Briefing Room 10.01.26

Welcome back to The Briefing Room, our subscriber-only show that looks at the headlines filling most news outlets than us. I mean, sure, yeah, that's all great, but what else is happening in the world?

And after a week in which nearly all media coverage was focused very much on Venezuela and Trump's threats to, well, various nations, the answer is a shit-ton of major stuff was happening elsewhere, stuff that you do really need to hear about.

First, there was the stunning near-collapse of UAE-backed forces in Yemen. Then there was the growing chatter of an Islamic NATO in the works. And if that wasn't all enough, there were shenanigans with Russian Shadow Fleet vessels beyond even the seizure of the marinara in UK waters.

In short, it has been a major week for under-the-radar stuff. So now let's catch up with all that was happening while the world was distracted by America's adventures in Venezuela, starting with a hell of a week in Yemen. Saudi-backed forces reverse STC gains in Yemen.

Now, just a few short weeks ago, Yemen's separatist Southern Transitional Council appeared to be ascendant in the country's east. Over the span of mere days, the STC had seized the entire massive provinces of Hat-Ramat and al-Mahra, along with most of Yemen's oil reserves and most of its southern coastline.

They'd seized control of the port city of Aden, expelled Saudi-backed representatives of Yemen's internationally recognized government, and promised comprehensive counterterrorism operations against al-Qaeda in a clear attempt to market themselves to Western audiences as a reliable counter to Yemen's Houthi rebels.

Perhaps most important of all, they'd secured control of the entirety of what used to be the Cold War-era nation of South Yemen, laying the groundwork for their own sovereignty claim to establish the state of South Arabia.

Today, however, it's an entirely different story, with not just some, but all of the STC's territorial gains reversed, plus the loss of key coastal territories that the STC controlled for years.

After what had first appeared to be a total, but almost willing, defeat, the Saudi-backed Republic of Yemen and a coalition of allied, Saudi-backed tribes have carried out sweeping counteroffensive.

Air support, courtesy of Saudi warplanes, has helped immensely in turning the tide, and as of this past Tuesday, Saudi-backed forces had assumed control of every military site in the Hadhramaut and Al-Mahra governments.

Now, in order to understand what went wrong for the STC, we've got to start with an explanation of the way the conflict works in Yemen, because it's very different than what we might expect from conflicts across the rest of the world.

Yemen is a place where all warring sides suffer from a shortage of manpower and equipment relative to the amount of land that they're trying to hold.

The land is easily navigable when groups are on the attack, while individual cities, towns, and bases are hard to defend, both due to those manpower shortages and the freedom of maneuver that attacking forces can rely upon.

All sides avoid costly urban battles and generally fight in the open desert, near population centers, fully exposed in conditions where it's an outright bad idea to try and hold you. ground once things have started to grow dire as a result when a fighting faction in yemen is able to mass forces for an all-out assault especially with the benefit of foreign

Air power behind them territory tends to change hands very quickly in a cascading series of victories for the attacking side that's precisely what the stc did in its initial offensive attacking in many directions at once concentrating forces in certain areas so that saudi-backed forces would pull back and taking over territory very quickly as a result and

Now with saudi aircraft known to be highly lethal when pot-shotting exposed targets in the desert that process has repeated itself again just in the opposite direction as of now the stc has been pushed into a very small space along yemen's southwestern coastline but the death toll that the stc reports speaks to a far stranger reality on the ground the stc

Claims that only 80 of its fighters have been killed 152 wounded and 130 captured in this most recent series of retreats and while the stc is likely to underreport its losses even a tenfold increase in casualties would still be a very low number in proportion to the amount of territory that's been lost this was not a series of bitter battles but a series of

Retreats as saudi arabia massed its proxy forces and showed the presence of its air power in targeted areas and basically convinced the stc that it was in their interests to retreat now given the state of affairs you would definitely be forgiven for asking the same question that our team was considering just a few days ago could all these territorial gains

Be reversed again just like they were reversed a few days ago after all the stc has its own regional backer in the united arab emirates and with enough air support and shipments of war fighting equipment the uae could help this all to start moving in the opposite direction while saudi arabia has faced little risk by simply bombing vulnerable stc positions

There's no telling whether riad would remain committed if there was a risk of its aircraft going down in long-range dog fights with emirati pilots let alone a risk that its oil fields might come into threat and while the uae has made a very public show of withdrawing its interests from stc controlled yemen global onlookers and especially our dear audience

Know all too well that the emirates don't need to be present on the ground in order to cause chaos i mean just look at the rsf in sudan we bang on about it all the time it's insane but over the last couple of days it's become clear that the stc situation is far more dire than that around the middle of the week reports emerged that the uae was pulling up

Stakes in other key locations across the region especially in berbera and basaso its most important outposts in opposition-controlled parts of somalia the stc's leader reportedly fled the country around the same time as local commanders on the ground started to switch their allegiance toward the saudi-backed forces on the opposite side an attempt to declare

Independence earlier in the week by publishing a new constitution for the state of south arabia didn't initially seem as if it was a last-ditch effort But now, the SDC's sovereignty claim is both unenforceable and functionally irrelevant.

