.@ChrisRMcGuire on China Talk. "the big question for Congress and for the administration is: how could the Commerce Department have known about this? Have known that Mega Speed is being run by Chinese spies and not done anything to stop the export of chips to them? $4.8 billion worth of chips, and they were sitting on information that said they're being run by Chinese spies, and those spies are actively trying to to penetrate Nvidia at the highest levels. It is baffling to me how they could have sat on that and done nothing..."

Fascinating and important post by Vance, which is a real open breach with the president. - A clear public repudiation of the Iran war. Vance then says that Trump agrees with this, but in fact Trump merely said "Iran was a piece of it". Vance is understandably trying to couch his distancing from Trump policy in more palatable terms. - Vance says: "if you'd like to argue it [the war] was worth it, that losing the Senate for the next 6 years was worth it, then do so." Well, this is **exactly** what Trump suggested last night: "I did the right thing. I would have done it again." If Trump now orders strikes on Iran, it leaves Vance in an extremely difficult position. Would he resign? - Israel policy—Vance says Republicans lost voters was because they did not "Put America First" and "Change our relationship to Israel". Vance has always struck a cautious note on Israel, but this is more explicit and shows the serious schism on the right over Israel policy. Makes sense if Vance is attempting to reach independent voters and younger Republicans who are more sceptical of Israel than older ones. - Vance suggests blaming defeat on immigration policy (opposed by majorities of voters) is "gaslighting" but also says he is "open to the idea that we should change enforcement". No explicit reflection on the relationship between his nativist, blood & soil rhetoric and the extremes of immigration policy that also turned many voters off for reasons other than Iran/prices. All in all, you can see Vance trying to shape the debate in favour of a more restraint-oriented foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East, but with broader implications for Europe & Asia, too. Inevitable also that Vance will be challenged from traditional hawkish right - Rubio? Cruz? DeSantis? - on these issues, including Israel, though that camp will also have to grapple with the unpopularity of the war and the changing politics of Israel.

"A consistent message from these [Democratic] envoys [to Europe] is that the old post-1945 order is not coming back, and that some pillars of Trumpism—rhetoric about putting Americans first, and a focus on industrial production—will remain, whoever wins."

I'm still fascinated by the enormous chasm between the AI labs and the traditional cyber-security world. This is Marcus Hutchins from LinkedIn: "Mirai is already self-propagating across millions of IoT devices without the help of any AI. It's simply not needed, and it adds unnecessary complexity....Any remotely intelligent threat actor would just use a powerful unquantized models to reverse engineer & find vulnerabilities in obscure devices and write normal (AI-free) self-propagating code. Ironically, they typically do this by stealing Anthropic API keys and using Anthropic's models, not open-weight ones." Not an expert but can't help but get the sense that the AI world has a lot of technical knowledge but much less real-world experience of how cyber threats manifest in practice.

"The United States is still better liked than China. But for the first time, in a historically pro-American region, Latin Americans see China’s influence in a better light than America’s: 65% call it positive, against 57% for the United States."

Very important report by Danish intelligence. ‘It added that there was "a low but growing risk" that Russia would launch a limited military attack against one or several NATO countries that border Russia. "A limited military attack would be a ‌desperate ⁠move on Russia’s part and, like the intensified hybrid attacks, could potentially take place in the coming months," it said. Such attacks could include isolated strikes with long-range weapons like drones or missiles on infrastructure supporting Ukraine, or false-flag operations using Ukrainian-made drones, intelligence service chief Thomas Ahrenkiel said at a press conference.’

A very concerning statement by Poland. Warns of Russian “drones or other types of projectiles could be launched into the territory of one or more Nato countries on the eastern flank, and could even cause damage, and the official narrative will be that this is an accident.”

I’m delighted that Alex Turner will succeed me as defence editor of @TheEconomist later this year. Alex, who is currently an army officer, is highly experienced, an accomplished military historian and a talented writer. He will be a fantastic journalist.