The Trump regime is now something of a tornado without any controlling force. Its the catalyst of a whole battery of disturbing policies, spoken out loud as much for effect and shock value as anything really meaningful. Wars it gets bored with, bizarre policies foisted on the military by a man most regard as an ignoramus with the soul of Heinrich Himmler.
The ability of some in the White House to manipulate Trump as is widely regarded to have happened this week with the Starshield/Starlink saga, should worry everyone. An 80 year old man with clear indications of having had a least one stroke while in office that hasn’t been admitted, falls asleep while sycophants extol some policy or another. The anti-science madness of the health department, the incapacitating of progress towards climate change resilience, resisted by a sea of deniers. The inability of the regime to stop spending vast amounts of money without proper taxation policies, has turned it into an oligarchy for the modern age, and is heading rapidly towards a painful debt crisis that could potentially break it permanently. And with it its economic dominance, its reputation and its capacity to recover.
It has scared off its friends, seems ignorant as to its obligations and theirs to it, and most of the countries who were staunch friends stand in a corner trying to lock the door to keep their now clearly angry, drunk, toxic friend they once adored, as far away as possible. Indeed they’re now distancing themselves so fast they’re jammed in the doorway trying to leave.
With the Americans now as likely to be an enemy as they are a friend under the current regime, nobody knows where they stand. Even if both sides of Congress see a Republican collapse in November, all the polls suggest it and no amount of money seems to be able to shift the needle back, Trump will still be president. Impeachment is a waste of time because the Senate will never convict to remove him All Congress can do is cut off funding and drag the regime through the investigative process to hamper them doing anything for two years – because Congress cannot change the executive and the executive will still do its best to keep the chaos tornado spinning. Then Americans will say they wanted change and it never came and we enter another divisive presidential election cycle where the senate will end up Republican and nothing will happen as they lock up a new presidents legislation efforts.
America is the centre of this global web of conflicts. By behaving like a fool and having no stable policy, bar a lot of bluster and an embarrassingly failed war against Iran that’s causing global economic mayhem, its done far worse. Its then stood back, unable to finish the job and let the middle east fester.
The consequences of that are the civil war in Yemen spreading to Saudi Arabia in ways we have never seen before, with China now supplying missiles with exotic maneouvering warheads to the Houthi faction whose real supplier was Iran. The Houthis are now more independent and operating apart from both Iran and China. Their actions have already spurred Saudi Arabia to call on their new Mecca Pact allies Pakistan and Turkey to help them. The conflict spreads, and becomes more complex, because Iran is allied to the Houthis, Pakistan to Saudi Arabia, but Pakistan has been principle intermediary between the US and Iran.
Israel having committed what amounts to an appalling genocide on Gaza – a situation doubly appalling and disgusting when you consider that if any race of people should know what genocide is, Jews most certainly should, they suffered hideously, yet are perfectly happy to mass murder Palestinians. Egged on by the Trump regime and the bizarre concept of turning Gaza into some kind of holiday resort. Its truly baffling how any of this has even been spoken about let alone touted as a real possibility.
Meanwhile the Trump regime is back on one of its massive pro-Russia anti-Ukraine campaigns that simply defy any common sense and are driven by Trumps extraordinary affinities for Putin personally. The trouble this has caused this week alone is mind boggling. Ukraine treads a delicate line in that while it gets little American weaponry now, it is as we all still are, (at least for a few more years), dependent on the intelligence largesse of a regime that actually resents providing it, along with a technical capability in Starlink/Starshield that’s owned by an extreme right wing, Hitler saluting trillionaire nut job.
Ukraine continues to teach the Russians a thing or two and the Russians hit back, though it has to be said Russia is all about terror and cruelty rather than being strategic and effective. Ukraine has a huge bone to pick with Iran, and if Iran thinks Ukraine won’t come for them at some point – it will be silent and effective I suspect, they don’t know Ukrainians.
Both Ukraine and Russia have have spread the war to the Black Sea and Russia is being both devious and cunning by sinking ships that are in international waters over the EEZ’s of NATO members.
Status of the surface water
The water above the seabed is legally part of the EEZ, but it is not territorial water. Other States retain important freedoms, including:
• navigation;
• overflight;
• laying submarine cables and pipelines; and
• other internationally lawful uses of the sea related to those freedoms.
The coastal State must exercise its EEZ rights with “due regard” for the rights and duties of other States, rather than treating the water column as if it were sovereign national territory
So Russia is conducting a near piracy level of attacks on shipping quite deliberately to challenge NATO. It wants NATO to react and respond in the way that Russia itself would respond if NATO was doing this to Russia, i.e. with force. That’s not going to happen. What will happen is eventually defensive measures will be taken or the shipping will learn a lesson (which confounds me as to why it has not) and travel as Russia bound ships do, inside the sovereign territorial waters of NATO (in their case Turkey). What complicates this of course is that Ukraine has sunk literally hundreds of Russian ships in the sea of Azov and off the Black Sea coast, so we have a reluctant but real understanding of why the Russians are returning the favour – and I know from long experience that an awful lot of people in certain countries in the region think its entirely reasonable.
