From the outset of Putin's crassly conceived invasion of Ukraine, this blog has consistently criticised the sheer military and strategic incompetence of it. We can hardly forbear to do the same for Trump.
The Donald's theory of victory appears to be this:
- prolonged, well-telegraphed buildup of forces
- decapitate[1] the leadership
- tell Iran to install new leader acceptable to Trump
- new leader to hand over lots of oil via some splendid "deal"
- walk away after a couple of weeks, handsomely in profit
- not crow too openly about having tweaked Xi's nose
- approach the mid-term elections as the Man Who Brought The Mullahs To Heel
We needn't dwell on how the reality is best described as Netanyahu coopting[3] the military might of the USA to make real Bibi's longstanding wet dream: it's how the whole world openly discusses it including, belatedly, 99% of the American public, which until now had been either (a) hoping Trump might somehow work out for the best (Maga Republicans) or (b) not daring to oppose Trump openly, for fear of some vaguely defined domestic retribution (Democrats plus liberal elites of all colours[4]).
If you want to lose sleep seriously this weekend, have a read of this. Small-boat crossings on the increase? We haven't seen a tenth of it.
ND
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[1] Well, tag along with Netanyahu's decapitation plan & pretend to be in control - read this, too.
[2] Funnily enough, the Venezuela gambit was working quite well, and Cuba was being lined up for a "quick deal" too, which could have played very nicely for the mid-terms[5]. Not any more.
[3] Did I say "coopting"? How about "hijacking and expending"? All Hesgeth's blather about "effectively unlimited magazine depth" was always, even a week ago, absolute nonsense. Stocks are already being drawn down from US forces in S.Korea. Taiwan looks increasingly like a lost cause, and S.Korea will presumably be readying its own nuclear programme. Indeed, probably the only reason L'il Kim doesn't chance his arm right now is the recognition that DJT is capable of anything.
[4] It was really noticeable how The US Establishment (media, judiciary, academia, NGOs, think tanks, institutes etc - even those that are essentially on the right) - initially went completely silent after November '24, and withheld much-needed criticism all through last year. Presumably they all feared for their funding (or worse) - and rightly so in many cases. That winter of silence has been thawing of late.
[5] The Dems had better not be complacent in their approach to the mid-terms: conventional wisdom of the "don't worry, it'll all be over soon" kind has been the downfall of many a lazy politician. The whole of the British left thought that about Thatcher in 1981. And we must be very cautious before assuming the US military will "refuse to obey illegal orders", as some spineless Dems have been urging.
29 comments:
"It was really noticeable how The US Establishment (media, judiciary, academia, NGOs, think tanks, institutes etc - even those that are essentially on the right) - initially went completely silent after November '24, and withheld much-needed criticism all through last year."
Yes because that lot were paragons of balanced and fair criticism of Trump Mk1............
I've taken to calling it Operation Epic Fubar.
On a different point: your ref (1) says
"Within weeks, Germany was at war with France, Russia, and Britain. Not because any of them threatened Berlin, but because an unconditional commitment to a smaller ally with a regional obsession had eliminated every reason for that ally to show restraint."
That's balls. The whole point of the blank cheque was that Kaiser Bill and his circle wanted a casus belli to let them fight a war with Russia, because Russia was industrialising so successfully that they felt that if they didn't fight her soon she'd be too strong to attack.
Professor Fischer explained this at the end of the fifties.
An alternative worst case scenario is that Usrael goes for the Serbia/Gaza option of destroying power supplies in Iran, and Iran responds by demolishing as many Gulf desalination plants as it can. Nasty.
And another thing: your link says "Secretary of State Marco Rubio ... was not whether to fight but whether to strike alongside Israel or wait until Iran retaliated against American forces in the region."
Why no third option? For example telling Israel "Your proposed action would damage American interests so don't do it. Don't forget who pays foots the bills for Israel."
The fact that such an option is unthinkable is surely revealing?
Not entirely convinced.
Seems to me that with Venezia, Trump kneecapped one of Xi’s supply legs for oil. Now with Iran, he’s kneecapped the other leg.
Not much talking about that “multipolar world” Xi has been cheerleading for the last few years. China reduced, publicly, to asking Iran to please, please pretty please let its tankers through. And to Trump, would you. If you don’t mind, stop being so beastly to our allies?