The biggest question in all of this, however, isn't about the SDC at all, but about the Emirates.

Why is Abu Dhabi suddenly turning tail across the Middle East and North Africa, when just a few weeks ago, it seemed to be ascendant? And the answer comes by way of a far larger series of changes across the Muslim world. And to explore that, we've got to discuss the possibility of a new Muslim NATO.

An Islamic NATO in the works For our next story, we know our attention to the rumors of a new Muslim-led security arrangement, the long-proposed Islamic NATO, that have gained steam over the last few days. From what we can tell, the most recent iteration of the rumor began after Ali K.

Chishti, CEO and editor-in-chief of The Wire Pakistan, posted on X that talks were currently underway for the formation of the organization.

According to Chishti, the countries involved are Pakistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. While he does mention that other countries are involved in the conversation, the ones that are mentioned, give us an idea of the potential scope and ambition of such an alliance.

Now, for regular viewers of our main channel, Warfronts, the idea of an Islamic NATO will sound very familiar.

We discussed it while talking about the defense pact between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. In that video, we said that the idea of an Islamic NATO is far-fetched for a wide variety of reasons, but primarily because most of the members wouldn't want to be dragged into fights that aren't in their best interests.

However, since the rumors haven't just persisted, but have actually grown louder in the time since we published our video, let's examine whether there's any substance behind the speculation, or if this is simply another case of social media amplifying a story just because it sounds plausible.

First, let's look at what we know, starting with the potential members. The most important countries in the list that Chisji provided are Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Egypt, and Turkey because of their military and economic might.

These four countries have extensive defense, diplomatic, and economic ties that usually herald the potential for even greater cooperation.

Saudi Arabia already has a defense agreement with Pakistan, and according to Reuters, the two nations are in talks to convert about $2 billion of Saudi loans into a deal that would see Riyadh get an unspecified number of JF-17 fighter jets.

If this deal goes through, Saudi Arabia would become the third nation to acquire the JF-17 jets after Libya and Azerbaijan. Turkey and Pakistan recently signed an extensive hydrocarbon agreement that was described by Amini Ayoub, a Middle East Forum fellow, as a lifeline for Pakistan's failing energy grid and a boon for Turkey's industrial ambition.

Egypt, on the other hand, has been actively engaging in diplomatic outreach, with its president meeting Saudi Arabia's foreign minister to discuss their bilateral relationship, and the Egyptian foreign minister holding a press conference with his Turkish counterpart to affirm the two nations' deep ties.

These meetings happened within two months. of each other and are indicative of just how deep the regional ties are if an islamic nato is formed these are the countries that will undoubtedly have the most influence they are also the countries that might be pushing for it the hardest we also know that the leaders of all these countries were involved in the

Emergency multilateral session that happened after israel attacked qatar and led to the first round of speculation on an islamic nato and not much else that's what we know so let's move on to what we don't know including whether this is actually gonna happen apart from al chishti's post there haven't been any credible reports confirming that formal talks are

Actually underway no government has issued an official statement no joint communique has been released we're working with a single source on x and a lot of speculation built on top of it we also don't know what the structure of this proposed alliance would look like would there be a rotating command or would one country dominate decision making who would

Fund it what percentage of gdp would members be expected to spend on defense where would the headquarters be located these are not minor details the membership list also raises more questions than it answers chishti mentions other countries are involved but he didn't name them are the gulf states beyond saudi arabia interested what about iran assuming it's

Still standing by the time this goes live which has been vocal about needing a unified muslim defense pact the sectarian divide between sunni and shia majority countries has historically been a major obstacle to any pan-islamic military cooperation and it could be a major issue now most importantly we don't know if this would include a nato article five star

Mutual defense guarantee that's the entire point of such an alliance without it you'd just have another loose coalition of countries with overlapping interests with it you're asking nations to potentially go to war over conflicts that might not serve their national interests that is a massive ask and there's been no indication that any of these countries are

Willing to make that commitment given all of this you'd think that the idea of an islamic nato would be dead in the water and you would be in good company the last time these rumors emerged regional observers almost unanimously dismissed it as unrealistic however in geopolitics we have learned to never say never so it's worth considering the potential impact

Such an organization would have on not just regional defense but also on the balance of power in the immediate term if the countries do get together and actually sign the deal then the biggest question would be whether they are willing to go through with it if the organization passes this credibility test then a lot of the assumptions that observers have

Made about the middle east would need to be thrown out of the window we'd be staring at a whole different regional order we can't guarantee whether an islamic nato will be created what we can guarantee is that if it does happen it will change the entire world a russian ship captured in finnish waters so for our final story we turn our attention to finland

