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New Delhi [<keyword id="19895063" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="India" source="keywords">India</keyword>], June 23 (ANI): India and <keyword id="19919639" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Bangladesh" source="keywords">Bangladesh</keyword> have reiterated their commitment to a free, open, inclusive, secure, and rules-based <keyword id="1574110" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indo-Pacific-region" source="Orion">Indo-Pacific region</keyword>. The two nations pledged to co-lead the <keyword id="481261" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Disaster-Risk-Reduction" source="Orion">Disaster Risk Reduction</keyword> and Management pillar of the <keyword id="19909557" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Indo-Pacific" source="keywords">Indo-Pacific</keyword> Oceans Initiative (IPOI) and cooperate to mitigate disaster risks. A joint statement was issued following the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Bangladeshi counterpart, <keyword id="66026" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="Sheikh-Hasina" source="Orion">Sheikh Hasina</keyword>, during the latter's two-day State visit to India. The joint statement released by India and Bangladesh reads, "Recognizing the contribution of our partnership to peace, security and stability in the region, we reiterate our commitment to a free, open, inclusive, secure, and rules-based Indo-Pacific region." "Based on our converging visions for the Indo-Pacific region and recognizing the vulnerability of the region to adverse impacts of climate change, we will co-lead the 'Disaster Risk Reduction and Management' pillar of the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI), and cooperate to mitigate disaster risks, build disaster resilient infrastructure, and contribute to the sustenance of our shared maritime region," it added. The two nations pledged to work together on global platforms to promote their common interests, particularly those of the Global South. "With our wide-ranging bilateral cooperation, we also envision India-Bangladesh relationship to become a major anchor for regional and sub-regional integration under the BIMSTEC, SAARC and IORA architectures. We will work together on global platforms to promote our common interests, especially the interests of Global South," the joint statement said. According to the joint statement, India and Bangladesh need to take the relationship to a "deeper and higher quality relationship" based on mutual trust and benefit in the coming days. India and Bangladesh committed to strengthening trade and investment linkages with each other, including through the early commencement of negotiations for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), the early operationalization of two Special Economic Zones (SEZs) offered by Bangladesh to India in Mongla and Mirsharai, the opening of new border-haats, trade facilitation to enhance bilateral trade, and improving road, rail, air, and maritime connectivity. The joint statement reads, "Resolving to work towards promoting the prosperity of our people, we will strengthen trade and investment linkages with each other, including through early commencement of negotiations for a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), early operationalization of two Special Economic Zones (SEZs) offered by Bangladesh to India in Mongla and Mirsharai, opening of new border-haats, trade facilitation to enhance bilateral trade, improving road, rail, air, and maritime connectivity and trade infrastructure which can transform our geographical proximity into new economic opportunities for our peoples. We will also encourage and support our private sector to seek new investment opportunities in each other's priority areas of economic development." India and Bangladesh agreed to strengthen defence cooperation with a long-term perspective. The two sides will continue to work together for multifaceted military engagements of exercises, training and capability development. The joint statement reads, "Appreciating the significant role of the two countries in ensuring peace, stability and harmony in the region, we will strengthen our defence cooperation with a long-term perspective." "In line with the plans for modernization of the Bangladesh Armed Forces, we will explore defence industrial cooperation for modernization of the Armed Forces of Bangladesh, to strengthen their capability for defence. We will continue to work closely with Bangladesh for our multifaceted military engagements of exercises, training and capability development," it added. Considering the importance of <keyword id="22149253" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="water-resource-management" source="keywords">water resource management</keyword> in our bilateral relationship, the two nations continue to engage in prioritising the exchange of data and formulating the framework for interim water sharing based on the recommendations of the Joint Rivers Commission. India and Bangladesh welcomed the formation of a Joint Technical Committee to initiate discussions for the renewal of the Ganges Water Sharing Treaty of 1996, according to the joint statement. The joint statement further reads, "As part of our development cooperation, we will also undertake conservation and management of <keyword id="22048538" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="teesta-river" source="keywords">Teesta River</keyword> inside Bangladesh with Indian assistance within a mutually agreed timeframe." On June 21, Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina arrived in India on a two-day State visit at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The newly appointed Minister of State (MoS) for External Affairs, Kirtivardhan Singh, welcomed the visiting Bangladesh PM at the airport upon her arrival. This was the first incoming bilateral State visit after <keyword id="2238662" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="PM-Modi" source="Orion">PM Modi</keyword> assumed office for the third consecutive term following the Lok Sabha elections. Notably, Sheikh Hasina was among the global leaders who attended the swearing-in ceremony of PM Modi on June 9.

