Top military leaders claim that a massive spending hike is needed to confront Beijing
US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and other senior Pentagon officials have urged lawmakers to extend the federal borrowing limit, insisting a default on the national debt would be devastating for America’s reputation and “embolden” China.
Testifying at a Senate Defense Appropriation hearing on Thursday, both Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley spoke in support of the White House’s 2024 budget request, also warning that a default would deal a major blow to national security.
“China right now describes us in their open speeches, etc., as a declining power,” Milley said. “Defaulting on the debt would only reinforce that thought and embolden China and increase risk to the United States.”
Arguing that the Pentagon’s $842-billion budget request for next year is “driven by the seriousness of our strategic competition with the People’s Republic of China,” Austin went on to state that a default would carry “substantial risk to our reputation” which could benefit Beijing.
“What it would mean realistically for us is that we won’t, in some cases, be able to pay our troops with any degree of predictability. And that predictability is really really important for us,” he added. “This would have a real impact on the pockets of our troops and our civilians.”
In his opening remarks, the defense secretary also said the budget sought by the military would mark a 3.2% increase over 2023 – including a 40% boost to the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which aims to expand the US military presence in China’s backyard – but insisted the money is required to meet the “pacing challenge” posed by the PRC.
Austin and Milley are the latest in a series of senior officials to issue dire warnings about a potential default, as lawmakers struggle to strike a deal to extend the federal borrowing limit, which currently sits at $31.4 trillion and could be reached as soon as next month.
Earlier on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen claimed a default would be “a catastrophe,” suggesting the move could “raise questions about our ability to defend our national security interests.”
Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines also told Congress last week that both China and Russia would seize on a debt default, saying they could use the event to portray “chaos within the United States.”
Much like the Pentagon, President Joe Biden himself has also stated that default is simply “not an option,” as it could trigger a recession and damage the US’ international reputation “in the extreme.”
While little progress was made in negotiations with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Tuesday, Biden is set to meet with the Republican leader again next week for further talks on extending the debt ceiling.
Finland’s prime minister claims that Moscow has used asylum seekers from the Middle East against the EU
Russia has engineered the influx of migrants from third countries in order to undermine the EU, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo said on Friday. He stressed the need to strengthen the border with Russia, which has been closed for several months.
Petteri made the comments during a visit to Finland’s eastern border at Imatra, along with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
“We have to find common solutions to stop this phenomenon when Russia has used illegal immigrants against us. We are preparing our own legislation but we also need EU-level measures,” Orpo told reporters. He previously said the threat from the situation at the border was “evident,” and announced that the government was working on a deportation law.
At a joint press conference, von der Leyen claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin “has set his sights on Finland” because of the country’s support for Ukraine and its recent accession to NATO. “Russia’s hybrid attacks are not just about Finland’s security. This is about the security of the entire EU,” she wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Finland shut down the border with Russia in December and has since extended the closure indefinitely. The Finnish authorities cited a spike in illegal crossings, as more than 1,200 migrants from 29 different countries have applied for asylum since August, according to official statistics. Most of them came from Syria, Somalia, and other Middle Eastern and African states.
Russia has denied weaponizing migration, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accusing Helsinki of refusing cooperation between the countries’ border agencies.
The historically warm relations between the neighbors became severely strained after Finland, along with many Western states, imposed sanctions on Russia and began supplying Kiev with weapons. In a March interview with Russian media, Putin blamed the West for the breakdown of the previously “ideal relations” between Moscow and Helsinki.
Last year, Finland abandoned its longstanding policy of nonalignment in favor of joining the US-led military bloc, whose expansion eastwards Russia sees as a threat to national security.
Itamar Ben-Gvir seemed to mock the recent strike against the Islamic Republic
One of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s key allies has been accused of damaging Israel with just one word, after making a social media post about the alleged strike on an Iranian airfield.
Iran has brushed off reports of explosions in the skies over Isfahan on Friday, while West Jerusalem declined to comment. Both countries thus seemed to have the perfect excuse not to escalate their conflict any further, when Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir chimed in.
“Lame,” he posted on X (formerly Twitter) in Hebrew, suggesting not only that Israel was behind the strike but that it had been ineffective.
“Never before has a minister done such heavy damage to the country’s security, its image, and its international status,” opposition leader Yair Lapid responded. “In an unforgivable tweet of one word, Ben Gvir managed to sneer and shame Israel from Tehran to Washington.”
