Leaked Documents Suggest Ukrainian Air Defense Is in Peril if Not Reinforced

Without a huge influx of munitions, Ukraine’s entire air defense network, weakened by repeated barrages from Russian drones and missiles, could fracture, according to U.S. officials and newly leaked Pentagon documents, as the NYT reports.

South Korea to Probe Circumstances Around Reported Leak of Classified U.S. Documents

A South Korean official said the government was investigating the circumstances around a leak of highly classified U.S. documents that appeared to show intelligence based on intercepted communications of U.S. allies, including discussions among Seoul officials about concerns over selling ammunition to the U.S. that could end up in Ukraine, as the WSJ reports.

China Military “Ready to Fight” After Drills Near Taiwan

China’s military declared Monday it is “ready to fight” after completing three days of large-scale combat exercises around Taiwan that simulated sealing off the island in response to the Taiwanese president’s trip to the U.S. last week, as the AP reports.

Executive Education

In Red Teaming: Alternative Analysis and Risk Assessments for a Changing World, participants will work with CSIS scholars and learn how to apply time-tested techniques like argument mapping, assumption checks, pre-mortem analysis, and other methods to update baseline forecasts.

Video Shorts

Check out CSIS’s new series of video shorts: “The Recap,” “Data Unpacked,” “Testify,” “What's Happening,” “Preview,” and “High Resolution.” And don’t forget to subscribe to the CSIS YouTube Channel!

In That Number

120

The Chinese navy has conducted 120 flight sorties from an aircraft carrier over the past three days in retaliation for Tsai Ing-wen’s US visit, Japan said on Monday.

Source: FT

Critical Quote

“The theater’s troops are ready to fight at all times and can fight at any time to resolutely smash any form of ‘Taiwan independence’ and foreign interference attempts.”

— China’s People’s Liberation Army

iDeas Lab

Admiral Linda L. Fagan, the 27th Commandant of the United States Coast Guard, sat down for a CSIS Smart Women, Smart Power conversation. Watch the ReCap here.

The Andreas C. Dracopoulos iDeas Lab at CSIS enhances our research with the latest in cutting-edge web technologies, design, and multimedia.

Optics

(Photo credit: Roman Pilipey/Getty Images.) A Ukrainian serviceman prays as he attends the Easter Vigil mass at the Cathedral of St. Alexander on April 8, 2023 in Kyiv, Ukraine.

This Town Tomorrow

At 11:30 a.m., the CSIS Strategic Technologies Program holds a discussion with NSA Director of Cybersecurity Rob Joyce on the future of the cybersecurity ecosystem.

Earlier, at 9:00 a.m., the CSIS Scholl Chair and the American Academy of Diplomacy host the Revitalizing American Commercial Diplomacy Conference.

Later, at 3:30 p.m., the Atlantic Council discusses the emerging World Bank governance agenda against a backdrop of accelerating digitization.

Video

Last week, the CSIS International Security Program hosted a conversation on the evolving threat landscape in Europe as part of the 2023 Global Security Forum. Watch the full video here.

Podcasts

CSIS’s Max Bergmann joined the podcast to discuss the imprisonment of Wall Street Journal Russia correspondent Evan Gershkovich and his prospects for release.

Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

Smiles

The American South is a strange and beautiful place. It’s where American music was born—Jazz in New Orleans, Blues in the Mississippi Delta, Country music in Tennessee. Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Elvis drew on the influences of those genres to birth rock and roll.

As luck would have it, in the spring of 1985 I was on a visit to Emory University to see if it would be a good place for me to go to college and to swim on their very fine Division 3 team. I loved Emory, but the best thing that I discovered there was at a party the swim team threw. That’s where I first heard R.E.M.

Back home in suburban Maryland, I must have heard R.E.M.’s “Radio Free Europe” on DC’s progressive radio station WHFS, but it didn’t call out to me. What I heard in suburban Atlanta at Emory that day sounded very different—it was the band’s second album, “Reckoning,” which hit stores in spring of ’84. It had an urgent, personal and deeply Southern sound that recalled Elvis, the Outlaws, and Skynyrd at their best, but it was distinctly modern. I’d never heard anything like it. My jaw hit the floor when I heard Michael Stipe singing “Don’t Go Back to Rockville,” the place that I grew up in.

The title of the record, “Reckoning” was worthy of contemplation—was it about a reckoning in the American South or was it something more personal to the band? I loved all of the songs on the album, and I couldn’t wait to share it with my high school friends who at the time were all obsessed with The Smiths. My friends didn’t really get it or care about the American South, they wanted to go to school in the Northeast. I really didn’t care. I was hooked.

I invite you to email me at [email protected] and follow me on Twitter @handrewschwartz

The Evening is my daily guide to key insights CSIS brings to the events of the day. It is composed with the External Relations team: Paige Montfort, Claire Dannenbaum, and Claire Smrt.