Distinction Matter - Subscribed Feeds

Via EurasiaNet.org,

• Russia's invasion of Ukraine has reanimated US and EU interest in Central Asia.

• China has eclipsed Russia as the region's largest trade partner.

• Central Asian trade is diversifying away from Russia and towards the West.

The Great Game is playing out once again in Central Asia, but it is getting a new name and adopting a different set of rules. Economics, not politics, is defining the terms of the current superpower competition for regional influence, according to a report prepared by a Kazakh research institute. 

There is a key difference governing the global rivalries in Central Asia in the 19th and 21st centuries: these days, regional states, not outsiders, wield the more influence over potential outcomes, according to the report, titled Pursuing Multi-Vectorism Through Business Diplomacy: The Path for Central Asia. The report was published by the Talap Center for Applied Research. 

“The region, previously the theater of the Great Game in the confrontation of superpowers, is now trying to become an opportunity zone,” the report states.

Russia’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine in 2022, and the imposition of Western sanctions to punish Russian aggression, changed Central Asia’s geopolitical dynamics by reanimating US and European Union interest in the region. By extension, Russia’s actions encouraged the diversification of trade and investment, changing East-West trade patterns connecting China and Europe. Sanctions have diminished the utility of the Northern Corridor via the trans-Siberian railway, while providing impetus for the growth of the Middle Corridor via Central Asia.

These changes have shifted Central Asia’s center of geo-economic gravity. China has eclipsed Russia as the region’s largest trade partner, while the overall trend is toward diversification of trade partners. The West’s share of Central Asian trade under the present dynamic is set to keep rising.

“The trade and investment dynamics in the region show a significant shift of diversification with non-traditional markets of Europe, North America, South Asia, and the Middle East since 2022,” the Talap report notes.

“This has become possible due to a traditional, multi-vector policy for the region, which, under the stress of escalating conflicts, was transformed into a policy of emphatic non-alignment – a firm rejection of any involvement in the conflict.”

The report notes that the contacts between the European Union and Central Asian states have “have gained a special dynamism” since the start of the Russia-Ukraine war.

It also notes that public opinion in the region indicates that a majority of regional residents do not want to get dragged into the confrontation between the West and Russia, which is supported by China. 

The prevailing circumstances have forced Central Asian states to “balance a genuine interest in developing their ties with the Western world while being surrounded by Iran, Afghanistan, China, and Russia, countries with which the West has strained and even tense relations,” the report says.

Maximizing economic multi-vectorism will require some work by Central Asian governments to enhance the predictability of the regional business climate. Vaguely defined trade rules and property rights, along with the unreliability of regional judicial systems, remain big impediments to Western investment. The lack of mechanisms to enforce contracts or resolve corporate disputes also constitutes an investment barrier. In addition to bolstering the independence of the judicial system, the Talap report recommends reforms to regional tax codes to foster more “equitable” business environments. 

“The investment climate in Central Asia reflects a difficult balance between the determination of governments to take advantage of growing interest in the region and the inertia of institutional barriers,” the report states.

“To take advantage of these opportunities, the countries of the region have to address existing institutional and regulatory barriers for both domestic and international companies and investors, strengthen the rule of law, enforce fair and open competition, implement business friendly tax regulations, and align trade, customs and logistical standards.”

Authored by Paul Craig Roberts,

I have several times reported the same...

Nixon was removed because he was making arms limitation agreements with the Soviets and opening to China.

This was normalizing the enemy that the military/security complex needed for its budget and power.

It was for the same reason that President Kennedy was assassinated by the military/security complex.

The growing suspicion about Kennedy’s assassination meant that the military/security complex could not risk a second violent assassination, so Nixon was politically assassinated.

The same strategy was applied to Trump.

When Trump said he intended to normalize relations with Russia, he presented himself as the same threat to the military-security complex as Kennedy and Nixon.

That is what Russiagate was about, and what documentsgate, Jan 6 Insurrection, and two failed impeachments are all about.

When Russiagate and the impeachments failed, they decided to steal the election.

When Trump’s support survived all of this, they decided on the indictments.

In the least, the indictments will keep Trump off the campaign circuit and use up his resources in legal fees.

It is the determination and ability of the military/security complex to protect its budget and power that makes peace impossible and wars our way of life...

Watch Tucker Carlson discuss this below (with key quotes via @CollinRugg):

“Richard Nixon was taken out by the FBI and CIA, and with the help of Bob Woodward.”

“[Woodward] was that guy. And who is his main source for Watergate? Oh, the number two guy at the FBI. Oh, so you have the naval intelligence officer working with the FBI official to destroy the president. Okay. So that's a deep state coup.”

“Richard Nixon was elected by more votes than any president in American history in the 1972 election.”

“The most popular president in his reelection campaign, and two years later, he's gone, undone by a naval intel officer, the number two guy at the FBI and a bunch of CIA employees.”

“You tell me what that is. Those are the facts. Those are not disputed facts.”

NEW: Tucker Carlson explains how the FBI and CIA conducted a coup to take out President Richard Nixon with help from journalist Bob Woodward.

“Richard Nixon was taken out by the FBI and CIA, and with the help of Bob Woodward.”

“[Woodward] was that guy. And who is his main… pic.twitter.com/K8Yt9zy9Qk

The US Air Force's hot pursuit of drone wingmen, known as collaborative combat aircraft, flying alongside piloted stealth fighter jets such as the Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II and Lockheed Martin F-22 Raptor, is a major effort to modernize its fleet and advance defensive and offensive capabilities in a world erupting into chaos.  

On Wednesday, the USAF announced that Palmer Luckey's defense tech startup Anduril and General Atomics Aeronautical Systems were selected to build and test wingmen drones for the next phase of the CCA program. This means the pool of competitors has shrunk from five to two, eliminating Boeing, Lockheed Martin, and Northrop Grumman. We don't think the military is ready for 737 Max drones. 

"The companies not selected to build these production representative CCA vehicles, and execute the flight test program, will continue to be part of the broader industry partner vendor pool consisting of more than 20 companies to compete for future efforts, including future production contracts," the service wrote in a press release. 

USAF wants to deploy more than 1,000 wingmen drones that can carry out a wide range of missions, including electronic warfare, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and dogfighting. 