“But muh oil price!” I hear some just about to hit the keyboards to complain. The US is in a much stronger position than China on that score. It’s a net exporter of oil and, while some grades of crude are imported to match refinery capabilities, thanks to Trumps new friends in Central America, it’ll likely not go short on that, either.
Sure, “world prices” blah blah blah. High crude prices spur investment in US energy production (which was in the doldrums—we were in a supply glut ways back in, oh, I don’t know, February). And the US’s energy intensity per dollar of GDP is pretty low. China? Not so much.
Adding, for completeness, “wot ah-baat duh yookay, though?”
To which I can only present, for your delectations, the current UK energy mix for electricity generation: https://enact.lcp.energy/
“wE neEd t0 pROdUce ANd bURN MoAR GAs” never seems such a dubious proposition. Trump making Ed Milliband the hero of the hour? Who’d have thought it…
Don’t know where “ Venezia” came from… it should of course be “Venezuela”.
I take Clive's point about Chinese energy, but ...I was considering the US v China in the context of the late 19th and 20th century UK v Germany battle.
Although the Germans were and still are probably better industrialists than the UK, nonetheless the end of the confrontation was disastrous defeat for Germany. And at the moment Trump, without fixing US industry first, is stopping a big chunk of China’s oil supplies.
But Britain in her confrontation could and did call upon a big cousin, the United States, Churchill’s “gigantic boiler” with almost untapped resources. The US, which has changed hugely for the worse since 1939, has no such cousin to call upon, indeed the only possible candidate, the UK and Europe, has been enormously disadvantaged by the loss of Russian oil and gas. Almost daily I read bad news from German industry.
"the current UK energy mix for electricity generation" i.e. a day when walking in the woods makes you somewhat nervous and very glad the leaves aren't out yet.
The helicopter pilots taking people to Cheltenham are earning their money, as are airline pilots landing at Leeds and Birmingham.
US are moving all their THAAD systems from Korea to the Middle East.
In isolation, the removal of the Iranian regime would be an unalloyed good. In the context of the wider Middle East, without some post-removal plan, not so much.
Trump really doesn't understand geopolitics, through his lens it's all real estate deals, he'd probably sell Alaska back to Russia for the right deal and then wonder why he'd be being blamed for undercover Russian military assets flooding western Canada and the north western US...
Risk for the West is this is currently another war we're likely to lose, all the Mullahs need do is not collapse. Upsides are that Netanyahu may find himself brought to task. Successive US Presidents have been fed up to the back teeth of his arrogance, maybe Trump will do something about it.
The current trajectory puts this as his GW2 or Afghanistan.
On the plus side, on sites like the Speccie, the pro-Trump crowd are in full swing. If the old remainers want to see actual swivel eyed loons, there's an entire safari park's worth there.
Pretty typical day nowadays, February wind share knocked natural gas for powerburn well into second place (https://www.neso.energy/energy-101/great-britains-monthly-energy-stats) just as it has done all winter.
Natural gas for electricity generation will be down to 20% of the energy mix by the end of the year (even in winter) *just on the current build-out*.
Would have been even higher if it wasn’t for curtailment, but again, grid reinforcements *already in build* will take care of that in the next couple of years.
But sure. You keep kvetching for more natural gas dependency. Even if more licences for exploration and fracking trials was inked *right now*, any possible well flows that might, just, perhaps, come in stream in five years or so would immediately be diverted into natural gas for powerburn *just to replace what’s currently provided by renewables*. Way to go, energy policy genius.
Of course, far more likely would be LNG cargos. From some of the most unpleasant, unreliable and generally dubious countries in the world. And yes, I include the US in that. At nosebleed pricing.
Turkey - "There should be no questioning of Iran's territorial integrity, and no pursuit of regime change. We are against plans aimed at triggering a civil war in Iran and provoking conflicts along ethnic and religious fault lines," Fidan told a press conference with his German counterpart. "We are warning about this. No one should pursue such a fantasy. We would not allow it."
Venezuela is the diminutive of Venezia
One to remember for the triple word score square in Scrabble,
Trump is on the receiving end of a long chain, jerked around by Israel and Iran. One has played its game since pre WW2 and now owns most of the keys to the White House. The other was clumsily mishandled by the US and the Brits. Was really just a marginal player who could have been a useful counterweight.
The nuke threat is moonshine. Hard(ish) to make a real one, delivery is a problem, a donkey won't do and even if you did try it you get your entire country green glassed 30mm thick. A big expensive willy that can never be used.
