Key Reads
Greece, Creditors Dig in After Debt Talks Founder
Renee Maltezou, Andreas Rinke / Reuters
Greece and its creditors hardened their stances on Monday after the collapse of talks aimed at preventing a default and possible euro exit, prompting Germany’s EU commissioner to say the time had come to prepare for a “state of emergency”.
White House, GOP Try to Pick Up the Pieces on Trade
Cristina Marcos / The Hill
House Republican leaders and the White House are trying to figure out how to rebound from a stunning Friday defeat on the House floor that has left President Obama’s trade agenda in limbo.
American Competitiveness
The Trans-Pacific Partnership and a President’s Legacy
Peter Baker / The New York Times
As it turned out, the biggest challenge to securing that legacy has been at home, and not overseas, as Mr. Obama’s fellow Democrats last week shot down legislation crucial to finalizing the trade agreement on the grounds that it would hurt rather than help America.
Iran Welcomes Shell, BP, Total and American Oil Companies
Majid Rafizadeh / Huffington Post
In an unprecedented move, Iranian leaders have welcomed American oil companies to enter Iran, upon the condition that sanctions are lifted. This move suggests that the Islamic Republic is putting its economic interests ahead of its revolutionary ideological interests.
Russian Minister Warns Western Firms over Future Cooperation
Katya Golubkova / Reuters
A Russian minister warned Western energy companies on Monday that they would be frozen out of energy cooperation with Moscow if they take “politically motivated decisions”, an apparent reference to sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.
National Security & Strategy
Russia Says Will Retaliate if U.S. Weapons Stationed on its Borders
Gabriela Baczynska, Wiktor Szary / Reuters
A plan by Washington to station tanks and heavy weapons in NATO states on Russia’s border would be the most aggressive U.S. act since the Cold War, and Moscow would retaliate by beefing up its own forces, a Russian defense official said on Monday.
New Major Hack Hits Spy Agencies, Impact ‘Potentially Devastating’
Cory Bennett / The Hill
Chinese-based hackers have apparently gained access to private security clearance information for millions of intelligence and military personnel, U.S. officials said Friday.
Asymmetric Operations
Islamic State Conflict: Syrian Kurds Move on Tal Abyad
Jim Muir / BBC
Kurdish fighters are reported to be moving in on the north-east Syrian town of Tal Abyad, which is held by Islamic State (IS) militants.
Libya Says ‘Uncatchable’ Veteran Militant Killed in U.S. Strike
Ahmed Elumami, Peter Cooney / Reuters
A veteran Islamist militant blamed for a deadly attack on an Algerian gas field and who ran smuggling routes across North Africa has been killed in a U.S. air strike inside Libya, Libya’s government said on Sunday.
Climate Security
15 Facts About Sea Level Rise That Should Scare the S^*# Out of You
John Sutter / CNN
Climate change gets couched, especially by skeptics, as an intangible, far-off issue. But meet people who are terrified their country — everything they know — will be drowned beneath the waves, and you can see that this is a crisis, and one that must be addressed immediately.
Climate Change Hits New Zealand
Philip Ross / International Business Times
Farmers are expected to bear the brunt of climate change in New Zealand, where global warming is expected to bring hotter summers and severe drought within the coming decades, government officials warned over the weekend.
Energy Security
Mystery Company Blazes a Trail in Fusion Energy
Dylan Cleary / Science Magazine
Last month Tri Alpha lifted the veil slightly with two papers revealing that its device, dubbed the colliding beam fusion reactor, has shown a 10-fold improvement in its ability to contain the hot particles needed for fusion over earlier devices at U.S. universities and national labs.
Oil Falls on Stronger Dollar, Yemen Talks, Libyan Output Boost
Robert Gibbons / Reuters
Crude oil fell on Monday as the Greek debt crisis boosted the dollar and raised concerns about demand for petroleum in Europe, and as the U.N. started talks to try to bring peace to Yemen, where OPEC heavyweight Saudi Arabia is involved in a civil war.
Oil Traders Lose Faith in Rally as OPEC Nations Pump at Records
Mark Shenk / Bloomberg
Speculators reduced bullish wagers on oil to the lowest level in eight weeks as OPEC’s biggest members pumped record amounts of crude.
Nuclear Security
Iran Talks May Continue Past Deadline
Elise Labott, Jeremy Diamond / CNN
Iranian nuclear negotiations are getting increasingly difficult as diplomats stare down a fast-approaching deadline at the end of the month — a deadline officials said may need to be extended.
On Our Flashpoint Blog
Report: Infrastructure Investment Should Be a Republican Priority
Steven Eisen
Republican Main Street Partnership, a centrist Republican organization released a report in June 2015 calling for infrastructure investment to become a republican issue. The report acknowledged that the US is currently not doing enough to improve its infrastructure. Ports are underdeveloped, highways are clogged, as is airspace. This is costing the American economy billions due inefficiency.
Rohingya Migration from Myanmar – A Complex, Cross-Border Challenge
Andrew Holland
One of the largest challenges in the news todays is migration. People leave their home for many reasons, some positive, and some negative. The waves of “boat people” coming from Myanmar – mostly members of the Rohingya minority – are similarly complex.
Sweden’s Prime Minister Löfven Staunchly Defends TTIP While in DC
Mark Melton / American Security Project
On March 31, Sweden’s Prime Minister, Stefan Löfven, spoke at Brookings Institution about how nations could shape globalization, and he made several positive remarks about the possible free trade agreement between the United States and the European Union, known as the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, or TTIP.
Upcoming Events
New York City Event – The American Fusion Project: Scientific Breakthroughs
June 16 @ 12:30pm
As a part of New York’s annual “Energy Week,” the American Security Project, in conjunction with FTI Strategic Communications, is proud to sponsor a lunch on new developments in fusion energy research. It will take place at FTI’s Wall Street Plaza office, 88 Pine Street, 32nd Floor, New York City, NY.
ASP Recently Published
White Paper: Economic Diplomacy
American Security Project
Economic diplomacy is the utilization of all national economic instruments in furtherance of the national interest when engaging with other nations. It is the new frontier of foreign policy in an interconnected world. Principles in Action: Economic Diplomacy as the New Face of American Global Leadership, explains and analyses a variety of U.S. economic diplomacy efforts, and provides key recommendations for improvement.
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