Commenting on the announcement, Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said the CCA started "just over two years ago" as part of his "Operational Imperatives, to pursue collaborative combat aircraft."

"The progress we've made is a testament to the invaluable collaboration with industry, whose investment alongside the Air Force has propelled this initiative forward. It's truly encouraging to witness the rapid execution of this program," Kendall said.

General Atomics has pitched the Air Force on its autonomous collaborative drone known as "Gambit." 

While Anduril has submitted a high-performance autonomous air vehicle called "Fury."

"There is no time to waste on business as usual," Anduril chief executive Brian Schimpf said in a release, adding, "With the CCA program, Sec. Kendall and the Air Force have embraced a fast-moving, forward-looking approach to field autonomous systems at speed and scale. ... Anduril is proud to pave the way for other non-traditional defense companies to compete and deliver on large-scale programs."

We've been saying for years that the next major conflict will be fought with hypersonic weapons and drones. And that's precisely the technology being used in Ukraine. 

Luckey's startup, Anduril, aims to cement America's lead in the military technology race, as the bloated military-industrial complex risks blowing the lead. 

"We need a new breed of defense technology companies to reboot the arsenal of democracy," Anduril states on its website.

Ivy League institutions are renowned worldwide for their academic excellence and long-standing traditions. But how hard is it to get into one of the top universities in the U.S.?

In this graphic, Visual Capitalist's Marcus Lu details the admission rates and average annual cost for Ivy League schools, as well as the median SAT scores required to be accepted. The data comes from the National Center for Education Statistics and was compiled by 24/7 Wall St.

Note that “average annual cost” represents the net price a student pays after subtracting the average value of grants and/or scholarships received.

Harvard is the Most Selective

The SAT is a standardized test commonly used for college admissions in the United States. It’s taken by high school juniors and seniors to assess their readiness for college-level academic work.

When comparing SAT scores, Harvard and Dartmouth are among the most challenging universities to gain admission to. The median SAT scores for their students are 760 for reading and writing and 790 for math. Still, Harvard has half the admission rate (3.2%) compared to Dartmouth (6.4%).

*Costs after receiving federal financial aid.

Additionally, Dartmouth has the highest average annual cost at $33,000. Princeton has the lowest at $11,100.

While student debt has surged in the United States in recent years, hitting $1.73 trillion in 2023, the worth of obtaining a degree from any of the schools listed surpasses mere academics. This is evidenced by the substantial incomes earned by former students.

Harvard grads, for example, have the highest average starting salary in the country, at $91,700.

Authored by Joseph M. Hanneman via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

A federal judge in Washington D.C. has denied seven motions from a defendant seeking to identify FBI agents in Jan. 6 crowds and gain access to undercover videos shot by Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) officers, at least one of whom incited the crowds at the U.S. Capitol.

Former FBI special agent John Guandolo (center) with two possible active FBI special agents at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (Illustration by The Epoch Times, U.S. Capitol Police/Graphic by The Epoch Times)

In a 22-page order, U.S. District Judge Rudolph Contreras ruled against William Pope on a range of motions filed in his Jan. 6 criminal case since May 2023.

Judge Contreras partially granted a government cross-motion to modify the evidence protective order in the case. “I now have the most restricted discovery access conditions of any Jan 6 defendant,” Mr. Pope wrote on X.

“All I’m asking for is a fair fight in court, but he’s denying me rights to defend myself Pro Se that aren’t denied to attorneys,” Mr. Pope told The Epoch Times in a statement. “Even though some January 6 attorneys have filed highly sensitive materials as public exhibits, or leaked them on social media, I have not released a single sensitive or highly sensitive file governed by the protective order.”

Mr. Pope, 38, publisher of the news website Free State Kansas, was at the Capitol on Jan. 6, covering the protest and subsequent violence.

Federal prosecutors charged him with civil disorder, corruptly obstructing an official proceeding, entering and remaining in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly and disruptive conduct in a restricted building or grounds, impeding ingress or egress in a restricted building or grounds, disorderly conduct in a Capitol building, impeding passage through the Capitol grounds or buildings, and parading, demonstrating, or picketing in a Capitol building.

He faces a July 22 trial.

Sought FBI Agents

Mr. Pope most recently asked the court to compel federal prosecutors to identify all FBI special agents or other employees who were “material witnesses” at the Capitol on Jan. 6 and produce “all photographs, videos, and records related to their presence.”

In that motion, Mr. Pope cited two suspected FBI agents who attended Jan. 6 events at the Capitol with former special agent John Guandolo, who once served as the Bureau’s liaison with U.S. Capitol Police.

Mr. Guandolo “has said in interviews that he was with several active-duty FBI agents on January 6, and that he and those agents have been interviewed by the FBI regarding their observations,” Mr. Pope wrote in his Feb. 12 motion.

One of the men was seen on security video clapping enthusiastically as a large crowd of protesters rushed up the east steps to the Columbus Doors. “Oh, oh, oh man, this is huge,” the man said, heard on Mr. Guandolo’s cell phone video that showed the crowd ascending the steps.

The other suspected agent was seen on Capitol Police security video meeting with an FBI SWAT team shortly after its BearCat tactical vehicle rolled onto the House Plaza at about 2:30 p.m. Twenty minutes later the SWAT team responded to the South Door after the shooting of Air Force veteran Ashli Babbitt by Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd.

Federal prosecutors argued they have no obligation to investigate the identity or roles of FBI agents on Jan. 6. The judge concurred.

“The Court agrees with the government and finds that defendant has failed to show that the government has an obligation to produce the requested material,” Judge Contreras wrote.

In another motion denied by Judge Contreras, Mr. Pope sought to compel the U.S. Department of Justice to inventory and provide access to all Capitol Police security video it has had in its possession.

Mr. Pope said footage is missing from some of the 1,800 USCP security cameras, and prosecutors have only produced 6,000 hours of security video in discovery. A U.S. House committee that oversees Capitol Police has released 20,000 hours of an expected 40,000 hours it will post publicly.

William Pope of Topeka, Kansas, carries an American flag just inside the Senate Wing Door at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. Capitol Police/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

Mr. Pope wrote that the importance of the security video—thousands of hours of which are now available on Rumble—is underscored by an investigation suggesting two Capitol police officers perjured themselves in the first Oath Keepers trial in the fall of 2022.

