At last month’s G20 summit, President Biden announced an initiative to connect India to Israel via shipping and railroad links that would run through the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and other countries—and eventually link up with the European Union. Such a scheme would build on both the Abraham Accords and the warm relations at present between Jerusalem and New Delhi, and also serve American strategic interests. To Efraim Inbar, Washington and its allies should be thinking even more boldly:

It immediately comes to mind that the corridor could constitute one of the more ambitious counters to China’s own Belt and Road Initiative, which sought to connect more of the world to that country’s economy. . . . However, if the American goal is to circumvent Chinese influence, the announced corridor needs an eastern extension. This Western-oriented corridor neglects important U.S. allies such as South Korea, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand. These states are essential in the ongoing American competition with China.

Any trade corridor needs to be defended militarily. The U.S. must control both straits via its allies or its own maritime power. That requires the U.S. to establish the military might to maintain the freedom of navigation along the extended corridor. An uninterrupted flow of goods from Europe and the Middle East to the Indo-Pacific is critical. Only an America that can supply security for the trade routes can reassure its allies and hedging states about American seriousness . . . in case of greater Chinese encroachment.

Nevertheless, both wings of the corridor are susceptible to hostile interference. Iran can act against free trade in the western corridor. It already does so by attacking even American ships in its vicinity in the Indian Ocean, and its presence in Yemen is also threatening. Similarly, China acts aggressively in the South China Sea and threatens to invade Taiwan.

The U.S. must demonstrate to [these] states that getting closer to China is unwise. In the Middle East, anti-American political entities such as Iran, Syria, and even the Palestinian Authority, which signed strategic partnerships with China, must realize that Beijing is not a reliable ally. The best demonstration is a strong American response to the Iranian challenges. In contrast, neither China nor Russia can project power in the Indian Ocean, signaling that China cannot guarantee security.

Yesterday, the beepers used by hundreds of Hizballah operatives were detonated. Noah Rothman puts this ingenious attack in the context of the overall war between Israel and the Iran-backed terrorist group:

[W]hile the disabling of an untold number of Hizballah operatives is remarkable, it’s also ominous. This week, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant told reporters that the hour is nearing when Israeli forces will have to confront Iran’s cat’s-paw in southern Lebanon directly, in order to return the tens of thousands of Israelis who fled their homes along Lebanon’s border under fire and have not yet been able to return. Today’s operation may be a prelude to the next phase of Israel’s defensive war, a dangerous one in which the IDF will face off against an enemy with tens of thousands of fighters and over 150,000 rockets and missiles trained on Israeli cities.

Seth Frantzman, meanwhile, focuses on the specific damage the pager bombings have likely done to Hizballah:

This will put the men in hospital for a period of time. Some of them can go back to serving Hizballah, but they will not have access to one of their hands. These will most likely be their dominant hand, meaning the hand they’d also use to hold the trigger of a rifle or push the button to launch a missile.

Hizballah has already lost around 450 fighters in its eleven-month confrontation with Israel. This is a significant loss for the group. While Hizballah can replace losses, it doesn’t have an endlessly deep [supply of recruits]. This is not only because it has to invest in training and security ahead of recruitment, but also because it draws its recruits from a narrow spectrum of Lebanese society.

The overall challenge for Hizballah is not just replacing wounded and dead fighters. The group will be challenged to . . . roll out some other way to communicate with its men. The use of pagers may seem archaic, but Hizballah apparently chose to use this system because it assumed the network could not be penetrated. . . . It will also now be concerned about the penetration of its operational security. When groups like Hizballah are in chaos, they are more vulnerable to making mistakes.