Channel 12 quoted unnamed government officials close to Netanyahu as calling Ben-Gvir “childish and irrelevant to any discussion,” but also accusing him of damaging Israel’s national security.
“He may as well be working for the enemy,” wrote podcaster Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, who pointed out that Iranian media have been citing Ben-Gvir’s tweet to mock Israel.
Iran’s Tasnim news agency had indeed quoted the minister’s social media post, noting that “even Israeli officials are laughing at them.”
Israel had vowed to “respond” to last Saturday’s drone and missile strikes by Iran, which was a reprisal for the April 1 bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Syria that killed several senior officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force.
Iran acknowledged on Friday that its air defenses were activated in response to a “suspicious object,” while the country’s media reported that three small drones were shot down and that there was no damage on the ground.
Israel does not typically confirm or deny attacks on foreign soil. West Jerusalem, however, repeatedly promised retaliation against Iran, which they accuse of masterminding the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel.
Karl-Erivan Haub, the former head of a retail chain, might have faked his own death to escape to Russia, RTL claims
Karl-Erivan Haub, the former head of German retail giant Tengelmann Group, disappeared at an Alpine ski resort six years ago. Now, German broadcaster RTL claims that the businessman, who had been declared dead, could still be alive, and may have secretly worked for Russia.
Haub was last seen in April 2018 in Zermatt, Switzerland, where he was preparing for a ski race. He vanished without a trace after taking a ski lift up a mountain alone. A six-day search operation involving five helicopters and several specialized rescue teams yielded no results. The then-58-year-old’s body has not been found.
The businessman and married father of two was officially pronounced dead by a Cologne court three years later in 2021, after his younger brother, Christian, who took over his business empire, swore under oath that he had seen no indications that his relative was still alive.
Liv von Boetticher, an RTL journalist, claims that Karl-Ervian Haub may still be alive. Evidence the reporter claims to have collected over a three-year investigation “demonstrates convincingly” that the businessman could have “deliberately staged his disappearance” and that at least some members of his family were aware of this. The broadcaster also released a series of podcasts detailing von Boetticher’s investigation.
The reporter claimed in Stern magazine that Christian had initiated an internal Tengelmann Group investigation after his brother’s disappearance, and later hired several private investigative companies, some based in Russia. The journalist also stated that she had personally seen photos of the businessman taken in Moscow in February 2021 by some of the private investigators hired by his brother.
No evidence of an accident was found at the site in Switzerland of Haub’s now-alleged disappearance, von Boetticher told German broadcaster n-tv, adding that the trail had instead “led to Russia.” According to the journalist, the businessman had talked extensively to a Russian woman identified as Veronika Ermilova before vanishing without a trace. Haub had reportedly called her phone more than a dozen times in three days before going missing. Von Boetticher claimed the woman was his mistress and was linked to the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB).
According to the reporter, the two were also frequently “in the same places at the same time” over a number of years. In 2008, they were both in Moscow and Sochi within a few days. In 2009, they traveled from Moscow to St. Petersburg on the same train. They also made simultaneous short trips to the same destinations in 2010, 2011, 2014, 2015, and 2017, von Boetticher said.
The journalist also claimed that the German billionaire had other connections in Russia, including banker Andrey Suzdaltsev and Russian-American businessman Sergey Grishin. The latter was purported to have been “robbing” the Russian banking system in the 1990s.
Von Boetticher told Die Welt last year that Haub “could have worked as a kind of agent of influence for Russia in Germany,” adding that she also was in the FSB’s crosshairs because of her investigation.
In 2023, RTL journalists filed a complaint with the Cologne Prosecutor’s Office, accusing Haub’s brother Christian of making false statements before the court. German law enforcement officials initially refused to open an investigation but changed their minds after the reporters approached the Prosecutor General’s Office, which ordered that a probe be launched.
Earlier this month, the Prosecutor’s Office confirmed to news agency dpa that proceedings had been initiated against Christian Haub for allegedly lying to the court. Law enforcement officials specifically stated that they had no reason to review a court decision under which Karl-Erivan Haub was declared dead.
Russian officials have not commented on the situation. Veronika Ermilova, who was contacted by Russian media, called the RTL report an “unverified fake.” She said she was “not living with a billionaire” and denied having connections to any security services.
Ermilova said she had previously worked for a St. Petersburg-based event agency that had dealings with Haub. A lawyer for Christian Haub told journalists that there was “no truth” in the accusations against his client, adding that they were based on “incorrect information.”
RT could not independently verify von Boetticher’s claims.
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