India and Bangladesh reiterate commitment to free, open, inclusive, secure and rules-based Indo-Pacific region

In the early 2000s, the business of for-profit college was booming. After the University of Phoenix's parent company, the Apollo Group, went public in 1994, others were close on its heels: Corinthian, ITT Tech, and Kaplan each had IPOs in the 1990s, netting tens of millions of dollars and setting off tremendous periods of growth.Soon, private equity firms caught wind of the opportunity. In 2003, there were just 18 for-profits owned by private equity firms; less than a decade later, that number had more than tripled, to 61. For-profit enrollments were also exploding, from a little more than 425,000 in 2000 to 1.7 million in 2012 — an increase of more than 300%. By contrast, public colleges had grown by just 31%.Increasingly the boom could be characterized as a Wall Street versus Main Street match-up. Even in the 1980s, the majority of for-profit programs were still mom-and-pop affairs: short-term certificate courses in subjects like cosmetology and truck driving. By the early years of the new millennium, students were attending Fortune 500 chain schools for full-fledged degrees in teaching, medical assisting, business, and psychology. In 2012 there were 21 publicly traded for-profit colleges, and less than a quarter of for-profit college students attended a mom-and-pop operation; the other 1.3 million went to publicly traded or private-equity-owned schools.The profits in this new world were beyond belief. One study found that the for-profit industry netted 55% profit margins between 2000 and 2012. In other words, for every dollar they took from students, 55 cents went to shareholders, with overall profits peaking in 2011 at $5 billion. Within a decade of Apollo's IPO, Phoenix's student body had grown tenfold, and thanks to students' easy federal money, the company was bringing in more than $1 billion a year.It was a win-win for just about everyone involved. The schools' profits came almost exclusively from federal grant and loan moneys. The federal government was bankrolling not only their and their investors' windfalls but also those of the financial institutions and guarantee agencies that did the lending and collecting under the Federal Family Education Loan program.But there were two groups left out of the bonanza: the public at large, whose tax dollars kept the machine running, and the students who got sacked with the bill.Then the evidence started coming in, yet again, that the for-profit corporate darlings of the '90s and aughts were no more sophisticated — certainly no more beneficial — than the shady computer schools that had preceded them. In 1970 there had been only 18,333 students enrolled at degree-granting for-profit schools, less than a quarter of a percent of the total number of college students. By 2009 there were 1.85 million — almost 10% of the total. The grift had grown a hundredfold."I had worked in the sales industry for many years," the admissions supervisor stated. "But Ashford [University] had the most aggressive sales floor I have ever seen." The supervisor's employer was putatively an accredited institution that offered a wide variety of bachelor's and advanced degrees; in reality it was effectively a money-printing operation.The school's many sordid practices were revealed in a 2017 lawsuit filed against the institution by the attorney general of California. Among them were the tales of Ashford's salespeople — aka "admissions counselors" — who made hundreds, sometimes even a thousand, cold calls a week. Still their managers berated and taunted them, forcing underperformers to stand all day, jangling keyrings with the ID cards of their fired former colleagues in their faces. Some of them cried; some had mental breakdowns; eventually most quit or were fired. Managers created "lowest performer lists" and then fired the bottom 10th of recruiters. When the salespeople did manage to land a mark, they celebrated by ringing cowbells or flapping plastic hand clappers. "The sales floor had a true boiler room atmosphere," said the supervisor, not unlike that "portrayed in the movie The Wolf of Wall Street." And if they all misled some naive fools in the process, say, a few hundred a month, well, that was just the cost of doing business. It wasn't like they were going to get fired for calling loans "grants" or promising a program would lead to high-paying jobs or guaranteeing that if things didn't work out at the school, any credits earned there would transfer elsewhere (as they almost certainly would not). One Ashford admissions counselor got 25 violations in eight months and the managers dished out only a slap on the wrist. The risk of punishment by the company's Compliance Department was low, but the reward was irresistibly high: admissions counselors got paid by the