ITK Daily | November 7

Happy Monday.

Here’s today’s ITK Daily.

To be ITK, know this:

Senior White House official involved in undisclosed talks with top Putin aides: Jake Sullivan has had confidential discussions with Russian counterparts amid concerns over the escalation and nuclear threats. WSJ

+ The unpublicized discussions come as traditional diplomatic contacts between Washington and Moscow have dwindled.

+ Despite its support for Ukraine and punitive measures against Russia for the invasion, the White House has said that maintaining some level of contact with Moscow is imperative for achieving certain mutual national-security interests.

Inside Putin’s bunker: How he kept the plan to invade Ukraine secret: Power, paranoia, and the three friends who plotted with Vladimir Putin — Owen Matthews talks to insiders to reveal how the countdown to war really happened. The Times

+ Ukraine was merely the battlefield where the two former superpowers’ interests came into direct confrontation – the location for what Putin’s closest circle imagined was a millennial battle between the two sides.?

+ But it was also a battle for Russia’s future – and the future of influential clans who wished to ensure that their power would survive the end of Putin’s tenure as president.

+ As Putin joked to a group of KGB veterans after his election in 2000, “The special operation to take over the highest echelons of power has been successful.”

+ COVID hit Russia hard. As the pandemic gathered pace in April 2020, Putin retreated from his usual residence of Novo-Ogarevo in the suburbs of Moscow to a more remote presidential residence near Lake Valdai, between Moscow and St Petersburg.?

+ Putin’s detailed plans for an invasion may not have been a secret to the CIA, but they were kept from all but the most senior Russian military commanders.?

+ The Security Council meeting of February 21 was remarkable in many ways. The setting of the Kremlin’s St Catherine Hall was unique in its formality and grandeur – a clear signal that something momentous and historic was afoot.

+ Extracted from Overreach by Owen Matthews, published on November 10 by Mudlark

Germany to China = DC to Berlin

+ @W7VOA There's been a phone call today (Sunday) between @POTUS and @OlafScholz to discuss #China and #Russia, according to the @WhiteHouse.

US-China global influence battle takes center stage at COP27: Biden and Xi will offer competing initiatives for developing world support. Politico

+ The Biden administration is going all out to assert itself as a global leader on climate action at this week’s UN climate conference. Doing so will require a diplomatic faceoff with China.

+ Biden will join a 16-member delegation of senior officials — including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, national security adviser Jake Sullivan and USAID administrator Samantha Power — on Friday to make the case that the Trump era of climate inaction and denialism is over.

Xi's removal of Hu points to 'common prosperity,' not Taiwan invasion: Chinese president's dissent-free cabinet hints at unpopular decisions ahead. Nikkei

+ Hand-picked by paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, Hu was the wunderkind tasked with leading China into a new age. The country was dipping its feet in the market economy and needed a smart, prudent leader to steer the ship.

+ Twenty-three years later, at the just-concluded Chinese Communist Party national congress, the 79-year-old Hu was removed from his seat and shown the door, on the grounds that he was not feeling well.?

+ Xi Jinping then pushed through a vote to amend the party charter, strengthening his grip as the "core" of the party, with an empty seat next to him.

+ "The new leadership is a task force. Now that the strategy has been decided, the priority is to execute and implement the policies, not to debate about the path."

Global Affairs needs to get a grip on its most sensitive intelligence activities, committee says: Committee report says department's oversight is 'inconsistent, and in some areas completely absent.' CBC

+ The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians' (NSICOP) has conducted its first-ever review of Global Affairs Canada, which has an intelligence-gathering section that usually gets very little attention.?

+ "The public should be concerned. The Government of Canada should be concerned because, ultimately, our system is predicated on ministerial accountability. The Canadian people should know that we can do better."

Places I am unlikely to visit, ever:

Mars.

Macau.

Mastodon.

Metaverse.

How blockchain could replace paper trail for importers: A system that can require 850 documents for one lorry from the EU is in desperate need of updating, say international traders. The Times

+ The initiative is saving farmers and shippers time and money and is eliminating the risk that local officials are offered chai, a local phrase for bribes, to fast-track checks and paperwork to enable shipments to be loaded on time.

+ Unfortunately, the promised revolution in trade grinds to a halt when it hits the UK border as Whitehall departments such as HMRC and the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra), have not yet allowed the Kenya trade corridor pilot software to be integrated into their own systems.

Entrepreneur: Apple is now valued more than Alphabet, Amazon, and Meta combined

+ The iPhone maker's worth stands at $2.307 trillion, while its tech peers add up to $2.306 trillion.

+ Tech stocks have suffered after posting poor quarterly earnings, but Apple dodged a wipeout.

Branson’s baby finds its feet again with new US route: As the airline nears its 40th anniversary there is cause for celebration, its founder says. The Times

+ The carrier, founded by Branson in 1984 with one aircraft, now flies 38 jets to 29 destinations in 15 countries, according to the data firm Cirium, with routes to the US, the Caribbean, and Asia.

+ The airline appears to be making headway with this ambition. From summer 2023, it will have seven daily flights into Florida.

+ “I hope on our 40th we have one hell of a party, and that Willie Walsh turns up for his just desserts.”

+ In 2012 Walsh, then chief executive of BA’s owner IAG, made comments suggesting that the Virgin brand could disappear after Delta bought its stake.