The US can't beat Iran into the ground and unless all the Ayatollahs swing from lampposts we have the same problem in a few years. That means bodybags and the US is very uncomfortable with those - especially in an election runup. Time for the off-ramp.
Harsh words and deeds done, probably better for Trump to fold his tents and steal quietly away. Sure thing Donald - you won. Oil profits are good and can pay election expenses for Republicans and Democrats, the question is which looks the best worst buy. Game is over for Trump. So who next, Republicans look crazy as a box of frogs and the Democrats still have the curse of the Clintons and Sleepy Joe upon them. Hard choice.
The WEB show us a huge number of Think Tanks and Foundations etc etc all with wise words and an agenda. Beats working for a living, in fact it looks like scribblers outnumber the workers - whoever they are.
"That means bodybags"
In one university long vacation in the sixties I spent many weeks labouring in a small paper-and-plastics factory in New Jersey. We made two sizes of plastic bags: small - for carbines going to Vietnam, and large - for bodies coming back.
And here we are nearly sixty years later with the US involved in another foolish war in Asia. People don't learn much, do they?
My terrible conclusion is that the electorate was right to vote for Trump because the alternative would have been a Dem administration that would have snuffed out any last chance of the American republic sustaining a liberal democracy. (That's "liberal" in the classical sense, not in the American sense of illiberal.)
Whereas with Trump it might have staggered on a bit longer or even have been restored to some health. But now? And all because the vain old bugger ...
And yet another thing: from the Tel, concerning Iranian drones attacking British troops in Iraq.
John Healey, the Defence Secretary, said: “No one will be surprised to believe that Putin’s hidden hand is behind some of the Iranian tactics and potentially some of their capabilities as well.”
A: Why on earth do we have troops in Iraq?
B: What does Mr Healey's gibberish mean?
It's apparently fine for our MOD to learn as much as possible from the Ukraine conflict to pass onto our troops, but it's really bad for Iran, who gave the drones to Russia in the beginning, to profit from the Russian frontline experience.
What I find interesting is that a few weeks of oil at $100/barrel apparently is about to destroy Europe, yet we keep getting told that we need to fight Russia within 5 years. If we can't deal with a bit of expensive energy (and its not even that expensive - oil was around $90-100/barrel for 3 years from 2011-14) then how the f*ck are we supposed to cope with a proper shooting war with Uncle Vlad?
Vlad only needs to hit our offshore wind turbines and we're up the Swanee. Don't even need explosives. One drone per turbine. Just unbalance a blade ...
Jeeze. Where do they get these people from? There are 12,107 individual operational wind turbines installed in the UK (both onshore and offshore) as of early 2026
And just how far do you think is the range of a drone, anyway?
Should be obvious but “wE neEd t0 pROdUce ANd bURN MoAR GAs” when the wind don't blow and the sun don't shine. It's common enough in Northern Europe that the Germans even have a word for it - dunkelflaute.
Batteries won't cut it for more than low single digit hours.
Yes, I wondered, what exactly their mission was supposed to be?
This must be the sort of inanity that really pisses off the professionals in the military. A waste of scarce resources and a fairly easy target without the sort of scale to offer any sort of depth for whatever operations they are posted there for.
If you can’t differentiate between natural gas combustion plants operated as gas peakers and plants operated to cover baseload (the former being required for only a few weeks in a typical winter and easily satisfiable for their fuel demands from storage or UKCS domestic production, the latter needing to be supplemented by Norwegian imports and/or LNG 24/7) then:
a) I can’t help you, and
b) wonder what you are even thinking to be trying to comment on energy policy
Because UKCS production is being wiped out by retarded government policy, LNG might be stuck in the Gulf and Norway may sell to the Germans instead of the UK during dunkelflaute.
E'en now the crafty Putin is developing drones disguised as birds, windmills for the destruction of. Every night a Russki submarine will surface and send hundreds of the ruddy things hurtling towards the blades. Any anti-drone devices will prove ineffective, mainly shooting down near-indistinguishable sea birds.
“Seagulls sir. ‘Fahh-sands of ‘em!”
You have absolutely no idea at all how any of this stuff works, do you?
Peaker natural gas volumes, durations, flow rates and stock requirements for, say 30GWh, for 5 days? As a percentage of pre-energy transition daily demand? And projected UKCS supply, even runoff?
This is like talking to people who 1) not only just read the Daily Mail but 2) also only ever read the headlines.
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