sale, and the best of them made in the six figures. Recruiters preyed on their marks' naiveté about higher education, convincing them that they couldn't receive their financial aid until well into the semester (when it would be too late to get a refund), lying about what their degrees would qualify them to do, and encouraging them to spend their federal aid funds on things like cars or expensive vacations (against federal law).Ashford University was owned by Bridgepoint Education, which was backed by Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm. And the secret to its success was a foolproof tactic that for-profit financiers had discovered for getting their business off the ground and gaining access to the all-important stream of federal aid money. The trick was to gobble up existing mom-and-pop proprietary schools — as well as small, financially struggling nonprofits — and to acquire their accreditations, assets as valuable as New York City taxi medallions.But for students, the business model was a bust — at Bridgepoint, just as at any number of for-profit giants. With only seven full-time faculty for almost 74,000 students, Bridgepoint, like many of its competitors, spent way more on recruiting than it did on instruction. And it showed: Only about a quarter of students in any given year went on to get their "diplomas" within six years (public and nonprofit schools consistently graduated about two-thirds of students in that timeframe). Those who did graduate tended to leave with a hefty amount of debt — nearly $35,000 on average. By 2017 almost 20% of alumni were unemployed, and almost half didn't do anything related to their degree.Five years after California filed suit against Ashford, a state superior court judge found that the company had engaged in widespread deception — estimating that over an 11-year period, its recruiters had spread misinformation in more than 1.2 million calls — and issued more than $22 million in penalties. (In 2024, an appeals court reduced the penalty by nearly $1 million).The beneficiaries of Bridgepoint's grift were its shareholders and managing partners. The losers were everybody else. And if theirs wasn't a particularly victimless crime, so what? Nobody cared much about students anyway. "You stop thinking of these students as people," said one recruiting manager.In 2010, Tom Harkin, chair of the Senate's education committee, began a two-year investigation into for-profit schools. Harkin's assessment of the sector was scathing. He declared for-profits expensive, exploitative, and concerned only with their own profits. "They are not focused on the success of their students," Harkin declared.A number of these schools were held by private equity firms like Goldman Sachs. In 2011, one Goldman-backed chain took in more than $350 million in Pell Grant funds and made a little more than that in profit. At a time when the federal government was refusing to help unemployed, down-on-their-luck, and defrauded borrowers, it was bailing out banks like Goldman Sachs twice over: They had already benefited from billions of dollars in Great Recession recovery funds, and now they were scooping up ill-begotten federal student aid via failing for-profit colleges. Fifteen of the schools Harkin's team investigated were publicly traded. These schools received, on average, 86% of their revenues from federal sources, right up to the line of what was legal. One of the ways they did this, Harkin found, was by recruiting veterans. In the years after World War II, legislators reinvented the GI Bill several times to reward veterans of later conflicts, like the Vietnam and Iraq wars, and to adapt to the evolving military, which had become an all-volunteer force in the 1970s. A loophole allowed them to count Defense Department moneys, including GI Bill funds, as non-federal money. In 2009, a Bloomberg News reporter uncovered a tactic used by Ashford University recruiters. They were targeting a wounded warriors unit at Camp Lejeune, signing up veterans with brain injuries who couldn't remember which classes they were taking. Each veteran was a lucrative prospect, allowing schools to gobble up yet more federal funds.And gobble they did. By 2010, Harkin found, for-profits were taking in a third of all GI Bill education funds. But even more shocking, federal money flowing to for-profit schools accounted for 25% of all federal student aid and 47% of eventual loan defaults. This, in spite of the fact that the schools enrolled little more than 10% of all American college students.So what happened to all the extra money for-profits took in? Harkin's investigation found that for-profits spent nearly a quarter of all revenues on marketing and recruiting and often paid their executives multimillion-dollar salaries, far above the average rates for public- or nonprofit-university presidents. Students' money enriched every corner of the for-profit industry except one: quality of instruction.