Why Elon Musk’s quest to revive Twitter is likely to fail: Musk’s strategy at Twitter might work at a startup, but Twitter is a mature company in an extremely competitive market, with little prospects for growth. Christopher Mims

+ Elon Musk is treating Twitter like a startup. The thing about startups is, most of them fail.

+ But Twitter isn’t a startup, it’s a mature company with a lot that Mr. Musk could squander if he moves too quickly and breaks too many things at once.

+ Mark Zuckerberg has compared the experience of running a giant social network to waking up every day and “getting punched in the stomach.”

+ @nytimes: Twitter is delaying the rollout of verification check marks to subscribers of its new $7.99 a month service until after Tuesday’s midterms, according to an internal post viewed by The New York Times and two people with knowledge of the decision.

How Intel plans to rival TSMC and Samsung as a chip supplier: Geopolitics could give US tech giant's contract chipmaking strategy a boost. Nikkei

+ Since returning to Intel as CEO in early 2021, Pat Gelsinger has been on a mission: transform America's biggest semiconductor company into a major contract chipmaker.

+ TSMC -- the world's largest contract chipmaker -- controlled over 53% of the global foundry market in the first half of this year, research company Trendforce said. Samsung was in second place, with a 16.5% share.

+ Amid all the challenges, one external factor could give Intel's strategy a boost: geopolitics.

The ugly story of how corporate America convinced us to spend so much on water: We’re being packaged and sold a bottle/can/box of lies on water. Vox

+ "The story of bottled water is part fear, part marketing, part laziness"

+ "Dua Lipa isn’t going to fix America’s water problem, better infrastructure is"

1 day left until Election Day.

A quarter-billion dollars for the Walker-Warnock Georgia Senate race buys tossup: Both parties are betting a win by their candidates, Herschel Walker and Raphael Warnock, will yield a Senate majority in Tuesday’s midterm election. WSJ

+ To win a single Senate seat, Republicans and Democrats have spent the equivalent of $30.83 on every one of the 7.8 million eligible voters in Georgia. That comes to somewhere north of $241 million and counting.

+ Yet rather than winning over voters, the advertising bacchanalia has largely generated fatigue and annoyance, according to voters interviewed around the state. Ads for one side or the other parade through TV programs and streaming channels. Radio stations blare endless vote-for-me appeals. Text messages and emails flood phones. Mailboxes are stuffed with fliers.

Imagine spending nearly a quarter of a million dollars and not knowing if you will succeed. Or how campaign spending is different than marketing spending.

The Obama nostalgia show: On the stump for Democrats, the former president invoked hope. But even the party faithful know that things have changed. Elaine Godfrey

+ When the 44th president came onstage, the crowd greeted him like a long-lost friend—or a favorite teacher who’d returned after a series of varyingly unimpressive substitutes.

+ Biden opened the event, but Obama was the headliner.

Dem operatives thinking about 2024:

“Who’s your candidate of choice?”

“Mayor Pete.”

“Now from Michigan.”

“Ooh.”

“With Amy Klobuchar"

“Oh, stunning!”

How a secret meeting put Hakeem Jeffries on track to replace Pelosi: Behind the scenes, House Democrats battle to anoint their next generation of leaders. Politico

+ The race to succeed Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the leader of House Democrats may have been clinched at a meeting in the Capitol on September 1.

+ With the current trio of House Democrats in their 80s, the transition to a lawmaker who came of age in the 1980s, and is given to quoting Biggie Smalls and even rapping at fundraisers, would also further fuel questions about the future of a president about to turn 80.

+ To MSNBC-attuned Democratic activists and donors, Adam Schiff may be the second best-known House Democrat and, after helping to lead two impeachment trials against Donald Trump, Pelosi’s de facto deputy. But a cable television profile does not a leader make, at least not in the relationship-driven politics of congressional elections.

Trump may pose a test no special counsel can pass: NYT reports former President Donald J. Trump’s apparent plan to soon announce his candidacy is challenging Attorney General Merrick B. Garland’s desire to show that the Justice Dept. can operate above partisanship.

Watch: Can't Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police: Utilizing rare archival footage and insights from the guitarist's side of the stage, Can't Stand Losing You: Surviving the Police brings together past and present as the band members reunite, more than two decades later, for a global reunion tour in 2007.

Winner: Detroit Lions beat the Green Bay Packers.

British soccer, brought to you by American crypto optimism: A group of American cryptocurrency investors is trying to turn an obscure English soccer club into “the internet’s team,” with a global following of crypto enthusiasts. NYT

+ Preston Johnson and his fellow investors soon earned some good will: Over the summer, they raised $4.8 million from the sale of a line of soccer-themed NFTs, the unique digital collectibles that exploded in popularity last year.

+ Johnson insists that his soccer project is different. Rather than selling crypto to Crawley fans, he said, the ownership group is trying to sell Crawley to crypto fans and thus create new sources of revenue for the club.

+ The grand plan to turn a tiny English soccer team into a symbol of crypto’s global clout began thousands of miles from Crawley, at the Malibu, Calif., branch of Nobu.

Enjoy the ride + plan accordingly.

-Marc

Caracal produces ITK Daily.

Caracal is a geopolitical business communications firm specializing in global business issues at the intersection of globalization, disruption, and politics.

Caracal believes to be a geopolitical business communicator you need global street smarts that are holistic, high-frequency, and high-low.

To receive Caracal ITK Daily by email, subscribe here.