Russia threatens Ukraine’s borders, China sends increasingly ominous signals over Taiwan and Iran accelerates its uranium enrichment to unprecedented levels.
The whole picture: The nuclear program of Ukraine, Taiwan and Iran has always grown big on the menu of possible crises that President Biden could face. But over the past few days, the lights on all three fronts have been flashing red at the same time.
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Send the news: Within 24 hours of last Sunday, an explosion ripped off Iran’s underground nuclear site at Natanz, 25 Chinese warplanes invaded Taiwan’s air defense zone and Ukraine announced that the number of Russian troops converging on the Crimea and on the eastern border had increased up to 80,000.
Russia has now amassed enough troops for a ‘limited military invasion’, CIA director Bill Burns warned on Wednesday.
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Moscow has avoided such open intervention in eastern Ukraine since the war began there in 2014, but could now strike in an attempt to further infiltrate Ukrainian territory or secure a source of much-needed water for occupied Crimea.
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After a spate of phone calls from Washington to Kiev to lend support to Ukraine, Biden called Vladimir Putin on Tuesday and proposed a summit to discuss Ukraine and other issues.
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The state of affairs: U.S. Commander-in-Chief Tod Wolters said Thursday that there is a “low to medium” risk of a Russian invasion in the next few weeks.
The threat of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan is less urgent, but carries a much greater risk of plunging the US into a direct military confrontation.
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Beijing has repeatedly threatened to take control of the island by force. Biden, meanwhile, has continued its long-standing policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’, with the US being prepared to defend Taiwan without explicitly promising it.
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After Monday’s air strike, the largest to date, Biden is sending three former US officials to Taiwan, a move Beijing describes as “playing with fire”. China is reacting angrily to any gestures that Taiwan – a thriving democracy and global technological hub – regards as an independent country.
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The state of affairs: Admiral Philip Davidson, commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said there was a real and rising risk that China would invade within the next few years, but that the more worrying short-term scenario was an “accident or a miscalculation. “is leading to escalation.
After the apparent act of Israeli sabotage in Natanz, Iran has announced that it will enrich uranium to 60% and approach the levels for a nuclear weapon.
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Both the attack and the Iranian response threatened to derail the negotiations to save the 2015 nuclear deal.
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The state of affairs: Talks resumed in Vienna on Thursday, but back in Tehran’s supreme leader Ali Khamenei implied that Iran may soon step down from the table. If the talks falter and Iran continues to accelerate its enrichment, further flashbacks are likely.
What to look for: Just about everything that is missing from this crisis cocktail is another North Korean missile test.
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