<div type="image" title="Cover image of Burdened: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis by Ryann Liebenthal" height="2775" width="1838" msid="113224481" hostid="261" sizebytes="715136"></div>Economist Stephanie Riegg Cellini co-authored a sweeping study of for-profits, which found that students of for-profit certificate programs were slightly less likely to hold a job than their counterparts in public programs. In 2015, a separate study found that job applicants got just as many call-backs by listing no educational experience on their résumés as they did by listing for-profit credentials.When for-profit grads did find employment, Cellini found, they earned about a 10th less than the public program certificate holders. In fact, these for-profit students were actually worse off than if they hadn't gone to school at all. When taking into account their debt loads, for-profit graduates were projected to lose about $1,200 on their educational "investments" over the course of their lifetimes.In short, a simple equation summed up the for-profit ethos at this time: charge as much as federal student aid will supply, and cut costs to the bone. Everything in the middle could be harvested as profit. For-profit education was an industry on the dole.<a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/ryann-liebenthal">Ryann Liebenthal</a> is a writer and editor living in Oakland, California, who has reported extensively on the student loan crisis. She is the author of "BURDENED: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis."Excerpted from the book "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/burdened-ryann-liebenthal?variant=41472117669922">BURDENED: Student Debt and the Making of an American Crisis</a>." Copyright © 2024 by Ryann Liebenthal. From Dey Street Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted by permission.

Wall Street tried getting into higher education. Disaster ensued. 

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Neither Harris nor Trump outline specific disaster-relief policies on their website.</li><li>Their records, however, offer clues into how they'd deal with natural disasters as president.</li></ul>As another <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-milton-evacuation-empty-gas-station-full-hotels-gridlock-traffic-2024-10">hurricane</a> threatens to devastate swaths of the Southeast, Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are under new scrutiny about their disaster response strategies. And though neither have specifically addressed how they'd approach disaster relief on their campaign websites, their environmental records offer clues into how they might deal with similar crises in the future.When Hurricane Helene bore down on six states, and with particular force in North Carolina and Georgia, both Harris and Trump said that the focus should be on providing aid, not politics. But the storm, which has killed more than 230 people and destroyed entire towns, has already crept into the presidential race. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-helene-milton-tampa-florida-desantis-clean-disaster-dangerous-2024-10">Hurricane Milton is expected to hit Florida</a> on Wednesday night, only exacerbating the focus on environmental devastation."Disasters are always political," Thomas Birkland, a political scientist at North Carolina State University who studies the politics of national disasters, told Business Insider. He said that disaster relief is not, however, usually <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-milton-category-five-threatens-florida-fema-funding-2024-10">discussed during campaigns</a>.Timothy Kneeland, a professor at Nazareth University who studies politics and natural disasters, thinks that as hurricanes become more common, candidates should address them more explicitly."Having a short but clear statement on disasters should be part of any campaigner's policy," he wrote in a statement to BI.Both candidates have visited impacted areas, with Trump visiting Georgia on September 30 and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kamala-harris-donald-trump-crises-middle-east-strike-hurricane-election-2024-10">Harris on October 2</a>. Republicans criticized Harris for attending a fundraising event in California when Helene struck, while she maintained that politicians should stay out of the most devastated areas as first responders begin their early work.In the days since Hurricane Helene, Trump has spread misinformation about the storm and response efforts, prompting the Federal Emergency Management Agency to publish a fact-checking page. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/hurricane-helene-relief-disinformation-misinformation-north-carolina-democrats-republicans-2024-10">Democrats and Republicans alike</a> say that the baseless claims are complicating <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-elon-musk-starlink-hurricane-helene-fema-2024-9">clean-up efforts</a>, and Harris has put out a digital ad slamming his former disaster relief. When he was president, Trump responded to several hurricanes. As with Hurricane Helene, he <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.vox.com/politics/376982/trump-hurricane-helene-fema-lies-debunked">publicized</a> misinformation. When Hurricane Dorian threatened Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina, he incorrectly said that its path included Alabama as well. During a briefing in the Oval Office, he showed a map of the hurricane's path that included a Sharpie mark extending the storm's reach to Alabama. Trump also falsely claimed that the death toll from Hurricane Maria in 2017 was overblown, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/08/trump-hurricane-helene-natural-disasters/">Washington Post reported</a>.The former president occasionally threatened to hold back disaster funding over political spats. In 2020, for example, he floated withholding money from flood-ravaged Michigan because he was frustrated with absentee voting procedures in the state."A charitable interpretation would be mixed on crisis management," Birkland told BI about Trump's past responses to natural disasters. Kneeland said that storm victims and disaster experts largely criticized his handling of Hurricane Maria.During his time in office, Trump's administration rolled back more than 125 environmental rules, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks-list.html">Washington Post</a> found, with a big focus on deregulating the fossil fuel industry. Trump's campaign has, according to Birkland, "been pretty clear that it disdains alternative fuels."Harris doesn't have a presidential record to back up her approach to disaster relief, but Birkland anticipates she'd take a relatively similar approach to President Joe Biden.As attorney general, Harris prosecuted oil companies that broke environmental rules. During her tenure as vice president, she voted for the Inflation Reduction Act, which devoted $370 billion to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.But both Birkland and Kneeland told BI that Harris has become less aggressive about addressing climate change this election, likely in an attempt to court more moderate voters."Harris' position is a little murkier," Birkland said. "Harris has been clear that we should be doing things like alternative energy, but also supports, as of recent months, continued fossil fuel production. So it's kind of a both-and strategy."Presidents are somewhat limited in their disaster responses — both Kneeland and Birkland told BI that states and local governments lead disaster responses, with the federal government's assistance."Even when FEMA is on the ground they must work within the structure of existing state and local government," Kneeland said in his written statement. The responsibility is, he said, layered throughout the government.Regardless, all eyes are on how Harris and Trump respond to the twin storms — and the outcome of the election could theoretically hang in the balance. Kneeland said that disaster response can either greatly boost or doom an incumbent, pointing to instances as varied as Hurricane Betsey in 1965, Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and Hurricane Katrina in 2005.Though Birkland doesn't anticipate that the hurricanes will sway many voters, he said that even a small impact in swing states could matter."I think most people's minds are made up. I think that you're really dealing with the margins," he said. "On the other hand, this election is going to be won or lost on the margins, so that matters."

Hurricanes are taking the election by storm. Here's where Harris and Trump stand on natural disaster policies.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Ukraine started this year on the back foot in its fightback against Russia's invasion.</li><li>But since the start of the year, it's switched things up, including by going on the offensive.