Where at the end of last year something rather dramatic happened on wednesday the 31st of december 2025 finnish special forces rappelled from helicopters onto a foreign cargo vessel the fitberg and detained its crew feels like a bit of foreshadowing doesn't it the fitberg 132 meter cargo vessel was traveling from st petersburg in russia to heifer in israel

When it was intercepted according to finnish authorities they seized the fitberg for two reasons the suspected sabotage of critical underwater cables and the apparent smuggling of sanctioned russian steel the ship was held first by finnish customs which determined that since it entered finish waters at the request of the authorities the crew could not be

Considered to have intentionally brought sanctioned goods into the country it was then turned over to the national bureau of investigation or nbi which is investigating the damaged undersea cables so far the investigators have discovered a drag mark stretching tens of kilometers on the seabed consistent with anchor movement which suggests that the fitberg

Deliberately targeted finnish infrastructure the question isn't why russia's doing that we already know why it's part of a broader campaign of hybrid warfare that's meant to destabilize nato and test europe's resolve in the face of increased russian aggression finland has been one of the kremlin's favorite targets in december 2024 another russian shadow

Fleet ship the eagle s was seized by finnish special forces after it dragged its anchor across the seabed for a hundred kilometers ten times more than what the fitberg did severing the s-link-2 power cable and telecommunications infrastructure linking finland and dystonia on christmas day nor have the attacks been limited to finland since russia's full-scale

Invasion of ukraine in february 2022 at least 11 cables including a gas pipeline have been cut in the baltic sea regular viewers of the briefing ring will remember that in november we reported on a russian spy ship the yantar prowling through british waters and then there were the dozens of incidents where russian drones crossed into european airspace in

Countries like poland and romania knowing all this the question we should be asking is what is nato doing about this why are russian shadow fleet ships able to threaten some of europe's most important infrastructure well after the capture of the eagle s nato announced the start of operation baltic century a collaborative project meant to increase

Surveillance of ships in the baltic sea to prevent critical infrastructure and deter further acts of sabotage emerald keith blount nato's deputy supreme allied commander of europe told cbs at the time and we'll quote him here we're not going to be subject to illegal behaviors that either threaten the rule of law or worse threaten the safety and security of

Our people it was a bold statement that signaled nato's willingness to confront russia's aggression head-on so given the recent actions of the fitberg and the fact that it's nearly a year to the day that operation baltic century was announced let's examine how effective it has been at deterring russian attacks on undersea cables according to various sources

Including the uk defense journal baltic survey identifies suspicious behavior by monitoring how ships and aircraft deviate from their planned routes.

It uses frigates, mine hunters, patrol vessels, and drones to monitor civilian and military shipping.

Additionally, the operation depends on the NATO Maritime Center for Security of Critical Underwater Infrastructure to coordinate intelligence sharing among members. In theory, this would allow NATO to identify potential threats in real time and intervene before critical infrastructure is damaged. And to the alliance's credit, it seems to be working.

Commander Arlo Abrahamsen, head of public communications at NATO Maritime Command, told independent Russian outlet in exile, the Moscow Times, in October 2025 that the alliance had not detected malign damage to critical infrastructure in the Baltic Sea since Baltic Sentry launched in January.

He explains that part of the reason why the operation had proven to be an effective deterrent was because the members of Russia's Shadow Fleet knew that they were being observed and were therefore incentivized to be on their best behavior.

However, Abrahamsen was quick to caution against interpreting the news as proof that the Baltic Sea had been fully secured.

Quoting him here, We're very keen to understand that the threat is not eliminated. There's possibilities for illegal shippers or others to cause accidents and carry out malign activities, which is why Baltic Sentry continues. And he was right to hedge his bets, as barely two months later, the Fittberg was in Finnish waters.

While we can't deny the success of Operation Baltic Sentry, the fact that Russia felt confident enough to authorize such an attack is pretty worrying. And it proves that monitoring alone has its limitations, especially when a ship is in international waters. International maritime law restricts what navies can do outside territorial waters.

Ships have the right to navigate freely, even if their behavior looks a bit suspicious. By the time authorities have enough evidence to intervene, the damage is often already done. The Fittberg's anchor dragged for tens of kilometers before Finnish forces could board the vessel, while the Eagle S covered over a hundred kilometers before it was stopped.

There's also the question of prosecution. Even when ships are seized, getting criminal charges to stick has proven difficult. In October, a Finnish court dismissed a case against three crew members of the Eagle S, saying it was beyond its jurisdiction.

So while Baltic Sentry has increased visibility over what's happening in the Baltic Sea, it hasn't solved a fundamental problem. NATO can see the threats more clearly now, but seeing threats and stopping threats are two very different things, and Russia knows this.

So until the cost of getting caught outweighs the benefit of the sabotage, Russia will keep dragging its anchors across Europe's seabed, threatening billions of dollars' worth of infrastructure.

And with that, Briefing Room over. Thanks for watching.