Video obtained by Blaze Media showed that a supposed confrontation between Officer Harry Dunn and the Oath Keepers could not have occurred as he described under oath. Capitol Police Special Agent David Lazarus, who testified that he witnessed the confrontation, was in another part of Capitol grounds at the time.

‘Not Beneficial’

“While Pope asserts that the missing camera footage is ‘highly relevant to January 6 cases, including [his] own,’ … he does not explain what he expects the footage to show or why that footage would assist in his defense,” Judge Contreras wrote. “Much of the camera footage that Pope requests depicts areas where Pope never set foot. That footage is therefore not beneficial to Pope’s case.”

The judge also denied Mr. Pope’s Aug. 21, 2023, motion seeking video shot by more than two dozen members of the MPD Electronic Surveillance Unit on Jan. 6. He first requested access to the Electronic Surveillance Unit videos in March 2023.

Former FBI special agent John Guandolo with suspected FBI agents Colleague 1 and Colleague 2, along with an unidentified man labeled in court filings as Colleague 3, on the Southwest Walk of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. Capitol Police/Graphic by The Epoch Times)

The August 2023 motion cites MPD internal affairs investigations of MPD officers Nicholas Tomasula and Lt. Zeb Barcus. Hundreds of pages of documents on Mr. Tomasula were heavily redacted, Mr. Pope said, and “the two reports have led to more questions about misconduct by undercover police.”

Mr. Tomasula was identified as the MPD officer heard on video encouraging protesters on the Northwest Steps to keep going and enter the Capitol. He was heard participating in crowd chants such as, “Whose House? Our House!”

At the foot of the Northwest Steps, as a protester climbed up a makeshift ladder onto the balustrade, Mr. Tomasula shouted: “C’mon, man, let’s go! Leave that [expletive],” his video showed. Mr. Tomasula got help from a protester climbing onto the balustrade, then shouted to protesters moving up the steps, “C’mon, go, go, go!”

Federal prosecutors admitted in 2023 that Mr. Tomasula acted as a provocateur embedded in the crowd on Jan. 6.

Judge Contreras concluded Electronic Surveillance Unit video is only relevant to the extent Mr. Pope can identify an undercover officer whose path he crossed.

“While evidence of undercover officers instigating the riot on January 6 could—hypothetically—be helpful and material to Pope’s case, Pope’s motion ‘never identifies a single individual he interacted with whom he now suspects to be an undercover actor,’” Judge Contreras wrote.

“Pope does not say that he himself spoke with or was induced by any undercover officer,” the judge wrote. “Therefore, he cannot make an entrapment defense with the evidence he seeks from the government, and the material he seeks is irrelevant and immaterial.”

Mr. Pope complained that prosecutors restricted his access to some of the investigative materials, which he described as “highly explosive” and “exculpatory.”

In previous filings, Mr. Pope described several self-identified Antifa supporters who were intercepted by undercover MPD officers on Jan. 6, including one who was carrying a gun.

Metropolitan Police Department undercover detectives Ricardo Leiva and Michael Callahan were part of a three-man Electronic Surveillance Unit team at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. District Court/Screenshot via The Epoch Times)

MPD officers made a traffic stop at 10:15 a.m. on Jan. 6 of a vehicle containing three Antifa operatives: Jonathan Kelly, Logan Grimes, and Dempsey Mikula.

“Undercover officers who stopped their vehicle said they had received reports that the individuals were carrying weapons,” Mr. Pope wrote. “No footage of this incident has been produced by the government in discovery. However, Kelly live-streamed part of the police stop to Facebook.”

Metropolitan Police arrested Mr. Grimes—who identifies as a woman and uses the name Leslie—for carrying a pistol without a license and being in possession of a high-capacity magazine and unregistered ammunition, according to Mr. Pope. The charges were dropped on Jan. 7, 2021.

In a previous filing, Mr. Pope identified undercover MPD officer Ryan Roe, who encountered a still-unidentified protester seen cutting down green plastic temporary fencing on Capitol grounds. Mr. Roe said to #FenceCutterBulwark, “Appreciate it, brother,” according to his video.

Authored by Giorgio Cafiero via The Cradle

Launched in 2017, Saudi Arabia’s NEOM, a sprawling high-tech development on the northwestern Red Sea coast, was introduced as the crown jewel of Vision 2030. This futuristic desert megaproject, extending over some Jordanian and Egyptian territory, was cast as a bold leap toward economic diversification under the leadership of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). But, recent geopolitical setbacks have raised significant concerns about the viability of some of NEOM's components.

Initially celebrated for its revolutionary design, The Line, a linear city within NEOM, was to redefine urban living. Yet, recent reports suggest a dramatic scaling back. Earlier this month, Bloomberg revealed a massive reduction in the metropolis’ scope – from 105 to 1.5 miles – and a decrease in likely inhabitants from 1.5 million to fewer than 300,000 by 2030. Furthermore, funding uncertainties and workforce reductions indicate a project in jeopardy.

While this adjustment does not signify a wholesale failure of Vision 2030, it does prompt a re-evaluation of the project’s most ambitious elements. 

Experts suggest that The Line’s original scale was overly optimistic, lacking the necessary urban infrastructure for such an innovative endeavor. Financial and geopolitical challenges, including regional instability and insufficient foreign direct investment, further complicate NEOM’s future.

Not so straight-forward 

The drastic downsizing of The Line “appears to be a reassessment of timeline feasibility,” Dr Robert Mogielnicki, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, tells The Cradle. “There are many experimental, world-first dimensions within the NEOM gigaproject, and some are eventually going to need rightsizing or rethinking.”

Also speaking to The Cradle, Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Baker Institute Fellow at Rice University, believes the project’s contraction to be a good thing:

Reports that The Line may be scaled back significantly is actually a positive move if it injects greater realism into a project whose initial scale appeared fanciful and difficult to translate into reality. Greater pragmatism in designing and delivering the gigaprojects associated with Vision 2030 is a good thing and means there is a greater likelihood of the projects making it off the drawing board.

Given financial and economic factors, The Line was never feasible as initially presented. Ultimately, the amount of wealth the Saudis generate from oil is not enough to finance the most ambitious of MbS’ Vision 2030 projects. And Riyadh has not been able to lure the levels of foreign direct investment needed to make these extremely expensive vanity projects realizable. 

