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The Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Thursday, targeting a building in the Mashrou Dummar area of Damascus. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed Israel's responsibility for the attack, which resulted in one fatality.
Israel strikes Syria to warn Turkey
As we wrote in February, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has big plans for Syria. Erdogan’s government was a crucial backer of the HTS militia, an Islamist rebel group that ousted longtime Syrian strongman Bashar Assad in December, and it now wants Turkey’s military to take over some air bases on Syrian territory in exchange for Turkish training of Syria’s new army.
This, Erdogan hopes, will allow Turkey to greatly expand its regional influence, return many of the millions of Syrian refugees still living inside Turkey back home, and clamp down on Kurdish militants who have used Syria as a base of operations against Turkey’s military.
That’s the backdrop for a wave of Israeli airstrikes on military targets inside Syria early Thursday. The Syrian government called the attacks a “deliberate attempt to destabilize Syria” and “a blatant violation of international law and Syrian sovereignty.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz quickly fired back at Syria’s president: “If you allow forces hostile to Israel to enter Syria and endanger Israeli security interests, you will pay a very heavy price.” Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar warned that Erdogan is doing his “utmost to have Syria as a Turkish protectorate.”
Syria’s fledgling military is no match for its neighbors, and its new government remains at the mercy of outside players. This dangerous competition to fill the vacuum in Syria created by the ouster of Assad is just beginning.
Former (and incoming) President Donald Trump and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy meet at Trump Tower in New York City, on Sept. 27, 2024.
Trump wants more Ukrainians drafted
President-elect Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail to end the war in Ukraine “on Day One” of his administration. His supporters have long argued Trump should be taken seriously but not literally, and his team has since rolled back that expectation and insists on a 100-day ceasefire timeline instead.
That goal is still plenty ambitious, and the incoming president is already laying the groundwork for a halt to fighting. Trump will likely speak directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the coming days, and he’s already beginning to detail what he’ll ask of Ukraine.
In April 2024, Ukraine, under Biden administration pressure, lowered its conscription age from 27 to 25 to bring more soldiers to the frontlines. Incoming National Security Advisor Mike Waltz told ABC News on Sunday, that Trump wants the age lowered to 18. “If Ukrainians have asked the whole world to be all in for democracy, we need them to be all in for democracy,” said Waltz.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has resisted pressure from Washington by insisting that if his country is to remain economically viable, it can’t sacrifice so many of its young men. He also warns there aren’t enough weapons for the Ukrainian troops already in the field.
Which comes first: the soldiers or the weapons? This debate will continue once Trump is inaugurated next Monday, but Zelensky knows that the new US president will have the leverage to get most of what he wants.
The AI military-industrial complex is here
That should come as no surprise; after all, the military has been a major funder, driver, and early adopter of cutting-edge technology throughout the last century. Military spending on AI-related federal contracts has been booming since 2022, according to a Brookings Institution analysis, which found yearly spending on AI increased from $355 million in the year leading up to August 2022 to a whopping $4.6 billion a year later.
In response to this demand, AI companies of all sizes are getting in on the action. Last Wednesday, on Dec. 4, OpenAI announced a new partnership with the military technology company Anduril Industries, known for its drones and autonomous systems. OpenAI had previously banned the use of its large language models, but with this partnership, it has somewhat reversed course, deciding there are, in fact, some applications that it feels comfortable with — in this case, defensive systems that protect US soldiers from drone attacks. In response, OpenAI employees have raised ethical concerns internally, the Washington Post reported, but CEO Sam Altman has stood by the decision. “We are proud to help keep safe the people who risk their lives to keep our families and our country safe,” he wrote in a statement.
OpenAI’s decision came mere weeks after two other big announcements: On Nov. 4, Meta decided to reverse course on its own military prohibition, permitting its language models to be used by US military and national security agencies. The company said it would provide its models directly to agencies, to established defense contractors Lockheed Martin and Booz Allen, and to defense tech companies like Anduril and Palantir. Then, on Nov. 7, OpenAI’s rival Anthropic, which makes the chatbot Claude, partnered with Peter Thiel’s firm Palantir and Amazon Web Services to provide AI capabilities to US intelligence services.
Military applications of AI go far beyond developing lethal autonomous weapons systems, or killer robots, as we’ve written before in this newsletter. AI can help with command and control, intelligence analysis, and precision targeting. That said, the uses of generative AI models such as OpenAI’s GPT-4 and Anthropic’s Claude are more sprawling in nature.
