‘A shield of peace’
Developments
- Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Pakistan have just agreed that an attack on one of them is an attack on all. Now what?
- In Spain, a five-man forensic team tries to identify 80 people who died in a single crossing from Morocco into Ceuta. … The Pentagon denies it’s short of missile interceptors, then moves to triple production. … & Geneticists find two long-lost human populations in our DNA.
From the files
- What could disarming Hezbollah actually settle? Vali Nasr on the last time Israel occupied Lebanon.
- How could an unexpected event transform a work of art? Bryan Singer on a secret monument in Southern Lebanon, its tangled politics, and his first film in seven years.
Feature
- What happened to the “public intellectual”? Raymond Geuss on a role that lasted 70 years—and why he won’t really miss it.
Music
- Who is Kurt Ballou?
- & New tracks from Russian Circles, Danny L. Harle x Doss, Four Tet, Slint, & John Carpenter (yes, that John Carpenter).
+ Weather report
- Sand from the Sahara is keeping the Atlantic quiet. It won’t last …
Developments
Consultations to follow
Saudi Arabia has had Pakistani soldiers on its soil since April, when the kingdom said a Pakistani force and fighter jets had arrived. It has been flying Turkish drones since 2023, in a sale Ankara called its largest defense export ever. Pakistani officers helped build the Saudi air force, and Pakistani commandos helped put down the siege of the Grand Mosque in 1979.
At the Al-Safa Palace in Mecca on Friday, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif signed the Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, with Pakistan’s military chief, Field Marshal Asim Munir, standing behind them. Their statement says an armed attack on any one of the three “shall be regarded as an attack against them all.” Sharif called it a “shield of peace.” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said it had been two years and eight months in the making, that it isn’t directed at Iran, and that it’s “technically the same” as NATO’s Article 5.
Turkey has the second-largest army in NATO. Saudi Arabia is one of the world’s biggest oil exporters. Pakistan has the only nuclear weapons in a Muslim country.
What are they doing?
Can’t hear yourself think?
The David Lynch Foundation helps bring calm to veterans, students, and communities in need.
Music
‘Empath’
Russian Circles, an instrumental metal trio from Chicago going on 20 years, will release Nine (indeed, their ninth album), on August 28. Kurt Ballou recorded it for them, mostly at Electrical Audio, the studio Steve Albini ran in Chicago until he passed away in 2024, then finished it outside Boston at Ballou’s own studio, God City.
Who’s Kurt Ballou?
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