“The vast scope of [The Line] always struck me and many other observers as aspirational rather than realistic,” explains Gordon Gray, the former US ambassador to Tunisia. 

Some analysts have pushed back against the recent avalanche of negative media coverage...

All the gloating about NEOM getting scaled back misses the point.

NEOM is a “moonshot” that has already succeeded.

It totally shifted the parameters of acceptable ambition in Saudi Arabia and made people see the kingdom within a paradigm of development.https://t.co/UjAX5CSdfM

Speaking to The Cradle, Ryan Bohl, a Middle East and North African analyst at risk intelligence company RANE, says: 

I’d argue that the goals for The Line were unrealistic from the start, given that there’s virtually no urban infrastructure in the area, and it’s very difficult for cities to be started from scratch like that, regardless of the amount of investment poured in. Even if Saudi Arabia had, for example, done something extreme like declare NEOM to be their new capital city, it would still probably struggle to attract residents as we’ve seen from other historical examples like Brazil’s shift of its capital to Brasília.

Nonetheless, The Line and other singular projects had a purpose that was not necessarily about actually implementing the projects themselves. “The point of The Line, in particular, was to create a raison de parler – for people to actually talk about Saudi Arabia, to create a massive public debate globally where people are saying there’s something amazing happening in the desert,” Dr Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at King’s College London, tells The Cradle. 

It attracts attention. That sort of discourse – positive or negative – creates a buzz. That buzz was supposed to attract investors who wanted to be a part of this, help Saudi Arabia build a city of the future, and try to do something completely outlandish and absolutely unconventional.

Gaza: a wrench in the works

The leadership in Riyadh has understood that the success of Vision 2030 heavily depends on attracting substantial foreign direct investment into the Kingdom. Ultimately, stability in Saudi Arabia and the wider West Asian region is crucial.

Consequently, Riyadh’s recent foreign policy has been less ideological, focusing instead on maintaining amicable terms with all major players in West Asia to advance Saudi business, commercial, and economic interests. 

Within this context, Riyadh has worked to reach a peace deal with Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement, made an effort to preserve the Beijing-brokered 2023 Saudi–Iranian détente, restored relations with Qatar and Syria, and mended fences with Turkiye.

Therefore, beyond financial and economic constraints that require a reassessment of the most ambitious Vision 2030 projects, such as The Line, Israel’s brutal six-month war on Gaza and the expansion of that conflict into the Red Sea have created headwinds for Saudi Arabia’s geoeconomic plans.

As Arhama Siddiqa, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, explains to The Cradle:

Given the current instability in the Red Sea region, investors may hesitate to support a large-scale project like NEOM due to perceived risks. Even if the direct security threat to NEOM is minimal, the overall instability in the area can deter investors from committing substantial resources to a long-term venture. Additionally, the broader [West Asia] conflict further complicates the situation, adding another layer of uncertainty. Addressing these security concerns could require Saudi Arabia to allocate more resources to regional security measures, potentially diverting funds from the NEOM project.

There is no denying that Saudi Arabia’s economic diversification agenda is vulnerable to naval operations in the Red Sea. NEOM and other Red Sea projects require vessels to be able to freely travel from the Gulf of Aden through the Bab al-Mandab and up to Saudi Arabia’s west coast. 

THE LINE, @NEOM ‘s groundbreaking vertical city, reimagines urban living: no roads, cars, or emissions – just 5 minutes to all you need. Powered by the world’s latest tech for sustainability, connectivity, lifestyle. pic.twitter.com/If1mGAM3wV

The Gaza war’s potential spillover into this vital waterway continues to raise concerns for Saudi officials about the impact on the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. These dynamics help explain Riyadh’s frustration with the White House for not leveraging its influence over Israel to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza. It has led to Saudi Arabia’s decision to abstain from joining any US-led security initiatives and military operations in the Red Sea and Yemen.

The Israel–NEOM connection 

Israel’s geographic proximity to northwestern Saudi Arabia, its technological advancement, and its vibrant startup culture position the occupation state as a promising partner for Vision 2030 and the NEOM project, particularly in biotechnology, cybersecurity, and manufacturing. 

Writing in March 2021, Dr Ali Dogan, previously a Research Fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, went as far as arguing that “relations with Israel are necessary for Saudi Arabia to complete NEOM.” 

Dr Mohammad Yaghi, a research fellow at Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, similarly stated that NEOM “requires peace and coordination with Israel, especially if the city is to have a chance of becoming a tourist attraction.” However, Saudi Arabia’s leadership role in the Islamic world, exemplified by the monarch’s title as the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” makes any formal normalization of relations with Tel Aviv highly sensitive. 

Initially, it was thought that while the UAE and Bahrain could establish overt relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia would continue to engage covertly, ensuring essential collaborations like those rumored in the tech sector could progress discreetly. 

An example being in June 2020, when controversy arose over Saudi Arabia’s alleged engagement with an Israeli cybersecurity firm, which the Saudi embassy later denied.

Yet, almost seven months into Israel’s campaign to annihilate Gaza, can Saudi Arabia still look to Tel Aviv as a partner in NEOM? It appears that amid ongoing crises in the region, chiefly the Gaza genocide, Riyadh must be careful to avoid being seen as cooperating with the Israelis in covert ways, and full-fledged normalization seems off the table for the foreseeable future. 

Nonetheless, after the dust settles in Gaza and the Red Sea security crisis calms down, Saudi Arabia will likely maintain its interest in fostering ties with Israel as part of an “economic normalization” between the two countries. This could be important to Vision 2030’s future, particularly in NEOM. But Israel’s unprecedented military campaign in Gaza will likely alter West Asia in many ways for decades to come. Even after the current war in Gaza is over, anger toward Israel and the US will continue.

Without a doubt, the Israeli–NEOM connection will be increasingly sensitive and controversial, both in the Kingdom and the wider region – a factor that the leadership in Riyadh cannot dismiss.

Authored by Giorgio Cafiero via The Cradle

Launched in 2017, Saudi Arabia’s NEOM, a sprawling high-tech development on the northwestern Red Sea coast, was introduced as the crown jewel of Vision 2030. This futuristic desert megaproject, extending over some Jordanian and Egyptian territory, was cast as a bold leap toward economic diversification under the leadership of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS). But, recent geopolitical setbacks have raised significant concerns about the viability of some of NEOM's components.