“There’s a lot of both interest and pressure on the national security community to pilot and prototype generative AI capabilities,” says Emelia Probasco, a senior fellow at Georgetown University's Center for Security and Emerging Technology and a former Pentagon official. “They’re not quite sure what they’re going to do with it, but they’re pretty sure it’s going to be powerful.”
And some of the best uses of this technology might simply be the boring stuff, Probasco added, such as writing press releases and filling out personnel paperwork. “Even though [the military] does some warfighting, it also does a lot of bureaucracy.”
For contractors of all types, AI presents a business opportunity too. “Defense contracting is a potentially lucrative business for AI startups despite some very valid concerns about AI safety and ethics,” says Gadjo Sevilla, senior technology analyst at eMarketer. He added that gaining the trust of the military could also help AI companies prove their safety. “They are more likely to gain other contracts once they are perceived as defense-grade AI solutions.”
Probasco says that the US military needs the expertise of Silicon Valley to stay on the cutting edge, but she does worry about the two worlds becoming too cozy with one another.
“The worst thing would be if we end up in another techno-utopia like we had when in the early days of social media, thinking that Silicon Valley is going to 100% come in and save the day,” she said. “What we need are reasonable, smart, hardworking people who respect different perspectives.”
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin poses with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr during a courtesy call at the Malacanang Palace in Manila, Philippines, November 18, 2024.
Philippines locks in enhanced defense deal with US to deter China
Manila’s top defense official Gilberto Teodorosigned a treaty with the US on Monday that will allow the Philippines to access more closely-held military intelligence and purchase more advanced technology to defend itself from China. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said the agreement was meant to display Washington’s commitment, saying, “We are more than allies. We are family.”
Unlike some other US allies, Manila feels quite confident that its relationship with Washington will stay strong under incoming President Donald Trump. Trump and Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. spoke over the phone on Tuesday about strengthening the alliance, which Marcos said was “very productive.”
Trump is pledging a hawkish approach to China, and the Philippines is eager to upgrade its own defenses given ongoing conflicts over the South China Sea. The strong alignment on shared interests and Marcos’praise for Trump’s “robust leadership” seem promising, as long as he can make the case to Trump that the US is coming out ahead in the transaction.
How is China preparing for Trump? President Xi Jinping attempted to set boundaries in the relationship at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Peru over the weekend. He drew “four red lines” for Trump to avoid: undermining the Communist Party, pushing China toward democracy, stifling China’s economic rise, and encouraging Taiwanese independence.
“These are the most important guardrails and safety nets for China-US relations,” he said. But with Trump promising punitive tariffs up to 60% on Chinese goods, and appointing China hardliners like Marco Rubio and Mike Waltz, confrontation looks likely.
The Meta logo is seen on a mobile phone with the Chinese flag in the background in this photo illustration.
Meta’s AI is being used by Chinese military researchers
Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, has taken a different approach to the AI boom than many of its Silicon Valley peers. Instead of developing proprietary large language models, Meta has championed open-source models that are free and accessible for anyone to use. (That said, some open-source advocates say it’s not truly open-source because Meta has usage rules.)
But because of Meta’s openness, Chinese researchers were able to develop their own AI model — for military use — using one of Meta’s Llama models, according to a paper they published in June, but first reported by Reuters on Nov. 1.
Chinese university researchers, some of whom have ties to the People's Liberation Army, developed a model called ChatBIT using Llama 2 — first released in February 2023. (Meta’s top model is Llama 3.2, released in September 2024.) In the paper reviewed by Reuters, the researchers said they built a chatbot “optimized for dialogue and question-answering tasks in the military field.” It will be able to be used for “intelligence analysis, … strategic planning, simulation training, and command decision-making,” the paper said.
Llama’s acceptable use policy prohibits using the models for “military, warfare, nuclear industries or applications [and] espionage.” Meta told Reuters that the use did violate the terms and said it took unspecified action against the developers but also said the discovery was insignificant. “In the global competition on AI, the alleged role of a single, and outdated, version of an American open-source model is irrelevant when we know China is already investing more than a trillion dollars to surpass the US on AI,” Meta said.
Open-source development has already become a hot-button issue for regulators and tech advocates. For example, the California AI safety bill, which was vetoed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, became controversial for mandating developers have a “kill switch” to shut off models — something that’s not possible for open-source developers who publish their code. With an open-source model in China’s hands — even an old one — regulators may have the fodder they need to try and crack down on open-source AI the next time they try to pass and enact AI rules.North Koreans take part in a parade to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the Workers' Party of Korea in Pyongyang October 10, 2010.