</li></ul>After entering 2024 in a sorry state, Ukraine has notched up a series of notable achievements since the start of the year, giving fresh impetus to its fight back against Russia.After struggling with ammunition shortages, in February the US approved an urgently needed <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/house-republicans-plan-ukraine-israel-aid-explained-2024-4">$60 billion military aid package</a> for Ukraine after months of political wrangling and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/which-house-republicans-voted-against-ukraine-russia-aid-2024-4">Republican blockade</a>.Western allies have let it use some of the missile systems they've supplied to hit targets inside Russia, with notable caveats, giving it a better chance to defend itself against incoming Russian attacks.And it also <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kursk-battle-ukraine-russia-war-strategy-2024-8">regained</a> the initiative with its surprise incursion into the Russian region of Kursk in August, even while gradually <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-kursk-invasion-russia-hasnt-eased-pressure-off-front-line-2024-9">losing ground</a> in eastern Ukraine.Ukraine remains locked in a ground fight with a Russian army that's absorbing heavy losses and continuing to swell as it eyes a grinding victory. The greatest danger is this pressure collapses part of Ukraine's defenses in the east."What Ukraine has done in the past month, starting with Kursk, is not going to turn around the war by any means," Abishur Prakash, the founder of The Geopolitical Business, Inc., a strategy advisory firm in Toronto, told BI."But it's definitely changed the war," he added.<h2 id="3d77a8ff-5cba-455e-a24a-68cfdc483296">Getting F-16s and long-awaited weapons</h2>Delays in getting Western equipment have long been a source of frustration for Ukraine.In May, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the West always seems to provide weapons a year after it needs them."Every decision to which we, then later everyone together, comes to is late by around one year," Zelenskyy told <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/west-always-gives-ukraine-weapons-year-after-needs-them-zelenskyy-2024-5">Reuters</a>.But some long-awaited Western weapons have started to arrive.These include US-provided Army Tactical Missile Systems, or <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-longe-range-missiles-atacms-storm-shadow-russian-cant-hide-2024-5">ATACMS</a>, in April, and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/missiles-on-ukraines-f-16s-hint-at-missions-against-russia-2024-8">F-16 fighter jets</a> last month.<div type="image" title="Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi in front of the first F-16 fighter jets received by Ukraine on August 4, 2024." height="3333" width="5000" msid="113193883" hostid="261" sizebytes="445220"></div>According to Mark Temnycky, a nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Center, F-16s will not immediately give Ukraine air superiority in the conflict — something neither side has managed to accomplish — but they will bolster Ukraine's ability to shoot down missiles and drones from the skies."Aside from the military capabilities of these aircraft, the arrival of these jets will provide a morale boost to Ukrainian soldiers and civilians," he said.But it's not all good news for Ukraine: Lithuania's foreign minister, Gabrielius Landsbergis, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-promised-aid-not-coming-until-2027-nato-state-says-2024-8">said</a> recently that some vital military equipment that had been pledged to Ukraine wouldn't arrive until 2027.<h2 id="345d72bd-b695-440e-b13c-68b8478ab7bb">Striking inside Russia</h2>From the start of Russia's full-scale invasion, allies, including the US, barred Ukraine from using advanced weapons they'd supplied to strike targets inside Russia like the air bases and resupply lines critical to its invasion.A Ukrainian commander operating in the Kharkiv region near the Russian border told <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-troops-in-sight-couldnt-attack-us-ban-ukraine-commander-2024-5">The Times of London</a> in May that his unit watched as Russia amassed a huge force but had to wait for the troops to cross the border into Ukraine to hit them.Western allies lifted some <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-using-allies-weapons-russia-soil-wont-change-war-experts-2024-5">restrictions</a> in May, allowing Ukraine to strike Russian troops building up at its borders.But Ukraine is still not allowed to use Western weapons to carry out <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-ukraine-is-striking-deep-inside-russian-territory-experts-2024-8">deep strikes</a> within Russia, despite the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-missile-attack-shows-us-must-drop-weapon-restrictions-ukraine-2024-8">pleas</a> of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.There are 245 military targets in Russia within range of the ATACMS missiles Ukraine now has on hand, according to a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/interactive-map-shows-russian-targets-ukraine-could-hit-with-atacms-2024-8">map</a> released last month by the Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute's Critical Threats Project.