Initially celebrated for its revolutionary design, The Line, a linear city within NEOM, was to redefine urban living. Yet, recent reports suggest a dramatic scaling back. Earlier this month, Bloomberg revealed a massive reduction in the metropolis’ scope – from 105 to 1.5 miles – and a decrease in likely inhabitants from 1.5 million to fewer than 300,000 by 2030. Furthermore, funding uncertainties and workforce reductions indicate a project in jeopardy.

While this adjustment does not signify a wholesale failure of Vision 2030, it does prompt a re-evaluation of the project’s most ambitious elements. 

Experts suggest that The Line’s original scale was overly optimistic, lacking the necessary urban infrastructure for such an innovative endeavor. Financial and geopolitical challenges, including regional instability and insufficient foreign direct investment, further complicate NEOM’s future.

Not so straight-forward 

The drastic downsizing of The Line “appears to be a reassessment of timeline feasibility,” Dr Robert Mogielnicki, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, tells The Cradle. “There are many experimental, world-first dimensions within the NEOM gigaproject, and some are eventually going to need rightsizing or rethinking.”

Also speaking to The Cradle, Dr Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, a Baker Institute Fellow at Rice University, believes the project’s contraction to be a good thing:

Reports that The Line may be scaled back significantly is actually a positive move if it injects greater realism into a project whose initial scale appeared fanciful and difficult to translate into reality. Greater pragmatism in designing and delivering the gigaprojects associated with Vision 2030 is a good thing and means there is a greater likelihood of the projects making it off the drawing board.

Given financial and economic factors, The Line was never feasible as initially presented. Ultimately, the amount of wealth the Saudis generate from oil is not enough to finance the most ambitious of MbS’ Vision 2030 projects. And Riyadh has not been able to lure the levels of foreign direct investment needed to make these extremely expensive vanity projects realizable. 

“The vast scope of [The Line] always struck me and many other observers as aspirational rather than realistic,” explains Gordon Gray, the former US ambassador to Tunisia. 

Some analysts have pushed back against the recent avalanche of negative media coverage...

All the gloating about NEOM getting scaled back misses the point.

NEOM is a “moonshot” that has already succeeded.

It totally shifted the parameters of acceptable ambition in Saudi Arabia and made people see the kingdom within a paradigm of development.https://t.co/UjAX5CSdfM

Speaking to The Cradle, Ryan Bohl, a Middle East and North African analyst at risk intelligence company RANE, says: 

I’d argue that the goals for The Line were unrealistic from the start, given that there’s virtually no urban infrastructure in the area, and it’s very difficult for cities to be started from scratch like that, regardless of the amount of investment poured in. Even if Saudi Arabia had, for example, done something extreme like declare NEOM to be their new capital city, it would still probably struggle to attract residents as we’ve seen from other historical examples like Brazil’s shift of its capital to Brasília.

Nonetheless, The Line and other singular projects had a purpose that was not necessarily about actually implementing the projects themselves. “The point of The Line, in particular, was to create a raison de parler – for people to actually talk about Saudi Arabia, to create a massive public debate globally where people are saying there’s something amazing happening in the desert,” Dr Andreas Krieg, an associate professor at King’s College London, tells The Cradle. 

It attracts attention. That sort of discourse – positive or negative – creates a buzz. That buzz was supposed to attract investors who wanted to be a part of this, help Saudi Arabia build a city of the future, and try to do something completely outlandish and absolutely unconventional.

Gaza: a wrench in the works

The leadership in Riyadh has understood that the success of Vision 2030 heavily depends on attracting substantial foreign direct investment into the Kingdom. Ultimately, stability in Saudi Arabia and the wider West Asian region is crucial.

Consequently, Riyadh’s recent foreign policy has been less ideological, focusing instead on maintaining amicable terms with all major players in West Asia to advance Saudi business, commercial, and economic interests. 

Within this context, Riyadh has worked to reach a peace deal with Yemen’s Ansarallah resistance movement, made an effort to preserve the Beijing-brokered 2023 Saudi–Iranian détente, restored relations with Qatar and Syria, and mended fences with Turkiye.

Therefore, beyond financial and economic constraints that require a reassessment of the most ambitious Vision 2030 projects, such as The Line, Israel’s brutal six-month war on Gaza and the expansion of that conflict into the Red Sea have created headwinds for Saudi Arabia’s geoeconomic plans.

As Arhama Siddiqa, a Research Fellow at the Institute of Strategic Studies Islamabad, explains to The Cradle:

Given the current instability in the Red Sea region, investors may hesitate to support a large-scale project like NEOM due to perceived risks. Even if the direct security threat to NEOM is minimal, the overall instability in the area can deter investors from committing substantial resources to a long-term venture. Additionally, the broader [West Asia] conflict further complicates the situation, adding another layer of uncertainty. Addressing these security concerns could require Saudi Arabia to allocate more resources to regional security measures, potentially diverting funds from the NEOM project.

There is no denying that Saudi Arabia’s economic diversification agenda is vulnerable to naval operations in the Red Sea. NEOM and other Red Sea projects require vessels to be able to freely travel from the Gulf of Aden through the Bab al-Mandab and up to Saudi Arabia’s west coast. 

THE LINE, @NEOM ‘s groundbreaking vertical city, reimagines urban living: no roads, cars, or emissions – just 5 minutes to all you need. Powered by the world’s latest tech for sustainability, connectivity, lifestyle. pic.twitter.com/If1mGAM3wV

The Gaza war’s potential spillover into this vital waterway continues to raise concerns for Saudi officials about the impact on the Kingdom’s Vision 2030. These dynamics help explain Riyadh’s frustration with the White House for not leveraging its influence over Israel to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza. It has led to Saudi Arabia’s decision to abstain from joining any US-led security initiatives and military operations in the Red Sea and Yemen.

The Israel–NEOM connection 

Israel’s geographic proximity to northwestern Saudi Arabia, its technological advancement, and its vibrant startup culture position the occupation state as a promising partner for Vision 2030 and the NEOM project, particularly in biotechnology, cybersecurity, and manufacturing. 

Writing in March 2021, Dr Ali Dogan, previously a Research Fellow at the Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, went as far as arguing that “relations with Israel are necessary for Saudi Arabia to complete NEOM.” 

