a maze of underground galleries that contain the bones of millions of Parisians. The saboteurs also struck as millions of people were using the railroads to travel to summer vacation destinations across the country. Many are Parisians who were encouraged to leave the city to make room for the millions of fans visiting the capital for the Olympics. Attal said authorities were working on a plan for alternative transportation.

On Saturday, at least 12 people, including children, were killed when a rocket hit a village in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights Saturday, Israeli officials said, in an attack that has raised fears of a major escalation in the long-running conflict. Israel said it had identified “approximately 30 projectiles” crossing from Lebanon into Israeli territory in a barrage it blamed on the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and described as the deadliest against it since October 7. While the IDF has blamed the attack on Hezbollah, the militant group denied involvement in a statement on Telegram Saturday. “The Islamic Resistance in Lebanon firmly denies the allegations made by some enemy media outlets and various media platforms regarding the targeting of Majdal Shams,” it said. “We confirm that the Islamic Resistance has no connection to the incident whatsoever and firmly denies all false claims in this regard,” the statement continued. Overnight following the attack, Israeli warplanes conducted airstrikes against Hezbollah targets “deep inside Lebanese territory and in southern Lebanon,” according to a statement from the military on Sunday morning. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) hit a series of Hezbollah targets including weapons caches and “terrorist infrastructure,” the statement said. Among the sites hit in the attack was a soccer field where children and teenagers had been playing, IDF spokesperson Daniel Hagari said. He described the barrage as “the deadliest attack on Israeli civilians since October 7.” “This is a very serious incident and we will act accordingly,” he said. Hagari said the rocket that hit the soccer field was a “Falaq 1 Iranian rocket carrying a 50kg warhead.” “This is a model that is owned exclusively by Hezbollah, and tonight it caused the deaths of 12 young boys and girls,” he added. Netanyahu on Saturday announced he was cutting short by several hours his visit to the United States and returning to Israel because of the attack and said he would convene a security cabinet meeting immediately upon his return. The prime minister said he was “shocked” by the attack. “I can say that the State of Israel will not be silent about this. We will not put this off the agenda,” he said. 

On Sunday, President Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey might enter Israel as it had done in the past in Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh, though he did not spell out what sort of intervention he was suggesting. Erdogan, who has been a fierce critic of Israel’s offensive in Gaza, started discussing that war during a speech praising his country’s defence industry. “We must be very strong so that Israel can’t do these ridiculous things to Palestine. Just like we entered Karabakh, just like we entered Libya, we might do similar to them,” Erdogan told a meeting of his ruling AK Party in his hometown of Rize. “There is no reason why we cannot do this … We must be strong so that we can take these steps,” Erdogan added in the televised address. AK Party representatives did not respond to calls asking for more details on Erdogan’s comments. Israel did not immediately make any comment.