<h2 id="0f3992bf-25f4-4916-8ce1-7d9fb3971aee">Taking the war inside Russia</h2>The biggest change this year is that Ukraine altered the dynamics of the conflict by launching a surprise attack on Russia's Kursk region.The incursion — the <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-messy-response-ukraine-kursk-shows-weaknesses-still-plaguing-army-2024-8">first foreign military operation</a> on Russian soil since World War II — caught Russia and the West off guard.In just two weeks, starting on August 6, Ukraine <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraine-captured-more-territory-kursk-than-russia-seized-ukraine-year-2024-8">claims</a> its forces took more territory in Kursk than Russia had since the beginning of 2024.<div type="image" title="An aerial shot of Ukrainian forces fighting in&#xa0;Kursk with smoke everywhere" height="2130" width="3788" msid="113193887" hostid="261" sizebytes="118908"></div>Russia, meanwhile, has struggled to respond quickly and effectively, partly due to its <a target="_blank" rel="" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/kursk-ukraine-exploited-russias-dysfunctional-military-command-2024-8">complex military structures</a>, a lack of <a target="_blank" rel="" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-general-disbanded-group-meant-protect-kursk-border-ukraine-report-2024-8">contingency plans,</a> and <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/russia-messy-response-ukraine-kursk-shows-weaknesses-still-plaguing-army-2024-8">poor command and control</a>.According to Mark Cancian, a retired US Marine Corps colonel and defense strategy expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, what Ukraine has done is show that it can shift to the attack.This is important "after eight months on the defensive and last year's failed counteroffensive," he told BI.However, "Ukraine is still in a precarious military situation," he said.<h2 id="1b65cfc1-284e-4507-958e-8f9afadf0397">Creating a winning strategy</h2>According to an <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-september-3-2024">update</a> from the Institute for the Study of War, the Kursk incursion has likely failed to change Putin's strategic thinking.Putin still believes Russia can slowly and indefinitely take over Ukraine through grinding advances and accomplish its objectives by fighting a war of attrition and outlasting Western support, it said. Ukraine's emphasis on regaining territory and reluctance to mobilize more soldiers may have complicated its defenses.Ukraine, meanwhile, is hoping its incursion will help it to achieve victory.During a <a target="_blank" rel=" nofollow" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfYXPOVCuWM">press conference</a> in Kyiv last month, Zelenskyy said Kursk was the first step in a four-part plan for victory, which he would present to President Joe Biden this month.The other steps include Ukraine's strategic place in the world's security infrastructure and a powerful package of diplomatic and economic pressures on Russia to end the war, per <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://edition.cnn.com/2024/08/27/americas/ukraine-zelensky-victory-plan-biden-unga-intl-latam/index.html">CNN</a>.Ukrainian officials seem focused on retaining the territory they hold and threatening more, which could affect the war's course or negotiations for its end. However, it's increasingly possible that the battle for Kursk fails to alter the difficult battle for the Donbas.Ukraine is "losing territory and may suffer a breakthrough," Benjamin Friedman, policy director at the Defense Priorities think tank, told BI."They need manpower most of all," he added.The Kursk offensive "has shifted the formerly gloomy narrative, at least for the moment, about the negative trajectory of the war," wrote Michael Kofman, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Rob Lee, a senior policy fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, in <a target="_blank" class="" href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/ukraines-gamble">Foreign Affairs</a> last week.But they added: "But Kyiv must decide what to make of its initial win.""Kyiv will have to choose whether to hold what it has or to invest more scarce resources into the operation in an effort to force a much larger Russian effort to counter it," they wrote.However, this comes with risks, they said.In the worst-case scenario, this could mean losing substantial areas of land in its east and not holding territory in Kursk that could be used as leverage in peace negotiations.Ultimately, Ukraine may have to make some big decisions about its available resources.Prakash, the founder of The Geopolitical Business, Inc., asked, pointedly, what the next steps are for Kyiv, "because what happens if Ukrainian forces in Kursk are pushed back, and what happens if Russia starts making a big push in eastern Ukraine?"

Ukraine started this year on the brink of disaster. A lot has changed since.