Dr Mohammad Yaghi, a research fellow at Germany’s Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, similarly stated that NEOM “requires peace and coordination with Israel, especially if the city is to have a chance of becoming a tourist attraction.” However, Saudi Arabia’s leadership role in the Islamic world, exemplified by the monarch’s title as the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques,” makes any formal normalization of relations with Tel Aviv highly sensitive. 

Initially, it was thought that while the UAE and Bahrain could establish overt relations with Israel, Saudi Arabia would continue to engage covertly, ensuring essential collaborations like those rumored in the tech sector could progress discreetly. 

An example being in June 2020, when controversy arose over Saudi Arabia’s alleged engagement with an Israeli cybersecurity firm, which the Saudi embassy later denied.

Yet, almost seven months into Israel’s campaign to annihilate Gaza, can Saudi Arabia still look to Tel Aviv as a partner in NEOM? It appears that amid ongoing crises in the region, chiefly the Gaza genocide, Riyadh must be careful to avoid being seen as cooperating with the Israelis in covert ways, and full-fledged normalization seems off the table for the foreseeable future. 

Nonetheless, after the dust settles in Gaza and the Red Sea security crisis calms down, Saudi Arabia will likely maintain its interest in fostering ties with Israel as part of an “economic normalization” between the two countries. This could be important to Vision 2030’s future, particularly in NEOM. But Israel’s unprecedented military campaign in Gaza will likely alter West Asia in many ways for decades to come. Even after the current war in Gaza is over, anger toward Israel and the US will continue.

Without a doubt, the Israeli–NEOM connection will be increasingly sensitive and controversial, both in the Kingdom and the wider region – a factor that the leadership in Riyadh cannot dismiss.

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Smart people know to avoid fallacies.

One of them is known as the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

It’s Latin for “after this, therefore because of this.”

The classic example concerns the rooster and the sunrise.

Every morning before the sun comes up, the rooster does his crazy crowing routine, waking up everyone around. Shortly after, the light begins to appear on the horizon.

If you knew nothing else, and you watched this happen over and over, you might conclude that the rooster is causing the sun to rise.

Of course, this is testable. You could kill the rooster and see what happens. The sun still comes up. But wait just a moment. Just the fact that this one rooster is dead doesn’t mean that all roosters are gone. Some rooster somewhere is crowing and causing the sun to rise. So your little experiment doesn’t disprove the theory.

What a conundrum, right?

If someone is convinced that a bird is controlling the sun, there is probably no way to convince him otherwise.

We can laugh at this example. How can someone be so dumb? Actually, this basic fallacy affects all science in all times, all places, and all subjects. The presumption that a regular pattern showing something happens and then something else happens with regularity implies causation is baked into human thinking. Now and always.

It’s a fallacy, meaning that it is not necessarily true. It could be true, however, subject to serious investigation. And therein lies the real problem. We need to figure out what causes what. But discerning causal agents from accidental ones is the biggest issue in all thinking.

The need to know is baked into what it means to be a rational creature. We just cannot help ourselves. That’s why this fallacy persists everywhere.

There is also the famous case of malaria. It was once believed that infections were worse at nightfall, so the theory was that it was caused by cold air at night. Not crazy, right? Except that the real reason was that the mosquitoes came out in the evenings. They were the real culprit. But a bad theory based on fallacy prevented many people from seeing it.

My goodness, we were overwhelmed by this during the COVID-19 experience. The fake science was overwhelming.

Day after day, we saw loads of fake science of this sort being dumped on the world.

Look, California’s cases are down and California bans gatherings, therefore coercive measures are controlling virus spread!

Not so fast.

These factors could be completely unrelated. We might not even have good data on infections at all. Those are subject to testing (accurate or not) and might be completely wrong on a population level. Even if the data were correct, the low infections could be caused by weather, prior immunity, or something else that we have not considered.

Early on, I can recall looking at these amazing real-time charts of infections and deaths and believing that I had a window into reality. Several times, I even posted things along the lines of “See, Arizona has achieved herd immunity,” without understanding that the data were wildly inaccurate and subject to testing, reporting, and a host of other factors. Even the data were suspect: Misclassification was rampant.

And here too, the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc bit everyone extremely hard. But most of us went along with it.

So crazy did it all become that people including bureaucrats at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started inventing nutty theories such as that masking protects against virus spread, which science had long proven to be untrue. It became even crazier: You can sit without a mask but walking and standing causes viruses to spread, so that’s when you have to wear a mask!

Absolutely nuts!

It was the same after vaccination.

Countless famous people took to social media to announce they had COVID-19 but it was a mild case thanks to the vaccine. There is simply no way they could know that. They knew for sure that they had the vaccine and they knew for sure that their case of COVID-19 was mild. But believing that one caused the other was simply a matter of faith. It might have been mild regardless. It might have been milder. As time went on, we encountered many studies showing that more vaccination was associated with more infection. Did one cause the other? It’s hard to say.

And yet vast numbers of vaccine studies in the past several years have been affected by this problem. Particularly vexing is the problem of the “healthy user bias,” which is that people who were vaccinated tend to be more compliant and conscientious in other ways too, which meant that initially, it seemed like they had better health outcomes from COVID-19 vaccination, but the results were actually attributable to this bias.

This was revealed in later studies. But the problem of discerning cause and effect from random noise still persists.

The field of medicine has long dealt with this problem. We are mortified that the practice of bleeding patients persisted for centuries even up to the 19th century. How could they have been so stupid? Well, they had a theory that disease was caused by bad humors in the blood so it needed to be drained. Then they observed that the patient got better.

Well, the patient might have gotten better anyway and even faster without bleeding. But it took many centuries to finally realize that. Many non-allopathic medicine people had been screaming about this issue for a long time, but they were ignored as cranks. That’s because bleeding was a conventional practice endorsed by the people with the most professional prestige.

Once you see this fallacy at work, you cannot unsee it. It’s everywhere in medicine but also in economics, health, horticulture, law and sociology, and all the physical world sciences. The gun debate is a good example. There is high crime and there are lots of guns, so people conclude that the guns cause the crime, whereas the presence of guns might simply be a response to crime and a means of protection. Without them, the crime would be far worse.