North Korean troops in Ukraine? Really?
In yesterday’s edition, we noted awarning from South Korea’s defense minister that North Korea was “highly likely” to deploy troops to fight alongside Russia in Ukraine. It is not yet clear how many troops would be committed or what their mission would be, but the move, if it happens, would make some sense. Vladimir Putin remains reluctant to order mass conscription since that might give a lot more Russians a reason to openly oppose his war. And anew report citing sources inside the Moscow mayor’s office says that “volunteer fighters aged 45 and over now make up half of new [Russian army] recruits in Moscow.” The North Koreans might be getting access to some valuable Russian advanced technology in return for their soldiers.
But we have more questions. North Korean troops have long demonstrated excellent goose-stepping skills at large-scale parades, but none have ever experienced combat. How will they respond to the meat grinder battlefields of eastern Ukraine? Given the Russian military’s manylogistical failures over the past 32 months, how will it handle the coordination of North Korean troops? What happens when North Korean soldiers, facing horrible battlefield conditions, decide they’d rather defect and live in Kyiv?
These are questions Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un will likely continue pondering before they approve anything beyond a symbolic deployment.ChatGPT website displayed on a laptop screen is seen in this illustration photo taken in Milano, Italy, on February 21 2023
Hard Numbers: ChatGPTers double, Japan’s AI military, Google’s AI pop-ups, Magic money, Musk vs. Brazil
200 million: OpenAI says it now counts 200 million weekly users of ChatGPT, which has doubled in the past year. It also claims that 92% of Fortune 500 companies use its products for writing, coding, and organizational help.
59 billion: Japan’s military is having a recruitment problem. With only 10,000 of its citizens enlisting this year — half of its target — the government is investing $59 billion, a 7% yearly increase, to add additional capabilities including artificial intelligence. It’s spending $123 million alone on an AI surveillance system for its military bases.
17: A new report from the consultancy Authoritas found that Google is offering its AI Overviews — those pop-up AI-generated answers to users’ Googled questions — on 17% of user queries. The search engine company came under fire for its inaccurate AI-generated responses earlier this year and since then has reportedly reduced the frequency with which its suggested answers pop up.
320 million: The startup Magic, whose AI models generate computer code and automate software, raised $320 million in a funding round from former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, among others. The San Francisco-based firm also announced a partnership with Google to build two new supercomputers on the tech giant’s cloud platform.
24: X is now shut down in Brazil, the escalation of a legal dispute between the company’s owner, Elon Musk, and the country’s top court. Musk has criticized Brazil for requesting the company remove certain accounts. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes on Friday gave Musk 24 hours to name a legal representative in the country or else face a national ban. Musk refused and, in response, posted an AI-generated image of de Moraes behind bars, writing, “One day, @Alexandre, this picture of you in prison will be real. Mark my words.”Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra attends a press conference at the Pheu Thai party headquarters after the royal endorsement ceremony.
New Thai PM’s party ejects military-backed coalition partners
The Pheu Thai party announced Monday that it would eject the military-backed Palang Pracharat party from its incoming government.
The move comes after Palang Pracharat’s leader Prawit Wongsuwon, a former army chief with powerful royal connections, refused to attend the vote to approve new Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra. As a result, Pheu Thai will lose 40 Palang Pracharat representatives, but its leaders say they expect to maintain a majority in Parliament.
Politics are personal in Thailand: Prawit participated in the 2006 coup against Paetongtarn’s father, Thaksin Shinawatra, and the 2014 coup against her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra. The billionaire Shinawatra clan and its Pheu Thai party formed an alliance of necessity last year with the military to prevent the upstart reformist Move Forward party from taking power, despite winning the most votes in the 2023 election. Pheu Thai took the helm last August, and Thaksin returned from exile and was pardoned by King Vajiralongkorn.
It’s not a total schism: Pheu Thai will still work with the United Thai Nation party, also heavily linked to the military and monarchy, and Paetongtarn has consistently opposed repealing laws against criticizing the king (but there is plenty to criticize).
Pheu Thai needs middle-class Thai voters. The military-monarchy connection is deeply rooted in Thailand, and voters have generally tolerated military intervention in the name of national security. There’s no sign of a looming coup — but the Shinawatras are 0 for 2 when it comes to peaceful transitions out of power.