Russia Launches Military Drills, Blames U.S. for Escalation

With little sign of diplomatic progress and rhetoric reminiscent of the Cold War, Russia on Tuesday announced a flurry of military drills across its vast territory, spanning from the Pacific Ocean to its western flank around Ukraine, as the NYT reports.

Covid-19 Deaths in the U.S. Top 2,100 a Day, Highest in Nearly a Year

Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. have reached the highest level since early last year, as the WSJ reports.

North Korea Missile Launch

North Korea fired two cruise missiles on Tuesday morning, as CNN reports.

Executive Education

Register for CSIS's “Navigating U.S. Foreign Assistance” course to participate in an in-depth, hands-on study of the latest trends and techniques today’s international development and humanitarian leaders need to maximize their impact.

Call for Applications: Strategy and Statecraft Fellowship

CSIS is launching the inaugural year of its Strategy and Statecraft Fellowship, an exclusive, world-class program of approximately 15 leaders. Fellows will grapple with the challenges of developing strategy and conducting effective statecraft, focusing on one of the most pressing challenges facing the United States: how to best compete with China.

Video Shorts

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

In That Number

2,100

Covid-19 deaths in the U.S. top 2,100 per day, the highest number in nearly a year.

Source: WSJ

Critical Quote

“Today, at this very moment, not a single strike group of the Russian armed forces has been established, which attests to the fact that tomorrow they are not going to invade. That is why I ask you to not spread panic.”

— Oleksii Reznikov, Ukrainian defense minister

iDeas Lab

CSIS's Daniel F. Runde recently testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere on the topic of “Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and Panama: A New Alliance for Promoting Democracy & Prosperity in the Americas.”

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: Jung Yeon-je/AFP.) People watch a television screen showing a news broadcast with file footage of a North Korean missile test, at a railway station in Seoul on January 25, 2022, after North Korea fired two suspected cruise missiles according to the South's military.

This Town Tomorrow

At 9:30 a.m., join CSIS for the 40th installment of the Capital Cable, which will cover Korea-Japan Relations, the U.S.-ROK Alliance, and North Korea.

And, at 10:00 a.m., CSIS hosts a discussion between space policy experts to assess risks associated with satellites in geostationary orbit.

Then, at 5:30 p.m., the Bipartisan Policy Center holds a discussion about ways to build trust in technology networks to advance freedom.

Video

Last week, CSIS Japan Chair and Henry A. Kissinger Chair Michael J. Green hosted Tadashi Maeda, Governor of the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, for a discussion on Japan's economic prospects in 2022. Watch here.

Podcasts

This week, Andrew was joined by Emily Harding, Deputy Director and Senior Fellow with the CSIS International Security Program. They discussed how the intelligence community can reap the benefits of artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) capabilities with respect to unclassified cloud capability.

Listen on Spotify & Apple Podcasts.

Smiles

“Is there anybody alive out there?”

Sirius XM Radio is a wonderful thing. Routinely, I flip on the Grateful Dead channel, the Tom Petty channel, and so many others. One of my longtime favorites is the Deep Tracks channel. It plays all kinds of tunes that you forgot existed or never knew in the first place.

Take two weeks ago when Deep Tracks played a little-known Who tune, “2000 Years.” It took me to another place.

Yesterday, I was driving and Deep Tracks launched into Bruce Springsteen’s “Radio Nowhere.” Somehow, I forgot this gem existed!

“Radio Nowhere” isn’t an obscure track—it was awarded a Grammy in 2008. But it ain’t “Thunder Road” either. When it came on Deep Tracks yesterday, I was instantly consumed by it, and utterly lost in its power as if it were Springsteen’s “Thunder Road,” “Backstreets,” or “Darkness on the Edge of Town.”

The power of the Boss and Deep Tracks combined is music to my ears.

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: Kendal Gee, Paige Montfort, and Christopher Healey.