The fallacy in question drives vast amounts of politics today. There is a tendency to blame any existing president for all existing economic conditions, but the real cause might date further back in time. Still, nearly every debate follows the same lines: This happened; therefore, his actions or inactions caused it. It could be true or it might be the same as the rooster and the sunrise.

We flatter ourselves now that we are beyond such fallacies. They belong only to the superstition-ridden ages of the past. That’s complete nonsense. We are probably more inundated by this fallacy now than ever. Whatever it is that people trust and believe in at any particular time is what people identify as the key to curing whatever malady is around.

Today, people believe in pharmaceuticals. Whatever the issue is, it can be solved by a new lab-created potion. As a result, we are soaked as a society in these, even though the evidence for many of them is scant. The more you look at, for example, the effect of psychiatric drugs, the less it becomes clear whether and to what extent these help or actually may worsen the real problem.

It’s even true with antibiotics. All parents use amoxicillin on childhood ear infections today. But my grandmother swore by putting warm mineral oil in the ear and avoiding conventional meds completely. It took me only a few minutes to discover a 2003 study that randomized whether kids got herbal oils with or without antibiotics. Results: no difference.

The implications are profound. We are so attached to pharma and allopathic strategies that we might be overlooking vast naturopathic and homeopathic methods that work better.

Seizing on one solution and sticking with it prevents the human mind from being creative about other possible and better solutions. Generations can go by in which fallacies rule the day. We can laugh about roosters and sun, bleeding and disease, dances and rain, but how many times do we commit these fallacies in our world today but our dogmatic attachments prevent us from seeing them?

Authored by Jeffrey Tucker via The Epoch Times,

Smart people know to avoid fallacies.

One of them is known as the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc.

It’s Latin for “after this, therefore because of this.”

The classic example concerns the rooster and the sunrise.

Every morning before the sun comes up, the rooster does his crazy crowing routine, waking up everyone around. Shortly after, the light begins to appear on the horizon.

If you knew nothing else, and you watched this happen over and over, you might conclude that the rooster is causing the sun to rise.

Of course, this is testable. You could kill the rooster and see what happens. The sun still comes up. But wait just a moment. Just the fact that this one rooster is dead doesn’t mean that all roosters are gone. Some rooster somewhere is crowing and causing the sun to rise. So your little experiment doesn’t disprove the theory.

What a conundrum, right?

If someone is convinced that a bird is controlling the sun, there is probably no way to convince him otherwise.

We can laugh at this example. How can someone be so dumb? Actually, this basic fallacy affects all science in all times, all places, and all subjects. The presumption that a regular pattern showing something happens and then something else happens with regularity implies causation is baked into human thinking. Now and always.

It’s a fallacy, meaning that it is not necessarily true. It could be true, however, subject to serious investigation. And therein lies the real problem. We need to figure out what causes what. But discerning causal agents from accidental ones is the biggest issue in all thinking.

The need to know is baked into what it means to be a rational creature. We just cannot help ourselves. That’s why this fallacy persists everywhere.

There is also the famous case of malaria. It was once believed that infections were worse at nightfall, so the theory was that it was caused by cold air at night. Not crazy, right? Except that the real reason was that the mosquitoes came out in the evenings. They were the real culprit. But a bad theory based on fallacy prevented many people from seeing it.

My goodness, we were overwhelmed by this during the COVID-19 experience. The fake science was overwhelming.

Day after day, we saw loads of fake science of this sort being dumped on the world.

Look, California’s cases are down and California bans gatherings, therefore coercive measures are controlling virus spread!

Not so fast.

These factors could be completely unrelated. We might not even have good data on infections at all. Those are subject to testing (accurate or not) and might be completely wrong on a population level. Even if the data were correct, the low infections could be caused by weather, prior immunity, or something else that we have not considered.

Early on, I can recall looking at these amazing real-time charts of infections and deaths and believing that I had a window into reality. Several times, I even posted things along the lines of “See, Arizona has achieved herd immunity,” without understanding that the data were wildly inaccurate and subject to testing, reporting, and a host of other factors. Even the data were suspect: Misclassification was rampant.

And here too, the fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc bit everyone extremely hard. But most of us went along with it.

So crazy did it all become that people including bureaucrats at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention started inventing nutty theories such as that masking protects against virus spread, which science had long proven to be untrue. It became even crazier: You can sit without a mask but walking and standing causes viruses to spread, so that’s when you have to wear a mask!

Absolutely nuts!

It was the same after vaccination.

Countless famous people took to social media to announce they had COVID-19 but it was a mild case thanks to the vaccine. There is simply no way they could know that. They knew for sure that they had the vaccine and they knew for sure that their case of COVID-19 was mild. But believing that one caused the other was simply a matter of faith. It might have been mild regardless. It might have been milder. As time went on, we encountered many studies showing that more vaccination was associated with more infection. Did one cause the other? It’s hard to say.

And yet vast numbers of vaccine studies in the past several years have been affected by this problem. Particularly vexing is the problem of the “healthy user bias,” which is that people who were vaccinated tend to be more compliant and conscientious in other ways too, which meant that initially, it seemed like they had better health outcomes from COVID-19 vaccination, but the results were actually attributable to this bias.

This was revealed in later studies. But the problem of discerning cause and effect from random noise still persists.

The field of medicine has long dealt with this problem. We are mortified that the practice of bleeding patients persisted for centuries even up to the 19th century. How could they have been so stupid? Well, they had a theory that disease was caused by bad humors in the blood so it needed to be drained. Then they observed that the patient got better.

Well, the patient might have gotten better anyway and even faster without bleeding. But it took many centuries to finally realize that. Many non-allopathic medicine people had been screaming about this issue for a long time, but they were ignored as cranks. That’s because bleeding was a conventional practice endorsed by the people with the most professional prestige.

Once you see this fallacy at work, you cannot unsee it. It’s everywhere in medicine but also in economics, health, horticulture, law and sociology, and all the physical world sciences. The gun debate is a good example. There is high crime and there are lots of guns, so people conclude that the guns cause the crime, whereas the presence of guns might simply be a response to crime and a means of protection. Without them, the crime would be far worse.

The fallacy in question drives vast amounts of politics today. There is a tendency to blame any existing president for all existing economic conditions, but the real cause might date further back in time. Still, nearly every debate follows the same lines: This happened; therefore, his actions or inactions caused it. It could be true or it might be the same as the rooster and the sunrise.

