World Events Summary: 6th-12th February 2018

U.S. Budget Deal: Congress showed that one of the only areas it can agree upon is to spend more money – discretionary spending will increase by US$300bn in coming years. The further run-up in the deficit (after tax cuts) makes execution of Trump’s US$1.5tn infrastructure plan more complicated – Republicans want to use mostly private investment, Democrats mostly federal funds. 

Syria Escalation: Israel shot-down what it claimed was an Iranian drone entering its airspace, after being launched from Syria. An Israeli fighter jet was shot-down, and Israel undertook substantial military action, targeting Iranian and Assad-aligned forces, as a result. While the international community called for restraint no concrete actions to reduce tensions were agreed at the UN. 

Turkey: its offensive against U.S. Kurdish allies in Syria continued – increasing the potential for NATO allies the U.S. and Turkey to harm each other’s forces (U.S. military personnel remain embedded with the Kurds). Erdogan has increased the crackdown on Kurdish supporters inside Turkey. The U.S. criticized the conviction of a dual-citizen NASA scientist as part of the suppression of Gulenist groups.