A Council on Foreign Relations analysis argues Washington should use its leverage after Maduro's removal to secure certified free elections in Venezuela, rebuild state capacity, and tie energy investment and oil revenues to democratization and broad economic recovery.
A Council on Foreign Relations paper argues that US strategy should treat "Greater North America" (Canada, Mexico, Central America, the Caribbean and Caribbean-facing South America) as its priority region, since crises north of the Amazon quickly become domestic problems. It urges integrated trade, investment, labor, infrastructure and bureaucratic reforms to counter Chinese influence.
A Council on Foreign Relations report argues that China has filled a U.S.-created vacuum in the Western Hemisphere and urges an Economic Shield of the Americas partnership. It would concentrate U.S. tools in willing reform-minded countries across energy, minerals, agriculture and technology.
Six CFR experts propose strategies for American policy in the Western Hemisphere, spanning energy, critical minerals, economic partnerships, and Venezuela. They argue the region should be treated as a source of opportunity rather than only a source of threats, helping counter China's growing influence.
After the Cuban Missile Crisis deal, nearly one hundred Soviet tactical nuclear weapons remained undetected in Cuba. Anastas Mikoyan blocked their transfer to Castro, and the weapons left on December 1; their existence only became public in 1992.
Trump's tariff campaign against Canada has not forced capitulation, as Ottawa has retaliated and kept an economy more resilient than expected. Midterm pressure on U.S. border states is prompting the administration to lift some tariffs, while Canada pursues other trading partners.
— via CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)
On the thirteenth day of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Khrushchev announced the dismantling and return of Soviet missiles, and Kennedy welcomed the move while halting surveillance and quarantine enforcement. He kept secret his pledge to remove Jupiter missiles from Turkey, confirmed only in 1989.
— via CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)
Latin America has moved rightward as voters worry about crime, corruption, weak growth and inequality, though Lula's fourth-term win in Brazil bucks the trend. Experts say the shift reflects anti-incumbent frustration and may reverse if new right-wing governments underdeliver.
— via CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)
On October 26, 1962, ABC correspondent John Scali met KGB station chief Alexander Fomin, who floated a deal to withdraw Soviet missiles from Cuba in exchange for a US non-invasion pledge. A letter from Khrushchev arrived the same day with a similar offer, while Castro urged a Soviet nuclear strike.
— via CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)
Rebecca Bill Chavez, president and CEO of the Inter-American Dialogue, describes a career moving from a Fulbright in Argentina through academia and the Naval Academy to the Pentagon and the think tank. She stresses living in the region, the limits of military tools, and hemispheric security work.
— via CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)
On October 23, 1962, the Organization of American States nearly unanimously backed the U.S. naval quarantine of Cuba, and Adlai Stevenson denounced the Soviet Union at the UN. Khrushchev's reply rejected the quarantine and warned of catastrophic consequences, while Kennedy signed Proclamation 3504 and demanded compliance.
— via CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)
On the third day of the Cuban missile crisis, Kennedy sat through a two-hour White House meeting with Soviet Foreign Minister Gromyko, who was lying about missiles in Cuba, and never let on that he knew. Kennedy read Gromyko his own September warning that "the gravest issues would arise" if the Soviets armed Cuba.
— via CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)
A Soviet defector's smuggled photographs helped U.S. analysts confirm nuclear missiles in Cuba on October 15, 1962, just hours before his own arrest. The discovery, delivered mid-dinner to Washington's top officials, triggered the crisis's opening night.
— via CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)
Autonomous weapons have existed since 1916, but Washington still treats "autonomous" as a yes-or-no question. Two former Pentagon officials argue that confusion is already warping Congress's AI weapons rules, and lay out a spectrum lawmakers need instead.
— via CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)
A U-2 flight sixty-four years ago today found Soviet missile launch pads in Cuba, exposing a lie just weeks after Moscow's foreign minister denied any such shipments to the UN. It was the same spy plane program that had humiliated Eisenhower in 1960, and this time it set off the Cuban Missile Crisis.
— via CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)
US and Mexican forces have launched a joint anti-drone campaign at the Tijuana-San Diego border, with over 300 drones already downed this year and more than 100 in August alone. The effort targets cartel UAVs used to track agents during trafficking runs.
— via Small Wars Journal, SWJ Staff
30-year Treasury yields hit a nineteen-year high of 5.36 percent, and Washington's countermoves are backfiring. Japan's yen intervention apparently drained Treasuries instead of sparing them, and a $5.2 billion buyback barely dented 0.016 percent of the market before rates climbed right back.
— via CFR (Council on Foreign Relations)
Washington is reportedly leaning on Kyiv, not Moscow, threatening to cut intel sharing and arms shipments to protect Russian oil refineries. Elsewhere in this digest: Kim shows off a missile built to reach the US, and Trump says he "may" sit down with him on his Asia trip.
— via Small Wars Journal, David Maxwell
Caracas after a stunning January operation to capture Nicolás Maduro: more than half the cabinet replaced, hundreds of political prisoners freed, the Pentagon handed a 35 percent stake in oil fields holding an estimated 65 billion barrels. Still no election date, and 322 political prisoners remain behind bars.
— via Atlantic Council, Geoff Ramsey
Cocaine production has tripled and kidnappings more than tripled since Colombia's 2016 peace deal, and the new president wants to simply relaunch Plan Colombia. That won't work: today's criminal networks are bigger and transnational, and any revival needs a phased overhaul built around restoring, regionalizing, then institutionalizing cooperation.
— via Small Wars Journal, Albert J. Marckwardt