We flatter ourselves now that we are beyond such fallacies. They belong only to the superstition-ridden ages of the past. That’s complete nonsense. We are probably more inundated by this fallacy now than ever. Whatever it is that people trust and believe in at any particular time is what people identify as the key to curing whatever malady is around.

Today, people believe in pharmaceuticals. Whatever the issue is, it can be solved by a new lab-created potion. As a result, we are soaked as a society in these, even though the evidence for many of them is scant. The more you look at, for example, the effect of psychiatric drugs, the less it becomes clear whether and to what extent these help or actually may worsen the real problem.

It’s even true with antibiotics. All parents use amoxicillin on childhood ear infections today. But my grandmother swore by putting warm mineral oil in the ear and avoiding conventional meds completely. It took me only a few minutes to discover a 2003 study that randomized whether kids got herbal oils with or without antibiotics. Results: no difference.

The implications are profound. We are so attached to pharma and allopathic strategies that we might be overlooking vast naturopathic and homeopathic methods that work better.

Seizing on one solution and sticking with it prevents the human mind from being creative about other possible and better solutions. Generations can go by in which fallacies rule the day. We can laugh about roosters and sun, bleeding and disease, dances and rain, but how many times do we commit these fallacies in our world today but our dogmatic attachments prevent us from seeing them?

Yemen’s Iran-linked Houthis have announced new aggressive actions in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea regions, saying late Wednesday that projectiles were launched against more US and Israeli-owned commercial vessels, and that a US warship was also targeted. This follows a period of relative quiet this month.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a video address that an antiship ballistic missile was launched against the Maersk Yorktown cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden, resulting in a direct hit.

The US military subsequently confirmed the fresh attack on the "US-flagged, owned, and operated vessel with 18 US and four Greek crew members"; however, the statement indicated no casualties or damage. The projectile may have exploded near the ship without hitting it.

File image, Maritime Executive

"There were no injuries or damage reported by US, coalition, or commercial ships," US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in the statement, without indicating whether there was any level of an actual direct strike on the ship. Commenting further, Maritime Executive details:

They received a report from a vessel of an explosion in the water approximately 72 nautical miles southeast of the port of Djibouti. The statement only said that there had been an explosion "at a distance," and that the crew and vessel were reported safe. 

CENTCOM further described that within hours of the attack on the Maersk Yorktown, US forces "successfully engaged and destroyed" four drones over Yemen.

The government of Greece this week also said it has been engaged in fresh counter-Houthi actions:

The Greek Ministry of National Defense said on Thursday that one of the country’s military ships serving in the European Union’s naval mission to counter the Houthis in the Red Sea intercepted two drones launched towards a commercial ship from Yemen.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) had earlier confirmed an incident some 72 nautical miles (133km) southeast of the port of Djibouti in the Gulf of Aden.

These kind of Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and off Yemen's coast have somewhat waned of late, compared with the near daily intensity of the prior months, and some analysts have speculated that the Houthis are running low on their missile and drone arsenal. 

Prior to Wednesday's new incidents, the last significant Houthi attacks prior to that came two weeks ago. This could also be due to the prospect of some kind of Red Sea truce negotiations which have been reported of late.

UKMTO WARNING INCIDENT 065 - ATTACK#MartimeSecurity #MarSechttps://t.co/fX3hWupi7g pic.twitter.com/mQ3nmxwGj7

A Yemeni official has been cited in regional outlet The National as saying, "In response to the Yemeni group's attempts to target Israeli ships, the US has not only resorted to military action but also sought to convey proposals that would incentivize the militants to stop their attacks."

“Messages containing incentives were sent from the Americans to Sanaa in recent weeks. These messages were delivered through envoys and mediators, including western officials, with the Omani capital, Muscat, also playing a significant role," the source added.

Yemen’s Iran-linked Houthis have announced new aggressive actions in the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea regions, saying late Wednesday that projectiles were launched against more US and Israeli-owned commercial vessels, and that a US warship was also targeted. This follows a period of relative quiet this month.

Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said in a video address that an antiship ballistic missile was launched against the Maersk Yorktown cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden, resulting in a direct hit.

The US military subsequently confirmed the fresh attack on the "US-flagged, owned, and operated vessel with 18 US and four Greek crew members"; however, the statement indicated no casualties or damage. The projectile may have exploded near the ship without hitting it.

File image, Maritime Executive

"There were no injuries or damage reported by US, coalition, or commercial ships," US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in the statement, without indicating whether there was any level of an actual direct strike on the ship. Commenting further, Maritime Executive details:

They received a report from a vessel of an explosion in the water approximately 72 nautical miles southeast of the port of Djibouti. The statement only said that there had been an explosion "at a distance," and that the crew and vessel were reported safe. 

CENTCOM further described that within hours of the attack on the Maersk Yorktown, US forces "successfully engaged and destroyed" four drones over Yemen.

The government of Greece this week also said it has been engaged in fresh counter-Houthi actions:

The Greek Ministry of National Defense said on Thursday that one of the country’s military ships serving in the European Union’s naval mission to counter the Houthis in the Red Sea intercepted two drones launched towards a commercial ship from Yemen.

The United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations (UKMTO) had earlier confirmed an incident some 72 nautical miles (133km) southeast of the port of Djibouti in the Gulf of Aden.

These kind of Houthi attacks in the Red Sea and off Yemen's coast have somewhat waned of late, compared with the near daily intensity of the prior months, and some analysts have speculated that the Houthis are running low on their missile and drone arsenal. 

Prior to Wednesday's new incidents, the last significant Houthi attacks prior to that came two weeks ago. This could also be due to the prospect of some kind of Red Sea truce negotiations which have been reported of late.

UKMTO WARNING INCIDENT 065 - ATTACK#MartimeSecurity #MarSechttps://t.co/fX3hWupi7g pic.twitter.com/mQ3nmxwGj7

A Yemeni official has been cited in regional outlet The National as saying, "In response to the Yemeni group's attempts to target Israeli ships, the US has not only resorted to military action but also sought to convey proposals that would incentivize the militants to stop their attacks."

“Messages containing incentives were sent from the Americans to Sanaa in recent weeks. These messages were delivered through envoys and mediators, including western officials, with the Omani capital, Muscat, also playing a significant role," the source added.