Yet its also another step on the slippery slope to miscalculation and rapidly escalating conflict. Russia knows that and it uses that very fear to pull wider the gap it can operate in without facing consequences itself.
So if you think the Middle East and eastern and south eastern Europe are safe, think again. You have potential or actual conflict in Ukraine, Russia, Romania & Bulgaria. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, v. The Houthis, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrein, Kuwait, the UAE up against Iran. Syria trying to keep its nose out of everything and rebuild its shattered state. Israel could do anything any time to anyone for any reason. Lebanon always a couple of steps from Civil War or war with Israel because of Hezbollah. Iraq with its endless internal struggle giving militia groups seats in the cabinet in a hope to shut them up, just weeks after they shut down the Saudi Trans Arabia pipeline with missiles and drones nobody knew they had. Jordan sits in the middle just biding its time hoping its alliance with America is worth the paper its written on.
Egypt, that Army with a state, sits quietly you might think. It supports one side of the factions in Libya and keeps a wary eye on the devastating civil war in Sudan that flares up and down and yet nobody in the west much mentions – despite the interventions of Ukraine, Russia, the UAE, Qatar and Turkey. Right across the Sahel from Mauretania to Mali and Chad and some of the sub-Saharan states, military juntas installed by Russian stooges have been forced into fights with Ukraine backed anti-Russian forces and many have lost. Its such a mess nobody is paying much attention.
In the North West of Africa Algeria and Morroco are involved in an arms race and barely speak. In the horn of Africa the UAE, China, Qatar, Turkey and Ethiopia vie for regional influence over the two parts of Somaliland that are essentially separate countries but nobody wants to recognise the more stable and prosperous North, just the impoverished and terrorist ridden south in Mogadishu. And Ethiopia’s government looks set to make yet another mistake and invade Eritrea, the North Korea of Africa.
Pakistan and Iran can have spats that come out of nowhere largely sparked by Baluchi independence movements as their land crosses both borders. India and Pakistan can flare up for almost any reason. China constantly tests Indian determination to support its claims in the Himalayas.
The one place that has not flared up and you might think should have given the opportunities, and America being so weak under Trump and his failed war on Iran, is China-Taiwan. Why have they done almost nothing except carry out some exercise of intimidation? Because China is economically in a very bad place internally, although exports are fine. The country has been pounded by extremely harsh weather, typhoon after typhoon. Torrential rains, damn bursts, harvest collapses, its been really bad, mostly a result of this massive El Ninõ which has now equaled that of 1870, the worst ever recorded that led to the deaths of millions from starvation and droughts around the world. Because if China had taken advantage of Trumps weakness, that would be the last link in a war that’s already teetering on global.
A global war doesn’t have to be because one super power triggers another. In many ways its because the age of the super powers is dead and gone. The age of uncertainty, of middle powers so militarily capable that they can challenge anyone who threatens them to such a degree a war would be a disaster for either side. Each one is acting as super powers once did, using the smaller states as proxies for their grievances with others. And its getting complicated. Almost all of our own Middle Earth is on the road to war, or involved in one.
Whose to blame? America for giving up its place in the world and I understand it was no longer sustainable, but Americans seemed to think nothing would change. The West for having let Russia go through the 1990’s without the respect it craved and the real aid it needed to become a functional democracy not easily subverted by Putin.
The final blame isfor the appeasers to live with. Merckl, Obama, Hollande, Cameron, who let Putin get away with Crimea in 2014. The fact that all of their governments over armed and contributed to the possibility of wars in the Middle East because it suited them to, and to make money to keep their own military industries alive without spending on defence themselves.
These wars have got to stop. Sooner or later some grave mistake will be made and Russia, Israel, the US, Pakistan, India and China are all nuclear powers. Americas weakness in conventional arms right now – mainly the exotic type is a grave problem. If a major conflict came that reduces the nuclear threshold. It may even be a restraining factor for the Chinese knowing the risks could be higher.
The world needs the war in Ukraine to end. It needs Ukraine to come out of it as not victorious in terms of conquest, but in terms of principled defence and the retention of as much territory as possible without onerous conditions. Russia must know its been defeated even while it will pretend it hasn’t been. With that war ended, the competitive nature of war which is infectious, dies down elsewhere. With Trump’s inevitable exit from office and from life, the continuous feed of hate from the Kremlin and from his cult will soften the system and hobble the right wing troublemakers. It won’t end all conflicts, but it will decrease tensions quickly and allow room to breathe and end the turmoil. America can stop being the engine of disruption and restore some calm.
Global War these days does not require one giant ideology confronting another, just many capable states deciding to flex their muscles and doing so all at once for varied and often nonsensical and imagined reasons. Without the major players backing them they are less inclined to do so. Without the juvenile liar in he White House whose stroke and dementia have him inventing stories he believes are true, his pathetic jibes and arguments that can start wars, with him gone, we are all safer.
We just have to get through the next two years. Russia will be forced into peace at some point in 2027 – even Russians think it. With Trump gone in January 2029 the world will become a better place. Putin will probably already be buried. Hopefully somewhere unmarked and unknown.
The Analyst
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