Bessent: India buying Russian oil was inevitable. That’s why we gave a 30-day waiver.
The oil was already on the water and refineries needed supply. Otherwise it would have gone to China. It’s unfortunate Russia benefits, but we hope only for a short time.
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Bessent: Our actions were not about China. They were about U.S. interests. Venezuela had become close to a failed narco-state.
The goal is to protect the Western Hemisphere and support Latin American countries moving toward market economies and closer ties with the U.S.
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Bessent: When I flew to Argentina last spring, we had to avoid Bolivia because it had closed its airspace to U.S. military aircraft.
Now Bolivia is becoming an ally again. Chile also shifted back. This is a chance to strengthen economic and security ties with the U.S.
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Bessent: The military operation was meant to stop Iran from protecting its nuclear program with missiles.
If nothing had been done, in a year or 18 months Iran could have had two or three times more missiles and weapons.
4X
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A British coder built the world's first network of fully autonomous drones for the Ukrainian army on paternity leave, in his garden shed, with his baby daughter in a papoose.
Gui Wainwright's AI software now kills Russian soldiers without any human interaction, The Times. 1/
Wainwright: "Russia has an asymmetric advantage — its ability to throw men at Ukraine because it doesn't value human life.
Eventually, one man in a bunker with a computer could field 10,000 drones simultaneously and hold 1,000 miles of land."
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Ukraine didn't need new drones. It needed its existing drones to be made autonomous.
Wainwright's solution is hardware-agnostic. Rapid to scale, cheap to deploy, and unjammable because the drones receive no signal at all.
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Saam, ex Russian soldier now fighting for Ukraine: In most cases, the task in the Russian army is to die.
There is often no concrete objective — take a height, clear an area, or hold a position. Just go forward. 1/
Saam: Many Russian soldiers receive less than two days of training.
They are taken to units and assigned roles by “buyers”: machine gunner, grenade launcher operator, almost even helicopter pilot — though they may never have seen the weapon they are supposed to use. 2/
Saam: In the Russian army, I saw no brotherhood. Everyone tries to survive by any means.
You cannot go forward because death may be waiting there. You cannot go back because death is certainly waiting behind you. 3/
Ratcliffe, CIA Director: A Russian recruit’s average life expectancy in Ukraine is estimated at 20–30 minutes.
AI-powered drones have become low-cost killing machines, showing that mastery of technology is now as important as military strength. 1/
Ratcliffe: Russia occupied 19% of Ukraine when I became CIA director 18 months ago. Today it holds 20%.
Ukraine’s mastery of drones and asymmetric warfare has nearly stopped Russia’s advance, showing how emerging technologies can equalize the battlefield. 2X
Kasparov: Putin could launch an incursion into Latvia or Estonia to test NATO after Russia’s September election.
He has always escalated when he felt he was in trouble. The most likely next escalation is a provocation, Politico. 1/
Kasparov: There is no sign in Russian propaganda, government actions or Putin’s speeches that Moscow is preparing for peace: War, war, war, war. 2/
Kasparov: Russia does not need a full-scale invasion to undermine NATO. Moscow could seize a small border town, possibly with a Russian-speaking population, and wait for the response.
If the US failed to help defend it, NATO is no longer there. 3/