<ul class="summary-list"><li>President Joe Biden already had a narrow path to reelection before his disastrous debate.</li><li>But if the bottom drops out, Democrats could be fighting to defend states like New Mexico or Virginia.</li></ul>President <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-trump-debates-polling-harris-election-2024-7">Joe Biden</a>'s already narrow path to reelection is getting even harder to navigate.Biden's best-case scenario before last week's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-and-democrats-cant-decide-blame-for-disastrous-debate-2024-7">disastrous debate</a> likely required him to run the table in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, while holding on to Nebraska's Omaha-based 2nd Congressional District. Former President Donald Trump, as the FiveThirtyEight founder Nate Silver pointed out, had much more flexibility in <a target="_blank" href="https://www.natesilver.net/p/the-presidential-election-isnt-a">reaching 270 electoral votes</a> and could even reach even higher.Four years ago, Biden had the luxury of deciding whether to base his campaign on the Upper Midwest or bet on Sun Belt states like Arizona and Georgia, which hadn't gone for Democrats in decades. Trump has held a steady lead in both states, according to RealClearPolitics' polling averages.Biden's underdog status can get much worse. In its latest update on Wednesday, Sabato's Crystal Ball moved Michigan and Minnesota closer to Trump. As Kyle Kondik, the managing editor of Crystal Ball, said, this isn't rock bottom."It does seem like from the polling that Biden has taken a small hit, but he needed to be catching up as opposed to falling back," Kondik told Business Insider.The <a target="_blank" href="https://centerforpolitics.org/crystalball/electoral-college-rating-changes-upper-midwest-moves-after-bidens-debate-disaster/">Crystal Ball</a> moved Michigan from "Lean Democratic" to "Toss Up" and Minnesota from "Likely Democratic" to "Lean Democratic." Under the University of Virginia Center for Politics' projections, there are five true toss-up states: Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada.If Biden continues to decline, Virginia, New Mexico, and Maine (statewide) could all come into play.A Republican hasn't carried Virginia or New Mexico in 20 years. Maine, which, like Nebraska, awards only two of its Electoral College votes to the statewide popular-vote winner, hasn't crowned a Republican as a winner since then-Vice President George H. W. Bush in 1988."There's the possibility that maybe Trump is able to win the popular vote that is a roughly 5-point improvement from 2020. And if that sort of thing happens, you would expect Trump to win the states where Biden won in 2020 but did worse than the national popular vote," Kondik said. "That is also the situation where you would start to see a Minnesota or a New Hampshire or maybe even a Virginia or Maine be closer, certainly like they were in 2016 and certainly even closer than that."A post-debate poll in New Hampshire showed the race there was too close to call. A Saint Anselm College poll found Trump leading Biden 44% to 42%. The independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is at 4% in the state. Biden won the Granite State by just over 7 points four years ago.In a memo after the debate, Biden's campaign manager, Jen O'Malley Dillon, said that data showed the face-off did not change the minds of voters in battleground states. She also claimed that if polling did show a drop, it would be a temporary dip due to media coverage."If we do see changes in polling in the coming weeks, it will not be the first time that overblown media narratives have driven temporary dips in the polls," O'Malley Dillon wrote in the June 29 memo.Kondik stressed that there's still time for Biden to turn it around and that one possibility for a post-debate slump was that Democrats remained depressed about the president's performance. He pointed out that both the Democratic National Convention and the second debate remain. There's also the chance that Biden is pushed out of the race before either of those things happen. The president could also remain in the race and struggle to mount the comeback campaign he needs.It wasn't supposed to be this way. In April, the president's campaign boasted that it could <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-florida-abortion-ballot-referendum-six-week-ban-democrats-trump-2024-4">win in Florida</a>, Trump's adopted home and a state that has moved away from Democrats. Now, even a top Biden official has said Florida isn't a battleground.The issue for Biden is that he needed the debate to begin his upswing. Instead, his face-off with Trump could lead to the president dropping out of the race. Biden himself <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-knows-debate-did-not-go-well-reaction-trump-2024-6">has acknowledged</a> he did not debate well.As CNN's Harry Enten has detailed, every incumbent president that went into the first debate trailing and was viewed as having lost that debate went on to lose their reelection. Biden's only silver lining is the debate's early time on the calendar. For now, prominent Democrats are still behind Biden. Most critically, this includes the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-reelection-democrats-harris-newsom-whitmer-klobuchar-booker-cooper-moore-2024-2">list of his prospective replacements</a>, including Vice President Kamala Harris, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, and Gov. Gavin Newsom of California. On Tuesday, Rep. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/which-elected-democrats-called-on-joe-biden-drop-out-2024-7">Lloyd Doggett</a> of Texas became the first Democratic member of Congress to call on the president to drop out.The reality is that if Biden is stuck playing defense in states Democrats usually win, Trump's return to the White House will be a foregone conclusion. The only question then will be how many Electoral College votes would the former president win."If Biden's position gets worse, that's when you see maybe a Virginia or New Mexico get in play," Kondik said. "But again, if that's what we're actually going to be talking about in October, then the election itself shouldn't be that dramatic. Virginia, New Hampshire, New Mexico, or Minnesota are not going to be the states that put Trump over 270. They are the states that would get him well north of 300 electoral votes."

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